by S. L. Stacy
“Ten dollars for a basic reading,” Moira says, holding her hand out expectantly. Her nails are fake, painted a glittery black with a clear gem adorning each tip. I get some money out of my purse, laying the bills in her outstretched palm. Her fingers close immediately over them, cramming them into the velvet pouch on her lap.
“What is your name, child?” she asks me, full, red lips curving into a tranquil smile. I try to hide my amusement at the question. Some psychic she is.
“Carly.” I shift uncomfortably in the chair. The seat is covered with a lumpy gold cushion that makes me feel like I’m sitting on a Jell-O mold.
“Carly,” she repeats thoughtfully. “Daughter of the true gods.” I go still at the words, forgetting the cushion situation. “Tell me, Carly. What has brought you to seek the guidance of Madam Moira?”
“Carly,” I begin, mocking her use of the third person, “would like to know what the future holds.”
Moira nods knowingly. “Before we proceed, I must warn you: I do not sugarcoat my readings,” she says, arching a thick, well-shaped eyebrow. She has a faint, unfamiliar accent—must be another part of her act. “Many think they want to know what the future holds. But you may not like what you find there. Would you still like to proceed?”
Of course—I just paid you ten dollars, I think to myself, but all I do is nod, encouraging her to continue.
“Very well.” Moira’s piercing eyes shift to the crystal ball. She stirs the air above it with a flourish of her hands. “You have recently returned from a perilous journey,” she continues, glancing up at me. I give her another nod. “Journey” is pretty vague, even a perilous one. That could mean anything. It could refer to my trip to the grocery store this morning and the truck that almost backed into my car in the parking lot.
Creases burrow across her forehead as she peers into the ball. “I see a field. An endless field with tall, green grass. A great wall surrounding a city. An elderly man, standing guard.” Madam Moira pauses for effect. My heart starts to pound, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
“I also see a…forest.” I don’t know if I’m imagining it or not, but it looks like the light inside the glass ball is starting to swirl. “And a creature—a gorgeous creature with a shining mane and a glittering”—she squints as though even she doesn’t quite believe what she’s seeing—“horn. A great, gaping pit of fire, mountains looming in the distance.” Moira blinks a few times, wavering in her chair. “I’m sorry. I’m only getting snapshots—everything is so jumbled and disjointed. Now, there’s a room—a dark room with stone walls and an iron throne—”
“That’s enough,” I say, standing up so quickly I almost knock the chair over. Concentration broken, Moira shifts her gaze to me, looking taken aback. “I mean…that’s okay. None of that matters, anyway. It’s in my past…not my future.” I turn to go, unable to listen to this a moment longer—to her abbreviated version of everything that happened in Pandora, an adventure that turned out to be nothing more than a fancy trick.
I wasn’t alone in Pandora, although I didn’t know my prison had a name at first. I thought I was trapped in an eerie, dark palace, held captive by a mercurial, white-haired prince. He sent me on what turned out to be a pointless quest to win my freedom. On my journey, I was tested three times. A test of the mind to enter the city. One of strength to get across a burning chasm. A final test of the heart to choose my own freedom and getting home to my sorority sisters over an imposter Alec. As it turned out, the entire journey had been a distraction created by the prince, who wasn’t a prince or my captor at all, but a fellow prisoner.
“I see a boy.” Moira’s lilting voice brings me back to the present. “A boy with two faces.”
“Who told you all of this?” I ask, sitting down again. “Was my roommate here? This isn’t funny, Victoria!” I say loudly, just in case she’s hiding somewhere, watching me make a fool of myself.
“You care about him,” Moira says, eyes sad.
A tear escapes down my cheek. I wipe it quickly away. “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone. He left me.” I’m not really being fair to Dolos, Moira’s boy with two faces. One, the face of the blonde prince holding me captive—the other green-eyed and dark-haired. The real Dolos, the god of trickery and deceit. When we were rescued from Pandora, I returned home, and so did he, as I found out later. Even though I had already suspected as much, it had taken me awhile to truly digest it—to accept I would never see him again.
