There was a lot of straightening to do at the house, and workers came to fix the window and measure for a burglar alarm, which would be installed next week. Still Laura didn’t feel entirely safe sitting home all alone while her mom and dad were at work. She did more cleaning than a sick person really ought to do, and maybe that was another reason her parents didn’t complain. Her mom made sure she got her schoolwork assignments from her friends.
Taryn came over often, but she was depressing with her talk of Chester, the Homecoming Dance, and the dresses they were all going to wear. Laura tried to act enthusiastic for her friend, but she was afraid she didn’t fake it very well. She kept hoping and dreading that Peter would come over to visit, but he never did.
According to Taryn, Megan was keeping a short leash on Peter, especially after it became known that he had talked to Laura in the hallway. He had also broken Cupidity’s edict not to socialize with Laura, and Cupidity and Megan were best buds now. Laura considered just leaving the mismatched couples alone, but she felt personally responsible for Cupidity. Plus she didn’t believe Peter was happy with Megan, and he seemed honestly torn.
The question is, can I battle the perfect cheerleader to win Peter’s heart—even when they share a love spell? Laura didn’t know the answer, and it was easier lying in bed thinking than taking any kind of action.
What kept her alert was the certainty that Madame Luisa and Arnie were out there somewhere, waiting for her to let down her guard. Twice in one day she thought she saw a white van cruising slowly past her house, and her phone rang with constant hang-ups.
By Thursday she had decided that sitting in the house, guarding the Cupidity Stupidity bow, was driving her crazy. And it wasn’t doing anyone any good. I’ve got to do something, she realized. The dance is only eight days away.
It was time to stop being scared and go back on the offensive. No one else knew about the magical weapon, except Cupidity, who had forgotten what she knew about it. How can I free the love zombies? Laura wondered. Who could help me?
Cupidity’s father, came the answer. Although she had met him only once, she had a feeling that he knew more about his strange daughter than he had let on. But how could she contact him when he lived in California? Maybe there was a phone number or an address in Cupidity’s apartment.
Laura collected all the arrows she had hidden around the house and put them into the duffel bag with the bow. Carrying her prize, she headed outside. She didn’t have a car, so she had to walk to Cupidity’s apartment—but she had plenty of energy for that. The new girl would be in school this time of day, and Laura would have to break into her apartment. She wondered if she would have the courage to do so.
After half an hour of brisk walking, taking alleys and side streets, Laura stood outside Cupidity’s luxury apartment complex. In the middle of a chilly September afternoon, most of the residents were at work or school. Dried leaves skittered across the sidewalk, and the trees waved their bare, skeletal branches at the slate sky.
The gloom matched Laura’s mood, and she nearly turned away from Cupidity’s door. If she had to break in she might get into more trouble. Then she decided that more trouble was barely possible, so Laura took a deep breath and tried to buck up her own spirits.
Come on, girl, you’ve dreamed all your life about the great heroes and fools in Greco-Roman mythology, and now it’s happening in real life! Think of this as a play starring you. The only problem is, you don’t know whether it’s a tragedy or a comedy….
On impulse, she reached for the doorknob and turned it, and the door creaked open. Laura jerked in surprise, but she knew that lots of people in Denton left their front doors unlocked. Plus Cupidity was a ditz—and getting ditzier every lovesick minute. She hefted her duffel bag, pushed open the door, and stepped into the empty apartment.
“Whoa,” muttered Laura. The place had none of the elegance she had seen before. Now it looked like a teenager’s bedroom, with posters of rock stars, Mardi Gras beads, stickers, and other knickknacks covering the walls. Notes and papers lay scattered across the floor, and dirty plates and fast-food wrappers covered the tables. It was obvious that Cupidity had stopped keeping house after getting amnesia.
As she kicked a mass of papers out of her way, her spirits sank. There was no way she was going to find anything helpful in this mess. If she wanted to be nasty, Laura figured she could always turn Cupidity over to the authorities as a minor living alone, but that would only cause trouble. It certainly wouldn’t do anything to free Peter and the others, and it wouldn’t free her from the burden of what was in the duffel bag.
