Orion's Kiss

by Claire Luana

  Brandon shakes his head. “His grandpa passed away, and he quit to help out his gran. She needs some help, and he didn’t want to be traveling for games so much. And he got a job to help pay the bills.”

  “Tough break,” Deputy Romano says. I agree. I feel doubly bad that my misdirected kidnapping efforts kept him from his grandma. Deputy Romano turns his attention on me. “How are you holding up, Meriah?”

  I bob my head. “Okay, I guess.”

  “I wasn’t aware you and Mr. Kearney knew each other.”

  I shrug. “We don’t, really. Brandon and Zoe got the wild idea to, like, set us up. It was just coffee.”

  “A double date?” the deputy asks.

  “It’s not exactly like that—”

  “We’re just friends—”

  Brandon and Zoe talk over each other, competing for the role of reddest junior at the table. You could cut the awkwardness with a knife.

  Deputy Romano holds up his hands. “I’m sorry I asked.” He looks back at me. “You remember anything else you’d like to share?”

  I shake my head, swallowing. “I’d tell you if I did.”

  He nods, standing. “Good. You kids have a good night.”

  And then he leaves, taking what’s left of my frayed nerves with him.

  The coiled tension in my body doesn’t unwind until we’re safely in Zoe’s car and halfway home. I feel as brittle as a dry leaf. Deputy Romano is yet another complication to add to our already Herculean quest. It’s moments like this that I really wish I were old enough to drink.

  Mom and Dad are waiting, lecture in hand, when I walk through the front door. But when I tell them that it was Deputy Romano who waylaid me and made me late, their anger fizzles like an old balloon.

  I finally collapse on my bed, kicking off my shoes, when my phone buzzes.

  I whip it out. It’s Ryan. “U ok?” he asks.

  “Yup. Told DR the truth,” I text back, resisting putting truth in quotes.

  “Good.”

  I wait. Good? That’s it?

  He texts again. “Any ideas for how to find Z?” I know by Z he means Zeus, not Zoe.

  I smack my forehead, a smile growing on my face. In my terror over Deputy Romano’s reappearance, I’d totally forgotten my earlier epiphany.

  “Yup,” I say, adding a smiley. “Free tomorrow?”

  Chapter 20

  Her name is Sibyll Ambrosia. She’s a history professor with a focus on Greek mythology and the author of the textbook Ryan pilfered from his school library. As soon as I saw her name, I knew that she’s more than a mere teacher. Sibyls are prophets and oracles, keepers of knowledge and wisdom. While there was originally one sibyl, back in the era of gods and Titans, the word transformed into a title as the years passed. The Order of the Sibyls has continued, though their numbers have dwindled. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. If there’s anyone who can tell us where Zeus is, it’d be a sibyl.

  And even better, she works at Oregon State University, a blessed two-hours’ drive from us. I can hardly believe our good fortune.

  “How do you know she’s really a sibyl and not just named that?” Ryan asks. We’re sitting in his truck, chugging down Highway 20. After I explained my theory, Ryan and I decided to make a trip to see her. Some questions just don’t translate into an email. Brandon had a game today, and Zoe has her SAT prep class, so it’s just Ryan and me. I try not to think about how nervous that makes me feel. Nervous and excited.

  “I just feel it,” I say. “She’s a Greek Studies professor, for god’s sake. It’s our best theory.”

  “It’s our only theory…” he jokes.

  “Hey, I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas.”

  He chuckles. “One point to the lady.”

  We haven’t talked about Deputy Romano or his investigation, and I’m too chicken-shit to raise the topic with Ryan. I don’t want to spook him, to make him think I’m worried he’ll turn us in. I’m not exactly worried about that, not anymore. I’m worried the police will link him to the accident. That he’ll be arrested. Not worried. Terrified.

  The radio crackles angrily and Ryan reaches to change it, spinning the dial. It’s one of those old-timey ones you’d see in a period movie from the fifties.

  “You really need to get an MP3 player in here.”

  “It’d ruin the effect.”

