New Olympus Trilogy: Teenage Goddess Teenage Star Hell on Earth

by May Burnett

  “Hector is my grandmother’s younger brother, so he’s actually a great-uncle. He owns this huge mansion in Bogotá, and a large country estate. He is also a Senator, ultra-right and reactionary.” Hell and I are on the same page where politics are concerned: we both abhor meanness and greed, qualities my great-uncle Hector possesses in great abundance. “Hector made a lot of enemies, and was responsible for a number of activists being killed and tortured.” I am trying to sound dispassionate. “Then a revolutionary group murdered his pregnant daughter-in-law, Rosario. I was flower girl at her wedding, just a year before her murder. She was a lovely person.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Oh – five at the time of the wedding, six when she was killed. In other words, it all happened about ten years ago.”

  Hell says nothing right away, but I know he’s frowning. After a few seconds he asks, “And how did that lead to your coming here?”

  I stir involuntarily. Hell begins to stroke the nape of my neck again, the way you’d calm a nervous dog. I sigh.

  “There were recurrent kidnapping threats – my parents thought this place safer for me.”

  Hell has gone rigid behind me. “Kidnapping threats? Against you specifically?”

  “Yes. Well, more than just threats actually, there was one attempt to catch me when I went shopping with Mom at a mall. I was even smaller and thinner at eleven,” I recall, “and managed to wriggle under our car, yelling for all I was worth. The two hired punks gave up when this drew too much attention, and ran away. One of them later was caught, but did not know who had ordered the crime. We never knew if it happened in retaliation for Uncle Hector’s actions, or just for ransom.”

  Hell’s heart-beat has sped up. “And you’ll be back there in just three days?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be surrounded by an army of bodyguards. And if they do manage to snatch me this time, I’ll expect you to come and get me out. There has to be some advantage to being Superboy’s girlfriend.”

  Hell hates it when I call him Superboy. We often discuss the best ways for him to use his extraordinary powers, and have looked at the example of Superman and other Comics heroes to explore some of the possibilities. I suppose I am in a position similar to Lois Lane, but she, poor girl, didn’t realise who Superman was, while I’m fully in Hell’s confidence. I would not want to change with her for anything.

  “You are so fragile, so – mortal,” Hell worries. “I don’t like it. Can you bring a date to this event?”

  “If I were a bit older, and not still attending school – if you were older than fourteen – if there was more than three days to go until Grandmother’s birthday, and all the rooms assigned ...”

  “I can look older, or I could go as someone else, maybe as one of the bodyguards.”

  “Don’t you have your own plans? You told me you were going to work on an important project with Pallas Athena.”

  “She’d understand I had to protect you first.”

  “My parents would not put me at risk, and it was years and years ago that they tried to snatch me. Chill, please, this is just an ordinary trip back home. I do miss my country, you know.”

  “I understand.” Hell presses a kiss on my shoulder. “Your lids are drooping. I’d better let you catch some sleep. But we must talk further about this.”

  “Okay,” I slur, and then sleep comes over me, as I find myself alone in my bed.

  I dream that I’m imprisoned in a dark, dank cavern, alone and helpless, with no prospect of rescue. In the dream I blunder through the darkness, hands out in front to feel any obstacle, but nothing happens as I go on and on. The silence is menacing and I know there is no exit anywhere. My heart is pounding and cold sweat runs down my back. I jerk awake with a small gasp.

  What on earth caused this nightmare? I am safe in my bed at school. Talking about that half-forgotten kidnapping attempt must have disturbed me more than I was aware. Surely whoever was behind it has long moved on to different victims, different crimes, or is languishing in prison by now. I am nothing special in any way. There cannot be any reason why they would still be interested in capturing me.

  But it takes me a long time to fall asleep again.

  2 Hell

  While Melinda slept, Hell paid one of his irregular visits to New Olympus. Its cleaner air and spaciousness were a relief after the crowded school. This realm was only inhabited by the ancient Greek gods, and a small number of human retainers.

