by Joan Holub
“We do not have the power to make it so,” chanted the eight trees.
Echo continued to argue the matter. But it was clear the treechers could do nothing for her.
“Couldn’t you give Echo another tree to guard?” pleaded a new voice. It was Daphne. She’d silently come into the clearing and now moved forward to join her friend. “Echo meant well. She loves FirHeart. We all make mistakes.”
The treechers shook their branches from side to side. “A tree is a once-in-a-lifetime gift.”
But then Ms. Morea cocked her upper branches as if she’d had an idea. “Unless . . . Maybe Zeus would agree to make an exception?” she mused aloud.
The other trees gasped. “You would take this to Zeus?”
Ms. Morea nodded with an up-and-down movement of her branches. “He’s not only principal of Mount Olympus Academy, after all. He’s also King of the Gods and Ruler of the Heavens.”
The other treechers looked doubtful, but in the end they said, “We will consider the matter. If it seems right, we will send word to Zeus at MOA. You may go now, girls.”
Echo and Daphne thanked the treechers. They’d been kind after all, even if they hadn’t been able to bring FirHeart back to life.
“That’s something anyway,” Daphne said, sounding encouraged by the treechers’ offer as the girls departed the clearing.
“I don’t really want another tree, though,” Echo told her. “I just want FirHeart back. Even if I have to let some other nymph care for him.”
As they headed home, Daphne kept trying to convince her that all would be well—that the treechers would convince Zeus to let her have another tree. After a while Echo tuned her out. Her friend just didn’t seem to understand that her heart ached for her tree and her tree alone. Where is home now? she wondered. Was she doomed to live in her hut forever? With FirHeart’s stump a steady reminder of her carelessness?
Halfway back to her hut and what was left of FirHeart, she finally tuned back in to Daphne. “But if Zeus could give you a new tree . . . ,” she was saying, still trying to convince Echo that this would be a good thing.
Echo stopped in her tracks. Because an idea had just struck her, as hard and fast as lightning had struck FirHeart. “Zeus! That’s it!”
“Huh?” asked Daphne.
“This is all his fault!” Echo declared. “Don’t you get it? Zeus controls lightning and thunder. He must’ve been riding his white-winged horse, Pegasus, above our forest yesterday morning, and carelessly flung a bolt at my tree! Probably just on a whim. I bet he doesn’t even know or care what he’s done. Ruined my life—that’s what!”
Daphne’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “Suppose the bolt did come from Zeus. What can you do about it?” She shrugged. “The gods do as they please.”
Anger swelled inside Echo, and her hands balled into fists at her sides. “I want my tree back. And Zeus is going to give it to me.”
Daphne’s eyes widened, but she didn’t try to argue. She probably sensed that it wouldn’t have done any good.
And indeed, Echo had made up her mind. First thing tomorrow morning she would set out for Mount Olympus. She would go meet with Zeus and see what he had to say for himself. And if she couldn’t get satisfaction, she’d try to find a way to make his life as miserable as he had made hers!
4
Narcissus
WHEN THE SUN PEEKED OVER the horizon the next morning, Echo got up. She put on the Persephone-style dress she’d made on Wednesday and washed the previous night, then slipped on her purple sandals. Since most of her clothes had been ruined, this was her best outfit now. Once she was ready to set out for Mount Olympus, she folded the long edges of the waterproof roof mat down around the sides of her hut and tied it shut.
She glanced at her tree—or what remained of it, anyway. “You’re probably wondering what I’m doing, right?” she asked FirHeart’s stump as she hunted around the area for a piece of bark big enough to write on. “I’ll be gone for a while. But I’m not abandoning you forever or anything. I’ll be back soon. With good news.” Although not nearly as sure about that as she made out, she wanted to sound encouraging. And if FirHeart could somehow understand, she wanted him to know she meant to keep her promise to return.
When she finally found some bark on the ground, Echo used a graphite stick to write a message on it to Daphne and Pan: Be back in a few days. Don’t worry. She didn’t explain that she was going to Mount Olympus Academy, or why she was headed there. Daphne might guess her plan because of their conversation the day before. But by the time Daphne read the note, Echo would be long gone and it would be too late for her friends to try talking her out of confronting Zeus.
