by Simon Archer
Gratitude filled my stomach, and I sent it towards the Flame, so it could share in my feelings. The Eternal Flame buzzed brightly, indicating its exuberance. Then it stilled and shifted to the side, as though it were cocking its head to say: “What now?”
The question caught me off guard. Before this impulsive decision, I was going to the forge, so I figured I would still head that way. While burning the orchard had been satisfying, nothing could make me feel the way I did when I banged out a new weapon.
But what was I supposed to do with this Flame? I knew it wasn’t going to go back into the lantern, not willingly anyway. So I offered it an invitation, unable to think of anything else to do with it.
“Would you like to come with?” I said as I gestured in the direction of the forge.
The Eternal Flame worked with me in the old forge before, but I had yet to use it in the new workshop. I didn’t have to use it. In fact, I preferred not to when making my weapons, but it could come to hang out. I would rather keep an eye on it than just let it roam around freely.
The Eternal Flame considered my request for a couple of seconds before floating down the path towards the forge as if to say: “Come along then.”
With a renewed sense of purpose, I made my way into the forge with my new elemental companion by my side. Only to be met with both Khryseos and Argyreos waiting inside for me.
I balked at the pair of them, who sat primly by my favorite forge. Khryseos barked at my arrival while Argyreos grinned widely.
“What the hell are you two doing here?” I asked as I approached the dogs. I looked down at them, completely dumbfounded. “I thought I told you to go to Jade.”
Worry attacked me suddenly. “Oh my gods, is she okay? Could you find her?”
Khryseos barked again and then cocked his head at me with raised eyebrows as if to say, “Of course we did, you idiot.”
Weirdly, I was reassured by his cocky expression. “Okay, so then, why are you here?”
In answer to my question, Argyreos got up on all fours and turned to the side as if showing off something. Something glinted in the light of the forge along his neck. Neither dog wore a collar, they hadn’t come with one, and I didn’t see the need to get them one. Though Sarah always used to complain that she couldn’t tell the two of them apart, and it would be helpful to have a collar to look at.
However, there was a thin chain around Argyreos neck. It was made of gold and a delicate piece with a single charm hanging at the center of it. I recognized the apple emblem right away. It was the necklace that Jade wore.
“So you did see her!” I exclaimed, relief washing over me.
Khryseos barked in confirmation while Argyreos lowered his head. The necklace fell forward, threatening to slide off his neck. However, it got stuck in his ears, and the dog shook uncomfortably, trying to get the jewelry off.
“I got it, I got it,” I reassured him as I reached out to remove the necklace.
I held it gently in my hand, the apple pendant at the center of my palm while I extended out the chain above it. It was a pretty piece, simple but adorable. I never knew where Jade got it because she didn’t have it last year, but it was something she developed a habit of fiddling with and looked good around her delicate neck and pale skin. She even matched the dress she wore to the dance with the pendant.
Something about the apple threw me for a loop. After everything we had learned about the apples and the seeds, suspicion grew in my mind. Why would Jade have an apple necklace and an apple dress? It seemed a little obsessive for someone who claimed she didn’t have anything to do with this whole Apple of Discord mess.
Immediately, I squashed that thought. I didn’t know why Jade had this apple necklace, but I knew that she had nothing to do with Tainted Love. It wasn’t her, and I had to believe her when she said it wasn’t her.
Even though it was just the dogs and me, I made a move of solidarity. I unclipped the latch at the top of the necklace and wrapped the chain around my neck. I struggled slightly with getting the clip to connect against since I couldn’t see it and the piece was so thin. However, I heard the snap and let the gold fall against my chest.
The instant the apple hit my sternum, my body went limp, and the world dissolved into black.
34
I awoke to the smell of rotting fruit. It snuck up my nose and sat there until it tickled the back of my throat. I sat up with a jolt and coughed fitfully to get the moist, stale taste out of my mouth. After blinking several times, I noticed I was in a black forest, surrounded by thorny branches that curled through the air like snakes. I could only make out the faint outline of the dangerous plants because of a faint yellow light emanating from just ahead of me.
I flattened down on my stomach and army-crawled through the dirt. The thorns dipped low, and some snagged on my sash. When one sharp thorn, like a dragon’s claw, punctured straight through and threatened to scrape my back, I removed my sash completely and tucked it down the front of my shirt to get it out of the way.
Steadily, I moved towards the light. For one frightening moment, I thought I might have died. It was entirely possible that I was following the cliche by moving towards the light. All I remembered was putting on Jade’s necklace, and then I passed out…
I could have been attacked, but I was sure that Khryseos and Argyreos would have warned me. The only conclusion I could come up with was that it had something to do with the necklace. Maybe Jade gave it to the dogs for a reason. Maybe this was all her doing, something I was supposed to learn or witness.
But the whole transporting me to a completely different, and apparently dangerous, location threw me off. I couldn’t remember experiencing anything like that. Even when I connected with Aphrodite and looked at her memories, that was more like watching an old movie through a limited lens. This experience was fully immersive, considering how badly my limbs ached and how wretched the air smelled.
