“Hey!” Hera screamed. “Pay attention!”
In the net, Alcie grabbed Iole.
“Say it again,” Alcie whispered through tears. “When metal cools it contracts. And when it gets heated?”
Iole just looked at Alcie and tried to sob as quietly as she could.
Pandy’s eyes felt as if they were going to pop out of their sockets. But it was her skin that was truly burning. She doubled over again and looked down at her feet.
She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Small cracks were appearing in her bronze-covered skin, exposing blinding white-hot flesh underneath. She managed to get to her feet and focus her eyes to the left. Exactly where Hades had indicated. And there she was. Her—Pandy—in a shimmering, almost hidden looking glass. She stared at herself as Hera ranted on and on about her impending, torturous death.
“Maybe I’ll flay you first and then just dip your skin in gold. By my husband’s silky silver beard, to think a simple mortal maiden could have ever succeeded. It’s a wonder you got this far.”
She was thirteen years old, her hair and eyes were a dull brown, and she had a tiny overbite. Her skin was cracking and her life was at an end. She was now and had always been plain, ordinary, and really … nothing special. This was how she was going to die.
And that’s when the pain in her body felt like nothing compared to the pain in her heart. She felt it: pure, unadulterated … terror.
“ALL RIGHT!” Pandy screamed as another wave of fire split the skin on her shins. “You WIN! You hear me, you WIN!”
Hera was startled into silence.
“That’s right, we didn’t succeed. We tried and we failed. But we did our best and that’s all any mortal can ever do!”
Pandy flashed on Master Epeus.
“That’s all we mortals have is potential and maybe we didn’t live up to ours, but at least we stepped up and tried!” she cried, trying to make her words heard over the choking in her throat as her body burned and her deepest, darkest secret heart cracked open. “You think you’re so clever, hiding Fear in a box. As if! You couldn’t hide it at the bottom of the sea. We humans live with Fear every day! I’ve lived with Fear for as long as I can remember. I’m afraid of not being smart enough. Or pretty enough. I’m afraid of not being special enough or being too special and everyone will think I’m weird. I’m afraid of being weird!”
Behind Hera, unseen by her, Athena and Hermes began to emerge, slowly and silently, out of a large pit of smoldering sulfur. They stopped rising with only their upper halves exposed and gazed at Pandy as the horrible, awful truth poured out of her like water from an urn.
“I’m afraid of other people. I’m afraid of bullies. Of new kids at school. I’m afraid to just say hello because I’m more afraid of what they’re gonna think of me. I’m afraid my mother thinks I’m nothing. That my father thinks I’m nothing. That I think I’m nothing and maybe I really am nothing. That I’ll be nothing when I grow up. I’ll be nothing special and my life will be just as miserable as it always was. Maybe that no one will love me just for me. I’m afraid I’m not really lovable. I’m afraid that my friends …”
Pandy broke into wracking sobs, burning alive as her expanding skin split up to her belly button.
“… my best friends who have done more in the last six months than any twenty people could do in six years … are now just plain better than I am.”
“We’re not,” Alcie muttered. “We’re not.”
Pandy looked up at the net, trying to bring Alcie and Iole into focus in spite of the pain, the torment, and the tears.
“I’ve just treated them so badly because I’m afraid that they’re gonna start thinking I’m nothing!”
“Oh, honey.” Iole wept softly.
“Boo-hoo,” Hera spat.
“SHUT UP!” Pandora screamed, nearly ripping her vocal cords to pieces. “You, you—what did Zeus call you? A giant nesting water hen? A ripe but gargantuan grape? That’s gotta make you feel great, huh? The Queen of Heaven, and your husband calls you that? Oh, but you’re not afraid are you? Afraid that, like, maybe you’re fading away, that the people don’t love you like they should ’cause your husband sure doesn’t so why should they? That you’ve become … become … Iole?”
“Obsolete!” Iole called from up high.
