Olympian Challenger

by Astrid Arditi

  “Be proud and grateful for this opportunity. Today the light of Olympus has shone over your corner of the world, providing you, challengers, with the opportunity to be humanity’s new hope. You are the Olympian gift to the world. Among you is the hero who may save them all.” Zeus stands up taller on his throne. “Humans have been left to their own devices for too long. They ruin the land we once bestowed upon them. You can save them from their own malice and wicked hearts.”

  The divinities erupt in ovations.

  There may be truth to Zeus’s words, but he’s too severe in his judgment of humanity as a whole. Some of us are kind, and loving—our intentions are good.

  “To the hero of our challenge, we’ll grant one wish. Your utmost desire will be fulfilled.”

  At this, every single kid around me perks up. This is the reason why they’ve taken foolish risks. Not to save humanity, but for the prize the invitation dangled before them. I consider Zeus’s promise. While I thought the sender of the invitation was only human, I knew he couldn’t grant me my wish. But to gods of Olympus, curing my mother must be an easy feat. Should I stay and chance it, at the risk of worrying my mother?

  This may all be a dream I’ll be waking from soon but just in case it’s true, I glance sideways at my would-be competition, trying to assess my chances. If it comes to strength, I’ve lost from the start. A boy to my right is at least 6’5” tall and looks like he could lift 300-pound weights in his sleep—a bull in a Christmas sweater. A couple others are similarly built, though not as impressive. As for the girls, one stands out, with a black tank top showing off strong biceps and a large variety of tattoos. I exhale in defeat. Our numbers don’t seem like a lot considering every seventeen-year-old kid in New York received the invitation.

  My analytical mind calculates the likelihood of my winning according to various parameters until I have to accept that the safest bet for me is to head home. If I can’t save my mother, I can at least enjoy the little lucidity she has left. Her own mother, my grandmother, succumbed to total oblivion within just a couple of years. We’ve already defeated those odds, but time is running out.

  I sigh in relief when, after posing in all their splendor for our benefit, the gods decide to end this spectacle. Plumes of black smoke form around Hades, engulfing him entirely, while a thunderbolt falls onto Zeus’s head, seemingly obliterating him. Hephaestus becomes incandescent, and Hermes simply flies away. In two heartbeats, they all have vanished from their thrones as if they’d never been there to start with.

  The minor divinities leave the same way. Golden god explodes in shards of metal, and the green goddess melts into a puddle of seawater that seeps into the marble floor. I look for the standoffish god who caught my eye earlier on, curious to discover his favorite mode of transportation, but he’s already gone.

  I overlook the pang of disappointment as the contenders, now alone in the throne room, regroup into a tight formation. Playful-looking women in see-through gowns twirl our way. Aphrodite, always at the crux of events, leads them forward.

  She smiles seductively, to no one in particular, before speaking. “My father sounded awfully stiff, don’t you think?”

  Relieved chuckles answer her comment. The girl next to me hiccups, she’s laughing so hard. It seems exaggerated—probably her nerves acting out.

  Aphrodite’s escorts exhale a heady perfume, like incense at church, that makes my head hurt.

  “Meet the Muses,” Aphrodite says with a flourish of her hand. “This is Erato, Terpsichore, Clio, Melpomene, Calliope, Euterpe, Urania, Polyhymnia and Thalia. Hopefully their proximity will inspire you.”

  The Muses, so alike they must be sisters, wriggle their fingers to acknowledge us. The boys return their waves, grinning foolishly.

  “The hour is late, and you’ve all had an eventful day. You’ll now proceed to your residence, where you can rest until trials tomorrow. The Muses will lead you to your dwellings.”

  “Trials?” A boy in a gray, zipped turtleneck whines. “I thought this week was training only.”

  “Yes. But in order to do so, we must test your strengths first. Then we can help you cultivate them.”

  “Can we be eliminated from the contest if we fail at trials?” I ask, hopeful.

