by AJ Brooks
He appears in the haze like I willed him into existence. Put together by raindrops and mist, sculpting his features exactly how I remember them. Seeing him has to be the fog, or the greyness from the rain. Or my messed up head screwing with me again. He can’t be here. If he’s here then I’m...reverting. I can’t be. I’m better now. It’s been years since I’ve seen things that weren’t real.
“Hey,” I yell, not having any idea why I spoke. I should be running up the rickety steps for home. Locking the old metal door behind me. The figure doesn’t pause, only hunches further into his grey hood. Even the outlines of what he’s wearing aren’t firm.
I take a deep breath imagining I’m getting high as if that’ll somehow clear my head instead of making it as blurry as the rainy day.
I drop my pack at the bottom of the stairs and run toward him. Like a compulsion—probably a stupid one.
He turns in one quick motion freezing me where I stand and stealing my breath. The fine, chiseled features as if he were sculpted from ancient marble. Narrow but strong. Smooth. Intense. Olive skin. Sandy hair. His full lips form a straight line as he stares at the ground, shading his eyes behind thick lashes.
The face isn’t broken but I know him. The number of times I’ve painted him. The number of nights he sat with me in the dark. I can’t breathe. I want him to look up. To finally see his eyes.
“You can’t see me,” he says to the mucky pavement, and his image flickers. His voice is painfully familiar. “You don’t see me.” The words echo in my head to the point that I’m unsure if I heard them out loud, or if they were imagined. A heavy lump of fear forms in my throat, but I swallow it down.
“Of course I can see you.” I step closer. His image disappears. He disappears.
I blink and he’s standing directly in front of me. I stumble back into the wall and he reaches out impossibly fast. His hands flatten against the wet brick on either side of my shoulders, and my whole body freezes. I know what I should do in this situation. Crystal has forced self-defense classes from the start. Probably her biggest parental move. Or her only one aside from giving me a roof. I need to step into him, use my knee in the groin, elbow to the gut and maybe even head butt him or find a way to hit near his nose and eyes. The eyes that finally look up so I can really see them.
“Venia?” His gaze pierces through me. A rush of pictures flashes through my head so quickly I can’t focus. I try to hold on to any one of them, but only one thing sticks. A closet. Dark. Thick air. Surrounded by fear and pain. He’s there with me. His image muddy with the haze of whatever I took to get high. But inside, calm. He calls me Venia. The calm only lingers for a moment before the images spin back out of control.
“Monet,” escapes my lips.
This isn’t real, I think. My head shakes from side to side. He leans in closer. His eyes. Warm. Intense, liquid gold, with flecks of green and brown. Very very real. After only a second, he crushes them shut, but I’ve already memorized them. My gold mix for his irises wasn’t far off.
It's weird to feel relief at this moment but the second he looked at me I felt like I had the last jagged piece of the puzzle. Everything in me shifted, like my insides were teetering, and then completely levelled.
“No.” He shakes his head, little water droplets leaping from his shaggy hair, hitting my face “This isn't right. You shouldn’t see me.”
I snort because this impossible situation is happening in the daylight. Behind my house. While I’m dead sober. “Funny because you have me against the wall and earlier today I was painting you. On top of that, I know you. I used to see you all the time. You called me Venia. You were Monet, and there when...with me when...before...” In the closet. In my imagination. Stop talking to him, Zarah. “So, yeah. I’m thinking I can see you.”
His brows pull down in confusion, the lines of his lips softening. He steals one more glance at me, shifting his eyes again, and I remember what he used to say. That if he looks at me too long he’ll turn to stone. Why would my imagination spin such a ridiculous quirk?
“I… Don’t leave, okay?... I’ll be back for you.” His leans in so close, his hands on the brick wall trapping me, and the closeness is suddenly too much. Instinct kicks in.
I twist my hands and jerk my knee, but he’s gone. Dissolved into rain and mist.
