Love or Fate

by Clea Hantman

  Hera waited a beat or three, clearly expecting some kind of response—most likely from me, the loudmouth. My face grew tighter, and I grew angrier, but I didn’t have a clue what to say or do. Maybe I was just too beaten down and scared to come up with sassy comebacks.

  Then she continued with her yelling. She went on and on about how useless and horrid we were and how we weren’t worth the fur on her fur-lined sandals. I had to drown it all out by singing inside my head for fear that I would just explode with anger. Hadn’t she done enough to us?

  “Thalia! Thalia!” she yelled.

  I met her eyes, but still I said nothing.

  “Why so silent? I expect more from you,” she said.

  But I said nothing.

  “Meg, Tizzie, Alek, have you put a no-speak spell on Thalia?”

  “No, Your Highness, perhaps she has a clogged-up sinus,” said Alek.

  “’Cause of your stinky old sweat stains!” I yelled. Crud. I couldn’t contain myself.

  “Ah, there is the spunky Thalia I despise so much. Nice to have you back.” She turned to Alek and the others. “Now, obviously, if they had time to escape, these girls are not suffering sufficiently. If they can get out into the halls of Tartarus just like that, well, Blessed Ones, I do not think they are being punished severely enough!”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, that escape was quite the travesty!” said the Furies in unison, looking sheepish.

  “Yes, so let’s see. Are the tiger pits cleaned? Is the wild boar good and angry? What about that four-headed giant, the one with the chip on his shoulder? What shall it be?” Hera was smiling now.

  The Furies chattered and tittered. “Boar gore, defiant giant, pits blitz!”

  Hera’s fingers were curling in delight. “The worst of the worst, O Blessed Ones, for I hate these girls! I want them to suffer, suffer so hard; I want them to feel pain and longing and fear. Do you feel fear, Era, dear? You look frightened down to your soul. That’s the look I want in each of these girls’ eyes; that’s what their punishment should make them feel!”

  Era did look scared—Hera wasn’t lying. She was cowering in the corner, and frankly, I was right there with her. I had never felt this scared. I had never felt this far from home, even in Georgia. I had never felt this helpless, this hopeless. And if even I had given up—me, the stubborn one—what about Era and?…

  “I’m through with these games!” A voice, one that was practically a stranger’s, tore through the air. I say practically because I’d recognize it anywhere. It was Polly’s. But there was something different to it.

  “Excuse me? Do you dare to speak to me that way?” demanded Hera, looking positively shocked.

  “Oh, yes, I dare,” Polly said, rising to her full height and clenching her fists. Era and I looked on, also in shock.

  “I am no longer going to make jewelry from earwax; I will no longer clean pit stains from clothes. I will no longer scrub and brush and wash and clean. I will not be going to any tiger pits, nor will I be confronting any giants today. I have had it. Ever since you came into our lives, you have been wretched and evil. I was only ten, and I had just lost my dear mother, and did you ever console me? Were you ever my friend? No! You were jealous of my mother, and you always will be—because you aren’t half the goddess she was! You are unfair, unjust, and unwelcome in my life!”

  Hera stood there, the smoke pouring out of her ears. She gasped and wheezed but said nothing.

  “I will no longer allow you to bully me,” Polly continued. “I will no longer allow you to torture me. I will no longer allow you to hurt me. This is over. Now, you let us go this instant!”

  I had never seen Polly demand anything for herself before. It was quite a sight. She didn’t shake as she spoke to Hera; she didn’t cower in the corner like Era and me. It was inspiring. I took Era’s hand and led her just a couple of steps toward Polly so that we stood silently, but strongly, behind her.

  Hera’s eyes were ablaze. She peered down her nose, directly into Polly’s face, but Polly didn’t even blink. Our stepmom seemed so angry that she didn’t know what to say. Bubbles of spittle just sprayed out of her mouth, but no words followed. Her hands started to swell, and then so did her feet.