Laura heard shuffling behind her, and she realized that she wasn’t alone. She was about to reach into the bag for her weapon when a voice said, “That won’t be necessary, Laura.”
She whirled around and saw Cupidity’s dapper but frail father, looking rather disgusted at his surroundings. “Apparently we both came to the simultaneous conclusion that something had to be done,” he said, removing an elegant silk glove from his hand.
Laura stammered, “I, uh … do you know … there’s something in this bag. How much do you know about your daughter?”
“Too much.” The elderly man gave her a sour frown and looked down at the duffel bag in her hands. “Do you know you’re the first mortal to have used that bow? And you say it’s been working for you?”
In shock, she nodded.
“Remarkable. All these years, we never really needed that obnoxious cherub. I’m not his father, and I couldn’t tell you who is.” The elder held out his ungloved hand. “My name is Mercury, the messenger god.”
Laura felt herself swooning, and she looked down at his elegant wing-tipped shoes. Like ghostly banners, real wings seem to sprout from his heels, and Laura fell backward. His outstretched hand caught her, and his strength was effortless as he steadied her.
“You’re … you’re a Roman god?” she asked, sounding more doubtful than she felt.
He sighed. “I know you haven’t seen many shrines to me lately, but I used to be quite the rage.”
“And you’re not Cupidity’s dad?”
“Cupidity is Cupid in disguise,” he answered with a frown. “And now he’s madly in love with a skater boy, thanks to you.”
Laura’s face brightened with hope. “Is this like old Greek dramas where the god shows up to fix things? Deus ex machina?”
“No!” he snapped. “This is reality. I suppose I could take that bow from you and make matters worse—like you did—but I can’t fix love problems.”
“Who can?” asked Laura desperately.
“Cupid’s mother,” said the god, thin-lipped. “Venus.”
Laura moved toward the door. “Well then, let’s go get her. Come on! You’re the messenger god—send her a message!”
Mercury lifted his white eyebrows. “It won’t be that easy. Venus doesn’t live with the rest of us. She can be difficult to approach, and frankly, none of the gods want to deal with her. You will have to approach her.”
“Me?” asked Laura in shock. “That doesn’t seem very fair. Isn’t she your sister or something?”
Mercury pursed his lips and replied, “It is eminently fair since it was you who involved the gods in the first place. Don’t you remember calling on Jupiter to bring you a boyfriend?”
Laura racked her brain and finally remembered back to that rainy night after the first day of school. She gasped. “Whoa there! I said that one night, yes, but I thought it was like a … rhetorical request.”
“Well, we didn’t take it that way,” sniffed Mercury. “We’re very passé, not a lot of people believe in us anymore. Not like the olden days when Julius Caesar’s battle cry was ‘Venus Victrix!’ He never would have gotten so far without her help. Ah well, I guess this Cupidity affair just proves that we’re old and useless.”
“That’s a little harsh,” replied Laura, touching the old man’s arm. She blinked at him in realization. “You mean, you sent Cupid in disguise to help me
get a boyfriend?”
Mercury sighed. “Yes, Cupid wanted to get to know you as a friend … to know who was best for you.”
“Wow,” murmured Laura, “he sure screwed up.”
The old man grabbed the duffel bag and shook it angrily. “You didn’t help matters by piercing Cupid with one of his own arrows! Since you started this, you must end it. You must be the one to come to Los Angeles and approach Venus.”
Laura gulped and pushed back her glasses. “How tough can that be?”
“Let’s put it this way,” said Mercury, “Venus has tamed all her boyfriends, including the Minotaur. And she doesn’t know anything about Cupid’s assignment, because we were afraid to tell her.”
“Uh-oh.” Laura began to wring her hands. “You know, I can’t just like … fly off to Los Angeles. I have a mom and dad, and these two creeps are trying to steal Cupid’s bow.”
“I’ll take care of them,” promised Mercury as he handed her back the duffel bag with the precious cargo. “You have the power to distract your parents. They won’t even remember they have a daughter.” He pointed to the duffel bag.
