Goddess

by Josephine Angelini

  For a moment Helen pictured her mother leaving a trail of mayhem behind her as she made her way from Newfoundland to Nantucket to get from Daedalus’s house to the meeting at the Deloses’—stolen cars, robbed stores, broken hearts piling up behind her as she traveled. Her mother had been back for an hour, and all Helen could think about was how many laws Daphne had broken since they last saw each other.

  “Stop fidgeting,” Daphne said. She pulled the chain around Helen’s neck and fished out the heart necklace, laying the charm over Helen’s clothes. “The House of Atreus is descended from Zeus, so it’s the highest ranking. We join the group second to last,” Daphne said, coaching Helen. “Last, of course, is the Oracle.”

  Helen pulled away from her mother, reaching for a hairbrush to hide the fact that she didn’t want to be touched by her. Daphne noticed, anyway.

  “It’s time. Everyone’s here,” Daphne said brusquely.

  “How do you know?” Helen asked.

  “I recognize all their voices.” Daphne laughed mirthlessly and tucked her hair behind her ear with her pinkie finger. “Some of the people downstairs I know better than I know you.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  “Not fault,” Daphne said gently. “Choice. It was my choice, Helen, and it was the right one. You really were better off without me.”

  Helen opened her mouth to argue with Daphne, but stopped. As a Falsefinder, she could hear the truth in Daphne’s voice. Daphne wasn’t feeding her a line or trying to excuse herself for bad parenting. She really believed that she’d done the right thing and, thinking about her father still asleep just down the hall, Helen agreed. She had been better off without her mother. Daphne might have abandoned her, but she’d abandoned her to a better life—a happier life—with Jerry for a dad, and Claire and Matt as best friends. It must have taken a lot of discipline for Daphne to do that. Helen started to understand how fortunate she’d been. She’d had about seventeen years of normal life that had shaped her into the person she was now. And Daphne had been the one to give that to her, by leaving.

  “Thank you,” Helen whispered.

  “You’re welcome,” Daphne said back hollowly.

  Surprised at her tone, Helen looked down at Daphne’s chest and saw nothing but a dark void—a gaping hole that went on and on, like an endless well of emptiness instead of a heart. She shrank away from her mother. The gesture was not lost on Daphne.

  “What, Helen? What is it?” she asked.

  “Your heart’s gone,” Helen answered, too overwhelmed by the unnatural hole inside Daphne to remember to conceal her new talent.

  “It died the day Ajax did,” Daphne replied simply.

  “But there’s nothing there. Not even a broken heart,” Helen said, shaking her head. “You’re not sad or angry or hurt. You feel nothing. That can’t be natural.” She locked eyes with Daphne and grabbed her wrist to keep her from moving away. “What did you do, Mother?” Daphne tried to pull away from Helen, but her daughter was too strong.

  “Whatever was left of my feelings I traded in order to accomplish a goal. Women do it all the time. Scion women swear it before Hecate,” Daphne said, her eyes narrowing with suspicion as a thought occurred to her. “But how can you know what I don’t feel?” Daphne murmured, more to herself than to Helen.

  “Helen?” Andy said as she tapped on the door. “Are you in there?”

  “Yes,” Helen replied. She released her mother and quickly turned to the door. “Come in.”

  Andy pushed the door open tentatively and peeked into the room. “Noel is getting . . . ah . . . antsy is the only polite word I come up with right now. She says you and your mom need to get your butts downstairs before somebody murders somebody else and gets blood all over her clean floors.” She smiled and held up her hands. “I’m quoting her, by the way.”

  “I’ll bet.” Helen chuckled. “We’re coming.”

  There was still so much she and Daphne needed to talk about, but as usual where her mother was concerned, Helen was going to have to wait until later to get any answers. She and Daphne followed Andy out of Ariadne’s bedroom and down the hallway toward the stairs.

  “My, my,” Daphne said quietly as she followed Andy’s graceful silhouette. “Aren’t you a rare fish?”

  Helen saw Andy’s back stiffen at Daphne’s taunt and her gait taper off to a stop.

