by L. J. Stock
“That wasn’t a compliment.” I growled, fighting the urge to react physically.
“Telling me that I'm supposed to be insulted defeats the purpose, don't you think?”
“Yet, I still don't see the humor in it. Imagine that!”
“Because you don't know the answer.”
“Which is?”
“I'm forty-five.”
I turned around and started walking again.
“What? You don't believe me?” he shouted, the injection of humor in his voice contradicting the note of hurt.
“Very helpful, asshole,” Alexa said, a slap following her reprimand. I heard her lighter footsteps following, but she didn't take the same approach as Zander had. Instead, she gripped my arm and spun me, her face up close and personal with mine, her eyes hard.
“I know this isn't easy, Cass. I know this all seems like some sick joke, but think about it. Stop being so damn stubborn and think about what we’re saying. Why would I lie to you? What would I gain from driving you all the way out here to play a prank on you?”
I stared at her, looking for some proof that she was lying, but I couldn't see an ounce of deception in her gaze. Yet, I couldn't find the logic or rationality in what she was saying either. There was no feasibility to what they were trying to convince me of. There was no way that a woman of maybe thirty, and that was pushing it, could be my grandmother.
“There's an explanation,” Alexa said, the promise in her voice imploring me to believe.
“Of course there is,” I replied sardonically. “She wasn't even conceived when my mother was born. How's that for an explanation?”
“Do me a favor and leave the sarcasm to Zander.”
“Hey–”
“Shut up,” Alexa and I said together before our eyes met once more.
“Explain to me what you hear and why you hear it. Explain to me how you managed to drag that razor up your arm without remembering a damn thing about it. If you can do that with your logical answers then I will drive you to your brother’s house myself.”
“I…” Words wouldn't come. I had no rational explanation, because there wasn't one. How did you explain disembodied voices and the occasional flicker of scenes that made no sense? How did you explain doing something you never thought you were capable of? Sure, it had crossed my mind in the past. The noise had become so constant and fatalistic that you'd have to have been a saint not to have thought about it, but I'd never once taken a step toward that resolution. I didn't understand what could have changed that. How could I take a step like that without consciously thinking about it?
“You can't, can you?”
I shook my head, my arms crossing tightly over my chest as I met her glare. I was unwilling to give in that easily.
“Then get your ass back up there and listen.”
“But–”
“I'm not saying you have to believe it, but you're the one who wanted answers, Cass. This is your chance to get some. Whether you believe it or not is your call, but don’t make a judgment before you’ve heard what she has to say.”
Without waiting for a response, Alexa turned and marched up the drive, disappearing into the darkness, leaving me standing there alone with nothing but my thoughts and the howling wind billowing around me. I was thankful there were no inexplicable noises accompanying it, because I was certain I would have followed her based on that alone. Instead, her leaving me alone gave me time to think.
She was right that I wanted answers. I hadn’t agreed to this journey to begin with; I hadn’t had a chance to because I’d been unconscious when they took me. I had, however, chosen to stay, so I was the one on this pursuit of validity. This wasn't as outlandish as I'd first deemed it. Okay, so a thirty-year-old as my grandmother was really hard to explain, impossible actually, but so was this extracurricular soundtrack playing in my head. Alexa had asked me to listen. That's all that was required of me. What did I have to lose? Time was something I had plenty of.
“We're not mocking you, Cass,” Zander said, making me jump before spinning to face him. I hadn't realized he was still standing there. “This isn't some joke to us.”
“Really? Because sometimes I wonder with you.”
“She's your grandmother.”
“And you're my great uncle Ned I suppose?”
“Don't be ridiculous.” He laughed and my fists balled again. Zander held up his hands in surrender and moved closer so I could see him. He may have been trying to make peace, but there was still a smile on his lips.
“Do you take anything seriously?” I asked, exasperated. They'd thrown me into the snake pit without anything to defend myself, and now here he was making a joke about everything that confused me.
“I do, but I was hoping that a little bit of humor would help you. I know you're confused, Cass. Believe me, we all were at one point, but the explanation will help. Even if you choose not to believe it, I can attest to the fact that everything you're going to hear will be nothing but truth.”
I took off back in the direction I thought the house was in, only to feel hands grip my arms and point me the other direction. I sheepishly marched on, almost sighing in relief when the light appeared ahead of us. I hadn't realized how much the howling wind had been freaking me out until safety and warmth came into view ahead of me.
I didn't talk to Alexa or Acantha when I stopped in front of them. Instead, I chose to crouch and pet the dog sitting in front of Acantha. She gave me a lazy lick as though telling me I'd made the right decision, then she stood, heading toward the house, brushing against her sister before the two of them disappeared inside without so much as a look back.
“I'm glad you came back,” Acantha said softly, not even attempting to approach me. As elegantly as she had appeared, she turned and followed the dogs into the house, leaving Alexa to offer me her hand and pull me to my feet. Looping her arm through mine, she started walking, coaxing me into the house. With the warmth and safety it offered, I didn’t need much convincing.
