“How can you be sure?” Soul Selector asked.
Sellie looked at her. “Because you are Kleio.”
Chapter Forty
Aphrodite’s temple was as welcoming as ever. The wind blew, the columns moaned, the floor lurched, and Soul Selector’s stomach lurched along with it. She’d always hated this place, and now that Loa was ensconced somewhere within it, she hated it more than ever.
“Don’t lose your temper,” Sellie advised her for the umpteenth time, bringing her even closer to losing her temper. She ground her teeth instead and wondered when Sellie had assumed command.
“Let’s go,” Sellie said. They moved out from the huddle they’d made by the entrance and strode into the main hall.
“My knees are knocking,” Death mumbled. “And those swans are looking at me funny.”
“Maybe your knees are annoying them,” Soul Selector said. “Try taking bigger strides.” She stalked on ahead leaving him to catch up.
Thalia scuttled toward them. Soul Selector was surprised to see her there. The nymph usually worked for Zeus. Maybe she freelanced? Thalia took one look at the scowling faces on the impromptu visitors and went shooting off to find Aphrodite.
“We’re on the radar,” Sellie muttered. They took up position before the empty throne, looking anything but worshipful.
Thalia returned. She was flustered and unhappy, but she came right up to them and said, “The goddess is not attending the temple today.”
“Is she attending her manna store?” Sellie asked. Thalia blinked owlishly at her then retreated toward the rear of the throne where the manna store was hidden.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Aphrodite’s voice came from directly behind them and made them all jump. “There is no manna store,” she hissed when they faced her. “If I ever hear you speak of it again I’ll have the harpies eat your tongues. Got that?”
“We want Loa.” Soul Selector stepped forward. “I’m her soul selector and I want her back now.” It wasn’t really a lie. She was the soul selector now and she had more claim on Loa’s soul than Sellie did.
“Loa?” Aphrodite looked genuinely lost for a moment, then a hard, nasty light came into her eyes. “Ah. The little soul mate. Why do you want her?”
“Because I’m her selector,” Soul Selector said in disbelief. What was Aphrodite playing at? Soul mates were the soul selector’s province alone. The goddess should automatically hand a soul mate over.
“You don’t look after them very well, do you? This is the second one you’ve lost. Where is that other one, by the way, the one you were to bring me ages ago? Don’t tell me you’ve mislaid her again?”
“Give her back!” Soul Selector roared. Death and Sellie froze in shock. The handmaidens recoiled and the entire temple hushed. This was sacrilege. No one shouted at Aphrodite. Only her voice could be raised within these walls.
The goddess paled. With a hiss, she raised her right arm to cast a thunderbolt or lightning rod or some other form of annihilation. Soul Selector squared her shoulders, ready for the blast. Behind her she could hear Death squeaking, then a mighty voice boomed out. Mighty enough to drown out the wind, mighty enough to make the marble columns quiver.
“Aphrodite, my child. What is happening here?”
Aphrodite froze. Every gaze turned toward the water fountain where a huge cob swan was swinging his snow-white wings back and forth in frantic motion. As they swept through the air, feathers danced skyward and the animal elongated by many feet to metamorphose into Zeus.
“Daddy,” Aphrodite screamed, then she stamped her foot petulantly. “I always fall for the swan trick.” He laughed and came forward to join them.
“How long have you been there?” she asked, the upset in her voice barely hidden.
“Not long, daughter,” he said. “But enough.” It was a warning, and her temper fizzled out almost at once.
“Why are you here, Daddy?” she asked, so treacly Soul Selector thought she heard flies.
“The soul mate Jesse lodged a complaint,” he said.
“She what?” Aphrodite and Soul Selector both spoke at once.
“I knew I liked that girl.” Zeus sounded delighted with the distraction she had provided. “She got the measure of you two all right. She knows how to work the rules around here.”
“What did she do?” Sellie asked.
Zeus waved his hand in a lazy circle and the air froze into a glassy swirl. The mirrored surface continued to spin idly in mid air.
