Fated

by Courtney Cole

  was happening as a million expressions flitted over his face. It had happened to me a hundred times before. Fear, worry, shock, sadness ... so many things took over his handsome features in a just a minute’s time as the bloodstone flooded him with visions.

  I overcame my horror and yanked the necklace out of his hands, turning him to face me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jade and Noah approaching us and felt panicky again. They couldn’t overhear whatever it was that Gavin was going to say about his visions.

  "Gavin, snap out of it," I firmly instructed, grasping his hands. "Come back to me. I’m right here."

  Gavin’s liquid brown eyes stared worriedly at me, his dark brow knitted together in puzzlement and confusion.

  "Harmonia?"

  I sucked in my breath as my heart felt like it stopped beating. Harmonia? I stared at him for a scant second, confusion muddling my thoughts before I snapped myself out of it. Now was not the time. No matter how much I wanted to find out who Harmonia was, I could practically feel Jade and Noah’s breath on my neck.

  "Gavin, you’ve had a shock. It’s okay- it’s me, Macy." I cupped his face in my hands, trying to get him to focus on mine.

  He stared back at me like I was an idiot.

  "I know who you are," he replied. "Did I hit my head or something?"

  He looked puzzled, but only by my behavior. He had apparently completely forgotten the visions ... and the fact that he had just called me Harmonia. Interesting. The bloodstone must have a different effect on him than it did on me. Or the Fates were messing with me somehow.

  Suspicion bubbled up within me before I tampered it down. There was no use second-guessing them at the moment.

  "Is everything okay over here?" Jade asked as they dropped onto the wet sand next to us.

  I nodded. "Everything’s great. We found my necklace, Noah didn’t drown himself ... this is a stellar day."

  As Noah and Gavin poked and teased each other, Jade turned to me, her eyes eagle sharp.

  "What was wrong with Gavin?"

  Drat her super perception skills. She’d always been that way- never missing anything.

  Sometimes it came in handy, but more often than not, it was a pain. Like right now.

  "Nothing. He got a little disoriented in the water. No big deal. The current is bad today and that makes it easy to get turned around."

  "Hmm," she drawled, studying my face. "Whatever you say."

  She turned to watch Noah and Gavin, who were wrestling around beside us, kicking up sand. "Well, they both certainly seem fine now," she observed. I nodded, but my thoughts had already drifted to her and the vision that I had seen of her strapped to a hospital bed. The boys were fine. But was she?

  Chapter Six

  Beneath the surface of the pool, the water was a blue tinted serenity that I craved every day. I tried to stay after swim practice at least twice a week so that I could collect myself in solitude, pulling my thoughts together into something that made cohesive sense. In here, I was alone in utter silence. It was a refreshing change of pace. Nothing could bother me. Not Tara, not the Moirae, not the mysterious Keres.

  I broke the surface, took a deep breath and dove back under. As I pulled with long strokes, I allowed my mind to wander. There was so much to think about. At the very top of the headache inducing questions was Harmonia. Who was she? And why was Gavin murmuring her name? I felt a brief stirring of jealousy but thought the better of it. That was ridiculous. The best part of being a soul mate was knowing that you were meant for each other.

  I kicked off the tiled wall and shot toward the other side of the pool, plunging my face once again into the cold water. And immediately startled, flailing for a moment before I regained my composure.

  Directly in front of me, about ten yards away in the deep end, Ahmose was floating in the depths of the pool like a giant black jellyfish, watching me with an intense expression on his creepy face. His black robes were floating all around him and his long gnarled limbs were stretched toward me in an ominous, fear-inducing presence. So much for being alone.

  Macy, we need to talk.

  I heard his thoughts immediately in my mind, as clearly as if he had spoken aloud.

  Quickly. Time is of the essence.

  I scowled at him as I swam to the side of the pool and pulled myself up and over the ledge, dripping on the tiles. I glanced around me. No one else was here. Thank god.

  Ahmose shot through the surface of the water, spraying me with chlorinated droplets, then lightly landed on his feet next to me. He was completely dry- as though he’d never been submerged at all.

  "Why must you persist in scaring me to death?" I asked him in agitation. "Would it really be so hard to just walk up to me like a normal human being?"

  He stared down his long nose at me and I could practically feel the tension in his ancient body. The air around us was pregnant with it which immediately put me on edge.

  "As much as I would like to engage in conversation with you, Macy, I don’t have the time.

  Things are spiraling out of control and there isn’t time to elaborate."

  Alarm filled me up and every bit of me became panicked. Ahmose never allowed himself to be flustered. Until now. I gulped. I started to shake and I knew it had less to do with being soaking wet and more to do with this unknown situation.

  "What do you mean?" I asked hesitantly.

