Painted Blind

by Michelle Hansen

  I sank back relieved. She was explaining. He wouldn’t think I was crazy, and maybe he wouldn’t ask too many painful questions about Erik. It would be all right. When I got out of here, I would go back to the portal. I would find a way to cross the ravine, and I would get to Olympus. I wouldn’t stop trying until he forgave me. Whatever it took, I would win Eros back.

  When Dad returned a few hours later, he had a sandwich and a bottle of chocolate milk from the cafeteria. He didn’t ask any questions, for which I felt a profound gratitude to Savannah. He settled in the chair and picked up the television remote.

  “How long do I have to stay?” I asked.

  “Overnight.” He frowned at the football game on the screen. MSU was losing. “They want to run some tests.”

  “For what?”

  The offense fumbled the ball, took a timeout, and the screen went to commercial. Dad turned to me, his expression softer. “I just want you to get better.” There was genuine sadness in his voice. He wasn’t talking about hypothermia or frostbite.

  The hospital released me the following afternoon. Dad drove through the wet streets. Snow clung to the upper elevations, but it rained in the valley. As soon as I got home, I called Savannah’s cell phone. It went straight to voice mail. I called a dozen times over the next few hours but she didn’t answer.

  I called her house, and her mom answered on the first ring. “Psyche?”

  “Is Savannah around? I tried her cell, but I got voice mail.”

  “I was just going to call you,” Katherine said. “I thought you knew where she was.”

  “I haven’t seen her since she visited me in the hospital.” I waited, but she didn’t reply. “Katherine?”

  “I need to go. I’ll tell her you called.”

  After she hung up, I called Travis, but he hadn’t spoken to Savannah since Friday morning at school. I debated calling the police, but her parents beat me to it. An hour later a couple of deputies showed up at the door.

  “Are you Psyche Middleton?” the deputy asked.

  He was young, and I didn’t know him, but when his partner came trudging up the steps after him, his face was familiar. “Hey, Todd,” I said.

  “Your dad around?”

  “No. He went to check on the job. You want me to call him?”

  Todd nodded. “We need to ask you some questions about your friend Savannah Schofield, and we’d rather he was here.”

  I pulled the cordless from its charger on the kitchen bar. “Do you guys want to come in?”

  The younger officer started through the doorway, but Todd set a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll wait in the car until your dad gets here.”

  When my dad’s truck pulled up half an hour later, Todd and his partner crossed the wet grass toward the driveway. From the living room window I watched the three men approach the house. Something was definitely wrong.

  The officers sat facing us in the living room, and the scene looked oddly like something from my dad’s favorite cop show. Todd took out a pocket spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen. “When was the last time you saw Savannah?”

  “She came to visit me at the hospital.” I looked at my dad for help. Time had passed in blips and blurs. There wasn’t clock in the hospital room.

  “It was about one o’clock yesterday afternoon. They released her today around noon.”

  “Have you spoken to her since?”

  I answered, “No. I’ve been trying to call her. She took some of my belongings from the hospital for safe keeping, and I want them back.”

  “What kind of belongings?”

  “A dress, sandals, and some jewelry.” At my answer, Dad’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t speak.

  “What can you tell me about this?” Todd reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out a plastic evidence bag that held a sheet of notebook paper, which he turned over for me to read. “Her parents found this in her room just before they made the missing person’s report.” The letter was in Savannah’s handwriting.

  Mom & Dad,

  I know you’ll be worried about me, but you shouldn’t be. I’d tell you where I’m going, but you wouldn’t believe me. I can only say that Psyche has been there, and it’s completely safe. I was devastated when Travis broke up with me, but now I realize it was for the best. There is someone better for me, and I’m going to be with him. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. Just know that I’m going to be happy (and very rich).