“Obsolete. You’re so scared of that you had to chase down three girls for six months to keep them from finding out. But that’s nothing, you rotting falafel patty! Nothing compared to me. This is one time where a mortal really does surpass the gods because I’m afraid of everything! Everything! And I have been for a while now and maybe I would have been for the rest of my life.”
Pandy managed a glance at Athena, who smiled and nodded her head—not in agreement—but simply to urge her on.
“So you wanna kill me, you big blabbering fool. Go ahead. Because you wanna know what I fear most? I’m too afraid to tell anyone that I’m afraid. And I don’t want to live that way anymore. You want to know where Fear is, you big, stupid, horrible Queen? IT’S RIGHT HERE!”
Pandy pounded on her chest as a final sob wracked her body. Her bronze skin tore apart and spiraled upward in a whirlwind. The pain shot through her as if she’d been hit by one of Zeus’s lightning bolts and every muscle tensed like the string on a bow. She stood upright, straight as a rod, then crashed to the ground. Athena and Hermes, as if on cue, both blew softly in the direction of the bronze whirlwind, condensing it and sending it spinning downward toward Pandy as she lay in agony on the ground. Then Athena flicked some hot coals down the back of Hera’s blue robes. Hera, caught off guard, immediately conjured up memories of being set on fire and whirled around, trying to reach down her back.
“Come on, girl,” Alcie said, watching the scene below.
“Come on, honey,” Hermes said softly to himself.
“You can do it,” Athena murmured.
Pandy opened her eyes and saw the small cloud of bronze skin drifting toward her. Her skin, soaked through with fear, now blown apart. Her fear, which she realized was, in fact, the Fear. Not really believing that she was still alive, she reached for her leather carrying pouch—the smallest movements bringing searing pain—and slowly removed the box and the net. In a near stupor, she threw the net up into the air, but it sailed too far to the right and was about to miss its target. Still unable to open his mouth, Hades shook his mane of inky-black hair and created just the right breeze to settle the net neatly over the bronze cloud, which brought it down just within Pandy’s reach.
Hera had pulled the coals out of her robes and turned to see who or what had done that to her.
Pandy removed the hairpin from the lock on the box.
Hera glared at Athena and raised her hands to deliver a hefty blow.
Homer unconsciously pulled on the rope net so hard that he broke several strands.
Pandy dragged the adamantine net over to the box.
The spirits closest to the scene ceased their wailing and began to softly chant, “Pandora, Pandora.”
Hera registered that Athena wasn’t even going to fight back; that her eyes were focused intently on something happening in front of her.
Pandy flipped the clasp and lifted the lid.
Alcie and Iole were clutching each other so hard that their nails drew blood. Neither of them noticed or would have cared.
Hera turned, Pandy in full view.
Pandy dropped Fear, the seventh and final Evil, into the box, closed the lid, flipped the clasp, and slid the hairpin back into place.
Hera let out a scream that shattered the spirit eardrums of those close by, but the whole of Tartarus erupted into cheers. Athena and Hermes smiled at each other as they sunk back into the sulfur pit. Hades, with Hera’s enchantments now broken, immediately freed himself and brought the rope net down to a safe place in front of the iron chair. Untangling themselves, Alcie, Iole, Homer, Achilles, and Hades rushed to Pandy, flat out on the ground and almost insensible. Her flesh
was cooling but her skin was still bright red and burned. There was no touching her.
“Hera?” Pandy asked weakly.
Everyone looked around.
“Gone,” Iole said.
“Did we make it in time?” she asked, closing her eyes.
“You did,” Hades replied. “With eleven …”
As if the moment weren’t dramatic enough, he paused and let the word hang in the air.
“… seconds to spare.”
“Oh, P,” Alcie sobbed, looking at Pandy’s traumatized flesh.
“Just a scratch,” Pandy joked, but she could feel herself slipping away; this time, she had a strong suspicion, it would be for good. The damage was just too great. She thought about the Elysian Fields—she hoped she might get to visit them once in a while. She opened her eyes and looked at Alcie, Iole, and, yes, Homer too: the best friends anyone ever had. Then she looked at Hades.