“He is not gone,” Moira assures me. “He’s just in hiding.”
I shake my head. “But that would mean—”
“You have known so much loss in such little time,” Moira interrupts me, shaking her head gravely. “A sister in jeopardy. Trapped.”
“Yes!” I cry out, nodding eagerly for her to continue, despite the abrupt change of topic. “Siobhan. Is she okay? Is she alive?” My sorority sister, Siobhan, was the one who braved Pandora to rescue us. Once I was safely out, she never came back through the portal, and Victoria and the others ran out of time, forced to close it behind her.
“She is hanging on.”
“Do we save her?” I lean forward into the table. “We have to get her out of there. She’s important.”
Moira’s eyes take on a sudden intensity when she replies, “You’re both important.”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand. She saved me, and I think she's going to save all of us—the whole world, even. We need her.”
“Siobhan is the sword. You are the shield.”
Her cryptic words do nothing to reassure me. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
Instead of answering me, she says, “You need to save the others, first. They are trapped in a different way. Transformed.”
As Victoria updated me upon my return, Hera had spied on our sorority, deeming us unfit to perform our duties as guardians of the wall between universes. As punishment, she turned my sisters into doves.
“Will we be able to save them, too? Change them back?” Moira nods. “How?” I press her.
“Before the day is done, go to the place where three become one.”
“I don’t need another riddle.” I had my fill of them in Pandora. “You’re going to have to give me more than that.”
“You will embark on a dangerous quest.” Moira points a long, manicured fingernail at me. “Sacrifices will be made. Prices will be paid.”
“I think we’ve had to make plenty of sacrifices already,” I say, anger suddenly surging through me.
“You will have to choose.”
“Choose? Choose what?”
“Your sisters or your lover.”
“I think I’ve heard enough.” This time when I stand up, I send the chair clattering to the ground. I was right in the first place. Madam Moira is nothing but an actress. And a mediocre one at that. She got lucky with her guesses. Although I’m not a complete nonbeliever—some people probably are psychic, have “the sight,” whatever you want to call it–but certainly not some ten dollar fortuneteller at an amusement park.
“I warned you,” Madam Moira calls out behind me. “The future isn’t always an easy thing to hear.”
“Neither are your lies,” I tell her without looking back.
“The beast is coming.”
The words stop me in my tracks. Not just the words—Moira’s voice has changed. It’s deep and distorted, like someone or something else is speaking through her. I should bolt from the tent, but fear keeps my feet nailed to the ground. I twist my head slowly to look back over my shoulder, afraid of what I will find when I do, but overcome with an unshakable curiosity.
Moira’s eyes have rolled into the back of her head, leaving only the whites and a spider’s web of red lines. “It rises again,” she bellows. “It returns for the hunt. To devour its prey.”
“What beast?” I ask her, voice quivering. Forcing myself into motion, I back away slowly, unable to take my eyes off of her.
“The beast is alive.
It is close. So close.”
“Where is it?” Suddenly, my back hits the wall of the tent, stopping me from going any further. The material gives way as I sink further and further into it. “What does it want?”
Moira fixes her white gaze on me. “You.”
Chapter 2
“You, child! It wants you!”
Moira’s frantic voice follows me as I stumble outside—and straight into a high school couple walking by the tent, hand in hand.
“Hey!” the girl cries out, glaring at me. “Watch where you’re going!”
“Sorry,” I say absently, feeling lightheaded as the fortuneteller’s words echo in my head. The girl sends me another withering look before she and her boyfriend continue on their way.
I stand still for a moment, letting the wave of dizziness pass. The cool night air has never been more welcome, reviving my flushed skin. When I’m feeling better, I take off in the direction of the parking lot, keeping my eyes forward, ignoring the swirl of activity around me. In my haste, I bump into someone else, making us both lose our balance.
