by Kristie Cook
"Your crap ain’t holy, Jen."
The two girls laughed, only one of them visible.
Jen took the crown off and turned to Therese. "Where’d you get this?"
"I can’t tell. It’s a secret."
Jen kept putting the crown on and off her head and watching her reflection disappear and reappear several more times. “I still can’t believe it. I must be dreaming.”
"I want to loan this to you because I was thinking … " she struggled to find the right words, "I was thinking that if your dad moves back home, you could wear this crown when you feel like disappearing."
Jen took the crown from her head and turned and looked at Therese, then her eyes gradually moved upward toward the ceiling, like she was figuring math. A smile curled onto her face and her eyes grew wide. Tears welled. She crossed the room and threw her arms around Therese. "I love you." Then she went back to the mirror, stood up a little straighter, and tried on the crown one more time.
***
The wind had picked up when Therese left the Holts’ and walked down their property to the dirt road. Pete had offered to drive her—had practically begged—but Therese had said she wanted to walk, so Mrs. Holt had given her a flashlight and made her promise to call when she got there. Carol would freak if she knew, but of course Carol didn’t know that the bad guys weren’t after Therese. And without her invisibility crown, Therese would have to be extra careful when she reentered the house.
"Hold on, Therese!" Pete’s voice called from the end of his gravelly drive. "Wait up a minute."
Therese stopped and shined her light on the ground in front of Pete, so he could see. He looked tall and muscular when he wasn’t standing next to Than.
He came up close beside her, and the scent of him was strangely comforting. "Ooh, that wind is something, huh? A northern must be blowing in. Hey, you cold?"
"I’m okay." She was cold, and although it would feel good if he put his arm around her, it wouldn’t be good for him. She should be discouraging him.
"You look pretty tonight. That a new shirt?"
She smoothed down the front of her purple knit top. "I’ve had it a while. Thanks." Then she looked at his shirt. "That Bobby’s?"
"What? Oh, yeah. I’m behind on my laundry." Even in the darkness, Therese could see his face color.
“You do your own laundry? That’s impressive,” she teased.
“Yep. My mother is a slave driver.” Then his voice softened. “Not really. She just wants us all to know how to take care of ourselves.”
Therese nodded. “That’s good.”
"Hey, so how’s Than? Seen him lately?"
Therese’s heart contracted a little harder as she looked at Pete, and she felt sorry for him. She didn’t want to add any more pain to his suffering. With his dad coming back and Bobby’s anguish and Jen’s trepidation, she knew Pete was hurting. She wished she could help. She felt guilty that she couldn’t. "I saw Than earlier. He’s, um, he’s running an errand for his parents today." Never had that line seemed so literal.
Pete nodded. "I see." Then he asked, "He’s leaving soon, right?"
Therese looked at the dirt road beneath their feet. "Yeah, I think so. In another week or so."
Then Pete dug the toe of his boot into the dirt and said, "I guess you heard about my dad."
Therese saw the pain in his face, his need for human affection and understanding, and she wanted to help. "Oh, Pete. I’m so sorry about all that. I wish I could … "
He put his arms around her and held her tight. "You’re a sweetheart for saying that, but there’s nothing anybody can do." With his face in her hair, he breathed in deeply, like he was taking in her scent, and then he released her with his breath. "It was good to see you again. Come by more often, okay?"
She felt guilty for feeling good in his arms. She had always liked Pete. If Than hadn’t come into her life, he would have been a natural partner for her. "I will." Then she watched him turn and head back up the drive. She sighed and headed home.
Therese was glad she had been able to help Jen, but she knew the situation around the Holt family would be tense for a while, maybe even forever. She didn’t know exactly what it was Mr. Holt had done to his daughter when he was drunk, but her imagination made her shudder. Bobby had said that Pete was the one who had told, so that meant Jen hadn’t. Therese now wondered how long Jen had kept silent. She also wondered how miserable it had made Pete to rat out his own father in order to protect his sister.
