Echo the Copycat

by Joan Holub

  “Wha-a-at the . . . ,” Pan bleated, looking at her in surprise.

  That lightning had come at them sideways, Echo realized with a start, just like the bolt that had hit FirHeart. Immediately she flew into the maze, leaving Pan to follow. She was going to get to the bottom of this!

  Two dozen turns later she and Pan found themselves at the entrance to the labyrinth’s central courtyard. Hearing voices, they hid behind some bushes to listen in.

  Narcissus and Tiresias were inside the labyrinth, standing next to the Pool of Magic along with Anaxandra, their artist. There was another girl with them too—Syrinx!

  Tiresias was tinkering with the Drakon, which stood silent and upright. “Phew! Looks like this beast is finally fixed,” he was saying. “Almost got us with that last shower of sparks, but I think I’ve got it under control again.”

  “Good work,” said Anaxandra. “Okay, so let’s go back to our original plan and get a sketch of Narcissus pretending to fight it. Then we’ll send my sketchscrolls to Moda.”

  “Yeah! Those plus the drawings the reporters’ artists made of me jumping out of Zeus’s cake float ought to really wow him,” Narcissus said approvingly.

  Tiresias nodded. “Those float pics will probably hit the front pages of GW and the ’Zine tomorrow.”

  “Cool,” said Syrinx. The river nymph smiled adoringly at Narcissus, but he didn’t even notice. Typical.

  Syrinx was crushing! Echo realized in surprise. She glanced to the side at Pan, who had noticed too. Poor guy. His crush on Syrinx had just been crushed.

  “So turn that Drakon on again!” said Narcissus, striking his spear-the-beast pose.

  “But wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Syrinx said. “You might get injured.”

  “She’s right,” said Tiresias. “You’re a model, and your looks are your fortune! Ours too, for that matter. Remember what happened a few days ago?”

  Narcissus shrugged. “Last time we didn’t know how it worked. I think we’ve got the hang of it now, don’t you?”

  “But we still can’t control the size or direction of its sparks,” noted Anaxandra, gazing doubtfully at the Drakon.

  “Sparks, schmarks.” Narcissus laughed and glanced over at Syrinx. “They’re more like lightning bolts, really,” he told her. “The other day one of them hit a tree before we could turn this beast off. Cut it right in two. We could hear it fall even at a distance. Ka-Boom!” He laughed again. “Good thing it was just a tree. No real harm done.”

  Echo and Pan stared at each other, appalled. To her credit, Syrinx hadn’t found Narcissus’s comment amusing either. She was staring at him as if she couldn’t believe he’d said that.

  Echo’s cheeks flamed in anger. “Just a tree? No real harm done?” she repeated, jumping out of the bushes to confront Narcissus. But after saying those words, she said no more. It was impossible to continue scolding him till the copycake’s effects wore off!

  “What are you doing here?” Syrinx demanded. Her eyes took in Echo’s outfit. “And what’s with the fancy chiton? Where’d you copy this one from?”

  As usual, her words caused pinpricks of unhappiness to stab Echo’s heart. But then she saw that Syrinx was wearing a very familiar chiton. One Echo had made herself and managed to recover after the FirHeart disaster. This sneak must’ve found it in the makeshift hut and “borrowed” it.

  Noticing where Echo was looking, Syrinx quickly defended her borrowing. “Haven’t you heard? I’ll be staying on in the forest. I’ve decided to become a Dryad. Since I’m basically your replacement, I borrowed your stuff. No one thought you’d dare come back here after what you did to your tree.”

  Echo took a step backward, feeling as if she’d just been slapped. At the same time Daphne burst into the labyrinth’s center, joining them.

  “That’s totally not true, Syrinx. You don’t have any intention of becoming a Dryad, and you know it.” Without waiting for a response, Daphne gave Echo a hug, telling her, “I was waiting for Pan to come back. When I saw you guys, I followed you in. Gorgeous outfit!”

  Syrinx had clammed up at Daphne’s words, but Echo’s heart leaped with joy to hear them. She valued her friend’s loyalty, even if there was no real place for her in the forest anymore.

  “Ahem! This is a closed set,” Narcissus called to them with a superior smile. “Only modeling staff allowed. Could you guys leave?”

