by Simon Archer
“That’s a good one, Cameron,” Beth said through her obnoxious chuckles. “Go and get her from the Underworld. Very funny!”
“He’s not joking Beth,” Daniella said with an even keel voice, speaking for the first time since we all stepped into the apartment.
Daniella’s words shut Beth right up, especially when she looked over her shoulder at the healer, whose steely gaze convinced Beth that she was dead serious. And so was I.
“Cameron,” Beth said warily as she spun slowly around to face me again. “You were joking, right?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m going to find the entrance to the Underworld and bring her back.”
“That’s impossible,” Hailey said sharply.
“No, it’s not,” I argued. “You know as well as I do that there are countless stories of Greek heroes venturing into the Underworld to bring back their loved ones or at least talk to them.” I held out my hand and proceeded to count the stories off on my fingers. “Odysseus did it. Heracles managed to capture Cerberus. Orpheus went down to find Eurydice. Psyche went down to prove herself to be worthy of being with Eros again.”
“Okay, okay,” Hailey held out her hands to stop my rambling. “We get it. But just because few other heroes did it and lived to tell the tale, doesn’t mean that you’re going to go on a katabasis on your own.”
“Go on what on his own?” Jade piped up, holding her hand up in the air, like a student.
“A katabasis,” I answered, though I didn’t take my eyes off my girlfriend standing in front of me. “It’s the Grecian word for a descent.”
“Specifically a descent to the Underworld,” Hailey said, her eyes boring into mine. “And you’re not taking one.”
“Then come with me,” I ventured the question, hesitating even as I spoke the words aloud. “You all can come with me. It’ll be easier with more people. It always is, according to mythology.”
My request was once again met with silence. The four of them looked at one another, and I suddenly felt left out. As though they were having a conversation without me. My eyes narrowed as I looked at all of my girlfriends. These were supposed to be the people I trusted the most in the world, and right now, I was suspicious of all of them.
“None of you believe me, do you?” I said unexpectedly, surprising all of them and myself as I said the words. “Even with my discoveries and theories, you all still think she did it. That’s why you won’t go with me. Because you don’t think there’s a reason to go.”
A sigh from Beth was all I needed to confirm my suspicions. I scoffed and put my hand on my hips in disbelief. I shook my head, not knowing what to say.
“Good to know that you all have my back,” I muttered, hurt shining through in my words.
“We do have your back,” Jade protested. “This is coming from a place of hurt, and we don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”
“We’re just trying to protect you,” Beth added.
“I don’t need protecting!” I shouted, unable to hold back my anger any more. “I need help. I need someone to believe me so that I’m not alone when I go to the Underworld, bring Sarah back, and prove that she didn’t do this.”
Hailey ran a hand through her hair. I was sure she was about to come back at me with some stupid excuse, and I was ready for her. I even widened my stance a little, as though we were preparing for a physical battle instead of one with words. Instead, though, Hailey looked over at Daniella with sad eyes. The healer inhaled sharply and shook her head, a sudden look of fear coming over her eyes.
“I think you should tell him Daniella,” Hailey said, her voice returning to that soft, coaxing tone she used with me before.
“Tell me what?” I demanded, my gaze snapping between my two girlfriends like a ping pong match.
Daniella didn’t speak. She shook her head again and swallowed audibly.
“Daniella, I swear to the gods, if you know something that you’re not telling me…” I trailed off, unable to think of a reasonable threat or promise. My words stuck in my throat like a chunk of peanut butter. It was hard to swallow, hard to hold back the tears as I looked at the daughter of Asclepius for an answer she clearly didn’t want to give.
“You have to do it,” Beth said without looking at Daniella. “Especially if he’s threatening to go to the Underworld. You have to tell him.”
Jade hugged herself, but she nodded her agreement.
I waited with my breath lodged in my throat, heavy puffs coming in and out of my nose like bullets. I sounded like a bull, ready to charge. Finally, Daniella licked her lips and opened her mouth.
“I worked with Sarah over the summer on her treatments,” Daniella began, looking anywhere but at me. “We originally shortened the treatments to twice a month, but then we quickly had to go back to every week last semester.”
“I didn’t know that,” I whispered, my anger quickly diffusing at the thought that Sarah was hurting from her Parkinson’s last year and didn’t say anything.
“She didn’t want anyone to know,” Daniella said, defending her decision not to say anything and her request of her. “Then, over the summer, we had to increase the treatments even more, to every single day.” My friend closed her eyes and inhaled sharply before beginning again. “One of the last times I saw her, she told me she wanted to stop the treatments. She said they were interfering too much in her daily life, and they weren’t really working anymore.”
“What?” I balked, but Daniella continued over me, no longer responding to my commentary.
“I told her that I didn’t recommend that, but I would respect her decision,” Daniella confessed. “We decided to stop treatment, but then she came and visited me a couple of days later. She looked in a bad way, deteriorating faster than I would have thought.” The healer sat on the couch again, as if the weight of the story was too much for her to bear. “I thought she was coming for help, but it was a help I wasn’t willing to give. She said it had gotten too much for her to take. She couldn’t do it anymore, so she asked me… she asked if I would help her end it.”
