by Melody Rose
I was allergic to apples, and all of my friends knew this. As a collective group, we’d had an aversion to the fruit ever since it was the source of the love potion that Eris infected campus with. The Olympic Officials thought Violet was the one who did it, and while we later proved her innocent, none of us really ever got over our dislike of the fruit.
So, in honor of that hatred, I decided the apple was going to be the guinea pig.
I took the round fruit in my gloved hand and chucked it as hard as I could into the barrier. Benji flinched instinctively, using his arms to protect his head from any outward explosion or damage that might happen.
But nothing did. The apple sailed right through. Since I wasn’t a Major League pitcher, it just landing in the unfrozen water rather than all the way on the beach, but the apple merely bobbed. It appeared to be unharmed, without a scratch or scorch mark on it.
“Looks good to me,” I reasoned as I took a step forward. However, before I could even lift my foot, there was a hand on my shoulder.
“We don’t know if the magic is different for humans,” Darren said boldly. “And if it is, we can’t risk losing you. You’re the only one who can make the Ultimate Weapon and end the war.”
“Darren--” I protested, but he shook his head, not letting me continue.
“You know I’m right,” he assured me.
“Yeah, but we can’t lose you either,” Benji jumped in. He stepped between Darren and me, pushing us apart as though he was parting a curtain to make a grand entrance. “Darren’s the healer, and Violet’s the only one who can drive the ship. We all know I’m the expendable one here.”
The three of us collectively began to protest, but Benji ignored us all and leaped forward through the shield.
There was a splash as he landed in the knee-deep water that still moved with the rhythm of the moon. His eyes were closed, and he scrunched his shoulders up to his ears. But otherwise, the son of Demeter appeared to be whole and healthy.
“You okay there, Benji?” I asked, wanting him to answer before he took a single step forward.
The Gi soldier roamed his hands up and down his body as if he were checking that everything was in place. Then he removed his gloves and wiggled his fingers.
“Everything seems to be in order,” Benji announced. He waded forward, stripping off his layers as he walked. “Oh gods, this place is paradise!”
Darren, Violet, and I all looked at one another before I held out my hands to both of them. They took them and silently agreed that we would jump in together. On the count of three, my two friends and I jumped through the pink barrier. There was a brief brush of wind, as though someone pushed a lock of hair behind my ear. It was that gentle. But other than that, there was no extra effect from the shield.
Though it was hot as hell in there. The sun beat down with a heavy hand and sweat formed on every inch of my body. I could see that Benji had already reached the shoreline and had completely stripped down to his uniform minus his shoes and socks. His gear and extra layers sat in a lopsided pile on the beach.
Soon the rest of our stuff resided there as well. We kept our weapons on us as we readjusted ourselves for the sudden change in our environment.
There was a dense jungle a couple of yards inland. I figured we would have to venture in there and search for Calypso’s camp. I wanted to be as prepared as possible. This goddess was known for her stubbornness, and if she had somehow managed to capture Hephaestus against his will, then it was going to be one hell of a negotiation in order to get him back in the mortal world and off the protected island.
As the Fates would have it, however, we didn’t even have to travel very far to find the goddess. The goddess found us first.
I felt her before I saw her. It was the same sensation of smallness and the immense power that I experienced every time I met with a god or goddess. It felt like an iron grip on my stomach as it reminded me just how powerless I was as a mortal.
She appeared within a sand tornado. It whipped up in front of us with a violent gust that rivaled the icy wind from before. We turned our heads out of the way and shielded our eyes from the flying grains of sand. Eventually, the sand congealed together in the form of a tall, thin woman. It looked like a statue made of sand before the grains fell away, revealing the immortal beneath.
Her beautiful, smooth, brown skin glowed in the sunlight. And there was a lot of skin to see because the goddess didn’t have a single article of clothing on. She was as naked as the day she was born, standing strong with pushed back shoulders and a lifted chin. Black dreadlocks cascaded down her back, and some locks hung down the front, just below her navel. Every muscle shone with a toned perfection, popping out against her skin.
While her body was bare, her face was completely done up in an elegant makeup, with white dots over her eyebrows and a single teardrop at the corner of her right eye. Her lips were plump and bright red, making my eye go right to them. Green blazed from beneath her eyelids when she finally opened them, acknowledging us with a threatening stare.
“Who dares to enter my island without my permission?” Calypso asked. The words rolled off her tongue like a stream over rocks. However, the threat masked beneath her sweetness was unmistakable.
I chanced a glance at my fellow soldiers. When I saw their quivering lips and uneasy stares, I remembered that none of them had seen an immortal quite like this. Sure, they all met Phae, and Violet got a look at Eros and Harmonia, but I had the distinct impression that none of the immortals were like this one.
I took charge and stepped forward. “I’m Cheyenne Paulos, daughter of Hephaestus, and I would like to speak to my father.”
Calypso’s expression didn’t change at my request. There was no surprise, anger, or disgust. She continued to look at me as if she would swallow me whole if I took another step in her direction.
“There is no Hephaestus here,” Calypso answered with a sneer. “You have wasted your time. Begone from here.” The goddess flicked her hand as though we were nothing more than annoying flies.
