by Simon Archer
“Who’s your mother?” I whispered back, my eyes hardening as they demanded an answer.
“What?” Holly said, surprised as she pulled away from me.
“Stick to the script, Cameron,” Sash scolded from the audience.
But I did the exact opposite of that. I sat up, leaning back on my elbows, never taking my eyes off Holly. “Who’s your mother? You never told me.”
“What are you doing?” Holly said out of the corner of her mouth with a side glance at the audience. “Cam, you’re embarrassing me.”
“Keep it going, keep it going!” Sasha called out.
Before I could open my mouth to keep the interrogation going, Holly panicked. Her eyes went wide before she shut them suddenly and crashed her lips onto mine.
Warmth surged through my body, running like hot gold through my veins. Her fingers stroked my arm, encouraging the final kiss between two lovers.
Normally, I would have relished the feeling of a beautiful woman leaning over me, kissing me senseless. But there was nothing appealing about this kiss.
Then there was the sharp tastes of iron that interrupted everything. It was as though someone had bit my lip and not in a seductive way. The taste rippled over my tongue and I gagged.
I grabbed both sides of her face and pulled her back from me slightly. Her eyes hardened and it was the first time that I felt I was seeing the true Holly beneath this demure demeanor she portrayed. Hiding behind that facade was a fierce warrior who looked ready to slit my throat if I ruined this for her.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but I’m going to figure it out,” I whispered, the breath existing only between the two of us.
Her threatening gaze flickered ever so slightly. “You hear not, You see not what is in front of you. You must endure this calamity. You are not the first, nor will you be the last to lose. We are all doomed to die.”
My eyebrows pinched together in confusion. She jumped ahead in the play, giving one of the Admetus’s last lines rather than the next one. Not only that but she spoke it with an ominous tone, filled with subtext. Her voice shivered down my spine.
“Die, Cameron,” Sasha stage whispered, yanked me out of my verbal battle with Holly. “You have to die.”
I grimaced, refusing to let my muscles relax and give into this insanity. All of the fun and escapism had been sucked right out of it. I didn’t want to deal with this ridiculousness anymore.
“No,” I snapped back. “I don’t think I will die.”
“You have to!” Sasha cried, suddenly disappointed. “It’s in the script.”
“Well, I think we should write a new one,” I said as I scrambled up to my feet. “How about, Admetus dies for being a cheating prick like he was supposed to and Alcestus lives a long and happy life, far away from that asshole?” I spoke every word to Holly as I looked down at her from my standing position.
The corner of her lip twitched but otherwise she kept her expression neutral, as if nothing weird and threatening had ever passed between us.
I made up my mind then. I wasn’t going to stay there a minute longer. I didn’t need this bullshit. I knew that meant I wasn’t going to be able to work with the nymphs. I would just have to figure out a way to make the tools without them, using the limited skills they had taught me.
But I had been in harder situations before this and believed enough in my abilities to figure it out without having to go through all of this.
I spun on my heel and started for the door. I heard Sasha’s lithe body swish up out of her seat.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded as I reached the doorway.
“Anywhere but here,” I answered confidently.
“If you leave right now, the deal is off!” Sasha threatened, pointing a thin finger in my direction.
“Then it’s off,” I said simply. “I can’t deal with any more of these lies and claims of pretend. I don’t want to learn those skills. I don’t need them.”
“What are you going to do then?” Sasha challenged as she put her hands on her hips.
“I don’t know,” I snapped back. “But I’m going to figure it out.”
Then, I left the classroom, slamming the door behind me.
14
Hailey
“Well, that was quite an entrance, daughter,” the god Apollo said through bursts of laughter.
It was an obnoxious laugh, like how a seal would sound. Hiccups mixed with snorts came out of the sun god.
I glared at him. While I knew that my father was considered one of the most attractive of the gods, with his golden skin, blond hair, and sculpted body, the historical depictions were nearly all accurate, and while I could see the appeal, I also knew that if he laughed openly like he was now, his potential lovers would have hightailed it out of there. It was one of the most embarrassing things about him, but certainly not the only one.
For one, he liked to look my age. It was like looking into a mirror. Well, a more perfected mirror. I don’t know how I got so unlucky as to resemble him more than my mother. Even Jasmine had gotten her mother’s freckles which broke up the chiseled jawlines and high cheekbones we’d both inherited from Apollo.
But when he looked this young, it was hard for me to take him seriously, much less think of him as my father. While I knew that the laws of physics didn’t always apply to the gods, it was hard for me to picture this young guy who could have been my peer as the god who helped create me.
“I thought you were better on your feet than that,” Apollo said as his annoying laughter died down. He held out a hand for me to help me up. I rejected his offer and got to a standing position all of my own.
I brushed some of the snow off my pants and back while Apollo stuck his hand up and through his straw-colored hair, as if he had meant to do that all along.
“What do you want?” I asked, wanting to get to the point of this clandestine meeting.
“Wow,” Apollo said as he whistled low and long. “Getting down to it, huh? No, ‘Hi Dad, how are you doing?’”
