Fic: Red-Headed Mischief (Worlds of Chaos, xover with Anne of Green Gables)

[bookishwench]

Loki didn’t know how the child had accidentally managed to cast the spell to summon her attention, but Loki turned her gaze towards the girl. The little one was weeping silently in front of the glass door of a bookcase. It was an imperfect mirror, but she could still peer through it. At first she took the puddles of red on the floor for blood, but on closer inspection, it was strawberry jam. Someone had thrown jars of the stuff on the wood plank flooring, ending in shattering the other door of the cabinet. She had been about to leave, finding the scene of little interest, when the girl had lifted her head and startled when she looked into the remaining panes of the bookcase.

“Who are you?” the child asked in a tremulous voice.

She could see Loki. Perhaps not clearly, but even a dim shadow was far more than an average mortal mind should have been able to perceive. Loki frowned. That was a bad sign. Midgardians normally saw her only when they were tipping on the edge of madness, and while she had used that for a bit of fun more than once over the centuries, it became much less amusing when the mortal was a mere child.

The girl looked right into the reflection, and Loki regarded her carefully. She was still quite young, perhaps eight or nine in mortal years, and skinny into the bargain, as though she had never had her fill at any meal. Innocent green eyes, enormous in the child’s face, pleaded with her.

“Would you be my friend?” the girl asked, her voice cracking with tears. “I have no one else, and I should so love to have a friend.”

Perhaps it was the odd feeling of sympathy with those words, but Loki found herself oddly moved. She noted that beneath her bonnet, her plaits were the color of fire, which was, after all, his own special provenance. The desperation on her face, the sense of abject loneliness, pierced her uncomfortably, and she made a choice that was rash but laced with her own odd sense of capricious pity. A soft glimmer traveled over her form, and when it settled, the image in the glass was clearer, but now it looked like it might simply be the girl’s own reflection, though if one examined it closely, it was a healthier, stronger, slightly more lovely version of her. Loki smiled gently at the girl.

“Yes,” she mouthed silently.

Loki agreed to be the child’s friend, with all that meant.

The girl smiled back at her excitedly, tear tracks still shining on her face.

“My name is Anne Shirley” she said, dropping a charming, overly elaborate curtsey. “Anne with an e. It’s very important that it has an e, you see. I don’t have much, but I have my name, even if it’s not very romantic.”

Loki nodded at her, showing she understood. She considered speaking to the child, but that might be a step too far just now. Talking to her own reflection was bad enough, but she remembered times and places when someone having conversations with something not quite mortal was all the prompting a mob needed to grab torches and pitchforks. She didn’t want to risk that, not yet, at any rate.

“Can you tell me your name?” Anne asked, and her eyes were so imploring that Loki nearly broke her internal promise not to speak within a few seconds. Instead, she shook her head.

“Oh,” she said, disappointed, but then she grinned suddenly. “Maybe you’re a fairy who doesn’t want to give away her real name, like in the stories.”

Well, the child knew some of the rules. She was impressed. Loki let her grin widen a bit so that this Anne could interpret it how she might.

Anne clapped her hands and laughed, a delightful sound, then asked, “May I give you a name, then? It will be more like being friends if I have something to call you by. It seems dreadfully impolite otherwise.”

Loki nodded indulgently.

“I will call you,” she said, then paused, thinking. “Katie? No, that’s not enough. It needs something more to it. Katie Maurice? Does that sound fine enough?”

Loki chuckled silently and nodded. Katie. Loki. She really wasn’t too far off.

“I hope you will excuse me, but Mrs. Thomas wants me to clean up the jam her husband broke. He’s rather intoxicated, you see, but he’s asleep now, and Mrs. Thomas has gone into town with the children and has said that if this mess isn’t tidy when she gets home, I’m to have no supper.”

