by M.W. Muse
Chapter Nine
She stared at the box, too nervous to open it. It was wrapped in brown paper and stamped from Greece. Either River was telling the truth about seeing her mom in Greece, or he was a really good liar.
No, she didn’t believe he’d lied to her. She would need to get more answers from Adin as to why he didn’t trust River’s family. In the meantime, she couldn’t see why it would hurt to find out what all River knew as long as she stayed objective.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Lissa asked nervously.
She nodded, staring at the package. She turned it around, examining it from all directions, and then ripped the paper off the box. She opened it and sifted through the packing peanuts to find a black, velvet jewelry box. She pulled it out and glanced at Lissa who still looked shocked.
She lifted the lid of the jewelry box and stared at what was inside. It was a silver necklace. It looked very old and beautiful. The pendent was formed out of twisted silver wire. The abstract shape was triangular with rounded edges and the point facing down. It looked as if the silver wire wrapped all around it with diamond chips glittering from exposed crevices beneath the wire. She pulled the necklace out. “It’s heavy,” she muttered.
“It’s platinum,” Lissa said.
Platinum? “Wow, it’s beautiful.” She looked in the package, but didn’t see a card. She was so distracted by the beauty of the necklace that she didn’t notice, at first, the rain outside had slowly morphed into a storm. “How do you know it’s from my mom?”
“She told me she was sending you something.”
Legacy was shocked to hear this. “When did you talk to her?”
“This morning.”
“What else did she say?”
“That was it.”
“Are you going to tell me anything else?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” she said as she turned away from her.
“You are impossible!” she yelled to her, and as she did, thunder crashed.
Lissa turned to stare at her with wary eyes. “You need to calm down.”
“I am calm,” she said through her teeth while thundered rolled outside.
“Legacy, there’s no reason to get worked up over this. Your mom sent you a gift. She’s probably going to contact you soon, and when she does, she’ll explain everything better.”
“Fine,” she said, glaring at her while lightning illuminated the room through the windows.
Olive came back down the stairs. “Have you watched the weather report?” she asked Lissa.
“No,” Lissa said curtly, not taking her eyes off her.
“There’re thunderstorm warnings all over the place,” Olive continued.
“You know how unpredictable the weather is here,” Legacy said with a smirk.
“True,” Olive said.
“I’m going to bed,” Legacy announced, and walked up the stairs. She hadn’t understood her initial angry response to Lissa not telling her everything her mother had said on the phone, but she was suddenly too tired to deal with it.
But she hardly slept. The storms were relentless. As one would pass, it seemed as if another one fired up without pause. When she did sleep, she dreamed. These dreams weren’t really new, they were variations of dreams she’d already had. She dreamed of running from thunderstorms, lightning glittering from the sky, tornados charging for her, the girl she felt the need to protect that always guided her, and snakes. Although, the snakes were a little different. Instead of one snake or just snake holes, there were several snakes. These snakes came at her from several directions, giving her only one course of action to take. Even though she felt safe on the path she took because she wasn’t running into anymore snakes, it felt as if the snakes were guiding her. And she didn’t trust that, though, she had no other option.
She woke up to a calm morning. She looked outside and saw puddles of water throughout the backyard, and then decided it was time to do some investigating of her own, so she pulled out her laptop and got online.
From what River said, some of these gods were still in existence. She wondered if Zeus was still around. Being the king of gods, she wondered if any other god would try to destroy him to ascend to that throne. She figured he was as good a start as any. But there was just way too much information to digest.
There was a lot of information on Demeter too. All the websites said she was a goddess of earth, harvest, and seasons. Because of the earthly things she was over, she was considered the personification of Mother Nature. She was natural and nurturing. Besides presiding over the harvest and the earth, she also ensured the sanctity of marriage and provided over the circle of life and death.
She had several children, two of which she had with Zeus—Zagreus and Persephone. But other stories about Zagreus’s origin conflicted with this account. Some said Zagreus was the offspring of Persephone and Zeus.
Regardless, the story of Zagreus was that the Titans tried to destroy him, so Zeus destroyed the Titans and retrieved Zagreus’s heart. His divine flesh mixed with Titans’ ashes, creating humankind, which was why humans had both good and bad tendencies. Interesting twist, but not really relevant. She guessed that, unless the deity who Zeus inserted the heart into was who she descended from, she could rule out Zagreus’s line.
Persephone was a different story. There was only one account to her birth, so there was no denying she came from Demeter and Zeus. She married Hades, who presided over the underworld, making her the queen of the underworld. That seemed a little dark, but she continued researching about her.
