Dreamless

by Josephine Angelini

  “Shh-shh.” Helen ran her hand across his wet hair, smoothing it down and gripping his neck, his shoulders, the bunched muscles of his back—tucking him closer to her. “I’ll fix it,” she vowed. “I swear to you, Lucas, I’ll find the Furies and stop them.”

  Lucas pulled back so he could look at Helen, shaking his head. “No, I didn’t mean to put more pressure on you. It kills me that this is all on you.”

  “I know.”

  That was it. No blame, no “pity me.” Just acceptance. Lucas stared at her, running his fingers over her perfect face.

  He loved her eyes. They were always changing, and Lucas liked to catalogue all their different colors in his mind. When she laughed, her eyes were pale amber, like honey sitting in a glass jar on a sunny window. When he kissed her, they darkened until they were the rich color of mahogany leather, but with strips of red and gold thread shot through. Right now they were turning dark—inviting him to lower his lips to hers.

  “Lucas!” his father barked. Helen and Lucas sprang apart and turned to see Castor at the top of the stairs, his face white and his body stiff. “Put a shirt on and come to my study. Helen, go home.”

  “Dad, she didn’t . . .”

  “Now!” Castor yelled. Lucas couldn’t remember ever seeing his father this angry.

  Helen fled. She squeezed past Castor with her head bowed and ran out of the house before Noel could ask what had happened.

  “Sit.”

  “It was my fault. She was worried about me,” Lucas began, his stance defiant.

  “I don’t care,” Castor said, his eyes burning into Lucas’s. “I don’t care how innocently it started. It ended with you half naked, your arms around her, and the two of you just steps away from your bed.”

  “I wasn’t going to—” Lucas couldn’t even finish that lie. He was going to kiss her, and he knew if he kissed her he would have kept going until either Helen or a cataclysm stopped him. The truth was, it didn’t really bother Lucas anymore that some uncle he never met was Helen’s father. He loved her, and that wasn’t going to change no matter how wrong everyone said it was.

  “Let me explain something to you.”

  “We’re cousins. I know,” Lucas interrupted. “Don’t you think I realize that she’s as closely related to me as Ariadne? It doesn’t feel like that.”

  “Don’t lie to yourself,” Castor said darkly. “Scions have been plagued with incest since Oedipus. And there have been others in this House who have fallen in love with their first cousins, like you and Helen have.”

  “What happened to them?” Lucas asked cautiously. He could already tell that he wasn’t going to like his father’s answer.

  “The outcome is always the same.” Castor stared intensely at Lucas. “Just like Oedipus’s daughter, Electra, the children born to related Scions always suffer our greatest curse. Insanity.”

  Lucas sat down while his mind raced, trying to find a way around this impasse. “We—we don’t have to have children.”

  There was no warning, no notice that Lucas had pushed too far. Without a sound, his father rushed him like a bull. Lucas jumped back up to his feet but didn’t know what to do next. He was twice as strong as his father, but his hands stayed passively at his sides while Castor grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back until he was pinned against the wall. Castor glared into his son’s eyes, and for a moment Lucas believed his father hated him.

  “How can you be so selfish?” Castor growled, his voice seething with disgust. “There aren’t enough Scions left for either one of you to just decide you don’t want to have kids. We’re talking about our species, Lucas!” As if to drive home his point, Castor slammed Lucas into the wall so hard it began to crumble behind him. “The Four Houses must survive and stay separate to maintain the Truce and keep the gods imprisoned on Olympus, or every mortal on this planet will suffer!”

  “I know that!” Lucas yelled. Plaster from the shattered wall rained down on them, filling the air with dust as Lucas struggled under his father’s grip. “But there are other Scions to do that! What does it matter if Helen and I don’t have children?”

  “Because Helen and her mother are the last of their line! Helen must produce an Heir to preserve the House of Atreus and keep the Houses separate—not just for this generation—but for the ones yet to come!”

  Castor was shouting. He seemed blind to the white dust and breaking masonry. It was as if everything his father had ever believed was tumbling down on top of Lucas’s head, smothering him.

