“Stop it,” said Jumps. And yet, the hand clutching the razor seemed to relax a little.
“No, you stop it,” I told her. “I’m not your problem. You are. You’re the one who hates herself. You’re the one who can hardly even look at herself in the mirror. You’re the one who’s so afraid of what other people might say and think that she tries to be invisible. You’re the one who would rather die than admit you might feel something for a girl like Meg—a girl who anyone else in the world would be proud to know, to want, to lo—”
I stopped. Jumps lowered the razor slightly. There was silence for a while.
“You like her,” she said.
“Of course I do.”
“I mean, you really like her.”
I thought about that a moment. I’ll admit, I haven’t had too much experience in really liking people. I know all about desire, of course. Desires and lusts and appetites are more or less second nature to me. But what I’d felt with Meg—well. That had come from somewhere else. Somewhere—maybe someone—
“I think that came from you, Jumps.”
“It did?” Now there was doubt in her voice—the hand with the razor dropped to her side. I turned on the cold tap and rinsed the blade, then ran cold water over my wrist. It stung, but the cut was not serious. A cry for help, I thought. That was all. A cry for understanding.
Oh no. Those human emotions again. As if really liking someone wasn’t bad enough, now I was learning a new one. What the hell was it? Empathy? Compassion? In any case, it was something that I associated with people like Idun, who believed in herbs and healing chants and channelling their inner goddess. Whatever it was, it had taken me one step further into dangerous waters. I had to be careful, I told myself: At this rate I’d be picking out penguin slippers in no time.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I messed up your exam. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. But look at what I did for you. Look at what you did for me. Look at what else we can do if only we work together.”
And with that, I sent her the faces of those girls when I sent them packing. I sent her the feeling of being herself. I stripped off that veil of shame and guilt; I showed her young, and strong, and smart, and powerful in every way—
Her eyes widened. “What did you do?”
“Just gave you a bit of perspective, that’s all.” (Well, if there’s anything I’ve learned—what with being dead, and destroying the Worlds, and defeating the gods—it’s perspective.) “It isn’t the End of the Worlds if the popular crowd think you’re a freak. It isn’t the End of the Worlds if you like eating chocolate, or have a bad day, or make a mistake, or flunk an exam. It isn’t the End of the Worlds if you don’t look like those girls in the magazines.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re old,” she said. But she sounded uncertain.
“I’ve had plenty of practice,” I said. “Face it, I’ve been everything. What I don’t know about the Worlds could fit inside a hazelnut. I’ve been young and old, a demon and a god, a man, a woman, a bird, a horse, I’ve soared over Bif-rost in falcon-guise, and raised the armies of the dead. I’ve seduced, and been seduced—killed and been killed. And, whatever else I was, I was always fabulous—”
Jumps gave a tearful little laugh. “You’re impossible,” she said.
“Many people have thought so,” I said. “And yet, I survived Ragnarók. I think I can survive your World. Now, let’s get this place cleaned up, bandage that wrist, and get you into something that doesn’t look expressly designed to make you look like a bag of litter.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“And then—ice cream for breakfast?”
She wiped her face and nodded.
2.
I’d been hoping we could escape the house without having to see Jumps’s parents. Something told me they might not approve of my coming home so late, or of the fact that the previous day I’d walked out of my English exam without any explanation. It was only seven o’clock, after all, and my inner Book of Faces reliably informed me that Mum and Dad seldom rose till eight. Plenty of time, then, I told myself, to hit the chocolate-cherry ice cream before sauntering down to Evan’s for cold pizza and explanations.
However, on arrival in the kitchen, I found Jumps’s grandmother sitting there in front of a bowl of something that looked like rabbit droppings. She raised an eyebrow as I came in and said in her dry and humorous voice:
“You’re up early, Josephine.”
Leave this to me, I said to Jumps, who was starting to freak out again. Old people love me. Especially old ladies.
The grandmother gave me that look again, like I was simultaneously the most hilarious thing she’d ever seen and possibly the most disreputable. True, I was wearing a lime-green skirt with a roll-neck jumper in cherry cashmere, and black tights with little bats on them. The little bats might have been too much, I guess, but I was pretty sure my innate fabulousness could carry it off.
I gave the grandmother a grin and spooned out ice cream from the tub.
“Ice cream for breakfast,” said the grandmother. “I suppose at your age, you still can.”
I wanted to point out that my age, as she liked to put it, was considerably greater than hers, but Jumps gave me the mental equivalent of a sharp nudge in the ribs, and I thought better of it.
“Grandma,” I said, removing the rabbit droppings and providing her with a fresh bowl, “I’ve finally come to the conclusion that ice cream, like so many other things, can be enjoyed at any time, and at any age.” And I served her a generous portion of chocolate-cherry ice cream, before attacking the rest of the tub with pleasing fervour.
The grandmother laughed. “Wise words. Can I assume that last night’s date was a success?”
“Most deliciously so,” I said.
“Well, it suits you, whatever it is,” said the grandmother, eating ice cream. “May I know his name, or would that be too indiscreet?”
“Margaret,” I said. “Meg, for short.”
