Book of Panacea

by Tineke Peeters

  "Peppermint, sure, but the other items... No idea." Maria shrugged. I knew she would know what was available and what not on the island.

  "Well, I guess it is better than nothing but it is not strong enough." I sighed, pondering on another solution when Phatostai scraped his throat. I looked up and saw him looking at his feet, with his left foot drawing circles in the ground, and his arms were behind his him. That was strange, he seemed to be hesitating.

  "Out with it! You are making me nervous!" I got up and put my hands on my hips. He looked at me and his eyes widened when he saw me. I started forward, and he held his hands up.

  "There is a Cornucopia on the island and it will provide everything you need, as it has produced everything for us; as in food and other things." I needed two seconds to register his words. When it did, my mouth fell open. He cringed and took a step backward. Speech came back to me and it was not going to be good! Out of the corner of my eye, I saw everyone else backing up to get away.

  "Hold on there. So you are saying you have hidden the fact that the 'Horn of Plenty' is on this very island? That you have made use of it and you did not think to mention this earlier?" I was walking towards him, with my voice steady. When I reached him, I lifted my fist to punch him in the face. He held his arms out in front of him and I flew back.

  Awed, I asked, "How did you do that?" He took his arms off his head and looked at me.

  "Do what?" He looked at me with narrowed eyes, probably making sure I wasn't furious anymore.

  Apple decided this was the moment to remind us he was in pain; he started whining quite loudly.

  "Poor Apple, I will go to get the medication to help you, alright baby?"

  "Why did you name him Apple? It is such a girly name! You should have taken my option, Monster. It fits better. Cyriel agreed as well." He was laughing while saying it.

  "Watch it, you are insulting my baby and I am still angry with you!" He wisely shut up after that. "Now show me the way to the Cornucopia!"

  I picked up Apple and followed Phatostai. Apple snuggled his heads on both my shoulders and fell asleep. "Now you sleep, you little mongrel, I hope you will sleep tonight as well!" I mumbled.

  We arrived at the Cornucopia, barely a ten-minute walk! I wondered how I had missed this. Thinking back on the last couple of days, I realized that Phatostai had directed me into another direction every time I went this way. I decided to let it go for now, but there would be repercussions later.

  "So, how does it work exactly?" Apple was getting heavy, so I placed him in the soft high grass surrounding the Cornucopia. As legend has it, it is the 'Horn of Plenty' and gives you all you desire, but I had no idea if that were true or not.

  "You get close to the 'Horn' and imagine in your mind what you desire. It does not always give what you want, but always what you need."

  Puzzled I asked, "what did you want?" Phatostai blushed.

  "I wanted to give you flowers as red as your hair." I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded.

  "And what did you get?" I wondered out loud. If he was going to turn any redder, he was going to be the color of my hair!

  "I got a plate filled with cheese and figs if you remember." I rubbed my hands together and laughed.

  "I remember! And if I would have had to choose, I would have chosen the cheese. I wondered how you got cheese but was too hungry to care."

  Then with a flourish, he bowed and waved his arm in the direction of the horn. "My Lady, the Horn is yours."

  "Why, thank you, good sir." I picked up my dress and strode towards the Horn. I imagined the process of adding chamomile and peppermint into a small vial of cloves oil. When I finished the total process, I held both my hands, palms up, out. I opened one eye and peeked at my hands, then opened both my eyes wide and gasped! The vial was exactly as I imagined it, except it was floating in the air. I looked at Phatostai and when he made a grabbing motion, I copied it.

  "This is unbelievable!" Just to be sure, I opened the bottle and smelled the contents. Indeed peppermint, chamomile, and cloves oil.

  "Shall I carry Apple back?" Phatostai offered; I nodded. My mind was still in turmoil about everything happening at once: meeting Gaea, finding the origin of Apple’s pain, and now, the magic of the Cornucopia.

  Gazing at the vial, I did not look where I was walking. As a result, I walked right into Phatostai when he suddenly stopped.

  "Ouch, why did you stop? We are not there yet, are we?" I asked rubbing my poor nose.