  Aphrodite frowns. “No. But you’d do well to give your best performance. The impression you make on the gods tomorrow will greatly influence who will endorse you later on.”

  At my side, Heath smirks at my defeated expression. I’m starting to think the smirk is just the natural set of his lips.

  The Muses saunter across the throne room, leaving us to follow them. I try to catch Aphrodite to ask for her help to send me back, but she sparkles away. The contenders herd after the Muses out of the throne room. I’m alone in the vast, dome-shaped room—or rather, I think I am until I look away from the twelve empty thrones and find the three ones across occupied.

  Three ageless women sit around a spinning wheel. Their pallor is emphasized by midnight gowns bespangled with stars. Platinum circlets adorn their raven hair.

  Balls of flax rest in a yarn basket at the first woman’s bare feet. She winds the flax around the spinning wheel while the woman at the center spins it into thread. The third woman holds scissors, which she uses to cut the thread from time to time.

  The sound of the other contenders nearing the exit becomes muffled as I gawk at the spinning women.

  “We are the Fates,” the spinner says over the rhythmical sound of the spinning wheel.

  I’ve never heard of them, but I nod anyway, afraid of offending them.

  “To all questions, we know the answer,” she speaks again in her faraway voice.

  “Then would you mind pointing me toward the exit?”

  “There is no way back home. Only forward.”

  The one with scissors continues. “Fate will bring your answer in time—”

  “—along with a gift,” the third one adds.

  I gawk at them. They may know all the answers, but this one is totally useless.

  “I need to leave now.”

  The spinner’s eyes are on her wheel. “That is not to happen.”

  “Your journey is just starting,” says the one holding the flax.

  I’m close to throwing a tantrum. I don’t want to embark on a journey—just a single ride back to my mother.

  “Your heart is heroic,” the spinner says.

  “Listen to its whispers,” Flax Winder goes on.

  The one with scissors snaps at the thread. “Her time hasn’t come yet, and although you can’t help her yet, one day you will.”

  Their voices fade away, no more than a murmur now. I need to squint to see their waning shapes against the gilded thrones.

  “By her, you mean my mother?” I ask, hope constricting my chest.

  My question comes back to me as it echoes against the marble walls of the throne room. The Fates are gone, along with their spinning wheel, but their words resonate in my mind.

  Her time hasn’t come yet.

  I’d give anything for them to be right.

  Chapter 7

  I jog across the palace to catch up with the group. Fortunately, the Muses have set a slow pace, chanting and dancing to the delight of the drooling boys. A petite girl with cropped copper hair and baggy jeans eyes me as I reach the steps.

  Her voice is surprisingly raspy. “Where were you?”

  My lungs scream for air so I stop to satisfy their demand. “I got lost.”

  The way her lips curl up, I don’t think she believes me. “I’m Amy.”

  “Hope.” I shake the hand she extracts from the front pocket of her threadbare hoody.

  Taking in her comfy clothes, I think of how prissy I must look in my gray pleated skirt and white shirt. In my haste to leave the house earlier, I didn’t get a chance to change out of my school uniform. When I step onto the snow surrounding the Olympian Palace, I shiver as melted snow soaks my tights. I’m still shoeless, and my favorite pair of boots is
lost to me forever.

  “What did you do to get here?” Amy asks.

  I shrug. “Long story. What about you?”

  “I robbed the jewelry section at Bergdorf’s.” She grins, pulling a diamond choker from her front pocket.

  “So you’re the one! My friend Lily called me about you. You’re famous.”

  I don’t know if I mean it as a compliment but from the way she straightens her back, she takes it that way.

  “How did you escape?”

  “Hermes, God of Thieves. One second I was running up the escalator, the next I was lifted here. I literally flew! Man! The shock on the guards’ faces!”

  “They saw you fly away?”

  “I don’t think so, just thought I’d vanished somehow…”

  She points to a grand palace, though considerably smaller than Zeus and Hera’s, adorned with golden wings on the pediment.

