Selfish Myths 2

by Natalia Jaster

  All she does is burst into tears, her arm swatting the air for the emergency tissues she’d set on her nightstand from the very moment that god had crashed unconsciously atop her mattress. Unfortunately, she only succeeds in batting the tissues to the floor, gauzy sheets littering the garret like confetti.

  “Then I have no choice but to target him,” Envy informs with a debonair shrug while Merry’s head flails back and forth in misery. “No one seduces a friend of mine and then fails to finish the job properly.”

  “Please,” Sorrow chides. “This is no time to pound your alpha chest.”

  “You like my alpha chest. I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve mounted it.”

  Suppressing her humiliation, Sorrow says, “Merry, he’s not worth this open-mouthed, ugly sobbing. Trust me, I know the value of tears. You’ll move on.”

  “I love him.”

  “It’s been three weeks,” she repeats.

  “During which her pupils have been heart emojis,” Envy remarks, rising to his feet.

  Wonder takes charge, suggesting they dive into a vat of lemonade on the rooftop. While Envy and Sorrow depart outside, Merry ducks beneath the hood of her blankets, giving in to her moment of woe.

  Her companion waits it out. Merry wiggles upright, covered in a ruin of snot. Anger’s peers have pledged solidarity to her, and she’s grateful. She has kindreds, she has friends, she has the stars, and she has herself.

  She massages her raw eyes, shriveled like pits in her face. It’s disgraceful, but Wonder doesn’t care about that. Laminated in brilliant neon, the goddess meditates balefully. “I shouldn’t have encouraged you. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. He was my choice, my free will. Like magic and fate, this is a lesson that love comes with a price—all points of the trinity, so wickedly taken from me.”

  Wonder nods, her expression remote, the swells of her cheeks deprived of their peach complexion. “There is always a price,” she mutters.

  The comment surfaces from someplace buried, whether or not the goddess is aware of it. It tugs at Merry, so that she weaves their fingers together. “Oh, Wonder. You lost someone, didn’t you?”

  Wonder shakes her head, forcing a smile. “Not all goddesses are meant to have a mate. Not all of us need one.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t confuse being in love and having a partner with needing a mate. Don’t assume both mean the same thing. And don’t assume that’s an unprecedented notion.”

  The words revive Merry, refocus Wonder, and boost them from the bed. They journey outside, joining the archers at the summit, where they gather on the lounge chairs. Merry cradles her glass of lemonade, and none of them mention Anger’s name.

  Beyond the observatory, the carnival shears into the skyline. Lights bounce off a vista of panes, connecting every building, every person. It reminds Merry how similar they all are, immortal or not.

  Everyone feels wonder, sorrow, envy, anger, and love. No one is an expert at any of it.

  For everyone, it just comes. And then it goes.

  22

  Anger

  Rising three levels within a damp nimbus, the park’s purple fountain spritzes water from a jug. From the looks of it—and considering the sculpted hedges of figures situated throughout various lawns—this landmark celebrates Aquarius.

  Anger stares at the bubble of air where she’d been standing. It’s vacant and hollow, where there’d once been such depth and complication. Such light.

  Even while she’d faced off with him, she hadn’t lost that luster, that evasive sheen. She’d only given so much of herself, and it appears, he’d done the same with her. He’d held back the full windstorm, while she’d held back that full glow. He’d missed his chance to know all the goodness and badness, the perfection and imperfection between them.

  His throat cracks, and his temple smashes against his skull. It’s a collapsed sort of feeling, everything crumbling into brittle pieces. It reminds him of when he was younger, glowering at his reflection in a mirror, wanting to be taller, wanting to grow up, assuming that it would make him wise.

  That it would make him strong. That it would make him worthy.

  He misses Merry. He misses her more than he’d ever missed Love.

  His eyes pinch with something to which he’s unaccustomed. Even when Love had broken him, his ducts had stayed dry.

  Now a liquid pressure splashes against his rims. But he won’t let it out. Not here, out in the open.

  Not with Malice strutting up and pausing beside him on the curb.