  “I forgot how crackly static is a favorite feature in classic cars.”

  “You have to pay extra for it in some states.” He nods sagely.

  “How’d you end up with this truck?” I ask.

  “It was my grandpa’s. Gran said I could have it if I fixed it up and got it running again.”

  “How long’d it take you?” I want to ask him what happened to his grandfather, but I think it might be too personal.

  “About two years,” he admits. “Brandon’s older brother Adam is good with cars; he helped me out a bunch.”

  “It’s a real sonuvabitch to drive,” I admit.

  He glances over, amused. “I’m sorry to not provide a more convenient vehicle for my kidnapping.” His look warms me, making me want to roll down the window and hang my head out the side. I ignore how his hand is resting on the seat between us. How I could put mine down right next to it, how our pinkies would touch, sending that electric spark through me again—

  “I’m actually impressed that you could drive it,” Ryan admits, cutting off my spiraling thoughts. “The clutch is really temperamental. Not many kids our age can drive stick.”

  “My dad taught me to. He thought it was an important life skill to have. Like changing a tire—”

  “Or rewinding a VHS tape?”

  I laugh. “Well, he was right, wasn’t he? It turned out to be extremely useful. I picked it up quickly anyway. I remember from past lives.”

  “Really?” he asks. “You remember that much detail?”

  “The newer lives are fresher,” I admit. “The old ones are foggier, like looking through a dirty window. But yeah, over a few years, they all came back to me for the most part. Though the parts about my sisters are stronger.” I leave out that the parts about him are stronger, too.

  “That must have been hard.”

  I let out a little laugh. “It was not awesome. I think my parents were about a day away from committing me.” My tone is light, but I swallow at the memory. Even now, the memory of my fear that they would send me away squeezes my lungs in its vise grip. I’m not sure I would have been able to forgive them for that.

  “How did you get a handle on it?” Ryan asks.

  “It wasn’t until I went back to the beginning. I kind of cycled through my lifetimes backwards from modern times. It wasn’t until the end when I finally realized who I was. Merope. When I understood what had happened. It was like…” I try to explain. “Anchoring into myself. Suddenly, I had context. I got it. It was a lot easier from then on.”

  “Do you still have the visions of old times?”

  “Not much. Occasionally. Now my visions are mostly of the future.”

  “Just about your sisters or other stuff?”

  “Other stuff sometimes. I get a lot of déjà vu. I was able to save my cousin from choking once. And find Zoe’s dog when it was lost. If not for all the killing stuff, it’d be a pretty cool gift.”

  “If not for all the killing stuff,” he echoes.

  “How about you?” I ask. “You only remember during your seizures?”

  He glances at me sharply. “First, no one knows about those seizures. No one except Gran and Brandon. You cannot tell anyone else.”

  I nod. “I won’t.”

  He takes a deep breath. “I only see things during the seizures. And I think I started the other way from you. I saw Orion first—that lifetime. And Zeus and the Pleiades. Your sisters. I remember you. I had a bit of a thing for you.” He glances over at me quickly.

  My breath hitches as I paw through those memories, trying to find any indication that what he said
is true. There’s not much. We barely interacted with Orion. Maybe I spoke with him once, at a banquet before it all went wrong… “What?” I stumble over my thoughts. “I was like…seventeen.”

  “I was only in my early twenties! Times were different back then. All your sisters were beautiful, but there was something about you. Something…alive. Do you remember dancing with me at Artemis’s harvest festival?”

  I pause, scanning again. “I don’t think so…” I trail off, kicking myself for not noticing. For not remembering. How could his soul have passed beneath my notice?

  “It’s okay,” he says. “You had tons of admirers. And there was a lot of wine flowing, if I remember. Dionysus was in full force.”

  That brings it back. “Oh…I don’t think I remembered much from that night. Not just you.”

  “I’m slightly less offended.”

  I scoff, desperate to change the mood between us. It feels too real, and I’m not sure I can continue without saying or doing something stupid. Like threading my fingers through his. “If you were so taken with me, why’d you shoot me with an arrow? Is that, like, the Greek equivalent of pulling a girl’s pigtail on the playground?”