A low roar, like a train, came from the lake. Therese shined the small circle of light across the grassy field toward the reservoir. By the light from the stars and the half moon in the sky, she saw deer running away from the water, across the dirt road, and up the mountains behind the houses. The roar grew louder, like the train was upon her. Now chipmunks scurried across the road, and the ground beneath her trembled. An earthquake? She looked all around her as panic set in. She wanted to run like the animals, but her feet were like bricks, and so she stood there, waiting.
Then she had this thought: Maybe Artemis was angry that Therese had loaned her gift to Jen.
“Pete?” She shined her light toward the Holts’ driveway, but Pete was no longer in sight. She ran toward the driveway. “Pete?” Nothing.
She ran toward her house, the ground quaking beneath her feet. The dirt road cracked.
"Than!" Therese called. But before she could cry out his name again, a giant wall of cold water washed over her. It entered her mouth before she had gotten air. She lost her footing and dropped the flashlight. Underwater, she couldn’t see. Her body tumbled and turned, and her hair whipped and clung to her face. She frantically tried to gain control by swimming, but she didn’t know which way was up or down. Something like a tree branch scraped against her midriff, cutting the skin. She swam away from the force pulling her, but she couldn’t even tell if she was making progress, and she needed air and couldn’t find it.
Water entered her mouth and her throat burned and scratched, like sandpaper on fire, hard and hot and scraping everything it touched. She writhed in the water, as her father had the night he died.
All of a sudden she saw her parents drowning in front of her: her father turning his head side to side in a wild frenzy and her mother silently yielding to the terrible depths that took her. Therese called to Than in her mind as the darkness overpowered her, and she lost consciousness.
Chapter Thirty-Six: Ambush
At the gates of Mount Olympus, Than and his sisters had amassed an army to recapture McAdams from Ares and his sons. Than’s heart thudded with fierce determination, for he knew that if Therese could not avenge her parents’ death upon McAdams, she would never be his bride.
As soon as the Furies had left Peshawar, they had flown straight to their cousin Hermes, who had further solicited help from Demeter, Persephone, and Hecate.
But their greatest ally was Aphrodite, who stood in all her beauty, waiting for Ares, who loved her.
She was also the mother of Phobos and Deimos, who obeyed her.
When the god of war appeared at the gates with his sons and the prisoner, ready for battle, he was caught off guard by the beautiful sight of his one true love.
“Go, boys,” Aphrodite said. “This is between Ares and me.”
Phobos and Deimos vanished.
“Will you betray me?” Ares said gently.
“What you do is wrong, my love,” Aphrodite said.
“No. What you do is wrong. Don’t interfere. Humans can never rise to greatness without the challenges of the gods! Now stand back and let me through, you coddlers!”
Ares made to charge, but at once, Than and his sisters and his mother and grandmother, along with Hermes and Hecate, descended upon him in a cloud of determination and will, and it took every one of them to bind back the arms of the god of war and recapture McAdams.
Ares roared and pulled free and jumped up into the sky above them and laughed. “Take him. I have a better prisoner.”
“You’ll soon discover.” Ares disappeared.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Poseidon
Therese awoke on a cold hard rock in the middle of a vast, unending ocean. She and her rock were the only things she could see for miles. She was cold and wet. Her shorts and shirt stuck to her like glue, her sneakers were filled with water, and she shivered uncontrollably. Was she dreaming?
She stood up on the rock to see if she could fly, but her feet barely lifted from the ground, she lost her balance, and she fell backward into the cold, salty water. She resurfaced, spitting mouthfuls of the yucky salt water, and clambered onto the rock. Now she was even colder, and her teeth chattered, and she shivered even more than she had before.
In her mind, she cried for Than, and she asked what had happened. She asked him where she was and would he please, please, please come and take her home. She clutched the golden locket around her neck thinking she was the least powerful creature in the world right now.