  Something about what Polly was saying—whether it was just the shock of it, of somebody (who wasn’t me) standing up to Hera, or anger at what Polly had said about our mother, I don’t know. Whatever it was, it apparently infuriated Hera to new heights. Polly continued to stare her down, even as molten lava started to ooze from her mouth. And then came the yell.

  It was horrifying and ugly and worse than anything we had ever heard before.

  The lava that was oozing from her mouth shot all over the room, covering it in burning metallic goo. We ducked and escaped real harm. Even the Furies looked scared as they backed away from Hera, toward the door. Even they had never seen her this angry.

  And then Hera began to speak, but her voice wasn’t her own. She sounded like one of the horrible goblins that were rumored to inhabit Tartarus. It was deep and gruff, and it sounded like it could shave concrete off a slab. “How dare you, you little rat.”

  Hera then turned to the Furies. “As for you three, you have failed me for the last time. They mustn’t escape again. You must never let them out of your sight again, do you hear me? Outside, now! We will devise the evilest, nastiest, most treacherous punishment known to man or gods…ever! These girls will suffer for all eternity!” Her last words echoed loud and long.

  She turned on her heels and ushered the Furies hastily out of the room through the one entrance, which now stood open. Then she followed them out and slammed the heavy slab of a door behind her. But the train of her long black velvet beach cover-up got stuck in the doorjamb, a piece of it ripping off and sticking in the crack, causing the door to stay slightly ajar.

  That’s right, the train of her long black velvet beach cover-up got stuck in the doorjamb.

  The door didn’t shut. The door didn’t lock.

  SIXTEEN

  Polly was the first one to go. She didn’t say a word to either Era or me. She simply slipped through the slightly open doorway. Era followed her, and I followed Era.

  Hera was so busy yelling at the Furies that she didn’t even notice as we crawled past her. I kept thinking we were surely going to get caught, but she just kept on bellowing about tigers and giants (I was glad we were making a run for it). Luckily, too, her big bottom blocked us from the Furies’ line of vision.

  As soon as we entered the replica of our old house, Polly grabbed Era and me by our shirts and pulled us behind the velvet drapes.

  “We haven’t much time, but we need a plan. Without one, we’re destined to end up back here, just like before,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Beam us to the gates!” I said, but nothing happened. Well, there went that plan. I looked at the timepiece on my wrist. There couldn’t have been more than an hour or two left on the hourglass. “Okay, we obviously don’t have our powers, so I think we should definitely go down the hall we went the first time, but this time—”

  “No. Listen to ME!” Era interrupted. We both looked at her, aghast. “I know the way. I do! I was trying to tell you before—I know the way. You need to follow me.”

  Polly looked at me and shrugged. I looked at Polly and raised my brows. Era seemed so sure of herself. And Era never acted sure about anything, except which candy bars were the best.

  “Okay,” we whispered in unison.

  We hurried out of our faux house and followed Era through the door she chose, then into one of the bazillion corridors of Tartarus. Left, right, and then three lefts later, we were still following her, and she never seemed to lose sight of where she was going.

  Sure enough, this was the way we had come. We flew by the vats of fat and slimy slithering snakes. Again we passed the gory masks on the walls that cackled and hissed. We breezed by the molten fire pits. Then suddenly, breathtakingly, we could see the gates of Tartarus looming a
head, just beyond a patch of decrepit old trees. Era had done it!

  “See, I was too paying attention in my survival class!” she proclaimed as we approached the gates. “On our way in, I made mental pictures of the path, just like we learned, Polly!”

  Polly was about to reply when a grated wall came crashing down right in front of our eyes! It almost nipped Era on the nose, and it cut us off from the way out.

  “Oh, no, the Furies, they must know we split!” I yelled.

  “I’m not a Fury,” said a cavernous voice. And then we turned to see a squat, oddly shaped figure coming toward us from behind a nearby tree. I couldn’t believe the voice we’d just heard had come from it, it was so tiny. It looked like…like a…could it be? The pointy ears. The pointy teeth. The bubbly green skin. It had to be a gnome! Finally I was seeing a real live gnome!

  “Well, then, who are you?” Polly asked.

