‘I need to show you something,’ she said, not slowing. ‘So you understand.’
‘Understand what? And why aren’t you sick? Did you die?’
Hope didn’t answer. She kept walking.
Hailey grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We need to get to Amathia’s classroom.’ Hope tried to turn back, but Hailey tightened her grip.
‘No. I want to know what’s happening. Right now.’
Hope hesitated. ‘Okay. But promise me you’ll let me explain afterwards.’
‘Explain what?’ Hailey didn’t have time for this. She was two seconds away from turning back.
‘Please, you have to promise.’
‘Okay. Fine. I promise.’
Hope took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly before speaking. ‘It was me. I’m the one who made everyone sick.’ She drew back a little, as if expecting Hailey to hit her. But Hailey only frowned.
‘What do you mean it was you?’
‘My name isn’t Hope. It’s Pandora.’
32
Pandora
‘What in Tartarus are you talking about?’ Pandora was a woman the gods had created and sent to earth with a box filled with every evil imaginable. ‘Pandora was alive when the gods were. She’s been dead for centuries. And she had a box that contained evil. All you had when we found you was a sword.’ Hailey was starting to think the island had destroyed Hope’s sanity.
‘History is wrong. Yes, I was alive when the gods ruled, but they didn’t create me and give me a box of evils—that’s nothing more than an exaggeration. The true story is that my father was Zeus, and my mother was a mortal he had an affair with. I am a demigod who has the power to spread a deadly disease.’
‘What? You’re serious?’
Hope nodded and reached for Hailey’s arm.
Hailey ripped it from her grasp. ‘Don’t touch me!’ Hope flinched as if she’d slapped her. ‘You did this? You made Demi, Jayden, Alec—everyone—sick? We rescued you from that island. We befriended you.’
‘I know.’ Tears glistened in Hope’s eyes. ‘That’s why I couldn’t go through with it. The price for my freedom was too high.’
Anger tore through Hailey’s confusion, possessing her like a bloodthirsty minotaur. She grabbed the front of Hope’s shirt. ‘Make it stop!’ she demanded. ‘Make everyone better.’
‘I will. But first you need to understand. You promised you’d let me explain.’
Hailey tightened her grip. ‘No. Cure them now! Demi is about to die because of you.’
‘I know.’ Tears streamed down Hope’s face. ‘But she still has a few more days left. You have time to hear why I did what I did.’
Hailey shoved her back, Hope stumbling against the crystal wall. ‘There is no explanation—absolutely none—as to why you would kill an entire school.’
‘I can show you why,’ Hope pleaded. ‘Please, come to Amathia’s classroom.’
Hailey didn’t want to go anywhere with her. She couldn’t believe it. This whole time it had been Hope—Pandora—causing Poseidon’s Plague. And what made it worse was that Hailey had brought her to the Academy.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ Pandora promised, sensing Hailey’s trepidation. ‘I’ve kept you safe. I protected you from the disease—and the nereids.’
Hailey ground her teeth, wanting nothing more than to strangle Hope—she’d come back to life after all… and then Hailey could strangle her again and again until she cured Poseidon’s Plague.
‘I’ll only tell you how to stop the disease if you come with me,’ Pandora said, sensing Hailey’s thoughts.
‘Fine,’ she gave in. She followed Pandora to Amathia’s classroom, her mind reeling, trying to comprehend how the person who’d pretended to be her friend for the past few weeks was actually Zeus’s daughter and had come here to kill them all. Hailey stared around the Ancient History classroom. ‘What’s in here that will make me understand?’
‘This.’ Pandora touched the memory ball on Amathia’s desk.
The world flashed white, and Hailey was overcome with the sharp metallic scent of blood as she re-emerged in front of a mud brick house. She was sitting in the dirt, crying over a woman whose head rested in her lap. The woman’s lips were blue, and blood poured from her empty eyes.
‘Mama, come back.’ Hailey wept, or more like Pandora did.
‘She’s dead.’ Hailey’s head snapped up and her body went cold. A man she recognised from Ancient History stared down at her. A crown of gold leaves rested in his silver hair, and the air around him seemed to hum with electricity. ‘They all are.’