She felt the blood rush out of her face when she read about Persephone’s abduction. Several gods wanted to be with Persephone, but Demeter kept her hidden from them. Hades abducted her and brought her to the underworld—that was how she became the queen there. Demeter fell into a deep depression, and since she was the goddess of nature, life on earth stopped while she searched for her daughter.
Zeus ordered the return of Persephone, but Hades had tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds because anyone who consumed anything while in the underworld would have to stay. Persephone was eventually allowed to return to her mother, and when reunited with her, the earth flourished. But because she was tricked into eating the seeds in the underworld, Persephone had to return to Hades for part of the year. When she was in the underworld, the earth turned barren. This was how the myths explained the development of the seasons on earth.
Other than her time with Hades, there were other stories that said Persephone spent four months each year with Adonis, and also linked that to the changing seasons, but there wasn’t really much about that. The only offspring she found that she created was Macaria. Persephone created her with Hades, but the only entry on her showed she was the goddess of blissful afterlife. There wasn’t any other information on her.
Since she couldn’t be sure she descended from Macaria, maybe her line came from one of Demeter’s children not created with Zeus. If she created children with him and was a goddess, then maybe he still protected her when it came to her other children. She felt like both Zagreus and Persephone seemed to be dead-ends, Zagreus more so than Persephone.
As she searched, she noticed there were other common names, like Aphrodite and Hercules, besides Zeus. Then there were other names she hadn’t heard of before like Artemis and Hermes—though she had heard of Holy Grail of handbags, the Hermes Birkin. Calli owned three. But she digressed.
There were some strange stories, like creating offspring from the earth and swallowing babies that later lived.
Then she quickly thought about River. He said he knew about his family, but didn’t know about hers. She wondered which god he’d descended from. He knew. Maybe if she knew where he came from, then she could exclude that line. But as she remembered the strange stories, she realized that that didn’t really matter. It seemed like the gods created offspring with anyone and anything, regardless of whom or what those things were. The typical concept of mating to produce bambinos didn�
��t really seem to apply.
Then she wondered, since mating wasn’t necessary, if her parents or River’s parents were even really involved in the sense that she considered traditional parents. Maybe that was why River stayed with his mom—not his dad—and that was why Lissa always talked about her mom—never her dad. Maybe the parents chose who would be the true parent. In the cases of producing an offspring with an inanimate object, the decision would be fairly obvious, she mused. No tree could raise a child.
Then she felt a roll of nausea. What if one of her parents was not a person? Ugh! That would be so weird. Maybe that was why Lissa never talked about her dad. She could hear her now. “Legacy, this is your dad, the white oak tree. We planted him here to be close to you. He gave you life. Now try not to hit him with the lawnmower.” Super weird!
So the one thing that stood out more than any other was that this was all mythology. Myths. Different religions viewed these gods differently. Some even had different names for similar entities. So if these were myths, then how would she know what to believe?
She still had a hard time wrapping her head around everything, but when she tried to stay detached while she thought about it, things started to click. Everything except for what River had said about Adin. She could not, would not believe that. She felt bonded to Adin, not River. Even though she and Adin were taking things slowly, she still felt their relationship was destined to be something great. She knew it. Adin knew it. Just as she needed air to breathe, she knew through every fiber of her being that Adin was meant for her.
She was slowly discovering there was no way to decipher all this on her own. She needed to talk to someone specific about this. She just hoped River would be open to chatting at work tomorrow. But maybe Calli could provide some insight now. She headed right over to her best friend’s house.
When Legacy got there, she was happy to see that Calli was home. Since her mind had gone round and round with information overload, she’d failed to call Calli before coming over. She parked behind the BMW and rang the doorbell. Once Calli answered, Legacy started in, unable to wait. They walked up the stairs to her bedroom and she told her friend everything, about the dreams, her new necklace, what Adin said about the Gorgoses, and everything River had told her, knowing Calli knew some of this already, but spilling everything out also felt therapeutic.
“I believe what River said about his family and my family, but I don’t know what he means about Adin. I really like Adin, Calli. I can’t conceive what River said about that.”
Calli turned to face her. “If you believe you’re actually going to be a god—or is it goddess?—whatever you’re going to be, then maybe we should do some research now of our own on Greek mythology.”
“I’ve already been looking this morning. The stories are just so out of the realm of what we know of as reality that they are hard to understand.”
“Well, fresh eyes won’t hurt. Let me grab my iPad.”
