by Simon Archer
“The serpents,” Harmonia said as she eyed the water. “They keep me here, secluded and powerless.”
I ventured to the edge of the pool and peered inside. The water was too thick and murky to decipher anything below the surface. The way the water peered back at me like black glass was unnerving enough. Anything could reside under there. I backed away, suddenly nervous that the serpents or whatever creatures they were would jump out at me at any second.
“They hate the Necklace like I do,” Harmonia said. “It is dangerous and ruins lives.”
“I know,” I sympathize. “I’ve seen it do that first hand.”
“Did the woman that had it before you have a horrid life?” Harmonia spat. “Like the one my mother gave to me, and I gave to my daughter and my daughter’s daughter?”
“It wasn’t from my mother, no,” I answered, the thoughts still swimming in my head, unclear and fishy. “It came from my friend.”
“Your friend?” Harmonia cocked her head. “But if she wore it before you, then how come she didn’t come to visit me? And how are you, boy, here with the necklace on?”
“I…” I stalled, her question tripping me up. “I don’t know. You mean, there wasn’t someone who came to visit you before me?”
“I told you, I haven’t spoken with anyone in a long time,” Harmonia confessed. “There has been no one but you.”
I figured the necklace beneath my shirt and suddenly felt a familiar tingle down my spine. But that shouldn’t have been right. If the necklace was made of pure gold, I shouldn’t have been able to sense it like when I couldn’t sense the gold we used for Eros’s bow and arrow. That wasn’t a metal I was connected to. But maybe this supposedly pure gold necklace had never been that pure, to begin with.
I reached into my shirt but was careful to keep the jewelry out of Harmonia’s line of sight as I felt around the whole chain. As I did so, little zings radiated up my arm and down my back as I came to a part of the necklace that wasn’t gold. There was something else embedded in the necklace. Not only could I feel the metal, but I could feel my father’s magic pulsing through it. However, this new sensation didn’t feel like the one I got from the metal. It made my tongue go dry, like I swallowed a handful of chalk. The pangs were sharp, like a stabbing knife down my vertebrae. The ugliness revealed itself to me with each prick.
It was the curse my father placed on the necklace. I could feel the curse itself woven within the metal.
Hephaestus couldn’t have made something out of pure gold and cursed it. He would have had to put some of the metal he could manipulate and embed with magic, which he had never been able to do with gold. This was the trick my father played on everyone. The women thought they were wearing something beautiful and pure when it was wrecked with lies and curses.
If this was the Necklace of Harmonia, truly dipped in crime as the myths claimed, then maybe this was the reason Jade had been jealous at the dance. Maybe it was the reason for her planting the seeds. If we could prove that she was cursed by the Necklace of Harmonia, then maybe the Elemental Officials could see that none of this was her fault. Maybe they wouldn’t expel her.
Spurred on by this new belief, I knew I had to get out of here. But as I noted before, there was no way out. Plus, even if I did manage to pull a miracle out of my ass, I didn’t want to leave Harmonia here alone with whatever beasts lurked under the water. She was a goddess that deserved to be out in the world, bringing peace and harmony like she was supposed to.
“Harmonia,” I began, a question forming in my mind, “you said you didn’t know how long you've been in here?”
“I haven’t any idea,” Harmonia confirmed.
“So, it could be a long time, right?” I checked. “Like decades and decades?”
“Centuries even,” Harmonia added unhelpfully.
I thought about the war with the mythic beasts that the demigod continued to fight. I thought about the overall discord in the world, not just the gods and demigod’s word but also the mortal one. Maybe Harmonia had been gone long enough to fester all of these wars.
Now it was imperative that I got her out of here.
I sped through as much as I knew about my surroundings and the facts of Harmonia. She lost her memories and didn’t know who she was or why she was trapped here. She was bound to the island by monsters that she called serpents. My eyes moved out to the lake and noticed something I hadn’t before.
