Immediately, Homer began to scream in agony. He beat at his face and arms, whirling in circles until he fell to the ground. As he rolled around, shrieking, everyone saw his bluish-black iron skin begin to redden then glow, as if he had been thrown into an intensely hot oven. Smoke rose up off his flesh, but somehow his garments didn’t char at all. Stunned, Alcie couldn’t even find words and could only moan. She poised herself to dive into the light to save him and was only held back by untapped reserves of Pandy’s and Iole’s strength. With a grunt, Iole shoved Alcie onto the ground and held her there with that same force that Alcie had used against the Maenads.
“You can’t do anything!” Iole yelled in her face.
“I’m gonna kill you!” Alcie spat.
“Guys! GUYS!” Pandy began shouting, loud enough to be heard over Homer’s wails and the hoots and titters of the other sisters. Iole diverted her attention, and that was all Alcie needed to throw Iole off. But they were both dumbstruck by what they saw.
Homer, his skin glowing like a hot coal, was enveloped in a whirlwind of bluish-black dust. He’d managed to get to his knees and was slump-shouldered, groaning as the dust grew thicker and thicker, nearly blocking him from view. As they all watched, Homer struggled to his feet, then tripped over his cloak. He hit the ground with a thud, unconscious now, but one hand—the color of normal flesh—landed out of the light. Together, Pandy, Alcie, and Iole pulled with all their might and dragged Homer out of the shaft and into the darkness.
At once, the walls of the room burst into flame. Overhead, the oil lamps exploded, sending oily smoke billowing downward, and the water in the fountain began to steam. The floor began to glow with heat and Pandy felt the leather of her sandals beginning to shrivel and crack. The vines were withering and sizzling against the fire, creating more smoke, which drove the murdering forty-nine from their resting places. Then the flames began to creep across the floor. Pandy knew instantly that this was Hades’ coercion; the reason someone always had to be in the shaft of light: the beautiful garden room would become an inferno so hot as to rival Tartarus, she was sure. A few moments more and Pandy’s sandals would be charred; she could battle the heat with her own internal power over fire, but what about Alcie, Iole, and Homer—they were going to roast like meat on a frying stone!
“Help me!” she called to Alcie and Iole.
Together with Dido, they ran to the closest sister and grabbed her by the arms. Alcie and Iole were disgusted by the worms and spiders, the moldy food and grime that covered the woman head to toe, but they dragged, pushed, and pummeled her back into the shaft. Instantly, the flames began to die back. The floor began to cool, but not enough that the pads of Dido’s feet weren’t beginning to blister. Hypermnestra grabbed a sister running past her and shoved her into the light. Three, four, five sisters, fighting, kicking, and clawing, were forced back into the dim shaft, where they stood, helpless and huddled, watching the chaos around them.
As each woman was tossed into the shaft, the flames grew smaller until they were confined to only patches on the walls. Small patches of the floor were dark and cool once again; it was on one of these that Dido finally stopped and refused to move, licking his burned paws. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen women were now crowded around the basin. Hypermnestra tried to help as best she could, but the third time she’d gone to corral one sister back into the light, she’d been knocked aside and had fallen in a heap. Pandy felt her strength leaving her, and with the eighteenth attempt, the sister was able to break free and run a short distance away, but not before delivering a sharp blow to Pandy’s left cheek, which sent Pandy crashing to the ground. Iole sunk to her knees, Alcie was doubled over and gasping for air, and Dido, even if he would venture off his cool spot, couldn’t drag any of them by himself. The sisters in the light were becoming quite verbal; they were beginning to think twice about their re-imprisonment, especially since their free sisters were calling to them to step away. Pandy was lying on the ground, her hand on her sore cheek, weak as a kitten. She’d lost this battle; the sisters were meant to be together as a group—wherever they were—and once the sisters stepped out of the light, the room would once again be engulfed in flames, cooking them all.
