Understand the Unknown

by K. A. Applegate

  It meant nothing to me, her name, her statement. Except that she didn't look like a Brigid, more like a Maria or a Sophie. I realized I was stereotyping, trying to get a grip.

  "I thought you were the maid," I said, then realized, the moment the words were out of my mouth, I sounded rude.

  Suddenly, I didn't know what to do with my hands, folded them before me on the oak table, then put them in my lap, felt foolish, crossed my arms across my chest.

  Brigid smiled. "You were meant to think that, David."

  "How do you know my name?" I asked.

  "I know many things." she answered, calmly taking another sip of the still-steaming tea. I was warmer now, being inside, but watching her drink from the large white ceramic cup made me wish I'd said yes to her offer. The room, with its cherry wood cabinets and tomato-soup-red walls, the steam rising from the tea, the long day, it had been a long day, school, an extra shift at Starbucks, filling in for a buddy, sitting here with this gray-haired woman, this grandmotherly type, this nice, dark-haired middle-aged lady...

  "Could I..."

  The steam from the tea cup, it was making my eyes blur, making me see things. I rubbed them, blinked, put my hands flat out on the table, closer to the woman, the young, red-haired woman, like April, like April's older sister, long, red hair but darker, less curly, eyes wiser, a few thin, spidery lines at the outer corners of her eyes, a gentle smile. But at the same time she was growing larger, not huge, not monstrous, just two feet taller than any woman should or could be. "You're one of them," I said, feeling a heaviness deep down inside.

  "Yes, David," she said. "I am Brigid. The goddess Brigid."

  Chapter

  IX

  I jerked involuntarily, pushed against the table. The teacup fell over. Dark liquid spilled on the surface, dripped, plop, plop, plop over the edge, onto the tiled floor.

  Still, she sat, this beautiful, slightly more mature, definitely larger version of April O'Brien. Looking at me, her face calm and lovely and serious, righting the fallen cup, mopping the mess with a napkin, pouring more tea from the small teapot on the table.

  Then she smiled, April's kind but gently mocking smile. "You really must learn, David, not to be so impressed by what you see."

  "You're here. In the real world."

  "So I am. Drink, David," this new woman, this goddess said.

  "Thanks anyway," I said and pushed the cup away. I wouldn't put it past any god to poison someone. "Who are you?" I said. "What do you want?"

  She took a sip of tea before speaking. "You have heard of the Daghdha," she said, as if knowing my answer.

  "Yeah." I was not going to give her more.

  "Killed, eaten by Ka Anor. His treasures in the possession of Nidhoggr the dragon."

  I nodded, missing my sword. Questions racing in circles around my brain: How did a god get into the real world? Had she been left behind when the others migrated to Everworld?

  And did she have all the powers of a god? If so, how?

  "I am his daughter, the Daghdha's daughter," the woman went on.

  "So?"

  She smiled, unfazed. "So, to answer a few of the questions I see swarming in your brain, I am neither god nor human, just a poor shadow of my former self. I am trapped between two worlds, as are you. I am here and I am there; I can neither die nor truly live." Here Brigid smiled again, resigned. "It's a curse I brought upon myself, though, so there is no use in my bemoaning my fate."

  Her words were meaningless, vague, tantalizing. What did she mean, trapped like me? I was human. She was a god, a goddess maybe I was supposed to call her. Either way, not like me. "Why are you here, in this house? What are you doing in this world?" I asked.

  Another sip of the tea. It must be cold now, I thought inanely.

  "David," she began, "I have the gift of prophecy. Long ago I knew the day would come when the gateway would be born a woman-child with the power to pierce the barrier between worlds."

  She paused and in spite of myself, I reached for the cup of tea. She was going to too much trouble just to kill me. And I was thirsty.

  "I waited many centuries, David," she continued, her voice lower now, somehow older. She was shrinking back to normal size. It almost seemed as if the effort to assume her true size had worn her out.

  "All the while I grew weaker. Now, though they may seem great to you, a human, my powers are, in fact, almost gone.

  Finally, after all the years, finally I felt the mother's presence.

