Athena brought two goblets of wine over to the Goddesses.
“Oh, no thank you, I’m underage,” Portia offered.
Charmed by her refusal, the pale-eyed Goddess went instead to fetch the young Siren some ambrosia.
The almighty Zeus spoke then:
“How can we thank you for these blessed gifts? For now that our hearts are lifted and filled with the glory of music, surely there is nothing we can refuse you.”
While Zeus was speaking, Portia accepted the glass of ambrosia from Athena and was immediately seduced by the most delectable combination of flavors she had ever tasted. She felt a bit more at ease after the impromptu performance and drank greedily as Leucosia addressed Zeus.
“We are so pleased, Zeus, that you enjoyed our song. We hope it did please all of you. It is with a heavy heart that I must bring our conversation to the matter at hand. I fear that an evil I thought forever gone—my sisters, the very Parthenope and Ligeia—has reared its ugly head once again.”
Ares interjected:
“But long have your sisters been banished to the depths of Hades. How is it that now they have reappeared?”
At this, Athena chimed in:
“I’ve heard it said that Ligeia and Parthenope have not been always harshly judged in the underworld. They have not even yet been banished to Tartarus—that, Portia, is the deepest underlayer of Hades. The most evil spirits are banished there, never to be seen or heard from again.”
“Yeah, so then shouldn’t Leucosia’s sisters automatically have gone there?” Portia was having trouble following.
“Actually, Parthenope and Ligeia have dwelt these many years in a state of limbo, for some Gods do take pity on the Sirens who were cheated their very mother’s love. That is why their spirits are ever mobile.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Leucosia spit out. “They weren’t cheated out of anything. My sisters dug their own grave.”
Ares turned to Dionysus, “I like that…‘dug their own grave’…ever must I use these words soon.”
Then Zeus weighed in on the matter:
“I fear that the laws that guide the underworld are ever mysterious, even unto the most powerful of Gods.”
Portia tried to shed some light on the situation. “Well, does it help clear things up at all if I tell you that they’ve also been showing up in the mirror—at least I hope it’s them or else I’ve become a complete slu—”
Leucosia cleared her throat loudly.
“Oh, sorry, I mean their appearance in the, um, looking glass, was most unwholesome. And very real.”
I will never get used to speaking like this.
Portia was starting to tire. She wasn’t sure what time it was—really, she had no idea at all—but suddenly all the events of the last forty-eight hours were upon her.
“Umm—excuse me, great kings—”
“—Gods,” Leucosia corrected her, “not kings—only Zeus is a king.”
“Oh, sorry. Great Gods, can we cut to the chase? I know this might sound ridiculous to all of you, but I have a chemistry quiz tomorrow.”
They stared at her blankly.
“Um, so, I was wondering if I could try to sum up our situation,” she continued cautiously. “I, um, really do have to get back and study.”
“Do go on,” Zeus beckoned, inciting a fresh case of nerves in Portia’s stomach.
“Well, it seems like we are saying that because Leucosia’s crazy evil sisters were deprived of their mother’s love, whoever is running things in the underworld has taken pity on them? And that we’re not even exactly sure what that means or how far their powers can go?”
Zeus nodded. “Leucosia, you have not exaggerated your muse’s great intelligence. For even now do I see that she is quick to grasp the perils that face her.”
Portia blushed at the compliment.
Can’t get any higher praise than that…
Fueled by Zeus’s kind words, she continued: “But all of you can stop them, right? I mean, all of these mood swings I’m having and the ghosts in the mirror.” The urgency in her request could not be veiled by the fog of Mytikas. Her fear was palpable, even unto the Gods, who exchanged knowing looks with one another, a shared sense of pity in all of their faces.
“What? What am I missing? Oh, God—I mean Oh, Gosh—what am I missing here?”
Athena moved toward her, extending a reassuring hand to Portia’s cheek. “Portia,” her tone was even, her voice steady. “So much have you had to absorb these many days—more than anyone should have to process in so short a time. Let us not yet delve into the actual strategies that will finally obliterate the spirits of Parthenope and Ligeia. For there is much to consider—”
The way the assembled Gods were skirting the details of how exactly they were going to annihilate Parthenope and Ligeia caused a fresh wave of panic to course through Portia’s veins like a tidal wave.
“With all due respect,” she interrupted, her voice steadily rising in pitch, “This is insane! Athena, or Ms. Athena? I don’t even know what to call you. But please, I want to go home. I want to give my voice back. I want to go back to being Felix’s silent best friend. I want to know that one day I will age and die like everybody else. Please just take me back!” She knew she sounded hysterical but was past the point of caring.
