Making Midlife Mistakes: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Forty Is Fabulous Book 3)

by Heloise Hull

  Dido drifted closer. Her voice was soft, just for me. She smelled of crushed herbs and spices but also something darker, like decay. “What is your true name?” she asked.

  “Ava Falcetti.” I didn’t hesitate. That was my true name. That was all I wanted. The me from last year, or even a few months ago, thought she was drowning, because she was. But I no longer chose safety over adventure. I no longer dreaded getting up or spent my day looking forward to going back to sleep, my only joy a glass of wine before bed. The new me wanted to hold onto my friends with both arms and never let go. I also enjoyed the whole damn bottle if I wanted. So I repeated myself more forcefully. “I was many other things, but I am Ava.”

  “We shall see,” Dido said simply.

  Gianna took one look at the queen’s face and raised an eyebrow. “It seems we have some traveling to do. Cat, fancy a trip to a hypnotic cave?”

  “I always enjoy learning something new about Nibiru. Who knows when we might have use of that river water?”

  “You want to come with me?” I asked.

  Gianna nodded. “By the tone in Dido’s voice, this will not be a pleasant stroll. You’re going to need help. I can feel your aura. You’re a decent person. That’s good enough for me.”

  “Is that a shade thing?” I asked. “Can you all see auras?”

  Cat snorted in a very un-Renaissance way. “No. That’s a Gianna thing. She’s right, though. You’ll need help. I pledge myself to your house until we win or fall on the battlefield of our enemies with a sword in our breast.”

  “But let’s hope it doesn't come to that,” Gianna said hastily. To me, she added, “They used to call her the Tiger of Forlì. She’s ferocious and I’m eternally thankful she’s my friend.”

  Tiberius yawned. “Are we done rallying the troops?”

  So, he was still miffed they didn’t think he was good enough to help me on his own. I petted his back fondly. “Yes, and I couldn’t do it without my faithful daemon.”

  He chuffed, his whiskers and war paint twitching. “Too true. Off to the cave we go. It’s time to remember how to forget.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The entrance to the cave was a work of wonder. The walls were rough hewn stone that looked like they had been carved by a giant’s hands, which was entirely possible. Green vines dangled over the entrance, and a small creek splashed over the moss-covered rocks. Adorable, but barely noticeable due to the blinding flashes of light colliding against an inky blackness. What the light gained with each advance, the dark swallowed. The two elements engaged in an eternal war.

  “This is where Night meets Day,” Queen Dido said. “Of course, the old gods, Nyx and Hemera, are gone. But we really didn’t need them, did we? Night and Day are natural phenomena that these gods tried to cut up and divide between themselves.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “To have something to do. And like every other empire who took and claimed, cut and divided, they fell.”

  “Nothing lasts forever. Not even death, it seems,” I said, peering into the cavern. Farther back, away from the entrance, it became much darker and more forbidding. “I guess Hypnos doesn’t live here anymore?”

  “He does not. His bed is just there, made of onyx.” Dido pointed. “Do not touch it.”

  “His bed?”

  “He was the god of sleep. The bed, as innocent as it seems, still holds much of its power. You will never see the light again.”

  “Oh.”

  “There are many things here that seem innocent. They are not.”

  “Like the flowers,” I said, jokingly.

  “Exactly. Do not smell any of them. In fact, you should tie something around your nose and mouth.”

  I found a small handkerchief in my pocket, handwoven by Nonna, and wrapped it securely around Tiberius’s muzzle before tying my own jacket around mine. I gave her a thumbs up.

  Dido checked the edges and tugged until she was satisfied. “Good. The flowers here are all soporific. They will cause drowsiness if inhaled for too long. See the little red poppies? On Earth, you would have to process it into opiates and inhale or ingest them. In Nibiru, their mere fragrance will knock out a mortal who ventured too far.”

  “Who’d be that foolish?”

  “You’d be surprised. Mortals have always tried to sneak down here, decidedly not dead. Usually to see a passed loved one, but sometimes to find illicit power or to complete a task set by the gods.”

