by Melody Rose
A tornado of wind vibrated around Ansel and me. It forced the two of us together, back to back, as the air swirled and pushed the leaves up from the ground. Blurs of orange and yellow surrounded us as we were caught in a vortex of fall.
With a single exhale, the display fell to the ground with an inelegant plop. As a new pile of leaves dropped to our feet, Ansel and I discovered that we were no longer alone with Oliver.
18
A dozen gorgeous women circled us in the clearing. They were all stark naked, but their long hair, in various shades of brown, red, and green, covered them cleverly. Some had milky skin, translucent like moonlight, whereas others had smooth, dark skin rich and free of marks or blemishes. They were ideally proportioned, like a spread of 1920s pin-up girls. Their wide eyes brightened at the sight of Ansel, and a pair of them giggled with not-so-subtle points at my companion.
A flare of jealousy bubbled up from my stomach. I had no reason to be jealous since Ansel and I weren’t anything more than friends. But the way they stared at him, and the way he ogled them, brought a violent red to my face.
Oliver clicked his tongue and shook his head slightly. “Ladies, I know it’s your natural state, but we don’t want to embarrass our guests. Why don't you cover up?”
A groan chorused from the women, but soon, Ansel and I were sucked back up into a tornado of leaves. This time when it fell away, the women were more appropriately clothes, with garments made of mud, sticks, leaves, grass, and other natural elements. While it might have covered up their skin, it did nothing to conceal the supernatural beauty that oozed from their other features.
“I didn’t think the son of Dionysus to be one to hang out with a bunch of nymphs,” I said as I shifted my weight to the side and crossed my arms. “That seems more of Pan’s avenue.”
“I didn’t know we had nymphs on campus,” Ansel said, unable to focus his eyes on any one of the creatures.
It took all of my energy to tame that jealous fire that roared in my body. It was hard to blame him if I were reasonable about it. They were marvelous, living up to every myth that spoke of their beauty. Even the way they moved, all coy and sweet, was intoxicating. They reminded me more of the sea sirens, rather than the playful nymphs from mythology, although the nymphs were known to be their own form of sexual beings. Many of them were sexual partners for various gods, like Poseidon, Zeus, and even Ansel’s dad, Apollo.
“Only the Olympic Officials and I know about these nymphs,” Oliver said, suddenly growing defensive. “I rescued them from a forest fire in California. They are the reason I came back to campus.”
“Oh,” I said suddenly, realizing there was way more to his return than I expected.
“They needed a safe place to reside,” Oliver explained. “They are tied to a certain type of tree. I knew that we had the same kind on campus and the land was already blessed by the gods, so they could live without fear of exposure by the mortals.”
“There are so many of them,” Ansel commented, his eyes roaming over all of them.
I tried not to take that comment to heart, but my jaw tightened against my better judgment.
“Not all of them joined us,” Oliver continued his explanation. “Some of them chose to go elsewhere, some perished, but I did what I could.”
“You did beautifully, Oliver,” said a nymph who looked like she just stepped off the beach. She reached out a delicate hand and stroked Oliver’s slick bald head with it. “We will be forever grateful.”
“My dear,” Oliver kissed the nymph's hand, and I held back a gag at the way his tongue slurped along her skin, though she didn’t seem to mind. “It was the least I could do for such amazing creatures.”
“So do we get to help with the dance, Oliver?” another nymph said, one with pearly teeth and round blue eyes that blinked pleadingly at the son of Dionysus.
“It does certainly interest me,” Oliver said quietly. He twirled his mustache like a cartoon villain. “But why would the rigid, rule-heavy Academy need to throw a dance? It seems very out of character for them.”
Ansel and I shared a look, arguing about how much to tell him. Before either one of us could respond, a nymph on the other side of Oliver tittered. It sounded like the smallest of bells.
“Look at them, Oliver,” she said through her petite hands and perfectly manicured fingers. “They don’t even need a sip of your precious wine to help them move along. They’ve got it bad.”
