Penelope knew this couldn’t be good. “Sit down” usually meant “Sit down so you don’t fall down.” Penny sat at a barstool next to the counter and watched her mother expectantly. Celene took off her apron. The kitchen counter was covered in plants that she’d let go thirsty and wilt for a few days. She knew she’d need a demonstration later today.
“I know what you can do,” she began. “What you can do with plants.”
Penelope looked away from her mother. Was someone from a lab coming to cart her away? Was her mother selling her to science?
“I can too.” Celene picked up a plant and touched the leaves. It perked right up. Penny looked from the plant to her mother, her eyes wide. “And the people who are coming are some people who can do things... other things.”
“Like what?” Penny asked, apprehension evident in her voice.
“One of them can remember everything, and I mean everything. There’s a boy in the tenth grade who can run about a kilometer a second.”
“Really?” Penny sat up straight. “So we’re like, having a freak meeting?”
Celene nodded. “Yes, to see who has any idea why and form a support network.”
“I should invite Peter.” Penny ran to get her cell phone from her pink polka-dotted purse that she’d left on the kitchen table.
“Peter?” Celene’s worst fears all seemed to center around Peter these days. “What can he do?”
“He talks to ghosts. He sees them as real as you and me. He saw Dad in September.”
Celene couldn’t move. Richard? He’d spoken to Richard? She tried not to think of her late husband except at night when she was alone. She still missed him terribly. Her heart ached to know that he had been within reach. Why wasn’t he at rest? It had been so long since he had left her with their little girl to raise alone.
She remembered the afternoon when she’d come home to find Penny and Peter in the hall. “That day you said you fell.”
Penny nodded, “I thought we were crazy.” She found Peter in her contacts. “I’m gonna go change and call him.” She hit send and walked to her room.
Celene sat down at the counter, her head in her hands. If Peter was one of them, then maybe these dreams were more than metaphors.
She stood up and started to transfer the cookies from the baking sheet to the cooling rack. She had work to focus on before the others arrived.
Peter Hadley got there as soon as he could. He’d been looking for an excuse to get out of the house anyway. “Biology tutoring” had proven to be a nice cover. Whether he was doing the tutoring or being tutored was up to interpretation. His father never cared either way.
He arrived first, which made everything a lot more awkward in the Davis household. Zach and Lewis were next. June came right behind Zach. Miranda Rutherford and Valerie Hess pulled in at the same time.
A small engine rumbled close. Celene looked out the window and saw Evan Fuller limping up the front steps. His motorized bicycle lay on the grass in front.
“Evan saw me use my... gift to help his mom,” Zach explained to her. “And he’s got an instinctual knowledge of how machines work.”
Celene stepped away from the venetian blinds as Evan came in the front door. Devon Valentine pulled up in a hot little red car that she’d gotten from her rich daddy. June glared at Zach as if her presence here incriminated him for some infidelity. Lewis covered for him. “We didn’t invite her.”
June met her in the doorway, ready to send her packing, “Alright, who invited you?”
Devon raised an eyebrow and smirked, amused by June’s territorial display. “Doc Livingstone had Lewis invite me.”
June shot a glare back at Lewis, who scratched the back of his head and pretended to be fascinated by a baby picture of Penny.
“Fine, get inside before somebody sees you,” June snapped.
Nick Morrisey and Teddy Wexler showed up in Teddy’s purple Jaguar. Zach went outside to meet them in the gravel driveway. “Private party,” Zach said, making eye contact with Nick.
“It’s cool,” Teddy said. “We got the invite from the Doctor.”
“Which one?” Zach asked.
“Oh, right. Doctor Nurse.”
“Can we come in or what?” Nick was very impatient.
“Yeah, fine. Get inside.” Zach decided to stay outside to be the keeper of the gate. Just as the screen door was swinging shut behind Nick and Teddy, a silver pickup pulled up. It was boxy, a throwback from the eighties, but the body looked well cared for. Astin and Diana Hill jumped out of the high cab. Lewis recognized them first.
“Oh Didi, you’ve been keeping secrets from me,” Lewis called as he pushed past Nick to get out the front door.
Diana smirked, “You too, Lewie Lewie.”
“Mercer,” Astin went right up to Lewis to shake his hand, successfully cutting him off before he could hug Diana. Astin killed most anyone’s attempts to flirt with his twin sister. Lewis considered zipping around him, but there was a lot of traffic on the street, so he gripped Astin’s hand firmly and looked him in the eye. “So who invited you?”
“Dr. Livingstone.”
“That guy’s popular,” Lewis said. “Come on inside.”
Valerie was walking around with a notepad taking drink orders and approached Astin and Diana when they came inside. She had a series of bracelets covering her burn bandages. Even with all of the confusion and chaos of the rapid arrivals, Valerie took her time. She was in no hurry. “Water, tea, or Coke?”
“Water,” Diana said, “thanks.” She went and found a spot next to Lewis. Astin glared at the speedster and sat down on the other side of her.
“Livingstone is here!” June called from the window. His ‘66 Electra was pulling up now. Jason Livingstone had meant to be here on time but his babysitter had been late. His beard had grown back since Halloween.