  “I could shoot a soaring hawk out of the sky. I was the greatest archer the world has ever seen. You never wondered why when I shot at you from ten feet away, I missed?”

  I think on that. “But you didn’t miss. You hit me.”

  “I thought Zeus was going to order me to kill all of you. So I shot you in the most non-lethal spot I could manage to incapacitate you. I was hoping he would forget about you.”

  My eyes widen slightly. I can’t be around Ryan without more pieces falling into place. I can’t help feeling like everything I was so sure of was completely and totally wrong.

  “Oh, this exit.” I point, and Ryan veers the truck, prompting an angry honk from the Subaru in the next lane. The drive has passed so quickly, I can hardly believe it.

  “Sorry,” Ryan mutters, but we make the exit to Corvallis.

  We’re going to the sibyl’s house, as it’s Saturday. It’d be better to find her at her office, but we don’t exactly have five free hours to make the drive here and back on a school day. So Zoe had one of her tech-savvy student body friends do a little sleuthing, and we came up with her home address. I shove down my worry over what happens if she won’t see us. Or if she doesn’t know what we’re talking about.

  I use my phone to navigate Ryan through the winding streets and towards the sibyl’s house. She lives in the outskirts of Corvallis. As we get closer, I see that it’s a nice neighborhood of big houses with broad, sloping lawns leading down to the Willamette River.

  “It’s nice here,” Ryan says.

  “Yeah, my dad’s a Beaver,” I say. “He wants me to go to OSU.”

  “What do you want?” Ryan asks.

  I shrug. “Not sure yet. Part of me would love to get out of Oregon, but I’ll apply here and U of O. Hard to beat in-state tuition. What about you?”

  “Perfect world, I would have gotten a baseball scholarship and gone somewhere warm and exotic. That’s not an option anymore, and there aren’t a ton of archery scholarships to be had. Reality, I’ll probably go to Central.”

  “The community college?” I ask.

  He nods. “I’m gonna learn to code.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t peg you for a computer geek.”

  “You think I should be a construction worker or something?” His tone is light, but I can tell he’s offended.

  “That’s not what I meant—”

  “It’s okay. It’d be a logical path for me. I don’t love the idea of sitting at a desk all day, but I don’t want to work in the cold until my body breaks down. I want to find something where I can have security. Take care of Gran. She won’t be able to live on her own forever. And in Seattle and Portland they give out programming jobs like candy.”

  “Smart,” I say, impressed by his maturity. His willingness to sacrifice. Most kids I know, myself included, are still dicking around, worrying about who to take to junior prom or whether they’ll make state this year. Ryan’s planning for his future.

  “The turn is up here on the left,” I say, pointing at the driveway. It’s long and winding, shadowed by tall evergreen trees.

  The house comes into view. It’s a gorgeous craftsman with red trim and a red door, with a big back porch paralleling the cut of the river. Down past the sloping green lawn, a dock juts out into the river. A jolt of recognition hits me. I’ve seen this dock before. It’s where my sister dies.

  Chapter 21

  “We need to leave,” I breathe.

  Ryan puts the truck in park and turns to face me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’ve seen this place before in one of my visions. Alcyone drowns here.”

  “You had another vision?” Ryan narrows his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know.” I flail my hands. “It’s not like I’m used to having an ally.”

  “From now on, Mer, no secrets, okay? If we’re going to do this together, we need to trust each other.”

  I nod, wondering if the fact that I think his eyes are the crystal blue of Lake Tahoe counts as a secret I must disclose. I decide not.

  “Tell me the vision—exactly.”

  I do, relating to him what I remember. Alcyone floating off the dock.

  “It happens near the water,” he finally says. “As long as I don’t go anywhere near the river, it’ll be fine, right?”

  I give a half-hearted murmur of agreement. The Fates pull at Ryan like the most powerful magnet. Even if we turned and drove away right now, I’m not sure it would be enough to stop what has been destined.

