Heaven Sent (8 page)

“C
orsets! Corsets? Can you believe he actually said, ‘You will wear corsets’? What the heck has come over him? I wouldn’t wear a corset if someone paid me all the gold gumdrops and purple dandelions in the world. Doesn’t he know how utterly uncomfortable those things are?” Era and Polly and I were, once again, in the Beautorium. I’d just finished telling them about my conversation with Apollo in the garden.

I didn’t tell them how I had almost, almost called off our plan. I didn’t tell them that for a brief moment, I’d thought of nothing else but Apollo’s perfect rosy pout.

“Calm down. You’re not actually going to marry him,” Polly reminded me. “You don’t have to face a future in corsets just yet.”

“Shhh, here come our ladies. They don’t need to know of our plans,” said Era.

Polly, Era, and I had gathered in the West Wing of the Beautorium, the room specially reserved for gown fittings. In a few days, I thought, everyone would know of our deceit. The thought did make me feel slightly fearful and worried on account of Apollo’s feelings. And there was sure to be an aftermath of some kind. But I’d dealt with my father’s anger before. I’d been punished for tying Hermes’s golden shoelaces together. (I was nine, he took a tiny spill, and I had to wear donkey ears for three weeks.) I’d been reprimanded for conspiring with my cousin Dionysus
*
to make Hera think she was losing her mind. Now, that was worth it. Daddy spared me that time, and Dion, well, Hera made him go mad for real. All I had to do was scrub walls for three days and three nights in Poseidon’s castle, deep under the sea. It was kinda cool, actually. The freaky sea fishes, not the nasty barnacle busting.

Then there was the time Apollo and I took Pegasus to earth. All the punishment in the world would have been worth that day. We stayed out all night, too. Whoa, was Daddy mad. Hera, I think, was secretly thrilled. Daddy said I couldn’t see Apollo for five whole months. I was devastated. But then time flew by. Literally, time flew on by my window and the five months were over, just like that! Apollo is a very pow
erful god. He tossed a spell on Father Time to fly 379 times faster than he usually does. My dad missed the whole thing because he and Hera were off vacationing in Troy.

Those were the days. When Apollo and I were happy and normal and he showed me he cared by teasing me and taking me on adventures. And maybe as we got older, we flirted. A little. But it was a harmless flirtation, not an overly dramatic romance.

All my thoughts of Apollo were interrupted by our ladies-in-waiting, who were carrying in these huge poofy dresses. And to think these things were just for the engagement party. Polly must have sensed my fear, for she whispered in my ear, “Just this once, for the party.”

Era was actually looking enviously at the enormous ball of foof that I was currently attempting to fit into. “It’s so lovely. This is the very best part of weddings, don’t you think?” she gushed. Polly shot Era a look that all but said, “Can it!”

“Well, I think you’ll be needing a corset, Miss Thalia; this dress is just a wee bit tight,” said Lenora, my personal lady-in-waiting. Oh, wasn’t that rich! Not even married yet, and Apollo had gotten me in corsets just like he wanted.

I wanted to whine, to scream, to wail, “Noooooooo!” But Polly gave me that look, the one she had flashed Era moments ago, the one that said, “Can
it!” Only when she glanced my way, her face was far softer and deeply more understanding.

It didn’t matter, anyway; I couldn’t say no to Lenora. She had known me since I was born. Lenora had dressed my mother before me. Sure, she never smiled, and her skin was brittle and cracked, and she wasn’t too huggable, but she loved me.

By this time Lenora had me stitched and sewn up so tight, I could barely breathe. Or talk.

“Pol, water, pwease.”

“Lenora, can you ease up a bit? She can’t even speak right,” said Polly.

“Right, milady.” But she really didn’t loosen those strings all that much. I still could feel my morning brekkie of ambrosia creeping up my throat.

“Well, I think you look divine,” gushed Era.

“And so do we,” said three familiar voices behind me. I couldn’t turn myself, so Lenora spun me around on the giant lazy Susan I was standing on, revealing my three least-favorite girls in all of the universe: Tizzie, Alek, and Meg, aka the Furies.

“What do you three want?” asked my sister, her voice dripping with dislike.