  When he did not answer or move, I looked around. I only reached his shoulders, so I had to move around him to see what he was staring at.

  ***

  13

  The island of Hephaestus:

  "Hephaestus, my friend, how are you these years?" I clapped him on the back, frightening the god. I teleported with my invisibility helmet to his island. Taking it off, I greeted Hephaestus properly.

  "Hades? How did you get your helmet back?" He shook my hand.

  I frowned, "Why do you ask? I never lost it!"

  "Huh, my mistake, I thought I overheard something the other year. Must be some gossip from Aphrodite." Shrugging it off, he clapped his hands and two cups with a wine jug appeared on the table. "What do I owe this pleasure to?" Tapping our glasses together, I admitted part of the reason.

  "I got bored at Zeus' and was about to rip Hera's hair out, so I decided to go for a visit. She mentioned you had a son and I never even knew! I brought a delayed gift, but please keep it away from Aphrodite, because she loves her sparkles and you will never see it again." Out of my trousers' pocket, I took a large ruby.

  "A ruby red as your fire!"

  "Bloody Hell, Hades, that is some gift!"

  "It bloody well should be, it is one of the last ones of Hell that I took with me."

  "My son will be thrilled to receive this gift. I will keep it safe with me." He grabbed a brown leather bag from underneath his shirt, opened it and put the gem inside. All the time he was looking around to make sure no one saw.

  "So where is this son of yours?" I would get the whole story out of the god.

  I decided getting drunk with him on his island was the way to go, and even if Aphrodite happened upon them, she would never touch her husband and she hated me; so, we were good.

  ***

  14

  Lottie was bored, so she decided to go wander around the island a bit. She peeped out from her resting place- this was deep inside Maria's hair.

  First, she had to make sure that Charlie was still asleep, then she had to move carefully out of Maria's hair. Whenever Maria felt like changing her hairdo, Charlie and I had to fight our way out. But, thank the fairy godmother, today was not a day for a change in appearance. Slowly, Lottie maneuvered around the branches and leaves without touching them. She was outside. Now, the only challenge left was to fly away without making Maria notice. She had been practicing the dimming of her light, as she scrunched up her nose and concentrated very hard. After a while, she opened her eyes and to her delight, her light was dimmed to a minimum. She looked back once and flew off.

  Flying around, she marveled at the sights: The trees were healthy and green. A few creatures looked up at her before continuing their activities; some were creatures she managed to identify, some she had never seen before. A few birds like Cyriel were building nests. A squirrel was looking for food in the trees- she had seen a picture of squirrels and birds, and so many other creatures in the book Panacea found near the forest a few years ago. But they had not even seen a quarter of all the creatures that were mentioned in the book. She was amazed at all the wonderful colors of some flowers, with what she thought were bees and butterflies flying around them. The bees had wings like hers, but the butterflies had wings in all different colors, some up to four.

  Lottie was so immersed in the sights that she was not looking ahead, and so did not see the flowers right in front of her. These flowers were taller than the ones she was flying over and she flew right into one. That stung. Sh
e rubbed over her face and then wanted to fly off again, only to realize she could not move her wings. Some sticky substance came off of the flower which made her wings heavy and pulled her down. She gave one beat of her wings, but ended up being stuck to a boulder instead of the flower. Her wings were heavy, and she was out of breath. With the sun shining bright, she decided she was going to lie down for a bit. Her breath came out in huffs and puffs. Her wings were so sticky that once she was lying down, she could not move. She realized how stupid it was to go alone into an unknown part of the island.

  When she tried to get up for the hundredth time, she gave up. Sighing, she relaxed into the boulder carefully so as not to crush her wings; they were sore already from all the pulling. Tears gathered in her eyes and she gave up holding them back; the situation was hopeless, and she started to cry in earnest. Falling asleep out of sheer exhaustion, she never saw what was coming her way.

