“Ask the other gods for help where you can.” Her voice sounded further away. “Follow the stream through the forest to get out of this valley.”
“Will I see you again?”
“I hope so.” Alexa was now so far away that she was yelling so I could hear her. “And take these. They started the trouble, maybe they can help somehow.” From out of the rubble of the palace, the knife and lantern floated to my feet.
“Come back,” I screamed. “I need you.”
There was no answer. Alexa was gone.
For a while I indulged in my typical reaction to bad news — I cried. Hysterical, hiccup-inducing sobs. But when the initial flood of tears washed through me, I knew there was no point in sitting there bawling. It was time to start my search.
I tried not to think about the impossibility of that task. He was probably back on Mount Olympus by now and I had no way of getting there on my own. But Alexa had told me to search and I had nothing else to go on. So I tucked the knife into my belt, grabbed the lantern, and started walking.
To get to the brook as Alexa said, I had to pass through the gardens. I’d spent so many hours out here the past few days, loving the flowers and sculptures and babble of the fountains. Now they were a shadow of their former selves, looking utterly ruined in the early morning light. The flowers were dried and drooping. The sculptures were as crumbled as if Hephestus had taken his tools and chiseled away the beautiful features. And the garden was eerily silent, like every living insect and bird had met extinction there.
Beyond the dying hedges of the garden maze I found the stream Alexa had told me to follow. When I reached the tree line that marked the beginning of the dense forest, I turned to look back at my ruined home. The palace was gone. Not even the rubble remained. The cracked and broken sculptures had vanished. Not a single petal from the gardens survived. Nothing was left from my brief former life but an empty clearing sitting between the base of a jagged cliff and the entrance to this dark forest.
Sucking in a calming breath, I stepped into the trees and wound my way through the tangle of limbs. By the time the sun began to set, my feet ached as badly as my heart, and my stomach was close behind. When my legs literally wouldn’t carry me another step, I sunk down into some cushiony moss at the base of a laurel tree. With my back against the trunk, I looked up into the leaves and watched the last rays of the sun trickle through the canopy.
I figured I must be having some sort of exhaustion-induced hallucination when the limbs of the tree slowly wrapped themselves around me in a prickly embrace. And then the tree spoke to me.
“Poor Psyche,” the tree murmured in a voice barely louder than the breeze rustling her leaves. “Another of Eros’s victims.”
I was too tired to be afraid. My heart leapt into my throat for another reason. “Victim? Was I meant to be his target then?”
“Not like you mean. But he’s careless. I am victim too.”
“Will you tell me?” I asked.
Wind stirred through the leaves, almost like the laurel was sighing through her branches. “I was a nymph. Daphne. Apollo loved me. I didn’t feel the same.” The tinkling whisper seemed to take great effort for the tree. “Apollo would’ve accepted my decision. But Eros stung him with an arrow. Apollo persisted; I ran. Father changed me to this tree. And Apollo still loves me. Eros’s fault.”
Turning onto my hip, I wrapped my arms around the base of the tree and hugged her back. The tree’s embrace tightened as she hushed, “Sleep, Psyche. Sleep safe.” And I did.
I didn’t wake up until late the next morning. The tree’s branches were no longer cradling me. In fact, this tree looked like all of the others in the forest: immobile. Had I dreamt the whole thing? If so, that was unquestionably the weirdest dream of my entire life.
I stared up at the tree. More to myself than to her, I said, “I’m sorry, Daphne. You deserved better.”
As I turned to go down to the stream to get a drink before I set out for the day, she spoke again. “Almost home. You’ll know my grove.”
Home? I forgot about getting a drink and ignored the ache in my legs as I set off running. I knew of only one laurel grove and it was near my parents’ palace. The grove I had visited with my sister when we made laurel crowns together as kids. Could I really be that close?
As I wound down the stream, it suddenly flowed into a river and hooked to the right. This had to be the Selinous River near my house.
As I followed its path, the land became treacherous. I was forced away from the sand-colored boulders and pale grey rocks that made up the steep banks. The river picked up speed as I pressed on, gurgling and spitting as it pounded against even more boulders and dropped down tiny rapids. I had no choice but to pick my way through the dense pines. The needles stabbed at my feet and tore at my already-battered dress. And yet I continued trying to run, hoping that each new bend in the river would lead me to the laurel grove.
By mid-afternoon, with the sun burning into my skin and my legs threatening to give way beneath me, the grove finally appeared. I was so relieved that my knees went weak. It wasn’t much farther. I could make it.
With strength and speed a starving person shouldn’t have had, I raced up the hill to my parents’ palace. At first the guards blocked my way with their spears.
I looked from one to the other. “Belen, Demos, it’s me, Psyche.” I was instantly glad I’d taken the time — unlike my sister — to learn the names of the palace servants.
