Nyx the Mysterious

by Joan Holub

  Aphrodite held both lip glosses up to Nyx’s face. “Ruby Wine,” she said decisively. And that was that. Because Aphrodite was MOA’s reigning (though unofficial) queen of fashion!

  A matching dark red polish was found for Nyx’s nails. Two volunteers quickly removed the old black polish and repainted her nails with the new polish.

  In the end, the girls all stood back, looking delighted with the result of the makeover. “She looks . . . normal now,” Nyx heard one girl whisper to another.

  Normalcy. Yes! That was exactly what Nyx was hoping to experience. Briefly, anyway. However, when she looked at herself in one of the bronze mirrors, she couldn’t help gulping. Oh, she looked beautiful, she supposed, in an MOA kind of way. But she didn’t look like herself. The girl in the mirror was someone she didn’t know!

  She wondered what everyone back home—especially the real Thanatos and Hypnos—would say about her makeover. Her old look was quite fashionable by Underworld standards. This new look would be weird there! That thought made her smile. Well, when at MOA, do as the MOAers do, she thought.

  “Thanks,” she told Aphrodite politely.

  “You’re welcome,” Aphrodite replied, obviously proud of her work. With her hands on her hips, she eyed the black chiton Nyx was wearing. “Now that we’ve redone your makeup, that black outfit has got to go,” she said gently but firmly. “As soon as school is out we’ll find you something else to wear.” She looked around at the other girls. “My wardrobe is mostly pink—not a good color for Nyx. Maybe some of you could let her try on outfits from your closets to find some things she could borrow this week?”

  Shouts of “I’ll do it!” and “Sure!” went up right away. For the moment these girls seemed to have forgotten to be wary of her.

  Nyx smiled around at the volunteers. She appreciated their eagerness to help, though she still wasn’t sure what was wrong with black. No matter. She was now determined to change her style this week, just to experience life as a normal MOA goddessgirl.

  Aphrodite and Artemis were in the same classes together for both fourth and fifth periods. So when Beauty-ology let out, Nyx accompanied them down the hall to their fifth-period class, Revenge-ology. A lot of heads turned her way as they walked, only now the stares seemed much friendlier than the ones she’d received when she’d arrived yesterday and again this morning. Yes!

  By the time the three girls joined other students in the fourth floor dorm after school, Nyx was feeling more comfortable with her new look. She was even looking forward to trying on new (non-black) outfits.

  “We can use my room as a dressing room,” Aphrodite told everyone. Nodding, the girls scattered to their rooms to riffle through their closets for outfits Nyx could try on.

  “While everyone’s getting clothes, I’ll go make sure my parakeets have seed and water,” Nyx remarked. This wasn’t exactly necessary, since she’d fed her birds a few hours ago. Still, she was a teeny bit concerned about Hypnos and Thanatos being alone with Artemis’s dogs.

  “If my dogs try to jump on you, just tell them to get down,” Artemis called after her. “I’ll stay here and help Aphrodite get stuff ready. We’ll need snacks!”

  “Okay. Back in a jiff,” Nyx replied. Since Artemis’s room was right next door, Nyx was there almost instantly. The dogs did indeed jump up on her first thing, their tails wagging back and forth. “Get down,” she told them firmly, and after a few seconds they obeyed and went to lie on the floor.

  Standing on tiptoe, Nyx lifted the birdcage down from the shelf above Artemis’s spare desk. She cooed to her birds, “Did you miss me?”

  But then her eyes went wide in alarm. Because although the cage door was closed tight, there was only one bird inside the cage—Hypnos. Her gaze flashed wildly around the room. “Thanatos! Where are you?”

  And then her eyes fell on a yellow feather on the floor under the desk. Instantly, she leaped to the conclusion that Thanatos had somehow gotten out of the cage. And worse, that he’d been eaten by one of Artemis’s dogs! Her hand flew to her mouth. “Nooooo!” she screamed.

  8

  Gone

  FOOTSTEPS CAME RUNNING. FOUR GODDESSGIRLS burst through the door and peered around Artemis’s room, but Nyx’s anxious shadowy mist hung in the air, making it difficult to see clearly.

  “What’s going on?” Aphrodite called out.