  How could she ever have crushed on this guy? Echo fumed silently. She and her friends had as much right to be here as he did. Which was to say, no right at all. This maze was equally off-limits to both mortals and nymphs. However, all she could reply to him was, “Leave?”

  Pan had been glowering at Narcissus. But suddenly a mischievous grin came over his face. “Hey! Is that a pimple on your nose?” he called to the handsome boy.

  The smile abruptly left Narcissus’s face. Looking horrified at the possibility, he leaned down, pushed aside the reeds, bright white flowers, and lilies that grew in the pool, and then gazed worriedly at the water.

  Tiresias gasped, lunging to stop him. “Wait! The prophecy!”

  “Yeah! Your heart!” yelled Anaxandra.

  “What pr-pr-prophecy?” Pan bleated in confusion, since he’d known nothing about it. But it was too late to take back his practical joke. Narcissus’s blue eyes had found his own reflection in the pool.

  “Oh doom! Certain doom!” Tiresias began wailing.

  Echo bit her lip. Along with Narcissus’s friends, she anxiously studied the boy. Was his heart about to vanish, as the prophecy had foretold? Although she was angry with him, she certainly didn’t wish for something so tragic to happen.

  However, as moments passed, Narcissus seemed fine, happy in fact. Staring at his reflection in the water, he turned his head from side to side. “Wow, I’m even handsomer than I thought.”

  “So your heart’s okay?” Tiresias asked carefully.

  “Perfect! Still beating. And no pimple,” Narcissus replied. He moved his head slightly, as if intending to look over at them all, but the vain boy couldn’t seem to shift his gaze from his own reflection.

  “No way, mortal-dude! I don’t know about your heart, but I can see tha-a-at pimple all the way from here,” Pan teased.

  “That’s a lie! Don’t listen to him, Narcissus. You look fab,” insisted Tiresias. Syrinx nodded vigorously.

  Ignoring them, Narcissus smiled at himself and leaned closer to his reflection. And closer. Just then a nut fell from one of the trees above them and landed on the Drakon’s head, causing a random shower of small sparks to shoot forth from the beast’s eyes. Pzzzt!

  “Ow!” Sparks zinged the back of Narcissus’s tunic! Startled, he toppled headfirst into the pool. Splash!

  When he stumbled back out, his hair was plastered to his head. Lily pads were stuck to his cheeks, and reeds were sticking out of his hair. “Nobody panic. I’m okay,” he announced, as if the whole world’s happiness hinged on the state of his well-being.

  Hearing his pompous words and remembering what he’d said about FirHeart and “no harm done,” Echo forever lost any remaining feelings she might have had for him.

  Anaxandra put down her feather pen and tried to show the drawing on her papyrus scroll to Narcissus as he climbed out of the pool. “I got my sketch done just as you fell in, but those white flowers in the pool kind of got in the way, see?”

  Without glancing at her or the drawing, Narcissus said, “Send it off to the reporters pronto! The sooner they get it, the sooner my dream of being asked to model is sure to come true.”

  “I’m on it. We’re done here. Let’s go!” said Tiresias. He and Anaxandra started to leave the maze, then stopped when Narcissus didn’t budge. Even when he’d stumbled out of the water, his eyes had never left his reflection, Echo realized.

  “C’mon,” Tiresias urged him. He began to look concerned when Narcissus continued gazing into the pool, his eyes glued to his reflection on its surface.

  Syrinx approached him worriedly.
“Sure you’re all right?”

  “Are you kidding?” Narcissus smiled sweetly. “I’m in love.”

  “Really?” Syrinx asked, looking thrilled and obviously hoping he meant with her. Without a doubt, she was sooo crushing on him.

  Narcissus nodded. “Yeah! I’ve discovered the true love of my life—me!”

  Syrinx’s face fell. “Huh?” she squeaked in surprise.

  “That’s it!” said Tiresias, snapping his fingers. “The prophecy did come true! I just remembered. It actually said your heart would be lost—not that it would disappear—if you saw your reflection. And you have in fact lost it . . . to yourself!”

  Narcissus smiled. “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?”

  Echo, Pan, and Daphne looked at one another and rolled their eyes. “I hope you and your reflection will be very happy together,” Pan quipped.

