Book of Panacea

by Tineke Peeters

"You will be able to manipulate the dirt. Same as with your other power, you will need to concentrate and it will come naturally. There is not much training I can give you, i is more of instinct than a power.”

  I was confused and deflated. A power I could not practice and would come naturally? Not sure if I was going to rely on that, but I did not want to seem ungrateful, so I smiled at her and nodded.

  "Again, child, only once. Use it wisely. Try to rely on your own strengths and on your friends; I will be present, but can only do some limited manipulations. This is the last time we meet." Tears were gathering in her eyes and I followed suit.

  I got up to hug her. She hugged me back, and I felt a jolt going through my entire body.

  "Why can't you stay?" I sniffed.

  "This is my lingering spirit, not my real life source. My life source died with Earth, but I let my spirit linger to do what needs to be done: Find, teach and protect you." She was cupping my cheeks in her hands, as fresh tears ran down my cheeks, she wiped them away with her thumbs.

  "Don't cry, my spirit will live in you. I am connected to you and you to me, through a bond stronger than life." She put one hand on my heart. "You will always feel me, but we will not be able to talk to each other anymore. I am glad to have met you, and keep your soul beautiful and full of love! You will be powerful, never doubt that. Open your heart to love even though hurt comes along with it." The tears were blurring my view of her, I wiped them away. She was still looking at me with that smile; it made me happy, peaceful and sad at the same time.

  "You need to go now?" I asked.

  "Yes, I will preserve the last bit of my spirit to help you in case you need it."

  She was floating away again. I wanted to yell and shout for her to stay, but it would not be useful. She stopped mid-float.

  "The boy that is with you now, he is a keeper. Don't let him go." She winked at me and floated away further, while I sat there, mouth agape. Those were the same words as Hecate told me.

  With a jolt, I woke up. Tears were running down my cheeks, but Phatostai was rocking me and murmuring encouraging words. I tried to get up, but he wouldn't let me.

  "Let me up, you big oaf." He let go but stayed sitting behind me. I was in between his legs with my back against his front. Jaikes, that was close.

  "How do you feel?" He asked, with his hands on his knees on either side of me.

  "Surprisingly good." I nodded to myself more than to him.

  "Let's do this! I think Artemis' plan will work, but it needs a bit more detail put into it and we need to start training as well."

  Phatostai grabbed me in a bear hug. "Thank the gods you are all right. When you started crying, I thought my heart was going to break."

  "Okay, enough melodramatics. Let's leave those for Cyriel, shall we?" I tried to wiggle out of his hold.

  "Nope, I want to hold you!"

  "But I want to get up." I was pushing and pulling, but nothing worked. Deciding to play dirty, I twisted my arms backward and tickled his sides.

  "Nooo, hahaha, no, don't tickle. I will let go!" Grinning from ear to ear, I turned towards him when he let go of me. I tried to get up only to fall back down laughing.

  "Tha-tha, hihihi, that is so not fair! No, no not there!" I fell sideways over his left knee while he kept tickling me. He fell on top of me as we were both out of breath. Looking at each other, we lost one another in each other's' eyes. He leaned closer, and I closed my eyes. This was it! I was going to get my first kiss...

  "That is enough! Get up you two, we need to get going. Artemis is teaching Apple how to hunt, but she needs you Pana. The little monster is L-a-a-azy!" Hecate called to us.

  "Yeah, please stop it! I am trying not to go blind over here!" Cyriel added dramatically.

  We all got up. Phatostai held his hand out to help me up, I took it. He pulled me up with such ease I fell against his chest, as he whispered in my hair: "Maybe later?" When I looked into his eyes, I saw that he was disappointed with the interruption as well. I nodded, blushing as usual.

  ***

  32

  "What is the matter?" I asked. We all arrived where Artemis was holding a roasted chicken on an arrow above Apple's head.

  "His heads don't want to work together! The one head wants to chase the chicken, but the other wants to sleep and the third one keeps getting distracted by a butterfly." She threw up her hands and I could see that the left head was following the chicken's every move, while the others were trying to put their head on their paws.

