Caged Lightning

by Marina Finlayson

  “So, if we find the other piece, you’ll let us take this one?”

  “If you find the other piece, I’ll bring you this one myself. But if you don’t, this one isn’t leaving my protection.”

  “Fine.” I rose from my chair. “I’ll be in my room. Let me know when we get back to Berkley’s Bay.”

  12

  It was early in the morning when Poseidon dropped us back at Berkley’s Bay, and the streetlights were still on. Apollo and Jake headed for the tiny temple, and I turned my steps towards home.

  Though … it wouldn’t be home much longer. Given our lack of success in locating the damn lightning bolt, I couldn’t ignore Syl’s advice any longer. It was time to say goodbye to Berkley’s Bay, and so I walked slowly, drinking in the familiar sights with new eyes, trying to commit each one to memory.

  There was the mayor’s house—not that I would miss that old windbag at all, but I had fond memories of stealing his altarpiece. I probably should have mentioned that to Manannan. The statue had been of him, after all. There was the pub on its corner, where I’d spent so many happy evenings arguing with Hades in his guise as Alberto, or trying to drink Syl under the table. I still hadn’t succeeded with that one. Despite her small size, she had the advantage of a shifter metabolism to keep her from getting shit-faced. And here was Tegan’s hair salon. The big weretiger was one of my favourite people here in Berkley’s Bay. I didn’t see as much of her as I’d like already—when would I see her again once I’d left?

  And there was the bookshop. I paused, resting my hand against the glass, as if the shop were an animal I was patting. So many happy hours had been spent in there, reading books, arranging shelves, talking books with customers. Syl used to lie right there in the window display, where she could bask in the sun. I’d learned to leave that little patch empty for her, since if I put a book in her spot she’d just bat it out of the way with an imperious paw.

  And this was where I’d met Jake, the night Joe’s son, Cody, had gone missing. So many strange events had been set in motion that night. I’d seen a god killed, I’d been to the underworld, I’d lost Jake and found him again … and lost him once more. Ridiculous bloody man. How could so much of my happiness be tied up in one person like this? The old Artemis probably would have sneered at me—Apollo had said she rarely even let her lovers sleep over. And here I was, pining for a pair of laughing blue eyes and the feel of his strong arms around me.

  Strangest of all, of course, of all the strange things that had happened in the last few weeks, was that I’d discovered my own divinity, and lost the past I’d thought I had. Unfortunately, nothing had arrived to fill the void yet. Any time now, brain. A working memory would be kind of handy right now.

  I sighed and opened the discreet door next to the bookshop that led up to our apartment. Of course, then I might truly be a goddess, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that. I climbed the stairs slowly. Joe and Holly’s door was right across the landing from ours. I’d miss them, too, and beautiful baby Mireille. They’d been good friends to Syl and me, and the best neighbours anyone could ever hope for. Did goddesses have friends like these?

  I opened the door of our apartment quietly, not wanting to disturb Syl—and probably Lucas. He stayed over most nights. Despite all Syl’s protests that he was just a fling, I wasn’t convinced. I’d seen the way they looked at each other when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. I was pretty sure she felt the same way about him as I did about Jake. It didn’t always take months and months to fall in love with someone. When you met the right person, love could blossom in a flash.

  The lounge room was piled with cardboard boxes, everything we owned packed and ready to go. Not that our “everything” was very much. We hadn’t been here long enough to accumulate great heaps of stuff. We had kitchenware, some linen, our clothes, and that was about it. Plus a few books, of course, but even those were a minimum. I tended to read stock from the shop and take it back again when I’d finished.

  Something moved in the hallway leading to the bedrooms, and I jumped. Lucas loomed out of the dark, wearing a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else.

  “You’re back,” he said, with undisguised relief. “I thought I heard a noise. What happened? Did you get the lightning bolt?”

  “Unfortunately not.” I looked around the dark apartment and sighed. Outside, the first glimmerings of light were appearing in the east. My last sunrise in Berkley’s Bay. I had always loved that ocean view. “Looks like we’ll be moving out today.”

