Pandora Gets Angry

by Carolyn Hennesy

  And here it was.

  Instantly, Iole’s brain went to work.

  “Rope,” she said softly, “untie and … make a small coil in my hand.”

  The next moment, the rope was unwinding itself from around Iole’s waist in a movement that, sickeningly, made her think of snakes slinking all over her. But that moment passed quickly as the rope coiled around her neck.

  “No!” Iole whispered. Then the rope expanded to ten times its size and pushed Iole against a snake-covered wall. Then, immediately, it shrunk and nestled into her palm.

  “One end,” she said, “tie around my wrist.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the rope tied itself around her ankle, then back around her waist and only then around her wrist. Iole suddenly realized that her section of the enchanted rope did two incorrect things before it did what it was asked to do. She needed to trick it into doing what she wanted the first time.

  “Now,” she said, “pay attention. Lead me into a wall covered with snakes. But I’m going to be crawling so go swiftly. Please.”

  She felt the free end of the rope move out from her palm and moments later there was a gentle tug at her wrist. Gradually, her head down, her eyes closed and her breath coming in short bursts, the rope slowly led Iole not into a wall but out of the snake-infested corridor. There was only one moment when a snake broke loose from its grasp on the uneven ceiling, its tail swinging down and falling across the back of Iole’s neck. She flung her body forward on the ground, her knees tucked under. The rope stopped moving until she found the courage to rise up and crawl onward.

  Finally, she was in the open space between the corridor and the first room. Seeing the lamplight, she herself tied the rope around her waist again before it could lead her into a snake-covered wall and entered the room of copper coins. She passed easily through it, completely unswayed by the voices, the taunts, and the tempting words. She was not curious at all about the black stones littered about the room. She was only looking for Pandy’s body.

  Iole entered the room full of silver. Surveying the length of the room and not seeing Pandy, she began to cross when, out of nowhere, a voice that sounded like her father’s whispered in her ear.

  “We have missed you so, my dear.”

  She stopped and turned toward one wall, stunned. It was only then that she comprehended the vast amount of gleaming metal within arms’ reach.

  She slapped herself, hard, across the cheek.

  “Stop it!” she said loudly and moved on.

  At last, she came to the room full of gold. She hadn’t taken one step into the room before the lamps were blazing. And that’s when she heard Alcie’s voice.

  “Pandy? Where did you go?”

  “Alcie! Alcie!”

  “Iole? Is that you?”

  “I’m right here!” Iole called.

  “Where’s Pandy? She was here and then she was gone and everything went black.”

  “I’m trying to find her!”

  “Well, come get me and we’ll find her together. Lemons, she can’t be far. I don’t think there are many ways to get out of this place.”

  “I’ll be right there!”

  But with Iole’s first step, the spirits surrounded her with such ferocity and intensity that Iole lost the sound of Alcie’s voice. She tried to keep her goal in focus and was past the midway point, her eyes glued to a glittering apple tree in the dim garden ahead, when a soothing voice crept into her ear.

  “I’ll show you where your friend is.”

  Iole whipped her head and was instantly overwhelmed by the gold.

  “Where?” she said, her lip quivering.

  “She’s been taken prisoner. But we can help. You’ll need some of this to set her free. She’s so close. Almost at your feet. Take one, take it all—it’s all for you. For your friend.”

  Mesmerized, without another thought, Iole drew closer to the first jar she saw and stretched out her hand.

  In the alcove, the old man smiled and shook his head.

  “Young girls,” he said with a sigh. “They simply cannot resist bright, shiny objects. It is almost a disease.”

  “These girls can,” said Douban without even knowing why the old man spoke.

  “Well,” the old man smirked, “perhaps they have been misled, but only a little. In any case, the second one is dead. Now go.”

  “Wow,” Homer said.

  “What!” yelled Douban. “What is going on in there? What traps have you laid for them?”

  “Only the trap of their own immaturity,” said the man.