She set the note against the door of the hut. “Bye, FirHeart,” she whispered at last. “I’ll miss you.” Then she turned away and moved off through the forest.
As she soundlessly threaded her way among trees belonging to other nymphs, she wondered if anyone else around here would miss her. Besides Daphne, Pan, and FirHeart, that was. The rest of her so-called friends all seemed to be taking Syrinx’s side against her lately. Which meant it would take more than an olive branch to set things right among them all.
Echo was a ball of tangled feelings as she traveled onward. She was mad at those other nymphs, mad at herself, and supermad at Zeus. Why had he thrown that lightning bolt? Did he know how much trouble it had caused? Well, she was going to insist that he fix things. Just because he was King of the Gods and Ruler of the Heavens, that didn’t give him the right to wreak havoc in her life! Nuh-uh, Mr. Thunderpants!
While sidestepping tree trunks and ducking under low-hanging vines, she imagined how their conversation might go. After she scolded Zeus about his errant bolt, she would say, I demand that you restore FirHeart to life! Realizing the error of his ways, Zeus would become apologetic and reply, You’re right. Please forgive me. Even the King of the Gods can make mistakes. I will do as you ask.
Of course, she wasn’t exactly sure how she’d get into the Academy’s main building after she reached it. Like everyone else, she knew it was located at the top of Mount Olympus. And she’d seen drawings of it in Teen Scrollazine, but none had been comprehensive. For all she knew, it had a high wall and a moat around it. Somehow she’d figure out how to get inside once she got there.
Echo had left her forest and was somewhere in the middle of the Forest of the Beasts when she heard something unusual. Stopping, she cocked her head to listen. Voices again. Someone was coming!
She leaped behind a eucalyptus tree, just in time to watch some mortals disappear into an intricate maze of leafy hedges known as the labyrinth. She didn’t see how many people there were, but one had been carrying an artist’s easel. And she could tell they were mortals because their skin didn’t shimmer the way that of immortals did.
What were they doing here? Fools! There were signs posted all around the Forest of the Beasts, saying the area was off-limits to mortals.
Even she and her friends had never dared to venture into the labyrinth itself. The treechers had warned them that there was some sort of fantastical beast-making machine at the center of it, one specially designed to spawn opponents for the immortal students to practice battling. Although nothing could kill immortals, she’d seen enough of the beasts in this forest to know they could still cause immortals extreme discomfort.
She was in a hurry. Still, she couldn’t just let those unsuspecting mortals go into the most dangerous part of the Forest without checking that they’d be okay. They might get mangled by a beast, or worse!
Moving after the group, Echo silently entered the labyrinth. Two dozen tricky turns later, she found her way to its center. There she discovered a courtyard with a gurgling pool where hollow reeds, bright white flowers, and colorful lilies grew.
From the mouths of a three-headed dragon fountain in the middle of the pool, water sprayed merrily, and then dripped back down the dragon’s scaly body. Fantastic plants wiggled and writhed below the trees bordering t
he courtyard. And because the trees’ umbrella canopy threw deep shadows, it seemed like early evening here instead of morning.
The mortals had reached the far side of the pool. She was surprised to see that there were only two of them—a girl and a boy, both about her age—since she’d thought she’d seen more before. The girl sat on the short stone wall around the pool. She had set up her easel to sketch, while the freckled mortal boy studied her work. Their attention was mostly focused on a statue of a boy in a short tunic, wearing a metal breastplate over his chest. Echo couldn’t see the front of the statue from where she stood, but its arm was raised and frozen in the act of throwing a spear, and the artist seemed to be drawing a picture of it.
Too bad I can’t borrow that statue’s armor for my school assignment and somehow “make it my own,” thought Echo. Then she wondered if completing the assignment even mattered. She wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be allowed to attend Nature School, now that she didn’t have a tree to care for anymore. Would she be kicked out? A lump came into her throat.
Seeing no monsters nearby, she was about to tiptoe away, when the boy statue suddenly moved. And spoke, too!