  “Hermes’s palace. This is where I landed. But it was Aphrodite who welcomed me.” She makes a face, implying she’s not Aphrodite’s biggest fan. “Now give me the cliff notes of your long story.”

  I nod in direction of Hateful Heath, one of the only two boys apparently impervious to the Muses’ charms.

  “Tried to save him from drowning.” I chuckle mirthlessly. “Turns out, he didn’t need saving. And now I’m stuck here.”

  My earlier depression returns. Mount Olympus is mesmerizing, but it is a golden cage.

  Amy’s stare hardens. “Are you seriously complaining? We’re on Mount Olympus, land of gods and heroes. What would you want to go back to Earth for?”

  “My…” I stop myself before I can say mother. It is a private matter, and one that leaves me vulnerable. If by any chance I can’t find a way out of the competition, Amy will be my rival. I can’t start off by revealing my biggest weakness. “My life.”

  “Your life?” She chortles. “So you’re one of the princesses then?”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  Amy shrugs. Her mind is already made up about me. But I’m not ready to let her go. I have too many questions, and she seems to be the kind of person who has answers.

  “Why aren’t there more of us? We can’t be the only ones who could read the invitation.”

  Her posture is stiff as she begrudgingly answers me. “The secrecy warning. Those who talked got eliminated.”

  “And their loved ones? What happened to them?”

  “How would I know? But now that I know we’re dealing with gods, my guess is nothing good.”

  “You’re not worried about the competition?”

  “I’m not a princess. I’m not afraid to fight, and I give as good as I get.” The last sentence sounds like a promise.

  With her petite frame, I didn’t consider her a threat before, but I rethink my first impression.

  “And what if you don’t win? What do you think happens to the losers?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. The wish is mine.”

  Amy clearly has an overdeveloped competitive streak. I try to steer her to safer ground.

  “What about your parents? You’re not concerned about them? How do you think they’ll react when they discover you’re gone in the morning?”

  Amy glares at me before scuttling away. The only boy who appears unfazed by the Muses’ charms overheard my question. He huddles closer to me.

  His voice is soft and melodious as he speaks. “That was my first question to Aphrodite. Time in Mount Olympus is different than time on Earth, slower usually—”

  My throat constricts. “Do you mean we could have been gone a week already?”

  “We could. But we’re not.” The boy pats my shoulder reassuringly. “In this particular case, Zeus has sped up time on Mount Olympus to shield our disappearance. It could be weeks here before our parents on Earth notice we’re gone.”

  I smile gratefully at him, which is when I notice his black eye.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “My daring action.” He tries to smile but ends up wincing sadly. “I kissed the person I loved.”

  “And her boyfriend was jealous?”

  “No. The boy I kissed, he’s the one who punched me.”

  I take in the full meaning of his words. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s ok,” he says. “I just wish it wasn’t my first kiss.”

  I loop my arm with his, a familiar gesture that surprises me. Lily’s the warm and fuzzy one. She takes her hugs from me by force and always complains I’m not more affectionate. Yet here I am, holding on to a total stranger as if we were the closest of friends.

  Maybe it’s because I’m alone in a foreign land. Or because my own experiences of kissing have felt disappointing and pointless, although far less violent than—

  “What’s your name?” I ask the skinny boy at my side.

  “Gabriel.”

  “And why are you here, Gabriel?”

  Eyes of the softest blue lock with mine. There’s a vulnerability in the way he gazes at me so openly, his face devoid of the mask people usually assume with strangers.

  “For my wish,” Gabriel sighs.

  Aren’t we all.

  There seem to be three levels in Mount Olympus. The first, its unequivocal symbol, is the snowy top surmounted by Zeus and Hera’s palace.

  Just below are the other gods’ palaces on the second level. Each god, even the minor ones, all have their own palace. Even the married ones live separately in the palace dedicated to their powers. This must make it easier for Aphrodite to meet with her lover, Ares, the God of War.