  “Very well,” said Douban. “I should have gone in the first place. I am nothing if not my father’s son. I will get to the very bottom of this. Now, if you please, open the door.”

  For a third time, the old man rose and gave the golden door a light tap. After Douban disappeared, Homer stared at the snake holes in the alcove walls, and the old man stared at Homer until he grew tired of watching Homer poke his fingers in and out and closed his eyes.

  Moments later, as Homer sat with his back against the door, the old man opened his eyes and sighed.

  “He was not his father’s son.”

  “Huh?”

  “Dead, dead, and … dead,” said the old man, spitting onto the dirt floor. Then he looked at Homer, a gleam in his eye. “And then, there is you. The last. The one with the problem—blowing whichever way the wind takes you. I suppose you will want to go in now yourself, hmmm?”

  As he scratched at his nearly healed wound from the blood scorpion, Homer couldn’t decide if he wanted to go because the man had just told him he would want to and he was still infected with the lesser evil of “gullibility,” or if he wanted to go because he wanted to search for his friends. He only knew he wanted to go.

  “Yes,” Homer said, standing. “I do.”

  “And you will not listen to my warnings?”

  “No. I mean yes. I mean, what do you mean? Whatever you say. I will not—do you want me to? What?”

  The old man chuckled and slipped past Homer to rap on the door, which swung wide for a fourth time.

  “Have fun,” he said.

  Homer had to duck through the doorway and, like the others, instantly found himself in pitch-black. Without listening or trying to get his bearings, he straightened up and banged his head on the ceiling of the enclosed space, knocking loose several snakes, which began to slither across Homer’s shoulders. He brushed them off as if they were raindrops and stumbled forward, crashing into first one wall, then another. It didn’t take him long to realize that the space was crawling with serpents, but he didn’t bother to think about where they had come from, only that they were in his way. He felt, roughly, along the walls, batting away tiny, fanged heads, clearing large spaces with a sweep of his palm. He pulled them off his legs as they wound their way up his calves. Like Pandy, he got backed into oddly shaped corners and down dead ends, but he plowed his way through so fast and so furious that it was almost no time at all before he was standing at the end of the walls, clean air on his skin, and lamplight in a room just ahead of him.

  As he set foot in the room full of copper coins, the voices began to whisper.

  “How strong!” “How handsome!” “Come this way. Over here.” “Take some of these!”

  Homer began to stumble in a different direction with each new voice. And then an alarm went off in the very back of his mind. The effects of gullibility were still strong—too strong, and Homer wouldn’t be able to resist unless he did something. So he did the first thing that came naturally, the first thing anyone would do if they heard a noise they didn’t like or knew they shouldn’t hear.

  Homer put his fingers in his ears.

  In the alcove, the old man smiled, nodded his head, then laughed once … and disappeared.

  Homer made it safely through the rooms full of copper and silver. Then he came to the room of gold and one particular glint of lamplight off a single coin was so bright that he took one hand a
way from his ear and shielded his eyes.

  “Hello?” came a voice from beyond the room. Homer heard a soft tinkling, like glass beads hitting together.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  “HOMIE!” Alcie cried.

  “Alcie!”

  “Oh, Homie … what is going on? Pandy and then Iole and somebody else, I think, were where you are right now and then they were gone!”

  “Hang on,” yelled Homer, “I’m coming to get you!”

  He stepped into the room and the voices swirled around him like leaves in a vortex.

  “This one is mine!” “Attack him!” “Assassin!” “Handsome youth, come this way.” “No, over here.” “Gold—all for you!” “Listen to me …”

  Even with his fingers in his ears, Homer could hear everything that was being said. He turned in so many different directions, he began to get dizzy. He wanted to go one way first, and then another … he believed everyone and everything that was being said. He was an assassin, and a handsome one, a thief and murderer; he should go this way, no! That way. The voices began to blend into a continuous roar, so loud and so persistent that Homer did what he always did when things became too confusing. He just stopped thinking altogether. Then something—some thing wound tightly around his brain—snapped, and in the middle of the chaos Homer suddenly knew that none of these other voices mattered, especially when the one voice he truly wanted to hear was so close.