At that precise moment, Pandy heard, “No, no, NO!” Then there was a grunt and a shriek and a woman went sailing over Pandy’s head, dropping slugs and rotten scraps of meat as she flew through the air, landing with a crash against the basin itself. As she turned her head to look, two more women went flying into the basin. And then three.
Homer was moving around the room, picking up anyone covered in filth and casually sending them flying. It was completely effortless. Sounds of exhaustion or pain were coming only from the women as they were flung with such ease it was as if Homer were tossing away the parchment wrapping off a midday meal from a fast-falafel stand. He moved with a force even Pandy had never seen from the strong youth, yet with such grace and bearing, it seemed as if Homer had done this all before and was making light of it. As if he were dancing. As if he’d lost some of his awkwardness and had grown up a bit.
“They need their urns,” he said nonchalantly over his shoulder as he half hoisted, half dragged one woman by her feet, her arms being covered in maggots.
Pandy, Alcie, and Iole raced around the room, collecting all the urns and tossing them to Hypermnestra, who then lobbed them one by one, not to but at her sisters. The vines grew back to life and began trekking across the walls and floor, their red and orange flowers blooming, and the fountain began flowing once again. Pandy looked up and saw the oil lamps hanging solemnly, not even a hint of motion, as if the inferno and the explosions had never happened. The room was returned to its original darkened beauty.
As Hypermnestra tossed the last urn, the one that she herself had been using, Alcie grabbed Pandy’s arm. Through the last remaining wisps of smoke and the dying firelight, Homer was rounding the far end of the basin, out of the shaft of light; his face was confident, his shoulders squared, his blond curls bouncing, and his skin completely normal. Alcie gasped and Pandy looked at her, feeling as if she was watching her friend fall in love all over again.
“He’s not metal … ish,” Pandy said.
“Has he gotten taller?” Alcie asked rather breathlessly.
Homer did, in fact, seem larger all around—as if, in the last few moments of fire, terror, and bugs, he’d actually had a growth spurt.
“Uh …,” Pandy began.
As he strode up to them, he smiled and—for an instant, for one one-millionth of a second—his teeth sparkled. Then he turned his head and addressed the befuddled sisters, all of them leaning on, crying on, and picking bugs off each other.
“Move!” he called out, forcefully.
The Danaids started in fright, each one quickly taking up the urn closest to her. One by one, they began their futile walk, back and forth, never ending, from the fountain to the basin. They muttered, cursed, and wailed, throwing hateful dagger glances at Pandy, Alcie, Iole, Homer, and Hypermnestra.
“All right, maidens—and Danaid,” he said, extending his arms to Alcie and Hypermnestra. “I believe our work here is done, and we should be moving on. May we escort you, Hypermnestra, to the Elysian Fields?”
“Thank you,” Hypermnestra said as Pandy and Alcie gaped in wonder at Homer’s newfound charisma and bearing. “But I would only slow you down. And I’d like to watch my sisters for just a bit longer. Make certain that their punishment is in full effect, no one slacks off, that sort of thing. Really, I just want to hide in the shadows and listen. See if any of them has any remorse or conception of their wrongdoing. If any of them has had a change of heart, I’ll try to intercede on their behalf with Hades, because I can tell you from experience, this is a wretched existence and my pity goes out to all of them.”
“Even after what they did to you?” Alcie said, as the group, with Dido padding behind, moved toward the opening that led to the continuing road.
“Of course,” she replied. “They�
�re my sisters.”
They all turned around for one last look at the Danaids. In the light, Pandy could see that their torment was even worse than she’d originally thought; some women had live rats tangled in their hair. Some were losing their hair in great chunks and patches, obviously diseased with rashes and scabs. Now, though, all the sisters were weeping.
“They’re remembering what it felt like to rest for a moment,” Pandy said.
“The shaft of light fully illuminates their sin,” Hypermnestra said, sorrowfully. “It is a light of truth. It reveals fully what they look like on the inside.”