Oliver’s bushy black eyebrows bounced suggestively. “Yes, they do, my dear.”
The last thing I wanted to talk about was mine and Ansel’s feelings for one another. So I ignored Ansel’s warning look and launched into an explanation about Love Struck and the plan to lure Eros to campus.
Oliver and his nymphs listened intently. Habitually, he spun the end of his mustache around his finger as he pondered and processed my words. When I finished, Oliver exhaled heavily as if he had been the one telling the long story, rather than me.
“That’s a very clever plan,” Oliver said with an approving eye. “Lean into the madness rather than resist it. Well done, Cheyenne.”
“Thank you?” I said uneasily, not sure if it was a proper compliment.
“Do you have a theme?” Oliver said, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. It was the first positive sign I had from him, so I took hold of it and ran.
“It’s going to be a masquerade,” I replied, “on Halloween.”
Oliver whistled, low and long. “That’s not a lot of time. Doable, but still, I would have liked another week or so. Maybe a Christmas ball, preferably.”
“Wait,” I paused and set my mug down on the coffee table. “So you’ll help us?”
“Absolutely,” Oliver said brightly as he leaned back against the trunk of a nearby tree and crossed his legs.
“Awesome,” I exclaimed right before Ansel put a hand on my shoulder.
“Wait for it,” he muttered.
“On one condition,” Oliver said on cue, with a half-smile prickling at his lips.
“There it is,” Ansel confirmed with a tight smile of his own. His hand slipped off my knee and curled into a fist at his side. “What do you want, Oliver?”
Oliver sneered at Ansel disapprovingly. “So suspicious, son of Apollo. Do you walk around your whole life like that? How sad for you.”
Sensing the tension in my friend next to me as his body clenched with annoyance, I stepped in. “What’s your condition, Oliver?”
“I want to put on a show at the dance,” Oliver announced. He spread his arms wide so that the long sleeves of his robe dangled dramatically.
“What kind of show?” I asked, though apprehension seeped into my brain, unable to hide my concern.
“A main event at the dance,” Oliver said slyly. “It doesn’t have to be long, but it has to be spectacular. We can still have the dancing and the punch and the costumes, but I want to direct a show.”
“Like a musical?” I wondered. “What are you thinking here, Oliver? How big are we talking?”
“As much as I would love to bring out a classic Greek tragedy or one of my father’s infamous comedies, sadly, I don’t think that will go over so well with the officials, no matter how lovey-dovey they may be right now,” Oliver answered with a dramatic and disappointed sigh. “Now, it would be more like a dance number, but with fighting. A choreographed fight, if you will.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” I said honestly. I could tell Ansel wasn’t happy with the idea, but I had concluded that Ansel wasn’t going to be happy with anything I agreed to for Oliver’s sake. So, being the head of this dance committee, I made the executive decision. “I think we can manage that.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” Oliver said suddenly, though I could easily tell he had been purposely holding back this part of the request. Probably for dramatic effect. “You two will be the stars.”
“What?” I balked at the same moment Ansel said, “No!”
“I’m not an actress
or a dancer,” I said as I held a hand to my chest, not unlike the way Oliver had earlier. “I don’t like being in front of people.”
“You’re not going to get me to prance around in some costume, making a fool of myself,” Ansel said as he crossed his arms definitively.
“You two have no imagination!” Oliver complained. “I’m not going to embarrass you, I promise. And it’s going to be fight based, which is something both of you do anyway, isn’t it?”
“Your whole job in theatre class was to embarrass us,” Ansel said spitefully.
Oliver’s eyebrows jumped up again, surprised. “Ah, so that is your beef with me, huh? You think what I do is embarrassing?”
“It has no value to what we do as soldiers,” Ansel said, his voice clipped and sharp around the consonants. “We are warriors and fighters, not actors and artists.”
“Yes, but you study Grecian art, do you not?” Oliver snapped back. “The Greek invented theatre, Thespis the first actor to step out of the chorus. Theatre is one of the ways we keep our history alive through song and story.” The teacher hopped up on his feet, emboldened by his passion, as though he had been waiting years to say this. “You go out onto the battlefield and fight your battles, but the artists tell of your conquests for years to come. The artists maintain your legacy long after you are gone. The artists create heroes.”