“Hare!” it said. Echo looked around, expecting to see a big rabbit hopping through the courtyard.
Instantly the freckled boy leaped up and ran over to the statue to restyle its already perfect hair. She grinned to herself, realizing her hare/hair mistake. She also realized that the talking statue was actually a real mortal boy. So there were three mortals here in the labyrinth.
“Hold still, Narcissus!” the artist told the posing boy.
Time to go, thought Echo, seeing that all was okay. But when the not-a-statue boy named Narcissus turned his head toward his friends and smiled, she froze, her mouth falling open. Not because she was worried that she’d been spotted, but because she’d caught a glimpse of Narcissus’s face.
His eyes! They were the color of a sparkly blue waterfall. His teeth flashed white. And his jaw was square and strong. He looked, well, noble. She’d seen plenty of immortal boys in the ’zine and the Greekly Weekly News before. Mega-cute ones like Poseidon, the godboy of the sea, and Ares, the godboy of war. Yet she was instantly sure that Narcissus had to be the . . . Cutest. Boy. Ever!
Her heart began to beat fast. Was this what it felt like to fall in like with a boy? Many of her fellow nymphs had been boy crazy for some time, but Echo had never crushed before. Unless you counted being starstruck for about twenty minutes one afternoon when she’d seen a picture of an actor named Orion on a drama poster that had randomly blown into her forest.
But then she’d heard he was kind of mean to the goddessgirl of the hunt, Artemis, who had always been kind to nymphs. After that Orion hadn’t looked so cute anymore. Mini crush over.
Just then Echo heard a rustling sound. It was so faint that none of the mortals’ ears picked up on it. Peering deep into the shadows, she saw two red dots glowing in the farthest part of the hedge that bordered the whole courtyard. Eyes. Scary ones. The more she stared, the more the craggy features of a metal beast began to take shape. It was a creature she recognized from her Nature School studies—a monstrous serpentine creature called the Drakon Thespiakos!
A bolt of fear speared her. And concern for the safety of these mortals—especially that cute Narcissus. She ran toward the group. “Beast!” she yelled, pointing toward the hedge.
The three mortals all jumped, startled to see her. Then everything seemed to happen at once, really fast. Narcissus backed up, moving closer to the hedge . . . and bumped right into the metal Drakon!
Pzzzt! A shower of small sparks shot from the creature’s red eyes. They fizzled out quickly and didn’t come anywhere near Narcissus’s armor. Still, he tumbled away from the beast and toward the fountain, yelling out in alarm. “Whoa, killer sparks!”
The freckled boy who’d just styled Narcissus’s hair yelled, “Watch out, Narcissus! Don’t look into the pool, whatever you do!” The boy lunged at Narcissus, knocked him out of the way, and then accidentally fell into the fountain himself, splashing the artist and soaking her roll of drawing papyrus.
Meanwhile, Echo bravely flung herself at the Drakon. Crash! It fell to the ground, with her on top of it. She cringed, waiting for it to do some awful magic to her. But luckily, the mechanical beast only clanked a few times, then made a sound like a balloon losing air, and went dead silent.
Narcissus folded his arms and frowned at her, “Well, that stunt pretty much ruined everything.” Instead of thanking her, he and his two friends were now glaring at her!
“But I saved you,” Echo told him, sitting up.
“And almost sent him to his doom in this pool,” said the freckled boy as he climbed out of the water.
“Doom?” Echo repeated, getting to her feet. The freckled boy nodded.
However, Narcissus rolled his sparkly blue eyes and said, “Whatever, Tiresias.” Then to Echo he explained, “He’s superstitious. Every time I even glance at a pond or a mirror or a piece of glass—”
“You know the prophecy,” Tiresias cautioned Narcissus. Then he spoke to the artist as he used both hands to wring water out of his tunic. “Tell her, Anaxandra.”
The artist nodded and then confided to Echo, “Narcissus isn’t allowed to look at his reflection, or his heart will disappear into thin air. Poof!”
“Yeah, as in . . .” Tiresias drew a finger across his throat. “No one can live without a heart.”