“The trick with soul mates,” he said, “is to get them together quickly. Once you accomplish that, they are capable of doing everything else all by themselves.”
Soul Selector and Sellie simmered with annoyance at the hyperbole. Death looked fascinated, though Soul Selector could tell it was fake.
“Jesse came to me asking to be put into a coma,” Zeus continued. “How strange, I thought. Surely it can’t be that boring here?” He paused, waiting for appreciation for his joke. Death tittered like a nervous chinchilla. Soul Selector and Sellie stood by sour-faced.
Zeus sniffed and continued. “It seemed she had a brilliant plan. She was going to replace a comatose soul that was due for earthly exit with her own soul. This would give her a few extra hours to connect with her earthbound soul mate who was friendly with the…coma person.”
“Can you believe this?” Soul Selector muttered out the side of her mouth.
“That he’s about to steal credit for our idea? Yeah,” Sellie muttered back.
“I approved!” he boomed. “I sent Jesse into the empty vessel and arranged for her soul mate to visit her. It was as simple as that.” He looked unbearably smug. “Why, I might even take up this soul selecting malarkey myself!” He fixed Soul Selector and Sellie with a beady eye, enjoying watching them squirm.
Death broke into hysterical laughter. Zeus beamed approval at him. “Watch and learn,” he said, and the swirling mirror stopped spinning to reflect a sunny afternoon in a small hospital ward.
Chapter Forty-one
Norrie sat by a bed in the ICU. She couldn’t concentrate on her book and instead looked out the window. In the tree opposite, two collared doves were building a nest. She watched their coming and going all afternoon between cups of tea and a short chat with Rose when she came on duty. She had been lucky. If the charge nurse hadn’t represented her, she wouldn’t be in here at all, but as JC had no family, she was allowed to visit.
This was the second day she had called in, and still JC remained unconscious. Norrie was compelled to see her regain consciousness. She wanted to welcome JC back and perhaps tell her something of the journey that led to her return. If she was allowed to, of course. Rose had warned her to be careful. She could feel Rose’s growing concern each time Norrie showed up on her floor, but she let her visit all the same. It was the only way Norrie could deal with the events of last week.
Grief was a funny thing. Norrie had spent much of her late teens in counseling for a depression that had come upon her in her sixteenth year. She had followed that up with several years of therapy as bouts of illness came and went. This had decreased as her management of her symptoms progressed. She had always believed grief to be akin to that first raw debilitation. Grief fit better than any medical model her physicians and psychiatrists could provide. She had always imagined her illness was more suited to a long-term grieving than any uni- or bipolar state. Loss was undoubtedly a catalyst to some disorders, but what had she ever lost? Loa?
She had admired Loa as a person and adored her as a lover. But a short-term lover. Loa was never going to be her one and only. And now Loa was gone and Norrie missed her terribly. But she could rationalize that loss. It was not Loa’s death that crippled her. She’d known this agony much longer than she’d known Loa. What then? Her family was intact. Her career still golden. She had no addictions. Her love life stank, and her sex life was a bouquet of roses. And yet her emptiness was gargantuan. Her question was what was this emptiness? Why wa
s she hollow?
A dry cough pulled her attention away from the doves and brought her thoughts back into the room. The figure in the bed was twitching, trying feebly to move her hands. Norrie leaped to her feet. JC was coming around. She called for Rose and was happy to disappear to the cafeteria as the medical staff did whatever they needed to. Excitement bubbled up in her as she blew on her scalding coffee and waited to see if she’d be allowed to return to the side ward.
Rose let her visit but cautioned it could only be for a minute. JC was doing well but was exhausted. Her consultant was delighted with her, though. “We’ll give her an hour or two then we’re moving her to post-op. It’s just across the hall.”
JC was propped up in bed at a slight incline. Her ventilator tube had gone and she was breathing by herself, though many other tubes and drains still ran in and out under the bedclothes. She gave a tired, wobbly smile as Norrie entered.
“Hi. I’m Norrie,” she said. “I’m a friend.”
