Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters

by Emily Roberson

  “I have to go,” I say, grabbing my bag off the table and running down the stairs, away from Theseus, away from everything.

  Leaving my shoes behind.

  * * *

  I don’t wait for Daddy to call. I can tell this is a bad one. The building is swaying in a truly alarming way.

  In the maze, I rush past the obstacles, forcing down the bile in my throat at the feeling of the slick concrete under my bare feet. The whole time, Asterion’s bellowing blocks out any other sounds, any other thoughts.

  I sing like I always do, but he is so loud, he drowns out my voice.

  He’s running in the maze, somewhere.

  I put my thread in the last hook. The one that tells the maze I’ve arrived at Asterion’s room. So they can find my body if this is the one time I can’t manage to calm my brother.

  I come into his room, and it’s as bad as I’ve ever seen it. Everything he has, all his treasures, are smashed and broken on the floor. The bull I made for him is shattered. The only thing left is our book and his blue blanket.

  Asterion comes through the door and charges with terrifying speed, his head down, his horns leveled at me. He is like a freight train, and I barely manage to throw myself out of his way. He turns, breathing heavily, his massive head lowered in an attacking stance.

  “Asterion,” I say sternly, making it look like I’m not scared, even though I’m terrified. I have to remind him of who I am. Who he is. He doesn’t straighten up. His eyes are red, and I can tell he doesn’t recognize me. He is nothing but the Minotaur now. Nothing but bull. The force of his rage is turned on me, and for the first time in my life, I know what it must be like for the Athenians in the maze. Fear washes over me like an animating force, pumping my blood, ordering me to turn and run. Or to cover my head with my hands and cower in the corner. None of those things will help me. None of those things will remind him who he really is.

  “Asterion,” I say again, firmly. “Look at me.”

  He pauses, and his breathing slows. I hold his red eyes with my own, praying that his rage is receding, that he hasn’t been swallowed by the bull. Gradually, his red eyes fade to brown, and the boy is back.

  He groans and drops to the floor, curling into a ball, shaking with the tears he can’t shed.

  I kneel down, putting my hand on his back. “I know,” I whisper. “I know.”

  Even though I don’t. Even though I can never, ever know what it is like to be Asterion. Trapped here, underground. Trapped inside a body at war with itself.

  He picks up the pieces of his pottery bull, and he holds it in his hands, looking down at it while I clean him up, bandaging the places where he’s injured himself.

  “We’ll fix it,” I say, closing his hands over the bull. “I can fix it.”

  We sit together on the edge of his bed.

  I don’t talk about anything like I normally would. No gossip from upstairs. I don’t tell him about what numbers everyone drew. That the competitors will start coming into the maze tomorrow. Normal life is a million years away.

  After a few more minutes, Asterion stands up and walks to the corner, where he finds his book.

  He brings it over to me, opening it to the story of the Caledonian Boar. He points at the full-color page of the boar, with arrows and spears sticking out of its side.

  What is he telling me?

  He points at himself and then at the picture. Then he does it again, insistently.

  “You are like the boar?” I ask. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  He nods.

  I’m tired, he signs.

  “You should sleep. It’s really late.”

  No, he signs.

  He doesn’t mean that kind of tired.

  He points at the boar again.

  “What are you telling me?”

  So tired, he signs.

  He lays his head in my lap, and I pet his fur.

  “Asterion,” I say, looking at my brother. “Do you…”

  What do I want to ask? I look around his room, his broken treasures, his shredded blankets. The walls, ripped and smashed.

  “Asterion,” I say finally. “What do you want?”

  He holds both hands up, with the backs facing me, then flips them forward.

  All done.

  Then he points at himself.

  I’m all done.

  THIRTEEN

  Back in my room, I take a shower to wash the awful grime of the maze off my feet, then collapse into my bed.

  When I’m awakened by my phone ringing, I am tangled in my covers, sweaty, disoriented. Again, I have been running through the maze in my dreams. Chasing Theseus. Chasing the Minotaur.

  I claw myself to wakefulness, getting my phone off the nightstand.

  It’s Icarus.

  I drop the phone back down and collapse on the pillows, heart racing, like I’ve barely gotten my head above the waves.

  I didn’t tell Theseus I would help him. I didn’t show any skin. I’m going to be in so much trouble.

  Not a thing I’m used to thinking.

  I close my eyes again, not ready to face the day.

  What was it Theseus said last night—ride the wave? That’s for him, not me. I have too much at stake.

  A text bubble crosses the screen—Answer the phone, Ariadne, or I’ll come down there and pull you out of bed myself.

  I would ask myself how he knows I’m in bed, but I don’t. I already know the answer. I’m sure he typed my name into his system in the control room to find the video feed of me sweaty and gross in my pajamas.

  I flip off the cameras that I know are in the ceiling somewhere.

  My phone rings again.

  I pick up.

  “What’s my penance now, Icarus?” I say, dreading whatever comes next. “What are they going to do to me?”

  “Nothing,” he says, “because I saved your butt. Seriously, you would owe me your firstborn child if I had any interest in such a thing. Get up here so I can show you what I did.”