“I did say hi,” I growled through gritted teeth. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Or did you not hear me through your maniacal laughter?”
“Well hello to you too,” the god said with a nod. Then he mimicked my posture which instantly made me want to change how I was standing. I hated staring back at a version of myself in this way. It was spooky and something that belonged in a science fiction film, not in real life.
“What do you want?” I repeated, hoping to stop any of his stalling.
“I thought we could go for a walk,” Apollo suggested as he opened up his hand and gestured to a path that I hadn’t noticed before.
“A walk?” I balked. “You wrote to me because you wanted to go on a walk?”
“Can’t a dad take his daughter for a walk?” Apollo asked innocently.
I didn’t buy this act for a single second. “Sure, Dad,” I emphasized the word in an obvious way so that he couldn’t miss my sarcasm. “I love it when you pop into my life so we can just go for a walk. That’s not random or suspicious at all.”
“Do you want to go or not?” the god said as he rolled his eyes.
“I’m not even supposed to be down here,” I said, exasperated from the games. “I’m stationed up at base. Can’t you just tell me what you have to tell me and be on your way?”
“That’s why we have to take a walk,” Apollo said, the words pushing through his perfectly straight, pristinely white teeth.
I paused as I looked into his green eyes. There was something off about his gaze, like he was trying to tell me something that he couldn’t say aloud. The shape of his eyes were as wide as dinner plates, suggestive and telling.
“Fine,” I relented, though my voice stayed gruff because I still couldn’t shake my frustration. “Let’s take a walk.”
I stepped in line with my biological father and the two of us walked in tandem with one another. We didn’t say anything for a while, simply
listening to the crunch of our feet in the snow.
I let Apollo take the lead, not sure how far away he wanted to get from the Military’s base. To say my curiosity was piqued was an understatement. The need to know Apollo’s secret pulled at my chest. It was the fire that kept me warm as I moved through the chilly forest trees.
We moved around the mountainside, weaving around trees and ducking under branches. Finally, Apollo seemed to think we were far enough away to start talking. But his opening line wasn’t one I had been expecting.
“So, how are you doing?” he asked casually as if we were sitting across from one another at a cafe rather than delving deeper into a foreign forest.
His question caused me to stop in my tracks. “I don’t want to do this, Apollo. You called me here for a reason, and I know it wasn’t to simply catch up. So what the hell is going on?”
The god stopped as well, about six feet from me. He turned around, and for the first time, he looked somewhat human. The expression on his face confused me. It was a mix of sadness, annoyance, and… fear? Was that really what I was getting from the god of truth, justice, light, etc.?
What was powerful enough to scare a god?
“I’m not supposed to be doing this,” he said with a shake of his head. Apollo put his fingers up to his forehead and scratched nervously, as though he had a mosquito bite on his temple.
“Doing what?” I questioned, unwilling to let him back out now.
“Meeting with you,” Apollo answered, inadvertently lowering his voice.
“Why?” I asked, drawing out the word longer than necessary.
“You’re not the only one fighting a war right now,” Apollo said ominously. “There are things going on up on Olympus that are… problematic.”
“Uh huh,” I said skeptically. I leaned back, pushing my weight into my pelvis. “You’re not going to tell me more than that, are you?”
“I’ve already said too much,” Apollo said as he shook his head like he was trying to get water out of his ear. “But I couldn’t let this part go unsaid. Or ungiven.”
“What do you mean?” I wondered.
“The Oracle spoke to me,” Apollo continued. He took two steps towards me, crouching like some old crone. “She told me that you would need my help or she would lose you forever.”
“Wait,” I said as I held up a hand, forcing him to pause. “The Oracle would lose me forever? I’ve never even met the Oracle.”
“She seems to think you have,” Apollo said with pinched eyebrows. “She spoke like she knew you. Like you shared a meal with her. Spent time in her house even.”
The realization slapped me in the face. I took a step back as if I had been shoved. “Hang on, are you telling me that…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence because my thoughts were going too fast.
“Hailey?” Apollo asked, unsure if I was going to finish or not.
“I thought she was just a descendent,” I said as my eyelids blinked rapidly, my eyes suddenly dry. “I didn’t think she was the actual Oracle.”
“So you do know her?” Apollo checked, his own confusion obvious now.
“If you’re talking about Cameron’s mom, then yeah, I know her,” I said, deciding it was better to lay everything out on the table. Wasn’t that the point of walking away from the base so we could talk freely?
“Cameron Alpin?” A sly smile sparked on the god’s face.
Jealous pierced my chest as hard as an arrow at that look on my father’s face. My body tensed and clearly Apollo noticed because the smile disappeared, now replaced by a look of curiosity and intrigue.
“You know him too,” Apollo deciphered. He paused when I didn’t answer him, and I had the weird suspicion that he was reading my mind or something which was equally as invasive. “Hades has told us all about the son of Hephaestus, who has been making new weapons for the gods in his father’s absence. He says he is really something, unlike any hero before now.”
I bit into my tongue, a physical barrier preventing me from saying any more. If my dad’s surprise was genuine, and he didn’t know about my feelings for Cameron, I didn’t want to give him more ammunition to work with or shoot back at me.
