"Huh?" said Alcie.
"Well," said Nera, "you can't work in a temple and not be a virgin. It's the primary qualification to be a priestess. You girls know that."
The three girls lowered their eyes, then, trying to be subtle, each looked up at Ino.
"You're wondering about Tereus, aren't you?" Ino asked.
Pandy shrugged. Iole nodded. Alcie slapped her hand over her mouth.
"My sister and her husband were killed during a Spartan raid over a year ago, leaving my little nephew an orphan. The Temple at Ossa was very gracious and let me officially adopt Tereus as mine. We're a package deal; take me, take him. I've never been restored," Ino said, smiling gently at Nera. "I'm still 'stored.'"
"Anyway, nobody discriminated. It was all very 'don't ask, don't tell, and keep the kids quiet,'" said Nera.
"So," said Ino. "We answered the Delphi Council's ad and after extensive interviews started here. I've got the early evening, late-night shift. Nera has graveyard and Callisto still has nine to five."
"But she went insane when we were brought in," Nera said. "Wouldn't let us work, told us we were usurping her authority. Ridiculed our soothsaying."
"Nera and I can usually handle her," Ino continued, "but we have to keep the children out of sight. Today, she caught Tereus in her room, just crawling around, and she went mad. These quarters are cramped, but we try to make do. The general population doesn't know, though, because we're in the same robes and under veils. The acolytes are sworn to secrecy. And only one of us ventures out during lunch and always in disguise."
"Wow," said Alcie. "That's rough. Job cut way down. Surrounded by kids. I wonder if she ever even wanted any."
"Great Gods!" cried Pandy. "That's it!"
"What?" said Iole.
"It's her!"
"Her who?" said Alcie.
"Don't you all see? She hates children. Why? Because she can't have any! She never had a choice. And now she has to share the only thing she loves, her job, with two women who can do both: serve as THPs and raise their babies. It's killing her. She's the source. She is Jealousy!"
They heard a sudden, loud crash behind Callisto's door and Ino leapt from the table just as everyone heard Callisto scream.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jealousy
"Callisto, are you all right?" Ino called, approaching Cal-listo's door.
"Stay away!"
"The girls, Callisto?" Ino went on. "The three girls? They're fine. They're right here, absolutely unharmed . . ."
Callisto's door flew open and she stepped into the main room, almost knocking Ino off her feet. Her hair was undone, her robes streaked with spots from her tears, the veil dangling under her chin. She was holding a broken shard from a looking glass that she'd smashed, her finger trickling blood.
"They're in my home?" she raged. "My temple has been desecrated and now you allow vermin into my home? Apollo will strike you all!"
"Vermin? Excuse me, but you tried to kill us. Remember?" said Alcie.
"And I would have succeeded but for an evil sorcery!" she said, beginning to shake violently, tearing at her hair.
Little Althea began crying on her pallet.
"I will kill that child!" screamed Callisto, raising the glass shard and rushing toward Nera's room.
Nera sprang up instantly and rounded the table, preparing to tackle Callisto. Ino darted forward, but Callisto tripped over Alcie's two left feet sticking out from under the table, falling with a heavy thud to the floor. The glass flew out of her hand and shattered in a far corner. Callisto lay gasping for breath, unable to move.
Little Tereus, bored with his chalk and papyrus, appeared from Nera's room and scampered over to Callisto, apparently forgetting that she'd nearly smashed him to bits an hour earlier.
"Hi! Hi!" he giggled, patting her forehead, as Ino pulled him away.
Callisto opened her eyes to look at Tereus. A single tear ran down her cheek. Then she began to convulse. Small spasms at first, but they grew in strength until her entire body was seizing and releasing miserably.
"Oh, no! Not again," said Nera.
"What's happening?" said Pandy.
"Same thing happened yesterday. I didn't have a chance to tell you, Ino," said Nera, moving swiftly to get a drying cloth. Callisto was now thrashing so hard she hit her head on the floor tiles. Then she lay very still, her eyes wide and her mouth open.
"What can we do?" said Pandy.
"Stay back and don't touch it," said Nera.
