Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman Read Free Book Online Page A

before them. He was naked, something he seemed scarcely to notice. He walked over tothe tall chair, picked up a large grey cloak, and an ancient floppy-brimmed hat—which Odd could have sworn had not been there the last time he looked—and he put them on.
    “I was far away,” he told Freya absently. “And getting farther away with every moment that passed. Good job.”
    But Freya had already put her attention on the bear, and was kneading at it with both hands, pushing and shaping, like a mother bear licking her cubs into shape. Beneath her fair hands the bear changed. He was red-bearded and covered in hair, and his upper arms looked as knotted and as powerful as ancient trees. He was the biggest man, who was not a giant, that Odd had ever seen. He looked friendly, and he winked at Odd, which made the boy feel strangely proud.
    Odin tossed Thor a tunic, and he walked intothe shadows to get dressed. Then he paused, and turned back.
    “I need my hammer,” Thor said. “I need Mjollnir.”
    “I know where it is,” said Odd. “It was hidden as a boulder. I can show you, if you like.”
    “When we’ve finished the important business at hand, perhaps?” said the fox. “Me next.”
    Freya looked at the animal, amused. “You know,” she said, “many people will find you much easier to cope with in that shape. Are you sure you don’t want me to leave you?”
    The fox growled, then the growl became a choked cough, and the fox said, “Fair Freya, you joke with me. But do not the bards sing:
    “‘A woman both fair and just and compassionate
    “‘Only she can be compared to glorious Freya’?”
    “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 boneback 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