“Sorry,” the person mumbles.
“Excuse me,” I say almost at the same time. “God, I’m so clumsy tonight,” I add to myself.
“It was my fault,” he insists, a little louder this time. I freeze at the sound of his voice, catching a flash of dark hair out of the corner of my eye. As we right ourselves, our hands brush, and the feel of his skin on mine is familiar. His fingertips linger for a moment before dropping from my hand.
“Dolos?” I cry, spinning around, but the young man has disappeared. I search the crowd milling around the entrance to Playland, but there’s no Dolos. The only familiar faces belong to that same group of teens from earlier. They stare at me with bloodshot eyes, grinning sloppily, high on sugary carnival fare and probably something else.
“What’s a dolos?” one of the boys calls out to me, laughing.
“You guys,” the girl next to him says, looking at her friends, “the crazy lady is looking at us! Oh, my God, she’s like, looking at us!” For some reason, this exclamation sends her companions into further fits of laughter.
“The beast is coming,” a second boy says through a hiccup. My heart skips a beat. His friends grow silent, their smiles vanishing. “I—I don’t know why I said that,” he admits, frowning. He brings a hand to his stomach. “I feel sick. I think I ate too much popcorn.”
“Dude, you’ll be fine,” the first boy tells him, giving him a reassuring pat on the back. The others forget about me, turning to their sick friend, whose face is turning gray. Ducking my head, I run past them, all the way to the parking lot. I don’t slow down until I reach my car.
***
Opening the door to the sorority house, I’m bombarded with the smells of newspaper ink and bird.
The newspaper-lined, stainless steel cages set up throughout the downstairs have become a familiar sight, covering every available surface—the coffee and end tables in the living room, the dining room table, even the shelves where we usually display our Greek Sing trophies. Thirty white doves are perched inside of them, filling the house with their haunting cries. A few of them watch me with shiny black eyes as I come in, the others preening their feathers, completely ignoring me. Going up to one of the cages, I try to catch the attention of the dove inside, but she’s busy looking off into space.
“Hey, there,” I say, sticking a tentative finger between the bars and gently stroking her wing. She doesn’t flinch, but lets out a desperate-sounding coo, which I take as a plea for help. I wonder which one of my sisters she is and if she recognizes me. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get you out of there soon. I promise.” She doesn’t answer, of course—just buries her beak in her wing to clean her feathers. Sighing, I drop my hand from the cage and go upstairs.
“You can’t just leave at a time like this.” On the second floor, I can hear my roommate’s muffled but angry voice coming from inside our room. “We have too much work to do.” I hesitate just outside the closed door, hand poised over the doorknob.
“Which is exactly why we have to go to Headquarters.” I recognize the second voice, calm but with an edge of annoyance, as Athena’s. She’s referring to our sorority’s National Headquarters, which governs all of the Gamma Lambda Phi chapters. “They’ll be able to help us—to guide us in these matters.”
“Please,” Victoria scoffs. “Headquarters is great when we need help with recruitment or stuff for the house, but we have much bigger problems right now.”
“They’re more capable than you think.” Athena’s tone is strained, annoyance slowly building to anger. “They have been entrusted with Gamma Lambda Phi’s secrets and are prepared to aid us in times of need.”
Victoria sighs loudly. “Fine. But if you and Farrah are going, I’m going, too.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Someone has to stay here with Carly,” Athena shouts, her patience finally crumbling. “She’s still recovering!”
“She went out tonight! She’s fine.”
“We are not leaving her here alone,” Athena maintains.
“Then we’ll all go!”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want you to come!” Athena blurts. A few seconds of tense silence tick by. “I’m sorry,” she says, more quietly this time. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes. You did,” Victoria says flatly.
“No, I—”
“You’ve barely even looked at me since the whole Rebecca…incident.” I have no idea what Victoria is talking about. The only Rebecca I know is in one of the other sororities on campus, Alpha Rho. “This is the first conversation—if you can even call it that—we’ve had in days.”