"Touch what?" said Pandy and Ino together.
"Look!" said Alcie.
From Callisto's mouth, a thick black sludge was oozing slowly across the floor like a flat black worm.
"Pandy . . .!" whispered Iole.
But Pandy could only gape as the oozing sludge finally drained from Callisto's mouth and pooled in a small circle on the floor. Then, as they all stared, the sludge pool thickened and rose up, forming itself into a jagged black rock.
"Great Zeus," said Nera. "That didn't happen before."
"What do you mean?" said Ino, holding Tereus back.
"I mean she just seized up and that black . . . stuff . . . came out. I went to get a cloth to clean it up, but it had disappeared when I returned!" said Nera, wrapping a cloth tightly around her hand, staring at the black rock, which was now vibrating slightly.
"Pandora!" said Iole.
"What?" she said, looking at last at Iole.
Iole looked at the vibrating rock, then back at Pandy. Instantly, Pandy understood.
"Of course!" she cried and lunged across the table for the golden net.
"Ugh!" she heard Alcie say.
"Apollo protect us!" said Ino.
The jagged, vibrating rock, now shot through with ugly green veins, had sprouted six tiny black legs and was crawling deliberately back across the floor toward Callisto's open mouth. Callisto, unable to move but perfectly able to see, began to whimper as the rock came closer.
"Nera, hurry!" yelled Ino.
"Get away from it, Nera," said Pandy loudly. Nera, so startled by Pandy's command, backed away immediately.
Unfolding the net, Pandy pushed past Alcie and Nera. One leg of the rock was now on Callisto's quivering bottom lip and the rock was about to hoist itself into her mouth when Pandy threw the golden net neatly over it, stopping the rock dead. As Callisto fainted, Pandy bent down and swiftly grabbed the rock and the net off the floor, holding the net at arm's length.
"Alcie . . . get the box," she said.
Alcie quickly pulled it from Pandy's pouch.
"Here!"
"Okay," Pandy said. "Alcie, turn the box so that it opens toward me. Iole, stand next to Alcie and be ready to help her shut the lid. Okay . . . okay . . . now, Alcie, I'm going to count to three, then you open the lid . . . but not too wide. Then close it again once this thing is inside. Got it?"
"Duh!" said Alcie, as Iole stepped beside her.
Pandy cupped her hand around the black stone and peeled the rest of the net away for a clear throw. The little rock was vibrating, its tiny legs trying to claw through the adamantine threads. Then one leg found an opening, poked through, and pierced her forefinger.
At once, Pandy was drowning in feelings unlike anything she'd ever known. She was inferior and ugly, only ten times more than anyone else: jealous of everyone for everything and so, so bitter about her life. She wanted things; basically everything she didn't have. She wanted Helen's hair (before she'd been reduced to a salamander)... and lole's brain . . . and her mother's beauty . . . and a boyfriend. She wanted to be anyone else. She wanted, wanted, wanted. Her eyes were closing and her mind was going black, like a starless, moonless night.
"Pandy!" said Iole.
"Shut up . . . ," Pandy mumbled, starting to slump forward.
Iole stepped toward her and grabbed Pandy's shoulders. Using all of her strength, she shook her friend hard—very hard.
"Pandy!"
Pandy's eyes flew open wide.
&nbs
p; "Put it in the box!" said Alcie.
Everything was clear again, but Pandy had no idea how long the clarity would last.
"One, two,. . . three!" she cried.
Alcie lifted the lid, lole's hand hovered just above it. Holding the net, Pandy quickly tossed the black rock inside the box. With a terrible hiss, the rock began to fizzle away into smoke. Immediately Pandy felt the blackness lift from her soul.
"Now!" Pandy said, and Alcie snapped the lid shut, just as a fine silver mist began to rise out. Feeling the smallest twinge of regret that something as wonderful as Hope was now trapped with Jealousy, Pandy took the box, flipped the adamantine clasp down, and, pulling a pin from her hair, slid it through the clasp to hold it fast.
She put the box on the table and backed away. Pandy, Alcie, and Iole all looked at one another. The next instant, they were whooping and jumping with glee.
