by Joan Holub
Makhai pulled his scroll-gadget from his pocket. “Come on, everyone. No time to lose. Let’s cross beams so we can get the next proof object and get out of here.”
“In a few minutes,” said Pirithous, continuing to tap away. “Besides, there’s no real hurry,” he added in a casual tone. “We’re way ahead of the other teams.”
Knowing how much Pirithous wanted to win—as much as or more than the rest of their team—Persephone was surprised to hear him say this, even if it probably was true. She took her scroll-gadget from her pocket to be at the ready.
Suddenly Antheia, who’d also been sniffing the roses, gave a little cry. “Oh no! My scroll-gadget isn’t in my pocket. It must have dropped out!” She began searching for it among the roses nearby.
“I’ll help,” Persephone said. After re-pocketing her gadget, she got down on her hands and knees to search among the rosebushes. Theseus did the same. Makhai let out a huge sigh of frustration and annoyance, but then he began to help too. Pirithous, however, didn’t even look up from his scroll-gadget.
Persephone had only been searching for a minute or two when her stomach growled, reminding her she’d had nothing to eat since breakfast. Sitting back on her heels, she shrugged off her backpack and pulled a pomegranola bar from a compartment at the front of it. She’d stuffed five bars inside, along with five apples. “Anyone hungry besides me?” she called out to the rest of her team. Since no one else had thought to bring a bag or pack, she was pretty sure nobody else had snacks with them. Luckily, being dependable, she’d brought extra. Enough for her whole team, in fact.
“I am!” Antheia called out from the patch of ground she was searching just a few feet from Persephone.
“Me too,” said Theseus, who was maybe ten feet beyond the girls.
Persephone tossed a pomegranola bar to each of them. Then she glanced over at Makhai, who was thrashing around in some bushes to her left. She held up the next-to-last pomegranola bar. “How about you, Makhai? Want one?”
“Me? Really?” he said, coming to a standstill. He seemed surprised that she’d offered him one. Maybe bullies (and would-be cheaters) didn’t expect kindnesses, since they never offered them. Her heart softened toward him a little and she tossed him the bar.
“Thanks,” he said as he caught it. He even gave her a crooked smile.
Antheia leaned toward her and murmured, “Makhai being nice and polite? I think I’m going to faint.”
Persephone grinned. Maybe deep, deep, deep down that godboy wasn’t so bad.
But then Makhai squinted at the girls as if he suspected they were making fun of him. He looked at the bar Persephone had shared and then back at her. “Is there something wrong with this pomegranola bar? Is it bespelled to make my hair fall out or something?” He sniffed it suspiciously.
Persephone sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with it, I promise. It’s just an ordinary pomegranola bar. I’ll trade mine with you, see?” She went over and gave him her bar in exchange for his. Then, because she was curious, she added softly, “Do you always expect a trick when someone is nice to you?”
Makhai appeared to think about this for a moment. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Better suspicious and safe than sorry and hairless.” His words made her feel even softer toward him. How sad to constantly worry that others’ kindnesses weren’t genuine!
Persephone had planned to ask Pirithous if he wanted the last snack bar, but to tell the truth she was a little peeved that he was still fiddling with his scroll-gadget while everyone else on their team was trying to help Antheia find hers. If he was hungry, he could ask for it, she decided.
A glance up at the sky told her that it must be around noon, since the sun was directly overhead. By midafternoon the petals of the rock roses in the meadow would drop off, but fresh new flowers would appear on the shrubs by tomorrow morning.
When ten more minutes of searching didn’t turn up the missing scroll-gadget, Antheia said sadly, “I never checked that I still had my gadget after we left the monk seals to fly here. It could have fallen out anywhere. It might even be at the bottom of the Aegean!”
“You should have been more careful with it,” groused Makhai.
“I know,” moaned Antheia.
“Could have happened to any of us,” Theseus said kindly. Before Persephone could voice her agreement, he added, “It’s possible we don’t need all five of our beams to make a container appear. Shall we try with four?”
Makhai’s eyes brightened at this. “Great idea, mortal!”