Loki scowled. There was no reason the girl should have to clean a mess that wasn’t her own. In addition, she noted that Anne was not living with her parents. She wondered why, but she didn’t have long to remain curious. As Anne used a rag to get rid of the jam and glass, she prattled on about her life. What Loki heard slowly made her blood begin to boil, and it was for the best that Anne was so consumed with wiping away every last bit of jam that she didn’t look up at her new friend for a while. Had she glanced at Loki’s eyes glittering with unsuppressed rage, Anne probably would have screamed and burned the house down.

Instead, the child finished her task, never once nicking her skin on the bits of glass. Loki was honestly uncertain if that was her doing or the girl’s. She was a smart little thing, filled with imagination, and to Loki’s delight, she loved books, including poetry. She considered the state of the smashed bookcase, devoid of a single volume and packed with jam jars instead. It wasn’t a good sign that Anne’s bookish inclinations were tolerated well. Once again, she felt a pang of empathy.

“Thank you so much for being my friend,” Anne said, finally glancing up at Loki again. “I hope I can visit with you again, Katie Maurice.”

Loki nodded encouragingly.

“I must make dinner now. You have no idea how much food it takes to feed such a number of children as the Thomases have,” she said.

Loki noted that the child had not only been threatened with having her food withheld, but that she had been the one expected to cook it for the rest of them into the bargain. She watched as Anne curtsied to her again, then disappeared from the room.

Loki drew back from her mirror. She considered returning to her male form, but it didn’t seem to fit her mood just now, even if this body was more likely to draw stares and snide remarks if she passed her brother and his comrades in the corridor. Shuddering slightly, she shook her shoulders like an agitated bull, then got up and strode directly from her chambers to those of her mother. She knocked more loudly than usual, and she could tell by the way Frigga called her to come in that the queen already knew her daughter was in a bad temper.

“Mother,” she said abruptly, walking into the familiar sitting room, “I need to ask you about a particular piece of magic.”

“And what is that, my darling?” she asked.

“Abduction,” he said.

“What?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Whom are you planning to spirit away?”

“A child,” he said. “A Midgardian girl in deplorable circumstances. I have just spent the last two hours listening to her speak candidly about her life, and I believe she would do far better here than in the uncouth pigsty where she currently resides.”

Frigga gave her a questioning look, and she responded by telling her all that had transpired: the child was an orphan, living with a drunkard in the habit of smashing things, underfed, kept away from most schooling though she was remarkably bright for a mortal, and destined to be shuttled from one house to another until at last she was spat out upon the world on her own.

“You seem very worried about her,” Frigga said.

“Mother,” she said, taking a breath, “she could see me on her own.”

Frigga blinked, drawing back slightly.

“She even named me. I am now known by one Anne—with an e, apparently that is very important—Shirley as Katie Maurice,” he said.

Frigga stifled a laugh, but Loki looked at her sharply.

“I am literally her only friend, Mother,” he said. “I take that pledge quite seriously as she has no one else.”

“I am sorry, dear heart,” she said. “I do not mean to make light of what you say, and if you have chosen to take her under your protection, then I am proud of you for your compassion. If it were possible, I myself would give you my blessing to have Heimdall send you through the Bifrost to find her and bring her here.”

“But it is forbidden,” Loki said, her shoulders sagging as she finished her mother’s thought.

“But it is forbidden,” Frigga admitted, taking her daughter’s hand in her own. “Odin has declared that no Aesir is to bring a mortal to Asgard.”

Loki paused then looked at her mother with an expression that made Frigga turn a little pale.

“What are you plotting?” she asked.

“Father said that no Aesir could bring a mortal here,” he said slowly. “What if the mortal brought herself?”

“A mortal, bridge the gap of time and space? A child, at that?” Frigga asked.

“Yes,” Loki said. “She managed to call out to me and see me through her own power without even trying. Her hair is fire red, her eyes green as emerald, very pale of flesh, and her kin are all gone. With this description, is it not possible her blood might have something other than mortal in it?”

Frigga tipped her head to one side, considering carefully before saying, “I could not say. Stranger things have proven true.”