  “Damn.” He came closer and rubbed my shoulder awkwardly. “Are you all right?”

  “A little discouraged,” I admitted. “That’s not even the worst news. Athena’s dead.”

  “Shit. I’ll wake Syl.”

  “No, don’t disturb—”

  I might have saved my breath; he was already gone. In a moment, Syl stumbled out, wearing one of Lucas’s T-shirts. She was so short it came almost to her knees. “Athena’s dead? What the hell happened?”

  We sat there in the dark while I brought them up to date. As I spoke, the sun climbed out of the eastern sea in a blaze of orange fire, and the world around us lightened. Before I’d finished the story, Lucas went to the kitchen and started frying bacon and eggs. It was only when I smelled them that I realised how hungry I was. How long had it been since I’d eaten a proper meal? I couldn’t even remember.

  “What a mess,” Syl said when I’d finished. “What are we going to do now?”

  “Apollo’s going to talk to Hestia and see if she knows where Hera and Hermes are. We can contact him through Winston if we need him—he’s going to be lying low. And I—well, I’m pretty much useless without a working memory, so I’m going back to Albany. Maybe I can jog something loose there.”

  “Albany. That’s down south, right?”

  “I think so.” I wasn’t actually sure. “It’s up pretty high, lots of forest. You’ll like it, I hope. Lots of good hunting.”

  She gave me a quizzical look. “Lots of good hunting? Like, rodents and birds?”

  Where had those words come from? I’d spoken without thinking, but no—I hadn’t had a cat’s point of view in mind. Rather, I’d been thinking of wild boar and deer, like the one whose head was mounted on the wall of Artemis’s lounge room. Of foxes. Fast-moving beasts that would give a good chase to something a little larger than a cat. Something like a goddess of the hunt, for instance.

  “Never mind,” I said, flustered. Bits of the old me seemed to be leaking back into my subconscious, but there was still nothing there when I reached for it. Maybe that was the secret: to stop trying so hard. “How are we going to shift all these boxes?”

  Neither of us had a car. Lucas had his motorbike, but that was hardly an ideal vehicle for moving house. If Winston hadn’t landed Joe’s truck in the repair shop, we could have used that.

  Or, if I had access to Artemis’s memories and, presumably, her bank accounts, I could have bought my own damn truck. Even a fleet of trucks. I pushed away a flash of annoyance and bent my mind to the problem at hand. Could we borrow Tegan’s little car, perhaps? If all else failed, we could lump them all over to Winston’s temple on foot, but I’d hoped to be a little less conspicuous about the fact that I was leaving town.

  “Don’t worry about that. Lucas can borrow his dad’s van.”

  “But doesn’t Ray need it for work?”

  She snorted. “As if that matters. Your wish, apparently, is the pack’s command. They’d happily carry your shit all the way to Albany on their backs if you asked.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. They’re all on standby in case you need something.”

  “Wow.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  My stomach rumbled, and Syl laughed. “But first things first. We’re not going anywhere until after breakfast.”

  I got up and followed my nose over to the kitchen, where Lucas was serving generous helpings of bacon onto three plates that were already heaped
with eggs and toast. “Good plan. Bacon always comes first.”

  ***

  An hour later, Winston had finished ferrying us and all the boxes to the little temple in the woods. It was as pretty as I remembered it, with the early morning sun slanting through the trees outside. The glass was so clean it was as if it wasn’t there, and the open door added to the illusion by letting in the mingled smells of pine and eucalypt, fresh and clean.

  “I guess we won’t see you for a while,” I said to Winston. I’d miss him; he’d quickly become a friend. “We could be in hiding for quite a while, until we figure out where the third piece of the lightning bolt is.”

  “True friends are always in our hearts,” he said, giving me a funny little half-bow, as if he knew he’d get in trouble if he tried anything more formal. “Even when they are not in our lives.”

  We said goodbye, and he jumped back to Berkley’s Bay.