It had a circular shape, and the whole thing was bathed in a gold light. It was bound by serpents like her cursed necklace. At first, I pushed away the thought because it was too far fetched, but then I realized that the whole situation was far fetched. But it was true.
“Harmonia,” I repeated her name with more urgency this time. “Is it possible that you’re trapped inside the necklace?”
The goddess blinked at me, as though she didn’t understand me, as though I weren’t speaking English. Then she examines her own surroundings, her eyes roaming around the whole island, peering into the water, and up to the tinted sun.
“This is a different kind of curse,” she said, though she projected her voice as though she were on a stage speaking to an audience, rather than just me. “But it is similar. Unease, and a false sense of beauty and peace. Trapped in the grip of the lying serpents.”
Suddenly, Harmonia’s eyes grew serious, the darkest I’d seen since I’d arrived in this strange prison. A clarity appeared in her pupils, an awareness that hadn’t been there before. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
“No, Harmonia, you’re not,” I confirmed, meeting her eye. “I’m going to get you out of here, I promise.”
“But you have to get yourself out of here first,” Harmonia said. For the first time, I felt as though I was getting a sense of the true goddess, not the fearful child-like woman I encountered. This goddess was confident and wore her wounds openly, not with pride but without shame. “You cannot be trapped by the necklace either. Take it off and free yourself. Then get me out of here.”
I nodded, unable to find the right words. I pulled out the necklace from its place underneath my shirt. On cue, the ground shook again. The water rumbled and shook like a soda can ready to explode. I reached around to the back of my neck and felt for the two snake-shaped clasps. In one fluid motion, I clicked back the trigger with my thumb, and the links fell apart.
Once again, I tumbled to the side, and the world fell dark. But this time, my mind’s eye flooded with images of the beautiful, strong goddess who was depending on me.
A familiar tune surrounded my mind with words that zipped in and out of my ears. I couldn’t understand the lyrics, but I lulled myself into unconsciousness with the scent of apples wafting up my nose.
35
The first thing I noticed was a cold slickness on my face when I woke up from my time with Harmonia.
“He’s waking up!” a voice said from far away.
“Oh, thank the gods!” another voice exclaimed, exasperated.
“I told you he wasn’t dead.”
“I believed you,” the second voice said defensively. “He just looked rather dead.”
“Well, he’s clearly not dead.”
“Not dead,” I croaked, my voice sounding like a creaking door.
Another cold slurp coated along my cheek, accompanied by a squelching noise. Sandpaper scraped my skin, which caused me to groan from the uncomfortable sensation.
“Khryseos and Argyreos, stand down boys,” a third voice called out. “He’s already awake. You don’t need to keep licking him.”
I recognized this voice more immediately than I did the others. Maybe it was because I was coming out of my fog.
“Hailey?” I opened my eyes, hoping to see her golden hair, but instead, my vision was filled with the fuzzy faces of my other two best friends, Daniella and Bethany.
“Oh sure,” Beth said as she threw up her hands and ventured out of my view. “We’ve been taking care of you for the last hour, but Hailey shows up just now, and you wake up
for her.”
“Lay off, Beth,” Daniella scolded. She shot me a soft smile. “Good to have you back.”
“Good to be back,” I agreed, sitting up. I realized that I was on the concrete floor of the smithy, in the exact same place that I had been when I put on the necklace.
The necklace! I jolted and put a hand to my neck. When the necklace wasn’t there, I searched around for it when I discovered that it was settled in my left hand, the apple pendant swinging innocently.
“You worried us there for a moment,” Daniella said as she got to her feet. “You were completely unresponsive for a while there. I almost took you to the med bay, but Beth wouldn’t let me.”
“The Elemental Officials are looking everywhere for him, I didn’t think we should be dragging him across campus out in the open,” Beth snapped, clearly tapping back into an old argument.
“The Officials are looking for me?” I said confused, as I tucked my legs into a crisscrossed position.
“You defied their orders, remember?” Hailey said from the doorway. She leaned against it casually, with Khryseos and Argyreos on either side of her. “They have a warrant out for your arrest.”