  “I’m half siren,” Andy said. She turned to look Daphne dead in the eye. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No,” Daphne replied. She met Andy’s gaze and stood firm. “But you obviously do, and it’s time you got over it.”

  Daphne brushed past Andy. Helen followed reluctantly, giving Andy an apologetic look as she passed by.

  “Hector isn’t Apollo,” Daphne added when she reached the stairs. “It’s time you got over that, too.”

  “You have no right,” Andy began angrily.

  “Hector is one of the best men I’ve ever known, little half siren who hates herself,” Daphne interrupted, silencing Andy. Helen saw Daphne’s eyes harden until they sparkled like diamonds. “You don’t deserve him.”

  Helen mouthed the words I’m sorry to Andy as she went down the stairs, but Andy had turned on her heel and gone before Helen could finish.

  Still thinking about Andy, Helen followed her mother into the tense living room. Her eyes went immediately to a big, blond man who stood in front of Castor and Pallas in the place she knew was reserved for the Head of the House of Thebes.

  He had to be Tantalus, and although she had never met him before, she recognized him. She pictured his face, red, sweaty, and twisted with rage as he tried to beat her child out of her.

  Tantalus stared at Daphne. It was the same way that Menelaus stared at Helen of Troy. With Helen’s new talent she could see his chest crawling with need. For a moment, his eyes darted over Daphne’s shoulder to land on Helen. She shivered with revulsion, remembering another life when she had been forced to be his wife after Troy fell. Then his eyes went back to Daphne, where they stayed until the Oracle entered.

  As soon as Cassandra glided into the room, her bell-bracelet tinkling delicately, Lucas, Hector, Orion, and Helen moved as one to join her. Cassandra sat in her giant chair. Orion stood at her left, Helen at her right. Hector and Lucas stood behind Helen, one to either side of her.

  The outburst from the assembled host was immediate.

  “Helen! Get back here!” Daphne scolded. Helen gladly ignored her.

  “Lucas . . . son,” Castor said, clipping his words sharply. “You are to stand behind your uncle Tantalus.” Lucas looked away from his father, eyes forward and face expressionless like a trained soldier, and didn’t leave his chosen place behind Helen.

  “You see? I told you!” hissed a slender man with full lips. He was older, about Helen’s mother’s age, but he was the kind of guy who just got more handsome as he aged. Definitely someone from the House of Rome, she decided. Helen didn’t recognize his face, but from the way Orion and Daedalus stared daggers at him, she knew he had to be Phaon.

  Phaon turned his back on the group and addressed his faction. “Orion won’t even stand with us. He doesn’t care about the House of Rome, but you still call him your Head? Do we need any more proof that he is unfit to lead?”

  Helen glanced down at the suppurating gash that should have been his heart, and her stomach churned. Phaon’s face and body might be beautiful, but this creature she looked at was rotten to the core. She saw Orion’s heart flare with anger. She caught his eyes and pleaded with him silently, trying to calm him down.

  “Enough,” Cassandra commanded in a low voice. An obedient hush descended as everyone’s attention turned to the Oracle. “The days of division are over. The Houses are one, and we have formed a coalition of our own to express that union. Each House is represented by its Heir, and we’ve chosen Helen as our leader.”

  “Challenge,” Phaon said immediately, a smirk plastered on his face as he sized up Helen’s skinny arms an
d soft hands. “I challenge Helen Atreus for the right to lead the Heirs . . . and the Oracle.”

  “Did Christmas come early this year?” Hector drawled as he stepped forward, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m Helen’s champion, dickhead. You challenge her, you fight me.”

  Phaon’s face blanched. He sputtered something about how his House didn’t allow champions, that it was an archaic bylaw that should be removed. Hector glared at Phaon as he backed down, every inch of him glowing like a storybook hero in front of a cringing coward.

  “And you, Orion?” Daedalus called out to his son in a demeaning tone. “You allow Helen to lead, and Hector to be her champion. . . . What honor does the Heir to the House of Athens hold?”

  “Orion is my champion,” Cassandra snapped. Her mouth was pinched in anger as she regarded Daedalus. “Is that honorable enough for you, Attica?”

