by Jill Wolfson
I listen. I see.
Ms. Pallas holds Raymond in her threatening gaze. “We have only a small window before their power solidifies. If we don’t stop them forever when we have this chance, it will be too late. Too late for you, Raymond. For me. For the whole world.”
“I promise. You don’t know Meg like I do. She would never go too far. She’s just fooling Ambrosia. She told me so.”
There it is, a bald-faced lie to a goddess, with guilt and uncertainty pressing in on him. A lie that puts everything, the present and the future, the whole world, at risk.
Raymond told it for me. To protect me and save me.
Remember, Meg! Remember!
He defied Athena because he believes in me. Because he knows the deepest part of who I am. Because he loves me and trusts me and would never let anyone throw me away.
I press my palms over my ears, trying to ignore Ambrosia’s bellowing order to sing. I need to think. I must understand what’s happening more clearly.
Ambrosia won’t stop clamoring, though. She must keep my fury burning, and to do that she lashes me to memories of my own humiliation and abuse. I’m forced to relive it all, my whole history of cruel foster parents and promises broken and the parents who threw me away. I see and hear it like each episode is happening for the first time. My body spasms and my mind thrashes feverishly with the loneliness and loss.
I hear Athena, too, issuing orders to Raymond. “She’s weak now, and vulnerable. Shut her down! Do it!”
But underneath my pain and exhaustion, through it and despite it, I start experiencing other things: a whisper, then a whiff, a tingling, and the thinnest sensation of Raymond’s touch on my hair. He’s here. For me and with me. He won’t let go. He’s steady and loyal. I sink into the comfort and strength of his love.
Together we repeat his words like a mantra: “This power. It’s mine. It’s up to me how I use it.”
“No!” Ambrosia and Athena roar in unison.
Their anger makes us more determined to defy them. I hum a chorus of Raymond’s song with him, and the notes fill me with another kind of power. It makes my mind bright and clear. Ambrosia tries to pull me back. I feel the deep sting of her nails as they claw at my flesh. But I push through the agony and follow Raymond’s melody out and back to the mountaintop. I have escaped from a dark and terrible place.
We keep singing, and Alix, adding her own harmony, comes to us. We are three in the night air, individual voices but together. We sing Stephanie out of Ambrosia’s grasp and reel her safely to our side.
A scream then, high-pitched and animal-like. In outrage, Ambrosia jumps to the ground and stamps her foot, stamps it again and again with a deep, dull thud that makes the ground quake.
Athena, too, lands with a crash that echoes along the mountaintop. The goddess of war, justice, and strength raises her right arm. She points her scepter at the horizon.
A rumble of thunder.
That’s what I think it is at first, because there’s also what looks to be a storm building, a solid bank of gray-white cloud, iridescent in the dark, moving toward us. I squint to bring it into focus, and that’s when I make out moving shadows in the cloud, and as they get closer the shadows become individuals—people large and small, old and young, naked and in uniforms and tattered clothing, people of every race, eye shape, and hair color. People crying and moaning. They are all blind. Animals, too, hoofed, feathered, and clawed. I fall to my knees and cover my head as these sightless figures swarm us.
Who are these hideous corpses marching in blind unison, an endless stream of bloody soldiers in ripped military gear of every nation that ever existed throughout time and space? Who are these moaning, skeletal women lugging the torn and limbless bodies of unseeing children? Who are these sightless ghost horses pierced with arrows, riddled with bullets, and split open by knives?
I feel a bone-chilling wind as they move through me.
This is Athena’s army, the wailing, writhing, aching victims of senseless wars, blood feuds, family vendettas, and unrestrained revenge. These are the embodiment of eye for an eye.
I huddle with Raymond, Alix, and Stephanie. Through the chaos we see another cloud gathering force on the horizon and watch in awe the approach of what can only be Ambrosia’s army: the unavenged, the unjustly accused and punished, the unmourned, all of them silenced and unable to rest.
