What else she said in the next several minutes, what expletives, what names, what elaborate curses, she didn’t know. Maybe it was none of those and she stood screaming nothing in an empty, sunlit cemetery.
Thanatos stood to the side and ignored her until she was through.
Wrung out and guilty, she felt sort of ridiculous, and her broken fingernails throbbed. But when she glanced at Thanatos, his expression was neutral. Her lip curled to say something like, What was that? Death therapy? Should we hug it out now? but her voice was too tired for it. Instead she asked, “Am I crazy?”
“If you are, people have gone crazy for less.” He looked at Aidan’s headstone, helpless on its back. It reminded Cassandra of a lobster she’d seen in a tank once, hopelessly flipped over, no longer trying to right itself. Why bother? It was headed for a pot of hot water anyway.
“Thanatos?”
“Yeah?”
“Am I evil?”
He looked at her with calm eyes. This was what he’d been trying to puzzle out this whole time. What she was.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said.
Cassandra smiled shakily. “Me neither.” She flexed her hands. They didn’t feel like her hands. So much power in little bones and skin. It was strange to have that power and still feel so powerless.
“I’m angry about everything,” she said softly. “Angry that Aidan’s dead. Angry that he deserved it. Angry that these people, these gods, showed up one day and made everything hard. Athena stuffed a bad life into my head. Made me fight when I didn’t want to fight. Hurt my friends. Became my friends.
“And I feel guilty for being so angry.” She sighed. “And I can’t control it. And I killed Calypso.”
“It doesn’t make it any easier that she wanted to be dead,” Thanatos said.
“No. And she wouldn’t have wanted to die, if she knew that Odysseus was alive. She hoped, at the end. I saw it in her eyes. Maybe that’s why I did it. Maybe I killed her on purpose because I hated her hope. I wanted him to be dead because Aidan was dead. So I wouldn’t be alone.”
“You’re adding to your own memories,” Thanatos said gently. “You weren’t really thinking that. It happened too fast.” He said those things to comfort her. But he didn’t say it was an accident, or that she hadn’t meant to do it. He didn’t lie.
“I have to learn to control this,” she said. “I have to learn to swallow it.”
Thanatos bent to retrieve Aidan’s headstone. He lifted it one-handed and set it carefully back into its place.
“You can’t swallow it, Cassandra. You have to let it go.”
22
THE WAR UNSEEN
Thanatos dropped Cassandra in the Applebee’s parking lot to meet her dad for an early dinner and a movie. Her idea. Making up for time lost being a jackass, she told herself. Not a tactic to avoid Andie and Henry, though that was a bonus. She didn’t know what to tell them about Calypso, or about almost murdering everyone in her path.
She remembered testing her touch on Andie, when they’d visited Henry in the hospital after the wolf attack, and her stomach twinged with shame.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Thanatos asked. “We can go somewhere else. Talk.”
“I’m fine. And thanks. But what about you? Where are you going? Think Athena will let you back in the house?” Or perhaps he was leaving. Back to California. It surprised her how much she wanted him to stay.
He can’t go. He’s my only witness. The only one who knows what we did.
He ran his hand through his hair and ruffled it like he was tired.
“You won’t leave?” she asked. “Town, I mean.”
He touched her shoulder lightly. Just a fast touch from cold fingers. If he’d lingered any longer, she might have walked into his arms.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “But I won’t go back to Athena’s. I’d wake up in the middle of the night to find her staring down at me with a hatchet. I’ll find someplace else to stay.”
“There’s not much to choose from. There’s a Motel 6 off the highway that seems pretty popular with gods.”
Thanatos chuckled and pulled a face. “Or maybe I’ll rent a house.”
He pulled out of the lot just as Cassandra’s dad pulled in. They honked at each other and did the guy salute.
Throughout dinner her dad did a good job pretending that she hadn’t been gone at all, and pretending that meeting at Applebee’s for smothered chicken and potato skins was something they did often instead of never before. Sometimes he went overboard with cheerfulness and she had to force her cheeks to go along with it. But it made her sad that he tried so hard to keep her happy, as though keeping her happy would keep her home. He blamed himself, and he’d do it again the next time she ran away to fight in one god’s struggle or another.