  “The Truce has lasted for thousands of years, and it must last for thousands more or the Olympians will turn the mortals and the Scions into playthings again—starting wars and raping women and casting horrendous curses as it amuses them,” Castor continued relentlessly. “You think a few hundred of us are enough to preserve our race and keep the Truce, but that’s not enough to outlast the gods. We must endure, and to do that every single one of us must procreate.”

  “What do you want from us?” Lucas suddenly shouted back, shoving his father off of him and rising up out of the bowed and breaking wall. “I’ll do what I have to for my House, and so will she. We’ll have kids with other people if that’s what it takes—we’ll find a way to deal with it! But don’t ask me to stay away from Helen because I can’t. We can handle anything but that.”

  They glared at each other, both of them panting with emotion and covered in white dust grown pasty with sweat.

  “It’s so easy for you to decide what Helen can and can’t handle, is it? Have you looked at her lately?” Castor asked harshly, releasing his son with a disgusted look on his face. “She’s suffering, Lucas.”

  “I know that! Don’t you think I’d do anything to help her?”

  “Anything? Then stay away from her.”

  It was like all the anger had rushed out of Castor in a flash. Instead of yelling, he was now pleading.

  “Have you considered that what she’s trying to do in the Underworld could not only bring peace between the Houses, but also bring Hector back to this family? We’ve lost so much. Ajax, Aileen, Pandora.” Castor’s voice broke when he said his little sister’s name. Her death was still too fresh for both of them. “Helen is facing something none of us can imagine, and she needs every ounce of strength she has to make it through. For all our sakes.”

  “But I can help her,” Lucas pleaded back, needing his father on his side. “I can’t follow her down into the Underworld, but I can listen to her and support her.”

  “You think you’re helping, but you’re killing her,” Castor said, shaking his head sadly. “You may have made peace with how you feel for her, but she can’t cope with her feelings for you. You’re her cousin, and the guilt is tearing her apart. Why are you the only one who can’t see that? There are a thousand reasons you need to stay away, but if none of them matter to you, at the very least stay away from Helen because it’s the best thing for her.”

  Lucas wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. He remembered how Helen had told him that she would “pay for it later” if she talked with him about the Underworld. His father was right. The closer the two of them got, the more he hurt Helen. Of all the arguments his father had made, this one cut Lucas the deepest. He shuffled to the couch and sat down again so his father wouldn’t see his legs shake.

  “What should I do?” Lucas was completely lost. “It’s like water running downhill. She just flows toward me. And I can’t push her away.”

  “Then build a dam.” Castor sighed and sat down across from Lucas, rubbing plaster from his face with his hands. He looked smaller. Like he had just lost the fight, even though he’d won, taking everything from Lucas. “You have to be the one to stop this. No confiding in each other, no flirting at school, and no quiet talks in dark hallways. You have to make her hate you, son.”

  Helen and Cassandra were working in the library, trying to find something—anything—that could help Helen in the Underworld. It was a frustrating afternoon. The more the two
girls read, the more they were convinced that half the stuff about Hades was written by medieval scribes on serious drugs.

  “Ever see any talking-skeletal-death-horses in Hades?” Cassandra asked skeptically.

  “Nope. No talking skeletons. Horses included,” Helen responded, rubbing her eyes.

  “I think we can put this one on the ‘he was definitely high’ pile.” Cassandra put the scroll down and stared at Helen for a few moments. “How are you feeling?”

  Helen shrugged and shook her head, unwilling to talk about it. Since Castor had caught her and Lucas outside his bedroom, she’d been tiptoeing around the Delos house when she had to come over to study, and stuck inside the hell-house each night.

  Usually in the Underworld, Helen could count on at least one or two nights a week where she was walking down an endless beach that never led to an ocean. The endless beach was annoying because she knew she wasn’t getting anywhere, but compared to being trapped inside the hell-house it was like a holiday. She didn’t know how much longer she could take it, and she couldn’t talk about it with anyone. How could she possibly explain the perverted wool coat and lurid peach curtains without sounding ridiculous?

