The Monstrous Child Read Online Free PDF

afraid he’d change his mind, so I backed out of the nearest door, stumbling. And collided with someone.
    I felt arms grab me, steadying me. I regained mybalance, turned, gabbling thanks, and I saw him.
    His eyes were blue like glaciers. I’d never seen eyes like that. Golden light blazed from him.
    I felt the air prickling against my skin. My hands reached up to hide my flushed cheeks.
    He looked at me and smiled. Baldr, most beautiful, most glorious, wisest and kindest of the gods.
    ‘Hello, Hel,’ he said.
    He knows my name . I was speechless.
    I see it in my mind, again and again. I hear how he said my name, like it was just a name, like I was just a goddess, not a filthy walking corpse.
    And then he picks me up and whirls me around until I am laughing and dizzy and he is laughing.
    I feel like I am flying. My robe swirls around me. No one has ever picked me up. No one has ever touched me.
    I cling to him. He smells of blackberries and apples and scythed grass. I grip his white arms. I have never felt so light. I have never felt like a creature of air before.
    He sets me down and I fall over.
    My cursed legs.
    ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he says, grabbing my hands and pulling me to my feet. His hands are warm. I’m trembling. And I think, He forgot about my twisted legs. That’s why he plopped me down .
    ‘Are you all right?’
    I nod.
    He beams at me. His smile is a tiny bit crooked. I have never seen anything or anyone so lovely.
    ‘My son loves being whirled about,’ he says.
    I am panting. Slowly catching my breath. The world is swimming and shimmering about me. I hear his words and I don’t.
    He has a son. Does that mean he also has …
    ‘Where is he?’ I ask.
    Baldr smiles. ‘Forseti is with Nanna.’
    ‘Nanna?’
    ‘His mother. My wife.’
    I’m good at hiding my feelings. My face is still. I bend down to straighten my skirts, covering my trembling legs.
    His wife. Of course he has a wife.
    I look at Baldr, the sun haloing him with light, smiling at me (smiling!) and I know. He sees past my deformity: he doesn’t see a monster, he sees a girl. He tells me that my hair is beautiful, that it looks like shooting stars. I have a feeling inside me as if ice is crackling. I take a deep breath, hoping to breathe him in, keep some bit of him with me. The most beautiful of the gods, the most beautiful creature I have ever seen, ever, even in my dreams, is there, in front of me, not screaming, not trying to run, not recoiling in horror. But smiling.
    And then his smile broadens, deepens. I want this to last forever.
    Then I see. He isn’t smiling at me. He’s smiling at someone behind me.
    His son I hope. Fathers smile at their children. (They do, don’t they? I never know for sure about such things.)
    I am frightened to turn round. Because so long as I don’t I can still hold the hope in my heart that Baldr’s smile is for me.
    ‘Nanna,’ he says.
    I try to look as if my heart hasn’t cracked. I watch as he goes up to her, and wraps his arms round her, nuzzling his face into her hair and whispering something. She smiles.
    Vicious feelings erupt in me. I hate Nanna. I hate her nervous sideways glance, her stupid whiny itty-bitty voice, the way her rat-brown hair oozes from her scalp, her pink pig ears, the way she constantly touches him, every gesture flaunting he’s mine, mine, not yours, mine .
    I don’t despair.
    Maybe if he gets to know me , I think.
    Maybe …

12
HE LIKES ME, I KNOW HE DOES

    FOLLOW HIM . Quietly.
    Day after day I creep out of Valhall, watch where Baldr goes, and contrive a reason to be there.
    Baldr’s shadow, the gods call me. What do I care? Because he likes me. I know he does.
    He talks to me about the gods, asks me questions, tells me things. He makes me laugh. Laughter feels strangein my throat. When I’m with him, I forget I’m a monster. (He says that maybe the healing goddess Eir could help my legs. I’m filled with hope, but of course she can’t. If I’d been ALL dead