  “Thanatos—one of my birds is gone!” wailed Nyx. She carefully set the cage back onto its high shelf. She didn’t want to drop it and hurt Hypnos!

  Excited by all the sudden activity, Artemis’s dogs leaped around. “Lie down! Stay!” Artemis ordered. As Persephone helped her round them up, Athena and Aphrodite rushed to Nyx’s side.

  “Tell us what happened,” coaxed Athena.

  Nyx managed to calm herself enough to speak, which caused her shadowy mist to slowly disappear. Still, tears were running down her cheeks as she pointed up at the birdcage. “Thanatos got out somehow and I . . . I think one of Artemis’s dogs ate him!” She scooped up the yellow feather from the floor and held it out for the others to see.

  As if aware of being in trouble, Artemis’s dogs stopped wagging their tails. They lowered their heads to their paws and whimpered.

  A horrified look came over Artemis’s face. “What? No!” she exclaimed. She grabbed Suez’s big head and pried open his jaws. Then she peered inside as if checking for evidence—like a yellow feather caught in his teeth or something.

  Meanwhile Athena carefully lifted down the birdcage. After setting it on top of the desk, she began checking the bars of the cage. “Look,” she said, pushing on one of the bars. “It’s not attached to the bottom of the cage. I bet it jiggled loose somehow. Maybe on your trip here.”

  “That must be how Thanatos got out,” said Aphrodite.

  “Nope, no feathers,” said Artemis after checking Amby’s and Nectar’s mouths too.

  “The window is open,” Persephone pointed out. She looked at Nyx. “So maybe Artemis’s dogs didn’t eat your bird. Maybe it flew away.”

  All five girls crowded around the window to look outside. But there was no sign of the green-and-yellow parakeet. Or of any additional feathers on the ground below the window, either. Not that that necessarily proved anything, of course.

  “If he did fly outside, would he come back if you called him?” asked Aphrodite.

  “Possibly, if I whistle and he’s close enough to hear,” Nyx said, brightening a little. Leaning her head out the window, she whistled and whistled, making sounds that resembled parakeet chirps. But Thanatos didn’t appear.

  Aphrodite sighed. “Adonis is not great at coming when he’s called, either.”

  The mention of Adonis only caused another dark mist to briefly swirl around Nyx. What if Thanatos had flown outside to escape being eaten by Artemis’s dogs and had somehow met his doom with the cat, instead?

  Seeing the mist and guessing what she was thinking, Persephone said quickly, “Adonis has been in Aphrodite’s room all day. And her window is closed, so Thanatos couldn’t have flown in there.”

  “Even if Thanatos didn’t get eaten, he’s still lost . . . or something,” Nyx said gloomily as she continued to stare out the window.

  Persephone slid an arm around Nyx’s shoulders. “Maybe he’ll find his way back soon. Stay hopeful.”

  Nyx nodded. But it was hard to dislodge the feeling of doom that had settled at the bottom of her stomach.

  “We could try to look for him,” Athena suggested. “Although it might be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “No telling how long he’s been gone,” Artemis added. “He could have already escaped before I brought my dogs upstairs at the start of fourth period. I didn’t check the cage, so if he wasn’t in there I wouldn’t have known.”

  Nyx’s face crumpled and a few tears streamed down her face. She wiped them away, probably smearing Aphrodite’s makeup job in the process, she thought. “I hope he’ll be okay. I hope he finds food and water.”

&
nbsp; “How about if I ask Hephaestus to fix the bar on your birdcage to keep your other bird from escaping?” Aphrodite offered. “He’s the godboy of metalworking.”

  Someone handed Nyx some tissues and she managed to dry her tears. “Okay, thanks,” she said dully.

  The girls sprang into action, eager to help. Athena made sure the window was firmly closed, but stood by it, keeping an eye out for Thanatos’s possible return. Artemis rounded up her dogs. “C’mon, boys. Walkies. Let’s get out of everyone’s way.” Then to the girls, she added, “I’ll be on the lookout for the bird. And I’ll tell Pheme about Thanatos and have her spread the word for everyone else to do the same.”

  After she and the dogs left, Nyx opened the cage and coaxed Hypnos onto her finger. Then she carefully transferred him to the top of the desk. Since Artemis had apparently already emptied her trash basket, Persephone turned the woven basket upside down and helped Nyx lower it over the parakeet to create a makeshift cage for the bird beneath the basket on the desktop. Afterward, Aphrodite took the metal cage with the loose bar and went to find Hephaestus.