Oliver leaned down and placed himself inches from Ansel’s face, a challenge if there ever was one. “Without artists, there would be no one to tell your story.”
Ansel didn’t move or flinch away from the son of Dionysus. He stayed still, with a solid grimace on his face. Meanwhile, Oliver straightened and flicked his robe out like a cape as he turned away from the pair of us.
He put both hands on the counter and leaned against it with his head bowed. The teacher’s shoulders shook, and for a second, I thought he was crying. Suddenly, Oliver stilled and whirled back around to face us, confident as ever.
“Those are my terms,” he declared. “Take it or leave it.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again, unsure of what to say. I really didn’t want to be in any kind of spotlight or show. The most acting I ever did was when I worked at the living history museum as the blacksmith. They dressed us up in old-timey clothes, and we had to make it seem like we lived in the eighteen-hundreds. Playing to the students on field trips or the tourists was my least favorite part of the job. I only wanted to use the forge, no matter how outdated it might have been.
I never was one to seek attention. I was more than happy staying in my smithy, making weapons for other warriors and heroes to use. But ever since I’d been admitted to the Academy, I’d been forced to not just make the weapons, but take them up as well. Use them and fight alongside those heroes. Maybe this was another opportunity to do that. It was unconventional as hell, but maybe it was the baby step I needed. And who was I kidding? It couldn’t be any harder than fighting a chimera.
“I do have one concern, Oliver,” I said, thinking through all of the details.
“Yes, my dear?”
“That’s a lot of work, to plan a dance, and star in a show,” I commented, the hesitation in my voice. “Danced, choreographed fight, whatever you want to call it. I mean, there are only two other people besides us on the committee.”
“That’s where we come in,” the beach tanned nymph stepped forward. She spread out her hands to indicate herself and her sisters. “We will free up some of the more tedious duties, so you can focus on the performance.”
So that’s why Tené and Fiona suggested we find Oliver. Not only was he the son of Dionysus, but he had a connection with the nymphs. These creatures were going to take a lot of the work off our shoulders, which would free us up for his ‘show.’
The excitement at having extra help quickly faded as I reminded myself of the impending show Ansel and I would have to put on. Then it sunk even farther when I thought about how much time I was going to have to spend with this disturbing, wacky son of Dionysus.
“What do you say, dears?” Oliver asked Ansel and me with narrowed eyes.
“We’ll do it,” I decided before Ansel could interject. Luckily, the son of Apollo didn’t defy me. He visibly swallowed his words and then stood there with a stoic expression.
“Glorious,” Oliver exclaimed. “Simply glorious.” Then the son of Dionysus turned to Ansel and me, suddenly looking serious. “We’re going to begin rehearsals tomorrow evening at sunset.”
Ansel opened his mouth to protest, but Oliver held up a finger and cut the soldier off. “I don’t want to hear it. Make time, son of Apollo.”
Ansel’s face pinched into a grimace, but he nodded all the same.
“And Cheyenne,” Oliver said as he put his palms together, looking as though he were about to start a prayer. “I have a special assignment for you.”
“What is it?” I asked wearily.
“It’s something right up your alley as the daughter of a blacksmith,” Oliver said, pleased like he was giving me a treat. “I’m going to commission you to make brand new weapons for our show.”
It was true. Oliver had given me a treat. Those words were the best ones I’d heard from the teacher since meeting him. I couldn’t help myself. My face beamed into a bright smile.
“Now that,” I said, “I can do.”
Oliver promised to give me the specs when we met the next day. He ushered us away after that, finally excusing us after what was an unpredictable afternoon. A violent wind accompanied our exit as if it shoved us out of the clearing.
Ansel and I didn’t speak much when we walked back out of the woods. It was nice to just be in his presence, even when each of us was wrapped in our own thoughts.