  Looking around at the pristine cliffs and beach where he’d played in his childhood, Hell wondered how the place would look if more people were allowed to immigrate. People like Melinda, specifically, but others too… It might do the divine inhabitants of this exile good to be confronted with human problems again, at least once in a while. Their long isolation had led to complacency and contempt for humanity, understandable enough since humanity had also turned its back on them.

  As often before Hell wondered why his sister Myra and he had been born after all those empty centuries. There had to be some need for their existence. Among the gods nothing happened without reason.

  “Hello, cousin,” a handsome teenager accosted him with a guileless smile. Hell was not fooled; Eros was most dangerous when he tried to look harmless.

  “Hello,” Hell replied without enthusiasm. “How is Psyche?”

  “Fine,” Eros replied with a shrug. “Why ask, how could any of us be other than fine up here?”

  “You sound bored. Why are you here, then, instead of earth? There are so many humans now, you could shoot them with your arrows night and day and hardly make a dent.”

  Eros’ eyes flashed. “Little hypocrite. Your own father keeps us bottled up here, and restricts visits to earth. Two days per moon – but then of course you, his favourite child, are exempt!”

  “I thought it was one week per moon?”

  Eros grimaced. Hell guessed that Zeus had reduced Eros’s time on Earth as punishment for shooting his dart at Jason, Myra’s boyfriend, to win a bet.

  Eros was not done. “One day, one week, what’s the difference? Why should a God be restricted at all, the way you are down there in that boring school? At our age we should be way beyond that.”

  Hell felt a pang of sympathy. For a being over two thousand years old and married to a beautiful and clever woman, to still be given detention had to suck.

  “I can try to talk to Father,” he offered, “but you know how likely that is to help. Myra and I are mere infants compared to anyone else in the family.”

  “If Zeus thought of you like that, he wouldn’t allow you to stay on Earth unsupervised,” Eros pointed out. “Do talk to him. If it does not help, it won’t hurt. Any sort of change or break in the routine would be more than welcome. Psyche and most of the others feel like I do, you know.”

  “Bored with unemployment? I get it. But there are plenty of issues that could keep us busy, if we took a stronger interest in contemporary humans. They aren’t doing too well without us. Have you seen Argus, by any chance? I have a job for him.”

  “Lucky Argus,” Eros said, not quite sarcastically, and vanished.

  Argus must have been watching the scene, for he popped into existence just a moment later. His monstrous body and hundred eyes were so familiar to Hell that he didn’t blink, though he wondered how Melinda would have reacted to the sight. Argus had been killed by Hermes long ago but later resurrected by Hera, Hell’s mother, who always had a use for such a vigilant guardian.

  “Hello, youngster,” Argus drawled.

  “Argus,” Hell said. “I would be most grateful for a favour, if you have the time.”

  Argus gave a rumbling laugh. “Time? Time is all I have. Too much of it on my hands, as Eros just told you.”

  “Yes, well, have you been watching me down on Earth? I suspect Mother would have wanted you to keep an eye on me, after what happened to Myra.”

  “Myra did not have her divine powers,” Argus said. “You have, and from what I’ve seen, can ta
ke care of yourself. I do check on you about once a day, at her request, but if I see you with your lover I look away.”

  “Thanks. She’s not my lover, it’s called a girlfriend these days,” Hell corrected. “If you respect our privacy, you won’t have heard that she might be in danger.” He described the ancient kidnapping threats hanging about Melinda’s head. “I would appreciate your keeping an eye on her during the holidays, when she goes back to Colombia for her Grandmother’s birthday celebration three days from now. You can do that from up here. If you see any danger, please alert me right away.”

  “A mere human girl?” Argus shook his head. “I will do it, but remember how short-lived these humans are. One more or less is hardly important.”

  “She’s very important to me. Especially because they are so fragile and short-lived, she needs all the protection she can get.”

