by Ford, Lizzy
“Only because you slowed down.”
I rolled my eyes and spun away, headed towards the compound in the middle of a forest where we all lived. “So what? Everyone here has kissed a boy and I can’t even look at one without the stupid nymphs taking him away. They just bat their eyes and the boys fall all over them.” I made a show of shaking my hips and blinking rapidly in mockery.
“I’ve never kissed a boy.”
“You know what I mean!” Herakles was a jerk sometimes. His rules were designed to prevent me from ever having a boyfriend. There were moments when I didn’t think I’d care; my interests lay in martial arts and sports. If not for the nymphs conspiring to steal any boys I lured away from the campground and always taunting me about everything, I wouldn’t look twice at a boy. But I shared one sole trait with the nymphs: competitiveness. I wanted so badly to best them at something and earn enough respect not to be bullied every day for the rest of my life.
“You could try studying harder,” Herakles suggested.
“Right. Like that’s going to get me a boyfriend.”
“There is more to life than boys and whatever else it is your head is full of,” Herakles reminded me. “You don’t need a man anyway. You can take care of yourself. I’ve trained you to survive anything.”
“I know I don’t need one. I want one so the nymphs stop laughing at me. Just for a day, then I’d let him go like you free the rabbits I catch.”
“You noticed.”
I arched my eyebrow at him. “I figured it out after I caught the same one every day for a week when I was, like, sixteen. You know the nymphs don’t have to hunt rabbits, don’t you? They don’t have to run every day or build their own campfires and shelters on the weekends. They get to go to town, Herakles, and see movies!” I sighed, tortured by my miserable existence. “Can I be normal? Just for one weekend?”
“Normal people aren’t prepared for their world to change or to face the trials awaiting them.”
“The zombies apocalypse isn’t coming. The priests say the world has never known a time of greater peace and prosperity and the gods are happier than ever.”
“An apocalypse is not required to announce itself,” he stated.
I bit my tongue. I knew better than to argue with Herakles. He was of a singular mind and convinced the world was going to end any day. Nothing I’d ever said over the past twelve years had dented his obsession with self-reliance and survival. I learned to hunt game bigger than me, forage for berries, survive in extreme weather conditions and other skills the nymphs – and even my teachers – often ridiculed. Sometimes he blindfolded me or hobbled one leg or arm so I had to survive for a weekend alone in the forest with simulated physical impediments. He first dropped me off in part of the forest alone with no compass when I was nine. I bawled for a day until he came to get me. Instead of taking me back, we stayed in the forest, and he taught me to navigate by the stars.
No one understood why he made me do these things, least of all me. I obeyed him because, above all else, I loved my Herakles, as weird as he was. While we were accepted here, we didn’t fit in at the school filled with nymphs and priests. We had to stick together, two dented peas in a misshapen pod.
“The man you want will be able to outrun, outhunt and outsmart you. When you meet him, you can marry him. Until then, no man will do,” Herakles said.
“I don’t want to marry anyone,” I said. “I just want to kiss him.”
“Then you can kiss the man who catches you.”
His conditions for me seeing someone were impossibilities. Herakles alone was the only man who could keep up with me. It was his way of saying I’d never have a boyfriend as long as I lived under his roof.
I glanced up at the green canopy overhead. The blue sky resembled puzzle pieces from this angle, and not a cloud was in sight on this warm spring day. What torture did he have in store for me on such a beautiful Friday? I had to climb a rope or navigate whatever obstacle course he built before I was allowed to go to bed at night. Weekends were worse. I was exiled to the forest for more survival training until Sunday night.
He was conditioning and preparing me for something. I had no idea what, and I suspected he was just a little off. A former Olympian, Herakles was the toughest, most honorable person I had ever known. He swept the annual Olympics for three years in a row before he stumbled upon me, rescued me from the house fire that killed my parents and brought us here. He didn’t respect anything but physical prowess. He could barely read, and he had an almost allergic reaction to discussing anything regarding emotions.
But he was my hero in every sense of the word.
To this day, I was unable to recall what exactly happened the night I turned six except it involved Herakles catching me when I fell from the sky. Why or how I was flying, I didn’t know. I still occasionally dreamt of falling – but no fire. My life changed that night. Herakles was unwilling to talk about it even after I turned eighteen and was considered an adult by everyone but him.
Herakles tugged the sleeve I’d tucked under my bra strap back down over the strange birthmark on my bicep that looked eerily like a double omega. The omega was the final letter in the Greek alphabet, or, according to Herakles, a sign of Armageddon. “Keep this hidden,” he reminded me.
“I know.” I pulled both sleeves down so I didn’t look stupid with only one up.
Picking my way through the forest back towards the compound where we lived, I considered the topic I’d been meaning to broach to him but hadn’t quite figured out the best way yet.
“We haven’t talked about graduation,” I started. “It’s in three weeks.”
“The world might end tomorrow. You should not think too far beyond today.”
“Omigods, Herakles! I’m eighteen, and I’m graduating in three weeks! I want to go home!” Too late I realized I’d told him what I had hope to discuss in a calmer manner. I didn’t look back at him but focused on the path at my feet.
