Aphrodite studied my face then the signature on my forehead. “I assure you, I did not.”
I was no scholar of Greek mythology, but Aphrodite wasn’t what I imagined. She was beautiful, of course—amazingly so—but she held her features with a hard edge. Like her bodyguard, she had piercing blue eyes. She’d passed her high cheekbones and radiant skin on to her beautiful son. She was as tall as me, slender, and would be hard pressed to pass for forty, so ageless was her face.
“What is this?” She gestured to the hand dripping blotches of red onto my dress and leaving a puddle at my feet. “Theron, fetch some rags and bandage this.” As soon as the door closed behind him, she asked, “Why did you come? If you knew the way, you must have known the risk.”
“I didn’t care about risks. I have to talk to Eros.” I stepped forward, but was caught by her quick glance, which told me plainly I had not been invited to move. I retreated onto the square of marble just inside the doorway. “He didn’t give me a chance to explain. I was afraid, but I love him.”
“I doubt he would believe that, even if I told him.”
“There must be a way,” I pleaded, “for me to prove myself to him.”
Theron returned with bandages. After he slapped some gauze on the wound, wrapped it with a long strip of cloth and tied it snugly, Aphrodite spoke, “I’ll propose three tasks. If you complete them, I’ll grant you an audience with Eros.” I agreed without hesitation, but Aphrodite held up her hand, and Theron chuckled like I’d agreed to swim the Atlantic.
“If you don’t complete them, you will never again hear Eros’s voice or see his face. You will live your life as if you’d never met him.”
Her offer stank, but there was no other way. I couldn’t find him on my own.
“We’ll have this down in writing, so it’s legal.” She took sheets of parchment and a calligraphy pen from the drawer of an antique desk. She wrote two copies of the contract and offered them to me.
I shook my head. “In English. I won’t sign something I can’t read.”
Aphrodite let out an exasperated sigh, then offered the paper and pen to Theron. “In English.”
He sat at the desk and translated her writing into beautiful English script, then offered the contracts to me. I read both and found they laid out the terms exactly as she spoke them. She added that refusal to perform a task was deemed a forfeiture. I took the offered pen and signed my name under the terms of the contract on both copies. My hand left a smudge of blood next to my name.
Theron fingered the smudge. “Even better.”
Aphrodite read the contract again. Satisfied, she signed her name, then she turned to me. “I’ll keep the pendant as collateral in our agreement.” She held out her hand.
“You have a contract signed in blood. You don’t need collateral.”
“I think I do.”
Before I could shy away, Theron snatched the pendant from my head taking a handful of hair with it. I growled in pain, and his eyes glistened with satisfaction. He passed the pendant into Aphrodite’s hand. She slipped it into her pocket and went to a bedside table. From the drawer she took a magazine. Across the room I recognized the cover, and I knew what was inside—the Venus ad.
She thumbed the pages and she came toward me. “You openly mocked me in print. You stole the love of my only son, and then you burned him.” She stopped on the full-color, double-page spread of the Venus advertisement. There was no kindness in the set of her shoulders now.
That contract was going to be the death of me.
“How many of these are there?”
I didn’t answer.
“At least a million,” Theron offered.
Cosmopolitan’s U.S. circulation topped three million, but I wasn’t about to tell Aphrodite that.
“And, there are billboards,” Theron added.
There was noticeable frustration in her voice. “How many?”
“Only a handful,” I interjected. I wanted to elbow Theron in the gut, but he’d probably break my arm.
“Your first task is to rid the mortal world of this despicable Venus painting.”
“Photograph,” Theron corrected.
“You don’t know even how many there are,” I said. “Even if I got every one, you would lie and say I failed. No, you pick a number. Tell me how many you want, and I will get them.”
Aphrodite’s cheeks blushed with rising fury. “One million…” Her eyes searched Theron’s face for help. From the corner of my eye, I saw him lift his chin. “… four hundred thousand of these little ones.” She held up the magazine. “And, a dozen billiards.”
