‘Wouldn’t bother talking to him, he’s a right pain in the bum,’ snapped the wraith.
‘Bet you wish you still had a bum,’ spat the corpse.
‘Please tell me where Hel is,’ Freya pleaded.
‘She’s lying on Sick-Bed, where else would she be?’ said the wraith.
‘Sick-Bed?’ said Freya.
‘Over there, look, behind the curtains. That’s Hel’s servant woman, Ganglot the Slow-Poke, coming over now,’ said the corpse. ‘Oy, you, budge up, you space hog, I was here first,’ it said, grimacing hideously through what remained of its rotting green mouth and shoving its elbow through the bones of the skeletal body huddled beside it.
Freya saw an ancient woman dressed in rags walking towards her. Walking was actually the wrong word. Freya had never seen anyone move so slowly. She watched as the old woman crept nearer, inch by painful inch. Freya closed her eyes and rested her head for a moment in her ivory arms.
Ouch!
Someone was poking her in the shoulder. Freya woke.
Slowly, the old woman raised her arm and pointed to the curtained-off area. Freya followed her, but Ganglot’s slow pace made her crazed. Time was what she did not have. Pushing past the snail-paced servant through the thronging shades, Freya went up to the filthy black curtains. The hangings were embroidered with many threads of black and grey, shot through with silver flecks. She looked more carefully, and saw that the ghastly curtains were decorated with pictures of gibbets, dangling with decomposing bodies. They stank of rot.
Do I knock? thought Freya. As she hesitated, a hand poked through the bed hangings and beckoned Freya inside.
Freya braced herself. Would Hel drip poison on her, or kill her with her foul breath? Would she be turned to stone when Hel revealed herself in all her hideousness?
Freya parted the heavy drapes, and entered.
She was in a small chamber, filled almost entirely by a bed hung with heavy black drapes, now drawn back. A young girl was lying there, eyes closed, a filthy blanket pulled up to her waist. Her wild, curly hair spread out everywhere on the pillow. Her skin was pale and plump. There was a strange, sickly-sweet smell in the room, as if something long-forgotten was rotting. An empty plate, dirty knife, and overturned goblet were scattered around her.
Freya looked about for the monster. Could this pink-cheeked girl be her daughter?
‘I’m looking for Hel,’ said Freya. ‘I need to speak to her urgently.’
For a long moment, Freya thought the girl hadn’t heard.
‘Excuse me,’ she said louder. ‘I need to see Hel. Please, please, tell me where she is.’
‘I – heard – you – the – first – time,’ said the girl, pausing heavily between each word as if speaking was more than she could bear. Her pale eyelashes flickered.
Freya stared. This was Hel? This was the fearful Goddess who ruled the Underworld? This girl? She looked … she actually looked about Freya’s age.
Hel spoke again. She sounded like someone who rarely spoke.
‘Why – are – you – here – before – your – time?’
Freya poured out her story. She couldn’t tell if Hel was listening or not.
‘I know Loki is here somewhere. He stole Idunn. I must find her and bring her back to Asgard. The Gods are dying. The world is dying. I am dying.’
Hel smiled.
Freya held out her ivory arms. ‘Help me.’
The blanket slipped and Freya glimpsed hideous, rotting blue flesh, mottled and oozing. She recoiled. Hel saw her face and tugged up the blanket.
‘Not so pretty, am I?’ she said. Her voice was harsh. ‘I’m revolting, even to myself.’
Freya could think of nothing to say.
‘Please help me,’ said Freya again. ‘I know—’
The entrance curtains parted, and Loki sauntered in. Freya drew in her breath. She hated him. She wanted to scratch out his strange eyes and beat him to death. He leered at her, then lounged at the foot of Hel’s dank bed.
Hel didn’t move. ‘Yes, father?’ Her pale eyes glittered like broken ice.
Loki smiled at her. His red and green eyes glistened.
‘Looking good, girl.’
Hel scowled. ‘You’re not. And who said you could come into my bed closet?’
Loki laughed. ‘I go where I please.’
‘Not here you don’t,’ said Hel. ‘This is my Hall. I built it. Hel is my kingdom. You’re here because I allow it. Don’t forget that.’
Loki’s viper eyes flickered.
‘Who’s the pulse?’ said Loki, jerking his thumb at Freya.