  "Listen to me, Keeper, and listen well. I don’t have the time to repeat myself. Trust no one.

  Do you understand?" I stared at him in shock and he rasped again, impatient.

  "Do you understand?" he persisted, his voice harsh. I nodded.

  "Why are you telling me this? What is going on?"My voice was thin and I could hear the uncertainty in it. So could he and he shook his head.

  "I can’t explain. I wish that I could, but I have been rendered mute by the Moirae on this topic. I literally cannot speak of it. But there are things you still need to know." He trailed off and studied me with his intense glittering eyes.

  "Such as?" I pressed.

  "I cannot say. But I can show you what I have seen ... what you don’t remember."

  I sucked in my breath. "I don’t know that I want to do that. It makes everything too hard."

  He hissed, a scary rasping noise that snapped my teeth together.

  "Come here. I care not about what you want. I know what you need."

  I took one tentative step towards him and held my hand out. I could see my fingertips shake as I waited for him to grasp them. The second he curled his gnarled fingers around mine, I was immediately immersed in his memories.

  Just as though I was looking through his eyes, I stood in the middle of an ancient city. I glanced down at my feet and found his black robes swirled around his bare, crooked toes. I was standing on the edge of a circular arena with white marble columns all around me. I was in a coliseum of some sort. And I was not alone.

  In the middle of the ring, standing in the powdery dust, was a woman and a man. They stood calmly holding hands, clearly waiting for something. The woman had long, dark hair that flowed to the middle of her back and I grew instantly still. It was me. I knew it even before she turned her head and I saw her jade green eyes. She stared quietly at the man, who returned her stare with a dark, smoldering gaze. Gavin. I would know him anywhere. My heart stopped beating as I watched a third person approach them from the opposite side of the arena.

  The man was very large, very intimidating and had wild hair. Like Gavin and I, he was dressed as an ancient Greek. His toga was shimmering grayish silver and as he reached where Gavin and I stood, it glimmered in the light. As he spoke, his eyes flashed silver as well. I cringed. His voice was like thunder. It literally rattled my bones.

  "Cadmus, you killed Ares’ dragon. You served him loyally for years. You’ve been the King of Thebes. You have your lovely wife by your side." The man paused to stare at us for a moment before continuing.

  "Yet you are unhappy. You
wish to leave all that you know behind."

  Gavin visibly tightened his grip on me and nodded solemnly.

  "We do. Our children have met with such tragedy. We do not wish to remain. Please allow it to be so, great Zeus. It is all we ask, now that you have so kindly accommodated our other wish." I watched as I nodded quietly, in perfect agreement. Zeus? This couldn’t be real.

  Zeus, who looked exactly like every depiction that I’ve ever seen of him, seemed to consider the request for a moment before finally nodding.

  "Very well. Let it be so. You will not be bothered with troubles from our world again."

  He lifted a heavy staff and pounded it into the dirt. It landed so hard that the earth trembled and great clouds of dust exploded into the air. I frantically tried to see through the haze but it took a few seconds to clear. When it settled, Gavin and I were no longer standing in the arena. In our places, two long snakes lay stretched out on the ground. I gasped.

  "Now it is so," Zeus muttered and spun around, walking quickly away.

  The snakes started moving, slithering toward me. No, no, NO.

  I yanked my hand from Ahmose’s grasp and immediately the vision ended. I was safely back on the pool deck. I took a step toward the priest and opened my mouth speak, but closed it. What in the world should I say? I had no idea where to begin. I settled on the obvious.

  "What the hell was that?"I demanded. My voice shook though and I knew he heard it.

  "That is who you are," Ahmose stated simply. I stared at him and waited for the layers of confusion to fall away as usually happened when he showed me a vision. But it didn’t happen.

  Old memories didn’t reemerge.

  "Where are my memories? Why haven’t they returned?"

  "Because they have been blocked very thoroughly. And I am not allowed to give them to you. I must go and it is likely you will not see me again, Keeper. Find Annen. Listen to what he says to you."

  "You told me to ignore him!" I gasped. "You said that he was lying."

  "I know what I said. And it was necessary at the time. But I’m telling you now. Find him."

  "Someone cut his tongue out ..." I trailed off and Ahmose nodded.

  "Yes. There is much at stake here and truthfully, we are all in danger. I don’t know if we will survive it."

  "You’re scaring me," I replied, staring into his eyes.

  "I mean to. Trust no one, watch behind you."

  And he was gone. I stood in a puddle of water on the slippery tiles staring into thin air where he had just been two seconds ago. I grabbed my towel and rubbed it vigorously up and down my arms, trying to restore the blood flow that had been stopped with his chilling words.

  Something was terribly wrong. I had been aware of it for days, but now it was confirmed.

  If Ahmose was scared, then I should be too.