  Love you,

  Savannah

  “No, she wouldn’t,” I stared in disbelief at the paper in my hands. It was impossible for my best friend to betray me so completely. I had known her since preschool. She wouldn’t do this to me. But the dark reaches of my mind conjured involuntary images, like eighth grade when I confessed I had a crush on the guy who sat in front of me in English. The next day I caught Savannah talking with him at her locker. I accused her of telling him my secret, but she swore she didn’t. Two days later they were a couple.

  “What can I say?” She’d shrugged. “He likes me, not you.”

  Todd interrupted my thoughts, “Do you know where she might have gone?”

  I wanted to hurl all over the coffee table. “She’s going after Erik. I can’t believe it. She has my pendant.” She wasn’t keeping it safe for me. She was using it to win him for herself. I hated her with more vehemence than I believed myself capable.

  “Psyche,” Dad said calmly. “Savannah said you rented that costume and that the jewelry was hers. She said you invented Erik’s world.”

  “She lied,” I said coldly.

  He wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know what to tell you, Todd. I had her blood tested before we left the hospital.”

  “Tested for what?” Apparently everyone was taking to betrayal these days. “I’m not on drugs, Dad. And I’m not crazy!”

  Todd eyed my dad kindly. “And?”

  “Clean,” he replied.

  “Duh,” I said.

  “Here’s the thing,” said the younger cop. “Whatever the story, did Savannah believe you about this Erik?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you know where she might have gone?”

  “The same place they found me, but if she got through, she won’t be there. Her car will be, though.”

  Todd stood. “We need you to take us there.”

  My dad and I drove in silence. It was hard when he was mad at me, miserable now that he thought I was insane. Eros told Pixis to close the portal. The bridge was gone. Savannah couldn’t possibly cross to the cave. I said a hundred silent prayers that she would be standing there on the rocks unable to get across. The thought of her in the palace basking in Eros’s beauty made my whole body ache.

  “Here.” I pointed to the clearing in the brush. Twin tire tracks in the snow forged through the pines and junipers.

  Dad parked the pickup on the road, and the police car pulled in behind us. We followed the tracks to Savannah’s car, where all three men inspected it with their eyebrows raised.

  “My Subaru is over there,” I said. It obviously hadn’t moved since the snow fell Saturday morning.

  “So, where’s the portal?” Dad asked meekly.

  “See the cave on the other side of the ravine? The portal was in there. There used to be a bridge across the ravine, but it’s gone now.”

  The young officer started toward the rock outcropping facing the cave. “You say there was a bridge? There’s no trace of where it attached to the … Todd!”

  Both Dad and Todd ran to the ledge and looked over.

  “What? What is it?” I demanded.

  “It’s Savannah,” Dad said quietly.

  I rushed toward the ledge, but Dad caught me by the shoulders. I pushed him away and grew woozy looking over the edge. Savannah lay on her back at the bottom of the ravine with her eyes open. She wore my white gown and the pendant around her neck. I teetered; the rocks spun.

  My dad pulled me away from the ledge and hugged me to his chest. “I’m sorry, Psyche.”
I felt him shiver. “I am so sorry.” He led me back to the truck and ordered me to stay inside.

  I stared blankly at the dashboard. The young deputy found a path and hiked to the bottom of the ravine, but we were too late. Savannah was dead. The news went into my ears and stayed there, unable to penetrate the rest of me. I waited for a paramedic to say we were mistaken. She was badly injured, but she would come around. I turned my face away as they loaded the body bag into the coroner’s van.

  My mind swirled in irreverent courses. I wondered how Travis would take the news and what her parents would do with all her shoes. Would they blame me for her death? Mostly, I wanted someone to tell me whether I was angry or sad. Her last act in life had been to betray me. Did that somehow cancel thirteen years of friendship? Could I hate her and miss her at the same time? Could I survive high school without her?

  Savannah wasn’t afraid when we crossed the bridge the first time. She didn’t know it was gone. The police report would list her death as suicide, but I knew better. She tried to march across a bridge that was no longer there. She wouldn’t have stopped to test it like I had. No, Savannah was always supremely confident that what she wanted, she would get. She had set her course for Eros, and she died for it. I wondered if he knew.