  “What now?” Cat asked. She bounced on the balls of her feet, itching for action. She must have been some firecracker in life.

  Dido lifted her chin as she stared into the depths of the cave. “Now, we march.”

  The cave had a little trail worn by hundreds of thousands of years of god-feet. It was as smooth as glassy river stones and just as slippery. Tiberius tucked himself into my shirt pocket like usual, and the shades held onto each other’s hands in a single file row.

  It got progressively darker and then suddenly the light went out all together. The only thing lighting the path was the crown of gold on Dido’s head and the bands of gold woven in her Carthaginian purple robes. Her pearls glistened wetly in their brilliance like tiny white orbs.

  In a moment, everything went from manageable, me secretly wondering why everyone was so worried, to pandemonium. I woke up on the ground as Gianna and Cat tugged me to my feet. Dido slipped something pink and crystallized under my nose. Ghostly smelling salts?

  “What happened?”

  “You passed out,” Gianna said, matter of factly. “Sorry we didn’t catch you. One minute, you were hanging on behind me and the next...” Gianna made a straight arm motion down. “Out like an over-the-hill boxer.”

  I felt my head where a lump was growing. “Wait, where’s Tiberius?” I pressed my hand to my shirt and there was the second lump, snoring softly. Relief, warm and tingling, flooded my body. “Is it okay if he sleeps?”

  “Sleep, even eternal sleep, is not harmful to your health,” Dido said. “Let the rodent rest.”

  “Right. He wouldn’t like that if he were awake, but clearly he’s a little rusty. Okay, what’s the plan?” I asked through a yawn. Already, my eyelids felt like I was trying to lift a ton of bricks.

  “We’re going to help you hold onto yourself.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “By helping you remember your best memories.”

  “That’s all?” Piece of cake. “And if I fall asleep again you can just rub that stuff under my nose.”

  “It is not so simple,” Queen Dido said darkly.

  Cat agreed. “I dabbled in alchemy during my mortal life, but these remedies are not safe. The ingredients that I used in the mortal realm for my experiments are much more toxic here. And you wouldn’t believe the trouble it is to find doves’ droppings. I have to use a lot of substitutions.”

  I struggled to follow their conversation. Something about dropping birds? That couldn’t be right. Why weren’t they letting me take a nap again? Rude. So rude. Wait. “Sorry, what?” I asked, my mouth feeling weird to move.

  “Do you know who you are, Ava Falcetti?” Dido repeated. “Tell us.”

  “I’m recently divorced. Finding myself again,” I said dreamily. I searched for the name of my ex, but it was lost in the fog.

  “What was the best thing you ate on Aradia?” Gianna asked. “Can you remember the last bowl of pasta or glass of wine?”

  My chest tightened and I searched back. Every step forward was mired in sleep. I was dragging sandbags. I wondered if there were actual sandbags of sleepy sand here. Had Hypnos somehow tied them to my ankles? Were we sure he’d been caught? Had all of the gods been caught during the wars?

  “Pasta, Ava. Remember?” Gianna was saying. “You said carbs all day and I agree.”

  “I… there was semolina…. no. Something woody. The wine was… thick. You could chew it.”

  Faintly, I heard Dido snap something about not strong enough. “Search further back,” she urged. �
��Tell us about a lover.”

  “I don’t have a lover. I have Aurick. I hope he’s my lover eventually. Lover is a weird word, don’t you think? Lover. Lover. Lover.” Heat bloomed in the base of my stomach and coiled up my breast. For a moment, the cave sharpened back into focus. The ground was uneven and the women were holding onto me, tugging me up. I had been trying to curl up around a particularly uncomfortable looking rock.

  “Aurick?” Gianna prompted.

  I shook cobwebs from my mind and concrete from my eyes. I was still so very tired. “Aurick. He’s a mummy. But like, a cool mummy.” I giggled. Thick, white liquid dripped from the green bulbs. I giggled again. “Aurick. What a silly name.”

  “It means noble leader,” Dido said. “Very masculine. Tell us more.”

  “He’s tall,” I said, attempting to jump up and down. I slapped my cheeks a few times. They felt numb. I was chewing pins and needles.