Legacy breathed deeply, feeling relaxed again. “Thank you so much, Calli. I don’t know how I could get through this without you. Adin doesn’t understand, so I can’t really talk to him about this.”
“Yeah, I don’t think you should tell him everything River said. Not yet anyway.”
“I’m really sorry about River,” she said, looking down at her hands in her lap.
She walked back over to her bed and sat beside her. “It’s not your fault. Apparently, we’re dealing with destiny or some other force.”
“I still feel badly about River. I know you like him, and he let me believe he was involved with someone.”
“Look, I’m not going to pretend my feelings aren’t hurt, but I don’t blame you. Heck, I don’t even blame him. From what you’ve said, this is all new to him too. Besides, I really do kinda like Zach.”
She’d been so absorbed in her own drama that she’d forgotten to even ask about him. Some friend she was. “How’d your date go?”
“It was great! Oh, Legacy, you should have seen him. He was gorgeous! And charming…the evening was wonderful.”
They talked about her date with Zach and her dates with Adin while they both perused the Internet, looking for more Greek mythology information until Legacy had to leave. Adin had said he was coming over tonight, so she needed to get home and freshen up.
She got home, took a quick shower, and threw on some shorts and a t-shirt. She didn’t want it to seem like she was dressing up for Adin, but she did fix her hair and put on some fresh makeup.
She was jogging downstairs when she heard him pull in her driveway. She waited until he knocked before opening the door and smiling at him.
“Hey. How was your day?” he asked as she motioned for him to come in.
“Long.” That was the truth without giving too much away.
He turned to look at her and took both her hands into his. His eyes narrowed briefly and then opened back up. “I’ve missed you all day,” he murmured, staring into her eyes. Then he dropped her hands and slid his arms around her back to hug her.
“I’ve missed you too,” she said as she put her arms around his neck.
“Is that Adin?” Lissa called out. “I could use some muscle in here.”
They walked into the kitchen where Lissa was trying to move the china cabinet.
“Why are you doing that?” Legacy asked as Adin walked quickly over to grab the other side. He shifted it over effortlessly.
“Something fell from the top.” Lissa squeezed behind it and pulled out a doily. All that for a doily?
“Thanks,” she said as she righted herself. Adin pushed the china cabinet back into place. “Are you staying for dinner? We’re just having burgers.”
He glanced at Legacy and she nodded, remembering when he’d done that before. Then he looked at Lissa again.
“Thank you, ma’am. We didn’t have anything planned for tonight. So that’d be good.”
“Oh, I have something to show you,” Legacy said as she grabbed Adin’s hand and ran up the stairs to her room. She let go of him and stepped over to her dresser. She pulled out the necklace that her mom had sent her. “My mom sent me this,” she said as she showed it to him.
“Hmmm, it’s very beautiful.” Adin spoke truthfully, but had an unfathomable expression.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, turning his eyes to her and smiling. “Would you like to join me downstairs? I’m not sure if it’s appropriate for me to stay in here with you.” His eyes displayed the heat she liked to see, but she didn’t want to tempt him into kissing her with Lissa and Olive downstairs.
“Sure.”
Adin and she visited in the living room until dark, talking, laughing, eating, and making more plans to be together. When it was time for him to leave, she walked him to his car. They were standing by the driver side when Adin leaned against the door with his arms crossed.
He looked at her and sighed. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Uh-oh. There was something she hadn’t told him about River, but she wasn’t about to jump right into that without an explanation. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I just feel like I need to tell you to be careful.”
Then he uncrossed his arms and lightly clutched her waist. He pulled her against him without saying anything else. She put both her arms around his neck and eased her head against his chest, listening to his heart. He leaned his head down against her hair and held her for a long moment. There wasn’t anything to be said. Everything they wanted to say was already being communicated.
Adin kissed the top of her head and then let go of her waist to secure his hands on her face. He lifted her head and kissed her forehead. He then leaned his forehead against hers.
“Legacy, please be careful.”
“I will,” she whispered, trying to reassure whatever unexplainable fear he felt.
Then leaning over, he buried his face into her neck—where she could feel his hot breath against her skin—wrappe
d his arms around her back, and lifted her off the ground in a tight hug. She clung to him while he turned his head slightly and kissed her neck.
He put her back down and held her face in his hands. “Goodbye,” he whispered.
And then he was gone. She stood outside watching him drive away. As she turned to walk back into the house, she thought of what River had said about Adin. There was no way he could be right about the prophecy. She didn’t believe it.
Did she?