Good-byes were exchanged and Homer led Pandy, Alcie, and Iole out into the fresher air of the open underworld. Walking away from the strange prison, Alcie suddenly slowed with a look of bewilderment on her face.
“What?” asked Pandy.
“Okay, if the shaft of light illuminates a person’s true insides, then why didn’t we see creepy things crawling all over Hypermnestra?”
“That’s precisely why not,” answered Iole. “She not only didn’t commit the murder as requested all those ages ago, but now she’s hoping for the redemption of her sisters. She has a pure heart.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Alcie said after a bit. “I knew that.”
Iole smiled at her friend.
“Of course you did, Alce.”
Chapter Ten
Truth
“Then what about Homie?” Alcie asked when they had gotten farther down the road. Erebus was exactly the same in all directions: expanses of colorless, flat grasses and scrub.
“What about Homie—sorry, Homer—what?” Pandy replied, scanning the horizon for the next surprise, twist, or tormented spirit.
“Why didn’t we see Homie’s innards with all of his bugs and stuff?”
“I’m going to suggest,” said Iole, “that we stop for just a moment and take a drink of water and have a piece of flatbread or a dried fig while we discuss Homer’s … internal workings.”
“Excellent idea, maiden,” Homer said, leading the girls to the side of the road and spreading his cloak out on the ground, indicating that everyone sit.
“And what’s with that … this … that?” Alcie said, not to Homer, but to Pandy and Iole, as if Homer had become an object to be wondered at. “What’s with his speech all of a sudden?”
“I think the shaft of light affected Homer the way it did because Homer’s still alive,” Pandy said. “Perhaps the shaft of light only brings out whatever that person’s problems—flaws—were when they were alive. Like, it lumps every bad thing about a person together. Iole?”
“I have a different theory,” she answered. “You’re both forgetting that Homer’s skin has been completely restored. And he’s behaving much more—mature.”
“That’s it!” Alcie said. “He’s gotten older!”
“Not older,” Iole went on, “just more mature. Don’t forget what Hypermnestra said; that light was a light of truth. We were all affected by the waters of the Styx. We took on a metal coating. I think if the great warrior Achilles had spent so much time in the river, instead of being held by his heel and simply dipped for a second, he would have had some metal coating as well. But I digress. Not only was Homer’s affliction reversed by the light shaft, but Homer’s only sixteen …”
“Going on seventeen,” Homer quickly put in.
“… uh-huh … and you haven’t had time to do a great many horrible things and think so many horrible thoughts. There was nothing negative to illuminate, so the powers of the light concentrated on burning off the metal and, through that fire, forging a new man. In doing so, they revealed that the truth about you, Homer, is that your qualities inside are just as honorable and wonderful as you are on the outside.”
“Thank you,” Homer said.
There was a long silence as Alcie and Pandy stared at Iole.
“I try so hard to understand you, Iole. I really do. I just can’t,” Alcie finally said.
Iole smiled a small smile and looked at her friend. In that instant, Pandy saw something she’d never seen before from Iole regarding Alcie—or vice versa: complete acceptance. Iole, in that one smile, accepted Alcie and her flaws, faults, and shortcomings with nothing but perfect love.
“But what about you?” Alcie went on, not seeing the transformation. “When you drank the water out of that memory lake …”
“Mnemosyne,” Iole said.
“Right. When you took a drink, you got your brain back but you didn’t get more mature, did you? You didn’t turn into a new maiden, right? I mean, you didn’t get any smarter?”
“Of course not,” Iole said.
“Well, there, you see …,” Alcie said, throwing her hands up.
“I couldn’t become any smarter.”
Alcie’s mouth hung open, mid-sentence.
“But what I have acquired, I am coming to realize, is a fuller appreciation of my mental capacities and the understanding that I can be the smartest person in the room, not be afraid of it or the opinions of others, and accept it without arrogance or bluster. Not that I was terribly blustery in the first place, but to be at peace with myself, whether others are or not.”
Again, Alcie and Pandy were struck mute.
