by S. L. Stacy
“Aphrodite is a manipulative, jealous, heinous bitch.” Once the accusation has dripped from his lips, Jasper’s mouth snaps closed, and he looks at me as if dreading my reaction.
“I didn’t know you felt so strongly about fictional characters,” I reply, laughing nervously.
“I guess I get carried away sometimes,” he admits. “Let’s go this way.” He beckons me down the part of the path bending to the right. “There’s something else I want to show you.”
On our way, we pass another sculpture: this time of Hades and Persephone. In his stone hands Hades offers her a flower with six petals surrounding a crown-shaped protrusion, which Persephone stoops to sniff. When I stop in front of them, Jasper sighs with impatience, but tells the story anyway.
“Hades watches Persephone picking flowers one day and falls in love with her from afar. But he knows, out of all the Olympians, he is the most reviled by both his fellow gods and humankind, so he devises a plan to lure her to the Underworld.” The rational part of my brain knows that this story should be creepy, but once again Jasper’s milk chocolate voice and expert story-telling have me hanging on his every word.
“The next time she’s out gathering flowers, she finds a daffodil that absolutely mesmerizes her—but when she plucks it, the ground opens up, and Hades rises out of it in a golden chariot. He seduces her and abducts her to the Underworld.” Jasper pauses and walks to where I’m standing beside the granite Persephone. My heart beats faster in my chest as he holds my gaze steady and closes the gap between us. He towers over me, and for a moment I think he’s going to bend down to kiss me.
“When Persephone’s mother, Demeter—goddess of the harvest—finds out, her anger incites a drought that destroys every crop on Earth. Zeus sends Hermes to rescue Persephone. She returns home but is forever tied to the Underworld and must return every winter.”
This time, Jasper lowers his face until his lips are millimeters from mine. Only minutes ago I was wishing I had brought a light sweater, the cool night air coaxing the hairs of my arms to stand on end, but now with Jasper standing so close to me I’m sweating. Can he tell? I hope I’m not getting pit stains.
But again, he doesn’t kiss me, just smirks and asks, “Can we move along now?” I nod, and just as quickly as he came up to me, he leaves me standing alone, flushed and perplexed. I watch him disappear around a dark corner. Shaking myself out of my mindless daze, I hurry after him.
“This is what I wanted to show you,” he’s saying when I catch up to him. He stands before a statue of a third couple. In this scene, the woman is crushed against the muscular chest of what looks disturbingly like an erotic angel. Disturbing, because—well, I’m not very religious, but my Bible thumper roots in Laurel make me cringe at anything that seems blasphemous. Like the way Jasper looked lying on the forest floor that night six years ago—all dark, feathery wings and rolling muscles. Angels shouldn’t be sexy. Then again, these couples aren’t Biblical. I read the inscription out loud:
“‘Eros and Psyche.’ Like in the story you told us,” I say, recalling his lecture at office hours.
He lowers his gaze to the ground. “Really look at it,” he says, his voice suddenly quiet yet pleading.
“Um, okay.” I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for, only that I have been ogling Eros this entire time, so I turn my attention to Psyche. Her head is tilted up toward Eros’s face, but there’s something across her eyes. I guess it’s supposed to be a blindfold since, as Jasper told us, Eros forbid her to see his face. My eyes drift to her exposed back, where her own pair of wings protrudes. They stand upright, perpendicular to her back instead of spread to their fullest extent, but they remind of something. She resembles what I would imagine a fairy to look like: a petite, dainty girl with dragonfly wings. No, they’re not dragonfly wings. More like…
Jasper finally turns to face me just as the revelation rushes over me like an unexpected storm. Phrases uttered to me as he lay dying, since forgotten, click together and settle back into place in my mind.
“Psyche, you came back to me.”
And Vanessa’s whispered prophecy:
“The butterfly goddess has returned…”
Our eyes meet, and I think my heart actually stops for a fleeting moment when I see Jasper’s glisten with tears.
“When I told you that you were important,” he says, swallowing a sob, “I meant that you were important to me.” He takes a step forward. I take an automatic step back, and he flinches as though I’ve slapped him.
