A hollowness consumed her, burrowed deep into her core. She recognised the sensation as loneliness but not the intensity.
Never in her entire remembered experience had she ever felt this way, as though she had absolutely no one, not even herself because even her own identity had been stripped away, the very physical part of that girl she once was, left electrified in bath water.
But, there was no turning back now. She had done what she thought was right. Now, she had to face the consequences.
Zoe breathed in deeply and took her first step upwards, bare feet against polished rock. The ascension dragged, the stairs seemingly never-ending but, at last, she made it to the top where she was met by a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of the entire city.
Under a lilac sky was a valley of white stucco houses nestled closely together, and sitting majestically above it all was the stone palace she had seen from the shore below. Enormous pale blocks masoned together until it built a soaring structure of such immensity, it stole Zoe’s breath. From here, its grandeur was palpable her hairline prickled.
“This is beautiful.” But none of it familiar.
She strode across a long bridge elevated between two monoliths on either end.
Below was a half-kilometre drop to the ocean as it washed through the rugged channels carved out over millennia.
Across the bridge was the main entrance, marked by two enormous timber doors, bolted with metal hinges. The doors were cumbersome and creaked like tired knees as she pushed them open.
Inside the palace held medieval charm: cobbled stone floors, walls lit with candle lamps. Her bare footsteps echoed through the hollow hall. Her looming shadow arched along the wall, always one creeping step ahead.
Nearing the end, Zoe stopped and shook her head. She was tense all over.
I don’t think I can do this.
There was a reason she took human form. To forget. The pain was sitting on the outskirts of her consciousness. The pain was immense, like a tsunami in wait, ready to knock her down until she was a tiny tumbling weed thrashing around, seeking quieter waters.
But she had come too far to turn back now if turning back was possible. She had to keep moving forward. At stake were greater scenarios than the promise of mental anguish.
At the end of the hall, she came to an open circular room with windows offering views to the ocean at the back, and the city to the front. The floors were cobbled stone, smooth and polished from millennia of use.
A row of three people, two girls and one boy about the same age as Zoe, sat before the windows in big stone thrones. She gasped when she saw them, both surprised by their silent intrusion and their godly appearance.
A girl with white bob-cut hair, wearing a black leather cat suit, stood and came to them. “Zoe, welcome home.” She was at least two metres tall, athletically built. Her eyes were blue like pale ancient ice. Voice like a song. An indescribable luminescence radiated around her and within her.
Zoe opened her mouth, unsure what to say. Though this place felt viscerally like home, she didn’t remember it. “Thank you,” she finally managed.
How surreal it was to be standing here yet not surreal at all. Though consciously, she couldn’t recall anything, she had a knowingness that in another time, she knew everything. And more.
“Agnes, prepare the tools,” the girl said, turning to face a young woman with long black hair and eyes as dark as ebony.
Agnes went to a cupboard built into the stone wall and pulled out a small white box—incongruous to the ancient surroundings—and stood in front of Zoe. “Now, this may hurt a little.”
Zoe squeezed her hands into a fist; her muscles along her spine tensed.
From the box, Agnes retrieved a shiny metal tube with a spout on one end and a long thick needle on the other. Zoe’s breaths came faster. Her heart was racing.
Where the hell is this thing going?
Agnes stuck her finger in a small pot of ointment and rubbed it on Zoe’s forehead directly between her eyes. It was cold and tingled like blood was returning to an area that had long been denied. “What? Where’s that—”
But before she could finish her sentence, Agnes stabbed the needle between Zoe’s eyes, forcing it deep into the bone.
Zoe wheezed out a long, forced breath as a blast of pain pierced her head.
“Hold still, Zoe, we need to remove the liquid.”
Zoe groaned as the sensation of her brain being pulled out of her skull and into the eye of that needle rushed her. A single drop squeezed from her head, down the metal tube, and fell from the spout into a small container Agnes was holding.
Agnes secured the lid then slid the needle out.
Zoe was panting, jaw clenching to stop the scream lodged in her throat.
But soon bright washes of colour sped into her mind’s vision like a fast moving movie reel, replete with sounds and smells and touch.
Her body shook and jerked for a few moments as the reel embedded itself.
A violent burst of sensation and sound, then the room in which she stood, this world in which she was, these people who she was with, blended with her memories, and sense and understanding rained down on her.
Zoe expelled all her breath and fell to her knees onto the floor. The restoration of memory all at once was both powerful and frightening.
Her entire world expanded, time shifted and grew in both directions, emotions welled and subsided, faces and names formed on her tongue, lineages unravelled, events played out.
Then that one emotion she had been dreading slammed into her—a grief so deep she was drowning in its depths. She was in that abyss, unsure if she could swim. She groaned with the pain of it. Her head ached as the memory moved in.
Saddened faces had stood before her in this very room. The same faces that watched her now. Friends. Equals. Gods. It was seventeen years ago, though it felt like this minute it was happening to her.
“Sit down, Zoe,” Agnes said, her voice grave. “We have some bad news.”
Zoe’s body squeezed in that moment like she was set to implode. Intuition was whispering in her ear that what she was about to hear would rip her world apart.