  “I am Crane, head pygmy and keeper of this gate,” the creature replied, crossing his arms over his chest. He seemed to be shivering slightly.

  “So you’re not a gnome?” I couldn’t hide my disappointment.

  “No, young lady, I am not a gnome. Gnomes are gentle. Pygmies are bloodthirsty,” he said and then growled to remind us which one he was. My sisters and I jumped back a step.

  “W-well,” Polly said after a moment, “if you’re a gatekeeper, then you have the power to let us through this gate, right?”

  “Y-yes, I do,” the pygmy replied, his teeth chattering.

  “Okay, well, then, can you let us through?” asked Era, and then she added a very syrupy sweet, “Please?”

  “You must answer my riddle first,” said the pygmy, hugging himself and shivering.

  “We don’t have much time,” I said as I glanced down at my wrist. The sand seemed to be trickling faster, more furiously than before. “Can you ask us the riddle now, please?”

  “Brrr. It’s rather cold, don’t you agree?”

  “The riddle, please,” Era piped in impatiently.

  “You know, even if you get through my gate, you will be confronted with the meanest creature in all of Tartarus, the dreaded three-headed Cerberus.”

  “Yes, we know,” I said. And Polly even giggled a little.

  “The riddle, yes. All right. At night they come without being fetched, by day they are lost without being stolen; what do I speak of? Oh, I am so cold!”

  “What?” whispered Era. I, too, had no idea what the gnome, oops, pygmy, was talking about.

  Apparently neither did Polly. She had her eyes closed tight, her nose scrunched up in concentration. I was biting my fingernails down to the skin bits.

  “The answer, please. Oh, my toes. I believe they may be frozen to my shoes.”

  We hemmed and hawed. We shifted back and forth on our feet and stared at our timepieces—second after second passed. “We don’t know,” I finally moaned*.

  Polly let out a doomed sigh. I hung my head in frustration.

  “But I tell you what,” said Era to the pygmy. “If I build you a fire to keep you warm, would you let us through?”

  “A fire? How interesting. You can do that?”

  “Yes. Yes, I can.”

  Polly and I looked at each other in shock. “She can?” our eyes said.

  “Are you a witch?” asked the pygmy.

  “No, I just learned how to do it in this class I took.”

  The pygmy considered a moment longer. “Well, then, yes. If you can build me a fire, a good hot one, then I will let you three pass.”

  “Okay,” said Era. And then she stood there, deep in thought. I chewed my nails even farther. Did she really know how?

  Polly and I watched in agony as Era looked around, then gathered a hard pointed stone and four pieces of wood of different sizes. One piece was flat and rectangular, and Era quickly carved a faint groove in one side with the stone. The next piece was a small thin stick that she fit tightly on top of the groove.

  The third piece was small and fit against the first piece. She took the last piece of wood, a long thin one, and stared at it.

  “Polly, I need your shoelace.” Polly quickly sat down and pulled the lace out of her sneaker, then handed it to Era. She knotted it on both ends of the fourth piece of wood, making a bow like for a harp.

  “Polly, gather a few medium-size branches. Thalia, you gather up some bark and dried leaves.”

  We did as we were told. When we came back, Era had gotten all of her pieces together. She was crouching down on the ground, her foot holding the flat piece of wood steady. She held the smaller stick upright in place and took the bow in hand.

  Once we’d arranged the bark and twigs to her liking, Era took a long, deep breath and began to slowly rub the bow against the stick. It turned back and forth in the groove of the flat piece of wood. Era picked up speed, moving the stick faster and faster till a long wisp of smoke rose from the leaves.

  Polly and I couldn’t believe our eyes. Neither could the pygmy. He began to jump up and down with delight.

  Era got on her knees and began to blow on the leaves fast and furiously. Then she pushed the wood aside and scooped up a handful that was already dark and burnt and smoky.

  “Ow, ow, ow, ow,” she cried as she placed the leaves into the pile of branches and bark that Polly and I had made.

  “Help, blow!” she yelled as she crouched over the pile.