“More water, please?” JC’s voice was raw and underused. She weakly indicated the lipped drinking cup on the bedside table.
“Here.” Gently, Norrie held the cup to her lips and watched JC sip.
“I’m Jesse,” JC finally whispered when she’d had enough water.
“JC,” Norrie gently corrected her. “You’re JC.”
JC frowned at this. “I am?” She seemed confused. Norrie nodded.
“Do I know you?” she asked next, though it obviously hurt to talk. “I feel like I know you.”
“Sh,” Norrie said. “We have all the time in the world to talk later. Right now you need to rest.”
“Feel like I’ve been out of it forever.” JC’s eyes began to shut. “Don’t go,” she murmured, reaching out for Norrie’s hand before falling into an exhausted sleep.
“I won’t.” Norrie made her promise to JC’s pale, worn out face. “I’ll be here for you. I’ll look after you. I promise.” She kissed the thin white knuckles she held in her own warm hands, as if to seal the promise. “You’re safe now.”
*
“It’s so beautiful,” Death cooed. “I love a happy ending.”
“What’s she doing going to post-op?” Sellie asked, always the pragmatist.
“Yes,” Soul Selector said. “How can she be post-op when she hasn’t had an operation?”
They looked at Zeus in askance and the smug look slid off his face. He had no idea what was going on outside of Jesse’s remit. The godhead couldn’t think on his feet, and Soul Selector was delighted. That’ll put him back in his box. Big fat know-it-all.
“Did you really think your half-formed plan would work?” Aphrodite finally spoke up, stating what everyone was thinking. But then Zeus was her father and not likely to flatten her insolence with lightning. “Look, people, I need manna and I need soul mates to make it. Loa and Norrie were never going to work as a couple. Nothing I could do could make them fall in love. In lust, yes, no problem, they were young, healthy women after all. But fall in love? No. That wasn’t going to happen.”
“I knew it!” Soul Selector pointed at her. “I knew you had that little toad fire arrows at them.”
“You watch who you’re calling a toad. He’s my baby!”
“Children, children.” Zeus tried to stop the argument with good, sporting humor. “I understand my grandson is hale and hearty and in a hole. Is that right, soul selector?” Soul Selector noted he asked Sellie rather than her. So, he’s known about the pit of shame all along and he let Aphrodite get away with it. And he let Sellie sit in it for thousands of years in total misery.
“Why not? He seemed to like that particular hole.” Sellie’s tone was cold. “He was always hovering around it.”
Aphrodite glared at her through slitted eyes, and Soul Selector had to admire the way Sellie straightened her back and glared right back. Zeus looked about as happy as a man who had stepped in a big puddle of PMS. He shifted uncomfortably and began glancing sideways for the exit.
“About this operation JC had,” he asked, “is it really pertinent? Surely we can call a close to this episode now?”
“What did you do to her?” Soul Selector stood inches from Aphrodite. She trembled with suppressed anger. Sellie came to stand shoulder to shoulder with her. Soul mates were their jurisdiction and no place for gods to be meddling. Not even the higher Pantheon could touch their charges.
“I gave her a few extra hours in her coma.” Aphrodite was becoming bored. Any minute now, she would blow them all off and disappear, tired of all the questions and certain she could pacify Zeus later. “If I could get Jesse and that other girl to commit as soul mates, then Loa would be the odd one out. So I killed her and her organs went to JC, or Jesse, whatever. Now she has a lovely new liver and a lovely new girlfriend, and hopefully many years to make me manna. And we don’t have to wait around for reincarnation either.” Her triumphant announcement was directed at Zeus. He looked surprised and pleased.
“You interfering—” Soul Selector snarled.
“Where is the Loa soul mate now?” Sellie talked over her. Loudly.
Aphrodite turned her back. Their time was up. She linked arms with Zeus and, together, the great gods glided away across the marbled temple floor until they dissolved into windblown particles and disappeared.
“Bastards,” Soul Selector muttered through her teeth.
“Gods are always cheaters,” Death said. “They never have to pay.”