Five feet away, a man emerged, waist high, from the water. His sun-bleached hair clung to his head and neck, and his sun-bleached beard dripped nearly down to his bare chest. He appeared to be about fifty. His eyes were the blue-green color of the sea and his lips sun-burnt red and his skin bronze. His nostrils flared with anger as he lifted his trident from the water, about to speak.
Therese could guess now who he was.
"I could kill you this instant!" he roared like thunder.
His voice had startled her, and she clutched the locket around her neck, but then she took a breath and calmed herself down.
Although she preferred to go to the Underworld as a god, she wasn’t as afraid of death as she had once been, before her parents were killed. Before my parents were killed. She had actually allowed herself to think the words she hadn’t been able to think in over a month? My parents were killed. It was a small victory, but it made her feel like maybe she wasn’t the very least powerful person in the world.
Poseidon raised his trident even higher, above his head.
Therese closed her eyes and waited. She couldn’t believe that Poseidon was her enemy, because of all the gods she had ever read about, he had been her favorite. As a swimmer and lover of ocean life, she had always thought of him as an imaginary guardian, certainly not the foe facing her now. She had chosen him for her sixth grade mythology project.
In her mind, she was talking to him without realizing it. “You were my friend,” she thought. “I’ve always looked up to you and aspired to be like you. I love the sea and marine life. I love to swim through water. It makes me feel so free. I used to think that if I had a past life, I must have been a dolphin, and my dream has been to go to Sea World in San Antonio and swim with dolphins. And I remember reading that you gave the horse to humankind. I love horses and help take care of my friend’s horses. We lost Dumbo last week. It was so sad and I’ll miss him, but I’m thankful to have known him, and I’m thankful that you brought humans and horses together. How can you, of all the gods, be my enemy? It seems unnatural. You’re my idol.
“But I guess if I’m going to die now, it’s fitting that it is in water. That’s where my parents died, and maybe I should have died with them. I realize now Dumbo also died in water. That’s strange. Anyway, I started this life in water, in my mother’s womb, and now I’ll end it in water. That’s almost poetic.
“I do wish I could say goodbye to my aunt. I wish I could find Clifford and bring him with me. I wish I could say goodbye to Puffy and Jewels and my human friends. I wish I could see Vicki and help her deal with her mother’s suicide. I wish I could be there to watch over Jen when her dad moves home. I wish I could spend eternity with Than as his wife.”
Oh, Than! She thought of his perfect face and his strong body and the soft touch of his hands. She recalled the pleasure he had taken with his face turned up to the rain, his body moving effortlessly through the cool water of the lake, his expression of delight as he tasted her salad, the sugared iced tea, the brownies, and the other foods he had tried for the first time. She remembered their first waltz and his eagerness to learn. And she thought of the joy they took together in watching three sunsets and a sunrise in a single day. She longed to be in his arms, safe in his warm embrace.
She stood there shivering on the rock waiting for Poseidon to kill her. Why hadn’t he done it yet? She opened her eyes.
Poseidon’s expression had changed. His nostrils no longer flared, and he lowered his trident back into the sea, his arms hanging limp beside him.
“I do not wish to be your enemy,” he said in a voice that wasn’t gentle, but wasn’t harsh.
I don’t understand, she said to him in her mind.
“I am obliged to Ares,” Poseidon said. “I swore an oath on the river Styx.”
Oh. So she would die in water like her parents. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No. I’m to deliver you to Mount Olympus.”
Therese should have been frightened by this, but she was elated.
“Before we go, I want to give you a gift, to prove I bear no personal animosity toward you.” He waved his trident in the air, and a herd of dolphins sprang from the water and surrounded her rock with their heads above the surface and their eyes on her. She wished she had Than’s power of understanding animal languages as they clicked their greetings to her. There must have been a dozen of them, with their mouths open in a perpetual grin, clicking their hellos.
“Hello,” she said shyly. Then to Poseidon, she said, “What a wonderful gift. Thank you for giving me the chance to see the dolphins up close.” She wished she could touch one, but she didn’t want to ask and appear ungrateful.
