by Kieran Scott
Then she stomped up the stairs and slammed her door. I gripped the countertop, a hole where my heart used to be. Two tears slipped down my cheeks, and I let them fall to the linoleum floor.
I didn’t need this. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, I’d done one thing wrong, but I’d offered to fix it, and she hadn’t even considered it. Slowly I walked to the bottom of the stairs and glared up at her closed door. Clearly she didn’t want to be around me. Well, that was fine. I would text Ty, then go hang out at the library with Mrs. Pauley until he could pick me up. At least Mrs. Pauley would be happy about my honors English placement. In fact, I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought to go there sooner.
I stomped up to my room, grabbed two pairs of jeans, two T-shirts, and my sneakers, and shoved them into an old Gap bag. On my way back downstairs I grabbed my backpack and then stormed out of the house, making sure to slam the door as hard as I could behind me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Charlie
“Well, Elaina, you’re never going to believe it,” my father said, dropping his work stuff near the door. We walked past piles of unpacked boxes and bare walls toward the kitchen at the back of the house. The scent of my mother’s favorite beef stew made my stomach grumble.
“What’s that?” my mother asked, smiling as she looked up from the vegetables she was chopping. Her blond hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she wore her favorite red sweater and no makeup. I could tell she’d been unpacking most of the day by the amount of stuff laid out on the counter—pots and pans and ceramic plates, our cow-shaped cookie jar, and about a dozen wooden spoons. “Charlie!” she said, seeing me. “How was your first day?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but my dad cut me off.
“Charlie here made the cross-country team!” my dad crowed, already reaching for the phone on the kitchen counter.
My mom stopped chopping. “You tried out for cross-country? You hate running.”
I lifted my shoulders and slid onto one of the stools at the kitchen island. “It’s just something to do after school.”
“Well, that’s great, but are you sure it’s something you want to spend your time on?” she asked, handing over a few carrot sticks. “Won’t you be busy enough with your schoolwork and band and—”
“Don’t try to talk him out of it, Lanie,” my dad barked as he held the phone to his ear. “Look at him! He’s beaming!”
My mom and I exchanged a knowing smile. Really it was more my dad who was beaming. She reached over and ran her thumb down my cheek, then gave it a pat.
“Well, if you want to run, then I’m proud of you,” she said. “Wait till your brothers find out!”
“Christopher!” my dad said into the phone. “Glad I caught you! You’re never going to believe this. Charlie made the cross-country team!”
My dad chuckled and put the phone on speaker, placing it down on the counter. The sound of Chris’s laughter filled the bare kitchen. My cheeks turned red. Then my phone beeped. It was a text from Stacey.
DO U LIKE MOVIES? WE SHOULD GO TO THE MOVIES.
I sighed and blanked the screen.
“I’m sorry,” Chris finally said. “But that’s funny.”
“What’s so funny about it?” I asked.
“Oh. You’re there? Wait . . . he was serious? You really joined the cross-country team?” he asked.
“Yes. And if you laugh again, I’m gonna drive out there and dead leg you,” I replied, crunching into a carrot stick.
My phone beeped again. A list of movie times for the local theater this weekend. My mother glanced at it and her brow wrinkled.
“Like you could,” Chris scoffed. “But seriously, that’s awesome, man. Good job. We can finally call you a Cox.”
My last bite of carrot felt like a rock going down my throat. I reached for the glass of water my mother was drinking from. “Thanks a lot.”
My father took him off speaker and they chatted for two minutes. Then he hung up and called Corey. This time, he left it on speaker from the moment it started ringing.
“Hello?” Corey said.
“Hey, Corey,” I said, jumping off my chair to get closer to the phone. “Dad’s about to tell you that you’re not gonna believe it, but I joined the cross-country team.”
“Damn right!” my father said, clapping me on the back.
There was a pause. “Wait. What?”
“I joined the cross-country team,” I said. “You can laugh now.”
“Well, you’re right, I don’t believe it,” Corey said flatly.
I glanced at my father. His happy grin faltered.