All? Hailey wiped at her tears and running nose, and gazed around the village. Bodies littered the ground, lying in pools of blood. Hailey spotted one person collapsed against the door of a mud brick house, dried blood caking their face. It looked as if they’d been trying to get home before the sickness claimed them, but they never made it inside.
Nausea twisted Hailey’s stomach; if she’d been in her own body, she would have vomited. Instead, she was overcome by another burst of tears.
‘I don’t understand.’ Her voice was thick with grief. ‘Why am I alive when they are all dead?’ She looked up at the man, her vision blurred.
He stepped towards her, face impassive. ‘Do you know who I am?’
Hailey shook her head, wiping at her eyes again.
‘I am Zeus. Your father.’
Hailey shifted her mother’s head to the ground and rose to her knees, bowing her head. ‘Forgive me, I did not recognise you.’
‘Enough of that.’ Zeus lifted Hailey’s chin so that she saw his azure blue eyes—the same eye colour she wore most days. ‘You are a demigod and my daughter. You bow to no one.’
Gingerly, Hailey stood, the grey tunic she wore resting a few inches above the ground. ‘I do not understand. My mother never mentioned you.’
‘I asked her not to. My wife, Hera, has a special love for torturing the women I share my bed with. I managed to keep my affair with your mother a secret, which is why I have never visited you before. For your own protection.’
‘So why have you come now?’
‘I felt you needed me.’ He surveyed the dead bodies. ‘You killed them, you know.’
‘What?’ Hailey stumbled back, losing her balance and hitting the ground. ‘I didn’t kill anyone. They became ill a few weeks ago. They did not recover. They just died.’
‘Because of you,’ Zeus said, not bothering to help her up. ‘You’re a demigod, which means you have a power. Your power is to spread disease.’
Hailey gasped in tiny breaths of air, feeling as though she were suffocating. ‘No. You’re lying.’
‘I’m sorry, Pandora, but it’s true. Why do you think you are the only one the disease spared?’
‘I… I…’
‘It’s all right. It’s a lot to take in,’ Zeus said. ‘But I came here to help you. I can teach you to control your powers so that you never harm anyone again.’
‘Really? You would do that?’
‘You are my daughter.’ He reached a hand down to her. ‘Come with me.’
Hailey didn’t take it. ‘What about my mother?’ She crawled to where she lay, dirt smearing her tunic. ‘I cannot leave her here.’
Hailey could sense Zeus’s impatience, but he did a good job of masking it. ‘I cannot restore her, but I can grant her new life.’
‘How?’
‘Move away and I will show you.’
Hailey pressed a kiss on the dead woman’s cold forehead and shuffled away, standing back up beside Zeus, who waved a hand. Hailey gasped, watching in complete awe as tree branches sprang from the dead woman’s arms and head, her skin flaking off as bark grew over her body. In the blink of an eye, she transformed into a cedar tree, with markings that resembled a face staring from its trunk. Just like the trees on the island, Hailey realised.
‘See, now she can live for eternity.’ Zeus smiled, but it
didn’t reach his eyes. He held his hand out to her again. ‘Come with me.’
Still, Hailey didn’t take it. She walked to the tree and pressed a palm against the rough bark, inhaling the rich scent of wood and sweet smell of sap. ‘Are you in there, Mother?’
‘She’s a tree,’ Zeus said, impatience progressing to his voice. ‘She cannot speak.’
‘Oh.’ Hailey’s shoulders slumped. She regarded the other dead bodies. ‘What about them? Can you gift them with eternal life too?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I murdered them, and I couldn’t live with myself if they were just dead. They deserve something.’
Zeus sighed, acting as if she’d asked him to do something menial, like wash up dishes. ‘Fine. But then we are leaving.’ He swished his hand around the village, creaks and moans filling the air as branches sprang from the other bodies. Houses shattered as trees sprouted through roofs, and soon the village resembled a copse. One that looked exactly like the area Hailey and the other second years had met the dryads in. But this wasn’t a forest, and this wasn’t in the middle of the sea, so it couldn’t be the same place. But why do the trees look like they have faces?
