The Witch's Heart

by Genevieve Gornichec

She knew many ancient spells, but she was especially skilled with seid, a magic that allowed one to travel out of body and divine the future.

He turned the Aesir against the witch and called her Gullveig, “gold-lust.”

There was something wild about him, something about his eyes that spoke of deep forests and midsummer nights. Something untamed, unharnessed.

“You know, Angrboda,” he said, “I do think we’re going to be the best of friends.”

“It doesn’t really matter where we came from, does it? We’re here now. We’re ourselves. What more can we be?”

That was just fine with Angrboda, who found such activities frustrating and tedious where many women found them productive and cathartic. The more power to them, she often thought. I’ll gladly trade my wares for theirs.

“Perhaps it’s because you’re pathetic and I have an overwhelming urge to care for pathetic people,” Angrboda said under her breath. “Almost like your urge to keep talking when you should probably stop and think instead.”

“Aye, I know what it’s like.” She reached out and placed her hand on his. “To be an outsider.”

“And yet somehow I believe you,” she finished. “You may be made of jests and cleverness, Loki

Laufeyjarson, but there are some things even you cannot hide.”

“I would have all of you,” he said quietly, brushing her nose with his. “I would have everything.”

He cut her off with a kiss, which she returned without even thinking—like it was something for which she’d been waiting a million years—and she knew he felt it, too, because as soon as their lips made contact, it was as though some floodgate inside of her broke, and emotion overcame her like a wave and she couldn’t stop it no matter how hard she tried. Which was, admittedly, not very hard.

What am I doing?

Somehow she couldn’t make herself care.

“I meant what I said, you know. You’re going to break my heart.”

I will give you whatever you need, Angrboda decided then. After all, you gave me back my heart.

“Perhaps. Then again, maybe it’s a woman,” Angrboda replied, looking her dead in the eyes. “Is that a problem?”

Loki asking if he could talk was much like a fish asking if it could swim while in the act of doing so.

She would do anything for him, she realized then, with a sudden fierceness that made her heart race. Anything for him—anything for the child inside her, pressed between them and evidently incensed by her mother’s quickened pulse. Anything for them. Anything. And for some reason, this scared her, as if the thought itself were a promise she knew that she couldn’t hope to keep.

For one of the first times since she decided to make her home in Ironwood, Angrboda desperately wished she wasn’t so alone.

As far as she was concerned, Loki could do whatever he wanted—she had a daughter to take care of now.

Her hand traveled down to her stomach and rested there, on the loose skin and stretch marks that were the result of carrying her first two children, and wondered what sort of child she would bring into the worlds this time. And to her distress, it was a question laced not with excitement, but with fear.

“It’s not indifference, my love. I cannot have the children see me pine for you as they do, or all three of us would find ourselves in a constant state of misery. That wouldn’t do at all.”

“What will they think of us a thousand years from now, if our stories are remembered?” he whispered. “Will I be counted the best among the gods, or the worst?”

They will know you only as my wife and the mother of monsters, because you choose to be nothing more.”

You called my children monsters . . . And I’ll make you swallow those words.

Am I still a prophetess if I lack the skill of foresight? Am I still a mother if my children are gone? He has taken everything from me. He and Loki both.

Would that he had never given me back my heart in the first place. He deserves to suffer as I saw him suffer in my visions. He deserves every bit of it after what he’s done to me.

There is a reason that I will not be by your side during your torment. And that reason is you.

Guilt is a heavy thing, Mother Witch, she said. It’s best left behind if you want to move forward.

Ragnarok. The doom of the gods, the word meant.

“You, the wise old witch in the woods, doing no harm so that no harm will come to you.

“You have no daughter, witch, and I have no father. Begone. And take that worthless piece of wood with you.”

I will make this up to you. I swear it. And I’ll do it by making sure you survive Ragnarok. • • •

“I will do no such thing. And how can I help you, anyway? You destroyed your own family—betrayed your own children. And now you’ve slain a son of Odin. You’ve slain your blood brother’s kin—your own kin. I cannot help you. I cannot do a thing.”

“Why did you do it, then?” Angrboda whispered. “Why did you kill your brother’s son?” “The gods took everything from us, Boda,” he whispered back. “I thought it was high time I took something from them.”

“And if you ever held any love for me,” she said coldly, “you would understand why I cannot and will not help you. And you would leave.” You are destined to face the consequences of your actions, Loki Laufeyjarson. And there is nothing anyone can do about it.

“Do you still wonder sometimes whether it might have been wrong for me to return your heart to you?” he asked her. Angrboda grabbed his wrist and pushed it away. “You don’t have permission to touch me. Not anymore.”

There is a difference between understanding and forgiveness. It’s possible to have one without the other.”

wanted to see him suffer because I saw you suffer so much because of him.”

“I told him, ‘This is for Angrboda, and for your children,’ ” Skadi continued. “Then he spoke, for the first time since he was caught. He whispered to me, so no one else could hear, that it can’t be for you because you would never add to his suffering this way. And I told him, ‘That’s why I must.’ ”

“Loki may have loved you, if he could, but all he ever brought you was pain. You know it. We both know it. I wished to be more for you, Angrboda. So much more. I loved you then. I love you now. I will love you until I die. And even after, whatever comes then, I will love

you still, even though you’re a fool and you’ve used me the same way that Loki has used you. But I suppose that makes me a fool as well.”

“We’re both fools.” Angrboda’s heart swelled in her chest. “Things could have been so different . . .”

“The ending doesn’t matter. What matters is how we get there. To face what’s ahead with as much dignity as we can muster and make the most of the time we have left.”

“The people die,” Loki had observed one night long ago. “The stories continue, in poetry and song. Stories of their deeds. Of their gods.”

“Do you still wonder sometimes,” she whispered, “whether it might have been wrong for you to return my heart to me?” Comprehension dawned, and he rasped, “Never.”

“I harbored a lot of hatred toward him for a long time after what he did. But in the end, I realized that we’re all victims of fate.”

Why would you even want to save me, after the way I treated you?” Angrboda smoothed back her hair. “Because I’m your mother.”

“I must do this on my own,” Angrboda whispered back. “Don’t wait for me.” “But I always have.”