Celene came out of the kitchen with a mug of tea for Valerie. When she heard June call out that Jason was here she asked June to get the door for him and went back into the kitchen for the cookies. She wasn’t sure how much she wanted to take the helm and how much she wanted to just trust Jason. It was all a bit overwhelming and she wasn’t convinced she wanted to be the fearless leader.
When everyone had something to drink and a cookie, Celene had no more excuses to postpone this thing. She decided to start.
“Well, we’re all here for the same reason, I hope.” She forced a smile. “All of us have developed supernatural abilities over the last six to eight months.”
“Except me,” Jason interjected.
“Right, except Dr. Livingstone. We have just dragged him into it. But all of us, powered or no, want to find a connection.”
“Maybe the government cut some inside deal to dump nuclear waste in the ground near the school,” Lewis suggested.
“Doubtful.” Celene put a hand up to quiet him. “I thought we would start by introducing ourselves. Say who you are, what you do, when it started, anything you think might be connected. Sort of a fact-finding survey, if you will, before we throw hypotheses out there.”
Everyone just stared in silence. Penny had a sense of déjà vu. She remembered the dream she had last night but it was fuzzy. These people had met like this before in a marble hall.
“Okay,” Celene clapped her hands together. “I’ll start. I’m Dr. Celene Davis. I make plants grow and revive them when they’re dying. I started doing it in my garden this spring.” Her garden was a series of boxes hanging out of the window.
Penny, sitting immediately to Celene’s left, picked up the line. “Okay, my name is Penny Davis. I’m her daughter. I do the same thing. Only since July, not May.” She looked at Peter and nudged his arm.
“Peter Hadley,” he said quietly. “I see ghosts who haven’t passed on walking among the living. I can communicate with them.”
Lewis thought this was hilarious and snorted into the back of his hand. Peter glared. “What’s so funny?”
Lewis went very serious and whispe
red, “I see dead people,” before he started laughing again.
“Okay, let’s keep going.” Zach hit Lewis and he stopped.
Nick Morrisey was next. He stood up. “You’ve all seen my name in the papers about a month ago. My name is Nick Morrisey, junior. I can breathe under water. It started on Halloween, when I saved Valerie.” He winked at Valerie and sat back down.
Teddy Wexler lounged in the arm-chair he’d taken near the window and glared at Nick. He was pretty sure that if he hadn’t been there, Valerie would have drowned while Nick continued to stare at Devon Valentine’s cleavage. He didn’t bother to stand. “Theodore Wexler Jr., Teddy. I turn water into liquor. Same time frame. I think it was April? That whole period is a bit of a blur now.” He had been drunk for the first two months after discovering his gift. It was hard to tell one week from the next in his memory. Celene made a mental note not to allow Penny to go to any parties with Teddy.
Evan Fuller was next in the clockwise rotation of the room. He leaned forward but stayed in his chair. “Evan Fuller. I see how things work. I can fix anything or build anything I want. I’ve always been handy, or at least interested in how things worked. I guess it just started to click this past spring.”
Valerie had occupied an ottoman next to the sofa. When it came her turn she spoke clearly and quietly, making everyone have to listen hard to hear her. “I’m Valerie Hess. I sense when other people are upset or aroused,” he voice went even smaller at that last word. “And I can calm them.”
Devon Valentine was sitting perched on the arm of the couch next to Valerie. She flipped her hair back over her ear and took a deep breath that drew focus to her cleavage before speaking. “Devon Valentine. I make people aroused.”
Lewis cat-called.
Minnie cut in to keep the meeting on track and resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Devon. She didn’t think being a slut was a superpower. “Miranda Rutherford. I go by Minnie. I have a perfect memory. It was April twenty-fourth that my memory kicked into perfection. About one in the afternoon, actually. I would know the time more specifically, but I didn’t have a clock on hand.”
“Astin Hill,” Astin said. He stood up. “I do this.” He held up his hands and they began to glow. The light was dim at first, akin to the kind of red glow you might see between your fingers while trying to cover a flashlight. Soon the light bloomed into a bright white and they all had to look away.
“Damn,” Lewis said. “That’s blinding.”
Astin sat back down, leaning back with a little swagger in his movements. “Yeah. That started this September. Your turn, Di.”
Diana was not going to show off like Astin. Instead she stuck to the basics. “Diana Hill, Astin’s my twin brother. I talk to animals. It started in September. Actually, it started the night they found that kid from Miami in the woods.”
“You fell on him or something, right?” Devon asked.
“No, he fell on her. I heard he was all crispy and bloody,” Nick said.
Diana just nodded and looked down at the carpet. It might have been a cool gross-out story to them, but it was still a nightmare to her.
Lewis had to top Astin’s display. He stood up and with a gust of wind he twisted, appearing like a cyclone before he stopped. Napkins and papers flew about the room and Minnie had to pull hair out of her mouth. “I run really fast,” Lewis said. “A hundred meters a second, to be exact. I started getting faster and faster about April, hit a plateau at that speed a month ago.” He mussed his own hair.