‘Satisfied?’
Hailey nodded. She brushed her fingers against the tree that was once the dead woman. ‘Goodbye, Mama. I love you.’ She took Zeus’s hand.
White light flooded the memory, and Hailey expected to re-emerge in the classroom. Instead, she appeared in an ancient city, drifting through a marketplace crowded with stalls and carts, the stench of fish mingled with stale sweat heavy in the air. The people around her coughed and sneezed. A woman beside her collapsed to the dirt. ‘Please help,’ she begged, reaching a hand towards Hailey as blood streamed from her eyes.
‘This can’t be happening again.’ Hailey shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she told the woman. ‘I’ll fix this.’ The woman’s head lolled to the ground, blood spilling from the corner of her mouth. ‘Zeus,’ Hailey called. ‘Zeus, please. I need your help.’
Forks of lightning struck the ground, sending dirt puffing into the air, as Zeus materialised. The people in the market dropped to the ground, bowing their heads low towards the god.
‘Yes, Pandora?’
‘It’s happening again, Zeus. Everyone here is getting sick.’ She waved her hand around at the bowing people, who muffled their coughs and sneezes against their hands. ‘I cannot control it.’
Hailey caught a flicker of something in Zeus’s eyes—satisfaction? ‘That is unfortunate. I will take you somewhere else.’
‘No. I do not wish to make anyone else ill.’
‘Once you leave, everyone’s health will return. And we can focus more on controlling your powers.’
‘Really? They will recover?’
‘Yes.’ Zeus held his hand out. ‘Come, daughter, let us find you a new home.’
Hailey took his hand and soon found herself in another city. She visited two more after that one, each having the same ending: people became sick and Zeus took Pandora somewhere else, promising that everyone would get better if she left.
And then came a memory of her sitting in an orchard of olive trees, hugging her legs and crying. ‘Make it stop! Please, make it stop!’
‘You cannot hide, Pandora.’ A man gripping a scythe glowered down at her through bleeding eyes.
‘I’m sorry.’ Hailey stumbled to her feet. ‘I didn’t mean to make you ill. If I leave you will get better.’
The man laughed bitterly. ‘Better? Perhaps you would like to tell that to the three cities of dead people.’
‘What? No. You’re lying. Zeus said if I left they would recover. They would live.’
‘He lied. The gods lie. Do you not know that? Word is travelling throughout the lands to beware of Pandora, the bringer of death.’
‘I promise I don’t want this. I can’t control it.’
‘You might only be a child, but your reign of death ends now.’ The man drew back his scythe, the sharp blade glinting in the sunlight.
Hailey screamed and bolted through the trees.
‘Our blood is on your hands, Pandora!’ the man yelled.
Hailey didn’t look back to see if he followed her. She kept running until her legs gave out. She collapsed in a field of barley, deep wrenching sobs tearing through her body. Hailey felt for Pandora, imagining how awful it would have been to be responsible for killing your mother and your entire village, not to mention everyone you came in contact with. But those had been accidents. What Pandora did at Poseidon’s Academy was on purpose, and that washed away Hailey’s sympathy.
It wasn’t long before Zeus appeared in his usual strikes of lightning. ‘Time to move again?’
‘You!’ Her voice was pure fury. ‘You lied to me.’
‘When?’
‘About the people I infected. You told me if I left they would get better. But I know they all died. Why did you keep taking me to cities knowing I would kill everyone? You were supposed to be teaching me to control my powers.’
Zeus considered her for a second and then shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose there is no point in lying. All those people you killed deserved death. They were humans who had begun straying from worship. Humans that were speaking out against me and my kin. I will not tolerate such insolence from the creatures I created. You were a tool to teach them and send a message to others—not to cross the gods.’
‘You used me!’ Hailey cried. ‘I hate you! I never want to see you again!’
‘Think carefully before banishing me from your life, Pandora. Without me you will be completely alone in this world. Is that what you desire?’
‘Yes! I would rather live alone than have you use me as a weapon. I never want to harm anyone again.’
‘You will. You will never learn to control your power. Enjoy your life of loneliness.’ Zeus dematerialised.
