by Nicole Thorn
Aphrodite held her hands up in surrender. “I will be. My work as of now is finished. You’re up.”
Mom waved her hand in the air and so appeared from smoke, a rolled up parchment. It looked older than dirt and a bright red ribbon was tied around it. “Are you all staying?” she asked the Seers.
“Yes,” Jasmine said at the same time Juniper said, “No.”
Mom raised her eyebrows. “The kids are strong. It takes a lot to kill them. You, not so much. It’s perfectly acceptable to want to save your skin.”
The three looked at each other. Juniper spoke up. “We’re not safe. We should go.”
“They’re not safe either,” Jasmine said. “Why should we get to ditch them?”
“Because there are three of us and if we die, then there are no more Seers.”
“And if they die then there’s no more Zander and Kizzy.”
“It sucks, but there’s nothing we can do for them. We warned them and that’s the best we’ve got. We need to go home.” Juniper walked through the door and into the apartment.
Jasmine followed, pausing before she left. “I’m sorry.”
Zander was quiet. “It’s fine. Thanks for the warning.”
Jasmine left and Jasper was on her tail. “Good luck.”
I snorted and he left.
I rolled my eyes. “Humans. Everything scares them. Oh well.” I took the parchment from Mom and undid the ribbon. The paper was so fragile that it looked like I could break it in half. I laid it flat on the table outside.
The yellow paper held letters I recognized but couldn’t read. “Really? Greek?”
Mom sneered. “I told you to study more. I said you’d need it.”
“School doesn’t offer Greek, Mom.”
“What is this world coming to? First Instagram and now this.”
I examined the paper, trying to see if I could make out a single thing. When I was younger, I was better with the language. I could remember my mom breaking into the orphanage when I was young. She would sing to me in the language. I knew the songs, even now. They did no good for me at the moment.
“What is this?” I asked.
“The best we could do,” Mom said. “We can’t help you, but we can guide you along to the right path.”
“And this will help?” Zander pointed.
Aphrodite paced the length of the balcony and it made me look over the edge. I could see the front of the apartment below. The Seers were gathering into their car and I could almost hear them bickering with each other. Juniper was getting in the car and Jasmine stood with crossed arms and a tapping foot. Jasper just got in the car. Jasmine wouldn’t move.
She felt bad for us and that in itself made me feel guilty. I couldn’t do much for either of us, so I tried my hand at making her feel a little better.
From the wall beside me, I made vines grow from nothing at all. They crawled along the wall and consumed the space under them. Jasmines blossomed in the middle of Fall and if a human saw it, it would draw attention. I cared little. The flowers exploded from buds and cascaded down the edge of the building, being carried off in the wind. Dozens fell and I watched them start reaching Jasmine. One hit her head and she caught another. They fell on the car and she looked all around her before she looked up at me. She smiled as more white flowers showered down. Maybe my last act.
I heard her sister yelling at her and she got in the car, grabbing another flower on the way. She handed it to Jasper. He looked up at me before the door closed. I could still see him watching the flowers as the car drove away.
“You’ll be fine,” Mom said as she leaned beside me. Her arms pressed against the railing without fear of tumbling over it.
“You don’t know that.”
She rubbed my back. “You are so strong, Kezia. I know you don’t feel like you are, but it’s true. You’re a survivor and you’re good at it.”
I fumbled with my fingers so I wouldn’t have to look at her. “I don’t feel like I’m good at it. Surviving insinuates that I’m living.”
“Sometimes it takes a while for a scar to heal. But you need to take steps to help it along. They can be small. Like letting yourself enjoy things, because you deserve to. Or wearing clothes that don’t suffocate you.”
I shook my head. “I can’t, Mom. I just can’t be all right. I don’t know how anymore.”
She pressed her lips together and I watched her eyes turn glassy. “Honey, I love you so much. And I’m telling you that it’s going to get a lot worse before it starts getting better. Things are going to happen. Wounds will be ripped open. You can’t stop that. But it’s up to you to let them heal right this time. Let people soothe your pain if they’re trying. Please. Please, Kezia.”