Zach, who had taken the loveseat at the head of the room with June, took his turn. “I’m Zach Jacobs. I’m a junior. I uh-- quite literally became lighting on the football field this September. And again at the homecoming.”
There was a collective sigh of understanding around the room. Nobody in all of Olympia Heights had missed the headlines about the quarterback who had been struck by lighting twice.
Zach held up his hand and let sparks fly from his fingers. “Oh,” he added as the sparks faded, “and I also shave like, twice a day. I just thought that was weird. That started this spring, though ‘beard’ isn’t really a superpower.”
“It’s weird because your facial hair grows super fast but the rest of your hair is normal,” June said.
June turned from Zach to face the rest of the room, “I’m June Herald. Junior as well. Since April I’ve been like a human lie detector. The only people it doesn’t work on... well what do you know, they’re all here!”
“Alright,” Jason said. “Well, that’s everyone. You all know me, Dr. Livingstone, I’m the school nurse. I don’t have powers but I’m here because Astin, Diana, and Teddy and, well a lot of you have confided in me and I want to help.”
Celene opened her mouth to speak but was drowned out by the rumble of a motorcycle outside. Nick got up to look out the window. “It’s Frank Guerrero.”
“Late,” Zach grumbled, grabbing a second chocolate chip cookie and going to open the door.
Frank came inside with his helmet in hand and took off his leather jacket. “Sorry I’m late. My mother’s car broke down and I had to give her a ride to work.” He sat down next to Devon, hoping they would fill him in.
“We’re doing intros,” June Herald offered, “talking about who we are, what unique ability we’ve displayed, and when it all started.”
“Some of us started back in the spring and some more recently,” Minnie Rutherford offered. “We’re progressing at slightly different rates but it’s definitely all related because nobody started before April.”
“Francis, what about you?” Celene asked.
“Uh, Frank.” He thought Francis sounded wimpy. “Frank Guerrero. I can bench press thirteen hundred pounds.”
“Hot damn!” Lewis exclaimed.
“You’re not from Olympia Heights, right? Like, you weren’t here in April?” June Herald asked.
“I moved here this summer, but I was also here when I was little. I was born here.”
“So we’re looking at childhood and the last few months since you moved here. That’s our timeframe,” Minnie said.
“The strength started in Miami,” Frank said.
“Okay, so we’re looking at childhood. Everyone was born or conceived here, right?”
There were a few nods and a few silent looks, but nobody disagreed with that statement.
“Maybe we all had the same obstetrician and he was experimenting with something?” Minnie started making a list in her head of theories.
“Or toxic waste in the water,” Lewis added. “Remember that one.”
Everyone was out of ideas. The room went quiet. Lewis picked up a cookie and chewed it noisily.
“Wait,” Minnie said suddenly, “Zach, you shoot lightning, right?”
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“And your girlfriend here, she tells when people lie, except you. We’ve got our warrior over here with Frank, twins and, hello, does anyone else think it’s funny that Mr. Sunshine’s sister here is on the archery team?”
They all just stared dumbstruck at Minnie. Celene felt sick. She knew where this was going.
“Come on! We’re Greek gods. We’re the Greek Pantheon!”
Now that it was said out loud, Celene was sure Miranda was right. She closed her eyes. The room burst into a cacophony of discussion. Everyone who had passed Freshman English and read the Odyssey or anyone who had made it through World History classes could see it now. The dreams they’d been having, too, those were all explained. Each person had thought that those were a separate issue altogether.
The only student there who didn’t get it was Penny. She was the lone freshman and hadn’t gotten to those points in the curriculum.
“I’m Hermes!” Lewis’ voice was the loudest. “That’s freakin’ sweet!”
Celene sat down and sipped her tea. It was cold by now. She looked over at Peter and Penny, who were trying to listen to the others. Celene’s worst fears were being realized. Every mother wanted to have it proven that
they were just being paranoid about everything. That would have meant that nothing was wrong. Poor Celene, however, was right. Peter Hadley was the Lord of the Underworld.
“The greatest glory of a woman is to be the least talked about by men.”
-Pericles
xiv.
The other Olympians all left the hall.
Hestia had the duty of keeping the fire.
Poseidon remained, circling like a vulture
while she stoked the flames.
He crossed the room and leaned over her shoulder.
“Have you reconsidered my proposition?”
The god reached out to tuck a stray strand of hair
behind Hestia’s ear.
Hestia smoothly dodged him and smiled wryly.
“I have,” she said, “and the answer is still no.”
The god replied with his arms folded across his chest.
“Then I’ll keep asking.”
But the goddess remembered the priestess girl
that he had assaulted on the temple floor
and when she reminded the sea-god of this
he brazenly laughed.
Yet Hestia was not angry with Poseidon
but instead she felt gnawing disappointment.
She turned back to her hearth to tend to her flames
as her charge required.
“You know you want me,” Poseidon tempted still.
“I am content to do my undertaking
and keep constant watch over my virgin flock.”
These were her last words.
Poseidon roared with anger at this rebuff.
“Fine,” he bellowed, the earth shaking with his rage.
“Do not expect me to be waiting for you!”
He turned to leave her.
The Pantheon Page 12
