by Audrey Hart
Chapter 17
I can‘t explain it, but when I wake up and will the dirt walls to fall down and I see the sun blazing through the trees, I know that I‘ve made it through the night, that I‘ll make it to the Oracle, that I‘ll be home soon.
I stretch and yawn and let the last-day-of-school feeling wash over me. I survived. I had a date! And now it‘s time to face facts and put Blondie in the past and focus on getting home.
Home.
It‘s weird knowing that I‘m really going to be home soon. I‘m going to be back at the dig site, slapping on sunscreen and daydreaming about my date with Blondie. Will I have to mention him to the Oracle? Probably. I mean, I‘m sure I have to tell the Oracle all about my time here.
That‘s got to be part of the deal for getting home, right? Like when you go on a field trip to the museum when you‘re a little kid and your teacher gives you a quiz the next day.
I‘d be an idiot if I didn‘t prepare. I look around to make sure that I‘m alone, and then start to practice my speech to the Oracle. ―Hi, Oracle...‖ I clear my throat. Lame start. ―Oracle, I have learned a great deal in my time here. I understand now that my, um, thoughts are powerful. And I promise that when I get home, I‘m gonna be a more glass-is-half-full kind of girl that way, you know?‖
In my imagination, the Oracle nods.
―Because I get it, you know, that life is what you make of it. Like last night, I tossed and turned and practically had a panic attack because I thought ‗they‘ were coming for me. Only it wasn‘t about ‗them.‘ It was about me letting my fears get the best of me. It‘s a total waste of time to obsess over stuff that‘s not even, you know, real.‖ In my imagination, the Oracle smiles broadly.
The Oracle looks like one of those giant metallic suns that hippie chicks hang over their beds, a big, moony-yellow, soft round face. The Oracle is very impressed with me, so I go on.
―And mainly, what I‘ve learned is that the world is not out to get me. I, Zoe Calder, will stop seeing everything as so horrible—never seeing Blondie again, assuming a nasty waitress is telling the truth—and will start to see the light. I mean, even though I‘ll never see Blondie again, I‘m grateful that I got to meet him. So thank you, Oracle. I‘m ready now.‖ And in my imagination, the Oracle extends a hand, a hand composed of stardust and fireflies, and when I touch it, everything zooms out. Then I‘m back in the temple and Columbia Darren is telling me what big trouble I‘m in, but I‘m not freaking out, because I‘ve learned that freaking out is a waste of time.
Or is it? I gasp. I‘ve been so caught up in my imaginary meeting with the Oracle that I‘ve lost track of my own two feet, my very real feet that now stand at the edge of a very real chasm.
Relax, Zoe. You caught yourself just in time. You didn‘t step into the void. Across the chasm, I see the base of a mountain, ringed by a stone temple. It‘s Mount Olympus.
And it‘s also the definition of ―so close but so far away,‖ because if I take one step toward it, I will die immediately.
Why didn‘t Creusa tell me there were random Grand Canyons in the forest? Maybe she‘s never been this far. Maybe I‘ve been daydreaming so much that I‘ve gone the wrong way. I walk along the edge and confirm my worst suspicion. There is no quaint thatched bridge in the vicinity.
No sign that reads mount olympus this way. turn left for the tram (arrivals every fifteen minutes on the hour).
I hear rustling in the distance and glance around nervously, remembering what Blondie said yesterday about there being creatures infinitely scarier than the prankster satyr. It seems he wasn‘t just saying that to get me to join him, because from out of the bushes stalks a pack of huge two-headed wild dogs. All at once, they sniff the air and turn toward me. Even from far away I can see their twin pairs of jaws snap open and shut with expectation.
Shaking, I take a step closer to the edge of the chasm, realizing that I‘ve inadvertently trapped myself. The dogs have set off at a run toward me and I have less than a minute, maybe half a minute, to do something. But what?
I can‘t scale down into the canyon. It‘s a two-hundred-foot drop at least. I can‘t even see the bottom. Maybe there is no bottom.
