“I’m thinking that was the armory,” he began. “Or as close as Hades would get to having an armory. I saw Hector and Achilles …”
“I saw them too,” Alcie said. “When I was here before. Very hunky. Uh … yes, go on, dearest.”
“I think Odysseus was there. Anyway, there were three of them, completely overpowered by four swords. They must have been surprised—caught off guard. That’s all I can think of. No true warrior would ever let himself be caught like that, with his defenses down.”
“Did you see anything else?” Pandy inquired.
“The room was being redone, just like the first room we all saw. Only worse. I mean more so. There were flowered curtains and a large looking glass.”
“As if someone other than Hades was making the palace their home?” Pandy asked, somewhat rhetorically.
“Yes, exactly. I mean, I don’t think Hades, or Persephone for that matter, would ever be interested in a couch the shape of a peacock.”
“Gods,” Alcie yipped. “And that was her perfume!”
“I think we can, in all logic, safely agree that it’s official,” Iole said. “Hera’s moving in.”
Chapter Fourteen
The Throne Room (and an Unexpected Encounter)
After three more failed attempts to find the correct hallway, which included peering into four more rooms being hideously redecorated and dodging groups of enslaved spirits, at last Pandy spotted what she was certain was the throne room. When she saw two huge, intricately carved doors blown completely off their hinges, she motioned for everyone to slow down, then drop to their knees. Just outside the entrance, she stopped, got as low as she could, and carefully craned her neck and head and peered into the room. At first, she was stunned by the sheer size of the room: while not as wide and deep as Zeus’s grand hall on Mount Olympus, it appeared to be much taller. In fact, as Pandy glanced up high, she realized there was no ceiling at all that she could see; the room just went up and up and up. It was so high that there even appeared to be some sort of large bird circling and swooping with plenty of room.
Then, as she was glancing at the walls and the beautiful murals on each—especially on one at the back of the room, done in the most vibrant shades of orange and yellow—her ears once again registered the moaning. That’s when she noticed the bodies. Bodies everywhere.
While they couldn’t see her face, Alcie, Iole, and Homer saw Pandy’s own body stiffen, her hand clenched in shock. Just as she was about to turn back, she had the oddest sense that she’d played this entire scene out before. But when? Then she remembered all of them being in these same positions in the hallway of the ship the Peacock as she watched the bizarre events inside the captain’s quarters. That situation eventually turned out well; she only hoped the gods were still looking favorably on her.
“It’s a sea of spirits,” she said, turning back to her friends. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say every inhabitant of the underworld is in there. But they’re all chained. All of them. They’re on top of each other, piled like floor pillows. And they’re hanging from the walls and in midair over the entire room. Guys—they’re hanging from the walls—like prisoners. And there’s something happening at the back of the room that I couldn’t see clearly. It’s where the thrones are, and Persephone’s there. But she’s tied up, I think.”
“You think?” asked Alcie.
“I could only see flashes of pink where her throne was.”
“Hades?” asked Iole.
“Didn’t see him.”
“Hera?” Homer said.
“Nope,” Pandy said, shaking her head. “But this is her work. We have to get to Persephone. Alcie, come on. Homer, Iole, follow my signals. Go when we go. And stay low and tight to the wall. Dido, guard the entrance, boy. Let us know if anything happens out here.”
Pandy and Alcie scooted across the doorway, leaving Iole and Homer on the first side. Pandy motioned with her fingers that she and Alcie were going in and both groups should keep their eyes on each other.
Quickly they worked their way around the entryway and were stopped cold. There were so many spirits crammed together on the floor that both pairs could only go over the spirit bodies. Without thinking, Pandy and Alcie scrambled up and onto the crush of shades, crawling around the perimeter of the room, as Iole and Homer did the same. Suddenly, Pandy felt her knees and hands sinking into the bodies as she tried to work her way through the mass.
“Pandy!” Alcie nearly shrieked behind her.
Pandy turned and saw Alcie’s arm buried to her shoulder in the stomach of an elderly man-spirit.