“Mom,” my voice cracked.
She held my shoulders. “The world didn’t end. It’s still turning and you’re still alive and you will be for a good, long time. If you don’t start trying, then you’ll be like this forever. Do you want that? Do you want to hurt?”
The jasmines were falling in greater numbers and the scent thickened in the air. I couldn’t make it stop then. Mom would have to handle it if it didn’t cease.
I closed my eyes. “I deserve to hurt. You know what I did.”
She squeezed my arms. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It happened because of what they did. Not you. You were a little girl. But you’re grown now and you need to show it. This can’t last.”
Try. She wanted me to try, like there was anything I could do to cure this. It was a scar that wouldn’t fade.
Aphrodite put her hand on my mom’s shoulder. “We have to go soon, Demi. They want us home.”
Mom let go of me, but her jaw was still set. “My daughter isn’t going to die.”
“No she’s not. She’s clever and Zander is clever. They’ll figure out what they need to know. Who can help them. We just need to trust that they can handle this one. They’ve always been able to do more for each other than we ever could.”
Mom breathed slowly. “I know. Fine, we can go home.” She looked between me and Zander. “Decipher that parchment and you’ll know what you need to do. Hurry. You don’t have much time.”
5: Visions and Such
Jasper
Jasmine dropped the blueberry Pop Tarts into the cart. “Okay, we’ve got the most important item. Now what?”
I waved the list in the air and she frowned at the size of it. She plucked the list from my hand and started reading through it. “Do we really need all this stuff? Why on earth do we need more tea?”
“Yes, we need all this stuff. If we don’t get all this stuff, then you’ll be dealing with Juniper while I enjoy a nice flight out of the state. Probably to a remote island that only insane people, or archeologists ever visit.”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want to go to a place with something so old that archeologists are there?” She asked. I looked at her. Today she was in a bright purple dress with pink stripes running horizontally from the straps to the hem and sneakers with rainbow laces, because she could.
“Good point. Now, on to the cereal!” I pointed. She grinned and insisted upon walking directly in front of the cart. A large part of her must want to get rammed in the ankles when she stops abruptly. If you thought this was a lesson that someone only needs to learn once, you’d be wrong.
She skipped all the way to the cereal aisle and skidded to a halt in front of the choices. “What do I want…?” she asked, while I picked out the plain bran flakes for Juniper and put them in the cart. Jasmine seriously debated her options before grabbing Fruity Pebbles and throwing them into the cart, with a triumphant smile on her face.
I smirked. Really, that’s when everything got crazy. I should know better than to smirk. Jasmine smiled back at me and then looked down, spotting the spider that was about the size of a tic-tac, screamed bloody murder and leapt. It’s taken twenty-one years to hone my instincts, but I have, so I managed to catch my sister before she plummeted to the floor.
“Evil monster of the underworld!” She shouted, pointing at the spider and not caring about the three or four people who were now staring at her like she was insane. Well, if she didn’t care, then neither did I. I shifted Jasmine over to one arm, still managing to hold onto her with an arm around her waist. And then, because I am a great brother, stepped on the spider.
She relaxed almost immediately. “That’s right. Dead!” She threw her arms in the air. I’ve had two decades to hone those skills, so I managed to keep her feet off the ground and not get smacked in the face by a flailing arm. That takes talent, but what can I say? Talent is easy to come by when you have two sisters.
“Can I put you down now?” I asked.
“No,” she said, like it was ridiculous. “There could be dozens more of them. Hordes, waiting to attack me and drag me off to their evil spider queen. You don’t want your sister to get dragged off to the evil spider queen do you?”
“No, but I’m willing to take my chances on that one,” I said.