  A loud bang and the shaking of the boulder woke her up with a start. She tried to see what had made such a strange noise. The only thing she could see from her lying position was a white tip of some kind of rock. Her eyes widened as the tip seemed to grow higher and higher, and all of a sudden there was hair, attached to the underside of the triangular rock. Next came two gigantic eyes. She let out a scream which got answered by a high pitched squeal; it was so loud that Lottie had to cover her ears with her hands. The creature in front of her grew bigger and bigger until all she could see was white; white everywhere she looked. It was shiny and seemed to have the rock attached to its head. Its head was a very strange shape, a bit like the snout of Apple, Panacea's three-headed puppy. The creature then looked down at her with sad blue eyes.

  "Why are you sad?" As usual, Lottie just blurted out what came into her head, without thinking.

  "I think I am lost, why are you sad?" The creature was actually talking to her, which she now realized was strange. The only creature to ever talk to her was Cyriel. And he had never been much of a conversationalist.

  "I am stuck. My wings got something sticky on them from a weird flower that I flew into, and then before I knew it, I got stuck to this rock. How come you have a pointed rock coming out of your head?" Again filters from brains to mouth were completely gone, neither of them seemed too interested in small talk.

  "It is a horn!" The creature seemed very proud of it.

  "Can I touch it?" Hesitating, the creature moved the horn closer to Lottie. When Lottie reached out to touch it, a spark came out of the horn.

  "I am so sorry! I don't know why it keeps doing that. It is not supposed to hurt anyone as far as I know! Are you ok?"

  Lottie was rubbing her eyes, as she was seeing black spots from the sudden burst of light.

  "I am fine!" Fluttering closer to the creature, they both widened their eyes at each other. "I am more than fine! I am free! You freed me with your sparkly horn!! Lottie was so excited she wanted to hug the creature, only to realize she was hugging what seemed like ears.

  "Do you have a name?" Shaking its head, Lottie decided to give it a name.

  "Are you a girl or a boy?" She asked quite directly while tapping her finger on her pouting lips, which is something she does whenever she was thinking hard about something.

  "I am a boy, thank you very much." He was offended and started to shake his head.

  "Hah! I am going to call you Sparky!" He thought about it and then nodded.

  "Okay, Sparky, do you want to meet the others that came here with me to this island?"

  Sparkly nodded eagerly and started at a fast pace, only to fall over his feet and tumble to the ground.

  Lottie tried not to laugh, but gently went to his ear and whispered: "It is not that far, so we do not have to hurry! Slow and easy, okay?" Embarrassed, he nodded again for the third time. He did not seem to want to speak anymore, so they made their way back to the temple slowly in silence. Lottie started pondering on how she was going to explain this. Hopefully, Panacea was going to be good with having another creature joining their group.

  ***

  15

  When I saw why Phatostai had stopped, my mouth dropped open in awe. Right in front of the temple stood a magnificent white horse. There was a soft purple glow about him; his mane was bright purple and he had a spike or something coming out of his forehead. When he saw us, he bowed on his right knee and promptly fell on his side. Phatostai and I looked at each other in bewilderment. What on the islands was happening? We moved closer, to see the horse struggling to get up. When he got back up on his four legs, we saw that Lottie was holding on to the spike, sitting between his two ears.

  "Lottie?" My question just stopped there as I did not understand what was happening. I stood quietly trying not to startle the horse.

  "Oh, hi Panacea. This is Sparky, Sparky this is goddess Panacea." She was beaming like a crazy fairy. Well, Lottie was always crazy, but now she looked absolutely bonkers.

  Phatostai handed over Apple, making me stumble to hold on to him and his three heads. He did a formal bow towards the horse, one hand behind his back and hand outstretched, one leg bent and the other straight.

  "How nice to make your acquaintance noble horse." I saw Lottie whisper into the horse's right ear, the horse neighed and bobbed its head.

  "Sparky says it is also nice to meet you," Lottie spoke from her perch on top the horses' head. "This is the god Phatostai." Why she was making the introductions was beyond me, but I tried to do a curtsey which turned into a sideways bend, with me almost dropping Apple.

  "How nice to meet you. How do you do?" I was going for formal as well, following Phatostai's lead.