“Can you blame me?” Athena exclaims. “What you did to Rebecca—that is not what we stand for.”
“I made a mistake!”
“No! A mistake is…forgetting to go to a chapter meeting. You deliberately held Rebecca captive in order to try to get information out of her. And you managed to keep it from me. And Farrah,” Athena adds quickly.
“That’s what you’re upset about,” Victoria realizes. “That I lied to you.”
“How do you expect any of us to trust you after that? I’m sorry, but I…I don’t know if I can get over this. I feel like I don’t even know you.”
“Athena…” My roommate’s voice trails off. There’s another stretch of silence, then footsteps. Before I know what’s happening, the bedroom door flies open, making me jump back in surprise.
“I knew we had an eavesdropper,” Victoria snaps. She looks like she recently got back from the gym, still wearing her workout clothes, auburn hair swept back into a ponytail. “Were you just going to stand there all night?”
“Victoria,” Athena says, sounding exasperated. She’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt, black hair plaited down her back in a braid that skims her tailbone. There’s a glint of warning in her dark eyes. “Don’t take this out on her.”
Victoria purses her lips, collecting herself. Then, she nods. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Carly. Can you just give us a min—”
“There’s no need,” Athena cuts her off. “Farrah and I have to get going.” Her arms raise slightly, as if she might reach out and hug her girlfriend, before falling back to her sides. “We’ll be in touch. Call us if you need anything. Goodbye, Carly,” Athena tells me, forcing a smile. I come into the room and she leaves, walking quickly down the stairs.
“Did you guys break up?” I wonder, sitting on my bed.
Victoria just shrugs. “You’re home late,” she says, avoiding my gaze.
“Um, you’re up late,” I point out.
She thinks about this for a moment. “Touché.” Taking a book down from our bookcase, she lugs it over to her desk. The ceiling light catches the gold Greek letters on its worn cover: ΓΛΦ.
“Our ritual book,” I realize. “Doing a bit of light reading be
fore bed?”
“I was reading up on transformations before Athena interrupted me,” she grumbles. She opens the book and silently skims a page. It’s only then that I notice the stack of books on her desk, a few others strewn across her bed.
“I think this is the messiest I’ve ever seen your side of the room,” I try to joke, but Victoria is absorbed in whatever she’s reading, or at least pretending to be. Victoria’s side of the bedroom is usually pristine and serious, the only hint of color the dark green comforter on the bed. My bright pink quilt and curtains more than compensate for that. Most people cringe when they see my half of the room—the collection of stuffed animals displayed on the bed, the glitter accents, the 80s-themed posters obscuring the walls. But the pink and sparkles make me happy, brightening my mood even on the darkest of days. And I’ve had some pretty dark days.
“Find anything good?” I ask after a while.
Victoria shakes her head. “You’d think at least one of my books would say something about Hera’s transformation curse. But, nope. Nothing.” Sighing, she slumps back in the chair. “I did, however, find a new song we can use for recruitment,” she adds, picking out a more modern-looking book from the stack. Leafing through it, she stops a few pages in. “We are the Gamma Lamba Phis,” she reads to me, “the prettiest girls you’ll ever see. Gamma Lambda Phi can’t be beat, we’re the nicest girls you’ll ever meet.” She shuts the book with a roll of her eyes.
“That will set sorority women back about fifty years,” I agree. “Although I think house mommy would like that one.”
Victoria gives a short laugh. “Farrah would love it.”
“I can’t believe she and Athena are leaving us to go to Headquarters. And what Athena said about Rebecca…about what you did…” Unable to finish the question, I let it hang in the air. Victoria looks away from me again, wringing her hands in her lap.
“Is true,” she finishes for me.
“So you did the same thing to Rebecca that the Sigma Iotas did to me.” I say it matter-of-factly, without even a tinge of anger, but Victoria’s mouth still falls open.