“You are well aware, as the humans on Earth forget about us, we lose more and more of our immortality. We become more and more … mortal.”
Zoe nodded quickly, silently urging Agnes to get to the point. So many people she had loved, she still felt the pain of their death in her heart. Death was something new in this realm of gods and goddesses, but she wasn’t oblivious to it.
Her heart sped up, driven by a new understanding: what they were about to tell her involved death.
“Who?” she whispered, barely able to get the words out.
Agnes frowned, her eyes were glossing with tears. “Oh, Zoe, I’m so sorry—”
“Who?” she barked.
“Theron. Theron has died.”
Zoe shook her head hard. “No. He can’t be. I just saw him … We were speaking … “
Dionne came to Zoe, resting a hand on her shoulder. “I saw it with my own eyes. He was face down, floating in the river. I tried to get to him, but it was too late. Something, a creature, in the river, took him under. Marcus and I, we tried to find him, but we couldn’t. We waited and waited and waited for him to resurface, but he never did.”
Tears filled Zoe’s eyes. “No.”
Darian put his arm around her shoulders. “I’m so very sorry. We loved Theron with all our hearts …” he broke off as a sob choked his words.
The pain of Theron’s loss hacked at her chest and heart until she couldn’t bear it any longer. She wanted to forget. She didn’t want to feel anymore.
Days later, during the black of night, under the watching gaze of stars, she ran down to the shores of the River Lethe. She crouched beside the silvery waters and drew a cup from her pocket. She scooped at the water filling her cup more than a measure and drank deeply.
She willingly took reincarnation, so she didn’t have to liv
e in a world that reminded her of what she had lost.
Tears streamed down Zoe’s cheeks. She set herself on hands and knees and sobbed onto the floor as all the anguish unleashed itself upon her in a great rush.
Theron. That was the name of her lover in this kingdom. The kingdom of gods. She squeezed the memories in the pouch around her neck. And Theron was the name of her lover on Earth.
She jolted as Theron’s eyes presented in her brain. They weren’t ordinary eyes. These eyes were what her dreams were made of.
Theron on Earth and Theron here in Olympus were the same.
Theron, Descending from Hades, King of the Underworld.
But how? It didn’t make sense.
For a god to die, meant permanency. Meant complete obliteration from all dimensions. Nothingness, like that space between ending her human life and opening her eyes on the shores of the River Styx.
Yet, she had seen and loved and touched Theron on Earth and brought him back here when his human life had ended.
Finally, when Zoe was able to stand, she peered around at the now-familiar room, at all the faces of friends she knew so well. She nodded at them all, one by one—Agnes, Dionne, and Darian. Like these gods before her, she too belonged to this pantheon and ruled over Olympus and Earth. And so did Theron.
With her memories now intact, she knew that the last words spoken by these gods were untrue. She didn’t know if it were the truth as they saw it or if they had purposefully deceived her.
And if they had, who exactly? All of them? One of them?
“Where is he?” she asked, her voice booming around her.
Agnes came forward, a sympathetic smile. “We understand you have questions. We have plenty ourselves.”
Intuition whispered to her to tread carefully, to guard her words, but her soul ached to see him, to know that he was okay. To lose him twice and have those very emotions impinge upon her within a flash of a moment had left her raw, needy.
All she longed for was to see him again. All she desired was to know he was alive, safe.
“Is he here?”
When humans were brought here after death, they were assessed, their lives weighed, then promptly reincarnated or sent to live out eternity in Elysium.
But Theron was a god. He stood at the berth of the Underworld to receive the dead, not be given the same fate as them.
“Is he here?” she asked with a louder voice, a strong punch of impatience. He had to be here. Zoe could handle no other alternative.
“Tell me now!” she roared.
Chapter 43
Agnes pointed to behind Zoe’s head. “There’s your answer.”
Zoe spun.
Footsteps clacked fast, loud.
Residual confusion was warping her mind, where she was unable to separate her human memories from her god memories nor from her present accumulation of moments. It took her a moment to understand, to see reality for what it was.
But then his eyes met hers, such urgency, relief, and passion consumed them as he sprinted down the hall toward her. All the air left her lungs to see him again. He was here.
“Theron,” she whispered as he drew her up into his arms and spun her around.
“Zoe,” he growled in her ear, the deep timbre communicating everything—all his longing, his love.
He had to be much taller than two metres, and the muscles under his black clothes were rippling. She pressed her hands to his cheeks and peered at him for a long moment, trying to reconcile his current appearance with who he once was on Earth.
He smiled and kissed her mouth. “I missed you so damn much. You’ve been away for so long.”
Her lips pressed to his again with such urgency, to prove that he really was here. She slid her tongue against the warmth of his. He tasted so good. And with that kiss, and with his taste, everything, their entire history, blasted through her brain like fireworks. She pulled away and pressed her hands to her head. Each new memory felt like her skull was splitting in two.
