I looked around. That was an understatement. It looked like a train had hit my room.
And from somewhere amid the chaos, I could hear the muffled ring of my phone. I knew it was Gavin, calling to check on me, so I scrambled around trying to find it. My mom pulled it out from under my broken lamp and handed it to me.
"I’m going to get ready for work," she said. "Have a great day. I’ll call you later."
I nodded as I answered my phone.
"Are you alright?" Gavin asked, not bothering to even say hello. I smiled at his obvious concern.
"Yes, I’m fine. My room is trashed though. How about you?"
"I’m fine. My room’s fine. You know ..." his voice turned suggestive and I could practically see him waggling his dark eyebrows. "If you need someplace to sleep, my bed’s available."
I laughed. "Right. Your mom would love that."
"Minor hurdle," he replied with a grin.
I knew he was grinning. I could hear it. I absolutely loved his smile. It was the sexiest thing on earth. Thoughts of how we had spent so many afternoons in Cleopatra’s palace in Alexandria invaded my thoughts and distracted me. I could still practically feel the taste of his lips and the feel of his rock-hard muscles beneath my fingers. This wasn’t helping. I forced my thoughts away from the pleasurable ones with a sigh.
"Speaking of moms, mine doesn’t want me to go to school today, so you don’t need to come pick me up. I’ve got to stay here and clean up this mess."
As I spoke I looked around and groaned. What a disaster. My fingers itched to pick it up right now. The clean freak in me was about to emerge with a vengeance.
"Hmm. Staying home, huh? Need some help?" Gavin’s husky voice was hopeful and oh-so-sexy and I felt myself waver. Then I thought the better of it.
"I’m thinking that if you came over, I wouldn’t get anything done."
"Well, you would, but it wouldn’t help your room," he conceded. "But I miss you. I need to see you today. Want to grab some dinner tonight?"
"Absolutely," I replied. "Just not that Italian place."
"Agreed," he replied. "No arguments there. I’ll come by after school. I love you."
"I love you too."
"By the way ... thanks for the late night text. What’s up with that?"
I knew he would ask.
"I don’t know. I just couldn’t sleep and I wanted to be close to you."
"Hmm. Okay. Well, I love you more than life, too. Now get some work done and I’ll see you soon."
I sighed as I hung up the phone. I loved everything about him. His face, his voice, his sweet soul. It was astounding that the millennia hadn’t changed him a bit. I briefly wondered if it had changed me, as I stooped to pick up the clothes that had scattered from my drawers.
As I moved, my bloodstone swung away from me and clanged into my dresser. I clutched it and tucked it back into my nightgown. I focused very hard on trying to remember the detail surrounding it, but my memories of it were murky and I knew that was how the Moirae wanted it.
The bloodstone was powerful, so they didn’t want me to be able to harness that power. Yet somehow, I had a sneaking suspicion that my necklace, the necklace in the legends, was tied to my bloodstone in some way. I could just feel it.
I stared at the pile of dripping glass heaped in the middle of my floor and sighed yet again.
What a mess. I so wished that it was already cleaned up. I needed to make a research trip to the library and I didn’t want to waste hours cleaning up earthquake debris.
Within the breadth of one second, before I had barely even finished my thought, the glass was gone. The wetness that had saturated my carpet was completely dry, not a spot, not a stain. I gasped.
How had I done that? I glanced around my room and saw the shattered pieces of glass in my wastebasket next to my desk. What the heck? I had briefly pictured my floor as the clean area that it had been- and all of a sudden, it became that way. Ho-ly crap.
My gifts. Harmonia’s gifts. They were coming back to me.
I focused hard on the rest of my room, picturing my dresser upright and my clothes neatly folded within its drawers. It instantly became so. It didn’t happen in front of me in a blur of motion, it was just ...there. One moment it was a mess, the next moment it was clean, as though it had always been that way. I swallowed. What else could I do that I hadn’t remembered yet?
It was both an exciting and a petrifying thought.
I wished that the Moirae had allowed my memories to come fully back to me. I could remember bits and pieces of my life as a goddess, but nothing very cohesive or concrete. Just brief flashes. Gavin as Cadmus ... his voice, his smile. It was the same. His touch on my back, his kiss on my neck. I could remember those things. I could remember scant flashes of life on Olympus, but no details. It was frustrating.
Regardless, I needed to put that out of my mind and focus on the present. I needed to learn more about the necklace of the legends ... Harmonia’s Necklace.
I grabbed some clothes and ducked into my bathroom, stopping short in front of the mirror in awe. My face had indeed transformed. It was subtle, not something you would be able to put your finger on. It was more like a vague radiance. My face had gotten thinner and more elegant, losing the baby fat that I had still been carrying in my cheeks. My vivid eyes remained the same. I turned from my reflection, yanking my hair into a ponytail before I grabbed my car keys.
I was at the library 10 minutes later.
As I walked through the hushed halls, I felt as though I was being watched. It was unnerving because every time I turned around, there was no one there. No one seemed bothered by the earthquake from this morning. I passed a few racks of books that had been disturbed, but library aides were busily re-shelving them. Apparently, there hadn’t been any real damage.
