Like Mother, Like Son

by Jenn Reese

“Men are pigs,” my mother said as she scraped the bones off her plate and back into the soup kettle. “No, they’re worse than pigs. They’re…men.” She stirred the soup with the dull dagger I had given her as a present on her last birthday. “They tell you you’re beautiful. They say they love you. Then you get pregnant, and BAM! They’re off to find some braided young bimbo who’ll listen to their lies.”

It was a familiar lecture. I could recite the whole thing when I tried, which wasn’t often. I picked the fish carcass off my plate and crunched down on its brittle skull. Mmm, tasty.

“Are you listening to me, Grendel? Because I don’t think you are.” She tapped the stirring dagger on the side of the kettle and laid it gently on the dirt by the fire pit.

I cringed. Mom was really upset. The scales on her cheeks had flushed dark green, and her eyes glowed ever-so-slightly of hell-fire.

Plus, she never said my name unless she was really serious.

“Yeah, I’m listening, Mom.”

“Oh, is that so? Then why did I find a sword in your cave this morning when I was dusting?”

Busted!

“Uh,…I,…There was this really big spider, see…”

“Don’t you dare lie to me,” Mom said, her eyes fully ablaze now. She took a step closer and wagged a claw at me. “I see there’s more of your father in you than I thought. How long before you run off to fight your little wars with your buddies instead of helping out around the lair?”

Sooner than you think, Mom. But I’m not as stupid as I look, so I said, “I’d never do that, Mom. I love you.”

I had to wait till full dark before swimming up to the surface. Growing up in a cave complex under a lake will play havoc with your eyes. Besides, Mom’s ears were too sharp until the second flask of mead had her snoring on her mat by the fire. I hated lying to her, sneaking out every night. But there are some things a man just has to do, and I was a man.

Or at least half of one.

I sat by the edge of the lake and played with the krakens for a while. Fang and Freckles, I named them. Freckles, in particular, loved to be scratched on the snout. Then I ripped out small tree and played fetch with Fang, though he insisted on doing three somersaults in the water before he took the tree in his toothy maw and brought it back to me.

Finally, it was time to go see Dad.

Mom didn’t want me to go. She’d told me endless stories about his selfishness, about how he loved his sword and his fame more than he loved her.

But why would she have had loved him in the first place, if he wasn’t pretty cool? I mean, every kid dreamed of being a prince, and I actually was one! My dad was a king. That made me a prince, almost by definition.

Maybe Mom was the one with the problem. Maybe she was just trying to cloud my judgment so I wouldn’t want to go live with my dad and leave her alone in the lake. She was the selfish one, and it just wasn’t fair.

I trudged through the swamp, ducking under strangling branches and jumping over drowning pits. Some wolves ran along with me for a while, but I wasn’t inclined to play. I needed friends who could actually talk. Friends — men — who I could practice fighting with, who could introduce me to girls. I’d spent way too many nights fishing with my mother and watching the lichen grow on my ceiling.

King Hrothgar — Dad — had been busy building a huge wooden hall, big enough for me and even Mom to come and live in, if things worked out. At night, if I got there early enough, I could sit in the woods nearby and listen to them, my dad and his men, drinking and laughing.

When I got there tonight, a minstrel was singing. I settled into my regular spot, a nice-sized crevasse in the gnarled roots of an old tree, and closed my eyes to listen. The man had a beautiful voice, so clear and strong. I could sing, too, but not as well. My mom said I sounded like a kraken in heat. But maybe I just sang too much like a man for her. Maybe my father would be proud, and let me sing in the hall for him and his men.

The minstrel sang about God and the world and how everything He had created was special in its own way: the sun and the moon, the beauty of each leaf of each branch of each tree, the multitude of creatures great and small that walked, flew, swam, and slithered over the earth. I listened, and it was as if the minstrel was singing the song just for me. Different meant special, he told me with his music. Special meant good.

Tonight.

Tonight, I would finally have the courage to enter that great hall called Heorot and take my rightful place at my father’s side. Tonight was the night I’d been waiting for my entire life.

Of course, I couldn’t just burst in there in the middle of the merriment and expect my father to welcome me with open arms. I hadn’t been invited, for one thing, and I didn’t want everybody to fuss over me, for another. I mean, did my father even know that I existed? What if Mom never told him about me?

No. Better to wait until most of the people were asleep. Then I could just sneak in, wake up my father, and have a decent chat with him. That way, if he started to cry with joy at my return, none of his subjects would have to know. Until I let it slip later on, that is. What long-lost prince doesn’t deserve a few good tears?

Slowly, the lights were extinguished inside of Heorot. I ate a few rabbits while I waited, though I wasn’t really hungry. Nervous habit, I guess. I finished off the warren then made myself stop. No one wants a pudgy prince, even of the “long-lost” variety.