  * * *

  I couldn’t get home fast enough, even with my typical pedal-to-the-metal driving style. I barricaded myself in my room and flew to my desk, booting up my laptop. I had one name to go on. Cadmus. Gavin had been Cadmus. I quickly punched that into a search engine and a myriad of results popped up. After five minutes, I sat back in my chair completely dumbfounded.

  Cadmus had been the King of Thebes, just as Zeus mentioned in my vision. He had angered the Greek god Ares by killing his dragon and was forced to serve him for several years.

  After he loyally served the time assigned to him, he was rewarded by being given a bride.

  Harmonia, the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares himself. Me.

  Time seemed to stand still as I flew through the other websites, reading a mile a minute, my eyes quickly absorbing every bit of information that I could drudge up.

  At their wedding (my wedding!) Harmonia and Cadmus were given a gift by Harmonia’s stepfather. But it wasn’t just any gift. Her stepfather, Hephaestus, had been harboring bitter feelings toward his wife, Aphrodite. Apparently, Harmonia (me!) had been conceived with Ares. Aphrodite had been cheating on her husband with the god of war. To get his revenge, Hephaestus appealed to Zeus and had created a beautiful necklace for Harmonia as a wedding gift. It was made with Zeus’ own blood. And it had been cursed.

  Any wearer of the necklace would retain her beauty and youth, but she would suffer great misfortune. One of Harmonia’s own daughters met a violent end because of it. After their children suffered so much, Harmonia and Cadmus were turned into snakes and sent to the fields of Elyria to live for the rest of eternity. The necklace was passed to Queen Jocasta and after her husband died, she married her own son, Oedipus. When the world discovered his identity, he scratched his own eyes out and she killed herself.

  I felt numb. My necklace had created the Oedipus complex.

  My necklace. I fingered the bloodstone that was lying against my chest. It was cool against my skin, even through my shirt. It couldn’t be the same necklace. Could it? Lachesis had told me that there were twelve Keepers and each of us had a necklace. Harmonia’s Necklace was just one.

  "Cadmus," I whispered, testing the name out on my tongue.

  It felt right. Obviously it was an old, old name and it should feel that way to me ....

  Antiquated. But it didn’t. It formed on my tongue as though it was meant to be there.

  Probably because it was. Cadmus was Gavin and I was a goddess. But if we had been sent to Elyria for eternity, then what was I doing here now? Why had I been acting as a Keeper of Fate for so many millennia?

  My mind was spinning. This was too much craziness for any one person to handle without ice cream. I padded into the kitchen for some chocolate chip banana therapy. I didn’t even bother with a bowl, I just sat with a spoon and the ice cream carton. As I ate, I stared at my hands, my arms, my legs, the way my hair curled around my shoulder. It felt so odd to know that I had been around for thousands of years and that apparently I was a goddess. But now I was human.

  What had happened in the meantime to put me here? I had no idea. But I knew someone who did. Annen.

  I set aside the ice cream and picked up my bloodstone, silently willing Annen to appear.

  Nothing.

  I pleaded.

  Nothing.

  I sighed.

  Still nothing.

  I gave up and put my dirty dishes in the sink and returned to my bedroom before my mom got home. I loved my mom like crazy, but I wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat. There was so much to figure out. I started in the most logical place of all.

  I dialed Gavin’s number and felt a rush of relief when his husky voice flooded into my phone.

  "Hey, beautiful," he answered.

  "Hey," I sighed, settling back into the pillows of my bed. "Want to come over?" I asked hopefully.

  If anything could help me right now, it would be him. Seeing his familiar face, holding his hand ... it would make everything better. I knew it. Out of all the craziness in all of my lives, he had always been a constant. Well, he and Ahmose. And Ahmose said that I might not see him again. Cryptic words. I sighed again.

  "What’s wrong?" Gavin asked. He knew me so well.

  "Nothing. I just miss you."

  "I wish I could come over. But I’ve got to cram for that stupid history final tomorrow."

  Gavin was regretful and I instantly recognized the humor in this situation. I was a goddess and Gavin had been the King of Thebes, slayer of dragons. And here we were in Pasadena worrying about high school. What kind of hell was this?

  "It’s okay," I replied softly. "It’s almost as good hearing your voice."

  "Macy, what is wrong with you?" He sounded so concerned that it warmed my heart. "Did your dad call or something?"

  "No," I answered. "I haven’t heard from him in weeks. Nothing’s wrong. Really. I just wanted to see you. I’ll see you tomorrow though. Want to pick me up for school?"

  "Of course I do. I want to make sure you get there in one piece. I love you, you know."

  "I know. I love you, too."

  I hung up the phone and laid it gentl
y on the bed stand. Gazing around my room, I just couldn’t bring myself to do homework. That was just too trivial with everything else going on.