“We came to call a truce on the eve of your wedding, Thalia,” said Alek, the one I think I hated the most. She had tortured me when we were children, called me names that were inconceivable, embarrassed me in front of all the heavens—she had even made me
eat dirt once. Even when it’s fancied up with marshmallows, dirt doesn’t taste good, in case you were wondering.

“Please accept our apologies for all that kid stuff. We’re adults now; we should act as such,” said Tizzie, her hair a brilliant shade of orange.

Thing was, I wasn’t an adult. This marriage stuff didn’t change that. And these girls, these girls were definitely not adults. Why, just last week my sister Clio was outside with her beau and she thought she spotted Meg behind a tree. She went and looked behind the tree, but there was no Meg. Only a giant vat of fish heads, which promptly fell on her head. It was a pointless, silly, and mean little trick, the kind only a child plays.

Adult shmadult.

“Pretty scarf,” said Era to Alek. Era takes people at their word. So if Alek said she came in peace, Era believed it. She obviously thought she would make nice with a compliment. Me, I’m not convinced so easily.

“Thank you,” said Alek. “It was a gift from
Jason.”
"
*

I told you they were up to no good. The Furies knew darn well that Jason was Era’s crush of the month. That was a little jab thrown directly at my sister’s heart. They couldn’t even control themselves for five minutes.

“Oh, well, it’s beautiful,” said Era, her lip a-quivering.

“We come with a prewedding gift for you, Thalia,” said Tizzie.

“Would it be a tiara of poisonous snakes or maybe a bracelet made of sharp shards of glass?” I asked.

“Thalia!” scolded Lenora. “You apologize at once. They come in peace.”

Oh, great, they’ve got Lenora hoodwinked.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m oh, so terribly, ridiculously, apologetically, resolutely sorry, girls,” I said.

“Enough,” said Lenora through gritted teeth.

“Look, we come bearing gifts,” said Meg. “An ancient perfume oil from the nether reaches of the deep blue sea. It smells of purple and yellow sea lilies.”

The perfume she held out to me was in this gorgeous bottle all adorned in glitter and gold. That was one of the cruddiest things about the Furies—they always had the best stuff.

“Take the gift, Thalia, and thank your visitors,”
said Lenora.

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, thank you so very much. I will treasure this gift always….”

The Furies, in unison, said, “You are most welcome,” and then turned on their heels and left.

“Don’t touch it!” said Polly as soon as they were gone. “It’s got to be a trick.”

“Oh, you girls are far too suspicious,” said Lenora. “Those young girls are harmless. They came in peace. Let’s have a whiff of that old stuff.”

“I’m dying to smell it!” said Era, her eyes as wide as they could be.

“I don’t know. I don’t trust them. Not one bit. Still, that bottle is exquisite looking,” said Polly.

“I just want to smell it,” said Era. “I’m sure it’s harmless.”

“No!” screamed Polly and I in unison.

But Era opened the bottle and nothing came out. No demons, no snakes, no spiders.

I put my nose to the bottle and took a sniff. Oh. I was taken aback—this was truly the most gorgeous smell I had ever smelled, a smell so fabulously smelly, all I could do was yell at Polly, “Smell!” and with that, I thrust the bottle out to her.

Polly smelled, and nothing bad happened to her, either. We swooned at the ripeness and plumpness of the perfume. It was, without a doubt, heavenly.

“Okay, maybe they weren’t up to anything,” said Polly, still smiling from the sweet intensity of the perfume.

“See,” said Lenora.

I dabbed a touch on my wrist and another drop or two behind my ears.

I actually felt a little bad about taking a wedding gift knowing full well I didn’t intend on getting married at all. Then I got another whiff of the ancient sea lilies, and I didn’t feel that bad at all. Not at all.

I should have listened to the little voice inside me that told me nothing involving the Furies could possibly come to good. But I ignored that voice. I ignored a lot of things I should have paid more attention to….

Oh, Thalia, you make this much too easy for us,

To fool you and your sisters wasn’t much fuss.

We put a minor spell on old Lenora, you see,

Then she backed us up like a faithful chimpanzee.

That perfume you think smells so divine

Is filled with a mutant form of ol’ strychnine.

Like we said before, Scyllia will befall

the first person Thalia touches at her very fine ball.

All thanks to the ancient sea lily perfume,

Tomorrow she’ll have a forever green groom!

One that slobbers and oozes and drips, don’t you know,

With an ugly third eye where there should be a nose!