It was time.

I brushed the bunny bits off my chest and stood. Mom would understand. She said she hated Hrothgar, my father, but I’m sure that was an exaggeration. Heck, once Dad saw me, maybe he’d even divorce his new wife and go back to Mom. But I was getting ahead of myself. First, the joyful reunion.

I tip-toed on my claws to the head of the hall and walked up the four sturdy wooden steps to the hall’s great golden double-doors. My hand shook as I threaded one claw through the iron door handle and pulled it open.

For a moment, I think my heart actually stopped.

The hall seemed even bigger on the inside, and it was filled with the warmth of a smoldering fire and a host of sleeping bodies. Like lifting up a boulder and seeing a million tiny grubs squirming in the once-hidden soil. Only these grubs — these men — weren’t moving. They lay in bundled heaps around the floor, their snores echoing in the wooden beams of the high ceilings. I smelled beer and mead and cooked meat, saw dim firelight dance along the gleaming metal of the swords and armor and shields hanging on the walls and strewn in almost every corner and crevasse of the place.

Women, too, lay among the men. I could smell the soap of their hair and see the soft fabrics of their gowns twisted amongst the dark-dyed wool cloaks and blankets. So many people! How they must relish each other’s company and the bright spark of conversation that flies between them.

But which one was my father?

It was difficult to walk with so many bodies on the floor. I almost tripped twice, and barely caught myself by grabbing onto an iron sconce sticking out of the wall. The third time I tripped, however, it was the body beneath me that I grabbed onto.

The man’s eyes opened instantly. He lurched beneath my grip, opened his little mouth, and let loose with the loudest scream I’ve ever heard. I now know what the phrase “blood-curdling” means, first hand and personal. Before I could even let the man go, the humans were all moving, all screaming. Those glittery bits of metal came down off the walls in a blink of my eye.

It wasn’t the reception I’d been hoping for.

I stumbled backwards, accidentally ripping apart the man I had tripped on. His flesh just came off in my claws like he was made of flower petals. Of course, the ensuing gouts of blood only made things worse. Angry screams now filled the hallowed hall of Heorot. I felt sword after sword snap against my legs, my back, my arms. Someone even got in a good jab with a spear right at my groin.

“Wait!” I yelled, but I guess nobody could hear me. They were too busy with their own war-cries and panic. I tried again anyway. “I want to see Hrothgar! Hrothgar is my father!” Nope. Nothing. It was like trying to argue with my mother.

Retreat was my only option. I waded through the men, flailing my arms to protect myself. Bits of them came away with every swipe, but it really couldn’t be helped. They weren’t giving me a lot of choices. Like flies, they swarmed around me, buzzing with their little grub anger and their glinty grub weapons. My left claw got stuck in someone’s eye, and when I pulled it out, the man’s whole head ripped off his shoulders. I decided to take that bit with me. No sense in wasting the good meat.

I thought they would follow me back into the woods and to the lake where I was sure I could talk to them more reasonably, maybe introduce them to my mother and get her to tell them about Dad. But strangely, they didn’t seem to follow me past the clearing of Heorot.

I dove into the lake, ignoring Fang and Freckles, and swam down to our subterranean home. Mom was still asleep by the fire, her tangle of black hair piled under her head like a pillow of giant spiders. She’d never looked so lovely.

Back in my cave, I flopped onto my sleeping rags and tossed the man-head into the corner. Just didn’t have the appetite right now. How had things gone so far awry from my plans?

But then it hit me. Dad hadn’t been in the hall, after all! Surely, he would have recognized his own son and put a stop to all that mayhem. Surely, his wisdom would have led everyone down the path of reason and friendship!

Yes, that was definitely it. And tomorrow was another night.

My father didn’t raise a quitter.

Okay, technically he didn’t raise me at all, but the idea was still sound. Never give up. Men didn’t back down when the odds seemed to go against them. I’d heard tale after tale of heroism every night I spent listening outside father’s hall. Men valued courage and strength. If I did nothing else, I would prove to them that I possessed both.

Night after night, I went to Heorot.

Sometimes they were awake, but they never gave me a chance to explain myself. Always with the weapons, these men! I came for conversation and comradery, and left only with body parts. Father was testing me, I decided. Any son of his had to prove his worth to the whole kingdom. But how many men did I have to kill? I stopped counting after three dozen, mostly because I just couldn’t count any higher than that.

Then one night, a few months into this whole “testing” process, the hall was empty. I couldn’t believe it! Even the great oak doors hung open, too heavy to swing in the wind. I went inside for a look around. Splintered wood littered the floor like fish bones in our cave. The walls, once shiny with gold and swords, stood blood-splashed and silent in the darkness. Not even the hint of a fire still played in the hall’s many fire pits.