  The fountain hisses, spraying their clothes with moisture and glazing the vegetation in dew.

  To Anger’s surprise—what should surprise him, at this juncture?—the rage god doesn’t speak. He doesn’t gloat or congratulate Anger on pushing Merry further toward heartbreak.

  Had Malice known that Merry would show up? Had he planned it that way?

  Anger swallows bile. “Did you orchestrate this part, too?”

  “No, mate,” Malice answers. “This one’s all on you.”

  His tone of bafflement and empathy clashes. For some reason, Anger suspects it has less to do with the scene in the library, more to do with the goddess who’d tried to intervene.

  If Wonder hasn’t approached Anger yet, it means that she’s vacated the premises, which means that she’s gone after Merry.

  Humans stroll through Midnight Park, experiencing their own permanent grievances, their own fleeting celebrations. Fates, he’s sounding more maudlin by the second. This must be a day for the unexpected—and again, when has anything thus far been predictable?—because Malice says with perplexing, preoccupied reluctance that they’re almost there. That Merry’s heart is about to shatter and needs one final nudge.

  When that happens, Anger will know. He’ll feel it in his bones.

  Malice spews a bunch of rubbish, the tirade nothing but a drone of white noise urging Anger to remember that moment with Love, reminding him that she’s in the library, ripe for communication. The outcast God even offers to distract her beau, Andrew, by making a few dictionaries levitate—or seem like it—giving Anger the chance to finish what he started.

  It’s all worthless commotion. It’s all jabber, jabber, jabber.

  “I’m done,” he says, shoving past Malice.

  A vice-like grip jerks on his arm. “No, you’re not.”

  A thousand glass shards can be plucked from that statement. A tedious and cutting task yielding a thousand jagged implications, which amount to a warning.

  The calmest words often make the deadliest threats.

  Wrenching back his arm, Anger snarls, “Touch me again, and I’ll take your hand with me.” Then he gets nose-to-nose with Malice. “We’re done. Find your own heart to break. If you have a qualm about that, I can always spill your intentions to the Fate Court. I may be as exiled as you, I may have disobeyed them like you, and I may have been forced to fire at them because of you. I may have just broken another rule in that library, but you’ve been with me every step of the way, and I’ll make sure they know that. I don’t care if you concocted lies that got them to place some modicum of faith in you. I’ll take my chances.”

  “What’s your honesty worth to them?” Malice drawls.

  “Very little, at this point,” Anger acknowledges. “But you were once an Archive troll, whereas I was once their most trusted archer, and that counts. I’ve lost everything, a fact they’re aware of.

  “But you? I’d say you still have something to lose. Are you willing to bet your deviance against my humility? Which one will have a more pungent stink?” Anger grins without mirth. “Of course, if you’re going to be obstinate, there’s the issue of Wonder.”

  At the shape of her name, Malice twitches. An inexplicable reflex.

  “Oh, that one,” he mutters belligerently. “It’s a pity about her hands. Scars are so eternal. She probably deserved what she got.” Then he tosses Anger a sideways glance. “Go ahead. Call me a son of a
bitch. That way I can say, ‘I’m the son of no one.’”

  “I don’t know. Satan comes to mind.”

  “Come now, mate. At least think mythical, not biblical. Think, Hades.”

  Either way, the rage god registers the facts. Wonder’s an active goddess. She’s an acute goddess, plus a witness to what happened in the library, cognizant of the fact that Malice had been present.

  And that it hadn’t been a coincidence.

  Malice narrows his eyes. Anger’s prepared to punch his way from the archer’s vicinity, but Malice doesn’t move another muscle. Perhaps he knows that in Anger’s state, it’s a losing battle.

  Or who knows why Malice reacts the way he does to anything? One moment ferociously insistent, the next deceptively flippant.

  Again, the root of his motivations is debatable. Any exile would want to reclaim their place in the Peaks. Case in point, Merry and Anger’s classmates have stressed how that’s becoming a vengeful subject amidst the immortality discarded, as well as handfuls of active deities. It’s brewing into a considerable impetus.