“Do you want dessert?” he asked. “Or would you rather get something at the movie?”
“I’m stuffed. Maybe some Sour Patch Kids at the movie. Or some Cookie Dough Bites.”
“And probably some popcorn,” he added. “Medium soda.”
“Dad?” she said. “Thanks for not locking me in a basket.”
She could tell the word choice confused him, but he smiled anyway.
“Sure, kiddo. But do it again, and I make no promises.”
* * *
When they pulled into the driveway, Andie’s Saturn was parked on the street. As she went up the stairs Cassandra thought of ways to dodge uncomfortable questions, but when she reached the second floor hallway, Henry’s door was pulled firmly shut. A lucky break.
She could hear them inside, and was briefly grossed out before she realized they were arguing.
I should find out about what, she thought, but instead turned and went through her bedroom door.
In her room, she twisted the knob tight and leaned against her door, grimacing even at the soft whuft the wood made sliding into place. But no one came. Andie didn’t burst from Henry’s room like a Valkyrie demanding answers. Lux didn’t even bark.
She started to take off her cardigan when an insect crawled up her nose.
“Ungh!” She swatted and exhaled as hard as she could, trying to stop the million legs from scrambling up her nostril. Any moment and the bug would turn, take the down chute, and head for her throat. She’d be able to hack it up onto her tongue and spit it out. The thought filled her with adrenaline and disgust. All those legs in her mouth, clinging to her lips.
Cassandra stumbled to her vanity dresser and stared into the mirror, expecting to see the back third of a red-brown centipede hanging from her face.
There was nothing there. And the bug had settled down inside, too.
She tilted her face up, more scared than she could remember being in a while, bracing herself for bug legs nestled firmly up her nose.
Nothing.
“I really am going crazy.”
(No. Not crazy. Just unused to having us inside your head.)
Cassandra lurched back from the mirror. That voice. She recognized the way it boomed from the center of her brain.
“The Moirae.”
(Not all of us. Only Clotho. And now Lachesis.)
“Now?” Cassandra asked, and felt another bug start to fight its way in, this time through her ear. That was worse than through her nose, though she hadn’t been able to imagine worse moments before. It drilled and squiggled and scratched its way right past her eardrum, and she couldn’t tell how many legs it had but it felt like a lot. By the time Lachesis finished working her way in, Cassandra lay curled up and sweating on the carpet.
She took a breath and her stomach clenched in a hard dry heave. Clotho and Lachesis waited for it to subside. Cassandra could feel them sitting behind her eyes, their presence as heavy as two fat, furred spiders bouncing on a web.
(Get up, Cassandra.)
Their voices wove together as one, so loud and encompassing that Cassandra mistook it for her own thought. She’d hooked her elbow onto the vanity table and drag
ged herself halfway onto her knees before she realized it wasn’t.
“Get out of my head.”
(Not just now. Now we need your legs. Ours have become … unreliable.)
A flash then, of skin twisted and melted together, bones joining to other bones as tributaries into a larger river. The image couldn’t be hers. She’d never seen that part of the Moirae. The legs uncovered. And even in her darkest thoughts, she couldn’t have conjured something so painfully wrong.
“What do you want my legs for?” Cassandra looked at her reflection. A single dot of blood hung on her upper lip. She touched her ear and her fingers came away dry.
(To ferry a message.)
“Forget it.” She wiped the blood away on her sleeve. “Get out.” Except she didn’t mean it. Not really. The longer Clotho and Lachesis sat inside her mind, the more at home they seemed. It wasn’t crowded, or an invasion. It was company. When one or the other or both of them took control of her legs and stood, Cassandra went pleasantly slack inside.
Sort of lovely, to not have to do things on my own.
(Yes. Very lovely. You are very lovely, Cassandra.)
Cassandra smiled into the mirror. One half of each eye had turned green.
