by Diana Tyler
She suddenly lost her balance and fell back onto a thick rope. She grabbed hold of it with both hands, only then realizing that she was on a ship that was being tossed like an unruly child’s bath toy.
“Everyone, get down!” yelled a man beside her, whose white knuckles were holding onto the only oar that hadn’t been abandoned. But a few seconds later, he too was on his belly beside a heap of trembling men as whatever was aggravating the ship continued to splash and spin around them.
And then Chloe saw it, the thing the unknown sailors had called “Scylla.”
Chloe squeezed her eyes closed and blinked them rapidly when she opened them again. Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. She pinched herself. She had to be dreaming. But no matter how many times she squinted or blinked or tapped and slapped her forehead, the terrifying scene stayed put.
Scylla was like no marine animal she’d ever seen, not even in the discovery shows on TV. It was impossible to say how tall it was because its lower half was submerged in the sea. The upper half was a repulsive blend of dog, squid, and woman. The only normal thing about it was a human child with fair skin and red hair. What wasn’t so normal was that this child was wrapped inside one of the animal’s black tentacles.
Wake up, Chloe! Wake up wake up wake up! But it was no use; Chloe felt as awake as she did after three cups of coffee. This was no dream.
Chloe tried to compose herself. She took three deep breaths and crouched down, forcing herself to think optimistically. Just wait it out, she told herself. Once this thing passed by they would get back to land.
Peering around a broad man hiding behind the mast, she could see three people: two men and a woman. They were standing at the stern, holding their ground. The shorter and slighter of the two men began to crawl closer to the edge of the deck as more commotion rang out among the crew, but it was all a muddled noise to Chloe. Why weren’t they afraid?
Chloe watched as the woman slowly raised both of her hands, as if to surrender to Scylla. But when the ship became deathly quiet, Chloe knew surrender was on no one’s mind. She watched carefully as the woman’s palms began to glow with yellow-orange light. Chloe’s mouth fell agape as the pair of lights, now pulsing like flames, proceeded to float languidly out of the woman’s hands like miniature spirits.
“Chloe! Chloe!”
Chloe’s eyes darted around the ship. Who knew her here?
“Chloe!”
She continued to look, but no one was facing her; all eyes were on the woman. More than that, the voice calling her sounded just like her brother’s.
“Gross, Chloe, you’re drooling,” Damian said.
Chloe jumped back to consciousness and wiped her mouth.
Her brother grimaced. “And why are you wet?”
Chloe looked down at herself. She was back in the treehouse, and indeed she was drenched with water, water that smelled to her like salt. She knew why she was wet, but she couldn’t very well tell Damian. He’d have her committed to a mental hospital before the party was over.
“It rained while you were in the bounce house,” she lied.
“Right…” Damian said. “Well, come down now. We’re opening presents.”
“Be right there. Can you grab me a towel?”
Damian rolled his eyes and nodded, then started down the ladder.
Chloe quickly rocked up onto her feet and looked down out of the treehouse. No ocean. No Scylla. She opened her hands; they were rough and red from where she’d been gripping the rope for dear life just moments before.
Chloe turned to the wall of comic strips behind her, to the big-eyed, yellowed-haired girl and her polka-dotted dragon. “Well, guys, I think it’s time I socialized with real people a little more often. Eighteen years old and I’ve already lost my sanity.”
CHAPTER FOUR
FANTÁSMATA
One of the many downsides to being a twin was that people often viewed you as one individual instead of two. For instance, Chloe’s mother had loved dressing her and Damian in matching outfits. Their scrapbooks were full of photographs of the twins in identical onesies, themed birthday get-ups, and wolf costumes that they wore to the Lycaea festival, an age-old holiday that honored the Unknown God. It didn’t matter that Chloe was terrified of wolves or that Damian enjoyed paint on his face as much as he enjoyed fire ants attacking it. They were twins, and twins did things together.
It was the same when it came to presents. Every year, without fail, two-thirds of their gifts were identical—and they weren’t even identical twins. Far from it.
