Antigoddess

by Kendare Blake

  “At night I imagine feathers cutting through my insides,” she said softly. “I see them, making their way to the surface, tearing me up before they tear me open. When they come through it’s slow. They twist up and rise, like plants from soil.” She laughed a humorless laugh. “I’m going to die, Odysseus. And when I do I’m going to look like a monster. I suppose you think that’s fitting.”

  He stepped closer and took her by the elbows. Heat flowed into her from him in a powerful, strange wave. This is what it feels like to want someone.

  “Look at me,” he said, and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “You’re not going to die. If there’s a way to survive, you’ll find it. You always do.”

  “I thought the same thing about you not a day ago. But it might not be true anymore. So many things are different now.” Like us, standing here. With your hands on me. Like the feelings for you that I shouldn’t feel.

  “You’re right. Things are different.”

  “We’re still goddess and hero.”

  “What if we’re not? Just that.” He smiled at her, his eyes soft.

  “That’s what we are, always.” Her heart sped with curious hope. The urge to fall was utterly new and made her dizzy. He could catch her and hold her up. She knew he could.

  If this is how Aphrodite feels every day, it’s no wonder she’s such an idiot.

  “Always,” he said, and let go of her arms.

  * * *

  Cassandra’s head itched from the odd sensation of having one too many brains inside it, brushing against each other. Everything she remembered ordered and reordered, stacked and shuffled. It felt like her mind had grown longer and larger, that it stretched out behind her several thousand years.

  The cloud of her breath puffed like steam from a train. The cold mist that had been falling for the last hour was slowly turning to sleet. It left icy trails in her hair. The only parts of her that felt warm were her neck and throat, which throbbed and ached underneath Athena’s handprint bruises. She swallowed.

  It hurts worse than strep. Worse than when I had it for a week in third grade.

  Third grade. In third grade, she’d already been thousands of years old. She just hadn’t remembered.

  “Athena,” she croaked. Blaming her was easy. It was her handprints wrapped around her neck. She was the one who had asked her if she wanted to know, without giving warning about what that might mean. And she was the one who’d lured her brother Hector to his death.

  Hector.

  Hector.

  Henry.

  The knowledge forced its way through her ears, and she stopped short; the sounds of her shoes slapping the slushy sidewalk cut off sharply. Hector, Troy’s hero, was her brother, Henry. She could see him on the city wall, smiling as he pointed down into the market. She could see him throwing Lux’s Frisbee.

  And Andie too. With long hair, twisted through with hand-dyed ribbon. She’d taught Cassandra to use a bow. Her name had been—

  “Andromache.” Hector’s wife. Henry’s wife. Gross.

  “Cassandra.” Aidan. Apollo. She remembered him too.

  “Are you—?” he asked.

  “Don’t ask if I’m all right. And don’t tell me you’re sorry.” Even if you are.

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t do that. It’s stupid. I just—never knew what to do. How do you make up for driving someone out of their mind?”

  “Do I look the same as I did before? Didn’t it ever bother you?”

  “You look more like her now,” he said. “And it did bother me. It bothered me every day.”

  “Could’ve fooled me. Did fool me.”

  The wet sweatshirt on his shoulders looked like it weighed a million pounds. Of course it wouldn’t, to a god. It wouldn’t even be uncomfortable. They didn’t feel the cold, or the heat. They didn’t feel. Cassandra looked up into the gray sky, let the sleet hit her cheeks and melt onto her lips. It didn’t taste of tears, just of cold, and she swallowed it down. The bruises made her wince but she didn’t care. The cold water felt good. It eased the nausea of having an extra lifetime crowd in behind her eyes.

  “I’ve always loved you. I looked for you for so long. After what I did. After you died.”