  Under my direction, certain friends chased this woman away, chased her until she took refuge in Everworld, with Isis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. I hoped she would be safe with Isis.

  Isis is wise." Brigid paused again, stared at a spot of spilled tea on the table as if she were reading its secrets. Like it was a crystal ball and she were a two-bit gypsy at a county fair.

  "So you found this woman," I said brusquely. Senna's mother.

  It had to be. "Your problem is solved. Why do you need me to close the gateway when you've already taken care of it?"

  The god raised her eyes. Green, like April's, but darker.

  Shadowed. And almost disappointed. In me. As if she knew I knew there was far more to her story.

  "There was a child, David. For a long time I didn't know that this woman had left a child behind, here in this world."

  She leaned forward, toward me, reached for my hand now on the table. I withdrew it, sat back. Watched her decide to leave her hand outstretched.

  "The child is dangerous, David," she said, her tone urgent, serious. "The child can bring untold chaos. Horrible destruction.

  You must stop her, David. You must."

  I sat in that kitchen chair, the chair out of some architectural magazine, surrounded by expensive, stainless steel appliances, by thousands of dollars worth of early twenty-first-century domestic luxury, a room that had nothing, nothing to do with the insanity and grit and blood and magic of Everworld. I sat in that kitchen with a goddess of the ancient Celtic peoples.

  Unable to determine if the woman who sat across from me was friend or foe.

  "What do you care what happens over there?" I said.

  Brigid stood and walked to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that faced out on an artfully lit patio. Probably a garden, a yard. Maybe a pool, tennis courts. Her back to me, she stared out into the late evening sky for a moment before turning. Crossing her arms over her breasts, her hands on her shoulders. Compelling me with her eyes, a tilted head, to listen.

  "Stop her, David. Give her to Merlin if you can. He is great and wise, you must believe that. Kill her if you must. But stop her, David. Stop her."

  I jumped from my seat, hands clenched into fists at my side, anger surging. Who was she to tell me what to do, to tell me to imprison Senna, kill Senna! That wasn't the fate Senna deserved.

  Prison, execution, neither was a right or fitting end for Senna.

  Senna the witch was selfish and cruel and manipulative but I would always love her, always try to protect her. So who was this woman, safe in this monument to material security and comfort, who was she to tell me, the one carrying Galahad's sword, the one in the trenches, what to do?

  "Why the hell would I trust you? Why would I listen to any of you so-called gods? Bunch of psychos high on your own power, playing your own games and to hell with any dumb mortal who gets in the way. Why would I trust you?" But the woman by the window didn't answer my questions. The woman by the window simply began to shimmer.

  "You are gone now, David. You are gone."

  Chapter

  X

  I was awake.

  Jalil had taken second shift, Christopher third, but I'd woken and now I relieved him, less than halfway through his time.

  After the encounter with Brigid I couldn't sleep again anyway. I lay now on a narrow, uncomfortable bed, staring at the ceiling I couldn't see in the dark, wondering why I insisted that we keep watch at all. What was I going to do if Neptune decided to take us out? T
he ocean pressed in around our fragile air bubble. A word from Neptune and we'd be dead, no argument, no struggle. Should I tell the others about Brigid? Not Senna. That much I was sure of. Not Senna.

  I pressed my hands against my head and almost laughed at the silliness of the gesture. Like I was trying to wring out my brain. Too many questions. Too many unknowns. Too much thinking. Brigid. Merlin. Neptune.

  Thinking, too, about the deal we'd made with the Coo-Hatch. Hoping nothing had gone wrong. Thinking if experience meant anything, something probably had. Thinking about getting out of this place and back to fulfilling my promise to Athena and the people of Olympus.

  Ever since I first saw the city of Ka Anor, I'd thought about how to take him, the alien god, down. How to breach that obscene stronghold, that massive, five-mile crater of ragged, thrusting glass daggers. That monstrous hole in the middle of which stood what Christopher called the Junkie Dream Mountain, Ka Anor's hollow needle lair.

  Artillery. If you had enough of it, if it was powerful enough, if you set up on the rim of the huge chasm, maybe you stood a chance of blowing the entire tower to kingdom come. Boom.