“You, Charlie? Come on,” Corey said. “That’s not possible.”
My face burning, I grabbed the phone and hit the talk button, then brought the receiver to my ear. I saw my mother and father exchange an alarmed look.
“What do you mean, that’s not possible?” I said, gripping the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “Is it that hard to believe I could somehow be a jock? That I could be like you guys?”
“That’s not what I said,” Corey replied.
“Screw you,” I blurted.
“Language!” my mother admonished as I handed the phone back to my dad.
“I’ll be in the garage.”
I grabbed my drumsticks from my backpack as I stormed across the foyer and out the side door into the cool, brightly lit garage, the dry scent of cardboard boxes permeating the air. My drum kit was set up in the corner. I sat down behind it and started to play as hard and as fast as I could.
But it didn’t make a difference. I kept hearing their words over and over in my head.
You’re never going to believe it.
That’s not possible.
We can finally call you a Cox.
And Chris’s laughter, like a bass line beneath the chorus.
I closed my eyes and kept drumming, trying as hard as I could to pound it out of my head, until my mother finally called me in to dinner.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
True
I clomped up the creaky stairs to the second floor of my new home that afternoon, wincing with pain as each step seemed to radiate inside my head. There were a few doors off the west-side hallway that I hadn’t noticed this morning. At some point I was going to have to actually explore this house. If my head didn’t explode first.
From the direction of my mother’s room came a clatter, then a crash. I rushed down the hall and found her in a heap on the floor with a lamp next to her. The room was still dark. There were ten bottles of wine strewn about the rugs. Crumbs covered the bedspread, and a half-mauled hunk of bread lay on one pillow.
“Mother,” I muttered, bending to grab her under her arms. “Have you been in bed all day?”
“Lmee ’lone,” she muttered. Her breath smelled like rotten grapes. I maneuvered her back onto the mattress and flung the covers over her legs. Her hair was matted in places, and puddles of drool marred one pillow.
“I would leave you alone, but I have something to tell you,” I said, leaning my hands into the foot of her bed. “I matched up my first couple today!”
“Fabentastical,” she said, then hiccuped. “Now kindly leave me.”
She flung one arm over her eyes, the other hanging loosely down the side of the bed. The bread chunk slid down the pillow and rested against her elbow. I glared at her prone form. This morning she’d basically ordered me to get my mission over with as quickly as possible, and now she didn’t even care that I was a third of the way there?
“Fine. I’ll go. But can you please tell me one thing?” I asked, pressing the heels of my hands into my temples as hard as I could.
She rolled one limp hand around, prompting my question.
“What do humans do to get rid of headaches?” I asked.
Aphrodite flung her arm off her eyes and reached under the heavy covers. She drew out a full bottle of red wine and thrust it toward me. “Drink this.”
“Wine?” I took the bottle f
rom her, and her arm dropped onto the bed with a thwump. “Really?”
“It will cure you,” she said, rolling onto her side. Her nose pressed against the crusty bread, and she didn’t even flinch. “I pwahmise.”
Her tongue fell out of her mouth and she hiccuped, then started to breathe heavily. Passed out. I turned toward the door, popping open the bottle. When I brought it to my nose and sniffed, my stomach grumbled in anticipation.
I’d always had a taste for red wine, but I’d never used it for a headache. I’d never had to try it. I tipped the bottle toward my mouth and chugged half of it down, then drew my arm across my lips. It was appropriate, really. This was a celebration. Right now, Stacey and Charlie were out there somewhere, falling in love, all thanks to me. Their lives were going to change for the better, all thanks to me. And most importantly, Orion was now one step closer to freedom and a nice, long life. With me.
I walked down to my room and stood at its center, staring at the timer on my desk. It still ran, the red sand slipping at a frantic speed from top to bottom. I felt sick at the sight of it. Part of me had hoped that the sand would have reset, indicating I’d done my job. But that was illogical. They weren’t in love yet. In a few days’ time, I was sure the timer would turn and I’d get a new deadline for couple number two. At least, I hoped that was true.