  “Tall and what?”

  “Tall and handsome. Smart. Much smarter than me.”

  Cat waved her finger back and forth in front of my face as Gianna propelled me forward. “Now, now. In my experience, truly smart men only want their equals.”

  “He seems so laid back and peaceful, but when a monster threatens me, bam! Warrior-mode engaged.”

  “He sounds sexy.”

  I giggled again. “Keep your ghost hands to yourself, ladies. No haunting. Hey, aren’t poppies where heroin comes from? I think I read that once.”

  “And opium. Poppies and their inducements were a transformative process meant to connect MILFs to their gods. The ancients were always trying to have a divine experience. That’s why evidence of poppy cultivation and a brisk, international drug trade reaches back into the Fertile Crescent.”

  “Oh, a fair number of supernaturals indulged, too, I’d say.” Gianna waggled her eyebrows. I liked her more and more, except for the pinches she kept giving me to keep me lucid.

  When I blinked, the two of them were wrapped in mummy linens and staring at me with Mestjet’s eyes. Their vulture pectorals oozed black mist, just like before. I tried to call my mother magic and wrap vines around the two Mestjets, but I forgot it didn’t work as well here. Plants tugged at their roots around my feet, but they didn’t spread and grow.

  “They’re also hallucinogens,” Dido said mildly, putting me in a headlock. “We need something deeper. Come on, Ava. You’re almost there.”

  “She tried to kill me. I won’t hurt her this time,” I said. “I’ll only tie her up a little.”

  “We can’t see who you see,” Mestjet number one said.

  “But it’s just Gianna and Cat,” Mestjet number two added.

  I shook my head, trying to dispel the images. “If I took a nap…”

  “Tell us about your life before Aradia.” Dido sounded frustrated. I think I was failing. I cast my mind back, but I struggled over it. The gaps were too big.

  “Do you have children?”

  Instantly, the cave refocused like a found connection. “Josh and Jacob,” I said thickly. My tongue felt like it was three sizes too big for my mouth. “I’m doing this for them. They deserve a chance at life without my curse around their necks.”

  “Beautiful,” Gianna whispered. “Look.”

  A few yards away, a wellspring of river water bubbled up from the ground. The River Lethe at its source, where the most potent magics formed.

  Dido handed me a small, crystal vial from inside her purple robes. “Use this. It’s lined with silver to keep it from reacting to the Lethe waters.”

  My hands trembled as I dipped the bottle into the river, careful not to touch the water. The glass instantly chilled, a small layer of frost forming over its surface. Quickly, I stoppered it with a silver cork and slipped it into my pocket.

  As if by magic, a sense of hope invaded my bones. I had my powers, even if they were tempered here in Nibiru, and now I had a plan and a weapon. I wanted to tell Tiberius, but he continued to softly snore in my pocket.

  “Now,” Queen Dido announced, “we go back.”

  “Can’t I have a moment to enjoy this?” I asked.

  “Only if you want to stay here forever.”

  “Okay. You’re right. It’s time to go.”

  I was dreading the walk back, but Cat and Gianna stood on either side of me, my arms draped around their shoulders. Dido led the way, lighting up the darkness of hypnosis with her diadem. They took turns murmuring questions, “What was your favorite subject in school?” “What was your first kiss like?” “How was your honeymoon?”

  History, wet, dry.

  After an eternity of remembering, enough to make me want to swallow a drop of Lethe myself, I saw the entrance where Day met Night and sagged thankfully against the rocks.

  “We made it.” My voice was harsh from all of the talking. “Thank you.”

  Dido glided closer, her eyes wise from a lifetime of being used by the gods. “I hope you know what you are doing,” she said. “A god, even the consciousness of a god, is not susceptible to the same energies and assaults as mortal bodies.”

  Tiberius rustled in my pocket, and I felt his little body turning around against my chest. Then, his whiskers poked out, followed by his nose.

  “Are we doing this thing or what?” he asked.

  I showed him the vial. “We did this thing. How was your nap?”