“Do you mind, maiden?” said the spirit, his neck, ankles, and wrists shackled together. “Or is this but another aspect of our enslavement?”
“I’m so sorry,” Alcie said.
She just as quickly retrieved her arm, but they were all sinking fast whenever they made contact with a spirit, as if they were trying to crawl on a huge bowl of creamed oats.
“Try just using their heads,” Pandy said, coming up with no other answer.
“I’m not gonna step on a dead person’s head,” Alcie said flatly.
“Well then … try crawling on just their clothes.”
Across the other side of the room, Pandy saw Iole’s head nearly go under. Homer helped her up and out, then he sank like a stone. She turned back to Alcie and saw a flash of copper hair below her. Sinking herself, Pandy felt Alcie thrashing close by as if she were drowning again, then Pandy’s bottom hit the floor. Her eyes were closed as if she were underwater. She felt a whoosh close to one side. Carefully opening her eyes, she saw all around her an ocean of gray, opaque bodies and body parts; she could just barely make out lungs expanding and contracting, tongues swallowing, and spirit hearts beating. Then these views would be obstructed by bits of clothing. Just when she began to panic that she’d run out of air, she saw two small, white columns moving in front of her nose: Alcie’s legs. The next moment, she felt herself yanked to her feet by the collar of her cloak, and the next, she was standing beside Alcie.
“Guess what?” Alcie said, with a self-satisfied smirk. “We can stand. And we can walk through ’em. As long as we don’t stay in one place too long, no body seems to notice or mind too much. Careful of the clothes, though. Don’t want to get tripped up. And watch the chain, P. The way I figure it, they’re all linked together on one long chain.”
As Pandy got her bearings, standing literally in a sea of souls, Alcie called out to Homer—whose head was just above the surface—as quietly as she could, and told him to get to his feet.
“Meet us at the thrones. At the back,” she mouthed.
“Why are we whispering?” Homer called out, trying to keep his voice low.
“Duh!” Alcie cried softly after a moment, as if that one word in that one moment said everything that needed saying.
After several minutes of walking carefully and delicately—and apologizing—both groups were now halfway down the length of the grand hall.
“Well, I think—excuse me—I think—pardon us—I think this is borderline rude,” Pandy whispered.
“Hi, sorry, was that your foot? Sorry. I think—oops, my bad—while it’s not the most comfortable I’ve ever been—excuse me—it’s kinda like wading against the current in the Aegean. If I’m ever able to do it again, Pandy, I swear to Aphrodite I won’t take it for granted.”
“Pandy?” came a voice nearby. “Pandora Atheneus Andromaeche Helena? Daughter of Prometheus?”
Pandy froze and her blood turned to ice water. Without even having to look, Pandy knew exactly who was speaking. She and Alcie turned and gasped. There, on the nearby wall, hung their teacher, Master Epeus.
“Oh, hi there … sir.”
“Young maiden, you will march yourself over here right now. I’d like a word or two with you.”
The courage that had been built up over the past five moons, the self-reliance and wisdom that she’d accrued from all the experiences and adventures she’d lived
through—any one of which was more of an education that anything Master Epeus could have taught her—they all went right out the window. Or would have, had there been a window in the throne room. Her shoulders hunched over and she bit her lip just as she used to do whenever he called on her in class. She would have sworn she could feel a blemish erupting on her chin as she slunk her way through several spirits to her teacher.
“Greetings, Master …”
“Be quiet,” he said dryly, gazing at her up and down. “Mm-hmm. You’re still alive, I see. Well, isn’t that just perfect? The dimmest, dullest child in my class, the least successful in every assignment and the least prolific. Of course. Of course, you haven’t been touched by any of this. As Aristotle might say in the third definition of his reflections on the word ‘perfection’: this is that which has attained its purpose. I always knew you and your friends were trying to send me to an early grave, so bravo, Pandora. Well done! This is all your fault, you know. You brought that box to school and the next thing I knew, the Athena Maiden Middle school was in ashes around my feet. The board of elders called me in to see if I had anything to do with it. Me? Me! We tried holding classes out in the olive groves—well, where else could we go? You’d destroyed everything, you selfish girl. After my third breakdown, the board decided that I needed a rest, so they sent me to a nice little sanitarium on Mykonos. Only my ship went down in the middle of a storm and now I’m here. All thanks to you.”
