“Let’s see if Theeny takes your side this time when I tell her you murdered a helpless blind girl . . . and tricked Pandora, who by the way, Athena thinks could be just as clever as Odysseus when she gets older . . . all while pretending to be me. As if you could have kept up that charade for much longer. I’m surprised, Pandora . . .”
Aphrodite turned and lifted Pandy’s chin with her finger, smiling down into Pandy’s face.
“. . . that you didn’t see through her ruse. Ah, well.”
Hera stretched her arms even higher above her head.
“Aphrodite, so help me, that brat is going to die this instant and I will take you and the errand boy down with her!” Hera screeched.
“Wife!”
Everyone, including Hera, jumped.
Zeus’s voice came booming through the temple again, shaking loose stones and construction dust down from the ceiling.
“Wife? My dream? I seek you.”
There was a pause. Hera looked about as if seeking the quickest escape.
“You don’t answer?” Aphrodite said. “Let me call him for you.”
“Stop it!” Hera spat. “I can deal with my husband myself.”
“Hera? Pomegranate seed? Ripe-but-gargantuan grape?”
“Here, loved one,” she called out loudly. “Aphrodisias.”
A white light erupted toward the front of the temple, growing brighter and larger until the entire inside of the temple was visible clear as day. For a second, Pandy’s eyes beheld the true enormity of the Aphrodisias temple, and the different but beautiful flourishes on the columns and side walls. And then she saw the enormous figure of the Sky-Lord strolling casually down the main aisle, his silver hair flowing over his broad shoulders, debris and scaffolding flying out of his way as if tossed by unseen hands.
“There you are, my falafel patty,” Zeus said, looking around the temple as Pandy, Iole, and Homer knelt in front of him. “I have been scouring the known world for you. I’d like your opinion on a new color option I’m trying out for the clouds at sunrise, and since it is close to dawn and Apollo is nearly done harnessing his steeds, I felt that now would be as good a time as any. . . . Where is your hair?”
“Uh . . . well . . . you see,” Hera began.
“Why is your robe singed?” Zeus asked. Then, without taking his eyes off his wife as Hera struggled to find her words, he sidestepped his way over to Alcie’s body and pointed down. “And what happened here?”
Pandy held her tongue, as did everyone else. To expose Hera’s part in Alcie’s death would have meant exposing everyone else’s assistance over the past several months. Not only would Zeus learn about Hera’s wickedness but also he would discover where and how she’d gotten her information and that would mean a clear picture of how Hermes, Athena, Hephaestus, and all the others had helped.
“She was bitten by a snake, Cloud Gatherer,” Pandy said. That much she could say, certainly; it was the truth. She stood, clinging to Hermes’ leg, somehow finding the courage to speak when all others were silent.
“It was . . . an accident.” Suddenly she realized she’d just lied to Zeus.
“That’s right, Father,” Hermes said evenly. “She was bitten by a snake.”
“Hermes and I were chatting with Hera when we heard Pandora’s cries,” Aphrodite chimed in. Her tone was so natural and deceitfully honest that Pandy wondered for a moment if love and lying always went hand in hand. “Naturally, if it had been anywhere else, we wouldn’t have paid the slightest attention. But they were in my temple . . . in a foreign land . . . screaming . . . so we arrived to see what was happening, but found the situation hopeless. And Hera backed into several altar lamps at the sight of the snake.”
Zeus turned to look at Hermes as Hera deliberately knocked over a standing altar lamp close by.
“Ooops, I did it again!”
As he stared at his son, Zeus shook his head slightly. Hermes couldn’t tell if Zeus was disgusted that he would cover for Hera or disappointed that he and Aphrodite hadn’t been clever enough to come up with a better lie.
“Must have been quite the blaze to turn you into a walking egg,” Zeus said, smiling at his wife’s bald head. Then he gazed down at Pandy.
“Greetings, Pandora.”
“Mighty Zeus,” Pandy replied.
