by Audrey Hart
They hadn‘t built it yet.
Sometimes, you just need to be patient.
I take the obolus out of my pocket.
―If you hate it in the future,‖ I tell Zeus, ―I‘ll feel terrible.‖
―I won‘t hate it.‖
―Well, you might…‖
―How bad can Bookface really be?‖
I laugh. He laughs. We needed to laugh. Black hair is slithering around the corner and it won‘t be long now.
―It‘s Facebook,‖ I say softly.
He takes my hand. ―I‘m never changing my mind about you, Zoe. I love you.‖
Hera‘s black hair bursts into the room and rolls and twists and swats.
Something even more ferocious has come for us: Hera herself. She‘s peering out through all that hair, piercing us with her frustrated gaze. As I watch her literally hiding behind her hair, I feel myself forgiving her for all that she has done. She doesn‘t know love. All she knows is power.
And like her hair, it‘s too much—it‘s literally swallowing her.
She could kill us right now. She has the power and she has us cornered.
But there‘s no venom in her eyes anymore; there is only a loneliness that is almost tangible, a yearning to feel accepted. She just wants to be loved, and deep down she knows she cannot find that love in this room. She would be better off if we were both gone. She would be free.
I look into Zeus‘s eyes. I look at the giant iPhone. I motion for him to kneel down with me and he does and I bring the obolus close to the circle. I look at him one last time. I‘m going to ask him if he‘s sure about this, about a whole new world, about holding my hand for the rest of his life, about there suddenly being such a thing as ―the rest of his life,‖ because in all probability, where we‘re going, we won‘t be immortal. All these questions swirl in my mind and I need to start asking them, but as it turns out, I don‘t need to ask him anything at all. His eyes are an answer. He‘s ready.
I‘m ready. Love is real and it changes people, if they let it. I bring the obolus to the circle and I whisper, ―Hold on tight.‖ Light flashes and a wall of water surges over us. It‘s just like the storm that carried me off the first time, the storm that brought me here. The swell is sudden and the wind is sharp and cold and the lightning is so close it‘s blinding. And then it‘s too dark to see but I know I‘ll be okay because his voice is the last sound I hear before I drift away, muffled by the wind and the rain and the thunder, but undeniably, absolutely his voice, speaking only and with certainty to me, ―I‘m here, Zoe. Forever.‖
About the Author
Audrey Hart came up with the idea for The Dig while visiting the Minoan ruins in Crete.
The Dig: Zoe and Zeus is the first book in a trilogy.