“Looking glasses?” she said. “Why?”
Hades smiled.
“Because, Pandora—you great and wonderful girl—you now know what the true secret of Tartarus is: looking at yourself, truly looking at yourself, is the hardest and the most frightening thing anyone can ever do.”
It was Pandy’s turn to smile. And with that, Pandora Atheneus Andromaeche Helena blacked out.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Olympus
The sensation was familiar, but with her eyes closed, she couldn’t place it and she just wasn’t ready to lift her lids. She was lying on something soft and billowy; it puffed up all around her and yet she floated securely on top. And then a second familiar sensation found its way into her sleep-laden brain. Pandy had the notion that everything that happened to her—and to Alcie and Iole—and to someone named Homer—had all been a terrible, wonderful, frightening dream or series of dreams; that she would wake up on her own sleeping pallet and it would be the day of the big project due at the Athena Maiden Middle School and that she would have nothing to show.
And Master Epeus would give her a delta, or worse: maybe kick her out of school for the rest of the year.
Pandy stretched out, expecting to feel nothing but a slight ache in her bones from such a restless sleep.
Instead, there was a tightening of her skin all over her body; she thought she could also hear her skin pulling taut against her muscles. It was hot and prickly but not entirely unpleasant.
She opened her eyes and trained her focus on her forearm; her skin was clear and white. Too white. Where was the browning that she gotten from years of running about Athens in sleeveless garments? She looked at her legs. White. It was as if her whole body had somehow been covered in brand-new skin. It was almost as white as the clouds she was lying on.
Clouds!
Clouds meant only one thing: Pandy leapt off her bed of clouds and onto the floor a good distance away just as the clouds disappeared, revealing that same terrifying expanse of a jagged, rocky mountaintop. The next instant the opening disappeared, replaced with the same pristine marble as the rest of the room. She was back on Mount Olympus. At the same moment that realization hit, the little pink mouths and tiny pairs of eyes appeared, hovering in midair, all staring once again at her.
“Hello,” she paused, recollecting, “daughters of daughters of daughters of Zeus.”
“You remembered!” said the tiny mouths in unison. “We are honored.”
“Kinda hard to forget.”
“We welcome you. You are …”
“Let me guess,” Pandy said, a slight tremble in her voice; it was all very good, or it was very, very bad. “I’ve been summoned.”
The mouths said nothing, but each one broke into a wide grin, the sight of which caused Pandy to start, then giggle. As she passed though the eyes and mouths, one vivid blue eyeball winked at her and a rosy pink mouth blew her a kiss. She couldn’t tell if this was a saucy show of support or they were gleefully sending her off to her doom. As before, a door in the room was opening outward and a set of unseen hands was already pushing her into the same long, impossibly high white marble hallway. And, as before, the air was perfumed with lavender and honeysuckle. And then she realized something astonishing and marvelous: she was no longer afraid. Something was going to happen to her in the next few moments, in that enormous hall, and she was going to face it with every ounce of stamina and every centimeter of spine. Consequences, cheers, fire pits, ridicule, shame, a pat on the back, torment, hugs and kisses, exile; whatever lay beyond those doors, let it come. She took a deep breath and found her resolve.
“Guys, guys!” Pandy said, bucking up against the force of the hands. “I’ve got this. I do. I know where I’m going and I’m good. Really.”
Instantly, the pressure on her back was gone. She straightened herself and began to walk forward, tilting her head upward to take in once again the beautiful oil lamps in the shape of great eagles on gold chains and the ridiculously high ceiling. She was heading toward the great hall of Zeus, passing by the fountains depicting the titans: Cronus, Rhea, Oceanus. Then she found herself approaching the stunning fountain depicting the titan Mnemosyne—“memory”—and she stumbled.