Theseus grinned at him. “We do have them once in a while,” he said wryly. “Stop messing around and come join us,” he called to Pirithous as the others gathered together to see if they could still bring forth a container with one less gadget.
“Oops. Sorry!” Pirithous closed his gadget. Then he jumped to his feet and went to join the rest of the team.
Luckily, four beams were enough to bring forth a container. But the clay-fired urn that appeared at the place where the beams intersected seemed kind of wavery. And it was having trouble settling on its shape. It grew taller and thinner, then shorter and fatter.
Worried that the urn could disappear before they got their proof object, Persephone pounced on the clay pot. The beautiful yellow glass roses inside seemed stable. Quickly, she plucked one of the seven roses from the ever-changing urn. She held it up so the others could see it, then tucked it safely away in her backpack. Afterward, she popped the lid back on the wavery urn. It disappeared the instant she plunked it down on the ground.
Bling!
“Woo-hoo!” shouted Antheia. “Only one more clue to go!” She must have been greatly relieved that they’d been able to summon the container without her scroll-gadget, thought Persephone. If she’d been in Antheia’s place, she would’ve felt the same. Woo-hoo, indeed. Trophies were looking more and more likely for her and her team!
Now everyone unrolled their scroll-gadgets and tapped on the green triangles that appeared on their screens. Everyone except Antheia, of course. Smiling at her, Persephone stepped closer to her. “We can share mine.” Since Muse Urania had said they’d be visiting four geo-locations in all, the next one would be their fourth and last clue.
“Thanks,” said Antheia.
As they all knew it would, their last clue pointed to a location within the Underworld. “A lifeless stream with a voice of mourning, wild and dark and sulfurous,” the golden head of Theophrastus recited.
Persephone’s heart tightened inside her chest. “It’s probably the River Cocytus in the Underworld,” she informed her teammates. “The nymph caretaker of it is named Minthe. I met her yesterday.”
Of all the places Hades could have chosen, why had he decided to send teams to that dismal, smelly location? she wondered. He could have sent them to the Elysian Fields! That was the Underworld’s most desirable neighborhood, where only the luckiest of the dead got to go to feast, play, and sing forevermore. It was pretty much the opposite of the extremely icky Tartarus! And of the stinky Cocytus, too.
Bling! Suddenly, in bright red capital letters, the word CAUTION flashed onto their scroll-gadgets. Then Theophrastus appeared and spoke again. “For safety reasons, mortal teammates may not enter the Underworld. All mortals must wait for their respective teams outside the fenced entrance.”
Persephone would bet a hundred—no, a thousand drachmas that Hades had insisted on that warning. The Underworld was way too dangerous for mortals.
“Aw, man. That is sooo unfair!” exclaimed Pirithous. From the frown on Theseus’s face, Persephone could tell that he wasn’t happy either about not being able to accompany their team to the river.
“Yeah, that really cuts down on the number of us able to work together to figure stuff out once we’re there,” noted Antheia.
Persephone shrugged. “Honestly, it’s for your own good,” she said to Pirithous and Theseus as she glanced from one to the other. “If you guys entered the Underworld, you could wind up stuck there forever!”
Before she could explain further, Pirithous spoke up again. “But Hades is in charge of the Underworld, right? Couldn’t he bend the rules a little? Enough to make it safe for us to—”
“Nuh-uh,” Persephone interrupted, shaking her head. “Hades may be in charge of the Underworld, but it’s patrolled by Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, these three wild-haired, snake-belted women—”
“I’ve heard of them. They’re called the Furies,” interrupted Makhai. He eyed Theseus and Pirithous while flicking pomegranola crumbs from his purple cloak. (Apparently he’d decided Persephone hadn’t been trying to poison him after all, since he’d eaten the whole bar.) “You do not want to cross them,” Makhai went on. “They’re not likely to cut rule-breakers any slack.”
“Yeah,” said Antheia. “You know the rock star Orpheus? Well, his girlfriend and fellow band member, Eurydice, almost got stuck in the Underworld when she dared to go in. The Furies planned to keep her there forever!”