  With the Coo-Hatch cannon, I just might be able to do it.

  Which just brought me back to the Coo-Hatch and Senna's mother and Brigid and Merlin and Olympus and round and round, and all the while I was helpless here at the bottom of the ocean.

  Weird. I was obsessing over everything but my current predicament. The mind goes to things it can handle, I guess, and avoids the impossibilities. What next? I should be focusing on the here and now. What next from mad Neptune? He expected us to put on a show.

  I laughed out loud. I should be planning an act. I laughed again and started giggling like an idiot. Forget Merlin and Brigid and Ka Anor and Olympus and the Coo-Hatch — hell, I had to rehearse!

  My laughter was evidently a signal that we were awake, for right then the door opened and admitted a stunningly gorgeous, I'm-too-sexy-for-a-human, Salma Hayek look-alike mermaid who had just brought a platter of food to the door.

  I kept my eyes down as I took the platter, thanked her.

  Maybe it was lunch and not breakfast, but the look of disdain on the mermaid's face made me not want to ask. Made it easier to lower my eyes and keep my mouth shut.

  I turned around with the platter to find Christopher smiling a singles'-bar smile.

  "Dude, she wants me. I can tell."

  I laughed. I don't know why except that Christopher's ability to drive me crazy with his moaning and piss me off with his bad attitude was tempered at times by his ability to make equal fun of himself.

  "Half beautiful woman, half cold fish," Christopher said.

  "Reminds me of someone." He batted his eyes at Senna.

  If Senna even heard she gave no sign.

  "You know, the thing is, it's polite when you're in a foreign country to adopt the local ways and customs," Christopher said, turning his attention to April.

  "It just seems wrong for you to be all bundled up like that when clearly the polite thing to do would be to, you know..."

  "Don't hold your breath." April, pushed her hair back off her face, yawned. "Though I'm not sure that means anything around here."

  I put the platter on the table. "We should eat," I said. "No knowing when we'll get the chance again. I'll wake Jalil."

  "I'm awake," Jalil said, joining us. "So what's going on in the real world with everyone? I aced a chem test, no big deal. My dad's got me sanding the floor in the dining room. Didn't see any of you alone, though."

  "My parents had a small dinner party," April said, standing by the food, her back to her half sister. "Decided it was time to stop grieving over Senna's disappearance. They're talking about turning her bedroom into an at-home office for my dad. So we had a sort of mini-wake. We watched home videos."

  Senna laughed derisively. "And there wasn't a moist eye in the house."

  "Dad was actually a little emotional. He feels guilty. Me, I managed to keep my own feelings of grief and loss under control."

  This tension between them, the deep dislike, distrust, maybe unmitigated hatred between April and Senna cornered me more than I let anyone know. At times it made me feel almost physically ill. In some ways it wasn't my business, just a family feud. In others, it was absolutely my business. I was the leader of this accidental team and there was dissension in the ranks.

  Could I trust either April or Senna to come through for the other in a time of crisis?

  "Christopher?" I said, hoping he'd lighten the mood a bit.

  "Not much. Stayed home from school one day, puking my guts up. Stomach virus, not fun. Called Jalil but his little sister, one of them, said he was out, SLAM! Good-bye, white boy."

  Jalil shrugged. "Hmmm. That shows unusual good sense on her part. Tell you something interesting, though. That little creep, your little racist Nazi friend, what's his name?"

  "You mean Keith?" Christopher asked.

  "Yeah, the one who likes to point guns at people. Cops came by and asked me if I knew where he might be. Seems Keith has disappeared. Nowhere to be found."

  Was it my imagination or did Senna look away a little too quickly? Imagination. Had to be. She wasn't involved with Keith.

  He was Christopher's problem.

  "Disappeared.'' Christopher narrowed his eyes. "What, they think you killed him or something? You? Why didn't they come ask me? If anyone was going to kill him, it would have been me. The little turd."

  Jalil stroked his chin, a parody of thoughtfulness. "Let's see, why would the cops question me and not you? Hmmm, let me think deeply on that question. Why would some white cops harass me, a black guy, and not you, a white guy? By the way, did you kill Keith?"