I gasped, just as Jade had done a moment before. Sensing my distress, my girlfriend came to me and wrapped her arms around me. For the first time since we arrived, I let someone touch me, and comfort me.
“I told her I couldn’t,” Daniella said with a weak voice. “That went against the very nature of who I am. I’m a healer. I couldn’t do what she was asking. Luckily, she said she understood and gave me a pat on the shoulder. She asked me not to say anything, and I begged her to reconsider. She said she would, but I knew she wouldn’t.” Daniella gulped and tucked her legs beneath her, in a criss-cross fashion on the couch. She held on to her ankles as though they were a life preserver. “The Stratego found her two days later.”
“No,” I said as I bit the inside of my cheek. “She wouldn’t… she wouldn’t do that.”
“She did, Cameron, I swear,” Daniella urged me. “I wouldn’t lie to you. And I don’t think she would have even considered it, but it was getting back to a point where even my powers couldn’t give her comfort.”
I put my head in my hands and shook it. Jade rubbed little circles around my back as I took in Daniella’s words.
No wonder none of them believed me. If they knew Daniella’s side of things, it would make perfect sense as to why Sarah would do what she did. I must have sounded like a raving lunatic. Maybe Sarah didn’t have the strength to put her tools away, or maybe she was shaking too much near the end to write a note, especially if it was as bad as Daniella said. Maybe she had lived so long without Marsella that she figured it wasn’t worth the pain of her time in the mortal world.
No one knew what she had been thinking, but very quickly, all of my arguments were being shut down. I ran out of evidence. I ran out of conviction.
As though it could sense my distress, the Eternal Flame popped out of its jar and zoomed towards me. It blared with light beyond my fingers, so I opened my hands to look at it. It floated inc
hes from my nose, so I had to go cross-eyed in order to see it clearly.
When I looked at the Flame, it suddenly changed color. It went from the bright blue to a deep, glowing red. But it wasn’t the normal angry red that I’d seen it give off before. This was a new color. It gleamed like a jewel, vibrant and stark. It took me a second, but I finally figured out the name of the color. One that I had placed to a single person, due to the color of it being that of metal being pulled from a forge.
Sarah.
The second I thought the word, a new fire lit up in my belly. As much as I trusted Daniella, something about this whole situation was wrong. I knew what I knew about Sarah, and I wasn’t going to give up on her. At the very least, if everyone was right, and she did take her own life, I needed to know why. If there was a way for me to get answers, I was going to take it.
I straightened up and lowered my hands. Jade stopped her rubbing, surprised at my sudden movement.
“Thank you for telling me, Daniella,” I said, keeping my voice as straight as I could. “I know that wasn’t easy, but I appreciate it.”
Daniella only offered me a nod, but I could tell she believed my statement. I did a sweeping gaze around at the rest of the group.
“I think I need some time alone,” I said, “I promise I won’t go making anything or ruining anything. Maybe I’ll just soak in the bathhouses for a while.”
“Are you sure you want to be alone?” Jade pressed. “That might not be the best--”
“I’m sure,” I cut her off before she could give me a reasonable excuse. I went to the door and rubbed the back of my hand against my eyes. “Thank you all for being here for me.”
“We always are,” Hailey said with a half-smile.
“I’ll come to find you guys tomorrow for breakfast?” I said as an olive branch.
“I’ll make you whatever you want,” Jade offered sympathetically.
“Thanks,” I reached out for her hand, and she offered me hers. I gave her a quick squeeze and then dipped down to kiss her. “Since Khryseos and Argyreos can’t come in the bathhouses, can they hang out here for a bit while I go and soak?”
“Absolutely,” Hailey said. “Whatever you need.”
“You boys be good,” I told the dogs. They settled in together, Argyreos finally joining his brother by the couch. Then I picked up the Eternal Flame’s jar, which it had dutifully returned to. “I guess I’ll return this before I go and take a bath.”
“Don’t drown,” Beth said by way of a joke.
“I won’t,” I assured her with my own half-smile and then left the apartment.
I had no intention of heading for the bathhouses. And I had no intention of returning the Eternal Flame. I knew that it had sent me a message before when it shined that ruby color. As much as I hated lying to my girlfriends, they had lied to me.
So when I exited Hailey’s apartment building, instead of heading for the bathhouses like I said I would, I headed out of the main quad, towards the cemetery.
6
Night had fallen quickly. When I stepped outside, the sky was a navy blue sprinkled with stars. It was unnaturally clear with the constellations easily visible. I didn’t know the exact location of the Academy, and I couldn’t point it out to my mom on a map when she asked. Hailey told me it was something I would learn upon graduation, but as I looked up at the stars, it didn’t seem possible that the Academy would be anywhere in the United States. The sky was just too pure, untouched by any sort of pollution or contamination.
Nyx was definitely showing off her skills that night, I thought to myself. A smile pulled at my lips as I thought about the possibility of Sarah being up there, joining the infinite souls that lived in the sky.