  “I think I should go home and eat something,” Helen said, trying not to think about the night that awaited her.

  “But it’s Sunday. You’re eating here, right?”

  “Um. I don’t think your dad wants me hanging out here anymore.” I don’t think Lucas does, either, she thought. He hadn’t looked at her since the day Castor had caught them with their arms around each other, even though Helen had tried several times to smile at him in the hallway at school. He’d just walked by like she wasn’t there.

  “That’s nonsense,” Cassandra answered firmly. “You are a part of this family. And if you don’t come to dinner, my mom will be offended.”

  She walked around the table and took Helen’s hand, leading her out of the study. Helen was so surprised by Cassandra’s uncharacteristically warm gesture that she followed quietly.

  It was later than the girls had thought, and dinner was starting. Jason, Ariadne, Pallas, Noel, Castor, and Lucas were already seated. Cassandra took her customary place next to her father, and the only spot left was on the bench, between Ariadne and Lucas.

  As Helen stepped over the bench, she accidentally jostled Lucas, running her arm down the length of his as she sat down.

  Lucas stiffened and tried to pull away from her.

  “Sorry,” Helen stammered, trying to shrug her arm away from his, but there was no room to move over on the crowded bench. She felt him bristle, and she reached under the table and squeezed his hand as if to ask, “What’s wrong?”

  He snatched his hand out of hers. The look he gave her was so full of hatred it froze the blood in her veins. The room went silent and the chitchat died. All eyes turned to Helen and Lucas.

  Without warning, Lucas threw the bench back, knocking Helen, Ariadne, and Jason onto the floor. Lucas stood over Helen, glaring down on her. His face was contorted with rage.

  Even when they were possessed by the Furies, and Helen and Lucas had fought bitterly, she had never been afraid of him. But now his eyes looked black and strange—like he wasn’t even in there anymore. Helen knew it wasn’t just a trick of the light. A shadow had blossomed inside of Lucas and snuffed out the light of his bright blue eyes.

  “We don’t hold hands. You don’t talk to me. You don’t even LOOK at me, do you understand?” he continued mercilessly. His voice rose from a grating whisper to a hoarse shout as Helen scrambled away from him in shock.

  “Lucas, enough!” Noel’s horrified voice was tinged with dismay. She didn’t recognize her son any more than Helen did.

  “We’re not friends,” Lucas growled, ignoring his mother and continuing to move threateningly toward Helen. She pushed her shaking body away from him with her heels, her sneakers making pathetic squeaking noises as she scuffed them against the tile, looking for purchase.

  “Luke, what the hell?” Jason shouted, but Lucas ignored him, too.

  “We don’t hang out, or joke around, or share things with each other anymore. And if you EVER think you have the RIGHT to sit next to me again . . .”

  Lucas reached down to grab Helen, but his father gripped his upper arms from behind—stopping him from hurting her. Then Helen saw Lucas do something she’d never once dreamed he’d do.

  He spun around and hit his father. The blow was so heavy it sent Castor flying halfway across the kitchen and into the cabinet of glasses and mugs over the sink.

  Noel screamed, covering her face as shards of broken dishes went flying in every direction. She was the only full mortal in a room of fighting Scions, and in serious danger of getting hurt.

  Ariadne ran to Noel and used her body to protect her, while Jason and Pallas jumped on Lucas and tried to wrestle him down.

  Knowing her presence would only enrage Lucas more, Helen scrambled up onto her knees, slipping across a bit of broken crockery as she stumbled to the door, and jumped into the sky.

  As she flew home, she tried to listen for the sound of her own body in the high, thin air. Bodies are noisy. Take them into soundless spaces like the Underworld or the atmosphere and you can hear all kind of huffs and thumps and gurgles. But Helen’s body was as silent as a grave. She couldn’t even hear her own heart beating. After what she had just been through, it should have been thundering away, but all she felt was an intolerable pressure, like a giant knee was grinding into her chest.