  It takes me five minutes to get up to the control room. The screens are dark except for the monitor at his desk, which he’s staring at intently. He doesn’t look up when I come in.

  “How bad is it?” I say, closing the door behind me.

  “I salvaged it,” he says, not looking up from his screen. “Do you understand how much trouble you could have gotten yourself into?”

  “I know,” I say. “Believe me, I know.”

  With a series of keystrokes, he rewinds the tape to the moment when Theseus and I come in the room. We are both breathless; the room is beautiful. Everything is as it was supposed to be.

  “You had three lines, Ariadne,” Icarus says, imitating a sexy voice that I can never imagine using. “‘I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stand the thought of you dying. I’ll help you…’ That was it. Then a little something, something. But nooo…”

  He presses a few buttons. “This wouldn’t be a problem if I’d been there to redirect, but I wasn’t there, Ariadne, and why not? Because I was worried about your sensibilities. Hades, why are you making this harder on yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. “I couldn’t lie.”

  “Well, you are going to have to get over that, sister. It’s not that the ratings are a problem—they were through the roof. That’s why I never came in with the cameraman.” He puts his attention back on the screen. “Here we are.”

  Our backs are to the camera, and it is a beautiful image. One I will hold in my mind.

  “Thank you for bringing me up here,” Theseus says. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”

  “We put a commercial here,” Icarus says, “so we could leave out his speculation about the rigging of the drawing. That’s not the kind of accusation anyone would appreciate being made publicly.”

  I look at Icarus curiously. “You couldn’t rig the drawing, could you? Not with the cards being wood and everything?”

  “No, of course not,”
he says, keeping his eyes on the screen. “Here we are.”

  On screen, Theseus is leaning in toward me, resting his forehead against mine, his voice a whisper. “Isn’t there anything you want for yourself?”

  My heart is racing remembering him, but I’m also confused, because this is much later in the conversation. He’s already told me about his father. About being abandoned. About why he feels like he has to do this. Why he has to be the hero. I’ve had the most important conversation of my life so far, and Icarus has cut all of it.

  “Pause it,” I say to Icarus. “Why did you take out the stuff about his dad, and destiny?”

  He presses a button and the screen freezes.

  “It’s too big, too much. We have so many plotlines going anyway, we can’t add one with Theseus and Aegeus, especially since we can’t tie it up with a bow.”

  “Because Theseus is going to die,” I say carefully, trying out the words.

  “Exactly,” he says. “For maximum impact, people need to see them as a strongly bonded father and son, not an absentee dad and a kid with abandonment issues.”

  “That’s not really fair,” I say, defending Theseus.

  “Hey,” Icarus says, holding his hands up. “I’m telling you what drives ratings, and sad boys are not it. Metaphysical speculation and bad surfing metaphors also do not do anything for viewing numbers.”

  “It wasn’t a bad metaphor.”

  “Sure,” Icarus says. “You’re only saying that because of the soulful look Theseus was giving you.”

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  “Of course I’m laughing at you,” he says. “If you had any sense, you’d be laughing at yourself.”

  I look hard at that screen, at Theseus holding me in his arms. I think about his question—Isn’t there anything you want for yourself? A question no one has ever asked me.

  “Why should I be laughing?” It comes out a whisper.

  Icarus spins in his chair, grabbing my hands. “You can’t get attached, Ariadne. Don’t forget that.”

  His eyes are so serious behind his glasses, so intense. Revealing the boy I’ve always known. The one who would never admit that he missed his mother. The one who used to dream of flying away from here. He understands my dilemma, at least a little, understands how I’m torn between Theseus and my family.

  But then the cold, clinical light is back. “You don’t get to keep him.” He turns back to the keyboard. “Okay, look what I did.”

  On the screen, I don’t answer Theseus’s question, don’t tell him about wishing to be alone somewhere. Apparently, girls who don’t like the cameras are also not good for ratings. Instead, Theseus kisses me, and I want to look away, but I don’t. I watch him take down my hair, take his jacket off my shoulders.

  The ghost of his touch passes over my skin.

  Then his whisper. “Help me in the maze, Ariadne, please.”

  The place where I told him no.

  Where I said, “I can’t help you.”

  On the video, that’s not my answer. Instead, I say, “Yes.” My face is away from the camera, his head in my neck.

  Then the screen fades to black. No earthquake to mar the proceedings.

  I look at Icarus.

  “I didn’t say that,” I say.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, no I didn’t.”

  “Well, I say you did, and as long as we can keep anyone from seeing the raw footage, which shouldn’t be too hard since the very special episode has already aired and will only be seen again in eternal syndication, that is my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

  “How?” I ask.

  He presses a few buttons, then calls up a snippet of a scene, from when we first came into the room and we’re looking out the windows.

  “It’s a beautiful view,” Theseus says.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes, it is.”

  There it is. My yes to the view repurposed to my yes to everything I can’t do.

  “Icarus, I can’t help him,” I whisper, twisting my hands.

  “Of course you can’t help him. Who knows what your dad would do if you did.”

