by A Lonergan
“Gemma? The Gemma? Apollo’s daughter, Gemma?” He raised his eyebrows and gulped down some water.
“Yes, she came after me, and I took her life into my own hands, literally.” Jessa gave me a look of boredom. I was sure I hadn’t heard this story, but I knew she would continue to scare Cristoff, and I was more than okay watching his reaction.
“That’s where she went...” Cristoff popped open a bag of chips and seemed to be lost in thought.
“What do you mean? You know her?” I scratched my face nervously.
“What mermaid hasn’t heard of Gemma The Demigod. She’s killed many mermaids and our offspring. She hunted down our villages along the coast and would kill the babies first.” He crunched down on a chip before becoming very serious. “You did something that no one has been able to do. You have saved so many children by one little act. We were her favorite past time.”
Jessa gave me a surprised smile before taking the container of grapes and going to the sofa. “What’s the game plan?”
“We’ll leave tomorrow, I’ll send Shaskia word to expect us a little early.”
She laughed at my words. “Early? We are very late.”
“No, early, she wasn’t expecting us for another week. That’s what I told her.”
She didn’t say anything and continued to eat the fruit. Cristoff watched me with curious eyes before opening his annoying mouth again.
“So, when are we leaving?” He leaned against the counter and raised his eyebrows.
“You aren’t coming with us.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
He laughed nervously. “You are not leaving me alone in this Voodoo castle.” He shivered violently to show me his discomfort.
“The Valley has nothing to offer you.”
Cristoff scoffed. “I’m so sure. There are probably all sorts of ladies just dying for some new excitement.” He waggled his brows.
Jessa laughed from the living room. “Those ladies do not want a piece of you.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Don’t be so sure of that. Now that I have my human bearings in order, I’m very gratifying.”
It was my turn to scoff. I had never heard someone so full of themselves. Cristoff cleared his throat before speaking, “If you’d rather, Jessa and I can get more aquatinted here while you go handle your business.”
“You wouldn’t think of it,” I growled under my breath.
“Don’t give me a chance to.” He sliced a piece of cheese and wagged it at me. “She’s a catch. A damaged catch but a catch none the less. If you don’t snatch her up, someone else will. Leave it to Zeus, he’ll screw it all up for you. Just watch.”
Needless to say, Cristoff tagged along, much to my disapproval. The only good thing I could say about it was that he was happy and not a grumpy fart like he had been before his human transformation.
The portal spit us out at the base of the mountain, and I had the most vigorous bout of de ja voo hit me. When I looked to Jessa, the woman I saw was much different than the girl I had previously brought here. Her feet were planted in the grass and her arms folded over her chest. Her brows were furrowed as she observed the hike ahead of us. Cristoff rubbed his hands together in front of himself, gleefully. It was endearing and annoying all at the same time.
I brushed my hair from my forehead and trudged forward. There would be no more delaying. Jessa’s voice interrupted my progress. “Why didn’t the portal just deliver us in there already?”
“Shaskia had extra security measures put in since Ana tried to go back home.” I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I spoke. Her jaw went slack a little, and she licked her bottom lip nervously. I sniffed the air, waiting for her fear to hit me like usual. Instead of concern, all I could smell was confidence and a little bit of nervousness underneath.
Jessa continued to walk past me and up the dirt trail through the trees. “You accept my answer with no questions? This is a Jessa I haven’t met yet.” I watched her walk even faster and loved how agitated she was getting. She would just walk faster and faster, and the view would just keep getting better.
She glanced over her shoulder and paused. “I wondered where she would go. I didn’t think she would try to go home.”
“So, you’re admitting to letting her go?” Cristoff leaned against a tree and picked at his fingernails.
She looked anywhere but him, “I didn’t think it was a big deal, I never heard what happened to Jericho. Even though I was the one that should have gotten that right. Hades, with the way Ana was when I found her, she might have had the right to kill him over any of us!”
“Keenan felt like he deserved the right to remove his head from his shoulders. He said he needed to, he needed to avenge you.”
She nodded. “Keenan saw something different when I came home. Jericho had broken me, and Keenan saw all the pieces.” I went to open my mouth, to say something about how I had seen her changes as well but she held a hand up to me. “You see the put together parts. You see the aftermath. He saw the starving, broken girl, he saw the new scarring and the clumps of hair and dirt in his bathtub. If I didn’t get the chance to wipe that piece of trash from this world, I’m grateful Keenan was the one that got to do it. He needed the closure just as much as I did.”
Chapter 3
Prometheus
I watched her from afar. She was just as beautiful as the day I had left. Her red hair was tied up tightly, and her face was pinched. It had been so long since I had last seen her, I wondered if this was her usual attire now. She hadn’t aged a day, and I knew it had to do with the fact she lived in the Valley and probably Zeus, though I didn’t want him to tarnish my thoughts of her. Sadness floated around her in waves, and I wondered what had happened that had taken the smile from her radiant face.