Echo gasped. “You mean it might actually kill you to look at your own reflection?” she asked Narcissus.
“It’s just a dumb prophecy.” He shrugged, looking unconcerned. As the other two mortals pushed the beast upright again, Narcissus circled it. “We found this mechanical monster yesterday in the Forest and brought it here to use as a prop for sketches of me. Epically cool the way his eyes shot sparks even though the rest of him seems to be turned off. Me pretending to fight him would have made for some dramatic drawings, don’t you think?”
Tiresias glared at Echo again. “That was the plan. Until you came along, that is.”
She sighed. “Oh! Sorry.”
“Yeah, well, this beast is toast. So I guess we’re finished here,” said Tiresias. The mortals began packing up their belongings and preparing to depart.
“Oh, one thing before we leave,” said Narcissus, turning back to Echo. “Since I’ve never seen my reflection in pool or mirror, I ask that everyone I meet offer a few words to describe me. Adjectives. Preferably glowing ones.”
“Right, and we record all the adjectives and who said them in his fan scrollbook.” The artist pulled from her bag a dry papyrus scroll that was the same blue as Narcissus’s eyes. Pen poised, she gazed expectantly at Echo.
“Uh-um,” stuttered Echo. Narcissus was so irresistibly kee-yute that she wouldn’t know where to begin. She felt her face flush.
“It’s easy,” Narcissus coaxed. “Just say stuff like that I have amazing hair. Awesome style. Things like that.”
“Uh-huh, amazing hair. Style,” Echo echoed. It must be hard not to ever, ever be able to see yourself. You’d really want to know what you looked like. So as the artist wrote her words down, Echo quickly excused Narcissus’s obvious desire for flattery. It was kind of understandable, really.
Once she’d finished writing, Anaxandra began stuffing her papyrus scrolls in her bag. “I like your chiton,” she told Echo.
Pleased, Echo smiled. “Thanks. I made it myself.”
Narcissus’s face lit up as he suddenly took notice of what she was wearing. “Do you make clothes for guys, too?”
“I’ve never tried,” she admitted.
He smiled, dazzling her. “Well, do you think you could maybe sketch out some outfits for me real quick while the others pack everything up? See, I long to be a model,” he informed her.
“A model what?” asked Echo, not understanding. This guy had her so bedazzled, she could barely remember her own name, much less use her brain to understand words.
/>
“A fashion model. You know. Modeling clothes that someone else creates—preferably someone totally talented and famous like Moda. Um, what does that guy call himself again, Tiresias?” Narcissus asked, glancing at the freckled boy.
“A fashion designer,” Tiresias supplied easily. He came over to shake Echo’s hand. “I’m Narcissus’s agent and stylist, by the way. And you are?” He and Narcissus seemed much more interested in her now that they knew she could sew.
“Echo, an Oreiad nymph,” she replied.
“Nice to meet you,” said Tiresias.
Narcissus turned his handsome face toward her again. “See, if a designer created high-fashion outfits for me, I’d wear them in a runway show. To show them off to rich people who’d buy them. Or copies of them, anyway.”
Copies? Echo sure was hearing that word a lot lately. But unlike the nymphs, these mortals seemed to approve of the idea of copying. Well, the idea of copying clothing, anyway.
After all that had happened over the past couple of days, Echo needed cheering up. This was just the ticket. These mortals were inviting her to help out with Narcissus’s career! She liked fashion. And she was good at it. Maybe having that in common was a sign that she should accept the invitation and try to get to know this boy better. Maybe they’d soon be crushing. Maybe it would turn out they were destined to be together!
But then she hesitated, remembering her plan to visit Zeus. She really needed to get going. Gesturing beyond the labyrinth in the general direction of Mount Olympus, she said, “Well, the thing is, I—”
Before she could finish with “have to go meet someone,” a whirring, flapping sound reached their ears.
Tiresias leaped to his feet in alarm. “What now?”
“Another beast?” asked Narcissus. They all looked toward the maze’s entrance.
“No, that’s the sound of winged sandals. I forgot, it’s Friday,” said Echo. “Hide!”