  “I’ll pick up your car later,” my dad said quietly as he put the truck in gear. He drove far off the road to get around the police and emergency vehicles.

  The ride home was bumpy. My vision blurred. I found myself at home sitting on the bed but didn’t remember getting there. I changed into pajamas and stared at the ceiling.

  My dad came and went. In the morning he brought breakfast and put it on the nightstand. At night he gathered up the full plate with a sigh and put dinner in its place. Sometimes I slept. Mostly I just lived in my mind with Savannah and Eros, unwilling to see a world beyond the walls of my room that existed without them.

  Chapter 12

  I woke to a crash and found my dad standing over me, a shattered plate on the carpet and taco casserole splattered across the wall. “Get up! It’s been three days. I will not let you die with her!” He pulled me out of the bed.

  I tried to jerk away.

  “Get in the shower and go to school. People die, Psyche. You have to deal with it.”

  “No.” I tried to crawl back into bed, but Dad moved in front of me.

  “Take your clothes. You will shower, you will eat, and you will go to school.”

  I stared blankly at him.

  “Or I’ll check you into a hospital.”

  I searched his eyes for some sign of uncertainty, but it wasn’t there. He meant it. Go to school or he’d ship me off to the funny farm. With clenched teeth, I moved past him to the dresser, where I dug out clean clothes. I slammed the bathroom door so hard the fixtures rattled. After scalding my skin in the shower and yanking the tangles out of my hair, I finally relented enough to go downstairs.

  On the bar lay a circle of familiar items: a gold belt, an arm cuff, an amethyst bracelet and Eros’s pendant. “What are these doing here?”

  Dad put a plate of pancakes in front of me. “Savannah’s parents said they’d never seen them before. They wanted you to have them back.”

  I fingered the pendant as I slid onto a bar stool.

  “The funeral is tomorrow,” Dad continued. “You should go.” When I didn’t answer, he added, “I’ll go with you.”

  I nodded jerkily and poured syrup on the pancakes. I took a bite, and my stomach lurched at the intrusion. “Did it hurt when she left?”

  “Jill?” he asked, confused. He sank onto a barstool opposite me and folded his hands. “I asked her to leave.”

  I should have known he wouldn’t understand. “I wish they hadn’t found me.”

  “No, Psyche.” He put his hand over mine. “You can get through this.”

  How could I tell him that I didn’t want to get through it? I wanted to bury myself in a dark hole where I would never have to look into the eyes of another man or wonder if I might have been happy if I’d never seen Eros’s face. I wanted to hide from the fact that I led Savannah to that ravine, and that it was my fault she was dead.

  Dad gathered up his keys and a stack of contracts. “Go to school. I’ll check back later.”

  I nodded out of habit not obedience. After scraping the full plate of food into the trash, I left the house, but I didn’t go to school. I found the wrinkled business card for the fortune teller at the MSU carnival. She’d been one of the immortals. She was my only hope of finding Eros again.

  Her shop was in a shabby section downtown, a rundown neighborhood where several houses had been turned into businesses. Between an accountant’s office and a used bookstore was a bright blue bungalow with a wooden sign over the door. The door was locked, and the sign said it was before business hours, but I pounded relentlessly until she opened the door.

  “You have to help me,” I said through the sliver in the doorway.

  She gave me a scowl, but didn’t fight as I pushed the door open and went inside uninvited.

  “You were one of them. You’re the only person who can help me get him back.” When she didn’t answer, I begged. “I’ll do anything—pay any price.”

  A fraction of compassion entered her eyes, and she motioned me into a small room at the back of the shop where she poured me a cup of tea and made me drink half of it before letting me speak again.

  My words came in a tidal wave that splashed all my secrets onto the dingy wooden table. I held nothing back, not of the time I spent in the kingdom or the tenderness I found in Eros’s arms.