  Daedalus bowed reverently to the Oracle, his arms crossed in an X across his chest and his torso parallel to the ground as he spoke. “May the Pride of Athens serve you well, Sibyl, to the glory of our House.”

  When he stood up straight again he regarded Cassandra strangely, his eyes darting from her to Orion and back again like he couldn’t understand their connection to each other.

  Helen saw the confusion inside of Daedalus, drifting aimlessly around his heart like sullen smoke. As the House Heads conferred with their members over this new development, Helen stared at Cassandra and Orion.

  Cassandra was the cold hand of Fate, and as such she was not supposed to be able to be passionate about anything. Lately, she had been pulling away from everyone, including her own family, and they had all accepted this as an unavoidable consequence of her position. But that wasn’t the case with Orion. She growled like a cornered cat whenever anyone slighted him.

  Chastened, Daedalus moved back to his position in front of another dark-haired, blue-eyed man from the House of Athens. Orion glanced down at Cassandra and grinned. Inside his chest, Helen saw tenderness, not attraction. He was obviously fond of his “little Kitty,” and grateful that she had defended him in front of his father, but he didn’t regard her as a woman.

  The silvery orb hanging in Cassandra’s chest seemed barren and remote to Helen, like a dead star, but it flared with it’s own brand of mercurial light when Orion smiled at her. It danced. It glowed. It filled up and spilled over, just like any woman’s heart would when the man she adored smiled at her.

  It was exactly what Orion had told Helen he’d always wanted—to be loved more—and there it was, right in front of him. But he didn’t seem to see it.

  Helen glanced at the faction from the House of Rome, wondering if any of them saw what she saw.

  Phaon was staring at Cassandra. He ogled the pure, crystalline light inside of her in a way that made Helen’s skin crawl. Obviously, Phaon could see it, even though Orion couldn’t.

  But what Orion did see was Phaon staring at Cassandra.

  “Don’t even look at her,” Orion growled, stepping in front of Cassandra and shielding her from Phaon’s view.

  Daedalus and his second strode toward Phaon, their blue eyes icy with hatred. Even Castor and Pallas, usually so levelheaded, reacted to the threat to Cassandra and the whole room seemed to move toward Phaon like a menacing wave. Daphne intercepted them all with raised hands.

  “Dae, I know. I do. But not here, not now,” Daphne said in an undertone to Daedalus, her eyes pleading. “Castor. Don’t break your oath of hospitality. Not again.”

  Helen knew that Daphne was reminding Castor of how she had been attacked by Pandora a few short months ago while she was under Castor’s protection. Daedalus, Castor, and Pallas all eased back, but their faces were livid. Phaon’s shrill laughter filled the room.

  “Easy, mongrels,” he said as he wound down from his disturbing laugh. “She’s too old for me.”

  “Disgusting,” Orion said under his breath. He made a choked sound and his hands tensed, as if he wanted to strangle his cousin. That was enough for Phaon.

  Helen saw Phaon reach for the blade strapped across his back under his clothes. It was the same kind of sheath that Orion habitually wore, except Orion wasn’t wearing it then. No weapons were allowed at House meetings, and Helen knew that Orion was defenseless. She also sensed that despite his reluctance to meet Hector in a fair fight, in a dirty fight Phaon had had more experience and would probably win. Orion could be hurt, or even killed.

  Helen felt like all her insides suddenly sprouted wings and tried to fly out of her mouth. She didn’t think about what she should or shouldn’t do, about the sacred rules of hospitality, or about the “cease-fire” they had all agreed upon. All she thought about was the bare blade in Phaon’s hand.

  She called to the metal. It was similar to how she summoned bolts, only this time instead of a bright splinter of electricity, Helen took the same force and widened it into a field. It was like taking a single coin and learning the simple trick of flipping it over to discover an entirely different face. She used this field to reach out and snatch the stiletto out of Phaon’s grasp.

  “How dare you!” she roared, her voice booming out of her like thunder.

  The hilt of Phaon’s weapon smacked into the palm of her hand, and she stormed forward, raising the blade high above her head to slash down and cut out Phaon’s twisted little heart. The insides of her thighs burned, and Helen felt the ground rock violently underneath her. She saw Phaon tumble to the ground and grovel in front of her.