  “Was killed,” she corrected. “I didn’t just die. I was killed. They took me hostage and put an axe in me when I hit the Greek shore. Like a sacrifice.” The memory made her shiver. It was real, but far away, and so strange to remember her own death. “You cursed me. It was your fault Troy fell. More than the Greeks’. Even more than your stupid sister’s. You gave me prophecy and then made people think I was crazy.” She glared at him. He didn’t even look the same. Images of Apollo and Aidan danced over each other. The boy she loved and the god she hated. “And now you lied. You lied when you said you had no more secrets. You knew who I was the whole time! And never said anything. It’s sick.” Her throat tore every time she raised her voice, but she didn’t care. Her head felt like it might explode.

  He grabbed her shoulders. “Please. What was I supposed to say?”

  “It might’ve been hard in the beginning, but not now. After I knew what you were, then you could’ve told me the truth.” She hated him. Hated him for being what he was, for standing in front of her wearing the face she loved.

  But I do love him. I love him even when I hate him. Even back then when he could do that to me. That’s the worst part. Worse than dying. Worse even than our walls crumbling.

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  “You don’t know anything. And I don’t want to be with you anymore.” She thought she wanted to see his face when she said it, that she wanted to see pain, but it only made her own hurt worse.

  He turned away and put his hand on his head. For a second she thought he’d turn and leave.

  “I can’t—leave you alone yet. I’m sorry. But Athena and Hermes are still here.”

  That’s right. I need you. I need a god, to keep other gods from ruining our lives again. But even then a sliver inside her was glad. He’d been so much a part of her. For so many thousand years. Cutting him out so fast felt like it would tear half her chest away.

  “We aren’t going to run from them anymore, are we?” she asked.

  “I don’t think we’d make it if we tried.”

  “So what do we do then? How do we keep my family safe? How do we keep them away from Andie and Henry?”

  Aidan glanced up and she nodded. Yes. I know them too.

  “Let me talk to Athena,” he said. “Find out exactly what she’s after. They want to make an ally of you. But I don’t know why, or against what.”

  “We won’t have much time to choose sides,” she said, and suddenly knew it was true.

  Aidan reached out hesitantly and touched her cheek. His hand was so warm and her heart thumped like it always had. She let it linger there for a moment, then brushed it away.

  “Don’t. It’s not like that anymore.”

  “I love you,” he said. “I made a mistake, a long time ago. It was a god’s mistake, so it was big. But I’m sorry. I’ve been sorry for thousands of years.”

  He was sorry. But what did he know about time or consequences? How long could you hold a grudge when someone broke your life like an unwanted toy? Was a thousand years enough? Two?

  “So you’ll talk to them?” she asked. “And come back?”

  “As soon as I can.”

  She reached out and pulled his wet hood over his head.

  “You’re still you,” he said softly. “And I’m still me.”

  “I know,” she said. We are, and we aren’t. Her fingers trailed down the front of his sweatshirt. “Be careful.”

  He nodded. “I’m going to swing by my house first and tear up that note I left. I’ll call you soon.”

  16

  YOU CAN RUN

  Leaves had already found their way back into the yard, blown in from the neighbors’ or fallen down from the last clinging bunches high up in the maple branche
s. It was only a scattering. Their dad wouldn’t make them rake again, but he’d be in the yard on his own next weekend, clearing out the last of them.

  As Cassandra walked up the driveway, she tried to be unsurprised that the house was still her house. That she still remembered growing up in it, sliding down the banister and almost breaking her leg, and decorating sugar cookie reindeer with her mom, candy sprinkles spread out across the tabletop. It still felt like it was hers.

  It’s mine, like Troy is mine. And I’m me, and I’m not me.

  She walked through the door and the heat inside immediately made her nose run. By the time she got a tissue from the bathroom across from the den, her fingers tingled and the sting of thaw bit the tops of her ears. Across the hall, machine-gun fire issued from the TV. The backs of Andie and Henry’s heads sat above the brown suede of the couch while they watched a movie.

  I saw you die. I was there on the wall when you fought Achilles.