Laura felt the curve of the bow in her hand and winced in disgust. “Use it on my own parents?”
“It’s for a good cause,” said Mercury, “and you don’t have much time.”
“What do you mean, I don’t have much time?”
The elegant elder paced the floor, kicking the wrappers and papers with his wingtips. “Cupid will soon lose his disguise—no more Cupidity. I see he’s been partying as usual.”
“Probably more than usual,” answered Laura, “considering who he’s with. Will changing back cure his amnesia?”
Mercury shook his head. “I don’t know, but his disguise lasts only twenty-five days. It is over at midnight a week from tomorrow.”
Laura’s eyes widened in horror. “That’s the night of the Homecoming Dance, and she’ll be there with Cody. He’ll be there … whatever. You’re right, I don’t have much time.”
“We will have to find Venus first,” said Mercury with a sigh, “and I will have to get approval for all of this from Jupiter. I don’t see how he can turn down a brave mortal who is willing to seek Venus on his behalf.” The dapper god looked intently at her. “You are willing, aren’t you?”
Laura nodded, unable to speak. I do seem to be the star-struck heroine of this drama, she thought. And somehow I’ve become the fill-in Cupid while the real one is out sick.
Mercury lifted a well-manicured finger. “Be ready at midnight Saturday night, and I’ll come for you. I can’t do much about love, but I’m fairly good at transportation. Don’t worry about luggage, we’ll supply what you need. Bring the bow, as having that will get Venus’s attention.”
Mercury gave Laura a wrinkled smile. “Do take care of your parents first—try giving them a romantic gift, if you know what I mean. I’ll see you Saturday night.”
He tipped his hat and strolled out the front door, as Laura gripped the bow through the heavy nylon of the bag. Now all of her questions had been answered; like the heroes of most Greek tragedy, she was in the middle of a mess of her own making. Numbly Laura walked toward the door and decided, I’ve got one more place to go.
Through binoculars Laura could watch all the happy couples filing out of Fimbrey High School from her hiding spot behind a telephone pole on the far side of the parking lot. Despite the distance, she could see Megan and Peter, holding hands and joking with Cupidity and Cody. Behind them came Emma and Jake; Jake was wearing dark gray instead of his usual pastel collared shirts, and Emma had on a cardigan sweater.
Laura lowered the binoculars and rubbed her eyes, but she soon went back to spying. It was getting colder, and Cupidity had actually pulled the top up on her convertible. The golden couples didn’t linger long in the chilly parking lot, but she could imagine them making plans to meet later. Peter looked happy with his cheerleader, although she caught him glancing over his shoulder in her direction. She knew he couldn’t see her, but it was still eerie.
Finally Laura spotted the person she really wanted to see—Taryn, accompanied by her man, Chester. Were they genuine, or had they been smitten, too, by the magical arrows? It was impossible to tell fake Cupid love from real love, although it was clear that some social barriers had broken down. She had the means to break down more of them—think of the havoc she could wreak among this crowd of unsuspecting students.
Laura found that she was gripping the bow through the nylon of the duffel bag. She took her hands off the curved weapon and let it fall back into the bag, and the impulse to shoot it went away. It’s hard to have power and not abuse it, she thought.
Fortunately, Chester and Taryn were walking downtown, where Chester had to do some youth program as part of his probation, and Laura was able to ambush them on the sidewalk, away from prying eyes. Gripping the duffel bag, Laura dashed across the sidewalk. “Taryn, can I talk to you?” she asked.
“Oh, Laura!” said her friend happily. She took off her backpack and unzipped it. “I was going to come over to your house later this afternoon. I’ve got the assignments in calculus and English—”
Laura held out a hand to stop her. “Just hang on to them for me.” She smiled at the hulking boy, whose brawny arm engulfed Taryn’s shoulders. “Chester, can I talk to her alone for just a second? I promise, I won’t keep her long.”
“Sure,” he said, nodding and stepping away. “I heard you been sick. How ya feelin’?”