  Perhaps it wasn’t beating because it had broken clean through and stopped.

  “Is this what you wanted?” Lucas shouted at his father while he fought to break free. “Do you think she hates me now?”

  “Just let him go!” Castor yelled to Pallas and Jason.

  They paused, but didn’t let go right away. First they looked over at Castor, to make sure he was sure. Castor stood and nodded his head once before passing judgment.

  “Get out, Lucas. Get out of this house and don’t come back until you can control your strength around your mother.”

  Lucas went still. His head turned in time to see Ariadne brush a drop of blood from Noel’s face, her glowing hands healing the cut instantly.

  An old memory, formed of images before he had words, came back to Lucas in a rush. Even as a toddler he’d been stronger than his mother, and once during a tantrum he’d pushed against her face while she was tenderly trying to kiss him quiet. He’d made her lip bleed.

  Lucas remembered the hurt sound she’d made—a sound that still filled him with shame. He’d regretted that moment his entire life and since then he hadn’t once touched his mother any harder than he would touch a rose petal. But now she was bleeding again. Because of him.

  Lucas pulled his arms away from his uncle and cousin, threw the back door open, and hurled himself into the dark night sky. He didn’t care where the winds took him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Helen took tiny, gasping breaths. This was the fifth night in a row she’d descended into this same spot in the Underworld, and she knew that the less she moved, the slower she sank into the quicksand. Even breathing too deeply edged her farther into the pit.

  She was prolonging the torture, but she just couldn’t bear the thought of drowning in filth again. Quicksand isn’t clean. It’s stuffed with the dead and decaying bodies of all its former victims. Helen could feel the moldering remains of all kinds of creatures bumping up against her as she was slowly dragged down. Last night her hand had skimmed across a face—a human face—somewhere under the tainted sand.

  A pocket of gas bubbled to the surface, sending up a plume of stench. Helen vomited, unable to control herself. When she eventually drowned, the putrid dirt would rush into her nose, her eyes, and fill her mouth. Even though Helen was only up to her waist, she knew it was coming. She began to cry. She couldn’t take it anymore.

  “What else can I do?” she screamed, and sank lower.

  She knew thrashing didn’t work,
but maybe this one time she would reach the dry reeds on the side of the pool and be able to grab them before the heavy muck swallowed her. She waded forward, but for every inch of progress she paid with an inch of depth. When she was up to her chest she had to stop moving. The weight of the quicksand was pressing the air out her, like a great weight settling on her chest—like a giant knee was pressing down on her.

  “I get it, okay?” she cried. “I put myself here by being upset when I fall asleep. But how am I supposed to change the way I feel?”

  The quicksand was up to her neck. Helen tilted her head back and thrust up her chin, trying to will herself higher.

  “I can’t do this alone anymore,” she said to the blank sky. “I need someone to help me.”

  “Helen!” a deep, unfamiliar voice called out.

  It was the first time Helen had heard another voice in the Underworld, and at first she assumed she was hallucinating. Her face was still tilted up, and she couldn’t move it to look or she’d be sucked under.

  “Reach toward me, if you can,” the young man said in a strained voice, like he was struggling at the edge of the pit to get to her. “Come on, try, damn it! Give me your hand!”

  At that moment her ears filled, and she could no longer hear what he shouted at her. All she could see was a flash of gold—a bright glimmer that pierced through the dull, defeated light of the Underworld like the lifesaving beacon of a lighthouse. She caught the barest glimpse of an angular chin and a full, sculpted mouth at the very edge of her vision. Then, under the surface of the quicksand, Helen felt a warm, strong hand take hers and pull.

  Helen woke up in her bed and pitched forward, frantically scraping the muck out of her ears. Her body was still racing with adrenaline, but she forced herself to stay very still and listen.

  She heard Jerry make a cawing sound downstairs in the kitchen—a high-pitched “WHOOP-WHOOP” siren noise that was more suited to the middle of a crowded dance floor than it was to Helen’s snug Nantucket home. Jerry was singing. Well, sort of.