The Pull

by Amber Lynn

  “I really want to tell you that you’re too young to claim I’m wasting my life. It’s not like I had plans to be a librarian forever. I have to move around every eight to ten years because of my stunted aging.”

  “Can we get on with your journey of self-discovery? No one has come up with an explanation for why my future changed. I know that wasn’t originally in the plan, but it’s an issue that needs figured out.”

  “Oh, Uncle Jack.” Selina looked at him with a little pity in her eyes. That didn’t exactly bode well for me, but her next words soothed away the initial worry. “The trouble with knowing the future is that it does sometimes change, and knowing why it does can ruin the natural order of things.”

  “So you’ve said before, but if life and death is involved, I think the rules deserve to be bent just a little.”

  Jack was impatient. Part of me liked that he worried about my health. The other part thought there were more important things he could be worrying about.

  “I like to think if you keep good thoughts in your head, they’ll lead to good things. If you concentrate on that, everything will be fine.”

  That was more like what I expected someone who was still a kid to think about how things worked. In my life, just thinking good thoughts had never gotten me anywhere. I highly doubted they were going to start, so I finally focused in on doing the reading they wanted done.

  My interest had been aroused when my heritage was brought up. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but being connected to a crazy titan made sense to me. I’d always known the mental instability had to come from somewhere.

  “What exactly do you want me to do? Just open up and connect? That’s how I usually operate, but I leave barriers up.”

  “Once you get started, you’re not going to be able to keep them up. You’ll want to look deeper and see more. Don’t be afraid of where things lead. You need to see it all.”

  If we kept talking, eventually I’d chicken out, so I went ahead and jumped in. I wanted to get things over with so I could go figure out what was wrong with Abbie. If the incubus had preyed on her, I wasn’t going to sit back and let him roam the streets.

  I started concentrating on Selina, trying to get into her head. She didn’t open right up like Jack. There was a wall that needed to be scaled inside of her, a subtle way of showing me just how strong she was.

  “Wait. Before you see what you’re going to see, you have to understand times are different. I don’t know how far you’ll get, but please remember what happened centuries ago doesn’t mean things are that way today.”

  I paused for a second from climbing her wall to ask for a little clarification, but she dropped everything and I had no recourse other than diving right in.

  Whether it was a visual effect Selina provided, or just how things were when someone tunneled into her head, there was a lot of black space surrounding my vision with little bits of light flashing by. I tried to pay attention to what exactly the lights were, because they seemed important, but the bright orange glow at the end of the tunnel held my attention.

  It was a new experience for me. Selina had said I was in control, but I’d never felt less in control of something in my life. It was like I was falling into a bottomless pit.

  I was close to disconnecting when it felt like the falling had lasted for more than ten minutes. I kept telling myself that it’d only be another second, and then another. When I exhausted my positive thinking, the blackness disappeared and a room that was coated with an orange tint appeared.

  The reason for the odd coloring was evident as I looked around the large space before me. It was an open space that let sun shine in from outside, but every pillar holding up the domed roof over it looked to be solid gold. The sun somehow reflected off that gold, and the giant gold staircase in the middle of the structure, to provide the weird lighting.

  I didn’t see a single person around, so I had no idea what I was doing. Glancing down at the floor, I saw that even it seemed to be covered in gold. If all the gold in my vision was real, the place had to be worth millions of dollars.

  I walked over to one of the pillars to look down, and saw that the only way out of the place seemed to be hundreds of stairs down into a cloud. I’d never been afraid of heights, but a sense of vertigo overcame me when I thought about what that meant.

  The more I thought about it, the more I was confused about what was going on. I was up in some clouds on a golden platform of sorts, which told me nothing more about what I was. I thought that was at least part of the purpose of me taking a little trip in Selina’s head.

  I decided I didn’t want to walk down through the clouds, so I picked going up the fifty or so stairs that led to another platform. I supposed there had to be something up there that would clear up my confusion.

  I was in fairly good shape, but each time my bare feet met a new stair, I swore another stair was added to my climb. It got to the point when I started counting my steps, and by the time I got to seventy-five, I knew something was for sure up.

  As I climbed, I thought I heard a voice mumbling something, but I couldn’t make out the words. At some point during my climb my ears had popped, so even though the voice sounded female, I didn’t trust that my ears were relaying the information correctly.

  Starting to get exhausted, I didn’t give up. I had a feeling that was exactly what the joker running things wanted. I shouldn’t have felt tired after a mere hundred steps, so I fought through the sensation and kept up the climb.

  Reaching inside of myself, I imagined the stairs weren’t even there. With the messed up abilities I had, that seemed to work. I was moving onto my a hundred and fifth step one second, and the next I was on top of a roughly twelve by twelve floor.

  I hated when magic made things that easy after wasting energy trying it the old-fashioned way. My life had settled to where I didn’t have moments when I got frustrated by wasting time, which is why it had taken me so long to revert to magic.

  The view on the higher platform was a little different. I was thankful I didn’t see any more steps. Instead of a staircase in the middle of the space, there was a raised dais with a naked woman sitting in a throne. Everything was gold, of course, even the paint covering the woman’s body.