“Billboards,” Theron muttered.
“Those. I’ll give you a month,” Aphrodite replied. “Don’t ever come …”
“A month if you pick them up,” I interrupted. “Two months if you want them delivered.” I wasn’t Ron Middleton’s daughter for nothing. I’d seen him negotiate terms a hundred times.
Theron moved forward, ready to inflict bodily injury, but Aphrodite set a hand on his chest. “Delivered.” She turned to her bodyguard. “When is the new moon?”
“The day after tomorrow,” Theron replied.
“We don’t use your calendar,” Aphrodite said to me. “Your time begins the day after tomorrow. They must be delivered by the second new moon. Theron will contact you. See her out.” With that dismissal she returned to the pillowed chair, where she held up the pendant and watched it sparkle in the lamplight.
We followed a conspicuous red trail back downstairs. “You’ll return home?” Theron asked. “To where?”
“Bozeman, Montana. You know where that is?”
He nodded. “You have a cell phone?”
The question caught me off guard. We stood in the timeless palace of a Greek goddess, but like Eros, Theron understood modern life. “It’s at the hotel.”
“What’s the number?”
I rattled it off, and said, “Do you want me to write it down?”
“I’ll remember.”
The two young men who brought me inside the palace waited in the round room murmuring to one another. At the sight of us they straightened into silence.
The older of the two looked about twenty. He stood as tall as Theron with dark hair, olive skin and full lips. I caught him looking at my hand, where the blood had already soaked the bandage bright red.
“Change clothes and return her to the mainland,” Theron said to dark-haired guy.
“I left a duffle bag on the beach,” I said.
Theron sent another man to fetch it, and when he returned, so had the dark-haired guy, who wore cargo shorts, a half-zip sweater and sandals. Ironically, standing between him and Theron, I looked the least mortal, except for the blood on my dress.
They led me down a hallway that descended out of the marbled halls of the palace and into rough hewn passages within the island cliffs. Eventually we met a wide wooden door. Beyond it was a stairwell that descended into darkness. Theron threw a switch, and a single row of dim bulbs appeared to guide us down.
The young man and I entered the stairwell, and Theron closed the door behind us. The metallic clunk of the lock said there was no going back. I walked blindly for five or six steps before my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The dampness clung to my skin, and the musty air felt stale in my lungs. Still, it was easier to breathe now that a locked door separated me from Theron.
We descended about thirty steps before the stairway widened into a cave. On either side were iron bars which made cages of the lesser caves. The cages were more shadowed than lit, but on one wall hung a pair of iron shackles.
The air felt colder, and I stifled a shiver. I knew my guide was watching me.
“That’s where you would have ended up if Theron decided to kill you. If you’re wise, you won’t cross Theron.”
I held up my hand. “I’ve been warned already.” I kept walking and hoped the next bend in the corridor wouldn’t be worse.
The stairwell narrowed and the steps grew
steeper. My sandal slipped on the stone, and I instinctively reached out to catch myself. My wounded hand hit the stone, and the sharp pain nearly made me sick.
My companion offered a hand to steady me, but I didn’t take it. “Keep it above your heart,” he murmured.
Of course, I knew that, but I wasn’t doing it. I discreetly tucked my hand through the haltered neck of my dress. The bandage felt hot and sticky on my collarbone, but in a few minutes the pain lessened to a dull throb. I wanted to cry, but I wouldn’t allow myself the luxury of tears until I was alone. “Will you be punished for taking me into the palace?”
“Most likely.” He slowed his pace to match mine. He carried my duffle bag on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry for getting you in trouble.” I realized how costly that mistake might be. What would Theron do to him?
“Less trouble than you.” He motioned to the contract in my hand.
We were close to the water now. Its gentle lap echoed in the stairwell, and the air smelled of fish and rotting seaweed. “They expect me to fail,” I replied.