Without warning, it all came rushing into her mind, every event flooding every crevice of her brain in no chronological order whatsoever: Iole drinking from Mnemosyne, Persephone tied upside down to her throne, Lucius Valerius stabbing her in her shoulder, swinging from her uncle Atlas’s nose hair, watching Wang Chun Lo move like water through his magic crystals, young Douban putting his hand over hers, lemon seeds pouring from the mouth of Mahfouza’s brother, Hera’s bald head after she’d set the Queen of Heaven on fire, Homer baked into the top of a column and forced to hold up the vault of the heavens, Iole nearly being roasted over the altar of Apollo’s temple at Delphi, Hermes taking the emerald bracelet from Iole’s wrist, Orpheus and his orchestra …
… Alcie, dancing blissfully about on a mountain top, right after Homer had asked her to be his … forever. They had all happened, every single moment, and now they hit her like chunks of stone crashing onto her head; it was all just too much.
With a wail she slumped forward, fully expecting to hit the hard, white marble floor. Instead, she was caught up gently in a hug, a pair of strong, safe arms around her. She looked up, the fountain of Mnemosyne in the distance, and found a joyful sight. Her father held her fast, his smiling face now only inches away from hers.
“Oh, Daddy!” she cried, burying her head in his neck, sobbing with everything she had.
“I know, honey,” he whispered. “I know.”
Far off, she heard the sound of a door opening, then she felt her father shake his head as if shooing someone away. Prometheus let her cry for a long while, rocking his daughter back and forth.
“Daddy, I … I …”
She tried to speak several times, but with every glance at her father, smelling the cedar oil in his hair, seeing the new touches of gray at his temples and in his beard and knowing she’d been the cause of all his worry and so much else, she just couldn’t formulate any words. Then Prometheus looked at his girl.
“Big-time phileo, my daughter.” He smiled.
“Me you more, Daddy.”
Their special words of love; this father to this child and back again. Pandy dissolved into another flood of tears. So long, so loud that this time she didn’t hear the door open again.
“Hey, pal,” came a familiar voice from the entrance to the great hall. “Seriously, you’ve been out here, like, a full rotation on the sundial. Someone’s getting a little impatient.”
“Okay, okay,” Prometheus said. “Keep your helmet on. We’re coming.”
Hermes ducked back into the great hall as Prometheus slowly got Pandy to her feet. He raised her red eyes to meet his and wiped away the tears from her cheeks. He held up one finger and looked at the droplet glistening at the tip.
“Guess we don’t need to save any more of these, do we?” He grinned.
Pandy shook her head and smiled back.
&nb
sp; “You ready?”
“Uh-huh,” she answered.
But for the second time, she couldn’t remember those last few moments in Hades; whether she’d managed to capture Fear or whether she’d somehow bungled it and was heading toward Zeus’s judgment of an eternity in the fire pits. She’d find out soon enough, but she checked in with herself and her emotions: nope, still unafraid.
They passed by the last fountain in the hallway: Prometheus; in full battle armor, his sword raised high as he helped Zeus and the other Olympians to victory. Suddenly, Pandy understood every moment of her father’s struggle, his courage and determination. She hoped that, no matter what lay waiting in the hall, she’d measured up in some small amount to her father and hadn’t thoroughly disgraced the great House of Prometheus.
“Dad?” she said, as they neared the golden doors.
“Yes, honey?”
“I’m proud of you,” she said definitively, walking boldly into the enormous hall.
“Uh … okay,” said Prometheus, following her, a surprised smile on his face.
But instead of being led to the great teardrop table and the gods sitting in judgment upon her (she had now thoroughly convinced herself that she’d messed up and would soon be on her way back to Hades), Hermes quickly ushered her and her father across the length of the hall, creating a corridor through a packed throng of people, and out onto a large terrace overlooking, as far as Pandy could tell, all of Greece. It was only during the last few moments of traversing that gauntlet that Pandy realized everyone was smiling and laughing. At one point everyone began to clap—for her—and several people congratulated Prometheus and a few even patted her on the back.
Pandora Gets Frightened Page 18