The light continued to brighten as I crawled my way forward. It was a tedious task. However, I chugged along, unable to think of anything else to do but get away from the smell and the dark. The wicked scent of spoiled food faded, and the thorny branches thinned as I continued on. Eventually, I could see my destination ahead.
There was a pool of still water framed by a short marble wall. In the center floated a small island elevated above the water level. It domed in the middle and held an arched enclosure, also made of white marble. Well trimmed bushes lined the edge of the island, blocking anyone or anything from coming ashore.
A distant golden light bathed the whole scene in a soft glow. However, the light felt unnatural, almost as though someone was trying to mimic the sun. There weren't any extraneous sounds, no singing birds or chirping crickets. Nothing moved, and there wasn’t a breeze to push through the branches, giving the whole environment a stale and fake feel.
Within the arches, there stood a figure. She had long blonde hair that draped all the way down to her ankles. Her delicate and petite frame was cloaked in a dirty white robe, something stained with dirt and debris. Long, slender fingers wrapped around one of the columns as she peeked out at me. Wide, crystal blue eyes zoomed in on me, even though she was several feet away, trapped in the center of the island.
However, I could sense her despite how far apart we were. Her aura vibrated out into the surroundings, giving off a sense of peace and serenity. I found myself balancing my stance, evening out my weight. There was a gentle push to stay neutral and harmonious in my thoughts and speech. Given this goddess’s impactful presence, it was almost impossible to do anything less.
I had only been consumed by someone’s presence like this once before. And that had been when Aphrodite crossed the dance floor to Hailey and me when we finished our performance. That was how I knew this woman was of the same caliber. I was in the presence of a Greek goddess.
“A demigod?” the goddess said, her melodic voice echoing across the water. I heard her as clearly as though she had been standing right next to me.
“How do you find yourself here, child?”
“Uh…” I replied, embarrassed by my ineloquence. “I don’t know. You didn’t call me here?”
It seemed like a silly question, but it was the most obvious answer to me, though I could already guess the answer by the goddess’s sheer surprise on her soft, round features.
“I haven’t had access to my powers in quite a while,” the goddess confessed. “Not since I’ve been in here.”
“Did someone… kidnap you?” I asked, unsure if that was the right word to use. It seemed unlikely that anyone could kidnap a goddess and hold her against her will. Only another god would have the power to do that.
“I believe so, though I couldn’t tell you who. Or even how long I have been here,” the goddess replied. She stepped further out into the dull light, releasing her hold on the column. “I wonder how you have come to join me here.”
“That makes two of us,” I mumbled. I cleared my throat and asked another question. “I’m Cameron, a son of Hephaestus, but who are you?”
Before I could finish the question, the goddess hissed and retreated back to her column, as though it were her home base in a game of tag. “Hephaestus,” she sneered, spitting venom.
I held out my hands, as though I were taming a vicious beast. “Okay, so you’re not a big fan of my dad. Guess what? Neither am I.”
“He harmed me,” she pushed the words through tight teeth.
“He hurt me too,” I said, going for the sympathetic route. “How did he hurt you?”
“I… I don’t know,” the goddess said as her anger faded as she tried to find a reason for it. “But I know I hate him like I hate strawberries, yelling, and confrontation.”
“That’s a lot of random things to hate,” I commented offhandedly. “So you know who I am, but who are you?” I tried again, trying to get her to talk about something other than my dad because that clearly just made her agitated.
The goddess lowered her head, the long blond locks shading her face like blinders. Her voice became somber and full of regret. “I do not remember. I was hoping you would be able to tell me.”
The goddess didn’t know who she was? What kind of place is this where it could not only contain a goddess but also make her forget herself? I took a step back, suddenly afraid of the water, the light, and the branches. There was no obvious way out. Even the way I came to be here was unclear, not giving me any idea how I was supposed to get out.
I needed to recenter myself and focus on something earlier. A smaller problem that I actually had a chance to solve. Maybe I could piece together the identity of this goddess. I wasn’t sure what good it would do, but it was a problem I had the knowledge to solve.
She hated my father, but there was a long list of goddesses who disliked him. I wasn’t sure that was the best place to start. I thought about the enclosure she was in, which looked vaguely familiar to me, like a monument to a goddess in the real world. It wasn’t something out of Greece but seemed to be newer. Then there were her clues about hating strawberries, yelling, and confrontation.
Finally, I thought about how I had felt when I first laid eyes on her. It was a sense of peace and balance that I had never experienced before. It seemed as though I was in harmony with myself and the world was at…
“Harmonia!” I exclaimed, not meaning to shout. The goddess shrunk back from me all the same, the sound of my loud voice frightening her. “You’re Harmonia, goddess of harmony and concord. You’re the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares, and all of the Erodites are your brothers. And you hate my dad because…” I held up a finger as I fished out the myth from my memory. “He exacted revenge on his wife, Aphrodite, through you with the…” I looked up at the goddess with an expression of shock. “The necklace.”