Hel smiled.
‘The living all look alike to you?’ she hissed. ‘You know perfectly well who she is and why she’s here.’
‘Give me back Idunn!’ shouted Freya. If only she could force him …
Loki ignored her.
‘I’ll show her out,’ he said. ‘You don’t belong here.’
‘You get out,’ said Hel. ‘Leave us alone. I don’t often get to speak to someone with skin on their bones.’
‘Aren’t you Miss High and Mighty now?’ said Loki. ‘Don’t let me interrupt your girl talk. But just remember, Hel, family loyalty is everything.’
Hel snorted. ‘That’s brilliant, coming from you. What have you ever done for me? Where were you when the Gods flung me here? You didn’t lift a finger. You left Mum. You left us.’
‘Oh stop whining,’ said Loki.
‘Where is Idunn?’ demanded Freya. Her boldness no longer astonished her. After all, what did she have to lose?
‘Safe.’ He smirked.
‘Everyone is dying because of you,’ said Freya.
‘Good,’ said Loki. He fixed her with a piercing look. Freya shrank back. ‘I know what my fate holds. A man’s fate should be hidden, but I know mine. One day the Gods will catch me, bind me to three sharp stones with the guts of my own son, and a snake will drip poison on my face until the end of days. Drip. Drip. Drip. Who wouldn’t do whatever they had to do, to avoid such a fate?’
Freya blanched. Put like that, Loki – almost – had a point. Then her heart hardened. If that was his fate, he had brought it upon himself.
‘Bring Idunn back to Asgard,’ said Freya. ‘The Gods will be grateful.’
‘No chance,’ said Loki.
‘No one can avoid their fate,’ said Freya.
Loki laughed. ‘I’ve done pretty well so far. What luck I’ve had. I was disguised as Sleipnir, heading back to Skadi to get Idunn, when Woden’s charm caught me and I was frozen, part of his sleeping army. But what great fortune! I stayed young while my enemies aged. And now I have Idunn.’
‘But you’re turning into ivory like the rest of us,’ said Freya. ‘Our time is running out.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, pulse. Look at yourself. Has your body become more ivory since you’ve been here?’
Freya peered quickly down her sweatshirt. Loki was right. The ivory had stopped just above her collarbone and hadn’t spread any higher. The tops of her shoulders were still flesh-coloured.
‘Woden’s charms have no power here,’ said Loki. ‘And now that I have Idunn … I can wait.’
‘But you’re stuck in Hel,’ said Freya, shuddering.
Loki shrugged. ‘A lot better than being tied to a rock with poison splashing on your face. Don’t you agree, daughter?’
Hel did not even bother to open her eyes.
Loki shook his head. ‘And you were always such a chatty little girl,’ he said.
‘How would you know?’ said Hel.
‘All the Gods will be dead soon,’ said Loki. ‘And when they die Woden’s charm will die with them. Then I’ll return to Asgard and thwart my fate. I’m writing a new ending. No being chained to a rock with poison dripping on my face. And thanks to you, no troll hag stinking up the place. Just me. One God. One all-powerful, immortal God.’
‘I hate the Gods,’ said Hel. ‘That doesn’t mean I want you ruling, Dad.’ She spat o
ut the word Dad as if it contained bile. ‘Now leave us alone and get out of my hall.’
Loki bowed. ‘Whatever you say, queen of the dead,’ he said. He edged round the bed and went to the chamber’s entrance. Then he turned.
‘What in the name of the accursed Gods do you think you’re doing, you ugly little troll?’ hissed Loki. His red and green eyes glared.
‘I rule here, father.’
‘Why not keep the mortal if you like her so much?’
Hel laughed her mirthless laugh.
‘I can wait. Let her have her brief moment of light and warmth. Everyone ends up here in the end.’ Hel turned over and faced the wall.
Loki slipped out.
Freya peeked round the curtains to see if he was waiting but Loki was gone.
Hel turned back slowly and looked at her.
‘Will you help me?’ said Freya.
Hel paused for such a long time Freya wondered if she had fallen asleep with her eyes open.