Oh no, wailed Jumps. What d’you tell her that for? But it was too late. The grandmother arched an eyebrow and said, “I see. Is she pretty?”
“No,” I said. “She’s beautiful.”
That was an odd thing to say, I thought. One of Jumps’s thoughts, perhaps. I mean, it’s not as if I haven’t encountered beauty. I mean, I was around Freyja and Sif and Idun for centuries, which kind of puts into perspective the imperfections of the Folk. Plus, Angrboda and Gullveig-Heid, being demons, were both way more alluring than any of the goddesses. Even my late wife Sigyn—who Freyja kept by her side for the sake of contrast—was a probably a four or five, more than enough for her to outshine even the most striking of humans. Which made it all the more odd that Meg should have had the effect on me that she did. I could only assume that that tingly glow I felt as I thought of her now belonged to Jumps, rather than to me.
The grandmother smiled. “Well, I’m happy for you. Don’t know what your mother will think, but—”
“It’s none of her business. It’s personal,” said Jumps, coming to the forefront somewhat unexpectedly. “She wants to control everything. Putting me on diets when I was six. Telling me I was fat all the time. Look how that worked out, huh?”
“You seem to have resolved that issue, at least,” said the grandmother, eyeing the empty tub of ice cream.
“Not quite,” said Jumps. “But I’m working on it.”
“Something to do with this Meg?” said the grandmother.
Jumps shook her head. “Not just Meg. But other people don’t get to decide what I do with my body anymore.”
Ouch. Was that a jab at me?
I sensed her amusement. Asshole, relax. It isn’t always about you.
“Your mother worries about you a lot,” said the grandmother. “So does your dad. They’re both idiots, of course, but they love you. Try to understand.”
Jumps smiled. It lit up our space in a way that nothing of mine ever had. The grandmother must have see
n it too, because she stood up and kissed me on the forehead. I felt her papery hands on mine. She was so old, I thought, so old. And now I could feel something else—one of those human emotions not yet in my vocabulary.
Regret? Nostalgia? Tenderness?
Jumps gave me that inner nudge again. Will you stop questioning everything? I’m trying to have a moment here!
The grandmother smiled and ruffled my hair. I allowed myself to be ruffled, even though I’d put effort into the styling. “Tell them not to worry,” said Jumps. “I’m going to sort out the exam. Everything’s going to be fine from now on. Well, maybe not fine, but better.”
“I’m glad for you, Jumps,” said the grandmother. “You take care now—and be good.”
“I will, Grandma,” said Jumps. She gave the old lady a hug, and I felt her bones through her old-lady cardigan. Then we were on our way again, heading across town towards Evan’s place. I was feeling uneasy, although I wasn’t sure what the problem was. I was glad for Jumps, too, of course, though I wished she hadn’t delivered quite such a challenge to the Norns. Those bitches love to mess with folk who are feeling a little too confident. Still, we’d made a good start. I’d managed to make peace with Jumps. I’d do the same with the General. We’d find out where Freyja had got her rune, and all of us would share in the joy. All in all, I was feeling good. What could possibly go wrong?
3.
I had disposed of Jumps’s phone, but sadly, disposing of her friend would not be quite so easy a task. For a start, Jumps liked Evan. That ruled out a number of options. Second, the General had to be at least as stubborn as I was myself, which meant he was unlikely to give up until I had done what he wanted. He wanted the New Runes, the Oracle, a way to escape this borrowed flesh. And, to be fair, I wanted that too, as long as it didn’t mean risking the skin I’d lately become quite attached to. And so I went to find the Old Man, to preempt any unpleasantness caused by my exploits the previous day.
By the time we got to Evan’s place, I was feeling pretty good. The sun was shining, the birds were in song, and the fresh air had renewed my appetite. But when we saw Evan, I started to feel that my optimism had been premature. He answered the door when I rang the bell, but he didn’t ask us inside, and I saw that he was in his chair, looking pinched and delicate. I caught a spike of concern from Jumps—one of his bad days, she whispered—but as far as I was concerned, the Old Man deserved every bit of discomfort he felt.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Odin said.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I told him. “I got a little carried away, what with the freedom, and the cake, and the dancing, and did you know, I have a girlfriend now?”
“Never mind that,” said the General. “You and I need to concentrate on what really matters. Which is getting our glam back and going home.”
“Yes, sir. I see that now.” I gave him my most winning smile.
“Because, however much you may be enjoying your current accommodation, you’re here as a visitor, nothing else. Start thinking you can stay here, and we’ll all be in danger. Remember the cat in the box. Okay?”
“Cats like boxes,” I said.
“Not this one,” said the General.
I sighed. To be honest, I was starting to be not entirely averse to staying in Jumps indefinitely. The body was workable, and now that she had started to cooperate, I was in no hurry to leave. Not so with the General. His manner was very much that of a man in a hurry. I wondered whether Evan’s health was a factor in this, and if so, just how sick he really was.
“We can’t discuss this in detail now,” he said. “Jumps has another exam. But come back tonight, around six, and we’ll talk. Don’t be late. I’m counting on you.”