The world flashed white and Hailey appeared in a sunlit copse, lying under a cedar tree with a face on it. She recognised it as the tree that had once been Pandora’s mother. It wasn’t long before what looked like a moon beam hit the ground. A young woman appeared in it, carrying a gold bow and wearing a crescent moon diadem.
Hailey shot to her feet. ‘Who are you?’
‘Artemis, your half-sister.’
‘My sister? Did Zeus send you? I will not kill anyone else for him.’
Artemis leaned her bow against the cedar tree. ‘Zeus doesn’t know I am here. I have heard your pleas to be rescued, to be saved, and I am here to answer them.’
‘How?’
‘Like this.’ Artemis threw her arms out.
Tremors tore through the ground, and the earth moaned as cracks ripped through it. Hailey thought it was an earthquake, but then she realised the ground was shifting. The tiny copse that had once been a village was breaking away and drifting into the sea like a floating island. What in Tartarus?
It was a while before everything became still again.
Hailey gazed around. ‘What did you do?’
‘I am creating a forest for you,’ Artemis explained. ‘My aunt Demeter has leant me her powers.’ She threw her arms out again and the ground shook once more, expanding and growing out in every direction as trees and bushes multiplied, creating a forest. Next she clicked her fingers, and beside her materialised golden hinds, pegasi, hares, birds, dryads, naiads, and dozens more creatures.
Athena petted a golden hind between its antlers. ‘These creatures have volunteered to move here and keep you company,’ Artemis said. ‘You can only spread your disease to humans, so you are safe to become friends with the nymphs. You do not have to be forever alone, Pandora.’
Pandora scooped up a baby hedgehog, cuddling it in her arms. ‘Why? Why would you do all of this for me?’
‘Because I, too, was born from one of Zeus’s affairs, and Hera tortured my mother, so I harbour great sympathy for those who have endured similar mistreatment.’ Artemis gazed around, admiring her handiwork. ‘You will be safe here. There are no mons
ters, only gentle creatures.’
Hailey burst into tears. She placed the hedgehog down and rushed to Artemis, wrapping her arms around the goddess. ‘Thank you.’
Artemis stiffened, acting as though she’d never been hugged before. ‘I must return Demeter’s powers.’
‘Of course.’ Hailey stepped back, wiping at her eyes. ‘Thank her for me, too, please.’
‘She doesn’t know what I used them for.’ Artemis retrieved her bow from the tree. ‘I am the only one who will know of this place. If Hera ever found out, it would not end well for you.’ Artemis vanished, and so did the world. When it popped back, Hailey was standing with a dryad who had hanging moss for hair; it was Azaria—the head dryad her class had met on their Monsters and Creatures excursion.
‘I can’t believe it’s been a year since this became my home,’ Hailey told Azaria, smiling at the trees with faces. ‘Thank you for staying with me all this time.’
‘Of course,’ Azaria replied. ‘I love you, Pandora. Everyone does.’
‘That’s not true.’ Pandora’s shoulders slumped. ‘The world hates me. They think I am evil because I killed so many people. They don’t understand that Zeus tricked me into it. They call me the bringer of death.’
‘You are not evil, Pandora. You are as innocent as the golden hinds that roam these woods. You never have to harm anyone again.’
‘I can make sure of that.’
Hailey’s head whipped around. A woman wearing a peacock blue gown and a gold diadem in her auburn hair stood behind her. Hera! ‘How did you get into my forest?’
‘You don’t recognise me?’
Hailey shook her head.
Hera’s features hardened. ‘I am Hera, Queen of the Gods—and Zeus’s wife.’
Hailey gulped. ‘How did you learn of this place? It was meant to be a secret.’
‘Oh, Artemis had a little too much ambrosia wine and was bragging about how she had hidden you from me. But I found you. And now it’s time for you to pay for your mother’s sins.’ Hera clicked her fingers. When Artemis had done it, docile creatures had appeared. This time monsters blinked into existence… hydras, Nemean lions, cyclopes, arachnes, and chimeras.
Poseidon's Academy Box Set Page 59