  “Come on, Mer. This is our only lead. We’ve come all this way. We can’t turn around without at least talking to the sibyl.”

  I chew on my lip, my thoughts racing.

  Knuckles rap on my window and I screech, jerking against my seatbelt. My hand flies to my chest as I look and see that it’s her. Sibyll Ambrosia. I grab the crank and roll down the window slowly.

  “Can I help you?” she asks. She looks like her picture, with the large glasses and dark curls pulled back into a loose ponytail. But today she wears black leggings and a loose denim shirt and has gardening gloves on. Her face is pretty, her skin olive-toned, her nose severe in a way that suits her. She’s younger than I expected. Perhaps in her late thirties or early forties.

  “We’re high school students,” I manage. “We have a…Greek history project we’re working on. I know it’s the weekend, but we were hoping to ask you a few questions.”

  She purses her lips. “There’s little I can tell you that you can’t find on Wikipedia. I don’t mean to be rude, but it wouldn’t be very scholarly of me to do your project for you. Much of the learning comes from the experience of doing the research yourself. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  She turns to leave and Ryan leans over me. “It’s not a project. It’s personal. Are you a sibyl?”

  Her head curves back around, her features schooled to neutrality. She lets out a little laugh. “My name is Sibyll, so I guess I am one.”

  I shake my head, looking her dead in the eyes. “No. Are you a sibyl?”

  She cocks her head, putting her gloved hands on her hips. “Who are you?” Behind her glasses, I think I see something. A flash of something old. A recognition. But then it’s gone so fast that I’m not sure it wasn’t my imagination.

  I suck in a breath. “I’m Merope. This is Orion.”

  Her mouth opens slightly as she looks between us. Ryan is still leaning over me, his scent of hay and starlight tickling my nose. Finally, she shuts it. “Why don’t you both come in?”

  The inside of the sibyl’s house is clean and bright, with large windows oriented to let in the view of the river. Plush rugs grace the polished hardwood floor, and we settle on a thick leather couch at Sibyll’s request. Bookshelves line the wall filled with ancient-looking tomes
. Over the fireplace is a black and orange vase decorated with Greek warriors in battle. It looks real. Old.

  “You guys want anything to drink? LaCroix?” she asks. “I have pretty much every flavor.”

  “Pamplemousse for me,” I say.

  She looks at Ryan expectantly.

  “Lime,” he finally says, as if he’s embarrassed to admit he even knows what the flavor options are.

  I snort, looking sideways at him. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  He nudges me with his elbow. “Oh, whatever, Ms. Pamplemousse.” He says the word with a phony French accent that makes me giggle.

  “What? That’s the name of the flavor.”

  “Can’t just say grapefruit like a normal human being. You have to be all fancy.”

  “What’s the point of drinking fancy water if you can’t be fancy?” I point out.

  He rolls his eyes, which I take as a victory. Point, Mer.

  Sibyll hands us our drinks and settles into the leather armchair across from us. She has a coconut LaCroix in her hand. Didn’t know anyone chose that one on purpose.

  “So. Orion and Merope. Not exactly the most modern of names,” she says. “Your parents Greek history buffs?”

  I swallow. Might as well wade right into it. “Those aren’t our names—in this lifetime.”

  She raises an eyebrow.

  “You in the mood for a story?” I chuckle nervously.

  “Why not?”

  I briefly sketch out the history of our many lifetimes, Ryan filling in a few details.

  When I finally fall silent, Sibyll examines us both with sharp eyes. “That’s quite a tale.”

  “We thought that the sibyls might be able to help us locate Zeus. So we can beseech him to lift the curse. Will you help us?” I ask.

  She taps her chin with a finger. “If what you say is true, you’d have knowledge what most other high schoolers wouldn’t. How many columns did Artemis’s temple in Athens have?”

  Ryan and I exchange a glance. Artemis didn’t have a temple in Athens. It was a trick question.

  Ryan gives me a small nod. He’s reached the same conclusion.