Chloe’s eyes were an ordinary shade of blue, but Damian’s were an enviable gray-green that became lighter or darker depending on his mood, at least that was according to Chloe’s unspoken observations. Chloe’s skin was what her mother called “porcelain”; her mother hadn’t lived long enough to watch it morph from porcelain to pimply when Chloe reached puberty. Damian’s complexion, on the other hand, was sun-kissed and nauseatingly flawless, as was his physique. He also had the better hair—thick and dirty blond—whereas hers was stringy and the unfortunate color of turbid dishwater. And it was much too long.
There wasn’t a sport Damian wasn’t good at, and his lithe, muscular body had prospered because of it. Chloe had tried sports with her brother when she was young, but only because of the common misconception that they were joined at the hip. It was only after throwing an exorbitant amount of tantrums that her parents finally relented and left her to her books and dolls. She wasn’t fat, but she wasn’t exactly the Aphrodite to her brother’s Adonis either.
After the birthday revelers had said their goodbyes, Chloe retreated to the downstairs office and curled up in her father’s “thinking chair,” a cup of untainted punch from the fridge in one hand and one of her many ho-hum birthday gifts in the other. She started sorting through them and making piles: one for those she’d donate to charity or give to the few friends she had at school; one for those she’d re-gift for her aunt and uncle who’d have no idea they were originally intended for her; and finally, one for those she thought she might enjoy should she ever get struck by lightning and forget who she was.
“Chloe, you missed one.” It was Damian, sneaking up on her as usual and speaking at an excessive decibel level.
“Geez, don’t scare me like that!” Chloe said, pressing her hand to her chest.
Damian tossed her a tiny gift bag stuffed haphazardly with neon-pink tissue paper. “It was on the front porch,” he said.
“Thanks,” Chloe replied, suspiciously eyeing the bag as though it were booby-trapped.
“You got a boyfriend now or something?” Damian asked, his whole face crinkling the way it did when he bit into something sour.
“None of your business,” Chloe replied, sending Damian on his way. One good thing about having a brother for a twin was that he didn’t needle her for info as a sister probably would.
When she could hear Damian’s footsteps heading upstairs, Chloe ripped the tissue paper out of the bag and flicked open the envelope, inflicting a minor papercut on her thumb. The card read: Dear Chloe, I can only give one of these away. I hope your brother doesn’t mind. I just thought you’d enjoy it more since I know you’re pretty good at O&M. See you in class, Ethan Ross.
O&M was an abbreviation for “ontology and mythology,” a class everyone at school hated. Everyone but Chloe and, she presumed, this Ethan chap, who she knew next to nothing about. All she knew was that he ran track, was on the wrestling team with Damian, and sketched and wrote what appeared to be poetry during study hall when all the other students were rushing to get their homework done. To Chloe, “athletic poet” was quite the oxymoron.
Damian and those of his ilk thought O&M was the biggest waste of time. They were probably right. After all, the purpose of the class was to study and discuss the theories about how Petros came into existence, as well as the history of the so-called gods and ancient creatures that once inhabited it.
There was some compelling evidence to sup
port these theories, but the most prominent and promising archaeological sites situated near Ourania, the Colony of Commerce, had been completely destroyed, literally wiped off the face of Petros and into the ocean by some unknown catastrophe millennia ago. But the mystery of it all is what captivated Chloe the most. It appealed to the ever-expanding side of her that preferred unseen, even speculative, worlds to the real one.
Chloe put the card aside and pulled a small white rectangle out of the bag. It was laminated with Eirene’s territorial seal of an embossed serpent coiling around a crescent moon, and underneath, in bold black text, were the words: Eirene Museum: FREE One-Day Pass.
“Huh,” was all Chloe could say. She couldn’t believe she’d finally opened a gift she wanted to keep.
The week before, a nondescript newspaper ad had announced the museum’s opening. It stated they would be using the museum to unveil artifacts and documents that had hitherto been withheld from the public for certain unnamed and “immaterial” reasons.