“Of course they expect you to fail. No mortal has ever succeeded at Aphrodite’s tasks.” He shoved a hand into his pocket angrily. “I can’t believe Eros betrothed himself to one of your kind.”
I suppose I should have been offended, but I appreciated his honesty.
“Don’t do it. Forget Eros. Walk away from here and pretend you never met Aphrodite.”
He made it sound so simple, but there was no way I could forget Eros. I would rather roam the country collecting a million magazines than forget those violet eyes. “I can’t.”
He caught my arm and stopped me. “He dusted you, didn’t he?”
I jerked my arm from his fingers. “No, he didn’t.” I could tell he didn’t believe me, but I didn’t care. It was none of his business. He was Aphrodite’s servant. Anything I told him would be repeated upstairs once I was on the mainland. But wait, maybe that was a good thing. “He didn’t have to,” I confessed. “I loved him without seeing his face.” Tell that to your mistress, I thought. Make sure she knows I will complete these tasks.
The stairs ended inside a huge cave with a semi-circle walkway around a small bay. A speedboat bobbed softly in the water. “Get aboard,” my companion said.
On the other side of the bay a giant wheel was attached to thick chain and some kind of pulley system. As soon as I was seated in the boat, he doused the light. I heard the wheel churn into motion. The stone slab separating us from the sea rose and revealed a narrow passageway to open water.
He drove us out of the caves and headed a quarter mile toward the open sea before looping back to Naples. I wondered what hazards lay beneath the water that made him take this route, but it didn’t matter.
If I ever returned to that island, Theron would kill me for sure.
Chapter 15
I was camped out in a plastic chair for the two-hour layover in Chicago when I finally gathered the courage to power on my cell phone. The flight home went from Naples to Chicago before connecting to Bozeman. Since I was only a few hours from facing my dad, I wanted to know what to expect when I got there.
The inbox of my voicemail was full, and every message was from Dad. The first few were worried, then angry, desperate, and finally, remorseful. “Psyche, I’m sorry,” he said. “Whatever I did that drove you away, I’m sorry. Please, just come home.”
I hoped that meant he wouldn’t ground me forever.
The downstairs lights were off when I pulled up to the curb. I’d hardly eaten all day. After dropping my duffle bag on the dining room table, I ransacked the fridge for left-overs. I found chicken pot pie and a can of root beer.
There was a rumble of feet down the stairs. “Psyche?”
Hands full of food, I turned and held my breath.
Dad crossed the kitchen and pulled me to his chest. “Where have you been?”
I hugged him back briefly, then I waited for him to let me go. “It’s probably better if you didn’t know.”
He stepped back and said, “You’re gonna tell me anyway.”
“I’m hungry.” I put the food in the microwave and opened the root beer.
Dad waited unmoved.
I was a terrible liar, but I did my best. “There was someone I needed to see.”
“Who?”
Yeah, right. I couldn’t tell him that. “You don’t know her.” As an afterthought I added, “A client.” It was sort of true. I was doing her bidding now.
“You’re modeling again?”
I shrugged as the microwave beeped. I pulled the container out and blew steam off each bite, but I still burned my tongue.
“Psyche, where were you?” Dad demanded. He eyed my bandaged hand. I’d put fresh gauze on it, but it soaked through again.
“Naples.”
“Florida?”
“Italy.” Four bites, and I was no longer hungry. I set the food on the counter. “I charged some stuff on the credit card…”
“And you’ll pay back every dime of it,” he snapped.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I stepped past him, grabbed my duffle bag and started upstairs. I’d been up for twenty hours. If he wanted to punish me, I was too exhausted to argue.
I’d missed about a week of classes. I couldn’t even remember what day of the week it was, much less the date. Time had shifted and stalled for me since Eros threw me out.