By now I was ready to move on to more pressing things, like maybe grabbing a little snack before the start of school. Odin, in his current state, seemed unlikely to provide, but Jumps’s internal lexicon apprised me the existence of something called a “vending machine,” which apparently handed out chocolate, and I was eager to try it out.
Odin fixed me with his one living eye. “You’d better not let me down,” he said. “And don’t talk to Stella before we meet.”
“Why would I do that?” I said.
“Just see that you don’t, that’s all.”
I gave him a cheery little wave and promptly, blithely forgot him. His problems could wait until we’d fixed Jumps’s English exam. And after that? Well—
Seize the day, as Jumps liked to say. We had a lot of seizing to do.
4.
The first thing we did on arriving at school was to seek out the head of English. With Jumps’s guidance and my silver tongue, I managed to persuade him that Jumps had suffered a momentary lapse—I had previously found that any reference to “women’s mysteries” was usually enough to reduce most men to inarticulate, red-faced fools; and in the case of Jumps’s English teacher, that wasn’t much of a stretch.
After a token resistance, he agreed to write to the examination board, citing her excellent record and performance throughout the year, and asking for special consideration to be given to the test. Then he fled the room in haste, with an over-the-shoulder hunted look.
High five, said Jumps. Let’s celebrate.
The chocolate machine was everything I had hoped for, except that Jumps would only allow me a single small bar of the good stuff, rather than the many I craved. Still, it was a foundation upon which I meant to build, just as soon as my host’s insecurities were well and truly overcome. The next thing was another exam, which I had promised to endure without complaint, as long as Jumps did what I wanted afterwards.
The class was called Critical Thinking, which I actually found quite interesting, in spite of Jumps’s deplorable tendency to give in to her feelings. Then there was something called British Politics, which was predictably dull, except for the wars, which were quite good, though not as impressive as those I had experienced. But Jumps came out of both exams feeling fairly positive, which meant that we were free to meet Meg—and if cake was involved, all the better.
I’d been hoping that Jumps would agree to accompany me on another date, and from her words to the grandmother, I sensed that she was amenable. Meg was funny, and clever, and sweet—frankly, all the things that used to annoy me when I was someone else, and yet in Meg were somehow not only tolerable, but actually attractive. I supposed that these feelings, confused as they were, must be Jumps’s influence, and yet the thought of seeing Meg again made me tingle agreeably.
I’d arranged to meet her at the Pink Zebra, the coffee shop where we had first met. I sensed a kind of reluctance in Jumps, and yet she was somehow excited, too—an excitement that I thought had to do with the feeling that it wasn’t quite real. She wasn’t living this. It was someone else’s life, someone else’s dream, to her, which meant that she could enjoy it without feeling guilty, or anxious.
Stupid, I know. But it was a start.
Meg was in the corner, at the table I already thought of as ours. She was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a shark on it. A necklace of little wooden beads shaped like flowers hung around her neck. I don’t know why I noticed those things, they weren’t important, and yet—those human feelings again—there was something about those small wooden beads that troubled, even moved, me. I know how it sounds. But there it was. The Father of Lies, the Sire of the Wolf, the Trickster of Asgard was going soft.
Meg gave me a little wave. “Hey, Jumps!”
I smiled and went over. Something about her calling me Jumps didn’t quite ring right. Of course, there was no way Margaret could ever use my real name, a thought that gave me a sudden feeling of something I couldn’t quite recognize. Dammit, all these feelings. They needed a library all to themselves. Why not just keep it simple? There were enough pleasures in this world to fill every hour of a human’s life. Why waste so much precious time with doubt, and pain, and loneliness?
And so we ordered cherry cake, and talked about our day, and books, and Bri
tish history, and the art of war, and Life in all its absurdity. And I was funny, and Jumps was sincere (which I guess is what you have to be if you can’t be funny), and between us, I think we managed to make a pretty good stab at a human. Not that Meg knew what we were, but like I said, she was clever, and her golden eyes saw surprisingly far.
“You’re so strange,” said Meg at last, when we had finished the coconut cake. “Old and young at the same time. Laughing one minute, sad the next.”
“Sad?” I said. “No way am I sad. In fact, this is pretty much the happiest I’ve been in five hundred years.”
She laughed at that. “See? That’s what I mean. I’m never sure whether you’re joking or not.”
“That was a joke,” said Jumps fiercely, pinching the inside of my leg under cover of the tabletop.
Meg laughed again. “Well, that’s a relief. Otherwise the age difference might have presented a problem.” Then, seeing Jumps’s expression, she said, “Of course I know it was a joke. You’re often happy. I can tell.”
She reached out her hand. I took it. For a moment I sensed hesitation from Jumps; then she gave in to the contact. I felt rather than heard her sigh, as if some long-locked door in her mind had finally swung open. Good, I thought. She’s relaxing.
Then, Meg looked down at my hands.
“What happened?” she said.
Damn and blast. I’d bandaged the razor cut from this morning, and chosen a long-sleeved garment. Even so, she must have seen the sticking-plasters on my wrist. I started to respond, but Jumps got in there before me.
“Yeah, I sometimes do that,” she said. “I’m trying to kick the habit.”
Why the hell did you say that? I said.
The Testament of Loki Page 10