“No,” I said defiantly. “I know he’s here, and I refuse to leave until I speak with him.”
“And how do you know he is here, mortal?” Calypso questioned, cocking her head to the side like a dog who sniffed something delicious.
“The Moirai told me,” I said, refusing to tell her that the Fates implied he was here. But she didn’t need to know that one little detail.
“You lie,” she accused, jutting her chin out at me. “Not even the Moirai know of the god’s location. He had been missing for years.”
“Because you’ve trapped him on your island,” I lashed back at her. This time I took a bold step forward, not caring if she fought back.
I had come so far that I wasn’t going to leave without meeting my father. A need deep within my very soul welled up to the surface. It was a childhood need. One belonging to a little girl who never experienced a proper Father’s Day, or who had to imagine other people walking her down the aisle at her wedding. My father was somewhere on this island. I could feel it pulsing through my very veins, the half of my DNA that belonged to him singing to me like metal did when it called out.
The goddess stared me down for a moment more and then barked out a laugh. She put her hand on her belly and leaned back as though I had regaled her with a witty pun at the dinner table. I squinted, trying to figure out this sudden change in demeanor, but I couldn’t quite understand it. From the looks on my companions’ faces, I could tell that they didn’t know either.
“Trapped? He’s not trapped, dear mortal,” Calypso said finally after she came down off her rousing round of laughter. “I don’t have the ability to trap another god. Mortals, yes, but gods? No. As much as I wished for that kind of power, I don’t have it.”
A small amount of my hope broke off and became doubt. Had I gotten it wrong? Had we interpreted the poem from the Fates incorrectly? What if we traveled all this way, leaving the Academy in peril for nothing?
> I couldn’t let that hope dim. I refused to let it rot away into doubt and sadness. The Fates led us here, and they were never wrong. They were the only beings that could control the universe, mortals and immortals alike.
“You will take me to him,” I demanded, finding courage I didn’t know I had. I had bargained with gods, conversed with them, even fought with them, but never had I ever demanded something of them.
Calypso rubbed her hands together, and then she picked at a single fingernail that looked more like a talon. “Why do you want to speak with him? Why are you looking for him? Do you simply want to meet your father, or is there some other reason?”
“I need his help to save the demigods,” I said plainly, not wanting to give more away than that.
The goddess shook her head and clicked her tongue at me. “It’s a pity that you have come all this way to no avail. I will give you one free pass to get off my island unharmed. I suggest you take it and start making your way back. It looks like you have a long journey ahead of you.” She ended her statement with a smirk and a nod towards the stuck ship out in the distance on the other side of the shield.
Then, the goddess turned on her heel and sauntered away down the beach.
Defiance and anger surged through my veins. I clenched my fists at my sides and fought the urge to run up and punch the woman. Instead, I thought of something better to do with my hands.
I crouched down and dove them into the sand.
When I did so, the goddess ahead of me froze and shivered as though someone had just stuck an ice cube down her shirt. Well, if she wore a shirt. I kept my hands buried deep and closed my eyes, concentrating.
“Uh, Shy,” Violet whispered from behind me. “What are you doing?”
“Yes, girl, what are you doing?” Calypso bellowed, not moving from her spot down the beach.
I didn’t answer either of them, and instead, I focused my energy. I pushed my senses outward, out into the sand, and tried to find any sort of metal. I felt like some sort of magical metal detector as my powers spread throughout the island, examining every inch of it for metal. If my father was somewhere on this island, he would be near metal. It would go against his very nature to be without it. If he had been here this whole time, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had his own workshop by now.
I sensed the metal on my friends, each of their weapons singing to me as I stretched my radius further out. I passed right by the goddess, who didn’t have a thing of metal on her. But I expanded my reach into the depths of the jungle, searching for the largest gathering of metal that I could find.
I got a hit just a mile into the jungle from where we were standing. It zipped along my mind’s eye, showing me the route to where I could access the hoard of metal. It was as clear as the golden string in the labyrinth.
My eyes popped open when I had a clear sense of the path. “Come on!” I called to my friends as I broke into a run, slapping aside some large leaves as I dashed into the jungle.
I heard their footsteps as they chased after me blindly. There was a distance scream from the beach as we left, and I figured that had to be the goddess herself. I didn’t think we could outrun her, especially since this was her home turf, but I had to believe that we could make it far enough for me to get close…
Next thing I knew, I was falling face-first on the ground. It was a spectacular trip as gravity did its job. Before I knew what was happening, vines from the nearby trees wrapped around my body. It pinned me to the ground like the little people from Gulliver’s Travels. Three more thunks joined my own, and all of us demigods found ourselves trapped against the forest floor.
Calypso stepped up to me, and I had to stretch my neck to see her. Suddenly, she flicked a long, boney finger, and the vines lifted me up in the air. They wrapped snugly from my neck to my ankles, giving me absolutely no room to move.
“You despicable mortal,” Calypso spat in my face as the sentient vines lifted cause us to be eye to eye. “You’re a fool for not accepting my offer. I gave you a chance to escape, and now, you will be at my mercy forever.”