Fallen flower pedals littered the floor in front of my locker, remnants of a shrine left to Savannah, which had been cleared by the custodian. The front of her locker remained wallpapered with post-its and photographs that students left in her memory. “We miss you!” one said. Another said, “You were always nice to me. I’ll miss your smile.” Near the bottom was an index card taped on three sides. I pulled it off and read the back. “I never told you I loved you.” It was signed by a junior boy I barely knew. I carefully set it back in its place.
“Why’d she do it?” Travis’s voice startled me.
Later I learned it was his first day back at school, too. I faced him, not knowing what to say.
He usually avoided my eyes, but now he looked at me like he was trying to find absolution somewhere in my face. “I loved her.”
I thought of her tears after he broke up with her and how she said she meant nothing to him. “She knew that.” I would never tell him how Savannah betrayed me.
“She left her sweatshirt in my car,” he said absently then wandered away. I wondered if I should have tried harder to help him, but I was too consumed with my own heartache.
When I reached first period, I found out it was Tuesday. Tonight was the new moon. I had exactly sixty days to complete the first task.
While the class copied notes in chemistry, I nudged Rory’s shoulder. “What are you doing for lunch?”
He turned his head sideways and muttered into his shoulder, “Same as every other day. PBJ and Robert Jordan in the caf.”
“Who’s Robert? Is he a senior?”
Rory dropped a paperback novel onto my desk. “Fantasy.”
I scribbled intently while Mr. Darling passed our row. When he crossed the room, I whispered, “If I buy, will you ditch Jordan and have lunch with me?”
Rory slowly turned in his chair with suspicious eyes. “Serious?”
I copied the last of the notes and looked up. “Yeah. I need a genius. Thought you’d be the guy to ask.”
“I’m flattered.” He looked around and added quietly, “You sure you want to be seen with me?”
“As long as you don’t mind being seen— possibly photographed—with me.” I wasn’t kidding about the paparazzi. The crowd and the news crews had moved on, but a few photographers remained to torment me.
One was sitting at the edge of the high school parking lot with a zoom lens when Rory and I crossed the street to a Mom & Pop burger joint.
I ordered my usual out of habit—a mushroom-Swiss burger and vanilla milkshake—but when we took our seats at a window b
ooth, I could only force down a single bite. Like the toast I ate this morning, the burger tasted like cardboard in my mouth and threatened to come up after I swallowed. I pushed the food aside and thumbed through Rory’s novel. “Do you believe in this stuff?”
Rory took a bite of his double cheeseburger and answered with his mouth full. “It’s obviously called fantasy for a reason.”
“Yeah, but I mean the fundamentals. Good always triumphs. The knight saves the lady in distress.”
“Damsel,” he corrected.
“What?”
Rory licked ketchup off his finger. “Damsel in distress.”
“Whatever.” I turned the book over and studied the cover. Words were harder to come by than I expected.
He sat back and thought while sipping his Coke. “I believe you can overcome insurmountable odds with fortitude and a little luck.”
I tossed the book to him. “You’re definitely the guy I need.”
“For what?” Rory paused with a fry poised in front of his mouth. His gaze was somewhere across the restaurant. He looked over his shoulder and across the room in the other direction.
I slid lower in the booth. That little knot of anxiety churned in my chest.
Rory swallowed his last few fries and reached for mine, which where untouched. “People are staring at us,” he whispered.
“We should go.” I started to pull up the hood of my sweatshirt, but Rory stopped me. I wanted to kick his shin under the table when I realized he enjoyed people staring at us.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I need to collect one point four million copies of the Venus ad.”
“Why?”
I told my dad a fraction of the truth, and he had the hospital test me for hallucinogens. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” When I didn’t answer, Rory grew irritated. “But you want my help.” He tossed wrappers and used napkins onto the tray. “Sorry, but if you can’t trust me, I can’t help you. We’re late for class.” He dumped the trash and walked out the door.
I should have known Rory wouldn’t help without knowing all the details. The clock was ticking, and it looked like I was going to lose.
Painted Blind Page 14