I fell to my knees, shattering a small bench that had somehow remained intact until then. Where were the minstrels, the warriors? Where were the bawdy lasses with their long braids and their swirly skirts? Where was my dad?

I cried then. Alone in the darkness of Heorot, I cried like my mother did in the early morning when she thought I was still asleep. I cried, and I didn’t care if it made me look weak or stupid, because that’s how I felt. Weak. Incredibly stupid.

Alone.

Mother was awake when I got home that night. I could tell by the ring of yellow around her eyes that she’d been crying, too. I crawled out of the water and went to her without a word. She didn’t need words. She hugged me to her scaly bosom and I let her do it. She put her lips against my ear and whispered, “I love you, Grendel.”

My whole body relaxed against hers, the aches in my neck and back driven away by the power of her soft voice. When she spoke again, I stilled my heart in order to hear her more clearly.

“And you’re grounded for twelve years,” she said.

A lot of lichen grew on my ceiling in twelve years. And I ate a lot of fish. But in that time, my mind had spent more hours with Dad than the rest of me spent with my mother in our lair. I went with him on imagined battles, his most treasured and feared warrior-prince. Together we sailed the whale-road, the great expanse of water that started at the shore and never, ever stopped.

Father and son, King and Prince.

Oh, and I learned how to masturbate, too.

On the last night of the twelfth year of my grounding, Mom cooked us a huge kraken for dinner. Fang and Freckles had produced a few too many offspring, so we were just doing our part to help out — for the good of the lake, and all that.

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” Mom said. She used her knife to scrape a huge chunk of kraken onto my plate, along with way too much seaweed. “Men are evil.”

“Well, I’ll admit that they weren’t exactly brimming with kindness,” I said, “but the idea that everything in the universe is either good or evil is a little simplistic, don’t you think?”

One has a lot of time for self-reflection over the course of twelve years.

“I don’t really care about the universe,” Mom said, “I just care about you. When I told your father I was pregnant, he left me. What makes you think he’d want you back now?”

My immense courage? My intense loyalty? My flawless green skin?

“I dunno, Mom. Maybe he’s sorry. Maybe he didn’t have any other kids, and he really wants one. Maybe he needs someone to give his kingdom to when he dies.”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap!” Mom smashed her fist down on her plate of food. Kraken bits spurted out in every direction. “Have you learned nothing in the last twelve years?” A little piece of intestine caught in her bangs jiggled as she talked. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

She slapped me then, hard enough to make my eyes wobble inside my skull.

“Go,” she said quietly. “Get out.”

I shook my head, not understanding.

“Leave!” she screamed. “You want to be with your father so badly, then go to him! Find out, once and for all, what men are really like!”

She stood up and turned towards the wall of the cave, her body shaking with silent sobs.

“Mom, please—”

“Go,” she said again. And this time, I obeyed.

Heorot brimmed with light and laughter as I approached. Men sang in loud, out-of-tune voices. Mugs of beer clattered against each other in raucous toasts to dragons and long sea voyages. Women giggled, in what I suspect was an alluring manner.

And everywhere I heard a new name mentioned, again and again. The name Beowulf.

Twelve years is bound to add a little smarts to a person, even me. I climbed a huge tree next to the hall and clambered onto the roof. I made a lot of noise, scraping the scales of my knees along the wood, but no one seemed to notice. I crawled along, please with my ingenuity, until I found a decently-sized hole with which to spy on the world of men.

For the first time, I saw my father.

King Hrothgar sat on a high-backed throne of polished wood and gold. His face was much like what I’d imagined: regal and surrounded in thick, well-groomed hair of silvery white. The simple crown around his brow sported glittery stones of every color.

His wife — the strumpet — sat next to him on a smaller, less flamboyant chair. She was pretty, I suppose, but lacked my mother’s strength and obvious charisma. Hrothgar would forget about this thin, gangly woman soon enough.

The scene was perfect. All it really lacked was the entrance of a long-lost son to give it some oomph.

And then another man entered my field of vision. Judging from the swagger in his step and the haughty rise of his nose, I pegged him as this Beowulf I’d been hearing about.

What followed was worse than my most terrifying of nightmares. Worse even than the time I had caught my mother cooking naked. It was the stuff of hell itself.

Beowulf, it turned out, was a big hero up north. He spent the next hour regaling all of Heorot with greatly exaggerated tales of his bravery and strength. Yeah, like he really swam for five days in his chain mail. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d all pointed and laughed, like I wanted to do. But no, the entire hall believed, revered him even more. Even Hrothgar, my wise and beloved father, smiled and spoke to Beowulf as a son.

As a son!

Dad even did that man-to-man embracing thing, where they almost hug and then slap each other on the back. Everyone cheered. Women swooned. Men envied. Even Hrothgar’s little strumpet flirted with Beowulf when she handed him a goblet.