I passed the coffee bar, inhaling the rich scent of roasted fresh coffee beans before I entered the main hall. I loved this library. It felt elegant and familiar with its dark wood panels and cozy lamps. I had been coming here since I was a kid. As I turned the corner, though, a hushed murmuring enveloped me ... vague whispers. I whirled around, but there was no one there.
And no one around me seemed as though they could hear it. I continued on to a tiny reading nook, trying to ignore the voices.
Dropping my stuff into a chair, I punched "Harmonia’s Necklace" into the nearest resource computer. A plethora of book choices popped up and I scribbled them all down. I spent the next five minutes filling my arms with books on mythology and then settled myself into an overstuffed leather chair to pore through them.
There were conflicting stories. Some said that no descriptions of the necklace were available, while others said that it was a two-headed serpent. And while I couldn’t conclusively rule that out, it didn’t feel right. I didn’t think it had been a snake.
I kept reading, filing each bit of information away as I read, but nothing was earth-shattering. It was all stuff that I already knew. My step-father had created a necklace to gain revenge on my mother for her infidelity. Unfortunately for me, he gave me the necklace, not my mother. So not fair. I was supposed to be cursed for all of eternity because of my mother’s actions. What the books didn’t contain though, was the fact that Zeus had contributed his own blood in order to make my necklace so powerful. The idea of how powerful it really was was alarming.
I fingered my bloodstone. With each breath I took, I was more and more convinced that somehow, the bloodstones were Harmonia’s Necklace. The Fates must have somehow managed to use the one stone from my necklace to create more necklaces, one for each Keeper and one for each of the Fates. Hephaestus could have done that for them- he was the blacksmith to the gods. He could create anything which might be why they kept him chained to their door.
And realization fell on me like a ton of bricks. Of course. They kept Hephaestus near because they needed him. My necklace had been tied to me, which must have been the reason that they had chosen me to be a Keeper. They ne
eded its power, but in order for them to access it, I still needed to have possession of it in some form. They needed me.
I remembered Lachesis’ words when I was in Alexandria, right after I had lost my bloodstone. The bloodstones were made from one stone. One. When one is lost, we all suffer…Our power as a whole should not be diminished because of the carelessness of one, should it?
Oh my god. She admitted that the stones came from one stone. Their power was diminished because I had lost mine. And I was the key. I felt like I was going to hyperventilate.
I sat hunched over trying to breathe ... to make sense out of the craziness. I was a goddess. I had been cast into doomed mortal lives because I had been given a cursed necklace made from Zeus’ blood. Life was not fair.
As I attempted to breathe, I caught a glimpse of movement from in front of me and I lifted my head. An ethereal woman was descending directly from the ceiling in front of me. She literally seemed to float down until she was standing one step in front of me. I looked around again. And yet again, no one seemed bothered. No one was staring or pointing or running and screaming. They couldn’t see her. Interesting. I wasn’t afraid. I could tell that she wasn’t here to harm me. She had an air of serenity surrounding her.
She was dressed in white ancient Greek clothing, her blonde hair pulled loosely into a chignon. Her face was like porcelain, pale and perfect. She was so graceful that every movement seemed like dancing. I stared at her agape for just a moment longer before she beckoned to me with a slender finger.
"Come with me," she murmured softly.
As if I could do anything else. I trailed behind her as she led me to a secluded alcove.
She laid a leather bound book on the table in front of her. As she ran her fingers over the rich oiled surface, electricity jolted around the book. I startled.
"Who are you?" I asked breathlessly.
"They haven’t returned all of your thoughts, Harmonia? That’s terrible," she sympathized, her eyes warm.
"Who are you?" I asked again.
"I’m Alathea. The goddess of Truth. I’m not supposed to be here. If they find out ...." Her voice trailed off before she steeled herself and spoke again. "I had to come because it pains me to have such lies and betrayal. You need this, Harmonia."
She gestured again toward the ancient book and tried to place it in my mind. It was definitely distinctive. Aged and tattered, it had clearly been around for awhile. Grape vines were embossed on the cover, twining around the spine and the back in an intricate design. But it didn’t jog my memory.
"What is it?"
"The Map of Souls," she murmured. A tingling ran up and down my back. A Map of Souls?
"You’re looking in the wrong place here," she continued, gesturing around at the library.
"Your answers lie within this."
She patted the book and as she did, tiny leather fingers lapped up from the cover and grabbed at her skin. She paid them no mind and turned back to me. As she did, the fingers were absorbed back into the leather. It was unnerving.
"Your answers lie within," she repeated and handed it to me. I took it with reverence.
"Guard it with your life," she cautioned. "Tell no one that you have it and certainly not Alexi. I risked much to take it and bring it. Do not disappoint me, Harmonia. You and I are as sisters. You will remember that with time. When you do, you must help me."
"Help you?" I stared at her in puzzlement until I registered a strange, cold feeling settling around me. It felt like a thousand cold hands were rubbing my skin. A vague low moaning grew into a wail, something that the library patrons did not notice.
Out of the back wall, two shadowy figures emerged, wearing long black robes and hoods.