“Look around you, Portia,” Athena said gently as she waved a milky graceful hand to indicate the gathering of great beings, “the spirits of the evil Sirens are no match for the united efforts of many Gods who even now stand ready to aid you in your battle against them.”
“But I don’t want to be in a battle!” She turned to Leucosia. “Leucosia, tell them, please. I just want to be normal. A normal kid, worrying about chemistry tests and pimples and colleges. I mean, my God—oops, sorry, I keep doing that—am I still even going to go to college?!”
Athena stepped in further, fielding the question with a wisdom that was uniquely hers.
“It would be odd indeed if you did not feel great anger, young Portia. For the life that you thought was yours is no longer. Now you must learn to accept your immortality and your powers—though these traits of the Gods are both a blessing and a curse. It will take much time for you to accept this new life, but one day, my sweet Portia, you will. You will not only accept who you are, but you will embrace it.”
The supreme calm in the Goddess’s voice slowly enveloped the young Siren. Portia started to come down from the hysteria as she allowed Athena’s words entry into her weary mind. She could feel her pulse slowing, her breath growing steadier as the Goddess of counsel continued to speak.
“There will be time for you to learn. But now we must figure out ways in which you can strengthen your own powers so that you will not fall prey to any forces of evil.”
Nodding her consent to Athena, Portia felt like she had been sedated. The Goddess of Wisdom’s voice was like an opiate for the nerves. Portia’s mind suddenly cleared, making room for whatever suggestions this bizarre gathering of entities had to offer.
“OK,” she surrendered, “tell me what needs to be done.”
♪
For many hours the Gods conferred, each one offering up a unique perspective on the situation. They compiled a laundry list of vocal feats that they wanted Portia to practice with her new voice—a divine homework curriculum. Ares added some exercises in psychological warfare while Morpheus offered some tricks of the trade to help Portia come out of a dream as soon as she felt it going awry.
Overwhelmed and exhausted, Portia assured them all that she would do her best to tackle the list, but first she needed some sleep. Athena had spread a purple velvet blanket over the grass.
“Lie down, my dear. You’ve certainly had enough for one night.”
Portia followed Athena’s advice and took refuge on the blanket. Her last thought before sleeping was that the blanket must surely have been cut from the same cloth as Dionysus’s robe.
I wonder where I can find a few yards of this fabric…
And within moments, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Soon after, Ares gently lifted the slumbering Portia onto the winged back of Leucosia.
“When the time comes, Leucosia, we will be ready to do battle with you,” said the great God of War.
“I thank you all,” responded the aged Siren, her wings beginning to flutter. “I must admit that what frightens me the most is not knowing when that time will be…”
With this final concern planted in the minds of the Gods, Leucosia flew into the timeless sky, a sleeping Portia nestled firmly between her giant wings.
Max could not stop thinking about her. He had tried calling a million times after the babysitting date went sour. Over and over he played out the night in his head, wondering what he had done to elicit such a bizarre response from Portia.
He looked down at his hand. The wound had begun to scab, forming tiny keloids on his flesh. It was 3:45 in the morning, and he considered calling or texting her once more but decided the better of it. She obviously needed some time to cool down from whatever it was that had spooked her.
He turned over, hoping beyond all hope to get in an hour or two of sleep before he had to get up for school. His mind was infested with thoughts of her. Her beauty, her smell, her voice. He couldn’t focus on anything else. He kept looking at his clock, knowing that every minute that passed meant one less minute of sleep.
On the other hand, every minute that passed also brought him closer to seeing her again.
Jesus Christ
,
man
—
get a hold of yourself! You’d think you never met a girl before
.
But despite his self-recrimination, he knew it was hopeless. There was something about this girl. She was like a rampant, incurable virus.
Forcing himself to focus on something mundane—the dreaded chemistry periodic table—he finally drifted off to sleep. But thoughts of her muscled their way right into the unguarded landscape of his dreams. There she was at a water’s edge, her silken hair glistening in the sunlight as she carelessly hummed a tune.
Max was flying above the waters in the clutches of an unfamiliar winged creature when suddenly, without warning, he was plunged into the wavy waters below. He began swimming to the shoreline. But with every stroke, the sea widened and the current grew stronger.
He could see her so clearly, her fiery blue eyes, the tiny freckle she had right above the left corner of her mouth. Why couldn’t he reach her?