“And if Orpheus hadn’t agreed to play for them and I hadn’t named a flower after the foolish girl, they would have, too,” Persephone added with a shudder.
“Named a flower after her?” Theseus repeated in confusion.
“Never mind,” said Persephone. “It’s a long story.”
Pirithous shrugged. Appearing to finally accept that he and Theseus wouldn’t be able to enter the Underworld once they arrived, he said, “I guess it’s okay if Theseus and I have to wait this one out. We’re way ahead of the other teams anyway. How many times do I have to say it? We. Are. Going. To. Win!” He pumped a confident fist in the air.
“Hope you’re right. But until we win, we haven’t won,” said Theseus, sounding worried in spite of their lead.
Seconds later, Team Four took to the air again. “Follow me,” Persephone told the others, as she headed for the Underworld.
“Happily,” said Pirithous, who was once again holding her hand.
“Ha! You don’t have a choice about following me, since you’re flying with me,” Persephone told him.
“Happily,” he repeated.
Argh. Persephone rolled her eyes, which only made him smile… happily.
“I’m hungry,” he informed her. “Got any more of those snack bars you were handing out earlier?”
“One more,” she told him. “And there are also apples in my backpack.”
“I’ll get them,” said Pirithous. Still holding on to her hand, he managed to twist and reach around so he could fish the snack bar and two red apples out of her backpack. He pocketed one of the apples for himself, handed her the other apple, and began eating the last pomegranola bar. They fell silent as they continued toward the Styx, both munching away. Pirithous devoured the snack bar in a few bites and then started in on his apple.
“It’s kind of strange that we seem to be so far ahead of all the other teams, don’t you think?” Persephone remarked after they’d finished their apples and dropped the cores onto the earth below. It pleased her to think of the seeds possibly becoming trees where they landed.
A sneaky smile flashed across Pirithous’s face. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Huh? His unexpected reply threw her off balance. Literally. As she shot him a look, they dipped sideways, and she almost lost hold of his hand.
“Whoa!” Pirithous cried out. But once she’d steadied them both, he grinned. “If you’re not more careful, you might have to rescue me again!”
Don’t count on it, she almost said. Truth was, Pirithous was getting on her nerves more and more, while at the same time Makhai was getting on her nerves less and less. How odd was that?
But then Muse Urania’s words ran through her mind again. Sometimes we see what we want or expect to see. Had Persephone been expecting to see Makhai as totally awful all along? And to see Pirithous as… as what, exactly? Maybe not all good, but at least less secretive. Besides that, his insta-crush on her was getting mega-annoying. He’d only known her for a few hours, after all. No matter what Aphrodite believed about love at first sight, how real could such a fast crush be?
When they reached the River Styx at last, Persephone set down on the side of the river opposite the Underworld, near an iron fence Hades had built not long ago. The fence was meant to keep curious mortals from trying to sneak across the River Styx and enter the Underworld. To make his intentions to would-be trespassers super clear, he’d posted a huge sign on the fence that read NO MORTALS ALLOWED! And there were additional signs along the bank that said things like IF YOU’RE NOT A SHADE—SHOO! and KEEP OUT, UNLESS YOU’RE DEAD!
“Yikes! Hades isn’t exactly friendly, is he?” said Pirithous, pointing to the signs.
“He’s friendly,” Persephone assured him, hearing the annoyance in her own voice at his comment. “Those warnings are for your own good, trust me.”
Antheia touched down on the riverbank with Theseus not long after Persephone and Pirithous landed. And Makhai was right behind them. “Here. Take this,” Theseus said, handing Antheia his scroll-gadget. “Since Pirithous and I will just be waiting here for the rest of you, I won’t need it.”
Antheia beamed at him. “Good idea. Thanks, Theseus.”
“And maybe I should take yours,” Persephone said to Pirithous. “We know that we can get a container to appear with only four beams. But as unsteady as that container was, three might be too few.”
“Yeah, okay,” said Pirithous. But he seemed a little reluctant as he handed it over.
“We shouldn’t be gone long,” Persephone assured both mortal boys. “Like I said, I know where the River Cocytus is. I was just there yesterday morning.” With that she took off with the other two immortals on her team, holding a scroll-gadget in each of her hands.