She crossed her arms. I sighed, realizing that I was going to have to carry her. “What about the cart?” I asked, in hopes that she would agree. “I could put you in there and then you wouldn’t have to worry about the floor anymore.”
“Spiders can be in carts, too.”
“Spiders could be on me,” I pointed out.
“Like they’d dare touch you,” Jasmine said, as if that should have been obvious. I started walking down the aisle. Sister in one hand and cart being pushed with the other. I paused by the cereals at the other end and picked another that Juniper would be willing to eat. This one was raisin bran. Sometimes my sister made me sad.
“It was just one spider,” I told Jasmine. “One small one. You shouldn’t be scared of something you can kill with a shoe.”
She scoffed. “Figures you wouldn’t see their evil. You did sleep with the Daughter of Darkness.”
“Seriously?” My voice was dry. “First of all, you didn’t see anything wrong with her either—”
“But I didn’t like her. I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her because she is a very good actress. That doesn’t mean I didn’t sense something was wrong. ‘Cause there totally was.”
“I broke up with her, so it’s fine,” I said. “I figured it out eventually.”
“Mm-hmm,” Jasmine said. “But that will never take away the fact that you dated her and therefore can’t sense evil worth shit. It’s okay though, dearest brother, because I am here to guide your way.”
“Great, so I’m going to die young and probably wearing something rainbow colored,” I said.
“These shoes are gorgeous!” Jasmine informed me. “And if you happened to die young, at least you would have enjoyed yourself on the way down. This shopping experience would be so much better, for one.”
“It’s groceries,” I said. “I’m not sure it’s supposed to be fun and exciting. Especially since the spider on the floor scared you so bad that now I have to carry you throughout the store.” I had paused at the end of the aisle, trying to keep the list open so that I could see the next item and balance Jasmine at the same time. The fact that the list was on my phone wasn’t helping as much as I had thought it would.
Jasmine sighed, loudly. “The most exciting thing to happen this week, if not our entire lives and you and Juniper just shrug it off. Of course, the really pretty god didn’t stroke your face, so why would you care?”
“In all fairness, I’m pretty sure Juniper was trying to restart her heart through the whole experience. We should be thankful that it was Aphrodite and Demeter and not Hades. Can you imagine? She would have pissed herself the second she heard his accent and then passed out.”
“His accent?” Jasmine asked, looking at me over her shoulder, which was an interesting maneuver considering our current positions.
“Well, yeah. Don’t you think Hades should have a really crisp British accent?” I asked.
Jasmine thought about it. “You know what? Yeah. Like the kind that automatically makes you feel worse for not having an accent. That is totally what he would have and he would use it for evil…”
I was about to tell her, again, that she wasn’t allowed to leave the house anymore when I realized that we had an audience. A small one, admittedly, but still an audience. “Oh… Hi…” I said, feeling mildly embarrassed for reasons that I couldn’t figure out. We were just discussing Hades’ accent.
Zander and Kezia were looking at us. Zander with undisguised amusement and Kezia with an odd kind of wonder. Like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, yet she was seeing it so she couldn’t deny it. I wonder how much of that conversation they heard. Jasmine looked over at them and waved cheerfully. Nearly smacking me in the face another time or two.
“I have… so many questions,” Zander said, still with amusement. “Let’s start with, precisely where from England you think Hades should be from?” Jasmine and Zander started talking and I began pushing the cart again. Each of the demigods fell into step on either side of me.
“Why are you holding your sister?” Kezia asked, quietly.
“Spider.”
“Ah.”
We ended up in the frozen food aisle. On principle, Juniper didn’t put much on the list from that aisle, but Jasmine liked ice cream. So, there I was, to get her ice cream. That’s where I encountered the next problem. How to open the door with one hand, keep it open and grab the ice cream without dropping my phone. I looked at the demigods, who were still with us, for whatever reason.
If they were following, they might as well help. “Hey, Zander? Do you mind taking this?” I asked, offering Jasmine over.