“Then if I can teach her to travel between the worlds and she manages to walk them on her own, would that circumvent Father’s decree?” Loki asked, squeezing her mother’s hand.

“Dearest, if this child can accomplish such a feat, even if your father protests, I will insist she remain as one of my handmaids,” Frigga promised. “The king owes me at least that much of a favor, I would think. And if he does not agree, I shall endeavor to persuade him.”

“And I have never yet seen your persuasion fail,” Loki said, smiling, then kissed her mother’s hand and returned to her chambers, pulling books from shelves and searching for the necessary spells.

Unfortunately, the task loomed far larger than Loki had anticipated. There were spells and enchantments that would allow even a mortal to cross the paths between worlds, but they were perilous. A step to one side or the other, and the child would tumble into the abyss, and that would be the end of her. Loki could not even guide her steps or offer anything but the most rudimentary of protections as Odin’s decree meant she needed to do this alone or Odin might cast her into the darkness. Loki shuddered. She would have to be very careful and very certain that this was the best way to help the child.

Katie Maurice began to appear more often to Anne, peeking out of the bookcase door, the mirror above the mantle, the looking glass in her room, even the still water of the pond behind the Thomas house. Each time, Anne’s pinched and tired face lit up with joy, and Loki became more determined that the child would learn to spirit herself away. Loki made sure each time she visited that the green and gold fields of Asgard were visible behind her, dotted with flowers in all the colors of the Bifrost. Anne glimpsed the palace, the sea, the stars, and her eyes filled with tears of desperate yearning.

Loki was also not above wandering through the Thomas house, moving from windowpane to windowpane, studying the child’s environment without her being fully aware of her presence. She saw scoldings, beatings, a treasured, tattered book torn from the girl’s hands and flung into the fire, and never for any fault of Anne’s. The adults were a pair of petty tyrants who had taken her from the orphanage merely to have someone to harm, and their children were little better, following in their parents’ footsteps and treating the girl abominably. Christmas came, the odd Midgardian festival that blended symbols of the old times with the new, and along a row of stockings nailed to the mantle, a single, hopeful one that was threadbare despite how many times it was darned was left empty. She was told neither Father Christmas nor the child whose star glittered in the cold winter sky above had any use for an ugly, bad orphan like her.

Loki’s glare alone could have split the world in half.

Carefully, she began teaching Anne the necessary gestures to pass between the worlds. It was a game between them, a sort of watch and copy dare, and the girl was remarkably adroit with it. In a month, not only had she begun to understand what she was meant to be doing, but her technique had improved so much that she was very close to being able to work some small bit of magic. Finally, one day, Loki conjured a butterfly and, very slowly, very deliberately, made the series of gestures that would open the passage between their worlds. As Anne watched in awe, the butterfly landed on Loki’s side of the glass and then, suddenly, it was clinging to the glass in her own world. One of her little hands went to her mouth as the other reached out to stroke the insect’s glittering wings. Loki nodded, giving her a meaningful look, and Anne bit her lip, then copied the exact series of movements Loki had made. Loki found herself leaning forward, her mouth slightly open, hoping every bit as desperately as Anne that it would work.

She was uncertain if Anne could see it, but a faint glow issued from the girl’s fingertips, and to Loki’s satisfaction, it was pale green. The light left her and wrapped around the butterfly, bathing it in a soft radiance, exactly as should happen. Loki nodded encouragingly, and Anne made one final movement.

A scream shattered the silence, and Loki wasn’t even sure if it was her own or Anne’s.

The butterfly had been ripped to shreds and remained trapped in the glass, a smoking mass of colors and legs, smeared and unrecognizable and, most horribly, somehow, still alive. Anne fainted. Loki took the opportunity to make the butterfly vanish from mortal sight, but even so, it remained alive, pathetically twitching in agony, unable to die.

Loki backed away from her mirror and vomited, realizing this might have been Anne’s fate.

When she spoke to her mother, Loki couldn’t stop shaking.