“I’m sorry, Master—”
“Silence! You have not been given permission to speak! Oh, if only I were free, I’d strike at you with all my fury. Fury I’ve buried deep inside ever since you slouched into my classroom. You, demigoddess and daughter of the great Prometheus! Such potential and all you liked to do was daydream your hours away. You and those two silly, good-for-nothing friends. Oh, how I would strike you.”
As he railed on, Pandy turned her head away and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she saw Alcie, her head bowed and a single tear running down her cheek. Pandy knew that she wasn’t on some great quest to find herself, she wasn’t trying to search deep within to find some hidden meaning or purpose to her life. It wasn’t as profound as all that: she was just trying to save the world. That was it. But she’d begun to feel as if maybe she and her closest friends had come to have a little more insight into themselves throughout all the struggles and trials they’d weathered. Now, she saw that Alcie could not only not come to her defense, she couldn’t even defend herself against the tirade from this horrible, despicable spirit.
And then, like yet another frying stone hitting her square in the face—did the gods and the universe, she wondered, have a whole stack of imaginary frying stones just to whack her with whenever she realized something huge?—she got mad. Madder than she’d ever been at anyone or anything—except when Hera killed Alcie. He could blather on all he wanted to about her … but now he was talking trash about her friends. Her noble, courageous, loyal friends who had taken up her cause and put their lives on the line every day for the last umpteen weeks!
“Shut up!” she spat.
“Whaaaaaaaaa …? How dare you!”
“I said shut up,” Pandy bellowed. “I revoke your permission to speak, you—you—bully! That’s right, you’re a bully. You were never a teacher in the proper sense of the word. You were always a sad, pathetic little creature who played favorites and picked his toenails. You were a joke! You never inspired anyone to great heights, you just beat us all down—everyone in your class—until we were cowering sheep. We looked up to you; we trusted you, and you broke that trust. You were angry with me because I didn’t live up to my potential? I was a girl growing into a maiden. We all were and we had a lot of … issues! You had no concept. You had no idea of our true potential. Not Alcie, Iole, me, or any other girl in school. You were always afraid of Iole because she was and is smarter than you could ever hope to be. It’s obvious that you were jealous of a little girl who could have taught circles around you. And you hated Alcie for the same reason that everybody hated Alcie …”
“Heyyyyy!”
“… because she’s bigger than life. She’s fun and bright and has the whole world in the palm of her hand. She’s a natural attractor for all those people who aren’t jealous and insecure and small minded and stupid. I could tell you things about Alcie and Iole that would have your teeth on the floor, you’d be so impressed. So don’t you ever say another word about Alcie and Iole. Not even down here, not even when you think I won’t be around. Not for eternity!”
Master Epeus’s nearly transparent face bulged with rage, and Pandy knew that if he’d actually been alive, it would have been bright beet red.
“Instead of trying to understand us, you just kept hitting us over the head, verbally, emotionally, and sometimes with your fat fist because you’re so tied up in knots yourself, you sniveling worm. And now, you’d like to strike me? How? Like this?”
Pandy flicked her finger at—into—Master Epeus’s opaque spirit nose.
“Like this? Huh? Or this? Or maybe this? Or would you strike me with your open palm? Well, guess what? You can’t. You have no power here. And, oh wow, I just realized: you’re dead! Fantastic. This means you won’t be able to criticize and name-call and make fun of any more children the way you did to all of us. No wonder you always liked the two most horrible girls in school the best; you were exactly like Helen and Hippia: a first-class bully. Only you were an adult, so you were supposed to know better. And you were a man who behaved like a mean girl … which is just creepy.”