The words came out as a whisper as all the thoughts connected in my mind, exploding like firecrackers. Harmonia peeled away from her column once again and moved to sit on the edge of the island near the bushes. She tucked her knees into herself and looked at me expectantly. But I was too caught up in my thoughts to continue.
“Please,” Harmonia begged, “continue. Everything you’re saying feels familiar, and I haven’t talked with anyone for so long. I won’t mind it so much if you shout, just please keep talking.”
I blinked several times in an effort to slow down my racing thoughts and put them into words. “When Aphrodite started sleeping with Ares after she and Hephaestus were wed, he swore to curse any children that came from that union. Since the Erodites were born before Hephaestus tricked Aphrodite into marriage, they weren’t included in his curse, but you and your sister Eris were.”
“My sister,” Harmonia said with a dreamy air, as though she could see the other goddess in her mind’s eye.
I continued, unable to stop myself at this point, the story just pouring out of me. “Hephaestus cursed her by getting her uninvited to the wedding, but you, he made you that necklace. The Necklace of Harmonia.”
I paused then, giving the words the weight and the pause they demanded. It was such a powerful artifact from Greek Mythology that cursed so many lives. It deserved a certain level of reverence when speaking of it.
“The Necklace was supposed to bring beauty and youth to any woman that wore it, which made it a coveted item,” I said, bringing my voice to a whisper, though I wasn’t sure why. “But it was dipped in crime, or so Hephaestus said. It brought unimaginable suffering to you and your husband, Cadmus, after he unknowingly gave it to you.”
“Oh, Cadmus,” Harmonia said in a sing-song voice. She clutched her hands together and looked up and off to the side, dreamily. “I remember him. He was the most wonderful husband. He gave me such beautiful children.”
“Like Semele,” I said. “Who inherited the necklace after you and got burned by Zeus’s light when the god revealed himself to her. Then it kept going down the line, from Jocasta, who married her son Oedipus to Eriphyle, who unknowingly caused the death of all of her sons. The last woman known to have it was the mistress of Phayllus who wore it but then slept with his son who went mad and killed her in a house fire.”
“That sounds terrible,” Harmonia commented, like a shocked child.
“It’s a terrible piece of jewelry,” I added, “a deadly weapon in its own right.”
“So, where is it now?” Harmonia asked, getting to her feet determinedly. “It should be locked away forever, so it doesn’t harm anyone else.”
“There aren’t any more stories about it after Phayllus and his mistress,” I said with a shrug. “Unless… but really… can it be?”
“Can it be what?” Harmonia prompted. She hopped on one foot, leaning dangerously close to the edge of the island. “Tell me!”
I reached into my shirt, disbelief propelling me forward. It couldn’t be, could it? I was determined to prove myself wrong, so I yanked my sash out of the front of my black shirt and then dug around for Jade’s necklace, which flopped out in full view.
The minute it landed against my sternum, the goddess jumped back and scurried back to the safety of her column. “That’s it!” she shouted, pointing wildly at me. “That’s the necklace. Get it away from me! Get it out of here!”
Harmonia, then, began to cry, sob, against the column. Her fingers dug into the marble divots, holding onto them for dear life as a swarm of memories and fear overtook her.
But I didn’t understand how this could be the necklace. All of mythology described the necklace as a chain made of pure gold with no trinket on it, but the defining feature was the two clasps, designed to look like snakes, linked together. This had the apple pendant swinging from it, looking like something from Claire’s rather than an ancient and cursed necklace made by my father. And how was it affecting me? A male, when it was known to only work when worn by a female? Was it because it was created by my father and thus I had a connection to it?
Curiosity moved me forward. I threaded the chain through my fingers, swinging it around my back so that I could look down and see the c
lasp. When I first put the necklace on, I never looked that closely at the back. I was too focused on the apple pendant. But maybe that was the point because as I twisted the chain around, all of my suspicions were unfortunately confirmed.
The clasps held onto one another, two golden snakes connected at their mouths. They were subtle, carved into the gold with a delicate hand. It was an intricate design, but the features were all the more prominent in the fading, golden light of Harmonia’s prison.
“Get it out of here!” the goddess continued to shout. She howled her protests over and over.
Suddenly, the water moved. It turned like it was going down a drain, the force of it rumbling the earth. I teetered on my feet, unable to stay fully upright. Worry shot adrenaline through my veins.
“What the hell was that?” I shouted over the rumble, which continued like an earthquake.
“No, no, no,” Harmonia complained. “You brought them here. You brought them here when you brought that thing! Put it away!”
I finally stuffed the necklace back down the front of my shirt, out of her view. The minute the necklace was hidden, everything stilled once again. The ground remained solid while it took the water a little while longer to settle from the jolt it received.
Immediately, Harmonia’s sobs ceased. Her breathing eased back into something rhythmic and steady. Despite all of her crying, the goddess looked as beautiful as ever when she turned to look at me.
“What just happened?” I hollered at her, no longer caring if I was yelling.
“You shouldn’t have that,” she warned, going back to her hissing like a cat.
“Are we in danger?” I continued, unsatisfied that she hadn’t answered my question. “Is there something else trapped here too?”