  “I don’t want to lie to him, either,” I say.

  “That ship has sailed, sister,” he says. “You simply don’t have any choice. It gets easier, you know. With practice.”

  I don’t want to practice.

  I walk over to the inspiration board and touch the newest drawing he’s pinned there. It’s another self-portrait and this time the wings are made of silver, and the background is complete. He is soaring away from this tower, away from our island. The wings are carefully inked in, every feather detailed, and the land and the sea are so clearly rendered. But Icarus hasn’t finished himself. He is only the whiteness on the paper.

  “How is this what I’m supposed to be doing, Icarus?” I whisper. “Or you? How can this be it?”

  His eyes are veiled. “You and I, we don’t have any choices. We may be in a cage, but the bars are made of gold…” He stands up and puts his hands on my shoulders, looking down at me. “This is your destiny. It’ll make it better for everyone if you lie back and enjoy it.”

  “What about your dreams?” I say.

  Icarus looks at his picture for a long time. Then he tears it off the wall and wads it up, throwing it on the floor. I have known him for so long that it is like I am watching him flay his own skin.

  “Yes, I had dreams, Ariadne, but then I had to wake up. I am a prisoner here. Forever. My father signed me into the contract when we came here. I can never work for anyone else. We don’t have any choice,” he says. “Neither of us.”

  He turns away from me and returns to his keyboard and monitor.

  When he speaks next, his tone is normal, conversational.

  “So, what are your plans for the rest of the day?”

  “Going for a run.” I pick up his tone myself. There’s nothing else to say.

  “And then?”

  “I was thinking I would probably do what I always do.”

  “Hide in your room playing video games until it’s time to lead the competitors?”

  “Pretty much,” I say.

  “You’re going to have to face Theseus again. You know that, right? You’re going to have to continue this.”

  I’m not ready yet. “Can’t we just hold off on today?” I say. “Surely you have enough programming.”

  He nods. “As a favor for you,” he says. “My best friend.”

  He points at the screen. “You did good last night, even though you didn’t do everything we wanted. That was hot, with you and Theseus. The Internet is on fire right now. Everyone is certain that it’s true.”

  What if it is, I wonder, as I leave the room, remembering Theseus’s arms around me. His lips on mine.

  * * *

  This time I go running away from the city, up the paths that lead into the hills that Daddy keeps free of development so that he can have his olive trees and vineyards, and the pastures where the sacred cattle graze.

  I fight to keep my mind off Theseus. I try not to think of showing him the places that I love. The smell of the olive trees.

  My security detail and I mostly have the paths to ourselves. Down a packed-earth path, not far from the pasture where my mother is supposed to have had her rendezvous with the white bull, I see a group of boys playing in the trees, climbing and jumping and throwing things at one another. They are twelve or thirteen, loud and rambunctious, still boys, but on the cusp of something else, and it hits me like a blow. This is where my brother should be. Here, in the sunlight. Not underground.

  Alone.

  I run back to the palace as fast as I can, making the effort to force out everything else.

  As soon as I’m back in my room, I do nothing but slaughter harpies in VR for the next five hours.

  When my mother and Mathilde arrive, I feel like I am in a cage I have no idea how to get out of.

  The dress they have brought for me is transparent and gauzy wit
h a very low neckline. No bra possible. A golden belt. A golden bag. My hair long and curling down around my shoulders. No jewelry. It’s beautiful. But.

  I object. “I can’t wear this, you can see my nipples.”

  “There’s no shame in a nipple, darling,” my mother says.

  Then we get to the shoes. My mother opens a box and pulls out a pair of peep-toe booties with towering heels.

  “I can’t walk in those,” I say. “I want to wear something flat.”

  “Something flat?!?” my mother screeches, as though I’ve said I’m planning to lead the competitors in my underwear. Scratch that, she’d probably love it if I was doing it in my underwear.

  “I will take them off,” I say, steel in my voice.

  We stare at each other, and I can see her trying to decide how serious I am.

  “I will wear sneakers or I will go barefoot. I’m not wearing those.”

  My mother glances at Mathilde, and Mathilde gives a small negative motion. “If she is barefoot, it will ruin the ensemble. I see no reason to risk it. I told you the shoes would be too much. That is why I found the sandals.”

  “Fine.” My mother pulls out a pair of bejeweled sandals that have ties that lace up my legs, and I nod. They will do.

  Finally, they are done, and we stand together, looking at me in the mirror.

  “You look so beautiful,” my mother says, her voice full of surprise.

  I do, but utterly unlike myself.

  I ride with my mother and sisters to the stadium, barely paying attention to their chatter, even though I know they are talking about me.

  * * *

  At the stadium, I stand at the entry above the field, looking down the long path to the stage, lined with torches. Behind the stage are massive hammered steel doors, engraved with images of the Minotaur, that cover the concrete arch from floor to ceiling—the entrance to the maze—like a gate to the underworld.

  I search for Theseus, finding him sitting in the fourteenth chair at the end of the line of competitors. He is so far away that I can’t see his face clearly, but I can see the long lines of his body. His hands at his sides.