"We did it!"
"You did it."
"But you knew!"
"How did you know?"
"She's smart!"
"Do you think that's it?"
"It's the only thing it could be!"
"I'm smart too, you know!"
"It was easy!"
"Easy? We were almost toasted!"
"Girls! Girls!" said Ino. "Would you pull out a chair while we get Callisto up?"
"Oh, of course," said Pandy. They helped ease Callisto, now coming out of her faint, into a seat at one end of the table. Pandy put the box and the net back in her carrying pouch and set it far down at the other end.
Callisto's head hung forward loosely and there was a small cut on her lower lip where the rock had tried to crawl back inside.
"Nera, eucalyptus oil, please," said Ino.
Nera quickly delivered a small glass vial of pale yellow liquid. Ino waved it under Callisto's nose and, with a hiccup, Callisto raised her head, looking at everyone around her.
"Callisto? How do you feel?" asked Ino.
Callisto looked at Ino and Nera for a moment, then turned a blank stare on Pandy, Alcie, and Iole.
"I'm fine," she said at last. Her voice was dry and scratchy, but the tone was kind and majestic. "Nera, why are these maidens in our chambers?"
"What do you remember, Callisto?" asked Ino.
"Nothing," she said quietly, after a moment. "Nothing. Why?"
"How about the Harpies, huh? Ow!" said Alcie, as Pandy pinched her.
Silence surrounded the table as, once again, no one knew where to begin. Tereus began wriggling and whining in his mother's arms, almost breaking free. Callisto looked hard at the child for a moment. Then she opened her arms and managed a feeble smile.
"Come here, little one."
Ino let Tereus go and he ran to Callisto. He stopped short and did a funny little dance, teasing her. But Callisto caught him up and set him on her lap.
"Are you going to tell me what's been happening, hmm?" she said, smiling gently at Tereus.
"No!" he shouted playfully.
"I will," said Ino.
"We'll help," said Iole.
An acolyte appeared in the corridor entrance, her head bowed in subservience. She and Nera exchanged a few hushed words.
"Well," she said, turning back. "Apparently we're close to having a riot. The line of supplicants now supposedly stretches all the way back to Thebes. I'll go and prophesy, Callisto, you sit and rest."
As she passed, Callisto reached out and took her hand, bringing Nera up short.
"Thank you, Nera."
"My privilege," Nera replied. "Ino, when Althea wakes up, would you give her the cough medicine?"
"Of course . . . see well!" said Ino.
Nera donned the veil and robes of the high priestess and walked swiftly down the corridor toward the altar.
Over the next hour, Pandy related her story to Callisto, with Ino and Iole adding necessary information and Alcie adding a few unnecessary comments. Callisto sat hushed, focusing on the time and day that the box was first opened. When Ino began to blend in the events happening since she and Nera arrived at the temple, however, Callisto's lower lip quivered and tears fell from her eyes. And when Ino and Pandy told of the Harpies and the near murder of Iole, Callisto hung her head and gave in to silent wracking sobs. Everyone at the table felt completely helpless. Finally, Callisto raised her head.
"The Harpies are only to be called when the temple is truly threatened. It was an oath I swore to Zeus," she said, then looked at Iole. "Dear Iole . . . I don't know how I can do anything that you will accept as an apology, but let me try. You know, I have a wonderful healing salve for your bumps . . . where are your bumps? Aren't you the one with the bumps?"
Pandy and Alcie gasped.
lole's bumps were gone. Her skin was almost perfect; only the faintest circles indicated where the bumps had been.
"Well, I guess I just needed to be hung over a sacrificial fire and almost roasted to death. Who knew?" she said.
With that, everyone smiled the first real smiles they had known in days.
"I remember almost nothing of the last few weeks," Callisto said at length. "But if I am correct, then at the time the box was opened, I was prophesying for a young mother whose child had been born blind, and Apollo was clearly giving me a message of healing and encouragement for her. But as I began to relay this, something . . . an insect, I thought. . . flew into my mouth. I felt a sharp, twisting pain in my abdomen as if I had swallowed glass. I can recall very little after that, except that the woman ran from the temple crying. I didn't know why and I didn't care. I felt emptiness consuming me. I was sensitive only to my own bitterness, not knowing how miserable I was making those around me."