  At the foot of the dais, another woman kneeled with her eyes focused on the ground. She was dressed in a white cloth that wrapped around her neck and seemed to flow into a short skirt. On her back was a thin wooden bow and a quiver of arrows.

  She was mumbling words that even in the same space I couldn’t make out. I couldn’t tell if they were in English, which could’ve been the reason I was having trouble figuring out what she was saying.

  “You may rise, Artemis. I have decided your question is worthy of my attention.”

  The woman in the throne seemed young, but the voice coming from her seemed more like an old crone. There was authority in the raspy voice that reminded me a little bit of a wicked witch.

  “Thank you, Pythia. My brother promised me you would see me, but I know not everyone gets the honor of you answering a question.”

  The huntress stood and faced the throne. When she was upright, she looked every bit a ferocious hunter, from just her height and stance. All I could really see of her was her long black hair in a thick braid. I took a step back, hoping to not be noticed, which drew the attention of the woman on the throne.

  She didn’t say anything, just smiled a little and looked back to Artemis. I knew the names, but I wasn’t sure I was really in the presence of a Greek goddess and an oracle. It seemed crazy to consider that the scene before me was really happening.

  “Your brother and I are very fond of each other, so of course I welcome you into my home. Even if that wasn’t the case, you want to save a child. I have a soft spot in my heart for children.”

  “They’ve taken everything else from me. Is there any way I can save my daughter?”

  From my vantage point, I couldn’t tell the woman was pregnant, but she lifted h
er arms up and looked to caress her stomach. I’d always thought Artemis was known for being chaste, learning she had a child at one point was a little surprising.

  “Four children and a husband are terrible losses, and what you go through now will not make things any easier for you. A human husband would’ve been easy for them to kill, but they waited until you had grown a family together to strike.”

  “I’m aware of what they’ve done. Please don’t make me relive anymore of it. I would ask if there’s any way for me to forget everything that has happened, but I just want to keep the one piece I have left of him alive.”

  “Reminding you of the dangers your little one faces because of what your mother did is the only way to ensure you do what you have to in order to keep the child alive. If Leto would’ve just left well enough alone when she didn’t get her way, things would’ve been so different.”

  “As I said, I’m aware of what happened in the past. I take full responsibility for being my mother’s daughter, but the slaughter of my family didn’t solve any problems.”

  “No, it only made things worse, as I’m sure you will seek revenge. You are the huntress, after all. Before you go on that quest, you must ensure the child’s safety. She is important to the world, but not to our world. If she is born here and now, she will not survive.”

  “Just tell me what I have to do, and I will make sure it is done.”

  Artemis had kept anger in her voice as she spoke about the devastation that had happened in her life. When she vowed to keep her daughter safe, a painful sadness struck me in my chest. Her pain somehow became my pain and it hurt deep.

  “You must preserve her in an egg and bury it deep in the earth. She will be born when your kin are no longer threatened, which I’m sorry to say will be long after your spirit inhabits your body.”

  “So, in order to save her, I cannot know her. You’re certain this will keep her safe.”

  “Yes, she will live. Her life won’t be easy without you there to guide her, but she will live, and that’s what’s important.”

  Artemis bowed and hurried to walk away without asking for more information. She didn’t look in my direction, and I wasn’t sure if she was just deep in thought, or if she couldn’t see me. Seeing the front of her, I got a good look at her protruding belly. She looked to be close to giving birth, which made me wonder how in the world she made it up all the stairs.

  “A mother will do anything for her children. The attack against her family came while she was called away by her brother. If she would’ve been there, chances are you never would’ve been born. Killing her wouldn’t have been possible, but a vicious punch or arrow to the belly doesn’t bode well for the child within.”

  I looked back to the throne, where the woman had focused in on me. My eyes darted around to make sure there wasn’t someone else in the room.

  “You can see me?”

  “Of course. You’ve heard the main information you came here to find, so whether you follow your mother to learn more about her, or go back to where you’ve come from is up to you. I must tell you that there are dangers for you if you remain here, or go back. I cannot clearly see the future you’re from, but there are things there that are just as deadly as the monsters you’ll see here.”

  Before I could ask what exactly she could see, I found I was transported back to where I’d originally landed at the bottom of the stairs. I watched as Artemis ran by me on her way to the stairs in the clouds. The oracle had said I had a choice to make, but in my mind, it was rather simple.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Hey, wait up.” I tried to holler after Artemis, but the words died before they could get out of my mouth.

  Not being able to slow her down that way, I took off in a run after her. Since she was pregnant, I thought it’d be easy to catch up, but there was no pregnant waddle in her steps. She was on a mission, and all I could do was hope I didn’t lose her.

  She was sure-footed as she took two steps at a time. Graceful was not a word used to describe me, so I settled for trying to not kill myself only taking one step at a time. It wasn’t an easy task with the incline.