  With Persephone’s help, Nyx began looking around the room for small containers in which to place seed and water for the bird.

  “This probably isn’t the best time to ask this,” Athena said from her guard post at the window, “but I talked to Hera before breakfast this morning about babysitting Hebe tonight. She asked me to ask you if she could borrow your birds.” Athena hesitated before adding, “I guess you talked to Dad about it yesterday? Something about their singing possibly helping Hebe sleep better?”

  “Yeah. Only that was before Thanatos went missing! Now I’m not . . .” Nyx’s voice trailed off. Though reluctant to let Hera borrow her only remaining parakeet, she genuinely wanted to be of help. Making up her mind, she said, “If the cage gets fixed so it’s definitely secure, then you can take Hypnos with you when you go to babysit.”

  “Really? Are you sure?” Athena asked. “With Thanatos gone, Hera and Dad will understand if you’ve changed your mind.”

  “Of course they will,” Persephone said sympathetically. Having found and filled containers with seed and water, she and Nyx were working to slip them under the basket without letting Hypnos escape.

  Nyx thought about what Athena had said. “Do Zeus and Hera have a cat or a dog? Or anything that could endanger a bird?”

  “No,” Athena assured her. “Just Hebe. And a baby’s no danger to anyone, that is, unless they’re trying to sleep.”

  Despite her sadness over Thanatos, Nyx managed a small smile. “Then Hypnos will probably be just as safe at Zeus and Hera’s place as here. One thing though. He won’t sing if it’s dark,” she told Athena. “So Hera will need to leave a light in the room with his cage.”

  “Not a problem,” Athena reminded her. “My dad sleeps with a night-light, remember? He’s got a lamp decorated with little winged horses.” Suddenly Athena yawned big.

  Leaving Hypnos for the moment, Nyx went and sat on the spare bed. She hugged a pillow covered with a dog-bone-patterned pillowcase to her chest. It gave her some small comfort.

  “What is it with everyone yawning around here today?” asked Persephone, plopping down on Artemis’s bed.

  “Sorry,” said Athena. “Hardly got any sleep. I had the worst nightmare about a test in Hero-ology class. I’d forgotten all about having to take it and was totally unprepared. In fact, I hadn’t even been going to class because I thought it was summer vacation!”

  “Just the kind of nightmare the brainiest goddessgirl at MOA would have,” Persephone said affectionately. “I slept fine.”

  “Hmm,” mused Athena. “But you were at home, not here.” Abruptly, she straightened and turned from the window, looking like she was thinking hard. “Aphrodite had nightmares too. Remember how she said she only got half her usual beauty sleep last night?”

  Nyx and Persephone both nodded.

  Athena went on. “In Hero-ology this morning she told me she’d dreamed she was allergic to makeup. The dream woke her up and she ran to check a mirror to see if she really did have swollen lips and a rash all over her face. She didn’t, of course, but then she bumped into something and stubbed her toe.”

  Persephone grimaced. “Ouch.”

  “I hope everyone’s trouble sleeping doesn’t have anything to do with me being here,” Nyx said in alarm. She let go of the pillow and got up from the bed. Then she began to pace back and forth on the rug between the two beds. “I’m in charge of night, not dreams. That’s the Oneiroi’s job. Still, it’s possible my powers are having some weird magnifying effect on the dreams around here.” She winced at the word “weird.”

  “Hades told me about the Oneiroi,” said Persephone. “Three brothers who live in the Underworld, right?”

  Nyx stopped pacing to face the two goddessgirls. “Mm-hm. In Tartarus, near me actually. Morpheus is the most powerful of them, so he oversees the dreams of heroes and kings. He’s especially good at creating mega-realistic images of humans.” She paused, trying to catch hold of a thought floating at the far edge of her consciousness. But she couldn’t quite bring the thought forward.

  Athena’s intelligent gray-blue eyes regarded her keenly. “What about his brothers? What kind of dreams do they create?”

  Nyx wondered if their questions were just intended to help her get her mind off Thanatos. Talking about something else was helping. A little bit, anyway. “Let’s see, Phobetor is in charge of nightmares. He can conjure images of huge, scary animals.”