“And they haven’t checked the forge?” I asked in complete disbelief. “I’d think that’s the first place they’d look.”
“It was,” Beth confirmed. She made her way over to the workbench and took a seat on one of the stools. “We hid your body.”
“Again, Beth’s idea,” Daniella said as she rolled her eyes.
“And it was a damn good one,” Beth said defensively. “They would have yanked him right from us, unconscious or not.”
“Thanks for covering for me,” I told the three of them.
“Thank the dogs,” Daniella said as she gestured to Khryseos and Argyreos. “They were the ones who came and got us when you went down. Then Hailey alerted us that they were looking for you, she was trying to get to you before they did.”
I was amazed at their loyalty. “You all know you can get in trouble for helping me, right?”
Hailey shrugged her shoulders. “Worth it.”
A smile automatically came to my lips, and I blushed at her comment.
“Well, we’re already going to get in trouble for helping Jade,” Beth reasoned. “We don’t need to lose any more members of the gang.”
“Speaking of Jade, what are we going to do now that she’s been convicted?” Daniella asked the room.
“Wait, what?” I bolted up to my feet, shocked by Daniella’s announcement. “She’s been convicted? The trial’s already over? What the hell?”
“It didn’t last longer than thirty minutes,” Daniella said. “They made the announcement soon after they started.”
“This is ridiculous!” I shouted. All three women stepped forward and hushed me.
“We’re trying to keep you hidden as long as possible, okay?” Beth said, lowering her own voice. “We need as much time as we can get.”
“I don’t know what you all expect to do,” Hailey said, taking on the role of the pessimist. “They’ve made up their mind. Even if we could get her out of jail, where is she supposed to go? What is she supposed to do?”
“She didn’t do this, Hailey,” I said, whirling on her. “You know that, right?”
“I don’t believe that she did it on purpose, but I don’t know how you’re going to convince the Elemental Officials of that,” Hailey said plainly.
I looked down at the necklace still wrapped up in my hand. Determinedly, I held it up to her, my arm level with her face. “With this,” I announced proudly.
Hailey’s green eyes shifted back and forth as the apple pendant steadily, like a hypnotist’s pendulum. She reached out her hand and flattened the pendent against her palm, leaning in to give it a good look.
“What are you talking about, Cameron?” Hailey asked curiously.
“This is what knocked me out,” I said, a little too enthusiastically about the thing that had taken me down and kept me that way for over an hour.
“And you’re excited about that, why?” Beth asked from her corner.
“Because,” I said slowly, spinning to face Beth at the workbench. “This used to be Jade’s. Before that, it was Phayllus’s mistress's, and Eriphyle’s, and Jocasta’s, and Semele’s and Harmonia’s…”
I listed off all the unfortunate women who had come into contact with this piece of jewelry, but the three women just stared at me with blank and confused expressions. None of them pieced it together, and I was sorely disappointed.
“Did any of you pay attention in Greek Mythology?” I snapped.
“Obviously not, Cameron, just tell us,” Beth said, clearly annoyed with my antics.
“It’s the Necklace of Harmonia,” I declared. “The one that Hephaestus made to curse the children of Aphrodite and Ares. Of which Harmonia was one.”
“Wait, so what are you saying?” Daniella said as she took off her glasses and rubbed them on her shirt.
“I’m saying that Jade was being manipulated and cursed by this necklace,” I explained. “Not only that, but the goddess Harmonia is locked inside of it.”
“Whoa wait, what?” Beth hopped off the stool and approached me like I was holding a gun, rather than a piece of jewelry. “You’re holding a goddess?”
“Yes,” I said urgently. “I think all of this is weird and a little hard to understand.”
“That’s an understatement,” Daniella grumbled with her arms crossed.
“But all we need to do is destroy this necklace and free Harmonia,” I continued, not bothering to address all of the questions that ran across their faces. “She will prove that the Necklace is her cursed necklace and that none of this was Jade’s fault.”
“Cameron,” Hailey said gently. “It sounds like you’re grasping at straws right now.”