At last Alcie turned to Pandy and popped a dried fig into her mouth.
“When this is all over,” she said, “if I’m still alive, I want some of that memory water.”
Chapter Eleven
The Puppet Show
The landscape had changed slowly from flat plains to gray rocky hills, but there had been no sign saying they were entering another realm, so Pandy and the rest felt they were still in endless—endless—Erebus.
Pandy had begun to worry about the day counter, knowing that even though there was no such thing as time or its constraints in the underworld, the days were passing on Earth. That meant that the days were also passing on Mount Olympus. Zeus, she was sure, would of course know when the final moment occurred and he’d be watching and waiting, especially now that there were so few actual days left to her quest. How many had been on the counter the last time she looked? Twenty, maybe? And then, of course, they’d taken nine days to walk the path down into Hades. So, eleven. But she knew that more time had passed as they’d journeyed through the Fields of Asphodel and Erebus. With a loud, involuntary gasp she realized that the deadline may have already come and gone and Fear was still free, hiding somewhere in the dim shadows—or someplace worse—in the underworld.
“What?” cried Alcie, startled.
“Are you all right, Pandora?” Homer asked.
“Uh, yes,” she replied, instantly realizing that worrying her friends over events they couldn’t control would produce no positive effect whatsoever. “I … just … remembered that I haven’t talked with my wolfskin diary for a long time. And I became a little concerned that I would forget everything that’s happened in the last few … little bit. Um. Of time. Like, Tantalus and the Danaids. I want to remember to tell it about Iole and her memories, and Homer and his truth.”
“We promise not to let you forget,” Homer said, striding on.
“Great. Great. And Homer … it’s ‘Pandy,’ okay? Always has been, always will be.”
“Okay,” he said with a smile.
“I didn’t think it was possible to adore him any more than I already did,” Alcie whispered. “I was totally wrong.”
At that moment, Homer, who was a few strides ahead, also looking for danger or trouble, stopped short. The road forked; to the right, a large, black, beautiful palace was only a short distance away, rising out of a mist. But the way through was barred by an iron gate in a low wall.
“Aaaaaaand … we’re here!” Alcie yelped. “Hades’ palace! Dove hearts and snail custard, here I come!”
To the left they saw an identical iron gate also set in a wall, this one high enough that they couldn’t see to the other side—but the skies beyond were a dull orange.
“Tartarus,” Pandy whispered to herself.
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“Ahem,” came a cough from the one direction no one had bothered to look: directly in front of them.
Three men stood in front of a tall tree, all clad in the same deep, dark red robes. Their snow-white hair fell in almost exactly the same thin ringlets and their bright white eyes were fixed and unblinking on the group. The man in the center motioned for everyone to step forward.
“Alcie, did you meet these guys when you were here before?” Pandy asked quietly out of the side of her mouth.
“Nope,” Alcie whispered back.
“Not surprising,” Iole said. “You’re not dead. These are the judges of all the spirits who enter the underworld. Aeacus, who judges the souls of the westerners; Rhadamanthus, who judges the souls of the easterners; and his brother Minos, who has the deciding vote if he doesn’t agree with the others.”
“These are the guys who send souls to either the Fields of Asphodel, Erebus, Tartarus, or the Elysian Fields?” asked Alcie.
“That’s them,” Iole responded. “They’re all sons of Zeus by—somebody and somebody else.”
“Impudent maiden!” shouted one of the judges. “To speak of our mothers in such flippant and disrespectful terms!”
“Apologies, oh wise one,” Iole said, immediately bowing low. “It is simply that I cannot remember the names.”
“Liar,” Alcie mumbled.
“You want me to also say that their mothers weren’t really worth remembering?” Iole mumbled back.
“Approach as we have bidden you,” said another judge. “Do not keep us waiting.”
“I mean no disrespect,” Pandy said, taking a step forward. “But we are not spirits here to be judged. We are very much alive and have come to the underworld on a quest. My name is …”
Pandora Gets Frightened Page 9