For the first time, it hits me that I might die here. Alone, in the past, killed by impossible, vicious creatures. My speech about positive thinking?
What bunk. I didn‘t really believe it then and I don‘t believe it now, because life is annoying. You meet a guy and you have to run away from him, and you can‘t make it to the Oracle because of a giant chasm and wild dogs, and there‘s no way to think my way out of this one. I can smell fur and saliva, I swear that I can.
The dogs are approaching fast. They‘re close enough that I can make out their yellow eyes.
And the scary hump of muscle along their backs and upper shoulders. Each head has a set of razor-sharp teeth, and as the dogs get closer, snarling and drooling with anticipation, I can‘t look at them anymore or I‘ll freeze and be eaten alive. Instead, I look behind me, desperately searching for some way across the wide spanning chasm.
I hear a crumbling sound, and then I watch as a gray stone step detaches from the side and hovers a foot away from the precipice. It‘s heavier and clumsier-looking than the stone lily pads I made at the lake, but I‘m hardly in a position to be choosy.
Gingerly, I step onto the stone. The dogs slow down as they near the edge, glancing at one another as if to assess whether this is a threat. I think about myself suspended hundreds of feet above a chasm and my mind flashes to the moment in the lake when the stones crumbled and—
No, no! Don‘t think about that now, Zoe. Focus.
And bam! Another stone step appears. This time I jump because the dogs are barking now.
They‘ve realized I‘m fleeing and they won‘t let me go so easily. I‘m only a few feet into the chasm, jittery on the rock that might split apart. If only this were like the rope bridges in the photos that Greeley kids post after they go to Costa Rica. Those bridges have railings and those kids have harnesses, and if I look down— no, don‘t look down.
Look forward.
The alpha dog clenches its two sets of jaws and it paws at the air, sizing up the distance between us. I have to move fast. My powers aren‘t as potent when I move fast, but what can I do?
The next stone step appears, thinner than the first two, and I‘m on it and it‘s weak, but before I can panic, I‘m onto the next one. And just as I‘m thinking I‘m far enough away from the edge so that the pack can‘t possibly get to me, the alpha dog lets out a bloodcurdling howl.
Then it jumps onto the first stone.
With a scream, I lunge for the next step. I‘m making them as fast as I can, but I can‘t break them and make them at the same time, so I try to make them skinny enough to slow down the dog‘s pursuit. It‘s a nerve-racking chase and all I can think of as I‘m staggering across the canyon is, Not like this. I will not go out chased by a dog. And then I‘m two stones away from the other side of the chasm, and once I‘m safely there, I can smash the remaining stones to bits and the dog will fall into the nothingness.
I summon the final hovering stone step and hop onto it with triumph, knowing that I‘m close enough to steady land to finally make it. Only I failed to consider that the dog can jump much farther than I can, and with horror I see it lunge from the step and straight for me. It‘s in the air, all teeth and claws extended, ready to slam me onto the other side and tear me in half.
Instinctively I turn away, covering my head with my arms to protect myself from the lunging beast. My eyes are squeezed tight and my breathing has stopped.
So this is how I die.
Crack!
I feel a blast of heat blaze past me, and when I open my eyes, the dog is yelping, as if it‘s been sucker punched, and tumbling down into the abyss, away, away.
But the problem is, so are the stone steps.
As I start to fall, I snatch out wildly and just manage to grab on to an exposed tree root. My feet ar
e dangling into nothingness, and across the chasm the other dogs have receded because they know they have won. I can‘t hold on to this root forever and my backpack is too heavy and my mind is thwarted by the obliterating fear that any second I will lose my grip. I can‘t focus to use my powers; all I can do is gaze down in horror, seeing nothing, seeing my life, everything I did and everything I didn‘t do…And I should have been looking up, because when I do, I see it there, waiting to save me.
A hand.