  “Like the giant scorpion that chased Apollo?” Athena asked.

  “Pretty much,” said Nyx. “And the third brother, Phantasus, specializes in illusions.”

  Persephone cocked her head. “Like Aphrodite dreaming she had a makeup allergy?”

  “Sure, sounds right,” said Nyx. “The images the brothers conjure up are somewhat muted—dreamlike, I guess you’d say. That’s because dreams have to pass through the Underworld before reaching anyone on Earth or Mount Olympus.”

  Athena raised an eyebrow. “So that’s why most dreams don’t wake you up and you don’t even remember them in the morning, I suppose.”

  “Yeah,” said Nyx. She frowned as that thought in her consciousness bobbed closer to the surface of her mind. Before she could reel it in, Aphrodite was back.

  “Good as new,” she announced, handing the repaired cage to Nyx. “Hephaestus soldered the broken bar back in place. He also checked all the other bars to make sure they were firmly attached.”

  “That was nice of him,” said Nyx. She’d tell him so if she got a chance to meet him.

  Quickly, the girls transferred Hypnos from the trash basket to the cage. “I don’t suppose you’d still like to try on some chitons?” Aphrodite said. “There are at least a half dozen in my room that various girls brought over.”

  Nyx shook her head. “I need to get more rest before I head out for the night.” She didn’t really think she’d be able to sleep. She just needed to be alone with her sorrow over Thanatos for a while. From the look the other three goddessgirls traded, she figured they’d guessed what she’d left unsaid.

  “We understand,” Aphrodite said gently. “Maybe another time.”

  “When are you supposed to babysit tonight?” Nyx asked Athena as the girls went to the door.

  “At seven,” Athena replied. “Want me to come by and get Hypnos after dinner?”

  Nyx nodded and the three MOA girls departed, closing the door softly behind them.

  Just in case Thanatos was still alive and able to find his way back to her, Nyx reopened the window. Speaking to Hypnos through the bars of his cage, she said, “I bet you miss your buddy. Is that why you’ve been so quiet?” Hypnos had hardly made a peep since Thanatos’s disappearance. Maybe he was comforted by Nyx’s voice because now he began to sing. Nyx lay down to rest, and, despite thinking she wouldn’t be able to, she soon fell asleep.

  She awoke sometime later to a rattling noise. Her eyes flew open a
nd she leaped from her bed. “Thanatos?” she called out. She imagined he’d flown in through the open window and was rattling the bars of his cage, trying to get back inside. But it was Hypnos who was rattling the bars. He was testing each of them with his beak. Probably wanting to get out and find his dear friend, Nyx thought.

  “I miss him too,” she told Hypnos. New tears began to slip down her cheeks.

  With a sigh she brushed them away, and then turned toward the window. She could see from the sundial below that it was nearly time for her to go to work. She’d slept longer than she’d meant to, so there’d be no time to grab dinner in the cafeteria.

  But as she went to ready herself, she noticed that a covered dinner tray had been left on Artemis’s bed. There was a note on top of it:

  Dear Nyx,

  Didn’t want to wake you, but here’s dinner in case you don’t have time to stop by the cafeteria before you leave. I’m really sorry about Thanatos and for any part my dogs might have played in his disappearance. Dogs are staying with Apollo for the rest of the week.

  Later,

  Artemis

  Nyx’s eyes lingered over the words “any part my dogs might have played.” Did that mean Artemis wasn’t completely sure that one of her dogs hadn’t actually eaten Thanatos? They might never know. Anyway, the tray of food was thoughtful.

  After eating, Nyx slipped her magical starry cape into the pocket of her chiton. Then she grabbed her hairbrush. When she looked in the mirror hanging on the closet door, she was startled anew by Aphrodite’s makeover handiwork, the mascara smudged by her recent tears.

  She shook her head at her reflection. “Time to be me again,” she told it as she finished brushing her hair. Before leaving, she set her mostly finished dinner tray on Artemis’s desk. She couldn’t help casting a hopeful glance toward the open window. Unfortunately, Thanatos wasn’t hovering outside it.

  “Bye, Hypnos.” After blowing him a kiss, she covered the cage. Then she headed for the bathroom to wash off her makeup and reapply it in her usual goth style before racing downstairs and outside.