  The woman listened without flinching, and when I finished, she lit a cigarette and considered me quietly. “You won’t be able to get into Eros’s kingdom,” she said finally. I opened my mouth to protest, but she raised a hand to silence me. “He is very careful about opening portals into his land. He’ll move it, and there’s no way you could find it.” She took a long drag and blew the smoke away from me. “He doesn’t keep a permanent residence here either.”

  “Others do?”

  “Fewer now than used to, but some of them cherish the worship they get from mortals.”

  “One of them can help me,” I said.

  “Aphrodite frequents this world more than …”

  “Tell me where to find her,” I demanded.

  The fortune-teller—her name was Gina—shook her head. “You don’t understand. She will hate you for that billboard. Plus, you won Eros’s love then betrayed him. If there was ever a girl in this world Aphrodite would despise, it’s you.”

  “I don’t care. I have to find a way to reach him.”

  Gina’s expression grew darker. “Her bodyguard is dangerous. He may kill you on sight.”

  I was unmoved. “Better dead than living like this.”

  Something in her face changed, a shadow of understanding. “Okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll tell you how to find her mortal palace. It’s on an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, northwest of Naples.” She smashed the cigarette in an ashtray and lit another.

  “Those things will kill you, you know.”

  Gina scowled. “So they say, but I’ve lived nearly eighty years in this miserable world.” She went to a cupboard and took out a world Atlas. “Of course the island isn’t shown on this map, but it’s there. Only a quarter mile wide and two miles long. No one is allowed on the island except Aphrodite’s guests.” She pointed to the location, then scribbled the coordinates on a piece of paper.

  “I wish you would reconsider,” Gina said. Then she leveled her gaze at my desperate eyes. “Take the pendant as proof of who you are. It may soften her stone heart.”

  “She’s supposed to be the goddess of love and beauty,” I replied.

  Gina’s eyebrows arched in amusement. “Mortals wrongly believed that love and beauty went hand in hand. She’s beautiful, but her love is always self-serving.”

  I thanked her and turned to go.

  “Did you meet Aeas?” she asked as I
reached for the door.

  Confused by her question, I muttered, “He showed me around the village.”

  “How is he?”

  I shrugged, not really knowing what to say. “Fine, I guess.”

  She nodded sadly. “I still miss him. Every day.” She turned away.

  Another day I might have asked her why, but today I was too consumed with my own loss, so I left her stooped over the table clearing teacups.

  Without any other plan than to catch the next flight to Europe, I packed a duffle bag with jeans, two shirts, a couple pairs of underwear, an extra bra, a toothbrush and a hair brush. As an afterthought, I threw in some socks. The clothes mattered little. The most important things I laid on top: the amethyst belt, arm cuff, bracelet and Eros’s pendant, all proof that I was his betrothed.

  The back of my old travel itinerary listed the airline’s phone number, which I dialed on my cell. If I was flying on my own dime, I wasn’t booking first class, and the thought of being packed into coach made me cringe. I was still on hold listening to corny music when I heard the front door open. True to his word, Dad was checking back, and I was caught at home.

  I pocketed the phone and tossed the bag into the closet before my dad came upstairs. I slipped my passport into the back waistline of my jeans and covered it with my shirt.

  “You’re supposed to be at school.” His voice was stern, but his eyes betrayed him. He was more sympathetic than he let on.

  “I’m not in bed,” I protested.

  He leaned against the doorjamb and waited.

  “I left the house…but I didn’t… go there.”

  “You have to face it eventually.”

  “After the funeral.” I was able to meet his eyes then, because I wasn’t lying. By the time I got home, the funeral would be over. I couldn’t tell my dad I was flying to Italy to meet a mythical Greek goddess. I couldn’t think of anything I could tell him that would make him agree I should take this trip. I decided it would be easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

  Before catching the plane, I made a substantial cash withdrawal at the bank, most of which I tucked into the front pockets of my jeans. Somewhere over North Dakota, I sent my dad a text message: I’m fine. There is something I need to do. I’ll be home in a few days. Love you, Psyche.