They, too, pass over and through us—millions of abandoned children with gags around their mouths, speechless slaves who built the pyramids and died in the fields, political prisoners rotting in chains, the raped, the tortured, genocide victims dumped into mass graves. They, too, are all skin colors. They once spoke in every language. Animals make up this army, too: songless birds, sea creatures struggling to breathe, and huge horned mammals, all the senselessly slaughtered creatures that have gone nameless and unappreciated to their extinction.
They all meet on the mountaintop, a thick crowd of suffering. I smell their stench of fear and death. Athena rips off the golden serpent from Ambrosia’s neck and replaces it with the circle of her hands. Ambrosia’s fingers hold tight to a clump of Athena’s golden hair.
And then victim grabs on to victim, and I can’t tell which side is which anymore. They are so alike. I wonder if they have grabbed each other not out of hatred but out of recognition, the need to touch and hold on to something as tortured and forgotten as themselves.
It’s a whirlwind then, above, below, all around us, a swirl of arms and legs, feathers and claws, tears and blood, a spitting, sweating, vibrating mass. They spin so fast that they create their own weather system, all weathers fighting at once for domination, wind giving way to snow to rain to blinding sunshine to lightning to hail to hurricane.
Through it all, we keep singing. We sing of these unsung victims. Of the earth, the ocean, and the whole scarred world. We sing of ourselves. Of our living, our breathing, our hopes, our right to be good and bad, angry and forgiving, not pure anything, not anyone’s puppet. Of our right to be full and human.
Our voices echo off the cliffs.
Locked on to each other, Athena, Ambrosia, and their armies drag each other into the vortex of the past, or maybe of the future.
It all goes black.
We are spit out into the darkness of ordinary night.
Solid ground.
The world returned.
The hold on me smashed. The hold on all of us undone.
Hours must have passed. I know this because the moon sits much lower on the horizon, making it hard to see in the dark. The wind has died down. It’s that slack time of night, the chilly, peaceful period right before a new day begins. I study the crags where Ambrosia and Pallas Athena tried to use us as weapons for their ancient feud. They are gone, but I feel their presence like the last sliver of something bitter slowly dissolving on my tongue.
The four of us who remain, our small group of exhausted and disheveled high school students, huddle close, shivering with sweat and chills. We are dazed, hungry, very thirsty, but near giddy with relief that what could have happened didn’t happen.
We are alone, except for so many names and designs carved deep into the mysterious rock. We stand and stretch. It’s time to begin a long, silent hike back to the car. Our shoes scramble over proclamations of love, hate, hope, and existence. Just as the sun rises, I pause and use a sharp rock to carve one more thing into the sandstone: THE FURIES WERE HERE.
34
If you are expecting an explanation of what transpired, figure things out for yourself. You have all the information you need. I’m too furious to write about it.
I have bags to pack, plans to make.
A certain goddess to avoid.
But only until that rare alignment of sun and stars and flesh and injustice and greed and suffering shows its face to me again.
As it will.
As it always does.
Until then, I have time to kill.
FINAL STASIMON, THE BOOK OF FURIOUS
35
Exit the mysterious illness at Hunter High, which disappears as suddenly as it struck.
Exit the guilt-ridden insomnia and paralyzing regrets. Each day, the memory of them softens, the way the flu never seems so bad after it’s all over.
Exit our control over Alix’s dad, Stephanie’s mom, and the Leech. They are back to being pretty much the way they were before we got involved.
Exit Ms. Pallas, who e-mailed the principal to say that she won’t be teaching anymore. No explanation why. No apology for leaving mid-year. A rumor goes around—who knows how these things get started?—that Ms. Pallas had been living a secret double life.
According to the Double Ds, who hold forth in the girls’ bathroom: “You only had to look at her fabulous clothes to know that she comes from money, big money,” says one. “She was totally slumming for the hell of it,” says the other.
I overhear a conversation between Mr. and Mrs. H, who agree that they were suspicious of their fellow teacher all along.