  The memory was completely clear. He’d fought so well, so bold and fast, that for an instant she’d thought her vision could be wrong and Hector would win. She’d hoped so, right until the moment he stumbled. Right until the moment Achilles’ spear thrust into his chest. Andromache had screamed then, and Cassandra had wanted to cover her eyes. No one should have to remember the sight of their husband trying frantically to get a spear out of his chest while someone else drove it farther in.

  She shivered hard, and wet, brittle clothes rattled on her body. Andie turned on the couch and her mouth dropped open.

  “Kill the TV.”

  “What? What for?”

  “Just do it.” Andie spun off the couch. “My god, Cassandra, what happened? Henry, call the police and your parents.” She pulled an afghan off of the hope chest and pulled Cassandra’s jacket off of her shoulders before wrapping her in it.

  “Cassandra? Jesus, what happened?” Henry lifted her chin. The bruises, black as an inner tube, circled all around her throat. The fact that they were finger marks was unmistakable.

  “Don’t call the police,” Cassandra whispered. “And don’t call Mom and Dad.”

  “What do you mean, ‘don’t call’? Look at you! What the hell happened?”

  “I got in a fight.”

  “That’s not a fight, Cassandra; that’s someone trying to kill you. You have to report it. Do you know who it was?”

  Someone did kill me. And someone brought me back.

  “Where’s Aidan?” Andie asked. Concern and fear etched her features in equal parts.

  Can they know, somehow? Can they sense it?

  But no. They were just afraid and thinking the worst.

  Cassandra closed her eyes.

  “Could you please just make me some tea? With honey?”

  “You should take some Tylenol or something too,” said Henry, and went to get it from the bathroom.

  Cassandra followed Andie to the kitchen and pulled out a chair to sit. She listened to drawers and cabinets open and shut. The kitchen smelled like melted cheese and butter from the casserole they’d had for lunch.

  “Where are Mom and Dad?”

  “Grocery store and errands in town,” Henry replied. He ducked under Andie’s arm on his way to the sink to fill the teapot and Andie turned the wrong way and got honey on his shirt. It was ridiculous just how effectively they could get in each other’s way, how one innocent arm movement from Andie could manage to entangle her in Henry practically up to the shoulder.

  It’s how they always were. The prince and the Amazon fell in love while wrestling and never really stopped.

  At least until the gods had run their lives into the dirt and killed them. And now here they were: Henry her brother again, and Andie her friend. It felt unfair. They’d paid for it once already. It should have been enough for a hundred happy lives.

  But that’s not how it works. Fate has its way. Fair or unfair doesn’t matter. Hector told me that once.

  “Here. It’s pomegranate antioxidant something or other.” Andie set down a steaming mug of purplish tea. It smelled of bitter citrus and dark bits of leaves swirled near the bottom. The heat of the ceramic mug sank into Cassandra’s sluggish fingers.

  Henry stared as she sipped. Andie briefly looked into the teapot like she might pour herself a cup, but then set it back on the stove to cool. Neither one of them seemed to know what to do. They waited quietly, watching but not really watching, in that way people have when they know you have something unpleasant to tell them.

  I don’t have to tell them at all. Whatever happens next, I could leave them here. Leave them out of it.

  Only she didn’t think she could. There were things at work, threads being pulled that wound around and around them. It was almost visible, thin as gossamer, draped over their heads when the light hit just right.

  “What would you say if I told you we aren’t who we think we are?”

  “What?” Henry asked. “Cassie, what happened to your neck? Who did that?”

  Cassandra swallowed her tea and felt honey coat the bruises.

  “Athena did that,” she said. “A goddess did that.”

  “Like Aidan.” Andie pulled out the chair beside her and sat. “A god, like Aidan. Which one?”

  “His sister.” Cassandra nodded. “You’d know that, though, if you were really you.” She winced. It was almost exactly what Athena had said.

  “His sister? The one from the jungle?”

  “No. It was Athena. And Hermes was there too.”

  Andie looked at Henry; Cassandra waited until he’d sat down in the chair opposite and had Lux’s head on his knee.