  “Very well. But don’t make a habit of it. I have only the hundred eyes. And I’m already looking after your sister’s ex-boyfriend.” Argus faded out of existence, and Hell, his heart a little lighter, walked up the cliff path to his parents’ palace. He might as well pay his respects and look in on Myra before darting back to school. Unlike the humans there he needed no sleep.

  But he’d better not linger too long; he had not yet got around to his French homework.

  3 Melinda

  The next morning, Hell is distant, distracted. I wonder if he is still thinking about the threats I have mentioned, but we are kept busy in class, and have no chance to talk.

  Anyway it’s probably something quite different he’s thinking about. Why would a young god would be distracted because of me – plain Melinda, a rich but utterly ordinary girl, not half as pretty as the class average here in the Rockview Academy? It is a miracle we have become close at all. I tell myself that the two-week break from each other over Christmas is a good thing; I desperately need to gain perspective on this relationship, before the Melinda I used to be completely disappears. As it is, I think of Hell all the time. That cannot be safe for my happiness and sanity.

  There is nobody in whom I could confide, or whom I could ask for advice. As a foreigner I have been an outsider from the start. It was not as uncomfortable as it could have been, since the clique around Christabel, the former leader of the class, was too self-absorbed to bother much with me. I also played on their prejudices by letting them think that my family had dangerous mafia connections. They never quite knew what to make of me.

  Just now the ordinary pecking order is in disarray. Christabel has left school under a cloud of disgrace, after she confessed to trying to murder my friend Myra, Hell’s older sister. Only the fact that Myra’s body was never found has kept her out of prison.

  People still wonder why Myra’s parents never showed up at the school, and why Hell seems so undisturbed by his sibling’s tragic disappearance. Her boyfriend, Jason, was completely distraught, at least right after it happened. Of all the humans in the school, only I know the truth: Myra is alive and well in the Gods’ home, New Olympus.

  “Why and when did the USA enter the Second World War, Miss Garcia Lobos?

  Tearing myself from my gloomy reflections I answer the teacher’s question. History interests me, so I manage reasonably well. Hell gives me an encouraging look from where he sits three desks over.

  The teacher turns to another student and asks something about Roosevelt. I tune out the halting reply.

  Christabel’s desk is still empty. Jason is present in class for once, but looks as though his thoughts are a thousand miles away. He told Hell and me he probably won’t return here after the Christmas holidays, and I cannot blame him.

  The class finds my relationship to Hell hard to understand. There have been a few snide remarks about baby-snatching. Christabel’s former friends tell me straight out that having a boyfriend two years younger is the very opposite of cool.

  If they knew the truth, that he’s a powerful immortal and can be any age he likes, they’d envy me instead. But it’s not all good; Hell will not age at all once he reaches adulthood. In just a few years I’ll look older than he will. That’s why I prefer not to think long-term, and to live in the now, to enjoy every day we are together, like we have no yesterday and no tomorrow.

  At long last, the history lesson ends. Books and notebooks are shuffled. I stand up and stretch. Sitting so long is not easy for me. If I could, I’d be moving all the time.

  Hell starts to come over during the short break, but is interrupted by Martin, the captain of the football team. Martin wants to recruit him again, I suppose; Hell is faster than humans, and refuses to take part in sports where he’d have an unfair advantage. But he can hardly say so to Martin. I smile at Hell across the desks, to show I understand. No way am I going to be clingy and needy.

  The lunch break is the first longer period we get to be together, but a bunch of others are at the same table. I can hardly get in a word. As I listlessly chew the poorly seasoned chicken, I wonder why Hell, the youngest in our class and arguably a nerd, is so much more popular than his sensible and pretty sister was, before her disappearance. We all discuss Christmas plans. Hell winks at me.

  For the first time in my life, I wish the Christmas holidays were already over. I have a bad feeling, even though I will see my abuela again at long last.