“You’ve escaped the beast!” cried Demos.
“Come inside, quickly,” urged Belen.
Once I was inside my parents’ home, it exploded in excitement. I was pushed and pulled from the embrace of this and that person until I landed with Maia. Like a calm inside the storm, Maia’s arms brought familiar comfort and shielded me from the prying arms of the other staff.
Maia’s eyes were full to the brim with tears, but she was smiling broadly. “Child, you’ve escaped,” she said as she looked me over. “We were all so worried when Chara reported that you really were in the house of a monster.” When Maia mentioned my sister, she nodded her head at the hallway behind me. I spun around and saw Chara standing. And staring.
If looks could kill, she would’ve been a crumpled pile of bones on the marble floor. “He was no monster,” I told Maia, still staring down Chara with my most icy glare. I was about to unleash my pent-up anger on her when my mother and father bounded into the room.
“Psyche!” Mother yelled between hysterical sobs. “You’re home. My baby’s really home.” She and Father nearly strangled me in a consuming embrace.
“I am.” I pulled loose from her and turned to my father. “Are you okay? I’ve been so worried.”
“Me? I’m fine. Had a touch of a stomach bug these past couple days, but I feel fine now.”
A relieved sigh escaped my lips as Mother wiped at her tears and hugged me again. “I’m sorry,” she bawled, “I can’t help it. I never thought we’d see you again.”
“I’m okay. Well, I was okay.” I lowered my eyes to the floor as I felt everyone’s stares settle on me. “I’m not so sure anymore.”
“I don’t understand,” my father cut in. “You got free from the monster.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” I protested. “He’s not a monster.” I pulled in a deep breath to steady myself, but the words still came out barely more than a whisper. “He’s Eros.”
I heard everyone in the room suck in astonished gasps.
Finally, Father stammered, “Well, what happened to you then? You look like you’ve been through battle.”
“I haven’t eaten in two days. Do you mind if we talk over an early dinner?”
The staff who’d been gathered around me immediately scurried like ants. I looked down at my tattered clothes and filthy body.
“A bath is probably in order too,” I said to no one in particular.
“I’ll get the water,” offered Maia, and she too rushed off.
Maia wa
s kind enough to bring me some cheese to snack on while I bathed, but I still hurried through the bath and quickly dressed to get down to dinner. As I ate, I gave the whole account of how I’d nearly murdered the god of Love and, in the process, lost what I now realized was probably the love of my life.
When I was finished, everyone just sat in silence. No one had any suggestions or advice for how to win back the love of an immortal. This was unchartered territory.
“So,” I concluded, “I plan to start searching again just as soon as my strength is back. I don’t see what other choice I have.”
Chara snorted. “What, you think you can just walk up to Mount Olympus and knock on Eros’s door?” she asked.
“Do you have a better idea?” I snapped.
“Yeah. Maybe you should let it go. You screwed up. Move on with your life.”
“I screwed up?” I yelled her. “Me? This never would’ve happened if it weren’t for you. You’re the one who convinced me to kill him in the first place.”
Standing up, my entire body shook with emotion as a new realization washed over me. “You did this on purpose,” I stammered. “You did, didn’t you?”
“Chara, is that true?” asked our father.
Chara rose off her tripod, her body rigid and fists clenched. “Rasmus is sweet, isn’t he, Psyche? Of course, you know that. After your private chat.”
I recoiled. The way she said ‘chat’ made it seem dirty. Her eyes narrowed into slits.
“Oh yes, I know all about it. You can imagine how guilty Rasmus felt about misleading me. He confessed everything like a shamed little school boy. Including the fact that you knew too.”
“There was nothing I could’ve done.”
“You could’ve told me,” she shrieked. “You could’ve at least acted like a sister for one day in your life.”
“So what?” I demanded. “You got to my house, saw I was happy, and decided to sabotage the whole thing?”
“Let’s just consider it me repaying the favor.”
Father came and stood in front of me, shielding Chara from my view. “Psyche, I think you need some rest.” And then he turned to Chara. “And I think you’d better make yourself scarce.”
Chara huffed before stomping out of the room. Mother moved to my side and pulled me into her with a one-armed hug.
“Come on,” she offered, “I’ll walk you upstairs. Your room’s just like you left it.”
As we passed together through the door, she added, “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”
Her words unwrapped a new layer of exhaustion and hopelessness. Sure we will, Mom, I wanted to say, just like we figured out how to get me out of having to go to him in the first place.
There were many things to love about my parents, but their ability to figure ourselves out of predicaments wasn’t one of them.
Chapter 38 - Psyche
I woke up screaming. Not a bone-chilling, blood-curdling scream, but an aching, worst-misery-of-my-life scream.