She spoke with Shaskia and tears flowed down her cheeks. I started to go to her, but I couldn’t let my presence be known just yet. I pushed myself back into the cave's shadows that I could learn more about the time I had been away. I had wanted to see the world, and after so many years, I had immersed myself with so many cultures, I didn’t know which one I had liked more. But I knew one thing, it wasn’t anything like being near the sad woman.
I remembered the day I met her like it was yesterday, rather than 30 years prior.
I had been chained to the top of the mountain for hundreds of years, I couldn’t keep track with all the pain I had endured. The eagle came every day at the same time and ripped my liver from its loins and left me to bleed. Though I cried for death, it never happened. Day in and day out, it was the same thing. After a hundred years, I had stopped screaming, though sometimes the eagle would try to shake it up and take something else, like my heart. When he did that, I would cry out again. Endless torment was what Zeus had in store for me.
Then one day, the eagle didn’t come back, and a human took his place. His skin was dark, and he wore a loincloth. He saw the scars on my now dark body and shuffled forward to free me from the chains. I stumbled and wobbled like a baby giraffe until the same man caught me and helped me walk. Even though I had been starved for hundreds of years, I was sure my weight was a bit overwhelming as he brought me down the mountain. In the distance, I could smell smoke and heard a few pops going off.
Though I smiled at the smell of smoke and my handy work, the man flinched and helped me hide in the trees with him. A group of light-skinned men trudged forward right in front of the trees we hid in. A few of them carrying animals over their shoulders. My savior watched the men with hate in his eyes. He hadn’t spoken, but I had heard it in his thoughts, “White men.”
He brought me back home to his village where they nursed me back to health and helped me learn their native tongue. As years in the town passed by, I realized they had always thought I was one of their own. A child had wondered off twenty years before they found me and they assumed he had come back, like me. All I could do was smile and shake my head at the accusations but what would it do to deny them their happiness? Th
ey deserved a little bit so eventually, I stopped denying and when the first elder died, then the second and then the other members in the village. They saw that I wasn’t the boy that had wandered off but indeed something they didn’t understand. I didn’t age. I didn’t change, and I didn’t hide it from the people, my people. They had called me ASHKII DIGHIN- sacred child.
But as more of the people in the village came and went to the underworld, I knew it was about time for me to venture out into the outside world. I took on a human name, Alma.
The Navajos in my village cringed at the sound of it. Said it didn’t sound right coming from the mouth but I laughed, I needed a semi-normal name to find a place with the white men if I needed to. I grabbed what little things I had possessed and said my goodbyes to the people that had protected me, loved me and watched over me for the last hundred years. As I left, many had fear in their eyes and others had hope. Either hope I would come back or hope that their kindness would be repaid back. I always made sure it had. I made promises of return and adjusted the leather pants I wore. They had survived a few decades, they had been a gift from my people, and they had held up very well. I tucked my white T-shirt into them, proud.
I hadn’t known what I had wanted when I left the village. Perhaps it had been freedom, since I had realized Zeus was over my punishment and not coming after me. Maybe it was exploration calling to me. I had been stuck at the top of the mountain in this world for so long, but I had never seen the wonders of it. The mountains had been the first thing to call me, call me crazy but I wanted to be able to look down from them.
The hike hadn’t been much, it was a rather easy one, and as I sat and looked out over the vast plot of trees, something caught my eye in the woods below. It looked like fire, weaving in and out of the shadows. It moved so fluidly and gracefully, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.
It reminded me of the fire I had gifted the humans at the dawn of time. Then the flame became a face, the most beautiful face I had ever seen. Her pale complexion wasn’t anything I had experienced before, and her bright green eyes were transfixing. She hadn’t noticed me yet, but I watched as she continued her hike, never slowing down or taking a break. She was relentless.
I finally decided that watching her would have come off as creepy, so I started up the mountain at a slower pace and tried to make as much noise as I could. If I was going to meet this goddess, I wasn’t going to creep her out. I had seen what had happened to the men in the village that had followed the women through the shadows. The trials weren’t pretty.
By the time she was starting to catch up to me, I had let out a massive yawn (fake, of course, this was nothing) and let a twig snap under my boot. When she finally made it close enough to see me, her face broke out in a huge smile. Her straight, pearly teeth were blinding.
“I thought I heard someone else here,” She pulled a canteen from her backpack and leaned against a tree while she drank. There was a slight tilt in her voice, one I hadn’t heard before. Though, I hadn’t been out of the village much.
I couldn’t say anything but smile back at her. I didn’t know how to act around women, much less goddesses like her. I just gaped, like a fish out of water.
“You’ve been following me, sir?” She quirked her eyebrow, amused.
“Umm, no. I was actually ahead of you and stopped to see who was following me.” I quirked an eyebrow at her now.
“Well, then, I’m Mira.” She held her porcelain hand out to me. I took it into my larger, darker hand. “What has you all the way out here?”
“I’m Alma.” She made a funny face at my name, and I could have kicked myself, of course, it was strange to the Navajo and the white folk. “I’ve been stuck in my village for too long, it was time for me to meet some... white folk.”