“Should we go to Athena’s, then?”
* * *
Hermes’ fever held steady. He didn’t wake. Aside from swallowing and shivering when Athena spoon-fed him bowl after bowl of hot broth that evening, he hadn’t moved at all.
“Hermes,” Athena whispered. “Can you hear me?”
She listened so intently for a response that she jumped at the sound of Odysseus’ shoes on the floor.
“Come on,” he said, and squeezed her shoulder. “Let’s get you some air.”
He led her upstairs into her bedroom and straight through to the widow’s walk. The cool night hit her square in the chest. Odysseus moved to the railing beside her.
It had been tense in the house with Hermes ill, and tense between Athena and Odysseus. The ghost of Calypso was around every corner. Sometimes, Athena passed Odysseus in the kitchen and felt the pressure of a hundred things keeping them apart. Other times, such as there on the walk with him, they felt closer than skin to skin.
“We shouldn’t stay up here long,” she said. “Ares is out running the wolves, and I don’t want Hermes to wake up alone.”
Odysseus said nothing. But it hung in the air anyway. Hermes might not wake up. She might never hear his annoying, wiseass voice ever again. The fever was high and mean. A mortal would have been dead hours ago.
Odysseus bent his head and kissed Athena’s shoulder. He turned her toward him and kissed her cheeks, her closed eyes, and finally her lips. He slipped his arms around her and held her tight, kissing her deeper until her mind was a blank, until she was nothing but body.
“It’s not wrong,” he said. “I was just afraid.”
“It is wrong,” she said, but she kissed him again.
A branch snapping underfoot made them draw apart. It was Cassandra, walking slowly across the grass.
“Good thing Ares is in the woods,” Odysseus said, and waved, but Cassandra didn’t look up. She didn’t look at much of anything.
Athena’s hackles raised with every step the girl took. Just before Cassandra disappeared from view, her eyes flickered to the widow’s walk.
Brown eyes gone half green.
She grabbed Odysseus’ arm.
“That’s not Cassandra.”
* * *
They dashed down the stairs. Odysseus grabbed a sword off the wall and made a good show of being ready to use it.
“What do you mean it’s not Cassandra?” he asked. “Who the bloody hell is it, then?”
Athena leaned down and, as gently as she could, shoved the couch and Hermes away from the door as far as it would go.
“I don’t know who exactly. But I think it’s the Moirae. Wearing her face.”
Whoever it was knocked. Three times. Odysseus swore. Athena shook the fist out of her hand and walked to the entryway.
She took a deep breath, ready to knock the Moirae flat on Cassandra’s ass. But when the door opened, Cassandra simply stood there without a jacket on. Wet dirt and trampled grass stuck to her bare feet. Beneath the weak house lights it was hard to tell that something was wrong with her eyes. If she hadn’t looked up at the balcony, Athena might not have noticed at all.
“What is it?” Odysseus asked, and the thing wearing Cassandra smiled a wrong smile, as though it hadn’t figured out quite how to use her face.
“Aren’t you going to invite us in?”
“Who are you?” Athena asked.
“Clotho,” a voice that wasn’t quite Cassandra’s voice replied.
“And Lachesis,” added a voice that wasn’t quite Cassandra’s voice but wasn’t exactly the first voice, either.
Athena waited a long beat before asking, “But not Atropos?”
They shook their head.
“It is she we come to discuss. But we have to hurry. We don’t have much time.”
* * *
Cassandra sat mute inside her mind. She felt Clotho and Lachesis’ reactions as if they were her own, and heard every thought they had. Athena looked so frightened. She wished she could tell her that there was no guile in these Moirae. That they meant her no harm.
Walking into the house, she saw Odysseus standing in front of the couch where Hermes lay. A sword was in his hand, gripped tight. It seemed somehow amusing to Cassandra, and she wanted to wave to him from inside her mind. Inside her mind, as through a window. But when she tried, Lachesis pressed her hand gently down.