Before I discovered that the Greek gods were real, along with all of their subsequent myths and legends, I always believed that dead people joined the stars. Mom was never religious and let me perpetuate this belief. It gave me comfort when an older teacher of mine, Mr. Johnson, passed away. Or when a classmate committed suicide my freshman year of high school. I looked outside my bedroom at night and thought about all the people that lived up there watching over us.
It hurt my heart to think like this because now I knew the truth. The lore of the Underworld was real, and Sarah now resided down there, for better or worse, along with Mr. Johnson and the junior from my school.
It was a weird and somber thought. So much so that I wanted to reject the whole idea. I wanted to believe they were all up there, regardless of how they had passed. The idea of an eternal punishment never appealed to me.
But the idea of getting to speak to Sarah again, to ask her what actually caused her death, did appeal to me. It was the one thing I was grateful for when it came to learning that the Underworld was real.
I inhaled deeply and yanked my eyes away from the sky, refocusing them on the path ahead of me. I held the jar with the Eternal Flame in two hands, with the care of an overflowing cup. I knew I had to find a way to put the Flame back. There was no way I could bring it down to the Underworld. It was too dangerous of a weapon, and I didn’t know what I was getting into down there.
There were multiple depictions of the Underworld in Greek mythology. There was even confusion about where it was located. Some stories said that it was at the edge of the ocean where the water met the sky. Now, modern-day science told us that this was impossible, but the alternative was beneath the depths of the world, which was also impossible according to physics. Though, according to science, I shouldn’t be able to touch fire or other things that are upwards of three hundred degrees.
Another possible way to get into the Underworld was to follow one of the six rivers. Styx was definitely the most famous of all of them, but there was also Acheron, the Lethe, the Phlegethon, the Cocytus, and Oceanus. But the last one encompassed the whole oceans, so I wasn’t sure how much that one counted. Each one had a different purpose when escorting the souls to hell. Either they helped them forget their time in the mortal world, or they burned them for punishment. Others were rivers of pain or rivers of wailing. The basic notion was that none of them were pleasant.
Even though there might have been several options for entering the Underworld, I didn’t know where I was supposed to find any of them. I thought about the heroes I knew who had traveled to the Underworld, like Orpheus, who followed his song. Being a muse’s son, he was able to use his talents with music to navigate down there. I wasn’t musically inclined in the slightest, so that option was out.
Most of the women who ventured down there, like Persephone and Psyche, were brought against their will. Unfortunately, angering a god enough to send me down to the Underworld didn’t guarantee that I would be alive when I went down there.
Finally, all of the other male heroes had been sent there on a quest and had been sent by a god or goddess. Since I didn’t have that kind of patronage, I didn’t know if that would be an acceptable route either.
I reached the edge of the quad, and the air deflated out of my lungs. I didn’t know if I actually was going to be able to accomplish this plan if I didn’t even have the slightest notion of how to get to the Underworld. Short of offing myself, which wasn’t an option, I didn’t know what to do.
My eyes gazed up towards the outskirts of campus where the cemetery was. Then, I looked behind me, back towards my dorm, considering both options. It was late and had been a hell of an emotional day. Maybe the best choice was to give up and move on. Go to the bathhouses like I told my girlfriends I planned to and get on with the year.
Something about those defeated thoughts didn’t sit well with me. It put a nasty taste in my mouth, so much so that I had to open my mouth and stick out my tongue.
Suddenly, there was an intense heat coming from my hands. It was a foreign sensation to me, one that I hadn’t ever felt before. But instantly, my brain recognized what it was and involuntarily reacted.
I dropped the glass jar carrying the piece of Eternal Flame. It shattered loudly on the cobblestones, s
cattering about. It fell into the cracks and flew into the grass. I froze, staring at my hands, which burned red from the heat. The sharpness bothered me, and I wanted to dunk my hands in the nearest cold substance.
There was a fountain in the center of the quad, and unthinkingly, I dashed for it. Immediately, I stuck my hands in the pool. I bent into a crouch and sat with my knees against the stone basin while the freezing water soothed my palms.
A sigh of relief escaped my lips as I relished in the sensation from the water. But then another sensation overtook me: anger. My eyes darted up, and I moved my head around wildly, searching for the little flame that decided to give me a scare.
Panic filled my chest as I thought the thing might have made its final escape. It truly abandoned me and was now out in the world wreaking havoc. I thought about the potential destruction it could cause, and my blood turned cold. Or that could have been the water, I wasn’t quite sure.
However, my worry soon lessened when the annoying little flame came and appeared in front of my face. It pulsed with impatience, glowing a maroonish color. If the thing had arms, I was sure it would be crossing them, maybe even tapping its toe.
“What the hell?” I hissed at it. “I didn’t even know you could burn me.”
It zoomed once around my head and then flew over my shoulder. I followed it with my eyes until it got too far out of sight. Against my better judgment, I pulled my hands from the fountain water and wiped them on my pants as I darted forward to follow the little bugger.
It stopped on the edge of campus, where I had been contemplating my decision to abandon the whole quest. The Eternal Flame paused to let me catch up, and then it surged with that same level of impatience once more.
“What is your problem?” I asked as I spread my arms out in frustration. “What do you want?”
In response, the Flame sped out towards the hill on which the cemetery resided. I raised my eyebrows, finally understanding.