They resembled grim reapers and my heart started skipping beats. They drifted quickly and with purpose across the main hall and within a minute, they had reached us, bringing with them a 20 degree temperature drop. I shivered.
"Yes, you will need to help me," Alathea said, holding her head proudly as they each grasped an arm. "Please."
The dark beings didn’t say a word, but they didn’t have to. Their mere presence was terrifying. They dragged Alathea back the same way they had come and disappeared into the wall. I stood in shock, clutching the book.
Now what?
My fingers trembled as they gripped the leather of the book and I felt the little fingers moving along the skin of my hand. My survival instructs kicked in and I did the only thing I could think of. I ran. I scrambled toward the reading nook and threw everything into my bag, flying as fast as I could out of the library and into the safety of my car. I sat behind my wheel, breathing heavily as I pondered what to do.
I had an overwhelming feeling that everyone around me was in danger while I was here.
So, I turned the key and started driving. I didn’t even know where I was going, but I needed to get far away from Pasadena while I figured it out. I drove straight out of the city through the congested traffic until I hit the highway.
And then I kept driving. I felt a strange pull luring me purposefully along the highway towards some unknown destination. I sighed and succumbed. I knew that it was best to just surrender and see what happened. I zoned out while the landscape flew past my car window. I didn’t even turn the radio on as I lost myself in thought. I could practically feel things shifting-the air seemed strange and electric. I was being nudged toward something catalytic and it was terrifying, just as the unknown always was.
My phone vibrated against the passenger seat and glancing over, I saw Gavin’s name on the screen. I was filled with trepidation. I wanted to talk to him, but he knew me inside and out. He would hear in my voice how upset I was and that would not work. He needed to remain in the dark. I let it go to voice mail. One minute later, he called again. I gulped and gripped the steering wheel. It was torturous not to pick it up, but I mustered up all of my available will power and once again let it slide into voice mail.
I looked into my rear view mirror and startled. Behind me, huge billowing dark clouds hovered ominously over Pasadena. They were much too large to be normal storm clouds and I felt the tension ratchet up into my neck. This. Was. Not. Good. The cloud wall grew larger by the moment, raging and bucking like a churning hurricane. No, this certainly wasn’t good.
That was not a normal act of nature.
There was a rest stop coming up on my right with a little café next to it, so I pulled off and parked. This was as good a place as any to contemplate what to do. The little restaurant’s faded sign called to me, so I grabbed my purse, locked my car and crossed the dusty parking lot to the café.
As I opened the door, the bells over my head jingled, announcing my arrival. I quickly scanned the room for an empty booth and surprisingly encountered a familiar face. My heart lurched into my throat. There was no way this was a coincidence.
Jade was sitting in a booth at the back, her hands restlessly toying with her cell phone, an anxious look on her lovely face. I didn’t even think as I made a bee-line for her, dropping unceremoniously down into the seat facing her. She looked up in surprise.
"Macy! You came. I’m not crazy," she murmured uncertainly.
"That’s probably debatable," I replied wryly. "But no. You’re not crazy. What made you think you were?"
"If I told you, you would definitely think that I am. So, let’s just say that I felt like a drive."
"Or ... you could tell me the truth," I persisted. "Trust me, Jade. I am quite familiar with crazy."
She stared at me a moment, her eyebrows pulling into a knitted frown. I could tell that she desperately wanted to share it with me, but she just wasn’t sure if she should. But our invisible bond was still there as strong as ever. Even if she couldn’t see it, I knew she could feel it. She innately knew she could trust me and she finally sighed.
"I had a weird dream. A woman came to me and told me that I was more important than I knew, that everything was going to change and I was going to be at the heart of it.
She said that I was not what I thought I was and that I should stay with you, that you would keep me safe."
"And so how did that bring you here?" I asked, trying my best to be patient.
"She told me to come here. She said to start driving and to go with my instincts, that she would lead me to you. And now here you are, just like she said."
I swallowed hard, trying to swallow my instant unease.
"I’m not crazy, am I?" she asked, her face developing a calm expression. "You’re here, just like she said you would be."
"Yes, I’m here," I murmured. "You’re not crazy. Did the woman tell you her name?"
"Yes. It was an odd name ... Alathea."
Alathea had gone to Jade before she brought me the Map of Souls. And somehow, thinking of the two things in such rapid succession made me realize that they were connected. It just effortlessly clicked into place. Alathea wanted me to know who Jade was. And the Map of Souls could reveal that, so she had brought them both to me. The answer was within my grasp.
I could barely breathe as I mumbled to Jade that I would be right back.
I stumbled out to the parking lot and dragged the book out of my bag. Leaning against my car, I opened the book, ignoring the fingers that grasped mine. The book contained intricate family trees that seemed alive. The names morphed and changed before my eyes as I turned each weathered page. My fingers numbly found Jade’s name. I traced it backward through the millennia, my eyes widening as I saw who she had been in each life. And then I came to the first name. The beginning.
I could feel the pulse beating in my temple as I stared in apprehension at the letters on the page. The name was startling. Unexpected.
Aphrodite.
Jade was my mother.