  “Helen! No!” Lucas pleaded in her ear, his body convulsing against hers. “P-Please, s-stop,” he stammered, his jaw shaking uncontrollably.

  She looked around, confused, like she was waking from a dream. Lucas had her by the waist, and he was pulling her back. She glanced down and saw that her skin was glowing pearly pink and blue with ball lightning. Lucas held on to her, even though in that moment she was hotter than the surface of the sun.

  She switched off the current immediately, and he fell down with a scream. Furniture was toppled over, and everyone else in the room had fallen from the earthquake she had created. The floor under her was a large disk of black charcoal that still smoldered around the edges like a ring of fire. Everyone stared up at her, terrified.

  Except for Lucas. His hands, chest, and cheek were black and bloody, burned down to the bone by the ball lightning she had created. He writhed on the ground in agony.

  “Oh, no!” Helen cried, crouching down over Lucas. “No-no-no,” she chanted hysterically.

  Lucas moaned when she touched him. His crispy skin flaked off and drifted in the air like burnt paper. He was so terribly injured and in so much pain Helen knew that there was no place in the world she could take him that could ease his suffering.

  She needed a new world.

  It’s not that Helen forgot Hades’ promise that the Fates would bring her to this. Nor did she forget his warning that as soon as she created her own world, the gods would challenge her for it. She just didn’t care. She’d build a whole new universe from scratch and send all of Olympus to Tartarus if she had to—anything, anything at all, to fix Lucas.

  Helen gathered Lucas up in her arms. As his heartbeat stopped and his eyes closed, she created a portal to her new world and took him there.

  TEN

  Daphne touched her hand to the spiky crust of ice that had formed over the charcoal.

  Insanity was swirling over her head while she stared at the burned-out basin that used to be a living room floor, and the snowflake-like ice that had grown over it, smothering the fire, when her daughter disappeared with Lucas. How could she use this? Daphne wondered.

  Daphne had never expected this meeting to be successful, but the bickering that had ensued as soon as Helen had made her dramatic exit was rising to a fever pitch. Before everyone started hacking each other to bits, Daphne needed to take control. She didn’t plan to lose this opportunity.

  “Did you make that earthquake?” she yelled up at Orion, interrupting the chaos.

&nb
sp; “No,” he said. When he got shot several disbelieving looks, he sighed and continued reluctantly. “Helen did it. She got the Earthshaker talent from me when we became blood brothers.”

  “And how did she take the blade away from Phaon?” Daedalus asked.

  “Electromagnetism,” Pallas replied. “Although I’ve never heard of any Bolt-thrower having enough voltage to create a magnetic field like that.”

  “She’s too powerful,” Tantalus said quietly to Pallas. “She could kill us all.”

  Pallas nodded in agreement, as did Daedalus.

  The room fell into stunned silence as they all contemplated this. Daphne couldn’t let them get distracted by that detail right now.

  She grabbed the Bough of Aeneas, disguised as a gold cuff on Orion’s wrist as she stood. “Did you open a portal with this and push Helen and Lucas through it?”

  “No. I can only open standing portals, not create them,” he answered. “Only Helen can make her own portals wherever she wants.”

  “The ice?” Daphne asked, inviting him to explain it. She needed to get everyone thinking in the right direction.

  “There’s always ice when she descends. But if she went to the Underworld, she’d be back almost instantly. Time stops here while you’re in the Underworld,” Orion said, confused by Daphne’s line of questioning.

  “That’s not always the case. At least not for Helen,” Daphne countered. “I don’t know why, but in one instance I witnessed, time passed here on Earth while Helen was in the Underworld.”

  Castor looked at Tantalus, who Daphne knew was a Falsefinder. Tantalus nodded. “She’s telling the truth,” he said.

  “The Underworld?” Castor whispered, his voice breaking. “Why would she take Lucas to the Underworld?”

  They had all felt the terrible heat of Helen’s electrical storm. Except for Daphne, who could handle the intense heat of lightning, the rest of them had raw, red burns on their exposed skin. And Lucas had held on to her while she was in that state. Marry that idea to the Underworld, and they would all come to realize that Lucas was dead or dying.