And who will the finger of blame be pointed at?

Our own little Thalia—a tit for a tat!

B
ack in our little house in Georgia, Polly tiptoed into my room. All quiet, like a castle mouse hiding from a guard. But I wasn’t sleeping. I was wondering if Tim really liked that evil Backroom Betty and how life on earth wasn’t all adventure and escapades; it was a whole lotta headache.

“I’m awake,” I said in a whisper.

“Oh, good. I wanted to talk. Can I get in bed with you?”

“Well, it’s not that I don’t want you to, but have you noticed where I sleep, Polly? This tub isn’t exactly big enough for the both of us.”

“But I need some sisterly bonding,” she said in her sweetest, most sugary voice.

“Okay, okay, get in.”

She climbed into my tub, her feet to my head and my head to her feet, and got under the comforter I had stolen from Era’s bed. My little sister is hot-blooded; she didn’t really need much in the way of blankets, anyway.

“I just wanted to thank you for your support with this whole Tim thing. I know I pooh-poohed you at first and told you not to bother, but…”

“You did more than tell me not to bother—you threatened me. But that’s cool.”

“Yeah, that; I’m sorry. I really, truly appreciate what you’ve done, helping out. I really think I, well, perhaps I do like him. Can you believe it? He asked
me to write this song with him. I’ve put a lot of time into it, and I think it’s going to be really quite good. We’re going to perform it at open-mike night at the Grit. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Yeah, Polly, that’s great.”

But I wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that Tim was gonna turn out to be a low-down, dirty perpetrator in need of a swift kick in the…Whoa. I was getting carried away. Polly really liked him, and they were spending some quality time together. She knew him better than I. Yes, I thought, she did know him better, and there was easily, surely, positively a reasonable explanation for what I had seen the other night. Flirting shmirting—Tim was probably just a seriously social guy. The kind of person who gets along with anyone and everyone. He was just being friendly.

“So, last night, late, I wrote a poem. A sort of, well, maybe like a love poem.”

I didn’t say anything. The word
speechless
came to mind.

“Thalia, what is it? Do you think I’m insane? I don’t know, he tells me all sorts of things, like how beautiful he thinks my voice is and how smart I am, and, well, I just love the way I feel when I am with him—it’s wildly new and…”

“You are all those things and more, and you don’t need to hear them from other people to feel good
about yourself, Polly.”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I just, well, I like to hear them from him.”

“That’s great—no, that’s really good. It’s a great feeling, right? You feel good, no?”

“I feel great. I can’t believe I am going to say this out loud, but this was the best punishment in the whole wide universe. I love earth, and I’m so glad we’re here, together.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I thought of my greater need for selflessness and I thought of Daddy telling me I needed to shape up and I thought of Apollo’s sad eyes and I thought of Polly’s radiant smile and even though I thought of Tim’s flirtatiousness with that horrible girl from science, I said, “So why don’t you give him the love poem?”

“Oh no! I wrote it for me, not him, not really. I mean, I have these feelings, I mean, I get all tingly and I would love to share that with him, these new feelings and thoughts and, well, no, I couldn’t.”

“Why not? He obviously adores you. And why shouldn’t he? You’re truly the most stunning and fascinating girl at school. A veritable goddess!” I said, and I meant it. Well, I meant the part about her being stunning and fascinating and a real-life goddess.

“Nooo,” she said slyly, coyly, quietly. But I could see her mind was at work. I couldn’t help but egg her on. She giggled those rippling little happy giggles that
come uncontrollably from the throat and then leaned over and gave me the tightest hug. She was so happy.

“You have to give it to him. How can you hide your feelings? How can you play such high school games? Just trust in your judgment. I do,” I said.

“Maybe, yes, maybe,” she said with the sweetest smile yet.

Then she lay back and closed her eyes.

She was going to sleep in my tub?!

This setup was fine for sister bonding, but c’mon, it was hard, cold, and not all that big.

“Yo, Pol, you really going to sleep in here?”

“I was thinking about it. Yeah,” she said, her eyes still closed, her mouth still frozen in midsmile.

“Um, okay. Good night,” I replied sullenly.

I must be more selfless, I must be more selfless, I must be more selfless,
I chanted mentally till the ache in my back faded away into deep and restful slumber.