  “Alcie!” he called.

  “What?” she cried back.

  “Keep talking!”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Anything,” Homer yelled.

  “Figs! Neat! Okaaaayyyy …”

  Alcie proceeded to recount her adventures in the underworld with Persephone and Hades as Homer tried to focus in on her voice only. Twice, the spirit voices led him to a jar full of golden coins and twice he stretched his fingers out to take a bright piece of metal. Twice he had almost forgotten the warning of the old man not to touch any of it. And twice Alcie brought him back. Because it wasn’t the money that he was after ultimately. It was her. The voices became more cunning, taking on the sounds of his mother, father, and teachers. Taunting him, tempting him. Playing upon his gullibility. He shouted for Alcie to keep talking, not to stop. Sing, if she had to. He fought the voices: the incredible delights that were promised him, the shiny money and the fear of a dozen horrible deaths, as hard as if he were back in the training ring at gladiator school. He sweated buckets as he forced his mind not to be swayed. He slashed at the air with his fists, as if his opponent were flesh and blood, not unseen tormentors trying to break his mind.

  As he crossed the midpoint of the room, the dark garden spread out before him; he felt a strength return to his mind as the last of gullibility seeped in perspiration through his pores.

  The spirits saw that they were losing their chance and redoubled their efforts. But with no gullibility in his body, Homer lowered his hands; there was no one to fight. He lowered his head; he had no need to look around. Gold was nice, he supposed, but somewhere in the garden, Alcie was talking, and he was on his way.

  He walked straight to the end of the long room and out into the dark grove of trees. Immediately, the lamps in the room of gold were extinguished, making it almost impossible to see.

  “Oh, pomegranates,” Alcie said, half to herself. “And the lights go out again and again I am stuck in the tree and no one is around.”

  “I’m here,” Homer called from below.

  “Homie!” she squealed.

  “Hang on,” he said. “My eyes, like, need to adjust.”

  “Yeah,” Alcie called. “There’s a tiny light way over that way. You can just make out big shapes. Should I keep talking?”

  “Absolutely.”

  By the single flame of the far-off lamp, Homer felt his way around each tree. As Alcie was coming to the part of her story where she had tasted the roasted garlic and snail custard, Homer was standing underneath the tree in which she was stuck. He started to climb.

  “Ooof,” she said, looking down as he jostled the tree. “There you are!”

  “Keep talking,” he said.

  “Oh, okay. Well, then I ate some more and then I met Lachesis, who gave me my life-thread. Oh, yeah, tangerines, I got my very own life in my pouch! Then I contacted Pandy the first time.”

  Homer climbed way out onto the branch on which Alcie was sitting.

  “Hi,” he interrupted.

  “Oh!” she said with a start, not realizing he was so close. “Oh, hi.”

  “Hi,” he said, grinning.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling back. “Do you want me to keep talking?”

  “For the rest of your life,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her quickly and very gently.

  “Guess what?” he said as they broke apart.

  “What?”

  “I’m not gullible!”

  “Okaaay,” she replied, not having the faintest idea what he was talking about. “And I’m not an eggplant, so we both win!”

  “Oh, Alce,” Homer said, tears in his eyes. He just sighed deeply and shook his head.

  “I know,” she said, reaching with her far arm to stroke his cheek. “I know. But, apples, do I have stuff to tell you!”

  “I have to get you out of this tree first,” Homer said, wiping his eyes.

  “That’s not going to be so easy,” Alcie said. “Hades and Persephone both said I might end up stuck somewhere. I kinda thought they were joking at first, but look.”

  She pointed to her right shoulder. Sure enough, a small branch, about the diameter of a string bean, was growing into her shoulder from the back and sprouting out from the front in several smaller branches from which hung two clusters of hard red cherries.