  I attempted to get her to slow down a few more times by trying to yell, but each attempt was fruitless. Unlike with the golden woman, I got the feeling Artemis didn’t know I was around. That was going to make it a little difficult for me to ask her any questions.

  I wasn’t sure I trusted the signs that indicated she was my mother. Hearing I could’ve been a descendent of Leto was one thing. Learning I was her granddaughter was a little tough to believe.

  I followed along until we made it to level ground. I didn’t bother counting the steps, my brain couldn’t count that high as it contemplated what I’d heard. The most concerning thing was that back in my current time, I was in a room full of wolves and I got a feeling the wolves in the past were a part of what Artemis was going through.

  After what I’d heard, there seemed to be a very good chance I wouldn’t wake up from my little dream, which I started to worry was exactly what they’d planned. My paranoid personality was taking over, but at least before I died, I had a chance to learn a little more about me.

  The trip had started looking into Selina, but I never really felt a connection as I tunneled into the past. I felt like I was in more control, even though I knew I wasn’t physically there.

  As we walked, I questioned why the wolves were determined to make me see the past. If they were the ones who killed my family, it was like they were taunting me with that knowledge.

  Artemis took off in a run. Jeez, the woman clearly didn’t understand pregnancy and running didn’t mix. I followed behind, thankful I got bored enough sometimes to jog around the neighborhood. My endurance wasn’t the greatest, but I hoped it was enough to keep up with someone pregnant.

  Before I had a chance to take in the scenery, we were in a forest. Barefoot and golden tiles worked well. Barefoot and miscellaneous plants and insects were a different story.

  The person I was pursuing didn’t have anything covering her feet, so I couldn’t complain. We ran until she finally came to a clearing she liked. Like was probably the wrong word, since the clearing looked to be a gravesite.

  There were five mounds of dirt that looked recently filled. Most of them were small, probably no longer than four feet. Artemis went directly to the biggest one and knelt at one end, putting her hand on the pile of dirt.

  “We talked often about how I’d live after you died, love. We were supposed to have decades to figure that out. Ten years was not enough time.”

  Artemis had continued to face away from me, so I still hadn’t seen her face clearly. As she wiped a tear from her eyes, she finally looked my way. If there had been any question that we were related, it disappeared.

  If her hair hadn’t been in a braid, and had my little streaks of red added, from the neck up, I would’ve been looking in a mirror. I had remained at the edge of the trees, but I had to walk closer to see if it was just a mirage.

  After a handful of steps, she looked back to the pile of dirt next to her, and dropped her head. The sadness I’d felt when she was with the oracle hadn’t dissipated. Her heart was broken, and knowing why broke mine.

  “You should’ve called me, Charis. I could’ve protected you and the kids. Now it seems the only way to keep her safe is for her to never know how much her parents loved her.”

  Artemis paused and held her hand over the grave. I watched as green sprouts pushed their ways out of the ground as they grew into various flowers. They weren’t quite daisies, but they looked similar.

  “Artemis,” a male voice yelled.

  My eyes darted around, fearful of who was looking for her. I couldn’t tell if he sounded combatant or just worried. She didn’t take a defensive stance, but judging by the way she was feeling, I wasn’t sure she’d fight an attacker.

  Once she finished decorating her husband’s grave, she looked in my direction. I’d gotten close enough that I could see her e
yes did indeed match the green of my own eyes. A part of me had known they would, but verifying she really was a missing piece to my life overwhelmed me.

  I hoped she would notice me there, because I wanted to let her know things would work out, and that I would know about what she did for me. Instead, her eyes were focused beyond where my body would’ve been.

  “I’m over here, Apollo.”

  For as loud as he’d been, her response was sedate. I doubted it carried through the trees to wherever Apollo was searching for her.

  To prove me wrong, I heard trees snapping behind me as he made his way right to the clearing. Before I could spin to get a look at him, he had Artemis wrapped up in his arms. In the quickness of his movement, I missed the bow and quiver being tossed to the ground beside them.

  The man looked down at the graves around them and shook his head. His black hair wasn’t quite as long as Artemis’, but it did reach below his shoulders.

  “I suppose I understand why mother tried to tell me falling in love was foolish. Those monsters walked right into my home and killed everyone I loved.”

  The tears in Artemis’ eyes had dried, or were at least wiped away so her brother couldn’t see them.

  “I’m so sorry I called you for help. If you weren’t dealing with my issues, you would’ve been there for them.”

  Apollo put Artemis down and knelt down by the flower covered grave. He took out a knife from a sheath that hung from his hip. It wasn’t extremely ornate to begin with, but he held his hand over it and I could see gold filigree work its way over the knife.

  When it was done, he took the knife and stuck it into the ground at the head of the grave. Once in the ground, two long swords appeared on either side of it. The ease of how magic worked for me finally started to make a little more sense. It took nothing for these two to make things happen.

  “I don’t blame you for what those monsters did. I just wish I was there to save my family. We’ve tried to distance ourselves from what mother did, but they still fault us for the deaths on their side. I thought I was making a difference by making friends with them. Rajan and Ece were in my home just two days ago celebrating Charis’ birthday.”