The Collector's Curse

【30】Put a Spell on You

While Ulrik took a second to figure out where to start his story, I settled on the armchair more comfortably, crossing my legs and leaning back. He finished the little that was left in his glass and poured himself another one.

"As you well know, life in Norway was hard—there's a reason why we were so adamant about emigrating to the British Isles. My mother was a nobody, the daughter of a shepherd. She had nothing to offer but her beauty. Luckily for her, she had enough of it to attract the eye of a mysterious traveler, who came across her as she was guarding her father's sheep. He was thirsty, so she gave him the little she had left. And he was hungry, so she gave him the slice of bread that was meant to sustain her that day.

"It didn't matter if he was a king among gods; she touched his heart in a way no one had in ages. Her selfless generosity was all it took for the man to become smitten with her. He had traveled through the world of men many times, and none of the mortals had treated him with such kindness. But this young woman, who had nothing but the dress on her back, had given him everything.

"When he returned the following day, he had a loaf of fresh bread, dry meat, a piece of cheese, and a flask of mead. They shared, although he let her have most of it, and it was all it took for her to return his infatuation. Before the month ended, they were married. It didn't matter back then that she'd only seen sixteen summers while he looked like he'd known well over forty of them. This would mean one less mouth to feed for her parents, so they happily gave her away.

"He built her a house on a hill with his own two hands. Odin kept his true nature a secret, probably because this was an amusing distraction to him. I think that pretending to be a mortal like her brought him a sense of mortality. It made things fleetingly temporary, and it gave him a thrill he'd never known. I can sympathize with the sentiment."

He paused, and I remained silent, clinging to his words with all my attention. After a long sip of his wine and a deep breath, he continued.

"Then I was born, barely a year into their marriage, and blissful years followed. From my understanding, they were happy. Truly happy. My father brought back game to feed us, Mother had a garden that produced a generous amount of vegetables, and the three goats my grandfather gifted as a dowry wedding gave us the milk we might need. When I was around seven, though, my father's deceptions caught up with him.

"Frigg had grown tired of her husband's absence. She sent her Valkyries to look for him in the eight worlds. And one of them found him—found us. So, Frigg came to Midgard to reclaim her husband. But she didn't know he'd built a family there. She had no idea that for the past eight years, he'd been playing house with a mortal woman. She became feral when she learned. My father already had bastards like me, so I wasn't the source of her offense. No, she couldn't tolerate that he'd married another woman. It was an insult to Frigg's image, to her role as the Goddess of Marriage.

"In a moment of pure rage, she killed my mother. It unfolded right before my eyes, and Odin did nothing. Losing his mortal wife wasn't worth angering the goddess. Then he followed her back to Asgard, abandoning me to an empty house and my mother's cadaver. I buried her in a shallow grave marked by the biggest stone I could lift at that age. Then I waited. I waited for my father to return. But he never did. Weeks passed. Months. The food ran out, and I had to kill one of the goats to survive just a little longer. I considered leaving and heading to my grandfather's farm, but I didn't know the three-day journey well enough.

"Eventually, I accepted the fact that I would die like this, an orphan abandoned by his own father. But Frigg eventually came back. She returned one afternoon, accompanied by a witch that served her."

"A witch?" I echoed, interrupting him for the first time. "A witch-witch?"

"Yes, those exist as well. Not the flying-on-a-broom kind, but there are some women, versed in the art of the occult, who can cast spells and curses."