  "It seems like you are having a dilemma." I crouched down in front of Apple and tried to make him focus all his heads on me; I tapped all his noses once.

  "Focus!" I commanded. All eyes were on me.

  "No ambrosia until you catch that chicken." I pointed towards the chicken. He looked at me with one pair of excited eyes, and two pairs of pleading eyes.

  "Nope, first the chicken then the ambrosia." I hoped I sounded firm enough.

  "Okay?" I stood up and pointed my finger at the heads. He stood on his paws and his tail was wagging, he loved attention, bad or good. Most of the time, he didn't understand which was which, attention was attention according to him. All the tongues lolling out and eyes paying attention, I slowly moved my finger, and the heads followed.

  I swung my finger from him to the chicken and yelled, "Catch." He looked at me and was jumping up and down in excitement, but not moving towards the chicken.

  "Maybe you should take a bite out of the chicken?" Phatostai suggested, he was leaning against a tree with his arms and ankles crossed.

  "Why don't you bite in it?" I asked.

  "Your dog and all, you barely let me touch him." He shrugged.

  "Just try it, Panacea," Artemis said. "It smells great." She was honestly smelling the roasted chicken. Shaking my head in disbelief, I walked closer to Artemis and the chicken. Apple was following behind me; his heads already reached my hips. Sniffing the chicken, I moaned, "Mmmmm, yummy!" I reached towards the chicken to rip off a piece and before I knew what happened, Apple tackled Artemis and got the chicken. I got my tiny piece of chicken still in my hand and blinked.

  Artemis was cursing, Hecate was laughing her head off, and Phatostai tried to hide his snickers behind his hand in a cough. Maria turned around, but not quick enough for me to miss her face. She was bright red from holding her laughter in, and was walking away rather quick for a Dryad. When she disappeared into the forest, I heard her howling with laughter.

  Behind me, I heard growling and yelling.

  "Give it back! You can't have the whole thing at once. You will get sick, you idiot." Artemis got a growl from the three heads.

  "Apple," I said sternly, "give mama the chicken." My voice was not nearly as steady as it should be, but with Artemis in sight, it was hard not to laugh. Her white robe had green stains, and her normally perfect hair was a mess with twigs and leaves in it.

  Apple looked up at me in question. "Give the chicken to mama," I held out my hand. With a huff and a sigh, he padded over to me and dropped the now slime covered chicken into my hands. I held the chicken in one hand and plucked pieces of chicken off with the other. "Sit," I commanded. For some unknown reason, he understood in one go.

  "Good boy!" I praised him and gave each head a piece of the chicken.

  I threw the chicken as far away as I could and yelled: "Catch!" Apple ran after the chicken.

  "Good, now you need to get him to come back," Hecate said. I yelled for Apple to come back. As I already suspected, he did not come back. Not everything happens from the first try in training; otherwise, it would be easy!

  "Phatostai, come along. Your flame is still in the fire, and it is your turn to train it." Reluctantly, Phatostai pushed away from the tree and followed Hecate, leaving me behind to chase my stubborn overgrown pup.

  Phatostai:

  Clapping her hands together as she does when introducing a new part of our training, Hecate looked towards the fire.

  "First things first, le
t's see how easy you can get the flame to get out of the relaxing lull of the fire." She looked intensely at the fire, and then expectantly to me.

  Unsure of what to do, I went closer to the fire and called to the flame: "Come, come, come! We have work to do! Come on, little one!" Looking at Hecate, I saw an amused expression on her face. I narrowed my eyes and tried again.

  "Where is my pretty little flame?" I put on my baby voice, nuts? Yup, but everything was worth a try. "Come out, come out wherever you are." Nothing, no interest whatsoever. The only one showing interest was a snorting Hecate and a coughing Maria, both trying to hide their laughter. I put my hands on my hips and looked at the both of them.

  "Any suggestions?" Maria was almost choking on her laugh-hiding cough and shook her head; I looked at Hecate and she was giving me a smug smile. Narrowing my eyes at her, I crossed my arms over my chest.

  "You knew this was not going to work from the start, didn't you?" I asked. She nodded: "But it was worth a try and fun to watch." She smirked.