“She had this certain aura,” Mrs. H says.
Mr. H tries to dissect the mystery with a list of questions: “Why didn’t she ever hang out in the teachers’ lounge? Why did she act like she was so much better than everyone else?”
A permanent sub—a nervous middle-aged man who seems as clueless about the ancient past as he does about modern teenagers—takes over Western Civ class. Our group, minus Ambrosia, of course, volunteers to go first with final reports. Standing in front of the room, I explain classical theater structure, how the exodos “is the singing exit, the section of the play after the final stasimon. In the Aeschylus trilogy, the Furies renounce violence and are renamed the Eumenides, or ‘Kindly Ones’ because of their new personalities. To honor them, the citizens of Athens welcome them in a parade.”
I motion to my right. “Take it away, Raymond.”
On his violin he plays a light but haunting melody that he composed especially for this occasion. Alix, Stephanie, and I line up behind him as he leads us in a solemn procession up and down rows and in between desks. It’s not easy to take this seriously with all the snickering and snide remarks, but this is important to us. We want to do it right. As we pass Pox, he says loud enough for everyone to hear, “The Furies were hags, right? Good casting.”
Exit any hope that Hunter High is a newly enlightened Athens.
When we return to the front of the room, Raymond plays a final note, the vibration hanging long in the air. A few kids applaud, and I announce: “Exodos. The play ends.”
We wind up getting only a B for our report because when the sub quizzes us—“So when it comes down to it: these Furies, are they a good thing or a bad thing?”—none of us can give him a definite answer.
The B grade disappoints us, but Raymond agrees not to make a big deal out of it. A C would have been a different story.
Exit the fearful looks as we walk through the halls.
Exit Raymond as leader of the color guard.
Raymond’s mom goes through a pile of paperwork to qualify as a foster parent so I can move in with them. Exit the Leech from my life. I even get to take He-Cat with me since—on his own, with no interference from the Furies—the cat despises her.
“Good riddance to both of you,” she says.
I’m standing on the sidewalk with Raymond and everything I own in a suitcase. He-Cat is in my arms. When the Leech slams the door on us, I get a shudder of anger, that familiar feeling boiling up in me.
Raymond puts a hand on my shoulder to calm me. “She wasn’t born a leech, you know.”
“Meaning?’
“She came into this world waiting to be written upon,” he says. “What she lacked in inbred guilelessness she made up for as a sweet, adorable, tiny, innocent babe in arms who—”
“Raymond?” I interrupt.
“Over the top?” he asks.
“Way over.”
He laughs. “You get my point, though.”
I do. Now that the Leech no longer has any control over me, I can almost see into her past, how she, too, was probably hurt and unloved, and how it turned her ugly and cruel. Instead of despising her, I suddenly feel sad and sorry for her.
That’s a beginning. Because if I can feel that for the Leech, maybe someday I can begin to forgive others in my life. Even the nameless, faceless parents who have always been so hateful to me. I guess they weren’t born that way, either.
“I’m ready,” I say.
Raymond picks up my suitcase, and together we begin walking into my new life.
Exit my jealousy for the family that others have.
Exit the gossip about Brendon and me on Halloween night. That was so last month.
It’s taking Brendon longer to recover than all the others. He’s still pale and thin. I see him in class, in the cafeteria, and on the bus, but we both pretend that the other doesn’t exist. Of course, I notice things. He’s not hanging out with the same friends so much anymore; he doesn’t hang out with any particular group. I’m almost sure he doesn’t have a girlfriend, either. He’s back surfing, and I’m happy about that. I feel relieved when I spot him paddling hard into a wave. He’s definitely quieter—not unhappy, I think, just more thoughtful.
One afternoon after fifth period, I round a hallway corner and we practically bump into each other.
“Oh!” he says. I recognize the surprise, but not surprise, in his voice. We both knew that this was inevitable. Hunter High is too small a world to avoid someone forever. I wonder if, like me, he both dreaded this meeting and wanted it to happen.