Deadline. What a horribly appropriate term. I wished I could simply point my fingers at it and turn it myself. I took a swig of wine and tried.
Turn!
Nothing happened.
Turn!
The sand kept right on slipping.
Frustrated, I flung my hand at the timer. “Turn!” I shouted.
A pencil on the desk surface shifted half a millimeter. I held my breath, my heart slamming against my chest like a charging rhino. I tried again, this time focusing my energy on the pencil. I raised my hand and whispered.
“Turn!”
The pencil shuddered.
I took a startled step back. Outside the window, the back gate of a truck crashed closed. My powers. Were my powers starting to work here? Could I get them back?
Suddenly the constant throbbing inside my skull didn’t seem so bad. If I could get my powers back, I could be done with this so-called mission in a snap. If I could get my powers back, I’d unite a hundred couples and return to Mount Olympus a conquering hero. No one would ever dare doubt me again. Not Zeus, not my father. No one.
Zeus. Zeus had specifically said I had to match three couples without my powers. He’d taken them from me. So why did they seem to be returning? Had he allowed this to happen? If he hadn’t, then how could I have possibly done what I’d just done?
I knew one thing for sure. If Zeus hadn’t decided to return my powers, he would not be pleased to know that they were working again. That I had somehow regained them without his help, without his permission. Any indication that his power was not absolute would send him into a mighty rage.
Slowly I let my eyes trail toward the timer. I was dying to try the pencil again, but if Zeus was watching right now, I could be in deep trouble. As could Orion. I wanted to run to my mom, to ask her what this meant, but she was dead to the world. Besides, I wasn’t sure I could trust her. I wouldn’t put it past her to tattle on me to Zeus, make it like this was my fault, like I was purposely circumventing him. She would do anything to get home to Mount Olympus. Even betray her daughter.
Telling her would put Orion’s life on the line. I’d seen him die once before, when I didn’t know what he would one day mean to me, and I couldn’t do it again. . . .
• • •
“Eros? Have you heard?”
My brother Deimos burst into my chambers as I was about to pierce the heart of a young handmaiden who had caught the eye of a handsome goatherd. I miss-shot and hit one of the goats instead. That would make an interesting pair.
“Deimos!” I shouted, whirling on him. “I’ve told you countless times never to surprise me like that!”
Deimos shrank back in fear as if he believed I was about to beat him with my bow. I took a deep breath and raised a calming hand. Sometimes I forgot how skittish he could be.
“I’m not going to hurt you, brother,” I said. “What news do you bring?”
He stood up straight, his eyes wild. But then, they were always wild. My poor brother was born the God of Fear and spent his days either instilling irrational dread in the people of Earth or developing new phobias himself. He was terrified of thunder, of spiders, of our father. I’d once seen him run and hide at the sight of his own shadow. Before long he would divine a white-walled fortress for himself and never come out again.
“It’s Artemis! She’s killed her love!” Deimos cried.
My heart dropped. “Orion? Orion is dead?”
He nodded eagerly, as if my reaction buoyed his spirits. “Killed by her own arrow. Come! They all gather in the moor.”
I grasped my brother’s hand and together we whirled into Nyx’s Moor, a bleak, rocky plain north of Gaia’s Wood, which bordered the Bay of Circe, our access to the Mediterranean Sea. Lightning flashed and a driving rain flattened the brown grass. The sky was a heavy, mottled gray, but I could make out a group of gods and goddesses huddled near shore. Deimos clung to my hand, bent almost in submission as thunder growled around us. Even over the howling wind and raging weather, I could hear Artemis’s anguished wails.
“Eros!”
I saw Harmonia rise to her feet, her red hair matted and dark with rain. My sister’s role, as always, was to be there for everyone, no matter what, as she was now there for Artemis, even though we couldn’t stand the goddess on a normal day.