‘How’d you like to spend eternity lying in a sick-bed hung with curtains called Glimmering Misfortune, and be waited on by two servants called Slow-Poke and Lazy Cow who move so slowly that they might as well be dead again because no one would notice?’ said Hel, slowly raising herself to sit up. ‘I never get out, I have no friends, in fact, everyone hates me, I have to spend my time with gangrenous, rotting raven food. I just lie here all day waiting for a cup of wine, then all night waiting for it to be removed. There is of course no day or night here, but I remember when I lived with my mother.
‘I’m glad the Gods are dying. They kidnapped me when I was a child. They gagged my mother, tied her up, and took me back to Asgard. Not for long though. Woden threw my brother into the ocean – he was the world’s biggest serpent, too bad he didn’t bite Woden’s head off when he had the chance – then Woden took one look at me and hurled me down here, into this dark world below the worlds. You’ll like it, he said, you’ll be Queen down there. Look after all the dead people, the ones who’ve died of sickness and old age and fire. In other words, the ones he didn’t want, the ones who were no use to him.
‘Well, I don’t like it. Not at all. So no, I won’t help you. Now go away.’
Hel lay back down on Sick-Bed, and closed her eyes.
Freya stared at the angry pink-cheeked girl, her coiled snaky hair grey against her pale shoulders. She kept her eyes fixed on Hel’s face, but they kept being drawn down to Hel’s rotting, mouldering, foul-smelling dark-blue legs. Hel felt her staring, and yanked the curtains closed around her bed, shutting Freya out.
So that was that. It was over.
Freya bit her lip. She felt strangely light, as if all the thoughts in her head and feelings in her body had just evaporated. She’d failed. She’d always known she would, and yet, for a little while, she had dared to hope that somehow, in some way, having come so far, fate would reward her. She felt weirdly peaceful. She could fight her fate only so long. Somewhere far off she heard the hell-dog Garm howling.
I’d like to see Mum again one more time, thought Freya. She and Dad will never know what happened to me.
Tears filled her eyes. Angrily she rubbed them away.
The serving maid Ganglot waited silently by the threshold. Slowly she started to point to the exit.
A pale hand with cracked black nails poked through the tattered bed curtains.
‘Wait,’ said Hel.
Freya froze.
The hand beckoned her closer.
‘Stay for a moment,’ said Hel. ‘Nice to look at someone who’s still got skin on their face. Makes a change.’
Freya hesitated. Why should she spend a moment of the little time she had left with this hag?
Oh why not? thought Freya. Nothing matters now. Carefully, she sat on the edge of the musty bed. If she just looked at Hel’s top half, she was more bearable.
Hel slowly reached over and picked up the empty gold plate lying on the mildewed blanket.
‘See this plate?’ said Hel. ‘I named it Hunger. My knife is called Starving. I’m the only one who eats around here, so I thought that would be fitting. My goblet is called Thirst, bit of a joke, really, because I can wait all day for it to be filled …’
Freya shrugged.
‘Do you like my bed hangings?’ said Hel.
Freya shrugged again. She wasn’t feeling very talkative.
‘I went through so many names for them,’ said Hel. She fingered the dark fabric. ‘Rickets. Glittering Pain. Shining Harm. Shimmering Torment. They’ve been Glimmering Misfortune now for ages. I might rename them again in the next hundred years or so.’
‘That’ll be fun,’ said Freya. She felt numb.
Hel looked at her with her ice-dead eyes.
‘Are you laughing at me?’
‘No,’ said Freya. ‘I like naming things too. I even named all my soft toys when I was little. I called my dog Bel Gazou.’
‘I called mine Garm,’ said Hel. ‘That means rag. He’s huge and ugly. Everything here is ugly.’
‘You’re not ugly,’ said Freya.
Hel snorted.
‘Not ugly? Are you blind? I’m a monster.’
Freya shook her head.
‘You know,’ said Freya, ‘if you tied back your hair, you’d look quite pretty.’
‘Pretty?’ said Hel. ‘What’s pretty?’
‘It means … you look good,’ said Freya.
Hel stared at her. ‘How would I know?’
‘Look.’ Freya fumbled with her unruly curls and took off the tortoiseshell clip. ‘May I touch your hair?’
Hel started as if Freya had asked if she could brand her.
‘You want to … touch me?’ she said.
‘Well, your hair … I was going to …’ Freya stopped in confusion. Maybe you died on the spot touching Hel. Her two servants Ganglati and Ganglot were still turning around. I’ll be rotten by the time they finish, she thought.