  He sniffed the bottle and recoiled. “I guess a thank you is in order, then.” He nodded at the three woman. “I must admit, I’ve never been to the Cave of Hypnos and didn’t realize it was so potent.”

  Gianna cocked her head, listening. “Something’s happening. More shades have arrived, and they’re frightened.”

  Cat looked at me. “Ava, we wish we could come, but it’s time for us to continue our fight as you continue yours. I hope you find your god and destroy him.”

  “If you don’t make it, feel free to join us,” Gianna offered. “We could always use another strong woman on the team. Vanquishing evil shades really puts one in a good mood.”

  Tiberius fluffed out, a rotund ball of angry fur again. “To do that, she’d have to actually die, and I refuse to let that happen.”

  I gave him an appreciative scratch under the chin. “What happens to the shades you stab and… stuff?” I asked.

  Cat and Gianna both looked to Dido, resident Nibiru expert. She held up her dress as she stepped lightly over the last bloom of delicate poppies at the entrance of the cave. “For those that don’t or can’t move on, their essence diffuses into Nibiru to be recycled. Nothing is wasted.”

  “That’s an elegant solution,” I said, already mourning their departure. It was hard to imagine wanting to leave the embrace of these strong women, yet it was time. Anything else simply delayed the inevitable. I opened my mouth and closed it a few times, searching for the right words, the right thank you’s that would encompass all they had done.

  Dido rested her palms against my breast bone, her fingers curling over my shoulders. She wavered between the insubstantial and solid from one breath to the next. Her hands were claws and caresses, steel and silk. Where they pressed into my skin, a scrawl of script appeared.

  Dux femina facti. A woman authored this achievement.

  “Virgil was a fool,” she said softly, her voice as calm as ocean waves. “But he wasn’t wrong about this. You are the author of your life. Don’t let any god tell you otherwise. Good luck, Ava Falcetti, if that is who you wish to be.”

  I bowed my head to her and when I looked up, the women were wisps of light that were gone in a blink. A wave of sadness swept through me at their departure, but it lifted me to know there was another girl gang in the afterlife, protecting lost shades and exacting revenge.

  “Come on, Tiberius,” I said after a moment of silence. “Let’s destroy a god.”

  “So we finally have a battle plan?”

  I gripped the vial, my knuckles turning white, before slipping it into my pocket. “First, I’m going to make him forget his own name.
”

  “And then?”

  “Then I’m going to crush him with chaos.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Tiberius guided me to a long, corded bridge that led nowhere, the other side floating dangerously over a void that seemed to expand and contract as if it were breathing. I watched the clouds swirl and dance in the light, afraid of Tiberius’s next words.

  “We need to go deeper,” he said. “Thoth isn’t on this level of Nibiru.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you would’ve felt him by now.”

  I took a step and the planks creaked below my feet. “You expect me to jump off the end of this bridge? Into the abyss?”

  “There isn’t an abyss. You only see what your mortal mind needs you to see.”

  I grabbed the ropes and peaked over the edge. It still looked like an abyss to me. I really didn’t see how I needed to see a hole of nothingness. “What’s really there, then?”

  “It’s best you don’t know.”

  “Tiberius?”

  In response, he crawled to my head and took two handfuls of my hair. “We need to hurry, before I lose my nerve.”

  “That’s not helping.”

  With a twitch, he dug his back claws into my scalp, ignored my screams of pain, and somersaulted towards the light. I saw his beady eyes pass before mine. I reached out to grab him, to stop him from falling, but then quickly realized he had pulled me along using his… super chipmunk strength?

  “I’m stronger here in Nibiru. Just as you are weaker,” he explained, practically reading my mind.

  I felt like a show pony and Tiberius had the reins. My body elongated, my feet still planted to the bridge, until even they couldn’t hold on anymore. We dropped and dropped, the light growing closer. Denser, even.

  At the moment of impact, I screamed. I expected to be crushed or burned up… or whatever happened when a mortal body passes through an impossibly bright light. Instead, something wet licked me.

  “That better not be a tongue,” I shouted.

  “What do you see?”