Persephone was pleased to see that Minthe wasn’t in sight when they arrived at her river. Fingers crossed she wouldn’t have to deal with the gloomy girl at all. After she, Antheia, and Makhai strapped their sandals’ wings so they’d stop flapping, the three of them walked up to the riverbank.
“Ew. Stink-eee,” said Makhai, pinching his nose closed.
“Yeah, the sulfur smell is strong today,” said Persephone, doing the same. Because… ick.
“No kidding,” Antheia agreed. Holding her nose too, she stared down at the ugly, muddy river. “I’ve never been to the Underworld before,” she said in a nasal voice. “Is the rest of it as awful as this place?”
“Thankfully not,” answered Persephone as the three of them pointed all four scroll-gadgets toward the ground. Not wanting to leave Antheia and Makhai with a bad impression of Hades’ realm, she added, “Actually, there are fields of these really pretty flowers called asphodel in some areas, and—”
But before she could continue, four beams of green light suddenly shot from the scroll-gadgets. The beams intersected at a spot only a few feet away on the riverbank. And right at that spot, a dog-shaped box appeared. Like the urn, it wavered and changed shape, so sometimes the dog had three heads, sometimes two, and sometimes just one.
As Makhai stepped forward to get the box, Persephone shrugged off her backpack so she could put the last object inside with the others. Watching her, Antheia handed her Theseus’s scroll-gadget. “Could you please put this in your backpack for safekeeping? I’d hate to accidentally lose another one.”
“Sure thing,” said Persephone. To free her hands, she decided to slip all three scroll-gadgets—her own, Pirithous’s, and Theseus’s—into her pack.
Makhai had picked up the box by now. As he was about to open it, he suddenly hesitated. “Maybe you’d like to open this one?” he said, gallantly handing the box to Antheia.
Seeing this, Persephone couldn’t help wondering if he might be paying forward her earlier kindness to him with the pomegranola bar. It would certainly be nice to think so!
With a look of surprise, Antheia accepted the wavery dog-shaped box. “Thanks,” she said. Inside the golden-hinged box were seven bars of shiny gold, each and shaped like a dog-bone biscuit. “Wow!” she s
aid as she lifted out one of the golden dog biscuits.
“Cool!” said Makhai.
Hot! thought Persephone, but she didn’t say it out loud because she liked having the word be a private joke between her and Hades.
Antheia closed the lid of the box, but she hadn’t yet set it down on the ground when the sulfur smell got to Persephone and made her cough. Hack! “I wish Hades had picked somewhere nicer—hack!—to send us so you’d get a better—hack!—impression of the Underworld. It’s really not this—hack!—bad everywhere.” He was so used to the smells here, he probably didn’t realize how offensive they could be to visitors.
Perched in a gnarled tree on the opposite bank of the Cocytus, a screech owl let out a whiny, mournful cry. Makhai shivered. “Let’s get out of here. This stinko river gives me the creeps.” He untied the wings at his sandals’ heels. Without waiting to see if the girls were doing the same, he took off back the way they had come, his purple cloak flapping behind him.
“I like how he waited for us. Such a gentleman… not,” murmured Antheia while still holding the box. Then she corrected herself. “Although he did let me open the box. Boys can be hard to figure out.”
“That’s for sure,” Persephone agreed. Sharing a look, both girls grinned.
“Makhai’s right, though,” Antheia noted. “This river is creepy. And so is the area around it.”
“Mm-hmm. Could you imagine having to live here? Ugh,” Persephone said, thinking of Minthe.
Antheia was bending to place the box on the ground when suddenly that very nymph rose from the yucky water just a few feet from where they stood on the bank. Minthe shook a finger at them, her beautiful face red with anger. “How dare you? When you insult my river, you insult me!”
Antheia straightened, then froze in alarm, her mouth gaping open. “Whoa! Who’s that?” she whispered, nudging Persephone with an elbow.
“Minthe, the naiad who’s the caretaker of this river,” Persephone whispered back. “I mentioned her earlier, remember?”