That should have been me down there. That should have been me!

And all that posturing, all that bragging. “Oooh, I’ll kill the monster without wearing any armor! I’ll kill the monster without using my sword!” It was insufferable. I shimmied across the roof and back onto my tree.

I’d show this Beowulf the meaning of strength. I’d show him courage! Dad had showered his gifts upon the wrong person, that’s for sure. Well, Dad would be retracting those gifts come sunlight tomorrow, and he’d be taking them from Beowulf’s dead body.

Or whatever bits of his body I decided to leave behind.

Okay, so it didn’t quite go as I planned.

It was dark! There were a lot of blankets! I ripped up the wrong guy. Beowulf just lay there and watched me do it. Never said a word, never even called the alarm. Some hero. Just lay there and bided his time until I got to him.

I have to admit, the little grub was strong. I went for his throat, but those beady eyes snapped open and he grabbed my arm instead.

Locked together, we smashed our way around the hall. We broke all the newly rebuilt stools and tables, all the half-filled mugs and crumb-covered plates. I growled. Beowulf grunted. The crowd cheered us on and tried to keep out of the way.

On the plus side, I got away.

On the negative side, one of my arms didn’t.

I ran as fast as I could back to the lake, holding my shoulder as the blood gushed out between my clawed fingers. My head throbbed in time with my heart. So much pain! I jumped into the lake. The cold water stabbed at my wound till I thought I would pass out. With just one good arm, I couldn’t swim down to our lair. Could barely even keep myself under the surface.

Freckles to the rescue. She took my torso in her maw, sank her teeth gently into my flesh, and took me home to mother.

When Freckles broke the surface of our little lair lake, my mother rushed to my side. She dragged me to the fire, pulling with every muscle, and I could do nothing to help her. Her eyes glowed red, her mouth expelled great puffs of fishiness with each new strain of her muscles.

“Beowulf,” I mumbled. “Beowulf.”

His name was the only thing I could say. Other words flooded my mind, words like “I’m sorry,” and “You were right.” But the only ones that made it to my mouth were his name, over and over again.

“Shhh, Grendel,” Mom said. She smoothed the hair out of my eyes and kissed my forehead with dry, scaly lips. “No one does this to my baby,” she said. “No one does this and lives.”

Then the world fell into a darkness not even my cave-grown eyes could penetrate.

I awoke to Mom’s toothy smile as she waved my dismembered arm triumphantly over her head. “I got it, son!”

“Ung?” I said eloquently.

She knelt beside me and helped me sit up against the cave wall. Then she mashed my errant arm back into place on my shoulder. My vision blurred from the sudden renewal of pain.

“Hold it there for a few days. It’ll knit back into place, good as new.” She licked two of her fingers then used them to clean some bloody residue from my reunited limb. Mom-spit cleans just about anything, it turns out.

I stared up at Mom and grinned, hoping she understood how much I really did love her. And when the pain grew too great, I closed my eyes and slept again.

For the first time in years, I was happy.

The next time I awoke, it was to the sound of my mother’s last scream.

Beowulf stood over her, gripping my childhood sword in both his hands. She lay at his feet, blood flowing freely from a deep cut in her neck. Beowulf’s own blade lay discarded in the dust a few feet away. Useless. Only my sword had been strong enough to pierce my mother’s hide. To kill her.

It was all my fault.

“Fiend!” I yelled.

Beowulf turned and looked at me, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his helmet.

My wounded arm hung limply against my torso. I used the good one to brace myself against the wall as I stood. “Murderer,” I hissed. “Woman-killer.”

“Come get some,” said Beowulf.

We met in a mind-splitting clash of steel and claw, scale and flesh. Gone were his petty promises of no weapons or armor. Gone, too, were his pretty clothes and perfect features. What I faced now was a monster. A wild beast. A man. And what I was, was so much more.

I was my mother’s son.

Beowulf slashed me across the thigh. I backhanded him across the face. We circled. We snarled. We grappled and hissed and traded insults.

Finally, I got a good grip on one of Beowulf’s arms and twisted with all my might. The sword — my sword — fell from his shattered hand and thudded to the dirt-strewn floor. Beowulf the Big Hero wailed like a little girl.

“An arm for an arm,” I said.

For the first time in many, many years, I didn’t think about what my father thought of me. I didn’t care if he thought I was brave, or strong, or honest, or handsome. He didn’t love me, and he never would.

I wrapped my claws around Beowulf’s head and squeezed.

Mother had always known that. Why couldn’t I have listened when she was alive?

Beowulf’s head popped off of his neck. I brought it to my mouth and bit into his crunchy skull.

Well, Mom was right about something else, too: Men are pigs.

But they taste more like chicken.

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Like Mother, Like Son by Jenn Reese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.jennreese.com.