  Though she couldn’t voice her agreement, Echo giggled. Knowing Narcissus as she did now, she had a feeling that he was never going to crush on anyone but himself. He used the people around him like stair steps, leaving them behind as he scrambled ever higher. They were only a means to an end, meant to admire him and ensure the success of his modeling career.

  “C’mon, Narcissus,” Tiresias urged again. Then he added an enticement. “Tell you what. Now that the danger of that prophecy has passed, we can stop by the nearest agora and buy some mirrors!”

  This drew Narcissus’s attention. With a supreme effort he wrested his eyes from his reflection. Blowing a farewell kiss at his own image, he called out to it, “I’ll miss you, buddy. See you soon!” Looking excited, he took off for the exit.

  “Good-bye forever!” Echo called after him as he and his friends dashed out of the maze. Her voice echoed around the courtyard, loud and strong. Then she gasped and grinned big. The copycake spell had fallen away at last!

  A sketch of Narcissus lay forgotten by the pool, and Syrinx picked it up. Clutching it to her chest, she gazed after him longingly, seeming unsure whether she should follow. But then she dropped the scroll, and her expression turned scared. “Beasts! Th-there,” she whispered, backing away. She was right! Red eyes were suddenly peering out of the hedges on all sides.

  “Artemis said that disturbing the Pool of Magic would disturb the beasts around here. But the three-headed fountain is the key to turning them off,” Echo said, remembering.

  “Then do it!” said Syrinx.

  Pan nodded. “Yeah, hurry!”

  “I don’t know how,” said Echo.

  Daphne shook her head helplessly too.

  Roar! Roar! As the red eyes moved closer, Syrinx grabbed a hollow reed that grew in the fountain’s waters. Sticking one end of it into her mouth, she closed her lips around it. Then she stepped into the pool, lay on her back, and submerged till she disappeared and only the end of the reed remained visible.

  “She’s hiding, breathing through that hollow reed like a straw! It’s a river nymph trick,” said Daphne.

  “Good idea. Let’s copy her,” Echo said. Quickly she broke off three more reeds, each about a foot long, and passed them out. The three friends put their reed straws between their lips and then lay down on their backs in the pool just like Syrinx, with the tips of their reeds sticking up above the water.

  The four lay silently as beast after beast lumbered through the courtyard. In the waning light their frightful, monstrous shadows fell over the pool as each passed by. Echo could make out the shape of a one-headed, two-armed, three-bodied, four-winged, six-legged Geryon. And was that a fire-breathing griffon? Yikes!

  Luckily, however, their four breathing reeds looked exactly like any of the other reeds growing in the water, and the beasts eventually left the courtyard. When all seemed quiet, Pan peeked out. “All clear,” he called to the girls.

  Phew! Echo and the others sat up, dripping wet. An interesting humming sound issued from the hollow reed she held when she started to pull it from her mouth.

  Pan’s head swung around to look at her as they all stood up in the fountain. “Hey! Do that again.”

  “What, this?” Echo put one end of the reed up to—but not directly into—her mouth and sighed, causing the humming sound again.

  “Pretty,” said Daphne, smiling. “It sounds happy.”

  “Yeah,” said Pan. “I never thought of blowing across the opening of a reed instead of blowing into it.” There was a note of excitement in his voice. Quickly he plucked a half dozen more reeds of different lengths from the pool.

  After they all climbed out of the water, he lay the reeds side by side, arranged from long to short, on the flat edge of the fountain. Then he tied them together like that using strands of lily pad vine.

  “Now to test out my new instrument,” he said, picking it up in both hands. By blowing across the pipes’ openings as he slid them across his lips from one side of his mouth to the other, he created a tune with beautiful harmony. A smile came to his face. He waved the pipes in the air and hopped around joyfully. “It’s like playing a bunch of flutes all at once. This is the sound I’ve been looking for!”

  ROARRR! Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

  “Oh, thanks a lot, Your Loudness!” Syrinx hissed at him. “Those beasts are coming back. They must’ve heard you shouting!” It was too late to hide this time. The beasts had spotted them and were stomping closer and closer to the pool.

  “Play your pipes, Pan,” urged Echo. “Music soothes savage beasts—that’s what the treechers say. Though I think they might’ve just gotten that idea from a play about a bride.”