I stepped into the house with trepidation, but fell in love on sight. The walls were the same thick rock as on the outside, and cradled a very old-fashioned kitchen with a large arch leading into a living room that contained overstuffed furniture. More stone walls congregated in the center of the opposite wall, forming a fireplace which cradled a crackling fire. To the right of the arch was a steep stairwell that went directly up and disappeared into the second floor.
There were sideboards, credenzas, and bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes and antiques that looked priceless at first glance. I kept my distance and allowed myself to be steered into the living room, where, with a sly smile from Alexa, I was seated in a giant chair next to the fire. She was still looking after me, but as I thawed out, physically and mentally, I finally started to relax and pulled my knees to my chest, waiting to see who would talk first.
Acantha paced for a while before coming back with a large, leather-bound book that looked older than the four of us put together and multiplied by a hundred.
“How much do you know about Greek mythology?” she asked, taking the seat opposite mine. She placed the book on the ottoman between us and folded her hands on her lap as she waited patiently for an answer.
“Not much,” I admitted, hugging my knees to my chest. “I enjoy history, but the library wasn't exactly well stocked in the sanitarium.”
“No, I'd guess not.” She sat back and crossed her legs as she toyed with the ends of her long hair. The only animated people were Alexa and Zander. Both seemed to be hovering on the edges of their seats.
“I don't want to confuse matters further, so I think it’s best I give you a summarized version. Anything you have questions about you can ask or look for in here.” She patted the book and looked to Alexa and Zander, laughing at the expressions on their faces.
“It's been here the whole time?” Alexa asked, almost greedily.
“Yes. All you needed to do was ask. I hide nothing from you. You know that.”
>
“But–”
Acantha shook her head patiently, a small smile on her lips, and it was the first time I'd ever seen her look anything other than the thirty-year-old she was perceived to be. She looked to me and then back to Alexa who nodded and pretended to zip her lips.
“The Greek God, Apollo, was the son of Zeus, and as charming as Apollo was, he tended to go after what wasn’t his. Apollo had an infatuation for nymphs, which wasn’t entirely unusual amongst the Gods as the union between Gods and nymphs had been a stroke to the Gods’ egos since the beginning of time. Nymphs came from Mother Nature herself, and she offered each of her four elements to her children as a gift. Each nymph inherited one element more predominant than the others, either fire, air, earth or water, and to expand that balance in nature, they began breeding with Gods, the Gods’ genetics ensuring the offspring would be wholly nymph.”
Acantha paused as though waiting to see whether I had questions already. When I held my silence, she continued.
“Apollo’s obsession went deep enough that he didn’t have a preference, so he took what he fancied and kept taking until another nymph caught his eye. Most women, including nymphs, would fall at the Sun God's feet should he beckon them. It was seen as an honor, but I was of strong will – too strong for him to blind with his glory – so he decided he would take what he wanted from me against my will. He was of strong magic – he was a God after all – but he was angry and his fury made him hasty in his incantation. He believed he turned me into an Acanthas plant. That, however, was not the case,” she said, pointing at herself with a small smile. “Instead of changing me, he punched a hole between two of the dimensions by forcing me through the invisible veil that resides between the two worlds.”
“A nymph? A Greek God? A hole between dimensions? I'm supposed to believe this is real?” I asked, the skepticism sneaking in again.
Acantha pushed the tome toward me once again. “All the proof you need is in here, Cass. The histories of humans have been altered to make our histories seem fabricated, to protect the Gods and every other being. The real details, however, are all in these pages. Each of us has a volume we wrote in. We shared our findings and noted our research.”
I pulled the huge book into my lap and opened it to the first page. It was so old that the paper was brittle and fragile. The gentle sound of the pages’ disturbance had me pulling my hand back carefully. I slipped the cover closed, my fingers resting on the leather as I looked back at Acantha. It was very obvious she was being truthful about just how far back this volume went, so I could check that off the list.
“I didn't dare come back home from the new dimension. The Gods, and the humans who still believed in them, would have been eager to hand me over to Apollo, so I stayed in Mortisali, hiding amongst their population of humans who had no knowledge of other beings. Back then, the Mortisalians weren't that much more advanced than we were and there was a comfort in the familiarity. It made the transition much easier for me, as did the lands being a mirror image of our world. I found my way back home completely by accident, which I suppose makes it my fault that translocation was discovered. I was bathing in one of the lakes and was found by a nobleman. The shock of his appearance startled me enough that I wished for my home as I willed myself anywhere but there. The wish to flee was so intense, it resulted in me translocating myself home. Nymphs use their elements to travel from one place to another with nothing more than thought, and as a water nymph, I’d always been able to move long distances through water. I'd been missing my nymph sisters and feeling so homesick for the valley where I’d grown up, that my longing took me to the lake in Nysa where I’d spent much of my childhood – not its version in Mortisali, but the familiar one of my home dimension.”
Acantha smiled thoughtfully, her hands gathering together in her lap. “My nymph sisters and I discovered that with the breach between the worlds, we could translocate as we pleased, but it was up to us to keep the balance between these two dimensions. So we dispersed, some moving to Mortisali, and some staying here in this world. I, of course, made sure I stayed in Mortisali during the reign of the gods. The last thing I wanted was to be caught by Apollo and for his magic to work the second time around.”