Poseidon laughed. “I appreciate your gratitude and humility,” he said, still laughing. “But my gift is better still. Would you care to ride on a dolphin’s back across the sea to Greece?”
“Would I!” she shouted with glee. And to think she had just wanted to touch one. She would ride one, like they did at Sea World, something she had read about on the Internet a few years ago. “Yes! Thank you very much! What? Do I dive in?”
Poseidon laughed again, and now that he no longer had a stern face, he appeared quite beautiful. “I’ve never seen a happier prisoner. Yes. Dive into the water.”
Therese was so excited that she dove in and swam the dolphin kick between the rock and the circle of dolphins. She added her butterfly arms so she could catch breaths of air in between her strokes, and then she swam up to the closest dolphin.
“You’re a skilled swimmer,” Poseidon noted. “It pleases me to see humans move so naturally in the water. I wish more were able. It bothers me that so many don’t even know how to swim. The Earth is mostly water, you know.”
She treaded water, her teeth chattering with the cold. “Y-y-yes. Th-thank you. Is th-there a p-p-articular d-d-dolphin I sh-should r-ride?”
“Arion there will take you. He’s named for one of my sons.”
The dolphin dipped his head to her in greeting.
Excited, thrilled, and totally overjoyed, Therese climbed onto the dolphin’s back. His skin was slick and rubbery and hard to grasp. Her bare legs kept sliding off. She wished she had worn jeans instead of shorts.
“Hold onto his dorsal fin,” Poseidon said, moving closer. “I will wrap a golden net around you and Arion’s body. The net will keep you attached should you slip. It will allow you to stay underwater for long periods of time. It will also keep you warm.” He raised his trident, and the net, like a fisherman’s net but golden, encircled her and Arion.
The warmth instantly soothed her, and a low moan escaped her lips. The relief from the chilling cold was itself a gift. Her muscles relaxed, she took in larger breaths, and she could actually enjoy the feeling of sitting on the dolphin’s back. She hugged him, circled her legs around him, kissed his wet rubbery skin, and said to Arion, �
��Thank you in advance. This is one of the most amazing moments of my life.”
Several other dolphins swam up to her and rubbed their bodies against her. She extended her fingers through one of the openings between the weave in the net and stroked them. They clicked sounds of affection, and in reply, Therese said, “This is heaven.”
“Are you ready?” Poseidon asked.
She was scared and excited all at once, and she was as ready as she would ever be. The golden net was surprisingly light and flexible. She lifted her head from the dolphin’s back to face Poseidon. “Yes sir.”
“We’ll stop at my palace at the bottom of the sea first. It is a halfway point between this rock and Mount Olympus. Do you know where we are?”
Therese shook her head.
“The Aegean Sea. My palace is at the bottom, you see. I want to fetch my chariot. I prefer to travel over land on it. It makes for an exhilarating ride.” He raised his trident. “To my palace!”
With that, Arion and the company of dolphins sprang into the air and dove down into the water with Poseidon in the lead. She could see him in front of her, swimming like a dolphin, his hair and beard flowing from his head and his green sarong flowing from his waist. He wore leather sandals that extended from his feet like flippers.
Below them the ocean world came into view. Her eyesight was improved, though she wasn’t sure how. Was it the golden net that allowed her to see so many details of this spectacular vision? Fingers of purple, blue, and gold waved to them, and fish of many shapes, colors, and sizes darted this way and that, some in large schools, and others, like the huge groupers suspended near the bottom, alone. Occasionally, she caught sight of a barracuda or a shark, but most of the sea life was nonthreatening. Sea anemones and coral decorated the ocean floor where the sunbeams barely hit. Oh, she could just make out a cluster of starfish. And, ah! Look at those jellyfish! And there! A manatee! The most curious to Therese were the sea horses and their curly tails.
As they swam closer to the ocean floor, she was able to see other forms of marine life burrowing in the sand and rocks. Sting rays there! Hermit crabs! A lobster! And over there, eels, like the figments in her dreams!