“Is he really as special as Hades says?” Apollo asked with a raised eyebrow. “Because the god of the underworld has been known to exaggerate.”
“You said you have something to give me?” I said, changing the subject.
Apollo clicked his tongue and sent a knowing glance my way. “You didn’t answer my question, daughter. Is he that special?”
I rolled my lips over my teeth and contemplated my answer. As much as I wanted to sing Cameron’s praises to anyone on any given day, I didn’t trust my father with my feelings. I knew that they could be used against me so easily. It was a weakness I didn’t know how to defend or protect quite yet.
“Because if he is, I’m more inclined to help you because it will help him,” Apollo teased, prying the answer out of me. “See, the Oracle mentioned Cameron as well. It’s no secret that he’s the most qualified to make the Ultimate Weapon. The one that is said to destroy even the gods themselves.”
Something changed in Apollo’s demeanor. He seemed to grow in size and confidence as he sauntered towards me. I knew he was trying to intimidate me, no longer a carbon copy of me, but a taller one with more muscles. I held my ground, but I knew what the gods, specifically my father, were capable of. I clenched my hands into fists in the hope of preventing them from sweating any more but that only seemed to make the situation worse.
“While, and many others, don’t even want that weapon to exist,” Apollo began, now towering over me, the shadow of his body casting directly onto my face. “It is the only thing that is going to end the war. The one here and in Olympus. He’s going to need all the help he can get.”
“I agree,” I said, speaking for the first time in minutes.
“Glad to see we’re on the same page,” Apollo said with a snicker. “While the Oracle wasn’t specific, I did figure out what I needed to give you.”
“Which is?” I prompted.
“Hold out your hand,” my father commanded.
I clenched my jaw but did as I was told. I stuck my hand out straight in front of me, fingers stiff. Apollo leaned down so that his lips were level with my fingertips. He closed his eyes and blew, his lips puckered as if he were about to kiss someone.
There was a small gust of wind, nothing more than a sneeze. A chill crawled up my spine and my body shivered of its own accord. My father’s breath circled around my open palm like a mini-tornado before it came to a stop, revealing a small branch with two bright green leaves on it. They were an idyllic shape like a rhombus with rounded edges. They were so crisp and fresh. It smelled like the inside of an Italian restaurant.
“Is this a laurel leaf?” I deciphered, my eyebrows pinching into a question.
“Clever girl,” Apollo complimented as he straightened back up. He no longer stood above me but had returned to being eye level with me. “Yes. I was blinded by my love for Daphne, thanks to Eros. When she turned into the laurel tree, I was able to see the nymph for what she truly was. As such, the laurel leaf is said to help you see the truth.”
I took the small plant by the skinny tan branch attached to the end. I held it up to my eye like Emma’s monocle. Nothing seemed different when I looked between the two leaves and they were still too thick for me to look through them.
“I don’t get it,” I said honestly. “What am I supposed to see?”
“The truth,” Apollo answered unhelpfully. When I shot him an annoyed glare, the god merely shrugged. “I don’t know any more than that.”
“Why the hell did you have to give this to me in person and all the way out here?” I said as I gestured around at our isolated setting. “I mean, you could have just sent this in a letter.”
Apollo’s face dropped, a rare moment of sadness coming from the god. “Well, two reasons. One of them was that I wanted to see you. And I also wanted to
make sure it got right to you. It’s important according to the Oracle.”
“And the Oracle knows all,” I said with a sigh.
“She does,” Apollo said affirmatively. “She may not reveal all, but she does know all. Don’t forget that.” The god pointed a well-manicured finger in my face, and I jerked out of the way.
“What was the other thing?” I asked, the annoyance over this whole encounter coming back to me in full force. “You said there were two reasons.”
“The other one was the enemies at your base,” Apollo said. He rubbed his hands together and then intertwined his fingers. “You have unintentional traitors living among you.”
“Unintentional traitors?” I scoffed. “What is that even supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means,” Apollo scoffed right back into my face. “Your friend Kari was one, wasn’t she?”
I blinked at the god, stunned by his words and his knowledge. If he knew about Kari, then how come he didn’t know about my relationship with Cameron? Just how much information were the gods being given up there on their mountaintop?
“That’s what I mean,” Apollo said with another finger point in my direction. Suddenly, he turned on his heel. “And again, I’ve said too much already. I hope all of that helps you, daughter. I really do.”
As much as I wanted to believe him, I had spent my whole life not trusting my father. I refused to rely on him for anything. Especially since the first day I had ever met him had been at my mother’s funeral when he told me I was a demigod and brought me to my first demigod summer camp. When I thought I was going to have a father figure in my life, he disappeared again. I realized quickly after that that I was on my own, with only my friends and myself to rely on.
But here he was, standing in front of me and the young girl who first noticed this brilliant, radiant man at my mom’s funeral, claiming to be my dad, hope bloomed in my chest then as it did now. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to ask him for help. To teach me about my powers and to guide me through this process. What daughter didn’t want that from her father?