A.N. I wrote this within a few hours this evening, it is a first draft and unedited. Please point out any errors. It is likely to be edited later on.
Lizzy opened her eyes.
She was back in the dark cave. Before her stood two surprised gods.
"You came back," said Freyr, "how?"
Lizzy looked around. Apart from the gods, she was alone.
"I- I thought I saw someone," she said, standing up from her crouched position. "I thought I saw a Shade."
"In your Mind?" asked Freyja.
Lizzy nodded, "I was in a dimly lit field. She was in the distance."
"How do you know it was a she?" asked the goddess in a surprisingly gentle voice.
"Because I think she was my mother's sister."
The gods shot each other a quick, stunned look.
Lizzy frowned, "do you know something about this? What was the deal with my mom and her sister?"
"Please child," Freyr raised his hand, "stop thinking you're so important. We know nothing of your family."
"It just seems a little disconcerting," continued Freyja, "both your dream and…"
But whatever the goddess was about to say was interrupted when the cave began to shudder. The soft blue earth beneath them began to shift strangely, moving up and down in little waves. It was disturbing to look at, the same unnaturalness of the Shades.
Dark shadows shot out from under the ground and stretched up the walls and across the ceiling. The blue-light pixies fled the cave crying out tiny shrieks.
"How has she gotten this powerful already?" screamed Freyr to his sister.
Lizzy fell backwards, landing on her butt, and she prepared herself to finally come face to face with an evil, angry goddess.
The ground began to crack apart, shadowy tentacles twisting and wriggling their way out of the cracks. A head of pure white hair appeared first, then a cruel, thin face.
Lizzy would remember this much about Nerthus; she was beautiful. In an otherworldly, alien manner. She even looked somewhat like her more human-looking children. Her skin was porcelain, her hair an icy white and done up in a complicated style that was composed of many braids and beads. She looked like a warrior. Her lips were green and her eyes were a deep dark blue that, somehow, reminded Lizzy of Fred's.
The goddess was thin and tall, taller than her children standing at approximately twelve feet. She gave the appearance of thinness, but it was hard to tell as she wore a long billowing sea-green robe that was covered in images of the Teutonic age; of wagons and people picking crops, of crows and dogs and people with antlers sprouting from their heads.
"You two," she hissed, pointing a bony white finger at the two frightened gods, "have been very disobedient children!"
Freyja let out a high shriek, running towards her mother. However, the Aesir were never warrior gods. They were gods of fertility; the gods of farmers and families. Nerthus was a witch.
She put up her hand, flinging Freyja back with ease. The blonde goddess hit the blue wall of their cave hard before slumping to the ground. She glowered at her mother through her fringe, her teeth bared and her face contorted with anger and resentment.
Freyr looked from his sister to his mother, "what will you do to us?"
Her eyes turned to his. They looked wrong, moved oddly, like octopi in dark water.
"I will have justice, you shall be locked away as I was."
"But we were locked away," sneered Freyja, sounding petulant and young. It reminded Lizzy of when she used to fight with her own mother, even as an adult. Parents had a way of always making you feel like you were still twelve years old.
"Not in the same way I was."
"Because we chose to work with the Seer," Freyja got painfully to her feet, "you fought him!"
"Mother," Freyr took a tentative step forwards, "we can work through this. Earth is yours, all of it, not one little part. You are the supreme ruler of the planet. We won't take that away from you. You have won."
Nerthus grinned spitefully, "you say that as if we were in battle. Oh no. I never fought you two little idiots. It was always about them."
She pointed, this time at Lizzy who was crouched in a dark corner. She felt herself growing pale as all three powerful beings looked at her.
"Humanity?" asked Freyr, a frown of confusion on his face, "what have they ever done to you?"
Nerthus hissed again, drawing herself up to an impossible height, "pathetic little worms. I gave them everything, and yet they abandoned me, for you," she glowered at her children, "for the warring lug-heads that followed after you and then after that sanctimonious death cult from the distant shores."
"Every betrayal I ever met was at the hands of humanity," she took two steps to reach Lizzy, grabbing her around her by the neck with one large hand and lifting her up. Lizzy began to panic, the icy fingers tight about her neck, she felt her legs kicking helplessly.
Nerthus bared down over her, bringing their faces close together. "Elizabeth Cronin," she sneered, her pale, piercing eyes focused onto Lizzy's own dark ones, "I know you Elizabeth."
The life choking out of her, Lizzy could feel the blood pumping through her ears, her own gagging, the fading of her eyesight.
"I've known all your kind," said Nerthus' voice, echoing in her mind as she blacked out completely.
"I've followed your miserable, wretched family through the centuries."
Lizzy saw then a young girl, perhaps only fourteen or fifteen. Her hair was as black as night, but that was the only difference between her and her brother. She was thin and pale and showed signs of being very tall for her age. Most striking were her eyes, a pretty shade of blue that was so bright they almost looked magical, the exact same as Fred's.
She stood in a dark field, the grass long and wild. Her furs kept her protected from the vicious northern winds as she stared out into the grey skies of northern Europe. A sort of grim reality was her expression, life was hard and short for these people. It was full of strange events that could not be explained. She looked something like a witch, with her too-grown face and her dark hair and bright eyes.