As a child, Theron was always a mystery to Zoe. He was dark and brooding and kept to the Underworld with his parents while she lived on Mount Olympus. On the surface, they were like summer and winter and by the time many seasons passed and she reached adolescence, his inexplicableness stirred a desire within her so strong, and yet so new, it felt forbidden.
Then as she trained as a shepherdess, her father leading her through the realms to collect the dead to usher them to The Underworld, she crossed paths with Theron more and more. It was obvious the way she pulsed and ached when close to him that he meant something.
She knew, even at that age, that you didn’t feel arcs of currents and pangs of need for another unless that person was somehow a part of you, whether that be now or in the future.
But like his father, and his father’s father and his original ancestor, a wall of secrecy and impenetrability had been built up around Theron. It was the way of the Underworld inhabitants.
The war came and went, people around them died, grief rushed through the realm in great torrents. A grief that felt much more destructive and more painful than the war itself.
But in their efforts to restore Olympus as a place of peace and beauty, the remaining young gods were forced to work alongside each other and made to co-operate, but it took long years for Theron’s shell to soften enough to allow anyone else in, including Zoe.
By then Marcus had swept in and charmed her into lust. And for a brief while, he was all Zoe could see. But she never gave her body to him. Perhaps that was intuition; she was meant for another.
It didn’t take long for her to see Marcus for who he truly was, though. The whirlwind that was their romance eased, then died off altogether, leaving a foetid, sordid mess behind.
Her heart was set free, though somewhat splintered and a little scared. You didn’t hand your most precious organ over to someone like Marcus and not incur damage.
But her heart did sing again for Theron. And when that singing grew louder, Zoe heard that her heart had never truly sung for anyone else. Her heart had always wanted Theron.
And finally, Theron broke the last thread of resistance. Lust and craving pulsed from his gaze and through his words, finding a place within her, fuelling her own desires.
Under the dark, starry sky, he kissed her for the first time. With the warmth of his lips against hers and the soft probing heat of his tongue, she was lost. Forever. Theron, this god, tall and solid and as warm as the sun, was made for her. Only for her.
And when his hands slid around her back, such power and virility, and he pulled her close to his body, their hearts beating hard and fast now that they were close together as they were always meant to be, Zoe knew that she was made for him too. Only for him.
Slightly breathless from the physical pain each new memory put her through, she took a moment to collect herself before peering into Theron’s eyes. “How are you here?”
A smile touched his lips. “I’ll explain what I can soon enough.”
Slowly, she slid back down his body, feet touching the floor below. But she didn’t want to let go of him, never again. Sensing her turmoil, he gripped her hand and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
She stared up at him, ran a hand down his cheek.
His gaze met hers, hard and full of promise. “I love you, Zoe, Goddess of Transitions and Shepherd of Souls.”
To hear those words spoken from his lips, set everything right. All that confusion and worry as a human vanished—seemed ridiculous now. As she peered into his deep green eyes, she understood where the proverb eyes were mirrors to the soul came from.
His eyes were the only physical part of him that stayed unchanged between worlds. But how he was before her now, his menacing body, his dark hair, the fierceness of him, was the true Theron. This was how she remembered him, this was who he was when she first fell in love with him all those years ago.
Zoe understood who she was too. No longer was she a fractured per
sonality, but a whole being with her memories restored. All that time on Earth, wanting to fit in and be something she wasn’t, was a worthless path.
This was her home. Here she was a goddess, sure of her power and place in the worlds.
Physically, Zoe wasn’t without her changes, too. As she stared into Theron’s eyes, she expanded. She didn’t have to look at herself in a mirror to know how she would appear. Her memories were vivid enough to recall the form she took as a goddess—taller than her body on Earth, more athletically built and with long black hair.
Instead of brown, her eyes were a pale lilac. No wonder she found comfort in Asher’s purple contacts; she had reminded Zoe of her authentic self.
But beyond all that, her restoration as a goddess in her rightful home, relief was exploding through her to know that Theron was alive.
She wanted to speak great floods of words, to ask why and how, but this wasn’t the place, so instead she hugged him tightly until she could no longer doubt that he was real, alive, and here in her arms.
He kissed her head and whispered in her ear, “You are mine, Goddess of my Heart and Soul.”
“Reacquaint yourself with Olympus and each other,” the white haired girl said, who Zoe now knew was called Dionne, descending from Zeus, King of Gods and God of Thunder. Zoe’s cousin. “Show the people you are home. Then, tomorrow, we need to discuss important matters.”
Zoe released herself from Theron’s arms and turned in a controlled manner to look at Dionne. She was tall and svelte. But it was the icy eyes that slithered through her memories like a serpent, connecting one moment of her past with the other until an Ouroboros of understanding dawned. The throbbing in her brain presented first, and she knew another memory was being drawn forth from its murky hideout.
Zoe tiptoed along the stone hallway to Dionne’s bedroom, led by the sound of rushed heavy breaths. She peered inside, unseen in the darkness through the slender crack of the door.
Moments slid by before she could rationalise the scene before her.
History was a thing of books, of stories, a way of seeing life through the presence of memories. Through these lenses, a distance could be created until the history was seen as a thing of illusion and fiction.
After Life Page 25