“I am sorry for your friend. Good friends are hard to come by. You must be on constant guard against snakes, of every sort. However, I am glad to see you. I have absolutely no idea how this happened, but I found something of yours on Olympus early this morning. I can only say, he must be quite the climber . . . I don’t think there’s even a bird alive that can scale its heights, and yet there he was, roaming the halls and apartments, quite lost. While you have lost one friend, I’m sure you’d like to have another back.”
Immediately, Pandy heard a joyful bark from the front of the temple. Moving away from Hermes, she all but stumbled off the altar and toward the light. Almost at once she saw a snow-white fur ball flying down the aisle. With Alcie’s death, Pandy had been forced to accept that the people and creatures she loved most were going to be taken from her and never returned; that death and loss were going to be as normal a part of her life as marriage and children were to others, and in essence, that there was a deadly price to pay for being close to her. She had all but given up hope of ever running, playing, holding . . . seeing . . . him again, but as Dido jumped on her, licking her face and whimpering with delight, she felt the enormous hole in her heart close up—just the tiniest bit.
“And now we must be off,” Zeus said, extending his hand to Hera. “Sunrise waits for no one. Usually.”
“I shall attend presently, husband,” Hera said, smiling demurely.
“You will attend now,” Zeus said.
When Hera didn’t move instantly, Zeus walked up to her.
“There is nothing else to be done, my giant nesting water hen,” he said low and evenly. “There is no other action for you to take here.”
Hera gazed at him, then at all the others, her eyes coming to rest on Pandora.
“As you wish, my lord,” she said, taking his hand and letting him lead her up the main aisle. As she passed, Pandora noticed that new red hairs were already starting to grow on her head, although her gown remained charred. Hera called out in a voice laced with honey. “I, too, am sorry for your loss, Pandora. And while I rejoice at your reunion with your beloved pet, I know that the loss of a comrade is such a blow. The dynamic has changed, if you will. Now, for all of you, things are on a whole . . . new . . . level. I wish you only the best of luck.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Aftermath
As the light faded, taking Zeus and Hera with it, Pandy looked at Alcie’s body. She watched Dido pad over to it, sniff the air for a moment, then howl loudly. Pandy turned to face Aphrodite and Hermes, looking from one to the other. Then she closed her eyes, slumping where she stood, and sobbed.
“Oh, my dear,” Aphrodite said, moving to her. She embraced Pandy, who threw her arms around the goddess and collapsed.
“That’s right,” Aphrodite said, stroking her head. “Get it all out. Go on. Watch the . . . the runny nose . . . on the girdle. Oh, never mind . . . let it all go. That’s a good maiden. All out.”
Aphrodite grabbed one sleeve of her night-sheath and stuck it under Pandy’s nose.
“Blow.”
She held Pandy close again. A few minutes later, when Pandy had calmed just a bit, Aphrodite spoke in a hushed voice.
“I forget, Pandora, the infinitesimal amount of death you have actually seen in your short lifetime. We, who have seen so much, and caused so much, have become almost immune to the effects of a loss such as this.”
“Pandora,” Hermes said, when he saw that she was able to focus on him. “You must know that we would have been here to prevent this if we had been able.”
“That’s right, my dear one,” Aphrodite said quickly, looking her straight in the eye. “Hermes had just come from Apo
llo and was in my apartments, telling me everything. Everything. What you needed and why. Without warning, Hera snuck up and threw that damned net over the both of us and we couldn’t move! She walked over to my dressing table, studied the apple for a moment, fashioned an exact replica out of clay right before our eyes, and then left.”
“How did you get out?” Pandy asked, wiping her nose.
“Oh . . .” Aphrodite sighed. “I had to call my husband. When Hephaestus arrived, it was long minutes of me explaining that I was not having a tryst with yet another Olympian. And did he really think that Hermes would be my choice?”
“You know, I’m right here,” Hermes said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she giggled. “But really!”
“Not so far-fetched,” he replied, turning away.
“At any rate, after he finally lifted the net, I grabbed the apple and we sped down here,” Aphrodite said. “But too late. I am sorry.”
“Thank you for trying,” Pandy said.
“Pandora,” Aphrodite said, “you have to be strong now. Alcie needs to know, as she’s walking in the Elysian Fields—”
“Kicking the dead, calling them lemons,” Hermes interrupted.