This news, of course, piqued Chloe’s interest, but her hopes of visiting were promptly dashed when she learned that the admittance fee was two hundred drachmae, enough money to buy a nice used car. Why in the world it cost that much to see a bunch of dusty old shards and deteriorating scrolls was beyond Chloe’s realm of understanding.
She dialed the number at the bottom of the card and found out they were open until six p.m. I wonder if they know anything about ol’ Scylla, she thought.
Chloe slipped her ankle boots back on, the red patent leather ones she wore on special occasions, and stood at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m going to the museum! Going to use the car!” she yelled up at Damian, and was out the door with keys in hand before he could object.
Her aunt and uncle waved from the living room couch, eyes glued to the TV.
Chloe couldn’t wait to get out of the car. She’d been driving for half an hour up Archaíos Peak and already the winding narrow roads were making her feel carsick.
Continue straight, her cellphone told her in its chipper, albeit untrustworthy, tone.
“You’re gonna lead me right over a cliff, aren’t you,” Chloe said as large drops of rain began to pelt her windshield. This was starting to feel like a scene from a teen slasher movie. Girl receives gift from psycho peer. Girl stupidly goes alone to remote location. Psycho intercepts girl and—
A yellow sign interrupted Chloe’s thoughts; it instructed her to turn left onto an unpaved driveway that was barely wide enough for the compact sedan. A few seconds later she found herself gazing up at two white, egg-shaped buildings standing opposite one another with a few pretty cacti and succulents planted around them. Between the buildings was a freshly paved parking lot, the visitors’ section of which was completely empty.
Chloe gave a resigned sigh as she pulled into it. Psycho lures girl into museum exhibit…
She turned off the ignition and silenced her phone. She sent a text to Damian: If I’m not home in two hours please send a search party to 3309 Archaíos Road. By the way, what do you know about Ethan Ross? Good or psycho? As she trotted toward the porte-cochère, her phone vibrated with his response: You’re the psycho.
Unfazed and unsurprised, Chloe dropped her phone into the dark depths of her oversized messenger bag and approached the building. She tried pushing open the door. Locked. Able to make out a woman standing at a desk in the center of the foyer, Chloe knocked until she got her attention. The woman strode toward her, wearing a ruched burgundy wrap dress and a pair of intimidating black pumps Chloe could hear echoing through the glass.
“Do you have an appointment?” the woman asked behind the closed door.
“No, ma’am, but I have this.” Chloe pulled the wrinkled one-day pass out of her pocket and held it up.
“Who gave that to you?”
“Ethan Ross?” Chloe said, unsure whether his name would gain her entry or banishment.
The woman pressed a button on the wall and the door slid open. “Welcome,” she said. “You can follow me.”
“I’m assuming you know Ethan,” Chloe said as her boots clip-clopped across the gray cement floor.
“He’s my son,” said the woman. “He’s always been interested in ontology and mythology, so I thought this would be a good weekend job for him.”
Chloe looked around the foyer. It was so sparse and uninviting that it seemed more like a sanitarium than a place of conservation and study. Three of the sloped walls were white concrete and completely bare. The fourth and furthermost wall was entirely glass and stretched from floor to ceiling. Through it, Chloe could see a cluster of wooden benches overlooking the valley below.
“What does he do here?” Chloe asked.
“Docent,” the woman said with a laugh. “But mostly he just studies everything. As you can see, there isn’t much of a need for tour guiding.” She pointed to a clipboard on the desk and handed Chloe a pen. “If you could just fill this out. The Fantásmata require it.”
“I’m a little surprised there aren’t more people here, actually. But I guess it’s cost prohibitive,” Chloe said as she skimmed carelessly over the fine print and signed her name.
“Exactly. ‘Serious interest only,’ is what the Fantásmata say. I guess if people want to see what relics we have, they’ll find a way to pay for the privilege.”
Chloe could tell that Ethan’s mother was less than thrilled about the circumstances. “So are you the curator?”
