Chapter 10
I can't say I awoke in a nice God Hospital somewhere. I can't say I awoke with a nice godly blanket pulled over me and a curled-up toga supporting my head. Then again, I wasn't, thankfully, strapped to a wall either.
I didn't wake anywhere either appropriate or inappropriate for a potentially injured goddess. Instead, I didn't wake up at all. I never lost consciousness.
Something far stranger occurred: my awareness was shunted to the side as if someone had slapped me hard on the face, jolting my head to a position that allowed a view I’d never before seen.
And what was the view of? Those darn rustling leaves.
I was lying on my back, I was sure of it – though precisely seconds before I’d been standing in the middle of the Ambrosia with a worried Thor shaking my shoulders. I was no longer in that god-awful (excuse the pun) divine bar. I was lying on wonderfully soft grass, staring at fluttering leaves above me. The sunshine filtered through them in a divine, dappled light. It was wondrous, relaxing, and oh-so welcoming.
I could stay here forever.
I had already spent eternity here.
I blinked rapidly as that thought raced through my mind. I hadn’t been here for an eternity, had I? I couldn't concentrate long enough to answer that. My thoughts faded in and out like a dream lost upon waking.
I watched the leaves. I listened to them move. They held more secrets than one person or god could appreciate. It would take eternity to listen to their wisdom.
A smile spread slowly across my lips.
I had eternity. I possessed an entire, immortal, never-ending existence to watch, listen, and know.
I could lie here with my back on the soft grass, with the tree above me and my husband beside me.
Husband?
The leaves began to shake above, and in a terribly violent fashion. The whole world around me was shaking itself loose. Loose from what, I didn’t know.
I tried to hold on, but it faded.
The leaves turned into hair, and the glorious dappled sunshine filtering through them shifted at once to a pale, cold light.
I stood back in the Ambrosia. Standing was hardly an accurate term – I was being held up by the shoulders. My head was lolled to the side, all muscle control gone. The only reason I wasn't a pile on the floor was that Thor had such a hold of my upper arms that he could use them to prop up a bridge.
Reality didn't click back as quickly as I hoped. I didn't snap back into the present with a look of popping-eyed wonder followed by a strangled “Awesome, I was hallucinating, and the colors, man, the colors!” No. I had to claw my way back to the present and to who and what I was. As that was such an odd way to describe what was going on, it placed serious doubts on the exact epistemic credentials of what I'd previously been comfortable to describe as me.
I could still hear the rustling of leaves far, far off in the distance. It was fading. The more it faded, the more I tried to hold onto it. The more I did that, the more my head hurt – the more my brain tried to shift out of my skull through the center of my forehead.
Thor gave my shoulders a shake, and he almost shook my head off.
“Ahhh,” I managed, though it was more of a gurgle.
This appeared to satisfy the searching, pressed, unsure-look in Thor's eyes. It was a look I’d never seen, and not one I would have thought possible for the Nordic god of inappropriately-timed-happy-hour parties.
He looked lost and yet on the cusp of finding something.
I watched those cheeks for... what? Seconds, moments, a fraction of time?
“There is something wrong with that goddess,” I heard someone say from off to my side.
My neck muscles still weren't what they should be, so I wasn't about to bother lolling my head their way like an uncoordinated puppet. Plus, I knew who it was: Hera.
She was right, there was something wrong with this goddess. My problems ranged from being hunted, to having a blown up front door, to having had a hallucination in the middle of a god bar.
I was starting to regain control over my body and was starting to hold my head aloft. This gave me a fabulous view of all the people staring at me. Boy, were they staring. This was, for the assembled gods and goddesses, the equivalent of dinner and a show. Thor, Hera, and my partially paralyzed, oft-hallucinating self were providing an act in the middle of the bar for all to appreciate over their ale and club sandwiches.
I went to push my glasses up my nose – a move I’d grown accustomed to performing whenever a situation was beyond my control in the Immigration Office. If some boisterous, loud, and dangerous war god was seconds from destroying my desk with his magical spear, I would take a moment to slowly and pointedly push my glasses up as if they were magical microscopes that enabled me to peer right through the problem.
Except I wasn't wearing my glasses. No rims to hide behind. Instead I... had to take it all in. Which wasn't a good thing to do considering how much there was to stare at. In a move becoming all too familiar to me, my bloody head hurt.
“Do something about it,” Hera stamped up to Thor's side and pointed a finger right at me.
I was it, apparently.
I glanced her way. I didn't like being talked to in that manner while I was recovering from sudden leaf-filled dreams. “I have a name, Hera,” I said, proud that my voice was more in control than the rest of me. “If you can't remember it, I'm happy to write it down for you.”
Hera looked murderously at me.
Thor looked confused and torn. “I—“
“My cat!” I spoke the sudden thought out loud. “Damn it, I left him in Ancient Egypt.” I pulled free from Thor's grip – which was easier to do than it sounded – and stood on my own two feet as I tried to think. If I went back to my house, I might be able to con the old spatial anomaly between my bedroom and living room to send me back to the library of Alexandria. Then I would... grab a bag of dried food and walk around the sandy streets of an ancient port city shaking it and calling “Here, kitty, kitty.”
.... Damn.
“Her cat?” I saw Hera out of my peripheral vision swing her gaze from me back to Thor and twist a finger in a circle next to her head.