“You know there is nothing for you there.”
“So you’ve told me every time I asked. But I have to go somewhere,” I pointed out. “College. Waitress at a fast food joint. Holy Zeus, I’d become an initiate at a temple.”
“No temple would have you.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that, either. The priests didn’t consider me disciplined or selfless or motivated enough to refer me for a position in the elite initiate corps. Half of the nymphs were headed to temples of the Greek gods while others were being sent to the households of influential politicians and nobles around the world. I could speak English, Greek and French like they did – a requirement to become an initiate – but my grades were sorry and my temperament deemed too unsuitable to be placed in a position where diplomacy and manipulation was required.
“You have more freedom here than the average person living beneath the thumb of the Supreme Magistrate will ever know,” he said. “Why do you wish to leave?”
“Because that’s what kids who graduate high school do. They get a life. Join the real world.”
“Where did you learn this? Television?” He was genuinely confused. He rarely spoke of his childhood, but I’d assessed over the years that his own upbringing had been very different. “I must talk to the priests about censoring the programs they let you girls watch.”
“They already monitor everything we watch. I guess I just want to know … where do we go next? Because we are leaving, right?” I asked, sensing I was doomed to work at a fast food joint the rest of my life, if he let me leave at all.
“We are. But I’m not yet certain where.”
“You’ve only had twelve years to figure it out,” I shot back with some exasperation. “I want to see the world, Herakles, or at least somewhere beyond this forest.”
“Until I know for sure –”
“– stay inside the boundaries.” I wasn’t allowed to travel beyond the red cord lining the perimeter of the priests’ quiet property. Since arriving when I was six, I had ne
ver left. The nymphs went to town every weekend to shop or watch movies or eat food and whatever else they did that Herakles didn’t approve of. It had to be more fun than navigating the forest in the rain with nothing more than a poncho and a knife while Herakles timed how long it took me to get home to make sure I wasn’t slacking before the inevitable end of the world.
We reached the edge of the greens where the compound proper started. Daydreaming about what was to come when I finally graduated, I missed Herakles stiffening.
“This isn’t good,” he said.
Blinking out of my thoughts, I stopped to see him staring at the long driveway leading from the road to the massive manor house that acted as our home and school. The priests had erected two small temples, one for a Titan god named Lelantos and another for the Olympic goddess Artemis, behind the school, beside the stables.
There was an extra car parked in front of the school, a black sedan with darkened windows. “We’ve had a lot of visitors lately,” I said, unconcerned. “I imagine the employers of the nymphs are coming to interview them.”
“It’s not an employer.”
The car wasn’t there to take me away to the real world, and I doubted it was the first zombie from the apocalypse we were preparing for. Therefore, the vehicle’s appearance meant nothing to me. “Okay. I’m going to my room.”
Herakles paid me no heed and jogged towards the car.
I circled the house to the back entrance where the stairwell leading directly to our rooms was located. I took the stairs two at a time and strode down the landing of the girls’ wing towards my room.
“Lyssa!” someone called as I passed.
“What?” I paused and stepped back, peering into the room of one of the nymphs, a willowy blonde named Leandra. She was finishing her makeup and wore a sparkly party dress.
“Wanna go to town with us tonight?” Leandra asked innocently.
“I hate my life,” I muttered.
She laughed.
But I didn’t leave. Playing on her television were news clips of the footage I’d missed two weeks ago when I spent my eighteenth birthday in the middle of the forest, shivering and buried beneath leaves in the final cold snap of spring, during one of Herakles weekend tests. The priests censored everything that reached us from the outside world, including the news. They removed what they didn’t want us to see before letting us watch what was left.
“Hey, is that …” I asked and walked into her room.
“Yeah.” A wistful note was in Leandra’s voice.
It took a lot to make the perfect, beautiful nymphs envy someone else. For once, I understood where she was coming from.
“The Silent Queen,” I said in awe, gazing at the television. The Queen of Greece, known as the Silent Queen because she hadn’t been seen or heard from until this month, was plastered everywhere on the news. A girl my age, she was stunning with white-blonde hair, pale blue eyes and a jawline sharp enough to cut ice. “Wow.”
“She’s just a symbol of the unity of gods and mankind. No real power.” But even Leandra sounded enthralled by the woman on the television. “She can’t speak. She gave her first address in sign language.”
“Wow,” I murmured again. In a sparkling diamond tiara and radiant silk dress, the teen looked more godlike than human. She was flanked by the Supreme Magistrate – the powerful political representative of humanity – and the hooded and masked Supreme Priest – the gods’ advocate on Earth. The three most powerful figures in the world were known as the Sacred Triumvirate, and each had his or her own private security force, according to the priests, which was how they balanced their power.
I couldn’t look away from the Silent Queen. The priests had drilled the history and importance of the hereditary Bloodline into us since we arrived. The Silent Queen’s ancestors were touched by the gods, and it was said only she could appeal directly to them in a way that defied even the priesthood. Throughout history, once Greece fell as a global power, the most powerful nation on the planet was given the sacred duty of protecting the Bloodline and housing the royal leader, which was how she ended up here in the United States. “She’s amazing.”