Pandy thought about how horrible she'd felt only minutes before and couldn't imagine living with those feelings for weeks.
"In the last few days," Callisto said, "I became aware that whatever was inside me was going to kill me if I didn't rid myself of it. I knew I'd been having seizures, and I'd watch that thing crawl in and out. Today I smashed my looking glass; I was going to cut it out of me."
She looked stricken, not only at how she'd behaved, but also at what might have happened.
"I am profoundly sorry," she said, trembling.
"It's not your fault, Callisto," said Ino.
"You can't help it if you were born barren," said Alcie.
Her hand flew instantly to cover her mouth.
"I'm sorry. Oranges! Stop pinching me!" she said, rubbing the welt that Pandy had just given her.
"Then stop being dumb!"
"I said I was sorry."
"It's all right, both of you," said Callisto. "You're right, Alcestis, it's not my fault, really. The Fates did not decree that I should have children, only that I should deeply want and love them. A blessing and a curse. I have been especially able to intercede with the great Apollo on behalf of children, but my desire has always been kept in check and served me well, until now. It is also what made me so vulnerable."
"Actually, it's kind of a neat situation," said Pandy.
"What is, Pandora?" said Callisto.
"Well, if Nera and Ino are part-time THPs, then whoever isn't working or sleeping gets to take care of the children. It just makes sense. Callisto, you can be a part-time mother."
After a full ten seconds, Callisto's jaw hit the table.
"We won't always be here, Callisto," said Ino tenderly. "When Pandy gets everything back into the box and things settle down, the council won't need us anymore, but until then . . ."
"Would you let me, Ino? You and Nera?"
Just at that moment, Althea woke on her pallet, coughing uncontrollably.
Ino instinctively rose from the table, stopped short, then sat right back down again and looked at Callisto.
"Althea's medicine is on the small table by her pallet. Just two drops under her tongue, but then you have to hold her until she goes back to sleep. You might try singing to her."
Callisto, a smile beginning to stretch from ear to ear, silently rose from the ta
ble and went in to comfort Nera's baby.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Departure
The high priestesses firmly insisted that the girls take a short time to recover from their ordeal, so after Dido was reunited with his mistress (becoming an instant favorite of Althea and Tereus), Pandy, Alcie, and Iole were treated like little goddesses within the temple walls. Pandy told her diary everything, but when she spoke to her father, she decided to leave out a few details such as the Harpies and the pit and what exactly Jealousy looked like when she'd finally caught it. She desperately wanted to tell him about her newly discovered power over fire, but she didn't want to have to tell him how she'd found out.
Nera bought Alcie a new pair of sandals, but only gave her the left one. She spent her time breaking it in by going down the long line of supplicants with a papyrus sheet, taking pre-orders for prophecies and predictions . . . and grousing about having to get up off a soft pallet in the mornings.
"If I have a little break between visions, I'm going to ask Apollo about that mouth of yours," said Callisto.
"Yeah, yeah," Alcie said. "What about the feet? Ask him about the feet!"
Iole fed and played with the little sacrificial animals, forming a few deep attachments, only to sob bitterly as they were led to the altar.
"You know that's tradition, Iole. Part of the cycle. The gods expect it. It shows our subservience and gratitude for all that they do for us," said Nera, holding Iole as she wept, watching her favorite lamb being taken away. Iole knew the little animals were killed quickly before they were placed over the fire, not the way Callisto had almost toasted her to a crisp, but her heart still ached.
Pandy spent most of her time watching, from the shadows, the profound and sacred ceremonies taking place at the altar. Her curiosity was back in full force, but this time she knew that instead of it bringing about a dreadful result, she was gaining valuable knowledge about her culture and history She quickly realized the high priestesses were connected to the gods, and Apollo in particular, in something more than just a spiritual way. They were the chosen ones; able to actually intercede on behalf of mankind with the immortals. The gods, Pandora thought, were all powerful. But Callisto, Ino, and Nera were holy.
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