“We’ll find her,” Sellie told her. “She’ll be somewhere in the Fields.”
“She’s been pushed into the queue for reincarnation.” Thalia came to usher them out. She spoke softly so as not to be overheard. “She’s over by the Styx as good as beyond reach. You’ll have to wait for her soul to come round again.”
“How do you know this?” Soul Selector whispered.
“I was there when Aphrodite decreed it. No one wants singular soul mates drifting about the Fields,” she said. “They have to be put to use or dumped.” Red spots appeared on Thalia’s cheeks. She was angry. They came to the main doorway, and Thalia indicated they should leave.
“You’ll have to wait for her reincarnation. Sorry.” Her words followed them out.
“She’s gone.” Soul Selector was in shock.
“But she’ll come back.” Sellie tried to console her. “It may take a couple of hundred years, but you’ll get to see her again.”
“At least she’s not been slushied,” Death said helpfully. And that was the only blessing.
Epilogue
Despite fighting me every inch of the way, Jesse and Norrie are happy now. They are still on earth and deeply in love, pumping out tons of good energy into the universe, and unfortunately into Aphrodite’s coffers.
I have dug Sellie a new hole. It’s by my scrying pool, a place where only soul selectors go. I hope it’s deep enough. I dug for ages just to make sure.
It’s in the copse of jacaranda trees Jesse made, no more than a smoky dot on the horizon of the Elysian Fields. She feels safe there, and often we sit by the water and chat as the stars come out. I think we are friends, of a sort.
Loa, or rather Eris, is lost in time. She will return, eventually. Time is the tide on which we all wash up. I will wait for her. A hundred years, a thousand years; it is nothing to me. Aphrodite knows this. But what can she do but wait along with me? Despite her machinations, I am still the Soul Selector. I work for her department. I know about her manna stash. I help make that manna, that food of the gods, and I hope they choke on it.
I will not abide by their rules any longer. Their diktats bend like the reeds around my pool. They sway this way and that like the Jacaranda blossoms above my head. I have no time for their rules. Jesse was right. I was a fool to follow them. So now I will follow my heart. I will make my own rules, follow my own groove, I will own this place, and things will be done my way, at least until Eris returns. From this day on, I am not the Soul Selector. I am Soul Selecta.
The End
&
nbsp; About the Author
Gill McKnight is Irish and moves between Ireland, England, and Greece in a non-stop circuit of work, rest, and play. She loves messing about in boats and has secret fantasies about lavender farming.
With a BA in Art and Design and a Masters in Art History it says much about her artistic skill that she now works in IT.
Books Available from Bold Strokes Books
Love’s Bounty by Yolanda Wallace. Lobster boat captain Jake Myers stopped living the day she cheated death, but meeting greenhorn Shy Silva stirs her back to life. (978-1-62639334-9)
Just Three Words by Melissa Brayden. Sometimes the one you want is the one you least suspect. Accountant Samantha Ennis has her ordered life disrupted when heartbreaker Hunter Blair moves into her trendy Soho loft. (978-1-62639-335-6)
Lay Down the Law by Carsen Taite. Attorney Peyton Davis returns to her Texas roots to take on big oil and the Mexican Mafia, but will her investigation thwart her chance at true love? (978-1-62639-336-3)
Playing in Shadow by Lesley Davis. Survivor’s guilt threatens to keep Bryce trapped in her nightmare world unless Scarlet’s love can pull her out of the darkness back into the light. (978-1-62639-337-0)
Soul Selecta by Gill McKnight. Soul mates are hell to work with. (978-1-62639-338-7)
The Revelation of Beatrice Darby by Jean Copeland. Adolescence is complicated, but Beatrice Darby is about to discover how impossible it can seem to a lesbian coming of age in conservative 1950s New England. (978-1-62639-339-4)
Twice Lucky by Mardi Alexander. For firefighter Mackenzie James and Dr. Sarah Macarthur, there’s suddenly a whole lot more in life to understand, to consider, to risk…someone will need to fight for her life. (978-1-62639-325-7)
Soul Selecta Page 18