The waves were furious, slapping him hard, pushing him under the foamy waters.
“Portia!” he managed to scream out.
Suddenly she looked up and spotted him. She was immediately up on her feet, walking closer to the water.
A profound relief came over him, knowing that Portia would surely save him. She raised her slender arms, perching herself to dive in, but instead she just shrugged her shoulders questioningly, her voice carrying strong.
“What would be the point, Max? I’d only kill you when you got here.”
And then she began to laugh. She laughed so hard that she cried. Silver tears streamed down her flawless cheeks as she watched Max struggle to find his breath above the water.
The sound of Portia Griffin’s laughter was the last thing he heard before he was completely submerged in the blackened waters of the sea.
♪
Max was gasping for air when his eyes flew open, and he was once again above water.
What the hell was that about?
It was 5:00 a.m.—time to accept that a solid hour or two of rest was not in the cards for him that night.
Throwing on some sweats and sneakers, he decided to go for a run. The duck pond was calling to him, a favored destination for all Ridgewood runners. When he got there, Max was relieved to find that it was still pretty empty, given the early hour. About to start his third lap around, he sensed someone fast on his heels.
“Hey,” Max offered a concise greeting. He was in his groove and didn’t want to lose his momentum.
“Hey,” the other runner responded. The blonde corkscrews of the stranger’s hair, on the longer side of masculine, bounced and bobbed in the sunlight. He was not at all breathless or sweaty, despite the effort he was exerting to keep up with Max’s fast pace. Everything about the guy seemed eerily perfect, save for an impressive scar on his left cheek.
Lengthening his stride, Max hoped to outrun the stranger. The last thing he felt like doing now was making conversation. As he stepped it up, though, the stranger kept up with him, effortlessly cruising into a faster gear.
“Sure beats a treadmill, huh?” His voice did not hold the faintest hint of a tremor, though he was pounding the pavement. Hard.
“Uh-huh.” Max picked up his pace even more, but the hint went unnoticed.
“I think they say three times around is a mile, right?”
“Actually, four.” Max delivered a curt and uninviting response as he tried kicking his pace up one more notch.
“So things with Portia didn’t go too well last night, huh?”
The running came to a screeching halt.
“Who the hell are you?” Max asked, his breath sporadic, sweat dripping off his forehead.
The stranger looked up at him. His eyes held a translucence, which Max found unnerving. His chin was angular, the muscles of his jaw flexing involuntarily with the words that he spoke.
“I’m just a guy who knows a few things.”
“Well, I’m just a guy out for a run. So why don’t you back the hell off, man?” He started running again.
“She’s going to destroy you, you know.”
Max stopped again and turned around. The men stood barely an inch apart.
“What are you talking about? Why don’t you mind your own bloody business?!”
The stranger smiled, Max’s hostility bouncing right off of him like a ricochet. “Listen to me, Max—”
“—How the hell do you know my name?” Max seethed.
“I told you. I know things. For example, I know that Portia gave you that wound on your hand.” He pointed to the bloody rainbows. “I know that thoughts of her are consuming you in epidemic proportions. I know that soon there will be nothing you will be able to refuse her. You will never be able to rid yourself of thoughts of her.”
The stranger bent over and tightened one of his shoelaces.
“I’ll give you this, though,” he continued, “you’re no accident. The powers that be chose well. You’ll show some resistance.”
The runner bent over and adjusted his other shoelace, savoring the pregnant pause in the conversation.
“But don’t you see, Max? That makes for an even better kill. You might think you’ve been sent here to play out some fairy-tale love story. You might think that your mother’s disappearance was just another sad chapter in the many inexplicable sad chapters of your life. But I think not. I think your story is far more intriguing. I think that you were sent here so that her first kill would be completely irresistible.”
Max was riveted by every word that came out of the ranting stranger’s mouth.
“But don’t you worry. Just when you can’t take it anymore, can’t stand not being with her for even a minute, can’t stand not hearing her speak to you for even a millisecond, just then will she choose to destroy you. You will welcome death at that point, because it will be your only true escape from Portia Griffin.”
All the while the stranger was speaking, he smiled offhandedly, as if he was talking to Max about the weather.
“Best of luck to you, Max Hunter.”
“Who the hell are you?”
Max demanded.
With a twinkle in his cellophane eyes, the man said, “I’m just a guy out for a run.”
With that, he sprinted ahead of Max and vanished into the distant abyss.