I trudged toward the huddled mass, dragging my brother with me. On mud-slicked rocks near the water’s edge lay Orion, an awful wound torn open in his temple, oozing blood and brains into the sludge. Orion, who had been so virile in life, so cocky and sure and full of swagger, was now reduced to a carcass, and an unpleasantly scented one at that. Artemis was bent over him, her handsome bow and leather quiver tossed aside, her slim frame racked with awful sobs. Her twin brother Apollo knelt nearby, catatonic, his face an utter blank. Hephaestus was there too, his skin as black as the night, glowering at Apollo, his hand on the intricate hilt of his sword.
“What’s happened?” I demanded.
“It was him!” Artemis sobbed. She pointed across the body at her brother, who was both her best friend and worst tormentor. “He tricked me! He challenged me to hit a moving target on the lake, but it was Orion! I didn’t know!”
She bent her face into her hands and wept awful tears. I gaped at Apollo. He was known for his cruelty. For his games. But even though he and Artemis fought almost constantly, I couldn’t imagine why he would do this to her. Why steal her one true love? It had been months since I had matched the two of them, and I thought that Apollo had finally accepted Orion’s role in his sister’s life. Clearly something had changed.
Artemis tipped her head back and raged at the heavens. Suddenly the storm quieted and the clouds parted, revealing a star-blanketed sky.
“What are you doing?” Harmonia asked her.
I was surprised too. Artemis was so self-involved it wouldn’t have shocked me if she’d kept the rain going for months on end while she mourned, making the rest of us miserable right along with her.
“I can’t take it. I can’t look at him anymore,” Artemis cried, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes, across her temples and into her soaked brown hair. She touched her fingertips to Orion’s pale cheeks and shook like a spiderweb in a windstorm as she leaned in to touch her lips to his. Then, with a shuddering wail that trembled the very ground beneath our feet, she flung her arm toward the sky. Orion vanished into a swirl of sparkling dust. The cloud that was once human flesh floated to the heavens, where it exploded into seven pinpricks of light. Seven stars forming shoulders, legs, and a bright, shining belt—a memorial to Artemis’s beloved.
It was quite touching, actually. And very out of char
acter.
“Let him hang there for eternity,” Artemis said, “so that I might be reminded of my folly in listening to you,” she spat at Apollo, rising to her feet. “So that you might be reminded of the cruelty you visited on your own sister.”
Apollo never shifted, never blinked. He hardly seemed to breathe. Artemis turned on her heel and, whipping her leather cape around her, disappeared, leaving her prized bow and quiver behind. Hephaestus stood. He took two steps toward Apollo, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his sword. There was something awful brewing inside his eyes. Hatred, anger, jealousy, fear. I wasn’t sure. Harmonia reached out and touched his arm. He stared into her eyes for a long moment, and there was the slightest softening in his features. Something passed between them, a communication I couldn’t begin to decipher, and in a blink he, too, was gone.
I dropped to my knees in front of Apollo. He and I had once been friends, he the god of poetry, of music, of light—elements that were so closely linked to love. But we’d grown apart as he had begun to enjoy toying with mortals, with other gods, even with his own sister.
“What were you thinking, Apollo?” I whispered, trying to look into his blank eyes. “I know I matched them as a bit of a lark myself, but they were truly in love. Your sister was truly happy. Why take that from her? What did she do to deserve this punishment?”
His eyes sparked to life, and the force of his ire as he glared at me chilled me to the core. I rose, flicking one of my iron arrows—the ones I only rarely used—from my quiver and taking aim at his heart. The iron ones bred hatred instead of love, not that Apollo needed any more reason to hate anyone. But while it wouldn’t kill him, it would slow him down and cause him a lot of pain.
Apollo blinked at the arrow and laughed. He laughed so hard he keeled over, bracing one strong hand on the rocks beneath him. He laughed like a madman, like a god unhinged. He laughed as if he would never stop. And then, suddenly, he whirled into nothing.
I lowered my bow and stepped closer to Harmonia, shivering from head to toe. Only when everyone else was gone did Deimos finally rise to his full height, though he reached out to cling to Harmonia’s gown like a nervous child. Together, the three of us stared up at the stars. Three shining points in a row marked Orion’s belt. She had tossed him up next to the Scorpion, I noticed. The beast she had slain a few days prior, as it traveled the lands in search of her love.