“Whatever! She needs to know that her sacrifice, no matter how deceitfully won, was not in vain. You need courage . . . and . . .”
Aphrodite paused.
“You need this.”
Nestled in her hand, in a white silk cloth, Aphrodite held out the golden apple— the original. The one Eris had tossed into a wedding centuries earlier; the cause of so much misery.
“Thank you,” Pandy said softly.
“My plea sure.”
Iole, standing close to the net where it had fallen, picked it up and held it out to Pandy. As their hands touched, the two girls held on to each other tightly for a long moment. Then Pandy withdrew the box from her pouch and gave it to Iole. Draping the net over her palm, she took the apple from Aphrodite and stared at it: TO THE FAIREST was still as clear as the day it was magically engraved. Then Pandy held the apple close to the box as Iole, with Homer now standing behind her, removed the hairpin and flipped the clasp.
“On three,” Pandy said.
“Right,” Iole answered.
“One . . . two . . . three!” they counted together, then Iole lifted the lid and Pandy shoved the apple inside. Iole tried to close the lid quickly, but it remained open a few seconds as the bulk of the apple fizzled away. Pandy draped the net around the open lid to prevent anything from trying to escape, until Iole flipped the adamant clasp into place again and secured the hairpin.
“That’s quite impressive, if I do say so,” Hermes said as Pandy stowed the box in her pouch once again. “Four down, and only three to go!”
“Only?” Iole said as she looked up balefully at Hermes.
But Pandy had already turned away and was moving again to Aphrodite.
“She’s in the Elysian Fields?” Pandy asked. “Really?”
“Well, not just yet,” Aphrodite said, looking at Alcie’s body. “We have to get her there first, don’t we? Hermes?”
“I’m on it,” he replied. Then he walked over and placed two gold coins on her lips.
“Solid gold,” Aphrodite said, smiling. “Charon can send a few of his grandkids to a really good academy with those! Do you want to say or do anything else before she goes?”
Pandy looked at Iole and Homer. Iole shook her head and Homer, as if in complete denial, looked away and started whistling low and soft.
“No,” Pandy said. “We’re good.”
“Call your dog,” Aphrodite said.
“Dido! C’mere, boy!”
Dido crept away from keeping watch over Alcie’s body and trotted toward his mistress. Then, as they watched, Alcie’s body began to slowly disappear. When she was almost gone, Homer took a step toward her, then stopped and turned away from the entire scene. Iole grabbed his hand and he squeezed it tightly.
“All is well,” Aphrodite said.
“Oh, Gods!” Pandy cried. “Why didn’t I think of it!”
She whirled on Aphrodite.
“She’s blind! Alcie’s still blind. I won’t ask for us . . . you can leave us the way we are. But she’s blind and . . . and . . . in a new place. Please!”
“Say no more,” Aphrodite said. “I think you all have paid enough to have a little recanting come your way.”
At once, Pandy’s arm and Iole’s leg were both restored to normal. As Pandy stretched her arm in a wide arc, she looked questioningly at Aphrodite.
“Don’t even ask, or I’ll think you don’t trust me.” Aphrodite smiled. “Of course Alcie can see . . . although it’s rather dark in the underworld. She won’t see much. Now we must go, and so must you, I think. It’s a brand-new day, new adventures for you all.”
“Hey, I’d like to see how you do it,” Hermes said to Pandy. “Use the map, that is. Apollo says it’s rather brilliant, especially for a Hera design.”
“Of course,” Pandora said. She produced the map and, after letting Hermes study it for a moment, dragged a finger across her eyes and shook two large teardrops into the blue bowl. As the rings began to spin, Hermes clapped his hands in spite of himself. The three concentric rings finally lined up and the brilliant light illuminated the words “Baghdad,” “Rage,” and “76.”
There it was . . . just as Pandy had feared. She only had seventy-six days left.
“Oh, that’s just wild!” Hermes said.
“I guess we’d better get moving,” Pandy said.