  These sordid details I’ve gathered thanks to Gabriel, who’s a massive fan of Aphrodite. She’s the one who pulled him away from the boy who not only punched him but also rained kicks on Gabriel as he lay on the ground. As Goddess of Love, Aphrodite had heard of Gabriel’s romantic gamble and shimmered him away. I wish she’d brought the bully along so I could give him a piece of my mind and a taste of my fist.

  Underneath the gods’ palaces are villas carved in white stone. They are tiny in comparison to the palaces, but by human standards they are extravagant mansions. They rest at the bottom of Mount Olympus, just above the clouds that enclose the magical mountain top like a diaphanous hedge. These villas belong to the heroes who’ve been granted immortality by the gods.

  The Muses stop between two villas on the third level. The one to the left has a portico with columns carved into two identical swords.

  “This was Theseus’s dwelling,” Erato, or Calliope perhaps, explains. “His villa will host the male contenders during the games.”

  “Won’t Theseus mind?” a tall and lanky boy asks.

  “Theseus has passed into the Aether.”

  “How can an immortal die?” Heath demands.

  The Muse eludes his question with a swiping gesture of her slender hand. “We learned that humans need socializing, so you will each share your room with another contender until one of you is evicted from the competition.”

  Not all humans—I’d much prefer to be on my own.

  Gabriel tenses at my arm. After the evening’s tragedy, he must be afraid of how the other boys will react to his romantic preferences. Most of them heard his story while he recounted it to me, so they take a step back and look for roommates among their ranks. I want to scream at them for being so stupid and narrow-minded—their reaction sustains my theory that high school boys are just cavemen in better clothes.

  Heath, whom I still loathe, steps toward Gabriel and nods to him. This silent offer works wonders on my new friend, who lets go of my arm and steps toward the boy who ruined my life.

  “The females will stay in Helen of Troy’s home.” Another Muse points to the villa on the right side of the path. Above the gate, a fantastic naval scene is etched in the stone. “Anything you need, ask the servants. You’ll find the gods can be extremely generous with their future heroes.”

  Amy scoots close to me, her previous outburst seemingly forgotten.

  “
I’m asking for a diamond cuff to complete my set.” She glares at me. “Don’t even think of trying to steal it.”

  I look at the girl with the grubby clothes and a love for shiny things. Guess I’ve found my roommate.

  Chapter 8

  A chiming sound, like the laughing melody of a waterfall, rouses me. When I open my eyes, I expect to be back in my mother’s bed. I seek the warmth of her body, but I’m alone under the covers. Amy’s bed on the other side of the room is empty. Not a dream then.

  Amy’s a strange roommate—talkative but distrustful all at once. She chatted non-stop from the moment we took our first step inside our lodgings until we went to bed. She even managed to talk while we brushed our teeth in the en-suite bathroom, adorned with coral marble and mother-of-pearl fixtures.

  But for all that she prattled, she eluded every personal question I threw her way. She reminds me of the street peddlers in Chinatown, who will talk your ear off until you give in and buy whatever they’re selling. She’s wary of me.

  We haven’t encountered any staff yet, but all our needs were met ahead of our arrival. The silk nightgown I slept in is the most comfortable piece of clothing I’ve ever worn. Amy complained about the nightgown, wishing for shorts and a t-shirt instead, and was disappointed that she couldn’t ask for her diamond cuff. Last night, she stashed the necklace she’d stolen under her pillow, making sure I couldn’t rob her.

  Once I’m awake, I run to the bathroom first for a shower. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I still smell the East River’s stench on my skin.

  There is no shower, but the bathtub has been filled with steaming, jasmine-scented water already. It reminds me of my mother’s perfume, and when I drop into the tub, I pretend she is the water hugging me.

  I must have dozed off because Amy barges in, yelling at me.