My legs collapse, leaving me sitting on the road near the stairs to my house. That can’t have been real. None of it. Side-effects of an addictive personality and overworked imagination.
I feel stupid for sitting in the dirt in the rain so I push myself to standing, hating that my legs are shaky over… Over I don’t even know what.
I’m only experiencing tremors. Residue from your previous life, Zarah. It’s not unusual. These things don’t disappear with no explanation. I hear Sue’s calm therapist voice inside my head and it helps to sooth my sputtering nerves a little. Happens to people who use too much speed, coke, and E and all the other crap I put in my body, not always willingly. I try the deep breathing Sue taught me, in for three, out for three. After a moment, the slow breaths finally start to slow my heart.
One thing is for sure, tomorrow at school I’m either going to finish that painting or cover it with white.
III
Cassius
I was supposed to go to that school to find the girl Max is infatuated with and see if she's the one. Instead, the first person I see is Venia. I’d say it was a coincidence, but I’d have to believe in them first. I know Fate. She doesn't work in coincidences.
Drops of water fall from my hair and splash on my nose and cheeks. I pull my hood further over my face paying no attention to where I’m walking on the crowded Seattle streets. I’m following my assignment, Max, who has that ridiculous looking telephone device pressed up against his ear and speaks at it loudly.
“No, Curt. It’s not just the castle thing. It is THE castle thing. Like the most important part...No you can’t change the coding...It’s part of the story, though. The most important part, arguably...Yes, graphics are...No I’m not saying they aren’t important but...” His shoulders slump forward in defeat and I stop listening. None of this is important, not to me anyway. This conversation is typical ramble that I’ve become used to over the past few days, and I'm quickly learning that he may be the most boring human being on the planet. He does nothing of any excitement. He goes to his classes at the college, plays this thing called an Xbox, stares at that phone device, and calls his mother once a week somewhere in Africa.
“It is about the story, Curt. That’s where the feeling comes from. It’s all about the story.” Max’s voice cuts through my thoughts, but I can’t shake images of Venia. A girl I was never supposed to see again.
I made a point of not knowing where she went once I fulfilled my promise of keeping her safe.
< - - - >
She cowers in the corner, her arms wrapped around her knees. The blinding metal music from her father and his group of friends vibrates the walls.
“You’re here,” she says, her eyes dilated and unfocused.
“May I touch you?” I ask, holding my hand out and waiting for her to take it like I always do. She watches my fingers, untrusting as ever. Never sure.
She eventually crawls to me tucking herself against my chest and immediately the tension unwinds.
“Tell me about Lena again.” Her voice crackles in my ear, her cheek pressed tightly to my shoulder. I run my hand through her damp, tangled dark hair and lean back against the wall of the tiny closet.
She’s cradled in my arms, sitting on the hard floor. She’s high on something and shaking all over, but the energy is calm between us. Like always.
"I've told you this story a thousand times, Venia," I say, and her wide eyes meet mine. Even though she can't see me through the darkness her gaze still slowly hardens me to stone. I tilt my head to the row of clothes hanging above us to stop the process.
I expect her to ask me again what Venia means but instead she forces a brave smile,
clutching my shirt in her fingers.
"It helps me come down." She shivers and I wrap my arms tighter around her. My world slows to a crawl and I breathe her in. I know my story helps her, and that’s why I’m still here. Why I keep coming back here. That’s what I keep telling myself. I sigh into her hair, then rest my chin on her head. I need to stop doing this...
"Okay,” I say. “From the beginning?"
She nods against me and I take a breath in. I know she'll be asleep before I even get started. That’s what I’m counting on.
< - - - >
I duck under the awning to a little grocery store Max disappeared into and press myself against the wall, careful that no mortals bump into me. The break to stop and think is much needed. To wipe the rain from my face and that girl from my heart.
The door jingles and a man steps out followed by a little girl. Her big brown eyes land on mine, and I have no time to think before I’m trapped in stone. Little mortal children have eyes so clear they see the world as it is instead of as they want it to be. They see my kind. They see demons and gods walking among them. And it’s a real pain in the ass.