I grab it and he lifts me up easily. It‘s a swift and serene reemergence, like coming up from the water after a dive. As I hunch to catch my breath, I feel that same hand squeezing my shoulder, a gentle and deliberate touch that feels like home.
―Curly,‖ he says. ―I‘m going to ask you one more time. You want some company?‖
He‘s even cuter than I remembered, my Blondie, and it‘s the easiest and truest word I‘ve ever said in my life: ―Yes.‖
Chapter 18
It begins with me telling one lie after another. When he asks how I made it across the chasm, I tell him there was a bridge that collapsed. When he asks why I fled the cantina, I tell him I felt sick to my stomach. When he asks where I spent the night, I tell him I went home to my parents. And that‘s a double lie that sits particularly badly in my gut. The worst part is that he seems to believe all of it, and the best part is that he doesn‘t ask me if I‘m a goddess, which tells me that the waitress must have refrained from saying anything. Thank you, weird spider waitress.
We‘re on different planets, Blondie and I, because he gets to tell the truth. He tells me that he figured I took off and went hunting and then went home. He tells me that he stayed in the cantina because he loves that kind of debate. He says that he‘s been bored with his friends and that it‘s always refreshing to go to the woods and hang out around the creatures that live such a different life.
I‘m forced to lie and he‘s allowed to be truthful and it doesn‘t seem fair, but then again, it might be for the best. After all, CeeCee says that the best relationships always start with a little secrecy, that you don‘t have to reveal everything in the beginning. To this day, for instance, she won‘t tell me exactly what happened last April when she was involved—I think—with the class mute, Anton Baird. Literally, he doesn‘t speak. Ever. Anyway, all I know is this: CeeCee and Anton, who also never tweets or Facebooks, were alone in the infirmary for a day. She had chicken pox. He had…something.
In the week that followed, CeeCee turned into Anton 2.0. She didn‘t talk.
Or tweet. Or Facebook. And then, for no apparent reason, she returned to normal CeeCee.
She won‘t ever talk about Anton or what happened. Part of me thinks that they were in love, even if only for a few days, even if they didn‘t say a word to each other, that they forged some bond in their silent time together.
Of course, it‘s not easy to tell stories to Blondie. I can‘t say that I‘m in school, so when he asks what Greeley is, I have to say that it‘s a village.
Naturally, I can‘t mention Twitter or Facebook, so I put them both under the ―village meeting‖ umbrella. And in this way, talking to Blondie is an exciting exercise, like ice-skating on a frozen pond. Sure, an indoor man-made rink is smoother, but on a pond, you have to have your wits about you and avoid the cracks and natural bumps on the surface.
―Let me ask you something, Curly.‖ Oh, yes. Those are officially our names now, Curly and Blondie. Every time he calls me Curly, I smile, even though there‘s nothing cute or sexy about the name. No girl wants to be a Stooge.
―Go right ahead, Blondie.‖
―Does CeeCee care a lot about what other people think?‖
―Why do you ask?‖
―Well…‖ I love the way he says ―well.‖ He‘s like my sophomore English teacher, Mr.
Blake, the best listener I‘ve ever known. His ―well‖ isn‘t like the
―well‖ I‘ve heard from so many other people. It‘s an actual well, deep and full of freshwater and space where his thoughts percolate and float.
Oh lord, Zoe. Cool it already. Just listen to him and stop making lame metaphors!
―Maybe she found herself caring about what Anton thought of her.
Maybe, sitting there with him, away from her friends, she suddenly wanted his approval.‖
―You mean maybe she liked him?‖
―Is that how you feel when you‘re interested in someone?‖
―I don‘t know,‖ I say. ―I‘m never really interested in anyone.‖ He trips and stumbles on a rock. I‘m relieved. So he‘s not perfect.
―Well, maybe she wanted Anton to like her,‖ I say.
―Do you think he did?‖
―I don‘t see how he could, really. I don‘t think she knows what most of the words in his essays even mean.‖
―Essays?‖ he says.