“Terrible,” she answered, mustering a smile. “But I’m happy for the two of you guys.”
“Thanks.” Chester spotted one of his buddies and waved to him. “You know, Laura, if you need a date to that dance—”
Wincing, she responded, “I appreciate the offer, but I think I’m going to be out of town.”
When Chester finally turned his back to them and lumbered toward his friends, Taryn asked, “What’s the matter with you? You don’t look sick. Insane maybe, but not sick.”
“I’m not sick,” Laura admitted, “and I am going out of town for a few days. I want you to cover for me.”
Taryn stared at her. “How?”
“It won’t be difficult,” explained Laura. “As far as the school goes, I’m already absent. There’s a good chance my parents will never call you to check on me, but if they do, just say I’ll call them later. They’ll forget all about it.”
Taryn looked skeptical. “Are we talking about your parents? You didn’t trade them in for Cupidity’s parents, did you?”
Laura looked intently at her friend and held her hand. “Just trust me on this. It’s all going to be okay.”
“What’s going to be okay?” asked Taryn in frustration. “Where are you going? For how long? Why?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Laura. “But it’s urgent that I go, believe me.” Desperately, she began to back away from her best friend. “I’ll call your cell phone.”
Worriedly, Taryn followed her. “Are you in some kind of trouble? Does this have anything to do with the Conjure Woman?”
“Stay away from her!” warned Laura. She gripped her duffel bag and hurried off down the street.
Five minutes before midnight on Saturday, Laura stood in her parents’ bedroom, silhouetted in the light from the hallway. The Sweeneys were snoring a few feet away, blissfully unaware that their loving daughter was aiming a bow and arrow at them. This is too easy, she thought.
Before she plunged two people who’d been married for twenty-two years into passionate love, Laura made sure they would find her handwritten note on the vanity. The note “reminded” them that she was spending a few days at Taryn’s house to catch up on her schoolwork before going back to school. She doubted if they would spend much time worrying about her after she fixed them.
Holding her breath as she always did, Laura shot a love sticker into the first sleeping figure. Her mom groaned softly from the wound as Laura rummaged in the duffel bag for a second arrow. She had never stopped to count t
he arrows, but it seemed as if there was always one at hand when she needed it. Before the groaning could wake her dad, she stuck him with an arrow too. Now they were moaning in unison, and she sure wanted to be out of the bedroom before they woke up.
As she walked down the stairs she saw a dapper man in a homburg standing at the bottom of the staircase. The elderly god tipped his hat as she approached. “Ready to go, Miss Sweeney?”
“I guess so,” she answered doubtfully. “I’m just wearing this sweater and jeans, but you said I didn’t need a lot of clothes. What about a toothbrush?”
“You’ve got the bow, that’s all the luggage you need.” Mercury snapped his fingers, and the living room of the Sweeney home was filled with two massive, sparkling wheels. As Laura stared in amazement the colorful apparition solidified into a gleaming chariot encrusted with jewels and golden inlay. The reins glowed like rays of the sun, and they stretched from the shining coach to two winged horses. The ghostly steeds pranced on the carpet, anxious to be going, and Laura staggered on her feet.
Mercury grabbed her elbow and steadied her. With a smile he said, “To begin with, Cupidity was on a quest. Now it’s you on the quest. So I figured you should go in style. Welcome aboard Apollo’s chariot—the original one.”
The elegant god helped her onto the gleaming coach, and the ethereal steeds snorted their approval. Laura felt the vehicle shifting under her feet, as if it were real, and she gripped her duffel bag and the rail for support. Mercury took his place beside her, and he picked up the golden reins. Laura panicked, thinking they were about to slam into the wall. But this magical conveyance had gotten into the house, so there must be a way to get it out.
“Hang on!” said Mercury, snapping the reins. At once the horses reared and the carriage took off, zipping through the front wall of the house as if it weren’t there. As a lonely bell tower chimed midnight in the town of Denton, Ohio, Apollo’s twinkling chariot rose above the rooftops and shot into the stars.
Love, Love, Love Page 26