I closed my eyes and sucked in an impatient breath. When I opened my eyes again, I tried to level my voice and temper my frustration, but it didn’t work. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I need you to trust me. This is the way to help Jade. And it’s the only plan we got. If she’s already been convicted, then we have no time left. They could be wiping her memory any second. If Jade has any chance at all, we have to destroy this necklace and release the goddess.”
The women stared at one another, a triangle that I stood in the center of while they assessed my plan and decided whether or not I was crazy. However, it was as though someone had lit a fire under my ass and stuck a countdown in my head. I didn’t know how much time Jade had left. I would never forgive myself if I had a way to help her, and I didn’t do it in time because I was waiting for the approval of others. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t need their help.
I was the son of Hephaestus. I was the best blacksmith on campus. Not only could I create the deadliest weapons, I had just proven to myself that I was also capable of destruction: me and the Eternal Flame.
As the girls continued to debate silently, I whirled around, looking for the little flame. However, the moment I thought about it, the piece of Eternal Flame appeared at the center of my vision.
Hailey, Bethany, and Daniella jumped back when the flame appeared out of seemingly nowhere, whereas I couldn’t help but smile.
“What the hell?” Beth exclaimed.
“Where did you get that?” Daniella wondered.
“Since when did you have the ability to summon the Eternal Flame?” Hailey asked, caution coating her voice.
“Hello,” I said, speaking only to the Flame. I refused to acknowledge my friends because I was sick of them defying me. They could join me in this plan if they wanted, but I wasn’t going to let their indecisiveness stop me.
“Would you like to help me break this?” I held up the necklace, eye level with the Flame.
The four of us watched as the Eternal Flame encircled the gold chain, once, twice. The Flame bounced around and turned this way and that, like an artist looking for the first place to start on the canvas.
Then, surprising all of us, the Flame zipped for the nearest forge and expanded itself. It spread out both open ends of the cinder block forge, taking on a violent red, like the color of blood. And I knew the Flame was as ready as I was.
“Okay, that little thing is creepy,” Beth whispered to Daniella.
I threw the necklace into the forge without a second thought and began cooking it, preparing it for its own destruction.
Out of nowhere, Khryseos and Argyreos began to bark. Their tones were sharp but low, insistent. I deciphered their warning right away.
“Someone’s coming,” I hissed.
My companions fell into a panic.
“What are we going to do?” Daniella looked around as though she were trying to catch an annoying fly.
“Hide,” Beth suggested. She moved to wrap her arms around me, but I stepped out of her way.
“No,” I said as I stood my ground. “I’m not hiding anymore.”
“Cameron,” Hailey said sternly. “They’re coming after you. You’re not going to be able to do anything if they lock you up.”
“I’d like to see them try,” I threatened as I held out my hand and requested that the Eternal Flame come to me. Three pieces of it broke off from the red flame that continued to heat up the necklace. They curled into balls and proceeded to float above my hand, twirling in a threatening motion.
Just then, the door to the forge opened. Hailey nearly fell over, losing her balance as her back was against the door. The soldier whirled around, crouching into a defensive stance, determined to block me. However, she was met with the short figure of Sarah, who looked really stern and frustrated.
“Oh, I know you’re not blocking my way into my forge, Hailey Barlow,” Sarah snapped at her.
Dutifully, Hailey slid out of the daughter of Poseidon’s way, shutting the door behind her. Sarah Stomped into the forge, her steel-toed boots clanking against the concrete floor.
“Do you want to tell me why there is a warrant out for your arrest?” Sarah clapped at me, her lips hardening around her consonants to make her point sharper.
“The warrant doesn’t say?” I said, trying to keep my nerves in check. Even though I talked a good game to the girls, I couldn’t hide the pounding in my heart when I saw that door open, before I realized it was Sarah marching in. I was relieved to see my mentor, but my nerves didn’t settle at the idea that the Elemental Officials might come in at any moment and stop my efforts to save Harmonia and Jade.