“Precisely. Technically, I’m an archaeologist. I used to work at the ruins mostly, at the coast in Ourania. I was recently reassigned after this was built.” She looked up at a dropped screen of metal mesh separating the room from the ceiling. In the soft light that filtered through it, Chloe could see sadness spreading like a net across the woman’s face, trapping her.
She probably feels like a caged bird, Chloe thought.
“Why did they build a museum if no one can come to it?” Chloe removed her jacket and set it on the minimalist black sofa that composed the waiting area.
“Oh, people come to it,” the woman said. “I just don’t know who.”
Chloe stared at her blankly. “That doesn’t make much sense.”
The woman shrugged and handed Chloe a museum sticker, which Chloe stuck onto the side of her purse.
“The Fantásmata don’t seem to care whether their rules make sense or not,” came a voice from the back corner of the room, echoing in the open space.
Chloe turned to see Ethan standing in a doorway that she was certain hadn’t been there before. When he stepped forward, the door sealed itself behind him, returning to ordinary wall.
“Cool,” said Chloe, feeling like she’d just been shown a magic trick. She was tempted to ask him to do it again. “How many of those doors are in here?” Her eyes searched the walls for traces of hidden switches or camouflaged dials.
Ethan’s mother smiled. “A few. Thieves don’t have time to search for invisible entrances. Quite clever, isn’t it?”
Chloe nodded and smiled at Ethan as he extended his hand to her.
“Happy birthday,” he said.
“Happy birthday,” she repeated, shaking his hand. “I mean thank you.”
She gave herself a good hard mental kick. Why was casual conversation so difficult for her? Ask her to talk about how the Olympians overthrew the Titans, or how Apollo slew the Python that guarded Petros’s most powerful oracle and took it over himself, and she was articulate and suave. But ask her to talk pleasantries and make introductions, and her mouth refused to receive signals from her brain.
“Like your gift?” Ethan asked. “I mean, I guess you do if you’re here, right?”
Chloe detected a smidgen of nervousness as he ran a hand through his dark hair. Maybe she wasn’t the only awkward one.
“Sorry I couldn’t come to the party,” he added before she had a chance to answer.
“It’s okay. Your mom told me you work weekends,” Chloe said. “Fun job?”
&nbs
p; Ethan shrugged and looked to his mother. “Did Mom tell you you’re the first patron?”
“I’m the first?” Chloe said, pointing at herself incredulously.
“The first civilian we have on record,” his mother clarified. “The Fantásmata come occasionally—and unexpectedly. I come into work some days and the place is a fortress. I can’t get in. Someone has the master key, and it isn’t me.”
“So,” said Ethan, “wanna see what the crazies are hiding?”
Chloe had half a mind to turn and run. The last place on Petros she wanted to be was on the Fantásmata’s bad side. It was obvious they didn’t want just anyone visiting this place. How would they react when they found out a measly civilian had laid her measly civilian eyes on their priceless artifacts? But then again, they had assented to the dispensation of one-day passes, a notion that baffled her even more.
If she were accused of committing a crime by coming here, surely the court at Enochos would rule in her favor. And if not, she could only hope she wouldn’t be sentenced to anything as traumatizing as the encounter with that Scylla monstrosity.
CHAPTER FIVE
STRANGER
Chloe followed Ethan to the part of the wall from which he’d entered. He slowed down to inspect a section, and when he found whatever it was he was looking for he stepped closer until he was mere inches from the wall. Then he opened his eyes wide, and stared. After a few seconds, a door appeared in the wall and slid back, revealing a steel staircase leading down into blackness.
“I’d spend my time just opening doors if I worked here,” Chloe joked, refusing to succumb to the urge to relinquish her one-day pass and flee. He’s not a psycho, he’s not a psycho, she told herself.
“That’s mostly what I did on my first day,” Ethan said. “Sort of dried my eyes out after a while, though.”
Unsure if he was serious or just had a dry sense of humor, Chloe laughed anyway and felt her nerves ease up a bit.
