He reached into his jerkin and he took out the thing that he had carved. His father’s carving, which he had finished. It was his mother, as she had looked before he was born. It was the finest thing that Odd had ever made, and it was beautiful.
The Frost Giant squinted at it, and then, just for a moment, smiled. He put the carved head into his pouch, and he said, “It is…remarkable. And lovely. Yes. I will take it back with me to Jotunheim, and it will brighten my hall.” The Frost Giant hesitated, then he said, a little wistfully, “Do you think I should say good-bye to Lady Freya?”
Odd said, “If you do, she’ll probably shout at you some more.”
“Or beg me to take her with me,” said the Frost Giant. Odd could have sworn that the Frost Giant shivered at that.
The Frost Giant took a step away from Odd, and as he moved away, he grew. He went from being the size of a high hill to being the size of a mountain. Then he reached an arm up into the grey of the winter sky. His hand vanished in the cloud…
“I think I need good weather to leave in,” said the giant. “Something to hide my tracks and to make me hard to follow.”
Odd could not see quite what the Frost Giant did, but when he lowered his hand, snow began to fall in huge white flakes that spun and tumbled and obscured the world. The giant began to lumber away into the blizzard.
“Hey!” called Odd. “I don’t know your name!”
But the figure did not hear him, or if it did, it did not answer, and in moments it was lost to sight.
CHAPTER 7
FOUR TRANSFORMATIONS AND A MEAL
THE EAGLE FOUND HIM, as he sat on the wall, in an area that he had kept as free of snow as he could. The great bird landed beside the boy.
“Good?” it said. It was twilight, and the snow was falling more gently now.
“I’m cold,” said Odd. “I nearly got blown off there a couple of times. I was getting worried I’d have to spend the rest of my life up on this wall. But, yes, I’m good.”
The great bird landed beside the boy.
The eagle simply looked at him.
“The Frost Giant’s gone,” said Odd. “I made him go away.”
“How?” asked the eagle.
“Magic,” said Odd, and he smiled, and thought,
“Loki, you caused all this,” she said. “All of it.”
“Yes,” he said. “I admit it. But I found the boy as well. You can’t just focus on the bad stuff.”
“One day,” said Freya softly, “I will regret this.” But she smiled to herself, and she reached a hand out and touched the black tip of the fox’s muzzle, then ran her finger up between its ears and along its spine and all the way up to the very tip of its tail.
A shimmer—then a man stood in front of them, beardless, flame-haired, as pale of skin as Freya herself. Eyes like green chips of ice. Odd wondered if Loki had a fox’s eyes still, or if the fox had always had Loki’s eyes.
Thor threw Loki some clothes. “Cover yourself,” he said bluntly.
Now Freya turned her attention to Odd. Her gentle smile filled his world. “Your turn,” she said.
“I look like this anyway,” said Odd.
“I know,” said Freya. She knelt down beside him, reached out a hand towards his injured leg. “May I?”
“Um. If you want to.”
She picked him up as if he was light as a leaf, and put him down on the great feasting table of the Gods. She reached down to his right foot and deftly unhooked it at the knee. She ran a nail across the shin and the flesh parted. Freya looked at the bone, and her face fell. “It was crushed,” she said, “so much that not even I can repair it.’ And then she said, “But I can help.”
She pushed her hand into the inside of Odd’s leg, kneading the smashed bones, pulling together the fragments from inside the leg, smoothing them together. Then she opened the flesh of the foot and repeated the same operation, putting the pieces of foot bone and toe bone back where they were meant to be. And then she encased the skeletal leg and foot in flesh once more, sealed it up, and the Goddess Freya reattached Odd’s leg to Odd, and it was as if it had always been there.
“Sorry,” she said. “I did the best I could do. It’s better, but it’s not right, yet.” She seemed lost in thought, then she said brightly, “Why don’t I replace it entirely? What about a cat’s rear leg? Or a chicken’s?”
Odd smiled, and shook his head. “My leg is fine,” he said.
Odd stood up cautiously, put his weight on his right leg, trying to pretend he had not just seen his leg unhooked at the knee. It did not hurt. Not really. Not like it used to.
“Give it time,” said Freya.
A huge hand came down and clapped Odd on the shoulder, sending him flying.
“Now, laddie,” boomed Thor. “Tell us just how you defeated the might of the Frost Giants.” He seemed much more cheerful than when he had been a bear.
“There was only one of them,” said Odd.
“When
ODD LEANED HIS WEIGHT on the staff and looked down at the village. Then he began to walk the path that would take him home. He was still limping, a little. His right foot would never be as strong as his left. But it did not hurt, and he was grateful to Freya for that.
As he headed down the path to the village, he heard a rushing noise. It was the sound of snow melting, of new water trying to find its way to lower ground. Sometimes he heard a