When we reached the main parts of campus again, Ansel walked me to my dorm entrance. We stood there together, face to face, but not looking at one another.
“That was…” I started, unable to find the right word.
“Weird?” Ansel supplied.
“It feels bigger than weird,” I replied with a chuckle.
“I told you,” Ansel said as he shook his head, “that man is a handful.” Ansel rubbed his forehead in frustration. “I can’t believe we have to work with him for weeks.”
“We’ll be okay,” I assured him. I fought the urge to reach out and give him a hug, comfort him through touch. I stayed back and adhered to my own rules. “Hopefully, we’ll get through it, and everything will go back to normal.”
Ansel’s eyes snapped up to me with a frightened gaze. “You want that? Everything to go back to normal? Where we can’t be together?”
“I…” I stuttered, not meaning that at all. “No, I just want everyone to go back to normal. Stop being obsessive and love-struck. I want to talk to Benji without hearing Zach’s name every six seconds. That’s what I want to go back to.”
“Even if it means not getting the chance to try this out?” Ansel offered.
His proposal was so tempting, but I still didn’t know how genuine his feelings were. How Love Struck was he?
“Cheyenne,” Ansel breathed my name, and I wanted to fall into him. It beckoned me like a siren call, and I leaned forward ever so slightly.
“Can I kiss you goodnight?” Ansel asked, his voice keeping that breathy tone.
I giggled in response. “That’s the exact opposite of what we talked about earlier.”
It hurt me to watch his face fall. I thought about the down-turned corners of his lips and the pain in his eyes. How far could I lean into this, knowing it might not be real? Could I take a step beyond flirting and enjoy the feelings, the sensations, while we could? While his feeling for me lasted?
I leaned in and kissed Ansel on the cheek. I lingered longer than necessary, leaving my lips hovering above his skin for a breath, two. Then I pulled back and gave him a smile.
“Goodnight, Ansel,” I said, enjoying the flush in his face and the daze in his eyes as he put a hand up to his cheek, where my lips had just been.
I ma
de my way up to my room, my lips tingling the whole way.
19
So that’s how I ended up working with Oliver and Ansel three nights a week through the rest of September and into October while simultaneously planning a school dance. Oh, and keeping up with my regular schoolwork. Not to mention working my regular hours in the forge.
Needless to say, I was ridiculously busy.
Sleep eluded me on a regular basis. Part of me thought about cutting out my early morning run. I’d developed the habit last year at the Academy and continued it throughout the summer. As the winter loomed ahead, it was colder and darker each morning. My body probably could have used the sleep but that short time at the beginning of the day was one of the few times I was alone anymore.
I felt like I was constantly surrounded by people nowadays. Whether it was in class, at dance committee meetings, or even in my dorm, there was always someone around. Rick had basically moved in, and while he and Janet kept their sexual activities to her room, he liked to lounge around in the main common area. He was respectful and always nice, but his mere presence irked me. I constantly felt like an intruder in their space when the soldier was really the intruder.
Second-year classes were much harder, especially now that my workload included Fotia-specific classes. We had tactical training, team building, and survival techniques. I felt like my brain was only half there with everything else that was swimming in it.
If all that wasn’t enough, the dance loomed over everything. I couldn’t get a break. In the beginning, the nymphs bombarded me with questions. They asked my opinions of everything from decorations to food menus to music selection. After they interrupted one too many classes, I had to establish some boundaries with them. While I appreciated their enthusiasm, I was sick of picking out color schemes or tasting sample punches.
Finally, I delegated everything to subcommittees. Thank the gods that Violet took over the food and the menu in general. She was more than happy to. Darren helped out with the music selection, opting for something more modern since the nymphs were set with a lyre and one of the nymph's operatic voices. The other parameters I set up were that the nymphs weren’t allowed to ask me anything outside of our weekly dance committee meetings. They sometimes lasted up to three hours, but it was a hell of a lot better than three gorgeous women bursting in on Grecian art during a test just so I could settle a dispute between burnt orange and pumpkin orange, which looked the exact same to me.