  But for Malice, there’s more. He might have an axe to grind with the Court, or he might want to prove himself.

  Or he might want entry back into the Archives. Back to the Hollow Chamber.

  And once there, what additional wisdom might Malice seek?

  “Suit yourself,” the outcast says, swinging his arm toward the street and inviting Anger to leave.

  Anger stalks off, the fountain’s purple haze and Midnight Park’s sculpted hedges pounding by on either side of him. In spite of the deviant company he’s been keeping, he doesn’t blame Malice. That outcast dropped this situation in Anger’s lap, but he hadn’t forced him into anything, hadn’t told him what to do. Anger had made his choices of his own free will.

  This time it’s not hard to be furious with himself. In fact, it’s the easiest thing he’s ever done.

  His quiver beats against his shoulder blade, the arrows clattering, his fingers strangling the bow. His boot heels strike the pavement. His clothes cling to his form, making it difficult to shift.

  A horn blares. A door slams.

  Where is he going? Where are his feet carrying him? Why can’t he stop them?

  Never mind where or why. He knows the answers to all of those questions. Without dwelling, he knows.

  At ground level, moss spouts from grout between slabs of cement. A poignant swatch of orchid neon stains the sidewalk. It comes from the window of a record emporium, causing Anger to quicken his pace.

  When really, he should backpedal. He should walk it off, from one end of this misbegotten city to the next. He should take stock of what he’s feeling, why he’s feeling it.

  He should give Merry time. He should give her space. He should let her be.

  He should not, not, not be self-destructing toward the observatory.

  This is why the heart is an untrustworthy weapon. It does things without his permission, misaligning with reason, going off on a tangent, and pursuing what he has no right to claim.

  The tempo of his pulse accelerates, punctuated by urgent footsteps. Fright coils around his ribs, while inadequacy runs a close second.

  What will he say?

  What can he say?

  The rooftop is her sanctuary, so he avoids it, not wanting to intrude. Loss pokes a hole in his chest, because he’s no longer welcomed there. The place where a globe mobile hovers, the place where she made an outdoor room for him, the place with a sign that says, Home.

  He hazards walking through the observatory’s front door, trespassing into the foyer where the pendulum swats within a crater, where a pastel mosaic of stars swim in the floor. There’s an echoing quiet, in which Anger can hear his own stupidity. Too late, he realizes this is a bad idea.

  Whipping around to leave, he achieves one step before a smarmy voice calls from above, the words dropping like rocks. “If you didn’t have such an iconic face, I’d smash it to a pulp.”

  Anger glances at Envy, who’s leaning over the mezzanine’s railing, his wrists crossed and dangling over the side. Before Anger can respond, purple hair and a set of half-moon eyes emerge.

  Sorrows scowls. “Ugh. If mortals are right about one thing, it’s that patience is a virtue. Do you have any idea what the shelf-life of a proper wallow is? Go away, Anger. Come back when Merry’s found her roar and you’ve found your grovel.”

  “You hear that?” Envy adds. “Shoo.”

  “Where is she?” Anger asks.

  Rather than answer, they hurdle over the railing and hit the foyer, forming a blockade. They’re usually a mocking, pretentious lot. Not a protective one.

  Anger doesn’t know whether to laugh without humor or suffer without dignity. They’re ganging up on him. He remembers the feeling of being ostracized, except he deserves it more than ever. And if he’s going to lose respect from his peers, at least they’re supporting Merry. At least he’s losing them to her.

  A cascade of blonde hair and a ship of curves sweeps between the archers. “Come defend yourself,” Wonder petitions, striding past him on her bare feet, her green gown swatting her legs.

  Anger is grateful for the offer, even while repentance and a defensive streak bump against each other, wrestling for a prime spot on his tongue. They pass through a hall and sequester themselves in the planetarium dome, where the telescope cranes its neck toward the sky.

  Wonder halts at the instrument’s base and spins, her skirt fanning. He muses how long she’ll last before changing back into the harem pants. Or maybe she’s switching up her style these days, exploring her options.