  We dropped to the ground and blew hard, harder, hardest and POOF! The bark and the leaves burst into flames!

  “Yay!” we screamed. Within moments the entire thing was ablaze.

  “Oh, it’s hot! It’s really hot! Oh, happy day!” cried the pygmy.

  “Brilliant!” I said, grabbing Era around the waist and hugging her tight.

  “Oh, Era, that was exceptional!” cried Polly.

  The grated wall disappeared, and the gates of Tartarus loomed before us once again.

  I looked at my timepiece and immediately forgot my excitement. “We’ve got to go!”

  We took off for the gates at top speed. As we approached, Polly let out a huge whistle, and suddenly there was Cerberus, thundering toward us.

  “Here, boy, here, boy!” Polly called to him. “He…eaahhhhh!” Polly’s voice was muffled under the weight of one of Cerberus’s giant tongues, which covered her in a wad of slobber as he greeted her. Era looked disgusted, but Polly just laughed. “Hi, Cerberus. I’m glad to see you, too, boy, but we don’t have much time. We need to get out, please; can you open the gate for us?”

  Cerberus let out a roar that rocked the gate.

  “Please, Cerberus. I know it is your job to guard this gate, but we have been wrongly sent here,” she pleaded.

  He just roared again, only this time it caused a small dust storm.

  “I don’t know if this is working, Pol,” I said. But she shushed me and continued.

  “Cerberus, look, here’s our story. Hera is our stepmother. When she married our father, who by the way happens to be Zeus…”

  Cerberus’s ears perked up; he tilted two of his three heads to the side.

  “Yes, the Zeus. Ever since she married our father, she’s tortured us girls. She’s never shown us love or kindness or generosity. And now she has banished us here, to be slaves to the Furies, and my father knows nothing of it! She’s done it all behind his back.”

  Cerberus put his two humongous paws together and crouched low, like he was really listening to Polly’s tale.

  “Now you are our only hope. We must get out of here now, or we are doomed to spend eternity here. Please, Cerberus, let us through these gates, let us out of here alive.”

  Cerberus looked at Polly with his six big brown eyes and then looked at Era and me. A single tear trickled out of the third eye from the left. He let out a doglike whimper and kicked back his hind legs, and the gate slowly and majestically opened up!

  Polly gave him a huge hug and kiss. “Thank you, Cerberus, we won’t ever forget you!”

  We raced through the gates tri
umphantly. Hallelujah, we were out of Tartarus! Now the hard part—figuring out where to go next.

  As soon as the gates shut behind us, a river appeared before us. The same river we’d seen before when we’d first entered the gates. We ran out onto the beach, where a lone boat rested along the shore. But if we took this boat, where would we take it to?

  Gazing across the water, I saw the island I’d noticed when we’d first come to Tartarus. With the black blob floating above it. And I got the same feeling I’d gotten when I’d seen it before—that there was something about it that was, somehow, hopeful.

  The island was where we had to go; I just knew it.

  “Over there.” I pointed to my sisters.

  Without another word, we just started running toward the water. My sisters hopped into the rowboat ahead of me. Polly grabbed one oar and Era grabbed another, but just as Era reached out her other hand to pull me on board, I heard a screech from behind us.

  “You wretched little monsters, get back here!”

  It was Hera. The ground rumbled as, with a wave of her hand, the gates flew open once again and she charged out onto the sand, then swung closed again behind her. She was coming after us with a vengeance.

  “Stop, you nasty ingrates—I said stop!” screamed Hera.

  We don’t have a chance, I said to myself. We’re powerless. I looked at my sisters, already in the boat. And I suddenly realized what I had to do.

  It was my fault they were here. I was tougher, stronger than either of them. And Hera hated me the most. I could distract her. For just long enough.

  Then I didn’t think; I just acted.

  I pushed the boat into the river. While I stayed onshore.

  “What are you doing? No!” cried Polly.

  Hera was still coming toward me. “Just go! You have to get away!”

  “No,” cried Era, “you’ll be stuck here!”