  “Actually, the tree is in me.”

  “Does it hurt?” Homer asked.

  “No, that’s the weird part.”

  Homer pulled a short knife from his pouch and began to cut the tree branch about a centimeter away from Alcie’s back. Homer sawed fast, keeping the blade away from Alcie’s skin. At last, Alcie was free. As she went to throw her arms around Homer, she nearly fell out of the tree.

  “I think I’ll wait until we’re down,” she said.

  Descending as fast as they could from branch to branch, Alcie not wanting to let go of Homer even for a moment, at last their feet hit the ground. Alcie threw her arms around Homer, then immediately drew back.

  “Ouch!” she cried, staring down at the tiny branches poking through her shoulder.

  “Gods!” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said, gazing at him. “Don’t ever be sorry. Just be careful.”

  Homer pulled her left side close to him and draped one arm lightly around her neck. They stood like that until a breeze shook the fruit around them and brought them back to reality.

  “First things first,” Alcie said. “We have to find Pandy and Iole and whoever else that was.”

  “His name is Douban and, man, is his story wild!” Homer replied. “We need to be able to see. Let’s go check out that light.”

  He led the way through the grove to the far wall of the garden, where a single flame burned low in a dull, brass lamp. Alcie went to reach for it, when Homer suddenly stopped her hand.

  “Wait,” he said. “I just remembered. Douban’s father said something about this lamp. He said that a genie might be living in it. And it’s a bad genie. Like, not good.”

  Alcie now regarded Homer as if he had gone mad.

  “Excuuuuse me?” she said. “In this? Something lives in this?”

  “Or he might have escaped.”

  “Well, I have no idea what a genie is, but I don’t care if the Minotaur itself is inside, I say we use it,” Alcie said. “We got nothin’ else.”

  Removing the lamp from its niche, Alcie carried it back through the grove of trees. Now, even with such a tiny source of light, the fruit on the trees sparkled brilliantly.

  “
What in the name of Hercules are these things?” Homer asked, catching bright flashes of red, green, and purple. He was trying to keep up as Alcie, nimble as a dryad, hurriedly picked her way around the thick tree trunks.

  “Don’t know,” she called back to him, moving fast. “Don’t care right now.”

  At that moment, Alcie nearly tripped over an oversized root growing several centimeters out of the earth. Homer neatly caught her just before she fell flat.

  “I’ve missed doing that.” He smiled.

  “I’m not that clumsy,” she said.

  “Whatever you say,” he said, and he threw his arms around her again.

  “Come on,” she said, breaking away with a laugh.

  Reaching the large opening to the room of golden coins, Alcie stopped abruptly.

  “You came through here, right Homie?”

  “Yep,” he answered.

  “Well, this was the last place I heard both Pandy’s and Iole’s voices, so they have to be here.”

  “Yeah, but there are other voices in here, too,” Homer began, trying to warn her of malevolent spirits.

  “Good,” she interrupted him. “They can help us look.”

  “Or not,” he said softly. “Alce, don’t touch anything. I mean it. There’s lots of gold … like, coins. We have to be careful not to touch any of it. I think it may have something to do with Iole’s and Pandy’s disappearance.”

  “I am not interested in gold,” she said, surprising herself. “I have to find my friends.”

  She stepped into the room and held the lamp high.

  “Wow!” she said, surveying the enormous piles of coins. “You weren’t kidding.”

  “Do you hear anything?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “Good. Let’s see if we can get some light. There are lamps hanging from the ceiling,” Homer said.

  He took the brass lamp from Alcie and, reaching as high as he could, tried to get the oil to catch. But the room remained dark and cold. Taking back the lamp, Alcie doggedly, and very carefully, picked her way around the jars of golden coins, mindful not to touch a single piece. She moved deeper into the room, calling for Pandy, lifting the lamp high and low as Homer trailed after her.