The one thing I did have was my voice. The goddess forgot to silence me, so I used the one tool I had left at my disposal.
“HEPHAESTUS!” I cried, raising my voice to the loudest it could be “FATHER!”
I only managed to get those two words out before a vine slapped over my lips. It thickened and pushed its way into my mouth, like a gag. Spit slipped down the corners of my mouth as the vine threatened to choke me.
“How dare you?” Calypso said through gritted teeth as she pushed her face into my personal space. “Have you no respect for the gods?”
“Calypso?” came a new voice.
At the sound of it, the goddess’s whole demeanor changed. Her body shifted from a snarling animal to a poised woman with a glowing complexion. She spun on her heel and addressed the new person.
Just beyond her, I could see who had spoken. It was a chunky gentleman, with a healthy amount of fat on him, though some semblance of muscles poked through. He wore no shirt, only bathing shorts with Crocs. Tufts of bright red hair crawled up his thick arms and cascaded onto his bare chest. He may have been bald, but he had a beard braided into three strands and was the color of fire.
My hair color.
The last thing I noticed was his eyes. They were the same crystal blue that I saw in the mirror every day, even the same almond shape.
When our eyes connected, the man must have noticed the resemblance too because he gasped. He put a hand up to his lips, and I noticed, even from this distance, that his hand shook. He stepped closer to me, right next to Calypso, who stayed silent. Even an immortal can realize when the jig is up.
The man reached out with his meaty hand and lowered the vine from my lips so I could finally speak. I expected him to say something, but when he didn’t, I decided that it was up to me to make the introductions.
“Hi, Hephaestus. I’m Cheyenne, your daughter.”
27
Soon, we gathered around a fire, eating food from our packs. Calypso did offer us a scrumptious-looking meal that definitely had Violet itching for some taste tests. However, we demigods were gun-shy about accepting any food offered to us by the gods. While this wasn’t the Underworld, and there were no pomegranates in sight, we all politely refused and bit into our rations.
On the other hand, Calypso and Hephaestus devoured every part of the goddess’s feast. Hephaestus chomped on the back leg of a pig in the most disgusting fashion.
The sun had set while Calypso released us, and we got to explain to Hephaestus what we were doing there. When I laid out the whole story for him, he didn’t say a single word. However, his eyes did get wider and wider as I spoke. Not only did I introduce myself, but I also introduced my friends and told him why we were there.
“We need you to come back with us,” I asked, getting straight to the point. “We need to end this and make the Ultimate Weapon before the whole campus, maybe the whole world, dissolves into chaos.”
Hephaestus blinked once, twice at me, a confused expression on his face as if I had spoken a completely foreign language.
“Did you hear me?” I checked, not really wanting to repeat myself again.
“I did,” he said, his baritone voice coming out part words, part grunt. “But I think I have some explaining to do before we gallivant off.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Then let’s hear it.” I put my hands on my hips expectantly, wanting him to start spilling.
“Not here,” the god said as he held out his hand and shook his head. “Let’s chat over dinner, yes?”
“Dinner?” I balked. “We don’t have time for dinner.”
Hephaestus raised a thick, red eyebrow at me. “This is the first time we’ve met, and you don’t want to spend some time talking with me?”
“We can talk, sure,” I said, my words coming out in a rush due to my expectedly high nerves. “On the boat. On the way back to campus.”
“Cheyen
ne,” Violet said as she put a tentative hand in my own. She squeezed it gently, though I registered the warning. Then she addressed Hephaestus. “We would be happy to share a meal, as long as Calypso is willing.”
“Yeah, she seemed pretty eager to get us out of here just a minute ago,” Benji said, continuing to hold a grudge.
Calypso smiled sweetly. “I’m not fond of intruders. And I was trying to respect your father’s privacy like he asked me to do.”
“Like he asked you to do?” I repeated, disbelief in my voice. What did that even mean?
“We’ll talk over dinner,” Hephaestus said as he took my free hand in both of his. He patted the top of it awkwardly, as though he had never been affectionate with another person. “And then we can get to know each other.”
Unexpectedly, Hephaestus turned away from me and looked at the goddess at his side. “I’ll be at my workshop until then.”
“Of course, dear,” she said as she reached out and planted a kiss on his cheek.
It took all of my willpower not to gag at the sight of unprecedented affection. I averted my eyes as Hephaestus disappeared into the trees once more. For a second, I was afraid that the goddess was going to turn into the evil guard dog version of herself that she had been before Hephaestus showed up. But luckily, Calypso continued to be her sweet, demure version.
“I’m sorry about before,” she said with a one-shoulder shrug. “I am very protective of my possessions. Come, let’s gather by the fire, shall we?”
When the goddess turned her back, I mouthed the word “Possessions?” to the rest of my friends. All of them responded with skeptical glances and a couple of confused shrugs. Violet held my hand the whole time we followed Calypso. Part of me thought it was for comfort, and the other part was sure it was so I didn’t do anything rash or stupid like run away or attack the goddess.
I thought that when Hephaestus came back that my sense of unease would go away, but when he finally joined us that evening, it only worsened. Seeing him sitting across from me was the most surreal experience.