  I felt a momentary longing for the salt breezes of home before I grabbed the nearest box and headed for the door. “It’s not far to the cottage. This way.”

  Lucas and Syl both sniffed appreciatively as we came outside. Their shifter noses could probably detect more detailed aromas of animals and plant life that I couldn’t pick out. I breathed in deeply and caught a hint of something sweet and floral—a few late freesias bowed their heads in the shade under a big, red-barked gum to the side of the path.

  I set off toward the cottage, Lucas and Syl close behind. Lucas paused at the point where the path to the cottage branched off from the main one. He frowned as he looked along the path that led to the gym and sniffed the air suspiciously.

  “What’s down that way? It smells … industrial.”

  “Just the gym. You’re probably smelling the car park, or the air conditioning units. It’s a big building, ugly as sin. Looks like a warehouse.” His eyebrows rose, and I hurried on. “But the cottage isn’t like that at all. You’ll like it. Come on.”

  We struck out down the path to the cottage, and it soon came into view, nestled among the trees with the morning sun sparkling on the front windows.

  “It’s cute,” Syl said as we climbed the stairs to the wide veranda. “Very secluded. You wouldn’t know it was here.”

  “That’s good,” Lucas said, eyeing the bush all around. “Though I’ll need to scout around and get a feel for the land. I don’t like that the gym’s so close. Anyone could wander over here.”

  “I don’t think anyone knows it’s here, apart from Ophelia and a couple of Artemis’s close friends. No one from the gym would have a reason to go wandering off into the bush.”

  He didn’t look entirely convinced. I opened the front door and his eyebrows drew together into an alarming frown. “That wasn’t locked? What kind of security is that?”

  “Uh … I think it was.” I glanced down at the door handle, unsure. Had it been unlocked, or had it opened to an unconscious use of my powers? Ophelia had offered Apollo a key last time, so she’d certainly expected it to be locked. “I might have magicked it open.”

  He rolled his eyes and shouldered his way past me, clearly determined to sweep the place for threats before I got inside. I sighed and followed him in. If he didn’t cool it with the over-protectiveness, sharing a house could quickly become problematic.

  I was carrying the box that contained most of my clothes—which just proved how limited my wardrobe was. It wasn’t a very big box. I took it into the front bedroom and dumped it on the bed. There was plenty of hanging space still left in Artemis’s wardrobe. When I opened the door to check, a faint scent of lemons wafted out from the clothes already hanging there.

  Lucas and Syl’s footsteps tramped past, going to collect more boxes from the little temple, but my gaze was caught by the photo at the bedside, of Artemis with Ophelia and the other laughing woman. I still had no bloody idea who she was.

  I picked up the photo and studied Artemis’s face. It wasn’t so different from the one I wore now: a slightly different shaped nose, eyes bigger and darker, lips slightly fuller. Her cheekbones were to die for, high and sharp as knives. My own face looked like the budget version. I checked it out in the mirror, remembering that odd moment last time I had been here, when, for a second, I had taken on the appearance of the goddess.

  Nope, it was still just me, tanned a warmer brown than the moon goddess. My own eyes, my own lips, and, sadly, nothing at all striking about my cheekbones. Could I change that? I’d only done it accidentally before.

  What had Apollo said? His instructions had been particularly unhelpful, as I recalled. Something about if you wanted to, it just happened, like moving your arm without having to think about the mechanics. Thanks, bro.

  I frowned at my reflection. Did I want to? The prospect was no longer as horrifying as it had been at first. I guess I’d had some time to get used to the idea of being a goddess, though most of the time, I still felt like an imposter. But I’d opened the front door with my power. I’d saved Cerberus and Hades and all of us with my power, back when we’d been trapped in that shadow shaper house in Brenvale. And, so far, I still hadn’t stopped caring for my friends or become a stranger or a bitch. Well, that last one might depend on who you asked. But I hadn’t stopped being me.