“Hush,” Frigga said, wrapping her daughter in her arms gently. “All is still well. She is unharmed, and we know now that, whatever gifts she might possess, extraordinary as they might be, are not ones that can bring her safely here.”

“There must be something I can do,” Loki said, still tasting bile and tears.

“I am sure there is,” Frigga said. “She will simply have to stay in her world, but there is much you can do for her there.”

Loki sighed. It was not what she wanted, but she saw that there was no way to guarantee the child’s safety.

Anne did not see Katie Maurice again.

Oddly, not long after that, Mr. Thomas died. Why, no one could say, but the neighborhood gossip pointed towards too much drink. That might have been it. Regardless, Mrs. Thomas had begun to have a strange feeling of impending doom whenever Anne was around, like the way the air felt before a bad thunderstorm. She chose to pass her on to another family and took another orphan in her place, a boy this time, though his eyes were every bit as green as hers, and though he seemed a dull-witted, obedient sort, perhaps there was something in his manner that an observant person might have found unsettling.

The Thomas house burned down a few weeks later, and the orphan boy was never found.

Anne was moved on to the Hammonds, though they were no better than the Thomases. In fact, they seemed worse. When Anne was conveniently and conspicuously not present, Mr. Hammond, who Loki had suspected of developing evil intentions towards the young girl, suddenly dropped dead. Perhaps it was a bit much, two in a row, but Loki was growing tired of her pet being taken in by reprobates.

Anne now went to an orphanage. Loki was almost relieved, but the place was cheerless, and her spirit was crumbling. At length, after a long search, Loki found a spot that seemed right for her, where she would be safe at last. The woman who lived there wanted help with the farm, and she sent a letter to the orphanage asking for a boy.

Such a tiny, simple bit of magic to turn that word into “girl” instead.

She was sent off to Prince Edward Island, and perhaps, just perhaps, there were moments when Anne wasn’t quite so alone as she seemed. Perhaps someone sat and listened to stories, or laughed phantom-wise at the ridiculous scrapes that girl inevitably got herself into. Perhaps when she and her bosom friend Diana played together on the shores of Barry’s Pond, or rather the Lake of Shining Waters, green eyes watched them with a smile. Perhaps someone was there when a slate was cracked in half over the impertinent Gilbert Blythe’s head, necessitating a quick return to Asgard before her guffaws gave her away. Perhaps when a boat bearing the Lily Maid began to sink, there was just the slightest push to allow her to grasp onto the bridge rather than sink. Perhaps when she tumbled off a roof’s ridgepole, someone cushioned what should have been a lethal fall.

And perhaps, just perhaps, Katie Maurice herself stepped out of a bride’s looking glass on the day of Anne’s vows and stood amongst the wedding guests, silently blessing the couple in the old way, smiling fondly. Though Anne may not have found her wildflower fairy kingdom, her world had its own charms. She had lived beneath gables colored by Loki’s protection, and at least this once, things had ended as happily as they could for a mortal.

Although, Loki thought as she ate a slice of wedding cake, Frigga had missed having the most entertaining lady in waiting.

Author notes:

I mean, really? Have you seen this quote? This screamed for a Loki crossover.

“When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a bookcase in her sitting room with glass doors. There weren't any books in it; Mrs. Thomas kept her best china and her preserves there--when she had any preserves to keep. One of the doors was broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it one night when he was slightly intoxicated. But the other was whole and I used to pretend that my reflection in it was another little girl who lived in it. I called her Katie Maurice, and we were very intimate. I used to talk to her by the hour, especially on Sunday, and tell her everything. Katie was the comfort and consolation of my life. We used to pretend that the bookcase was enchanted and that if I only knew the spell I could open the door and step right into the room where Katie Maurice lived, instead of into Mrs. Thomas' shelves of preserves and china. And then Katie Maurice would have taken me by the hand and led me out into a wonderful place, all flowers and sunshine and fairies, and we would have lived there happy for ever after.” – Anne of Green Gables Chapter 8