  That evening we have a party. I dance mostly with Hell. If he had not told me, I’d never guess this kind of dance was new to him before he joined the school last September. He does everything he tries superbly from the get-go. Enough to make a mere human feel inferior. I tread on his foot twice during the faster numbers, and though he does not seem to mind, it is like a small shadow on my happiness. No matter how much I try I will never be able to approach his perfection. Let alone his brains which intimidate half of the teaching staff, and all of the students who are even capable of appreciating them properly.

  I sigh.

  “Is anything the matter, Mel?” Hell asks immediately, tightening his grip on my waist a tiny bit. “Tell me.”

  “No, nothing,” I say, unwilling to confess my doubts. Nothing is more tedious than having to constantly reassure another person. “That is, I’m a little uneasy, but for no reason at all.”

  He does not laugh my words away. “I hope it’s not a premonition,” he says seriously. “Sensitive humans get them often, although according to Pallas most brush them away as fancies.”

  “I’m not sensitive,” I immediately object. Really!

  4 Melinda

  The time for departure comes before I’m ready and there is too little time to say good-bye to Hell. If I never saw anybody else here again it would hardly matter, but Hell has become, over just a few short months, the centre about which my whole life revolves. It worries me. This separation is for the best, I tell myself once again.

  The school van drives me to the airport, together with several other departing students. While they chat, I look out of the window at the magnificent mountain backdrop, and try to drum up at least a little enthusiasm for the big family reunion. We used to be close, but all those years of boarding school in a foreign country have taken a toll. I have barely seen my father more than six or seven times since I was first sent to study abroad five years ago. It has been difficult to pick suitable Christmas presents for him and my brothers.

  Mother usually stays with me in our Miami condo during vacations. I am closest to her and grandmother, to whom I write every week. This is the first time in over three years that I’m actually headed to Colombia. Will my cousin Jacinta still be such a pain in the neck? With any luck she’ll have outgrown her jealousy and snide remarks, but I would not bet on it. I wonder if all families have members the rest would rather not be related to. How does Hell get on with his many divine relatives? The age difference alone must be a tremendous barrier. But if he has any problems, he has never mentioned them to me.

  I expect to be met and escorted by a bodyguard at the airport, as on previous trips, but to my surprise it is my middle bro
ther, Jorge, who has come to accompany me home. He is ten years older, and has never been particularly fond of me. Politely, I hide my surprise as I allow him to take the heavier luggage. From his expression he is unused to such menial tasks.

  “Did you come all the way from home, Jorge?” I ask. “How is everybody?”

  “They are all fine, and I was already in New Orleans, on business,” he explains. “I’ve taken over the construction part of Granny’s company last year.”

  “That will keep you busy,” I comment. Though I’m supposed to get a share, nobody has bothered to keep me current on our family’s holdings over the last few years. The little I know is from Grandmother’s letters and Google. “You won a big tender there last July, I’ve read – how are things going?”

  Jorge creases a brow and looks at me in surprise. “What do you know about tenders?” I just smile. After a moment he goes on, “You look such a child. I sort of forgot you’ll have grown up in the meantime. When you see someone so rarely, your mental picture of them tends to lag behind their growth.”

  “And there’s so little outward growth in my case,” I sigh. It is the bane of my existence that I am so small and slight. Even now I look barely fourteen, when it’s been over half a year since I turned sixteen.

  “So what do you want to do when you grow up?” Jorge asks as we walk to the first class check-in counter, confirming my fear that I still look far from grown up, although I haven’t added any more height over the last year.

  I hesitate to tell him about my real plans. Jorge would most likely scoff at anything that does not produce a tangible profit. “Maybe I’ll join the family business, like the rest of you?” I suggest. Jorge frowns. I wonder if he considers business an unsuitable career for girls. Is he that stodgy? I don’t really know him at all.

  After handing in my luggage, and checking it through to Bogotá, we head for the First Class lounge. Jorge helps himself to some whisky from the drinks table, and I sip freshly pressed orange juice. Seeing my brother swig liquor at eleven in the morning, I wonder if he is a heavy drinker. His face still looks clean-cut and healthy, but then he is only twenty-six.