With my head tucked, I step aside quickly but he steps in the same direction and then back again. Trapped. Neither of us is going to make that lame “care for a dance?” joke.
“Hey,” I say, hesitant.
His eyes lift, and I meet them with mine. The curtain rises for just a second, long enough for me to see so much in them. Hurt and confusion, sorrow and, yes, definitely some anger. I can’t blame him for that. I don’t think he remembers all the details, but what we did to him—what I did—cut deep and terribly, and he won’t be free of it for a long time.
“See ya,” he says quickly and takes off down the hall.
Brendon and I are not going to fall into each other’s arms anytime soon. We both remember too much. There are too many questions left unanswered, too much broken trust.
But I can’t help wondering: Does Brendon ever think about that afternoon in the cave? And that other time, the amazing way that our bodies spooned together right before the light snapped on?
Maybe one day in the future we’ll talk about everything. He’ll tell me again what I now know to be true—that he had no part in the plot and that when he whispered about love, he meant it. Who knows? We might even have a future. But before that can happen, I must say things to him that I’m not yet ready to say. Things like “I’m so, so sorry for what I did to you. I was wrong. Can you forgive me?”
Exit any hope of an easy reconciliation between us.
Exit Ambrosia. Word goes around that her wealthy and politically connected family decided to move to Greece, where Ambrosia is practically royalty. A couple of her former minions claim that she e-mailed them all the details, but I know better. What a pack of social-climbing liars.
One afternoon the four of us drive to her house, and we’re all expecting to see an ultra-dramatic 180-degree turnaround of the place. I imagine everything reverted to the old haunted-house days with peeling paint and broken windows. I picture gardens that have shriveled and turned brown overnight, the Secret Garden before the floral makeover.
But as soon as we pull into the long driveway, it’s clear that things are more or less the same. There are still flowers blossoming in the shape of tiny, silvery fairy bells, and a line of cactuses as big as men. The all-white garden is still stunning with its tulips, roses, and albino cabbage plants.
The only difference is the sharp, silvery spear from the strange red plant. It’s wilted, dying. But that’s to be expected,
isn’t it? Things bloom and then go dormant. Who knows when this plant will blossom again. Two years? Two hundred years?
Inside the house everything’s the same, and we walk on the antique red carpets through rooms with rouge-red walls. We don’t spend much time downstairs because we have a destination in mind. It’s our mission.
When we get to the top of the stairs, I notice each of our reflections passing by the filigreed hall mirror.
Exit the tattoo of kelp that Ambrosia burned around Alix’s midriff.
Exit Stephanie’s fangs.
Exit Raymond’s strained expression when he was so worried about me.
My complexion is still a little sallow. But exit the sunken eyes and cracked lips. I’ll never have the shiny, stick-straight hair that I’ve always admired, but what’s wrong with thick, wild waves? I’m more like me, not anywhere near perfect, but I notice I’ve kept some of my Fury curves.
In Ambrosia’s bedroom there are only two things missing: The Book of Furious and the object that we specifically came to claim. We’re not surprised. The snow globe with its tortured figures—all those captured princes from the past, the prison where Brendon was almost lost—is gone from its place on the bookshelf. That sends a chill through us. There’s a ring of dust where it once sat.
Next, Alix picks up Simon and drives us all to the ocean. After being in that house, we want fresh air and the sun on our backs. With the Prince of the Waves statue behind us and Simon running happy circles around it, we look out to the sea. It’s a classic surf day with waves rolling in strong and steady. I can tell the others feel as grateful, hopeful, and alive as I do.
Exit Stephanie’s passion for protecting Mother Earth?
Exit Alix’s determination to defend her brother and herself?
Exit my ability to finally stand up for myself after a lifetime of being powerless?
Exit memories of Athena and Ambrosia and all the suffering souls?
Exit our anger, our outrage, our fury? Exit our ambition and confidence?
Enter a sweet, passive trio eager to please? Enter the Kindly Ones?