Most gods are not inconvenienced by our inability to look a mortal in the eye without turning to stone. Most gods avoid mortals. Most gods don’t have to work with them directly like I do.
The little girl tugs on her dad’s arm and points to me. His bespectacled eyes pass over me, unfocused and unseeing, but his daughter won’t divert her stare.
“Come, honey. There’s nothing there.” The man whisks the little girl up into his arms and walks away, but she doesn’t stop watching me until they round the corner. I slowly transform back, rolling the stiffness out of my shoulders and neck.
Max exits the grocery store with a plastic bag hanging around his wrist, his thumbs tapping away on that device that's taken over the world. He pauses to adjust his hat on his fluffy dark hair and squint into the rain toward the little coffee place he frequents. I’ve been so absorbed in the preliminary note taking mode that I haven’t been paying much attention to who this girl may be that Max is so infatuated with. As I lean forward in the rain to follow his gaze, a thought crosses my mind.
Is Venia the girl Max is in love with?
My gut turns in on itself. I'm surprised that I don't want it to be. My notes lead me from that coffee shop to that college where the first person I saw was the girl I’d recognize anywhere. But Venia? For this guy?
Max turns toward his apartment, and this time I don’t follow. I have to clear my head. If Venia is the girl Max is after it means I'm going to have to spend a lot of time around her. In the open, not the safety of that dark closet. If she can see me, like she did in the alley earlier, that’s going to make this very tricky. And not only see me, but look at me. The way she held my gaze and I didn’t immediately turn to stone, but instead slowly solidified like cement was being pumped through my veins... I assumed in the closet it was the darkness that slowed the process. I assumed it was because she couldn’t see me clearly and not that she had sight, like a Watcher.
If she were a Watcher, I’d know about her. The Moirai would have told me about her.
I roll my shoulders and crack my neck to get rid of more of the discomfort, but really, I need to shoot something. Or someone. That will take some of this tension away. Right now Max is not an option. I need a side project.
I step out from under the store awning and back into the pouring rain. Across the busy lanes of traffic, I spot a good target leaning against the boardwalk railing. I slide my hand under my hoodie in the back, gripping the handle of my folded up crossbow with rain soaked fingers. I pull the weapon out fast and use gravity to snap the two curved metal pieces out.
A gasp sounds beside me as a lady hears my bow but can’t see it. I shake my head at her as she glances over her shoulder again. Mortals always think they’re crazy when they hear me, but if they could see my world they’d know they were crazy—Gods, goddesses, demons, and unspeakable creatures even I’m afraid of. They all roam the world around mortals and mortals have no idea.
According to mortals, us gods are myth, legend, religion, horror, or some combination of those things. We take every precaution to stay hidden but sometimes we slip, usually into the arms of someone attractive, and the legends build. Each culture twists and distorts our stories to suit their needs or experiences. My mother was best known at the height of the Grecian period, perpetuating her legend as Aphrodite, while I was discovered in the Roman period as a child, giving me the much hated title of Cupid. They’re names for beings that mortals will never understand.
Moving forward to get a better look at my target, I pull a small hand crafted arrow engraved with the symbol of Fate from the quiver that always hangs from my belt. I lock it into position.
I stop on the sidewalk close to a light post and lean against it to steady my shot.
Across the street is a tall slender blonde, with a raincoat cinched tight around her waist, twirling her umbrella trying to look entertained as the man in the fancy suit waives his hands emphatically. It’s a classic case of modern love. She’s interested in his money. He’s interested in her body. In all the years I’ve been alive that is the one thing that never changes. Whether they desire wealth, power, beauty, or sex. Always wanting. Always reaching.
"You're welcome, lady,” I mutter and pull the trigger. The arrow flies between the speeding cars, dodging raindrops, and slams into the man’s chest, exploding on contact as the spell, my spell, consumes him. He stumbles slightly, and the woman grips his hand to steady him.