“Jasper—” I feel like I’m sinking in an ocean, water flooding my mouth and nose, drowning me in dread. My wings prepare to erupt through the back of my dress. He talks over my cry of warning.
“In your other life, on Olympus, with me, your name was Psyche. And you were my wife.”
Chapter 16
“Say something,” Jasper pleads with me. We’ve been standing in silence for what feels like forever. His brow is creased with worry. My face feels numb, but I’m sure whatever expression I’m wearing, it’s not reassuring him. I wasn’t able to regain my composure, and my wings have ripped through the back of my dress. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch shimmers of blue and purple in the dark.
“I don’t know what to say. So I’m some kind of goddess. The goddess of cheerleading and biology?” I try to joke, laughing weakly.
His shoulders fall. “You don’t believe me.”
“It’s not that,” I assure him quickly. “I want to believe you. I do. It’s just I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I know is this life—my life. I don’t remember Olympus.”
I don’t remember you. My unspoken words hang in the air between us, an invisible but insurmountable barrier.
“Yes, you do,” he insists. “Your dreams.”
Panic descends on me like an arctic blast. “How do you know about those?” I demand through gritted teeth, my voice deadly quiet. “Can you read my mind?”
“No!” he exclaims, but then he falters. “I mean, sort of…we can pick up fragments of thoughts—”
“Well, stop!” I clutch the sides of my head with my hands as if to keep him out.
“I can’t help it, it just happens sometimes—”
We both jump as something whizzes past us and collides with the gray bark of a birch tree behind Jasper. The trunk erupts in flames.
“Hide. Now!” Jasper shouts. Without waiting for my response, he leaps toward me and pushes me behind Eros and Psyche—behind us, I guess. I peer around…myself…but I don’t see anything or anyone else besides Jasper in the garden. Jasper takes a few steps forward on the cobblestone path.
“Hephaestus!” he yells into the night. “I know that’s you! Come out and face me like a man, you crippled idiot!”
Now I do see a dark figure limping along the pathway. Moonlight illuminates the scars and mottled flesh on the left side of his face. Hef gives a hearty chortle.
“This coming from my wife’s pretty bastard child,” he taunts. He snaps his fingers, and another fireball appears, orange tongues of flame licking the air as it hovers above the palm of his hand.
Jasper doesn’t recoil from the insult, but his reaction—to rip off his shirt without bothering to unbutton it and toss it to the ground—is a little unexpected. “You know better than anyone that my mother has screwed half of our world—and this one.” The strip-tease makes more sense when his magnificent black wings spring from his back.
“Going somewhere?”
“Yes. Aren’t you forgetting? I have these.” Jasper pumps his wings once. Twice. The motion creates a tremendous popping sound, similar to the kind you make if you whip a sheet over a bed really hard, only much louder.
“Fine. Fly away, little bird.”
Jasper snarls, but his feet remain rooted to the ground. “Mom’s the one who sent you here, I presume?”
“Aphrodite doesn’t ‘send me’ anywhere.” Hephaestus tosses the fireball straight up in the air and “catches” it, li
ke a baseball. It stops just above his outstretched hand. “She wants to use the girl against you. I have...other methods.”
Jasper opens his mouth to reply, but Hephaestus heaves the fireball in his direction. Jasper dives to the ground and mostly avoids it except for a few singed feathers.
“Who else crossed-over with you?” Hephaestus barks, conjuring yet a third fiery orb. “We know Apate did. Where’s that pesky brother of hers? Dolos?”
There’s an edge of wariness in Jasper’s disbelieving laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really—” Hef starts to scoff, but a quick flick of Jasper’s wrist sends a weapon of his own hurtling toward Hephaestus in a silver-blue blur. Hephaestus drops his cane so that he has a free hand with which to catch it. His fingers open to reveal a sharp metal dagger, but a moment later I watch with wide eyes as the knife dissolves into a metallic pool in his hand. Shiny silver droplets bleed onto the ground.