The girl, despite her age, already had the swollen belly of a mother. She would die young, not in this childbirth but in the second. She would only be in her twenties. She would die missing her big brother Fred.
"I cursed every bastard child born to your line," Nerthus continued, "I cursed the brother who was in the servitude of my children, who helped them betray me and steal my throne. I cursed every one of you."
Lizzy could see it all. Two thousand years as the family tree, starting with Aenor, began to stretch out, further and further. Children of varying colours and creeds, the initial blood of Aenor becoming thinner as the children began to mix and spread out. The family tree developed branch after branch, twigs and leaves. When one died another spread up somewhere else. The curse spread not only in the DNA, but in the links they made with people too. The curse of seeing what others couldn't see spread even to those they were emotionally connected to, like Lizzy to Natalie. Even worse, the curse of seeing didn't have to apply directly to you in order for it to affect your life.
A young girl, one who looked a lot like childhood Lizzy, stood next to a small stream. The girl wore blue dungarees with a charming chequered shirt of white and green.
"Hello Sarah," whispered a voice from an unknown place.
Sarah looked around, her blue eyes, similar to Aenor's, bright with curiosity.
Out from behind a tree, one with a swing on it, stepped a tall figure. He was whip thin with pale skin and wild white hair.
"Why are you sad?" asked the gentleman, his voice a familiar hiss.
"Polly said I'm a scaredy-cat," the girl complained, crossing her arms and her eyes watering, "all because I don't like swimming."
"Well now," whispered the tall gentleman, "we should fix that, shouldn't we?"
Lizzy felt her head shaking. No, no, no, this was too much. It was too horrible. So much suffering, spread to so many people. A terrible curse, all over nothing.
A terrible sound began to ring out as the gentleman began to place Sarah into the stream, like the beating of two wooden pipes together.
Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack!
She would have covered her ears, but she couldn't feel her body. She may as well have been a spirit, free floating through time.
The world turned, she saw now that she was in a cold place. The land was wild, the air cold with up-coming winter. It was night. People in rough clothes made mostly of furs stood with torches. Their skins had strange markings on them, blue and tattooed.
Lizzy felt herself being pushed forwards against her will.
'No,' she thought desperately, 'I don't want to see this!'
There, in the centre of the crowd, stood a small boy. His hair was red and wild. He was naked, his skin looked cold and dirty. He was so thin he looked starving. He was sobbing in fear.
Behind him were a trio of women. Their faces were covered in bird masks. Black feathers were in their hair. They were holding the sticks and beating them together rhythmically.
One woman, her hair more adorned than the others, put her hands on the boy's thin shoulders.
"I'll be good!" the boy cried out, his language not English but she understood it anyway, "I swear! I swear I'll be good from now on!"
Lizzy felt sick. No, no! Please!
In the USA, a little girl had her Imaginary friend place his hands on her small shoulders. The water reached her stomach. It was slow moving, but deep enough.
"I'm sorry!" the boy cried, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do it, it was an accident!"
An effigy of a goddess was burned, because of the actions of two little boys playing around. One of those little boys was at home, in the hearth of his dirty house, crying in horror over what had happened to his friend. The other little boy, the one who would one day become her friend, had a rope placed around his neck.
Lizzy continued to try and struggle, to try and feel her body. How many had been tortured and killed over this? How many kids had suffered at Nerthus' hands?
"Great Goddess! In supplication we present to you our blood sacrifice! Please forgive the error that was made against you this afternoon!"
The sacrifice had not been accepted. The village had partially starved to death over a particularly cruel winter and the survivors were killed by Romans. Aenor had been married off to a Roman twice her age. She died lonely in Britain, where she was resented by the locals and believed to be a witch.
The Gentleman pushed the little girl under the water.
'You crazy bitch,' thought Lizzy desperately, 'you power-mad crazy bitch!'
"Please, please!" was the last thing baby Fred said before he was pushed into the murky mud and water of a Teutonic bog.
Thrashing, the children began to panic. Both were drowning. It hurt. Their lungs burned.
Fred was taken whole. Sarah's body remained, but her soul was stolen, which was possibly worse.
Lizzy let out a gasp and fell backwards, falling through darkness until she suddenly was back in the cave. She coughed sorely on the floor, her throat abused.
Slowly her sight came back to her. She looked up.
Everyone was back, staring between her and the monstrous goddess in horror.
"You evil bitch!" spat Lizzy, glowering at the goddess, "how could you? All over a stupid wood carving? How could you be so arrogant?"
Nerthus, far from being upset, let out a cackle of laughter. "I have every right to be whatever I want," she sneered, raising her arms high, energy crackling through them. "I am, after all, a goddess!"
Lightening and light burst from her hands, ripping open the cave roof. Everyone screamed, protecting each other from the falling rocks and debris.
Lizzy covered her own head, being too far from them to be protected and expecting to be hit, when she realised she was fine.
Looking up, she saw Fred was in front of her. A green, warm light was around them both. It reminded her of spring.
He turned to her, his eyes the same brilliant blue as that lonely teenage girl, and smiled softly.
She had a low, uncomfortable feeling then. She felt tears in her eyes. It was like a premonition that something absolutely terrible was about to happen.