  "So what is your idea, Oh great teacher?" I bowed and smirked myself, sure of the fact that she had no idea either. I was shocked when she answered.

  "A spell is the only way to get the flame out of the fire. The spell is the same as the start of the fire in a way, only reversed. I will teach you both spells, but after that, it will be pure willpower to get the flame to do your command. It seems to have a personality of its own, so conversing with it, like you just did, might actually be a good idea."

  And so she started on teaching me a ridiculously simple spell; some hand gestures and an incantation was all it took.

  To get the fire to do my command for a short period of time, I had to say a few words:

  Tame thy old and will thy new,

  Fire control for a few.

  No idea what thy means, but ready to try it anyway, I chanted it three times, per Hecate's instructions.

  Sure enough, the flame appeared out of the fire in front of me. It looked confused, but now I had to make it do things. Turning to Hecate, I asked her what I should do now.

  "The first thing to learn is to give the flame an order and see how it reacts. Then condition the flame to do the order, by using a certain tone in your voice and repeating the words the exact same way. Try to make the commands short." I nodded and thought for a minute.

  "Come," I commanded in a stern voice.

  A few minutes later, the flame listened for 50% of the time. I was getting tired and Hecate went off somewhere. Suddenly the flame got distracted, and as soon as I saw Charlie and Lottie playing in a nearby tree, I knew.

  I yelled at them to get away, but it was too late. The flame was dancing, and seemed to shake his ass at them. Not much was clear, but still, it looked like that. I face slapped myself and tried the command, as expected, nothing worked.

  I yelled for Hecate, she came instantly and was surprised.

  "Why did you yell for me? Nothing is on fire."

  I pointed towards the fairies, she nodded and chanted.

  "I am going to teach you the incantation for the return of the flame to the fire, ‘cause I am getting sick of this." Nodding, I thought another incantation. Hopefully, I could remember them all. Sighing I learned my next witch lesson; I never thought I would be in need of witchcraft or rather spells to train my powers.

  Seeing the defeated and probably disappointed look on my face, she said: "This is only temporary; soon you will be able to get the flame in and out of the fire without doing the incantations involved. But until then, you better get used to using them. Not only could it get dangerous for the fairies, but for everyone involved as Panacea needs your powers untrained." I frowned. How does that help her? I wondered. Seeing the question on my face, she answered without me asking.

  "Panacea is bound to the training island until you are fully trained. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that you not finish your training fully. However, you will need control to help us trap Hades." I nodded.

  ***

  33

  I arrived at the temple followed by a complaining Artemis.

  "I swear he weighs a ton!" She dumped Apple on the ground next to the log, as Phatostai raised an eyebrow at me.

  "He tried to eat the whole chicken and fell asleep on top of it," I answered.

  "He is still out for the count it seems." I shrug my shoulders, and look down at a still sleeping Apple.

  "Mo ate the most of the chicken," Artemis said while sitting down with a sigh.

  "Mo?" Phatostai asked. I shook my head and mouthed no, but it was too late.

  "Mini, Myni, and Mo." Artemis explained while pointing towards the heads from left to right. At this point, I put my head in my hands. Phatostai rubbed my back and whispered: "She honestly named the heads?" I just nodded while keeping my head in my hands. Artemis kept on rattling about the 'heads,' as if they were each a different creature.

  "Mo even growled at me when I finally found them..."

  "It is Apple! And he is a he, not them!" I was close to tearing my hair out. "Artemis, please stop it." I pleaded with her, stretching my hands outwards.

  Artemis pouted but nodded. She mumbled: "He still has three heads with each a different personality."

  I nod and say: "but we still love all of him, right?" Reluctantly, she nodded.

  There was a loud burp and I knew what was coming next, and quickly got up to sit on the other side of Phatostai. He looked at me quizzically, until he smelled the reason for my moving.

  "Gross! His farts are faint-worthy! Gods, the smell!" He pinched his nose with one hand while waving his other. "Thankfully flame is in the fire. Otherwise that would have been some gigantic fire the two of them could create."