“Baghdad?” Aphrodite said. “That’s Asia Minor, I believe. Persia, to be precise. What do they use there . . . to get around, I mean? Hermes?”
“Beasts called camels.”
“Hmmmmm . . . interesting,” Aphrodite said. “All righty then . . . take good care of yourself, Pandora.”
“I will. And thank you. For the apple.”
“Silly piece of junk. I’m glad to be rid of it. Hermes?”
“Right behind you. Homer, will you take Pandy outside? I think there’s something waiting for you at the side of the building.”
“Should you do that?” Pandy asked without thinking. “Zeus was just here and if he finds out . . .”
“Zeus has Hera by his side at the moment,” Aphrodite laughed. “I can guarantee you that his thoughts do not concern us in the slightest. Go now.”
As Homer and Pandy walked off between the columns, Hermes beckoned to Iole. For a split second, Iole thought she was in trouble, that she had somehow angered the god.
“I’m not really good with the comforting, nurturing, mothering stuff, the way the women are,” he began. “But I just wanted you to know how sorry I am that we didn’t arrive sooner.”
At that moment, Pandy raced back into the temple, followed by a spitting camel. Then the camel turned around and trotted back out, and Pandy rushed after, calling to Homer that she couldn’t possibly mount it by herself.
By the side of the temple, Homer, barely concentrating and still numb with grief, grabbed the camel in one hand, forced it to its knees, and swung Pandy on top.
“Hey, big brain, back here.”
“I’m sorry,” Iole said, refocusing.
“Look,” Hermes continued. “You made such a big deal of it before . . . and I really don’t need it. I hardly ever wear it . . . so here, you can have it.”
He slipped the emerald bracelet, Alcie’s Maiden Day gift to Iole, onto Iole’s wrist.
Iole just stared at it: the beauty, the sparkle, and the flash. It represented everything that Alcie ever was and would always be to her. It was Alcie, in tiny green stones, hanging on her arm. Hermes put his hand very, very gently on Iole’s shoulder.
“But you’d rather have her back. I know,” he said. “I know.”
Iole looked at Hermes and nodded.
“Okay. That was it,” he said, now uncomfortable with the depth of Iole’s grief.
“Thank you,” Iole said at last.
“Rig
ht. Let’s go get you on a camel.”
EPILOGUE
“Hurry, lord!” the spirit was saying. “It’s absolute chaos! No one can cross. No one wants to cross. Charon refuses to ferry this one, and the dead are getting a little backed up.”
Hades stormed through the Elysian Fields toward the massive gates that led in and out of the underworld. Passing through, he paused to take note of his ferocious three-headed guard dog, Cerberus, usually barking and snapping, now with each head down and trying to cover all six ears with his two paws.
“Where?” was his only question to the throng of onlookers that had poured out of the underworld to see the spectacle.
But no one needed to point; Hades had only to listen for a moment.
“Wormy melons! What gives? I had good figgy money and I have the right to get across!”
Alcie kicked at Charon’s boat, sending it drifting into the river Styx until Charon, muttering, extended his long oar and pulled it back. Then she yelled again at the top of her lungs.
“Hey, you old pitted date, don’t gimme any tangerine nonsense! This maiden don’t play that way. Is anyone listening over there? There were two perfectly good gold coins on my lips and this son of an apple snatches ’em off my face like he’s workin’ bread dough, and just because I took a little swing at him, he starts giving me attitude! Like I need that! Then he says he doesn’t want anyone like me in his pom-OH-granate boat. What does he mean by that? I’m not good enough? Now he’s got the money and I can’t get across. Can anybody over there hear me? Huh? Hey you plebe-os across the river! Somebody want to do something, before I take this pruny pear’s oar and beat him over the head with it?”
Hundreds of lifeless eyes turned as one to stare questioningly at the dark lord.
Hades tilted his head down until his eyes barely peered out from under his brows.
“Oh, no,” he said at last. “I don’t think so . . .”
He looked at the throng, then back at the wild girl on the opposite shore, braying for entrance into his kingdom.
“No, I really don’t think so. Someone, somewhere has made a big, big mistake.”
Pandora Gets Heart Page 17