  "Yes, but I left behind a couple of Will Smith CDs to throw suspicion onto you."

  "If anyone offed the littlest Nazi it was probably one of his own boys," Jalil said.

  Christopher raised a glass from the food tray and held it high. "A toast to whoever disappeared Keith."

  "A public service," Jalil agreed.

  Christopher drank and spit. "Jeez! What the hell is this? Oh, my god, I think it's supposed to be beer. I've finally found the beer even I won't drink." He looked with distaste at the paltry platter of fish and greens. "I thought Romans were into gorging.

  I thought they knew how to live."

  "We're not Romans," Jalil pointed out. "We're not one of them. They probably consider us some new type of beardless barbarians, slave material. Why waste good food on the scum?"

  Christopher poked at a spongy yellow chunk. "Some kind of tofu. April, you're going to be happy here."

  "What about you, David?" April asked.

  "What?"

  "You seem interested in what we've all been doing in the real world. What did you do there?"

  I gave a guilty start. But I covered it with babble. "Nothing much. Work, school, errands for my mom, a minor skirmish with her boyfriend, the usual. It was a quick visit; I wasn't asleep long."

  Then — the door behind me swung open. I spun around, sword out, ready. Just the merman who'd showed us to this house.

  "Glorious Neptune is in the mood for entertainment. You will come with me now."

  I hung back to walk with April. No breakfast that I could stomach, no clean clothes for the barbarians, hardly any sleep, a disturbing, real-world encounter with a beautiful goddess.

  And now, without preparation, we were supposed to put on a show for Neptune?

  "April? What do you know of Brigid?"

  "Who? Do I have a class with her?"

  "No, not someone at school," I said testily. "I mean the Celtic goddess. Daughter of the Daghdha."

  She grinned. Cocked her head, red curls, now mostly dry, tumbling to cover one shoulder. "Like Jalil was supposed to know all about ancient Africa and African gods? I'm Irish like five generations ago, David."

  I sighed. Hadn't meant to offend her. Suddenly, I wondered if she still had any Advil left in her backpack — I had a hea
dache. "No. Sorry, not like you're our resident Irish person.

  Like maybe a woman into feminist stuff knows something about the great goddesses, the mother figures."

  April laughed. "Oh, that's better. Good cover, David. But yeah, I do know something. I think. I've been reading mythology books. Seemed like a good idea. Anyway, if she's who I think she is, she's some kind of triple god — you know. Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer. Birth, life, death. A lot to do with fertility.

  Childbirth. Healing, too. Poetry and inspiration. I don't know her story, though, what happened to her and all, if that's what you mean."

  "Yeah, okay."

  "Why? What made you ask about Brigid?"

  April's question was innocent enough. My answer was not.

  I shrugged. "I don't know. Name popped into my head. I must have read something once. No reason."

  April gave me a long, suspicious look. She didn't believe me.

  But she decided to let it go with nothing more than a whispered, "Bull —"

  Chapter

  XI

  We were led out of the house filled with air, back into the native watery environment. It was still a hard transition for me to make. There is something permanently disturbing about breathing water.

  April's long, thick, red hair and Senna's long, sleek, blond hair took flight again around their heads, dancing like copper and golden snakes, beautiful Medusas. Our clothes billowed and our steps became slow and exaggerated. We were five sad examples of John Cleese's Minister of Silly Walks from the old Monty Python days.

  Back through the city the way we had come, to the reviewing stands, filled once again to capacity, humans hawking fish treats piled on large clamshells, Coo-Hatch huddled together in the aisles, looking like they'd rather be anywhere else, then back through the wall of shimmering water, back onto the floor of the arena.

  This time, there was no horse race in progress, but several small, makeshift stages had been set up around the field of packed sand. On one stage, a fairy played a sort of mandolin as a satyr chased a nymph, then made an elaborate show of catching her On another stage a lone human male dressed in a short skirt and knee-high strapped leather sandals not unlike what the Roman and Greek soldiers wore, juggled small ceramic pots. At his feet lay groups of other items for juggling, none of which I could see clearly.