The corners of her mouth picked up, amused. “You won’t meet many of those out here.” She looked around herself, nervous that she had said that out loud, I imagined.
“I need to see the world too, but I’m sure you’re the most interesting white folk around, I prefer your company over the masses.” I went to stand and throw my backpack over my shoulder.
“You’re going to be a nomad like your ancestors?” The people from my village would have been offended by her words but they were honest and sincere and I preferred that over small talk.
“Something like that.” She turned to leave, and I felt myself panic, I needed to know if I would see her again. “Wait, can I see you once more?”
“You’re a proper man, aren’t you, Alma?” I shrugged at her words, I would do or say anything to get her to stay.
“That matters not, I want to see you.” I took a step toward her, and I saw a twinkle in her eye.
“Meet me at lovers point tomorrow.” She pointed into the distance. “You can’t miss it, it’s a giant rock that resembled a bed. We joke that the gods escaped to have affairs there.”
“Miss. Mira, don’t you think you’re moving a little too quickly? Inviting me to a bed so soon?” I laughed as I spoke and her face lit up with a blush of embarrassment. It was radiant.
“It’s a good neutral point for us to meet. Most of the villages around here aren't too far from there.” My heart skipped a beat as she spoke. Then she brushed her fiery hair over her shoulder, and she was gone. My heart had gone with her.
I had known I was a goner since that very moment and every moment after at lover’s point. We had laughed together, cried together and spent glorious nights with each other until one night she didn’t come like she had promised and I waited for her. For years we had lived for these moments. I had lived for her but she never came, and I dreaded the worst.
The next morning she ran to me, with tears running down her face. She was pregnant. I was overjoyed, but she was not. The only thing I could think of was that it was another mans. Anger filled my gut, but before I could lash out angrily, she took my hand in hers and told me of her first son. That when his father found out, he would take him from her. He was a very jealous man, and though they weren’t together anymore, he was possessive. A woman named Shaskia snuck her out of their valley, but she wouldn’t be able to hide her secret for long.
The pregnancy glow had already wrapped its way around her. Her ex would take her first born, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I held her as she cried, knowing all I could do was be her comfort.
As her belly got bigger and rounder with my child, I knew I would have to tell her who I was.
What I was.
I wasn’t just a human, Navajo escapee. I was a god, a punished, exiled god that had no business falling in love with a mortal like I had. Just as I had rehearsed and planned the words I was going to tell her, she never showed up.
She never came back. I sat heartbroken on the rock, not knowing what had happened to her. Sad; I left the mountains and my village, not sure where to go but knowing that if I stayed, I would hunt for her. Gods played by a different set of rules and I didn’t need blood on my hands from her ex.
Every 6 months I returned until finally she was there, holding a toddler with tears streaming down her face. She wasn’t as lithe as she had been before but Mira was just as radiant, she had the perfect hourglass figure now. Her red locks were braided around her head, and tracks of tears were running down her face.
She smiled at the toddler on her lap and kissed his head. I had been angry with the thought of the child being another man's, but as I gazed at the little boy, there was no doubt, he was mine. His long hair hung past his shoulders like mine did and his dark skin was the opposite of his mother’s. His dark eyes searched the woods around him before they landed on me. He cocked his head slowly, observing me from a child’s view. That was when Mira turned to me, and a sad smile lit up her face.
“He took your first born, didn’t he?” My words sounded like gravel. Rough and grating.
Tears flowed from her eyes some more. She didn’t respond.
“What’s his name?” I asked. I couldn’t take my eyes off th
e child in front of me.
“Keenan.” Her green eyes met mine. “It’s a name of power.”
“Indeed it is.” I made my way to the only family I had ever known and let Mira’s love wrap around me for the last time. I knew I couldn't stay. It wasn’t her or the child on her lap that had pushed me to leave but the life I didn’t know anything about, the son I didn’t want to tarnish. Zeus was a man of revenge, the last thing he needed to know was my weaknesses.
The memories were torment. I couldn’t change the past, but I planned on improving so much now. I wanted more for us, I needed more with Mira. I had come back to stay, knowing that Zeus no longer cared about the fire incident. It had taken much prying and slinking around to find the information, but now that I had it, I was a free man. I watched her from the shadows just like before, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I made my way down the mountain, found all the footholds that I had paid good money to discover. I didn’t know the chants, but it didn’t stop me from finding my way through the dark tunnels. It had taken hours longer than needed but I had seen her. I had found my fire.
Chapter 4
Jessa
Everything happened so quickly. We made it into the Valley without hiccups. Everyone but Cristoff was welcomed warmly, though I was cautious about it because of our departure before. There had to be a few rotten apples in the Valley that were angry with how we had left and what had come to pass during our very short stay. Not much had changed besides the fact that there was no more snow and I wasn’t freezing. Crawley and his mother spoke quietly while Shaskia looked me over. It was still so strange that she was not my grandmother. It was a painful thought.
She clucked her tongue. “Stop pining after the beast.”