  I was still scared of what might happen if I ever recovered my missing memories, but that didn’t seem likely to happen any time soon. Fiddling with my appearance surely wouldn’t affect anything on the inside, at least. My hand strayed to the silver chain around my neck, and I pulled the little bow-and-arrow charm out of my shirt, clenching it in my fist.

  “Okay, let’s give this a go.”

  I shut my eyes. Apollo had said there wouldn’t be any sliding of features, and I certainly hadn’t noticed anything weird when he’d demonstrated on Winston’s doorstep that time, but it made me feel oddly self-conscious to watch my own face so intently. I took a deep breath. Should I say something? Abracadabra? Face swap? My cheeks began to warm, but that was embarrassment, not any kind of change. I opened one eye and peeked, just to be sure, but I was still me.

  I could hear Lucas and Syl’s voices as they carried boxes in, moving up and down the hallway. Any minute now, they would start wondering why I wasn’t helping. If I was going to do this, I’d better get it over with. Syl would laugh her head off if she came in and found me standing in front of the mirror with my eyes shut.

  I really want to change. I really want to change. I opened my eyes. Nothing, dammit. I sighed and relaxed my death grip on the little bow and arrow. It had left an imprint dug into my palm.

  I looked down at the photo again. Artemis looked so happy, and a fierce longing flooded me. I wanted that happiness, that ease she had, secure in her life with her friends.

  The little charm warmed briefly in my grasp. I looked up, hardly daring to hope, actually holding my breath.

  The goddess’s face looked out at me from the mirror.

  I gasped with shock, and instantly, my own face returned.

  Lucas stuck his head in the door, perhaps alarmed by my gasp, but merely looked around with interest when he saw there was nothing wrong.

  “Nice room,” he said. “Ours is a little bigger—are you sure you don’t want to swap?”

  “Of course not. There’s two of you—you should have the bigger room.” Besides, this was Artemis’s choice. Despite the fact that I couldn’t access her memories and had no way of knowing why she’d chosen this room over the larger one, I preferred it, too. I liked the view out the big front windows onto the green of the bush, and the soft green paint on the walls. It felt like a very restful room. I could tell I would sleep well here.

  “Cool. Well, Syl’s started unpacking the kitchen boxes, so if you ever want to be able to find anything again …”

  “Yeah.” I put the photo back in its place on the bedside chest. “I’ll come and help.”

  I checked my face in the mirror before I left the room, though, just to be sure I was wearing the right one. That was so weird. It hadn’t felt any di
fferent. I stroked my cheek as I followed Lucas’s broad back down the short hallway into the kitchen. Those cheekbones were awesome.

  “Pots and pans here?” Syl asked, busy filling up a deep drawer beside the hotplate with our collection of cookware as I walked in.

  “Sure.” I figured she’d put them where she wanted them regardless of what I said, despite the fact that I’d always done the cooking. She’d spent most of our time in Berkley’s Bay living in cat form, anyway. Lately, it seemed to be Lucas who was wielding the cooking implements, which was fine by me, even though it meant we had a lot more meat in our diet than before. But hey, everything tasted better when someone else cooked it.

  The kitchen, though not large, was very modern, a fact I hadn’t really taken in last time I’d been here. Everything gleamed in stainless steel, including the fridge, which had one of those ice dispensers built into the door. We’d really come up in the world with this move. Our apartment in Berkley’s Bay had been cheap, but nearly as old as the gods. To light the oven, you had to turn on the gas, throw a match into its depths, and hope you didn’t get blown across the kitchen. I could see we wouldn’t have that problem here. The oven was wide, and the door didn’t even creak when I opened it. Plus, the inside was just as shiny as the outside.

  Syl had already made quite a dint in the number of boxes stacked in the middle of the floor. I opened another and started liberating our assortment of mugs from their wrappings, stacking them into one of the upper cupboards. There were several mugs already in there. Just as well they were big cupboards. I opened a couple more doors, hunting for plates and bowls, and soon found them. Again, there was still room for our meagre collection.

  I’d just filled our kettle and set it boiling when Lucas raised his head, sniffing the air. “Are you expecting someone?”