His eyes got bright, I think with amusement again, but I didn’t know him well enough to tell for sure. “Absolutely,” he said. My sister transferred easily into his arms and then onto his back, as he started giving her a piggyback ride. She threw both her hands into the air and cheered, while Zander began running up and down the aisles.
I looked at Kezia. “Sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”
At that point, a song came on overhead and my sister cheered even louder. “I love this song.” And with that, she started to yell-sing the words to Manic Monday at a painful volume. Two lines in and Zander joined her. I winced while I glanced at Kezia again, who had a pained expression on her too-pretty face. “Again. Sorry.”
She pointed at them. “That would have happened with or without you.”
I put the ice cream in the cart and began walking away, trusting my sister to steer the demigod after us if he didn’t follow Kezia on his own. After Manic Monday, another song that they knew came on. So, Kezia and I ended up walking down aisles and trying very hard to ignore the two insane people behind us. Not that I had much room to talk. She and Zander had run into us while I was holding my sister off the floor because of a bug and discussing what accents a god should or should not have…
“So, you shop here too?” I asked, because conversation was needed, if we were going to properly pretend that the maniacs were following us of their own accord. Might be difficult since no one in their right mind would look at me and Jasmine and not realize we’re siblings.
“Yeah… But we were actually going to head over to your house right after this,” Kezia admitted, if somewhat shyly.
I raised my eyebrows. “What for?”
She cleared her throat. “After you left yesterday, our mothers gave us this thing that should help us figure out what’s going on. Only it’s in Greek. Like, ancient Greek and we don’t know how to read that. We’re tracking down someone that could help us translate it, but we were kinda hoping that…”
“One of us might be able to help you more?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Jasmine sees the future right?” she asked, pointing at my insane sister as she and Zander belted out the lyrics to an eighties song that I vaguely recalled hearing before.
I nodded. “That she does.”
Kezia
looked uncomfortable, but still asked, “Which are you and Juniper?”
“She sees the present and I see the past,” I told her. “So, I’ll probably have to be the one to look at it.” I kept my voice neutral. Something handled by a god and I was supposed to look into its past? I would do it, because Jasmine liked these two people, so it was safe to assume they weren’t dangerous. At the same time, I worried about what that would do to me.
“Do you… mind? If not, we can just scrap the whole idea,” Kezia quickly added. It sounded like she was hoping for that.
I shrugged. “I can do it. I’d rather be at home, though,” I said. For several reasons, not the least of which being that the ice cream would melt everywhere and then Jasmine would be sad. The brother in me didn’t want my sister to be sad.
Kezia nodded. “All right, then.”
She didn’t sound happy and I couldn’t blame her. Between me and my sisters, she couldn’t be comfortable. Juniper and Jasmine bickered a great deal, but rarely realized they were bickering. Juniper didn’t like strangers, Jasmine got attached too quickly and then there was the weird guy that was kinda just in the background. So yeah, couldn’t blame them.
I pushed the overloaded cart towards the registers. The two maniacs had switched to Walk like an Egyptian and were still singing with too much enthusiasm. There was only one register open and when the woman saw us coming, she flipped the light off and walked away. I sighed. Guess it was self-check. I hated self-check when I had this many groceries.
“Candy!” Jasmine shouted. “Lower me down!” I looked over to see Zander squatted in front of the candy. “Hmmm. Juniper won’t eat any of these, but I’m getting you a Snickers, Jasper.”
“I don’t want one.”
“Too bad. I’m getting Skittles for myself, obviously. What do you want Zander? I’m getting you Reese’s. And for Kezia… Cookies and cream! To the register!” Zander, smiling broadly now, stood back up and walked over to me. Guess I now had a candy bar that I didn’t want.
The demigods were helpful with the self-check. Kezia in keeping it from breaking down on me and Zander by shouting obscenities at the thing. It still took nearly thirty minutes to get everything done and loaded into the cart. The lady at the register didn’t come back until I had almost everything done, too.