* * *
Clotho and Lachesis. The Moira of Life and the Moira of Destiny. They maneuvered Cassandra’s body poorly; one eye tracked later than the other, and the way they walked had a strange side-to-side tilt. Beneath the lights of her living room, Athena saw that strands of red and silver-blonde hair had twisted into Cassandra’s brown.
“What are you doing with Cassandra?” Odysseus asked. “Is she all right?”
“She is fine. Here with us. We would not harm her.” They looked around the house, jerking Cassandra’s head like a puppet.
Athena wanted them out. Out of her living room, and out of Cassandra, and she wanted them out now.
“Then what do you want?” Athena asked.
“We want to tell you what is.” They made their way to the middle of the room and stopped, seemingly content to stand and go no farther.
“Tell us what is?” Odysseus asked. “That’s all? After you tried to kill us?”
“We did not. But some of you have died.” Cassandra’s head turned, a little too far. A joint popped, and her head turned back quickly, as though the Moirae were surprised by the limit. “It is Atropos who kills you. Atropos who would kill us all.”
Athena remembered how the Moirae had looked on Olympus. Clotho and Lachesis were two deflating balloons, bleeding into their dark-headed sister.
“All this time we have struggled with her in secret,” they said. “Our sister is sick. And when the Moirae of Death is ill, she spreads her sickness down. To all her leaves and branches.” They peered past Odysseus, to Hermes, lying still on the couch.
“He’s unwell,” they said. “He’ll be gone soon.”
Fast, angry tears blurred Athena’s vision. A fat lot of nerve they had, coming into her house and telling her that her dying brother was dying. A fat lot of nerve, coming to them now. When it was too late.
“We need to kill her,” said Clotho, or Lachesis, or perhaps both. “Kill Atropos.”
“So kill her,” Athena said.
“She is weakened. But she will not go easily.”
“So kill her harder.”
The Moirae inside Cassandra frowned. They looked at Athena the way a parent looks at a child they’ve just discovered has been spoiled.
“You have other brothers,” they said. “Other sisters. Think of them.”
Athena wanted to tell them where they could
stick it, but only clenched her fists.
“You’ll help us now,” Clotho and Lachesis said. “You and Cassandra. You’ll help us kill Atropos to win your lives back. And in exchange for your lives…”
In her mind Athena ransacked the house for any weapon she could use to batter the Moirae out of Cassandra’s body. They came with balls the size of grapefruits, demanding help and payment for their lives besides.
“What the hell can you possibly want?” Athena asked.
“After Atropos falls,” the Fates sighed. “Cassandra will join us.”
“Join you?” Odysseus said. “What do you mean, ‘join you’?”
“The Moirae are three. Life, Destiny, and Death. We can cut Death out. But Death must replace her.”
Athena looked hard into Cassandra’s eyes, trying to see any of her in there. Could she hear? Was she trying to fight while they stood there talking? Was she afraid? Angry? But no matter where Athena looked, all she saw were the Moirae. They’d invaded Cassandra’s head and taken over, and before they were through, they would take the rest of her, too.
“She is ours, anyway,” the Moirae said, and shrugged with Cassandra’s shoulders. “Our perfect creation, brought into being by us, given the gift of prophecy by us, and touched with the hand of Death. It was all put into motion so long ago.”
The Moirae pursed Cassandra’s lips and crooned inwardly to her, as if crooning to a pretty bird they’d recently swallowed.
A perfect creation. But that’s not what Athena saw. Athena saw a girl with too many lives inside. Too many pains and wrongs and losses. A girl her brother Aidan had loved and ruined, but mostly loved.
I promised to take care of her. And even though she hates me, she’s still my friend.
“Would you take me instead?” Athena asked.
“What? No. No, they won’t take you instead!” Odysseus stared at her as though she’d lost her mind. She wanted to look at him, to try to explain, but if she did that she’d never be able to say what she had to.
“I can take lives as well as she can,” Athena said. “I’m strong. You can give me the sight.”
“Understand what you offer, goddess,” said Clotho. “To join us is to become us. To join us is to disappear.”
Ungodly Page 22