“Shhh, sweetie,” Mom comforted and pulled the covers up higher under my chin. “It was just a bad dream. Everything’s all right now. It’ll be okay.”
When my eyes finally fought through tear-sealed crust to stretch open, I saw my mother sitting on the edge of my bed. She stroked my hair repeatedly, as if the motion was comforting to her too.
The lines under her eyes were deep with worry and I doubted she’d slept. I pushed myself up in the bed and latched onto her neck, hoping she was right about everything being okay. But I couldn’t truly believe. The dream had been too real. And what I needed right now was not another wretched freaking prophecy.
As I remembered my dream, my heart felt newly pierced again, like someone twisting a spear deeper into my wound. I fell over onto my side and tried to fold up into myself. Desperate moans forced themselves through my lips as I struggled to hold on to the warmth and security offered by my mother’s presence.
“Oh, baby,” she soothed, rubbing my back. “Want to tell me about it?”
I shook my head weakly back and forth.
“The burden is less if you share it,” she offered.
I half-turned back to look at her. “I saw him. He came back to me.”
“In your dream?” she asked.
I nodded. “I thought he’d forgiven me. That he understood what I’d done. But then…” I choked as a sob began to swell in my chest. Could I even say the words I’d heard so clearly?
Mother ran her hand down my face. She looked so understanding, so knowing. Could she see that remembering this dream was tearing out my heart from its roots?
“He said he’d always love me.” Air hitched in the back of my throat as my lungs struggled to function. “Then he said goodbye. And that would be for always too.”
I curled back into my ball. I’m sure Mother tried to talk to me after that, but I wasn’t listening. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she knew me well enough to know I just wanted to be alone. Either way, she retreated, leaving me to mourn the loss of the love I didn’t even know I’d felt until it was gone.
Strength eluded me after that. My muscles refused to drag me from bed; my brain refused to climb out of its darkness. I knew I was wallowing in self-pity, but I indulged myself. Never in my eighteen years had I been allowed to just lay about, feeling mopey or gloomy. I’d always had to smile, to be the bright and cheerful one. Now that I’d lost so much so quickly, I felt entitled to take a few days off.
When I finally emerged from my room on the third day, my hair was caked to my head and my skin felt tacky from not having bathed. A faint odor of decay clung to my skin like a damp sheet. I yearned for a long soak in the tub followed by a huge breakfast.
But first, I just wanted a hug from my mom. And confirmation that Chara had taken the opportunity to make herself scarce.
Mother was in the gardens. When she saw me, she set aside her embroidery and wrapped me in her arms — despite my stink.
“Psyche, you’re up,” she chirped. “You must be starved. Do you want some breakfast?”
Before I could answer, she turned to Maia. “Maia, go get Psyche some eggs and sausage. And bread. Lots of it.” Maia started to leave, but Mother called her back again, “Oh, and when you’ve done, get Psyche’s bath ready.”
It really was like she could read my mind.
“Of course,” Maia answered before scuttling back into the palace.
Mother held one of my hands in hers and directed me to sit next to her. The air was warm this morning and we soaked up the sun as we sat in silence for awhile. Now that I knew my immediate needs were being taken care of, it took me a bit to work up the courage to ask about Chara.
What was I supposed to do if she was still here? I felt better after two days of self-indulged moping, but I wasn’t sure I felt that much better.
Finally, I broke the silence. “Mother?” I asked.
She pulled her gaze away from some brilliant red flowers she’d been eyeing and looked over at me. “Umm…”
“What happened with Chara?”
“Your father sent her back to her City.” Her gaze fell to her nervous fingers. “I think that may have been an always goodbye too.”
I slid my hand away, unable to stand the damp heat rolling off her palms. I’d done this to her; destroyed any chance she may have had at rekindling a relationship with her firstborn child.
Someone should seriously be keeping a tally of the relationships I’ve destroyed, because I could probably win a medal at this point.
Chapter 39 - Eros
Eros had hoped that saying goodbye to Psyche, even if through her dreams, would give him some closure. Make him feel better.
It had not.
His shoulder still ached where the oil had burned him. But more than that, the physical pain was a constant reminder of the heartbreaking pain he felt every time he thought of Psyche. How was it possible, after everything he had done for her, given up for her, all the times he’d promised to love her, that she would bet
ray him after just one visit from her sister? He’d thought she was slowly falling for him. Was any of it real?
And then came the waves of anger. How could a mortal, even if she was partly divine, even dream of harming him? The idea was unfathomable. Eros refused to really acknowledge the thought in the back of his head reminding him that Psyche didn’t know he was a god because he hadn’t told her. All the signs were there. She should’ve figured it out.
“Humans are so stupid!” he yelled at his house.
“You won’t hear any disagreement from me,” Aphrodite said, narrowing her eyes into a wickedly delightful twinkle.
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