  She studies him like an encased mineral, rare and inexplicable. Leave it to this goddess to be the only one without a bias.

  A tired, disappointed sigh unfurls from her lips. “Oh, Anger.”

  “Love deserved to know who she was,” he snaps. And leave it to him to blurt out something serrated, even if that hadn’t been his intention.

  “Yes,” Wonder agrees. “As you deserve to know who you can be.”

  He can’t fathom how to reply. But he does fathom how the statement makes him feel: chaotic, nostalgic.

  “Growing up, you were both so similar,” Wonder imparts. “The same temperament, the same stubbornness, militant yet defiant in your own ways. The only distinction was Love’s curiosity for humans and your ignorance of them, and perhaps a little of her mischief versus your rigidity. You fought like wildcats, but can you truly say that you ever challenged each other? Did she inspire you? Or you, her?”

  “If you think I’m suddenly going to realize that I never loved her, you’re wrong.” But the testimony leaves a tang in his mouth, like fruit that has lost its ripeness, a crop that can’t be preserved.

  “It’s not about realizing you never loved her,” Wonder alleges. “It’s about realizing you can love again—perhaps more than you ever have.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because this time, it isn’t one-sided. You get to share your love with someone who wants it. You get to love Merry and be loved in return. You get to know what that’s like.” Her eyes shimmer. “Don’t forsake your luck. Don’t be selfish with your heart.”

  Anger swerves his head toward the dome’s transparent gap. It’s going to rain tonight, heavy enough to drown the stars.

  What the goddess professes…it bears resemblance to her past, her mistakes. It resurrects the visual of her and Malice in the library. Her haunted expression and the way she’d traced the starburst scars.

  “Why did you react to Malice the way you did?” he asks.

  Wonder’s rickety smile levels at the sky. “He reminds me of someone I knew.”

  “Is that someone a human?” It’s an implausible question, a reckless one that makes no sense. And when she offers no reply, he realizes whom Malice reminds her of—whom he resembles.

  Wonder has never honored Anger with the backstory in its totality, but he knows the major points and what it cost her.

 
They’ve all had their shocks today.

  Hoping to soothe his classmate’s torment, Anger gauges her nomadic mind and murmurs, “Reincarnation isn’t possible, Wonder.”

  She gulps. “A lot of things weren’t supposed to be possible.”

  Whether her suspicion is correct, she’ll find out. She’ll make that her mission, because that’s who she is.

  Her face drifts back to Anger. “Today, you walked toward Love. But you ran to Merry.”

  And that’s what she leaves him with.

  And that’s what Anger carries from the observatory, from the neighborhood, to the carnival. Or at least, just outside of it. He can’t bring himself to breach the entrance of arched branches and bulbs, much less step into the mass of lollipop strobes.

  Settling on a bench, Anger gets a saccharine whiff of the blueberry lemonade that he and Merry had shared on that first night. Electronics jangles and buzzers resound from the Ethereal Arcade, the place where he saw her playing hostess to humans and then dancing on a countertop. The place where she’d later challenged him to race across the galaxy.

  Somewhere nestled in the carnival, the carousel is rotating, and Sagittarius is trying to loose an arrow. That ride is where she got him to confide, to share things that he never had before. That’s where, for the first time, in a long time, he’d had fun. Nothing more than fun.

  In the beginning, he’d sneered at the park for being a poor substitute, an imitation of the real thing. How wrong he’s been. He wants to revisit that place, walk those paths, feel that rush of adrenaline.

  He doesn’t want to do it alone, but he has no other choice. Or does he?

  Rides gyrate and cartwheel. Spastic bulbs flare, and sparklers splash the walkways with embers. Midday leaks into afternoon, afternoon pours into evening. The day has passed quickly.

  How long has he been sitting here?

  Too long. Long enough to watch the incoming brew, a pallet of grays soaking the atmosphere. From what Anger knows of tempests, it’s going to be a strong one, the wind howling and tossing debris all over the place, chucking the city in erratic directions.

  It’s going to drench the theme park. And him.