I‘ve slipped up. ―Sorry,‖ I say. ―Local vernacular, um, we talk funny in my village. Kind of, you know, a whole little language that‘s just for us.
Anyway, I feel bad bashing CeeCee. She really is a good person underneath it all.‖
―You‘re not bashing her. You just can‘t relate to her. Believe me, I know the difference.‖
I look at him. He raises his eyebrows. Every time he‘s about to share something personal, he shies away.
―So it happens with you?‖ I ask encouragingly.
He shrugs. ―Around here—well, not right here, but where I live—
people are ridiculous about keeping tabs on each other. Judging people, prying into their lives. It‘s like everyone‘s life is their business, like…‖ I smile. ―Like all people care about is the social network?‖ He makes two fists and bends toward me. ―Yes! That‘s exactly what I‘m talking about, the social network. Nice.‖ Don‘t get cocky, Zoe. Any girl from the future would have whipped out that phrase.
―Well, it‘s like that where I live too,‖ I say. ―Half the time, you can‘t tell if anyone does anything because they want to or because they want other people to know that they did it. People just aren‘t genuine. And it gets to a point where you can‘t get mad at them for it because you know that most of them, they‘ve lost sight of their own motivations. They don‘t know whether or not they really, truly believe in what they do. They just know that they want people to know what they do.‖
―Wow,‖ he says. ―Are you sure you‘re not from around here?‖ We laugh and fall into one of our lulls. The lulls are as enjoyable as the conversations. We move easily together somehow, as if we‘re joined but we‘re not. We‘re not even holding hands.
A spasm of worry flurries through me: What if Ancient Greece is as bad as Greeley? But that‘s not possible. After all, there‘s no boy like Blondie at Greeley. So already this place is nothing like Greeley. Then again, Blondie seems to feel as alienated as I do.
―Hey, are you thirsty?‖ he asks.
―Yes.‖
He leads the way to a brook and we sit down together and for a moment we just listen to the water roll over the rocks. My cowlick blows over my eyes and I‘d forgotten I even have a cowlick.
Around Blondie, I feel so put together, as if every little molecule and follicle is in its place.
―So,‖ he says, and immediately I have a bad feeling. ―I think I know why you left me back at the cantina.‖
I nod. Oh god! I‘m sweating and I‘m scared and my voice vanishes.
I want to run and I want to stay and I want to disappear and I want to confess and I want to go back to twenty seconds ago when we were pretending I never ran out on him. But instead I just push the cowlick out of my eyes and try to sound surprised. ―I told you, my stomach.‖
―Maybe,‖ he says, so gently that I might crack. ―Or maybe you thought I was being obnoxious, sticking my nose where it doesn‘t belong.‖ Relief washes over me. ―Not at all. You were so right. I mean, if you didn‘t speak up, they would have started a huge brawl.‖
―It‘s okay if you think I was wrong,‖ he says. Okay, it‘s
official, he is the cutest boy of all time. ―See, my friends think I come on a little strong sometimes.‖
―Well, I don‘t think so. I think you come on just right.‖ Oh no. Did I really say something that dorky? I beg you, cheeks, please, please don‘t blush. I will pay you not to turn red. I will give you millions of dollars if we‘re ever back in the land of American currency.
He picks at the grass. I can‘t tell whether he‘s bashful or bored. He doesn‘t look at me.
―Thanks, Curly.‖
And now there‘s nothing to say and I‘m worried I screwed it all up. If CeeCee were bearing witness to this disaster, she‘d go into Sex and the City mode and say that he likes the opinionated Miranda type of girl, and that I‘m being way too Charlotte with my pleasant platitudes. But I can‘t be myself because to be myself would be to reveal myself and to reveal myself would be to endanger myself. But if I‘m not myself, there‘s no way he‘ll stay interested in me…and if he does stay interested in me when I‘m acting all blasé and evasive, then I won‘t stay into him because I‘ll know that he likes Charlottes—and if there‘s one thing I know even though I never watched the show that much, it‘s that I am not a Charlotte!