  Everyone laughed at that.

  "How did your training go?" Seeing his face going from laughter to sour, I guessed it did not go well. Then he pointed towards the fairies and I saw them glaring at the fire as if they could kill the flame with a glare. I looked towards him and he shrugged, but I could see that he was somber about the poor progress he had apparently made.

  Changing the subject, I asked, "What's for dinner?"

  "Roasted chicken." I heard Hecate say from behind us with an evil smirk.

  "Nooooo!" I scream dramatically. Cyriel nearly fell off Maria's shoulder.

  "Would you stop with the screaming already!" He says ruffling his feathers.

  "Don't worry, it is not roasted chicken," Phatostai reassures me. I smile at him and his own smile widens.

  "What is it?" I clap my hands excitedly.

  "It is Moussaka!" I squeal with delight, it is my favorite Greek dish, with all kinds of layers; vegetables, meat, and then mashed potatoes. Most of the gods don't like it but, it is actually more for the younger ones. I only get it on special occasions, as I briefly wondered how Phatostai knew about this dish. But seeing Maria's wink, I knew the answer.

  Phatostai looked very pleased with himself until he saw the dish Maria had been hiding behind her. He and the two goddesses were not impressed by the look of the dish; I guess it was not known among the 'regular' gods.

  Maria put the dish on one of the flat tree trunks and Hecate produced the spoons and bowls, she did not look convinced that it was going to taste good.

  I scooped up a bowl for everyone, even Artemis, who tried her best to decline.

  Without looking at the others, I started eating. I could hear a 'mmm' and such coming from the others and guessed they liked it.

  Once we finished, Hecate came closer to the fire. With everyone around the fire, she explained the plan.

  Hades would arrive on the meadow near the cornucopia. Hecate would make a charm for everyone so they can see everything, in case Hades tried to put his helmet on. Under no circumstances do they want Hades to leave, if he tries to leave with Panacea, he will know she can't be moved until the training is completed and he will still invoke his threat.

  The plan would involve distraction by Phatostai and his flame; he would still need to practice
that, including his shield. We would then send in Apple as a surprise attack, and Artemis would shoot off an arrow. Her arrows always reach their target and kill (unless they are a god, which will only incapacitate him for a little while).

  Hecate would teach us a binding spell, so that with the power of three; (apparently necessary) Artemis, Maria and I would bind him. Just to be sure, we will include Charlie and Lottie. He would expect Hecate to bind him, but she will try to distract as well. Not sure what that will involve, and she doesn't even seem sure herself.

  It was brilliant if it was going to work out the way she says. That is still a question which will only be answered by the time this whole thing concludes.

  There was still a lot to do, and we had only one more day to train.

  One day in which Phatostai had to practice directing his flame and quickly pulling up a shield.

  One day in which Artemis, Maria, the fairies, and I had to learn a spell by heart.

  And one day in which Apple will need to learn to attack Hades. I had a plan for that, and hoped Cyriel was willing to help. Hecate and Phatostai thought it was brilliant, as the flame would benefit from this learning curve as well.

  -----

  The next morning, I came outside to see that Phatostai was already awake and preparing breakfast. Yummy! It looked good and so did he, as he looked up at me and smiled brightly.

  "Good morning." He said. While coming closer.

  "Good morning." I answer shyly, looking at my feet. He grabbed my hand and led me to the fire where his flame was still 'sleeping'. Before letting me sit down on our usual spot, he surprised me by tugging me to him and hugging me. I was so surprised, I didn't hug him back immediately. After a second, I hugged him back.

  "You smell good," he said, making me blush.

  He released me and took me by the hand again, and led me to 'our' spot. Then he went and took one of the bowls and a spoon, brought it and handed it over with a bow. "Your breakfast, my lady!" he said, making me giggle. Then he went to grab his own bowl and sat next to me. He scooted as close as he could, making me blush again. I shoved the fruit in my mouth, just to make sure I didn't blurb out something stupid as I normally would. I looked at him to smile in gratitude, only to notice how close his face was. Leaning closer to him, I closed my eyes and could feel his breath on my face.