Shot fired, first physical contact, true love. That's the way it works.
Complete merda if you ask me, but no one did ask me.
I slide my bow back into its’ clip on my belt, really not feeling any better about Venia and why Fate is playing with me on my last assignment.
Don’t think because it’s your last, it will be your easiest.
Almost immediately, I feel the familiar presence of another person, but not mortal. Someone like me. The corner of my mouth twitches and I shake my head. That was fast.
“When, dear Cassius, are you going to stop interrupting my life? Here I was on this Thai beach with these four amazing bronzed goddesses. Well, not really goddesses, as you know, but I was going to make them into goddesses for the night, let me tell you. And poof. Cassius is a podex. Go collect him.” The voice is so familiar it forces my smile wider as I turn to the only being I might actually be able to call a friend. Mercuro, the messenger god.
“When are you going to stop jumping every time the Moirai ring your bell, Curo? That’s a better question.” I turn to him, leaning against the lamppost and crossing my arms. “And second, did you call me an asshole? You know I’m stronger than you, even as a Demi...”
His scrunched face is pulled into a sour expression, but at my words his mouth stretches into a wide smile.
“Yeah, that’s rich coming from you, Cy. I’m a messenger god, buddy. This is my job. You were enslaved. Deal with it. Tough guy or not, the Fates want me to hand them your ass for this stunt. Which makes you an asshole.” Curo throws a thumb over his shoulder to the blonde and the rich guy who are now groping each other on the boardwalk.
I sigh. “That was quick, even for them.”
“They’re the Moirai, you idiot. They know the fate of the whole universe. Now, let’s go so I can get out of this rain and back to Thailand.”
He pushes off the car and grabs hold of my elbow. Mercuro is the fastest route between our world and this one. While I need a portal to travel between Olympus and earth, he basically can snap his fingers and be wherever he wants. That’s his ‘thing’, like me and my arrows. I hate travelling with him so I try to pull away.
“I have to check on my assignment,” I say defiantly, and Curo shakes his head.
“They told me you’d say that.” He squeezes my arm harder and the whole world feels like it falls out from under me.
My stomach lurches as I’m sucked i
nto the folds of space and spit out in the meadow in front of the Moirai’s home. I expect Curo to disappear as fast as he showed up but he doesn’t. He looks at me with this half concerned expression that doesn’t fit on his never serious face.
“Listen, dude. This is your last assignment, right?” he asks and I nod. “Then your mother will lift whatever curse she has on you and everything will go back to the way it was, right?”
I nod again, even though I shouldn’t be looking forward to that. I’ve been this way for five hundred years, two hundred of them isolating myself. This empty, cracked feeling is all I know.
Curo must sense my hesitation because he sighs and slaps my back.
“Don’t think about Lena right now, Cy. You’re on your last assignment before this is all over. Just...stay focused, okay?”
I open my mouth to give him hell about suddenly being responsible, but he’s gone. I wanted to say that I wasn’t thinking about Lena, but a girl I called Venia that reminded me of Lena and like so many other battered women I’ve found over the years. My focus has already shifted. As Nona’s riddle said, I’ve already looked over my shoulder. My past has already begun to mix with my present.
< - - - >
Nona presses her fingers to the edges of her nose and rubs outward with her long delicate digits, covering the smooth pale skin where her eyes should be. She taps her other hand on the polished wood of her spinning wheel and pushes herself to a standing position. I watch her from my seat at the long busted up wooden table I was at not long ago. The surface is covered in fabric, thread, papers, scrolls and other objects the Moirai use for their jobs. Nona shakes her head again. She's angry with me, but that's not unlike her. She’s the most maternal-like figure in my life, but she’s also responsible for all destinies in both the mortal world and my own. So I’m only noticed when I screw up.
Silently and blindly, Nona moves along the perimeter of the old log spinning room, running her hand along the wall to the huge woven baskets overflowing with the wool-like material that becomes people's lives. I’m about to speak when she holds out her hand to stop me.