I rested my chin on my knees and looked at the woman in front of me. In that moment she looked ancient. Her age wasn’t given away by her body or her looks, but by her eyes. They were haunted. Centuries of memories were hidden behind those blue eyes, which I now realized were the same shade and shape of my mother’s. Not that I was ready to admit that out loud.
“The nymphs lived in harmony with the Mortisalians for the longest of times. I loved my home in Mortisali, and many of my sisters chose to live there together, a colony of sorts. No one knew what we were or that we had come from here, so we thought we were safe.”
“You said that the humans there didn’t know about your existence. I’m assuming they did here, at least at one point?”
“We are but myths and legends now, but,” she said thoughtfully, “belief is where the Gods garnered all of their power. Without that belief, they’re nothing but legends. The nymphs also became fables; only we didn’t depend on the same system of belief to survive so we went on the way we always had. The Gods eventually retreated from this dimension, and it was only a matter of time until they were forgotten and became irrelevant. We could more than happily operate without the Gods. The world actually became a safer place for my sisters and me once people stopped worshipping them. We could move about amongst them undetected. Mortisali had its own deities, too, but their population consisted only of humans, which made it simple and easy for us to exist among them from the beginning.”
A light sigh fell from her lips at the memory.
“Some of the braver nymphs began breeding with humans in the two dimensions. Before that point, we’d only been allowed to reproduce with Gods, as this was the only way to ensure our offspring were born nymphs themselves. The fire bearing nymphs – or underworld – nymphs married into Mortisalian royalty, and kept the peace in Mortisali after we had alerted them to our presence. Humans tend to attack what they don’t understand, but after much persuasion, they realized we posed no threat to them or their way of life. We never wanted to rule, simply exist, and they accepted that. With the combination of the human’s royal family and nymph bloodlines, we were no longer guests in that world. It is unfortunate that fire nymphs, who were chosen to represent us all, are a tempestuous bunch. They are territorial and jealous, and most choose to live apart from one another to prevent conflicts, which would draw negative attention to us. It was only when princes were born to the throne that they would gather together in Mortisali to decide who would marry the Prince and eventually become Queen, producing the next generation of the fire nymphs and continuing the new combined bloodline.”
“Did they fight over the princes?” I asked inquisitively.
Acantha laughed and shook her head. “No, though that would have made sense. With so much royalty and noble folk of their courts marrying one another for breeding, the nymph blood became a part of the human royalty’s lineage. It was only a matter of time before the fire nymphs quarreled over the next to marry.”
“The fire element became too predominant in the royal family’s genes!” Alexa suddenly breathed out like some of the pieces were finally coming together in her head.
“Yes.” Acantha smiled and touched Alexa’s nose, forcing her smile to beam. “Unfortunately, the underworld nymphs, after years of being revered as upper class citizens, were determined to be the more superior of the elemental nymphs, so they bred all of the other elements out of their own families and forbade the other elemental nymphs to court any of the underworld heirs. Needless to say, what happened next changed those laws quickly.”
“Layland and Thánatos?” Zander asked.
“Yes. That’s what changed the future between the newly altered royal human bloodline and continuous injection of fire nymphs’ genetics. The sons of King Lykos
and his wife, Caligo, were the downfall of the underworld nymphs’ reign. After centuries of their ancestors marrying fire nymphs, there was very little humanity in them, let alone earth, air and water. The two boys were the purest form of fire nymph genetics. Holding all four elements means balance, but these boys only had one element. This upsets the very nature of any genetic being. The body is comprised of water, and fire sustains that, keeping the liquid moving and the heart pumping, while our senses are attuned to the earth and the air that surrounds us. Without that natural and elemental balance, everything is torn apart and all that’s left is what we choose to learn, or what we want to absorb. Having nymph blood is what gave the boys the ability to survive the loss of the other elements, but it came at a high price. Thánatos was the most affected of the two, because he had almost none of the other elements running through his veins, and the sustaining genetic makeup that had been with the family had finally given up.”
“The rotten egg,” Zander said thoughtfully, looking up as our eyes swung in his direction. “The genetic mutation.”
“That’s probably a good description,” Acantha said, wringing her hands and tipping her head thoughtfully. “With Layland and Thánatos’ blood reaching a detrimental level of mutation, the tradition of ascension to the throne was omitted and the sons battled for the right to be the heir to the Mortisalian throne. The Queen entertained herself with the folly, determined that the victor would be rightful heir.”
I looked around the room. Zander and Alexa were as invested in the story as I was. Both were leaning forward, waiting for the next words. I was sure they’d heard some of it before, but there was a look of awe that told me some of this was new to them, too. As Acantha drew in a breath, I turned my attention back to her.
“When King Lykos finally passed away, the battle between his sons turned very ugly. Both Layland and Thánatos had loyal followings, but it was Caligo who tilted the scales. Losing her beloved husband to disease had opened her eyes to the truth she had not seen before. She knew that tradition was the one thing keeping Mortisali in order. Thánatos, the more bullheaded, had always found the system of the throne’s inheritance to be archaic, so he challenged his mother’s decision when she revealed her wishes.”