“I’m sure she’s been Photshopped for television,” Leandra said somewhat defensively.
I rolled my eyes. The nymphs knew they were special. There was something strange about thirty orphaned women of extreme beauty and charm, all born within three months of me, all under the strict protection of an orphanage run by priests who didn’t hold weekly worship ceremonies but taught us instead the Old Ways, as they called them. They were positioning the nymphs in places of eventual power, where they could then share the Old Ways with others.
If our world was strange, we had no idea. As far as we knew, this place and its customs were normal.
“I’ve been assigned to her court,” Leandra said.
“Seriously?”
“Yep.”
It made sense. Leandra was a hair prettier than the others and quite a bit smarter, according to the priests. I was suddenly crushed that I might end up taking food orders from hung over college students the rest of my life while the others went off to positions I could only dream of.
“Where are you going?” she asked, green eyes finding me. “To live with the Mountainman on some isolated peak?”
“He’s not a Mountainman,” I said, bristling. “He’s the greatest Olympic athlete in history.”
“A disgraced one who ditched his wealthy benefactor to live in a forest with us. He’s absolutely mad, and he’s turned you wild and ruined any chance you had at a decent future.”
My anger bubbled. I knew better than to cause a fight. I had stopped that nonsense when I was fifteen, but there were moments when I wanted to sock the pretty, perfect women around me.
My biggest issue with Leandra wasn’t that she was mean. It was that she was often right, and her words about Herakles stung. There was something wrong with him, and I sometimes thought maybe that meant there was something wrong with me, too. It was why I didn’t turn out like Leandra and the others and why I was definitely not going to the Silent Queen’s court.
I squinted to see the ticker at the bottom of the news. Civil unrest grows. Supreme Magistrate places five more states under martial rule over SISA’s objections. That made about forty states under martial rule by my count. The priests refused to tell us about the civil unrest when we asked, but sometimes, like today, tiny pieces of information slipped through their censoring and made it to us. I was dying to know what the world outside our boring forest was like.
“When I get to court, I’ll find you a job chopping wood or something,” Leandra said with a wide grin.
I stormed off to my room, followed by the sound of her laughter. I loved Herakles like the father I couldn’t remember, but there were days I was really embarrassed to be me. I hated that feeling. I had trouble making friends, more so because Herakles often had some bizarre requirement for me to hang out with someone. Boys had to be able to outrun me, and girls had to solve a riddle. No one ever succeeded at his challenges, except for the perfect little nymphs who hung out with me only to laugh at me.
Basically, I was always alone, and he seemed determined to keep it that way. I felt even more isolated knowing the nymphs all had plans of where they were going after graduation and I didn’t.
I went to my room and closed the door, sitting on my bed. I had barely pushed off my shoes before there was a tap at the door. “Come in,” I said and tossed myself onto my back.
“Lyssa, I have to leave for the weekend.”
Startled, I immediately sat back up. “Where? Why?” I demanded of Herakles, who had never left me for half a day let alone a weekend. “Is something wrong?”
“No.” His features were scarred beyond recognition, his smile lopsided and frightening. Everyone else winced when he looked their direction, but I loved every knotted scar and burnt piece of flesh on his face. He was my protector, my friend, the only father figure I knew. He had always been
beautiful to me. “You are to travel to the eastern boundary and back this weekend. Here’s your surprise pack. Open it when you get there.” He tossed the satchel onto the bed beside me.
“Ugh.” I eyed it warily. He no doubt had planned another weekend of torture. I’d probably have a hat and spoon and nothing more to survive two days in the forest alone. While technically I should have had only three more weeks of this madness remaining, I had a feeing his plans were always going to trump mine. “You’re sure there’s nothing wrong? You’ve never left me before.”
“I’m going to scout somewhere where we might settle after you graduate,” he told me.
I looked up, thrilled. “I won’t be trapped here for the rest of my life!”
“No, you but you might one day wish you had been.” He frowned. Every once in a while, my guardian had a mood I didn’t understand. Naturally open, upbeat and focused, his features were now grave and unreadable.
I studied him, wishing I could read his thoughts or make him smile again. “Something is wrong,” I assessed.
“Not wrong. It’s always complicated to move from one place to another.” He shook his head. “Anyway, you have a treasure hunt to complete this weekend. Your tasks are in the bag. You will not wish to wait until morning. I put up several traps and obstacles.”
I muttered curses I’d learned from him under my breath. As long as we had been together, I never really knew what to expect on these adventures. “I’ll see you Sunday night,” I said reluctantly.
“Heed the boundaries and rules.”
“I know.” I pulled on my shoes obediently and a camouflage windbreaker. When I stood, he smiled at me again.
“Good girl. Don’t get lost out there.”
It wasn’t possible and we both knew it. I’d been over every inch of that forest multiple times. “Have fun in town.”
He turned and left.
I grabbed the bag and left my room for the forest once more.
No boys. No future. No town.
There were days when I wanted out of my life so bad, I wanted to scream.
