“For Loki’s mouth. Those mean ol’ dwarves sewed it shut. This way he can cut it open and make it feel better.”
Her mother’s lips tightened in a smile, and she squeezed her daughter’s shoulders. “That is very kind of you, dear. I’m sure he will appreciate it.”
The next morning, while it was still dark, before her mother and brothers were awake, Sig scurried out of the house. She crawled through the scrub and underbrush until she reached the small clearing, and there lit the candle stub she had brought along. Holding the candle out and peering in the gray dawn light, she could see the small pile of stones. The oatcake was gone, the clay jar tipped over, and flecks of dark liquid were spattered on the blade of the knife. She smiled, covering her mouth to suppress a giggle. “I knew it!”
As she raced home, she decided not to tell her mother about the disturbance at the altar. She shared everything with her family: a bed with her brothers, chores with her mother, and in the winter months, overwhelming days of feasting and games with her cousins and their families. This shrine was going to be her secret and hers alone.
As the years passed, Sig continued to visit the altar at least once a week. She brought oatcakes, flowers, honey, scraps of silk cloth that her father had brought from faraway lands. The next day, they were always gone.
One day, a few years later, she came crawling through the brush, sniffling and wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. It was a fruitless effort, as every time she put her arm down, another branch would smack her in the face, leaving a sting across her eyes and causing her to wipe at them again.
Finally, she emerged through the trees and onto the bluff. The altar had grown over the years, as she brought interesting stones she found around the farm and added them to the tower. Today, she reached into her leather pouch and pulled out a new rock (this one she thought was shaped in the angled motif of a spear head) and added it to the top of the stack, wedging it between the softness of the river pebbles. Across these she draped a black squirrel pelt.
“I’m sorry I’m such a mess today, Loki,” she whispered, kneeling in the moist grass. Her fingers went back to her face, probing the tender purple swelling beneath her eye socket. “I got in a fight. Some of the boys in town said that you weren’t a real god, on account of your giant-ness. So I hit them. Only, they hit me a little bit harder.” Then she allowed the tears to fall in earnest, covering the slick pelt in thick, wet droplets
The next day found Sig running through the woods once more, crashing noisly through the branches and arriving at the altar huffing and out of breath. “Loki, you’ll never guess. Today, today,” she straightened up and took a long, deep breath before continuing. “Today, the boys in the market were
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