  “Worth a try,” said Pan. He raised the pipes to his mouth, blew across their openings, and slid them from side to side, creating a lively melodious tune.

  Soon, goofy grins appeared on the beasts’ faces. “They’re smiling!” said Daphne.

  “Keep playing. Don’t stop!” said Echo.

  Pan kept playing. Within minutes the music-bemused beasts lay down in the courtyard, curled up contentedly, and began to snore.

  Once it seemed safe, Syrinx edged toward the exit. “I am so out of here. You can all keep your dumb forest. It’s too dangerous for me. I’m off to the river. Bye!” With that, she ran out of the maze.

  Echo would have been lying if she’d said she was sorry to see the disagreeable nymph go. Instead she said to her friends, “We’d better get going too, before these monsters wake up.”

  11

  The Wedding Chiton

  SO ARE YOU COMING BACK to your tree . . . er . . . hut?” Daphne asked Echo once they were safely out of the maze. Her brow wrinkled and she looked worried that her slipup might make Echo sad by reminding her that FirHeart was no more.

  Echo did feel an ache in her chest, but she managed to shrug as she twisted the hem of her soggy bridal chiton to wring water out of it. “It’s okay. You can say ‘FirHeart’ without upsetting me,” she said, not wanting her friend to feel bad. She didn’t tell Daphne that she wasn’t exactly sure where she belonged now. Instead she explained, “First I’d better go let Zeus know about the beasts, so he can get them turned off.” And afterward maybe she could also figure out a way to fix things with Hera now that she wasn’t copycat speaking any more.

  “I’ll come with you,” offered Pan.

  “Me too,” said Daphne. She looked at Echo. “Your winged sandals are fast enough to get us to MOA and back by tonight.”

  “Okay,” said Echo. But then she and Pan discovered that their sandals’ wings, which were now soaking wet, wouldn’t flap. “Bees’ wings don’t work well in rain, either,” Echo commented. “Probably the same idea.”

  “Daphne, you go home so you’ll be here in the morning to renew your chant for LaurelRing,” Pan suggested. “I’ll go with Echo just in case more beasts show up. We’ll walk till our sandals dry out, then fly the rest of the way.”

  Daphne reluctantly agreed, and they split up, moving in opposite directions. As Echo and Pan headed back to MOA, Pan practiced playing his new pipes. Hearing his music, birds, deer, and squirrels wandered ne
ar now and then to keep them company. As she walked along, Echo’s thoughts returned to Ide. Was there a way to help her? If so, that might make Hera a little bit happier too.

  “I’m trying to come up with an idea for a bridal chiton,” she told Pan when he took a break from playing. “Something that’s not an exact copy of someone else’s design.”

  “Sorry,” said Pan. “I know zero about fashion. I just buy whatever tunic looks comfortable at the agora.” But after another moment he added, “Here’s a thought, though. Maybe you could use your own special unique fashion ideas to change an existing design.” He held up his new pipes. “Like how cutting reeds into different lengths and binding them together was my own unique idea. But playing them in the same way as a flute was an existing idea that you reminded me of. Get it?”

  Echo nodded. “I think so.” That was probably what the treechers had been trying to get her to do in that armor assignment. But what unique ideas did she have? The answer came to her right away when a pinecone crunched underfoot. “I know. I’m really good at making fashions using forest materials!”

  Pan cocked his head. “Awesome! So would the bride you’re designing for want a chiton made out of forest materials?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure,” Echo admitted. “The only thing I really know about her is that she cries a lot.”

  “Maybe you should make her chiton out of tissues, then,” said Pan. They both laughed.

  “Speaking of watery stuff, I think our sandals are dry,” said Echo. Sitting on a log to unleash the wings on hers, she looked up at the clouds. Idly she recalled how all the nymphs she and the other goddessgirls had visited in various realms had worn outfits that seemed to fit their personalities or the places they lived.

  Bzzz-bzzz. Just then a bee buzzed past her ear. It was probably off to its hive, carrying pollen to make honey. Honey! Suddenly it hit her in a flash. An idea for a bridal chiton. One that would look perfect on Ide and would suit her personality to a T—or a B, as in “bee.”