“I … I … was a fine instruct—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Pandy said, reaching into her carrying pouch. “Pandy didn’t say speak. Someone isn’t paying attention. Now what was it you used to do to us when we would innocently talk out of turn? Oh, yes, that’s right: you’d shove an entire apple in someone’s mouth and make her sit in the corner. And if it fell out, you’d roll it in the dirt and put it back in again. Well, guess who I just caught talking when he shouldn’t have been, and guess what I have here?”
She reached into her pouch, expecting to only find a handful of dried fruit pieces. Instead, her hands closed around a whole … something. Surprised, but trying not to show it, she pulled out of her pouch the shiniest, most perfect apple she’d ever seen. A little small, she thought, but whoever saw fit to put it in there at that precise moment had added a nice touch: two ends of a fat worm sticking out as it wiggled its way through the center.
“An apple for the teacher,” she exulted. “And a worm for the worm.”
She shoved the apple deep inside Master Epeus’s mouth, instantly understanding why the apple was small: the whole fruit, and the worm, sat nestled nicely between his tongue, his teeth, and the roof of his mouth. There was no possible way to choke or spit it out. It was destined to remain there as long as the terrible teacher was chained to the wall.
“And now, if you’ll excuse me,” Pandy said. “We gotta go capture another Evil. Later!”
Alcie moved past her and faced their teacher.
“It’s rumored my aunt Medusa’s head is somewhere down here. They keep it locked in a box because, even though she’s dead and you’re dead, it still has the power to turn spirits to stone. How about I arrange a little look-see? Whaddya say?”
Pandy turned away with a grin. Suddenly she heard a grunt, then a thud, then a different grunt.
Pandy stopped and let Alcie catch up.
“I kicked him.”
“Oh, Alce … it was all handled.”
“I know. It was just something I needed to do. Don’t worry. It backfired. I connected with the wall. Lotta pain. Let’s go.”
Chapter Fifteen
Persephone
Quickly, Pandy realized why she couldn’t clearly see the thrones or Persephone against the back wall; there was an entire wall of shades, at least four spirits thick in some places, blocking the view. These hapless souls were thrown on top of one another as if they were the stuffed-skin dolls he
r brother Xander carelessly tossed about his room back home. Only the occasional flashes of pink, fuchsia, and magenta told Pandy that the goddess of springtime was behind the filmy, grayish blur.
“Do you have any idea what kinda heroes we’d be if some of the maidens back at the Academy could Master E-pee-us right now?” Alcie said, picking her way through a tangle of twisted spirit legs and arms. “How many of our other friends would sell their parents to the Turks to have been able to stick an apple in his mouth!”
“Alce,” Pandy said, trying to focus on the rosy fabric of Persephone’s robes, which kept popping in and out of view, “we didn’t have any other friends back at the academy, remember?”
“Well,” Alcie chuffed, “I don’t know about you, but I was becoming quite popular in certain circles. Very well liked, I must say.”
“What circles?” Pandy asked, watching as Homer and Iole scouted the best route around the spirit wall from their side of the room.
“Megara and I were very close.”
“The woman who swept the walkways and washed out the lavatoriums?”
“She was a wealth of knowledge. Came from a little town called Minoa, where they make flavored butters and those bone tips for the ends of sandal laces,” Alcie said defiantly. Then, lowering her voice, “And she used to let me keep her company when you and brainiac were busy and I didn’t want to go home after school.”
“ ’Cause your parents were fighting again?” Pandy asked.
Alcie didn’t say anything for a bit.
“I also used to have midday meal with Orthia and Orithyia at least once a week,” she declared at last.
“The transfer students from the island of Cynthos? The twins?”
“The very same. It wasn’t all about you and Iole, you know. I was branching out.”
“Alcie, they ate their hair!”
“They were delightful.”
“Well, it’s great that you have these deep relationships waiting for you at home,” Pandy snuffed. “C’mon, cut it out. We have to get on the other side of this wall.”
Pandora Gets Frightened Page 12