“The next time we meet, I’m kicking your ass all the way back to Olympus.” Hephaestus throws the last fireball but seems to purposely miss Jasper. Instead, the ferns behind him catch fire. Picking up his cane, Hephaestus points it in the direction of the crackling flames and sweeps it dramatically through the air in a semi-circle. An instant later, he’s gone and the entire garden burns, gray smoke twisting into the night sky. I crouch lower to the ground, but not before gagging from the smoke invading my mouth and nostrils. Suddenly, two strong, reassuring arms scoop me up, and Jasper launches us into the air.
“Hush!” he yells at me above the whoosh of air rushing past us as we ascend higher and higher. That’s when I realize I’m screaming. I clamp my mouth shut, even though no one but Jasper can hear me. I squeeze my eyes closed and only open them when we’ve stopped moving.
We hover there in midair, Jasper’s wings beating rhythmically behind him. My body is completely molded into his, which I’d be enjoying more if we weren’t just ambushed by the alleged god of fire and weren’t presently hanging thousands of feet above the ground. Although I can feel he’s relishing it.
“How can you be horny after that?”
My exasperation coaxes a smile onto his face, but only for a second. “Are you okay?”
“I guess so.” I chance a glance downward but only see the silhouettes and pinprick lights of the buildings below. Not for the first time tonight, abrupt terror seizes me. “Anna and Eric!” I gasp. “What if they’re still inside? We have to go back!”
“Eric texted me. They left a while ago,” Jasper tries to assure me.
“Eric whisking Anna away somewhere. Gee, that’s comforting!”
I might as well be an annoying but harmless fly buzzing around his ear. “Let’s go.” His grip on me slackens, and he starts to try to shift me. I squirm in resistance.
“Stop doing that!” he cries fearfully.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to get you onto my back.”
“We are not flying back.” I thrash even more. “Take us back down. We can take a bus. Or walk.”
“Flying’s faster. Just stop moving,” he cautions, “and hold onto me.”
I cling to him the entire way back, horizontal beneath him, my arms and legs wrapped snugly around him. My purse is squashed between our bodies, and I can feel my wallet, phone and a tube of lipstick digging into my stomach. Cold air bites my back through the rips in my dress where my own wings dangle uselessly. Mostly I keep my eyes closed, but sometimes I open one to peer at his solemn face. His eyes focus straight ahead, his mouth set in a thin, determined line. As soon as his feet touch down on black asphalt, I push out of his arms, falling backwards. His hand darts out to steady me.
“Watch it.” It’s only then that I look around and notice we’re on a flat roof, not the street. The leaves of a tree peek just below its edge, and two other rectangular brick buildings loom on either side of this one.
“I thought we were going back to campus,” I tell him. “Where are we?”
“Greenview,” he says. “At my place.”
I suppress my initial response, which is to completely freak out, and instead calmly remind him, “I have a curfew now, Jasper. I need to get back to the sorority house.”
He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have left you there last night. It’s not safe for you anymore.”
Vanessa’s eerie warning ricochets around my head. “Why?”
“Because of your house mother.”
“Farrah?” I ask, skeptical at first. Then, another realization smacks me. “She’s Aphrodite. Your mother,” I mutter almost to myself. I remember her cold, cruel jade eyes as they were in my nightmare, watching me dispassionately as I fought to breathe. I know what Jasper’s going to say before he comes out with it.
“She’s the one who killed you.”
Chapter 17
“So she’s here to finish me off again,” I realize. Jasper turns and strides toward the edge of the roof. I follow him, my steps careful and less assured than his. “Where are you going?”
“Jasper!” My shriek pierces the peaceful night as I watch him leap over the side.
I hear the clang of metal. He looks up at me, his feet planted firmly on the fire escape. He holds out a hand to me.
“Come on,” he says, but I shake my head. “You don’t have to jump like I did. Use your wings to...flutter down to me.” His verb choice makes him grin.
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can!”
“No, really—I can’t,” I insist. “I’ve tried before.” It’s true, although I’m not sure trying only once really counts as a concerted effort. I didn’t think they’d be powerful enough, but I did it anyway: climbed to the lowest branch of the maple tree in our backyard and jumped, but my wings couldn’t carry me. Instead of landing gracefully like Jasper did only minutes ago, I hit the ground and broke my leg. That would have been the perfect time to have their super-platelets, or whatever allows their bodies to heal so quickly.