  “I’m not just Cassandra Weaver. You’re not just Andie Legendre. That’s why I’ve been seeing the things I have. They’ve been looking for us. Me mostly, but she’ll use you too.”

  Andie tried not to look skeptical and failed. But Cassandra was patient.

  “Listen. Your name used to be Andromache. His used to be Hector. Past lives, get it?” She stopped abruptly when her voice got too loud. Talking loud still felt like coughing up a crumpled ball of aluminum foil. They didn’t believe her, and why should they? The only way to make it real would be to strangle them and bring them back from the dead. And she wasn’t about to try that.

  But Athena will. I have to get them away from here. Away from her.

  “Andromache,” said Andie softly, trying it out in her mouth. “And Hector. From Troy.” She paused. “Wait. I totally saw that movie. And this guy is no Eric Bana.” She shoved Henry in the shoulder.

  “This isn’t a joke. Look at my neck. They did this to wake me up. So I’d remember being the other Cassandra. So they could use me for something. They’ll do the same thing to you.”

  They stared at the blackening fingerprints around her windpipe. “You remember being … the other Cassandra?” Henry asked.

  She nodded. “And I remember you. When you were Hector. It’s true. I’m not crazy.”

  “What—what are they going to use you for?” Andie asked.

  “I don’t know. Aidan’s trying to find out.” She didn’t tell them what he’d done to her back in Troy. There was so much to tell.

  And it doesn’t matter. Not in the middle of everything else. Not even when it feels like my heart’s stopped beating.

  She took another sip of tea. It had cooled, or maybe her throat had gotten warmer. The purplish liquid swirled in the bottom of the mug; leaves and bits of flower floated and swayed in suspended patterns, like drifting seaweed. Cassandra watched as the pattern became less random, as the leaves strung together into shapes. An open, screaming mouth and long, drenched hair. She blinked and tried to unsee it, but couldn’t. It was like seeing the hidden shape in a Magic Eye puzzle, or catching the shape of Elvis in a grilled cheese sandwich. Once you saw it, it was all you could see.

  “Is it cold?” Andie asked. “Do you want me to nuke it? Or make you more?”

  Cassandra glanced up. When she looked into the mug again, the face was gone, blown apart.


  “No, I—”

  Water coated her eyes. Bubbles churned against her cheeks and her own hair found its way into her mouth and choked her. Someone was holding her under. Her lungs felt ready to bleed.

  It’s not me. It’s someone else.

  She took a deep breath and her lungs filled with air. She was safe, in the kitchen, her back firmly planted against the wood of the chair.

  It’s just a vision. No different than any other.

  But this was monstrous, seen through a blurry surface, like a windshield sheeted with rain. The air smelled of moss and wet rocks, of freezing saltwater. The only light seemed to be light reflected off of water; it danced over every surface and made her dizzy. They were in some kind of cave. Or a cove, in the cliffs.

  She felt Andie and Henry’s hands on her arm and shoulder. They asked questions, but she didn’t understand them. Their voices were muffled and echoed. They might have been shouting through a cement wall.

  In the center of the cave a hole of dark, greenish water rippled. Then the surface exploded and a girl was tossed out with a wave, thrown onto the stones. The sound of her slapping against the rock hurt Cassandra’s bones. The arms that threw her were just visible inside the retreating water: slimy and scaled and cut through with stiff seaweed. Wet rot blackened the tips of the fingers.

  The girl hacking and vomiting water on the stones wore jeans and a sweater, clothes that didn’t belong to her. They were cheap and the sweater was too large. She pulled in deep breaths and kept her eyes on the rock. She seemed afraid, but not panicked. Water ran out of her thick mass of red hair as she tossed it back over her shoulder.

  A foot clad in a slingback heel stepped before her and the vision opened up. Two women stood in the back of the cave, both dry and hideously beautiful. The one nearest had dark blond hair, cropped short. The second lingered behind and swayed on bare feet. Long yellow hair hung down her back. Dirt streaked across her fragile blue dress. She was young, and unbelievably beautiful, except for the bruises that marked her arms and legs.