‘We both have Medusa hair,’ said Freya.
‘Who’s Medusa?’ said Hel.
‘A monster from the Greek myths,’ said Freya. ‘She turned people to stone if they looked at her. She had snakes for hair.’ Perhaps that wasn’t the politest thing to say, thought Freya. In fact, how stupid could she be, telling a monster she looked like a monster?
Hel spat. ‘A monster? People always like monsters in stories.’
‘I thought you’d be old and ugly,’ said Freya.
‘I am old and ugly,’ said Hel. ‘I’m a rotting corpse.’
‘Not all of you,’ said Freya. ‘When you tie back those curls you’ll look quite pretty.’
Freya fumbled in her pocket. She had the feather, a piece of dirty tissue with some gum in it, the decoy nuts she’d never need now, and the shiny silver pot of pink lipgloss – Bubble Gum Burst – with a mirror. Freya looked at the gloss wistfully for a moment. She’d saved up for weeks to buy it.
‘Put this on,’ said Freya.
Hel looked at the burnished little pot and raised herself on to her elbow.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘A jewel? Magic?’
‘It’s called lipgloss,’ said Freya. ‘It will make your mouth shine.’ She opened the round pot and handed the gloss to Hel.
‘I like shine,’ said Hel. Then she gasped.
‘There’s – there’s someone in here,’ she whispered, pointing to her reflection in the tiny round mirror.
‘That’s you,’ said Freya.
‘Me?’ said Hel. ‘Me?’ She gazed at her reflection, herself and not herself. ‘Is that me? Is that really me? It can’t be … I look … I look … my face …’ She raised her hands to her face, and touched it, staring at herself in the little mirror.
‘This is a great wonder, to see yourself so clear.’ She stuck out her tongue. Her reflection mirrored her. Hel smiled a tiny smile.
‘Dip your finger in the gloss and smear it on your lips,’ said Freya.
‘You first,’ hissed Hel. ‘I don’t want to be poisoned.’
&nb
sp; Freya smeared her finger with pink gloss and rubbed it on her lips. Hel copied her. Then she looked at herself in the mirror and smiled.
‘A new you,’ said Freya. What a before-and-after picture Hel would make.
Hel’s bony fingers gripped the pot. ‘Keep it,’ said Freya.
Hel was too busy looking at herself to reply. She dipped her fingers in the pot and smeared the gloss on her cheeks and forehead.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Freya. ‘It must be horrible being here.’
‘It is,’ said Hel. ‘It’s hel.’ She smiled grimly. ‘I haven’t always been here. I remember being with my mother Angrboda in a cave. My brothers were there too.’
‘I’m an only child,’ said Freya.
‘Lucky you. My brothers were Fenrir the wolf and Jormungand the snake. Try fighting over who gets the biggest piece of meat with them.’
Hel gazed at the lipgloss.
‘A great gift like this deserves recompense,’ she said. ‘Ganglot! Fetch the eski under my bed.’
Hel was giving her a gift. Freya dreaded to think what it would be. A dead snake? A bone strung on a necklace? Nail shavings?
Freya took the wooden box from the sepulchral servant and opened it. She adjusted her face to look grateful for whatever horror it contained.
Inside was a nut.
Freya gripped it tight. Her heart stopped. She swallowed.
‘I’m doing this for you,’ said Hel. ‘Not for them. I hate the Gods. I’ll always hate them. But my revenge can wait until the Axe-Age and the Wind-Age and the Wolf-Age at the bitter end of days.’
Freya clasped the nut carefully in one hand, and took out her falcon feather with the other.
‘I’ll build a shrine to you,’ said Freya.
‘That will be a first,’ said Hel. ‘Don’t think you’ll get too many worshippers.’
‘Goodbye,’ said Freya. ‘Thank you. I’ll never forget you.’
‘Stay,’ said Hel suddenly. ‘You’ll never make it back to Asgard alive. You’re already ivory up to your neck. Here you can live forever. Just think, mortal Freya, life everlasting. Your friends and family will all be here to join you soon enough.’
Freya hesitated.
‘This place isn’t so bad once you get used to it,’ said Hel, slowly sitting up. ‘Everyone’s here, you know. All the greats. You can meet anyone you like. There’s no pain. No suffering.’
The Sleeping Army Page 12