“Try it now,” he urges me. “If you start to fall, I’ll catch you. Trust me.”
Still, I hesitate, silently gauging the distance between the roof and the stairs. It’s not a far drop. I flex my wings, feeling the muscles in my shoulders and back bunch up, then relax. They do feel stronger, somehow. I continue pumping them and feel my feet leave the rough rooftop. I can’t believe I’m doing it—I’m fluttering down to the top landing of the fire escape.
“I did it,” I gasp, the metal ringing as I make impact.
Jasper looks satisfied, “I told you so” scrawled across his features, but he doesn’t say it. He simply unlocks a heavy-looking door, white chips speckling its dark green paint, and tugs it open to reveal faded plum carpeting and a corridor of wooden doors with brass apartment numbers. I duck under his arm as he keeps the door propped open for me. His footsteps plod behind me over the plush carpet, and the door thumps closed. We walk until we reach unit 6C.
“I still can’t believe it. It’s just there’s never seemed to be any point to my wings,” I babble excitedly as Jasper opens the door to his apartment, “except to be pretty and shiny and pop out whenever I’m scared, angry or turned…on.” I drop my voice at the end. I didn’t intend to mention that part.
“That’s normal.” When I look doubtful, he says, “They’re in part a defense mechanism. They may not be as powerful as mine, but they give you some advantage over an opponent and can get you out of a stressful situation quickly.” He drops his keys in a porcelain dish on top of the hexagonal, maple wood table right inside the door.
“I don’t know. I feel like I can only barely control them most of the time. Is that normal?”
Jasper tilts his head to one side, considering this. “That may be hormonal.”
“Because I’m a girl?” I squeak the last word in offense.
“Not where I was going with that,” he assures me. “I was thinking more because you were in puberty when I gave them to you. It’ll be easier and easier to contro
l them as you get older.”
I purse my lips, nodding. “Okay. So what’s the other part?”
“What other part?”
“You said they’re partly a defense mechanism. That makes it sound like they have another purpose.”
“They’re a mark of beauty. Of being special.”
“Oh. Well, I’m not anyone special,” I grumble, putting my purse on the same table and taking out my cell phone.
“Of course you are.” Two fingers slide under my chin and push it upward so our gazes lock. My breath hitches in my throat, and for a moment I forget what I was going to do.
“I’ll stay here. For tonight,” I emphasize. “I just need to let our house manager know.”
He nods rather reluctantly and trails his fingers down my neck and collarbone as he lowers his arm. My lower abdomen clenches, but I distract myself by scrolling through the contacts on my phone for Carly’s number. It’s already eleven thirty; I’m cutting it close. Carly picks up after several rings.
“Hey, Siobhan.”
“Hey. I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
I can feel Carly giving me a skeptical look through the phone. “Please. I’m still doing this homework for Concepts of Math. What’s up?”
“Look, I’m sorry for the last minute notice, but I was out with Jimmy, and I think I’m just going to stay at his place tonight.” I wouldn’t care if Carly knew where I was really staying, but if it gets back to Farrah I don’t want her knowing I’m having a sleepover with her son.
“You know that’s fine with me,” Carly says. “Thanks for calling, though. See you tomorrow!”
“Bye.” I end the call and turn back to Jasper. He stoops to get something out of the fridge.
“Milk?” he asks me. He smiles sheepishly. “It’s all I have.”
“Sure.” While he fills two glasses I wander around his apartment. It isn’t anything like I imagined it would be, although it’s more realistic for someone living off of a graduate student’s stipend. The efficiency apartment and meager furnishings don’t at all reflect the sensual, elegant presence that permeates it. There are really only two separate rooms: a bathroom packed with a shower, a toilet, and a sink that’s too big for it, and a living room/kitchen. A pale wood room divider separates his full-size bed and bureau from the rest of the living room. What remains is only enough space for a love seat, small coffee table and a television. There are several TV trays folded up in the corner.