  "He says he does not know how he is. He is confused as to why he is here, and how he got here. I met him in a meadow where he kind of rescued me." Lottie was blushing bright red. If I knew her even a little from the last couple of days, she had been up to no good. But I was not going there, that was Charlie and Maria's job.

  Of course, my mouth got away with me without thinking: "How come you are talking for him? Can he not speak for himself?" With this question, I got a sharp elbow push to my side. "What?" I mouthed to Phatostai. "Show some respect", he whispered back. "You show some respect towards me or I will punch you!" I tried to whisper, but I guess it was louder than I thought, as I heard Maria scraping her throat behind me.

  She went past us and approached the animal. With a soothing voice, she asked, "And who are ya, ya wonderful creature?" She gently stroked the horses' mane after which he put his head into her hand.

  "He does not know Maria. I called him Sparky, and he agreed. His horn sparks when he uses it. But he is still young and does not know why he is here, how he got here and if there is someone here, that can help him." Maria looked surprised to see Lottie.

  "And how did ya meet this young one?" Her leafy eyebrows were rising so high that they disappeared in her hairdo. Lottie forgot all about sneaking out of her room and leaving, without telling anyone.

  "I, uhm,.." Then she burst out complaining: "I wanted to visit the rest of the island and no one would let me. I left my room and flew in a direction that we had not been too yet. I saw wonderful creatures that I would never have met, and then I got stuck on a boulder by flying into a flower, and Sparky rescued me." She crossed her arm, pouted, and put her chin out. In other words, she was defying a giant dryad whom for lack of another word was her home.

  Maria just nodded, "and how is it that he doesn't speak, but you are talking our heads off in his name?"

  "Somehow, I can understand him, and he can understand me! It's amazing!" Again she was beaming and with it, her light went brighter almost blinding us.

  Apple took that moment to moan and waking up.

  "Well, you are welcome to stay here, but I have to take care of this little one here first. Maybe Phatostai can keep you company."

  Phatostai's eyes were drilling holes in my back when I entered the temple. This was the second time I was leaving him alone with a stranger, I was sure he would survive. But still, I shouldn't
leave him alone for long.

  "Hey my Apple baby, let's try to rub those gums shall we?" When I put some oil on my finger and rubbed his gums, he sighed in relief. By the time I was done, it was me sighing in relief. My finger was sore and the thought of having to do six gums twice a day was not something I looked forward to. After giving him some Ambrosia he fell asleep, and I decided to see what was happening outside.

  "Anything happened while I was gone?" Phatostai turned towards me, with his hands on his hips.

  "No nothing happened, but please stop leaving me alone with creatures I don't know. You are the goddess with the affinity for creatures, not me!"

  "Are you scared?" I taunted him.

  "N-no. I j-just don't like being around b-beings I don't know." He looked down and frowned.

  "Are you okay?" I had the strangest urge to comfort him. With his returning stutter, I was wondering what caused it. This was the second time.

  With a frustrated sigh and the frown still present, he looked up and nodded. I nodded back, understanding he did not want to discuss this further and let him be. We both turned towards the unicorn who was watching us with rapid attention.

  Neighing, the unicorn moved closer to me. I gritted my teeth with the effort to not step back. It took all my courage not to move, and to use Phatostai as a human shield. Only the gods knew what this creature was capable of, so I was not taking any chances by making any sudden moves. The unicorn came closer and then tripped over a stone, sliding straight towards me. It all happened in a split second, but in that second I realized that the unicorn's horn was going to stake me if I did nothing. Before I could make a move, Phatostai stood in front of me with his shield intact. This made the horn scratch on the surface and slid to the side, straight into a tree. I cringed, that had got to hurt. And just like that, Phatostai fell down to his knees.

  "Blood! I see blood, I am going to be sick." Cyriel dramatically swayed on the tree branch right above the unicorn's horn, which was now lodged in the tree bark. Maria swayed a little just like Cyriel, but I knew that was because of the tree, not the unicorn. Lottie was crying, the unicorn was neighing in pain and Phatostai was grunting trying to get up. This all happened at the same time and I could not take it anymore!