I wasn't crazy – I just had priorities. Plus, if Thor was going to stand there having an almost-domestic with his almost-wife during happy hour at the Ambrosia, then at least I was going to be proactive. Yes, he’d been assigned by one of the most powerful gods to protect me. But if Thor wasn't going to do his job, then by Jove (excuse the joke), I was going to do it for him.
First things first, I was going to get my cat back. Or – considering I wasn't a total klutz fond of walking into traps/offering myself up free-of-charge to my kidnappers – I would make some enquiries at the Integration Office. I would check with our contacts in Ancient Egypt as to whether the cat goddess would mind having a roam around for a stray. While I was there, I would also get on to the Divinity Police and ensure they put immediate measures in place to track down my kidnappers.
Gosh, yes, this was a good plan. Why I hadn’t thought of doing it before, I didn't know. The entire point of the Immigration Office was it provided a centrally organized point of security. Going to them was logical. Staying with Thor was idiotic. I’d been lulled into staying by his side, since he thought that good detective work was qualitatively the same as good ale.
So be it, I was going alone.
I turned and walked away as Hera stepped into my place. “I can't believe you—“ she began to admonish Thor in a riotously loud tone.
I tuned her out.
“Details, don't wander far,” Thor immediately boomed from behind me. He was being diplomatic – realizing that he could hardly blow off Hera and yet not wanting to disappoint his old man by losing sight of me.
That was the problem with gods like him – split personalities meant split priorities.
“I won't,” I lied. When the truth would have a golden-bearded idiot breathing down your neck, a lie was always preferable.
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I didn't head straight to the door. I meandered around the side of the room for a while first. I didn't want to out-and-out leave the place while Thor was still watching. It was one thing to say you would do something then do the opposite immediately and brazenly. It was what Thor would do. I wasn't that stupid.
I waited until the exact note in Hera's wailing tone was so high it could have cracked the ceiling, then I quietly made my way out. To my knowledge, every other god and goddess was too busy watching the show to see me leave the scene.
As soon as the door to the Ambrosia closed behind me, I drew in the cool night air. I picked up the mingling scents of far-off rain, near-by curry, and the general muck of packed-in city living.
The smell itself didn't matter, it was the fact I could take the time to note the details.
I felt measurably calmer than I had in days. I wasn't on someone else's timetable here. I wasn't running from or running with anyone else. I was on my own. If I wanted to take the time to note the exact waft of turmeric and cinnamon in the air, then I was going to do that.
I was also a practical goddess, and I wasn't about to get distracted. I would enjoy the details as I worked.
I was going to head straight to the Integration Office. I wasn't about to brave my own home (though the prospect of a shower was one that seemed almost as important as saving the universe). For all I knew, Loki was still hanging around on my porch, sitting on the stoop, polishing his fake Jupiter gun, and sighing about how he'd lost “Da broad.”
Nope, if I wanted to go alone and if I wanted it to be a success (i.e. If I didn't want to end up tied to a wall again), then I had to be smart. I knew, though it was an unpleasant thing to know, that Loki, Hades, and Seth would still be after me. I had to act now – no heading to the store to pick up some sugar and eggs for some late-night cupcakes.
Time to go to work.
The Integration Office was located in space, but I didn't have to hop a NASA shuttle every time I wanted to head there. The transport networks available to gods were more extensive than your average suburban bus route. Summoning them, however, involved less goat sacrifices than you'd expect.
I stepped onto the road, looking both ways as I crossed to the other side. There were god-transport hubs (or great whacking spatial anomalies if you wanted to give them a science-friendly definition) at set points around the globe. These anomalies were of the trained, reliable, non-world-destroying variety. All you had to do was know where they were and know how to access them, then you could con them into taking you to anywhere in time and space.
The reason I lived in a homely cottage on the edge of this city was there was a travel node close by. It was in a church on the outskirts of town. The exact location of the divinely-controlled spatial-travel anomalies was a little random. Some were in deepest-darkest forests. Others were in underwater caves. One was in a female bathroom stall in the London Underground. There wasn't a whole lot of reasoning behind the locations, at least from the modern point of view. They were, however, all related to ancient sites of power. The church at the edge of this city happened to be sitting over the location of an old, catastrophically epic god battle. The battle had sanctified the site with the kind of frantic, zippy, charged energy that made the fact a spatial anomaly had grown from the grass hardly a surprise. Those spatial anomalies love atmosphere.
The church itself was rundown, and to my knowledge no longer had any regular parishioners. Despite its disuse, it had never been sold or torn down to make way for car parks and whatnot. Such a thing would never make it past city planning. The number one rule of the Integration Office – not to interfere with the freewill of other creatures – didn't extend to letting wily developers tear down the locales of spatial anomalies. That type of thing tended to irritate space-time rips something chronic.
All I had to do was make it to the church, then hop a ride to the Integration Office. Once at the Office, I would be safe. Loki could try to walk in pretending to be any god he pleased, but he wouldn't get through. He could steal a whole hoard of sea monsters (who might object to performing a raid fryingly close to the sun) and try to attack the building – but it wouldn't work.
When safe inside my own office, I could start to solve this problem my own way. I could delve into various files and amass all the details there were until I could construct the true story from the bottom up.
That would be action. While happy hour would only result in a large tab, I would be solving this crime the proper way.
I only had to get from my current location to the church.
I let myself be pulled along by the tingly, nervous, frightened feeling welling in my gut. I glanced behind me at the ordinary door that led to the Ambrosia.
Was leaving Thor the best thing to do?
I pushed the feeling away as I turned around.
Yes, it had to be. I was sure Thor's ways were the old ways (not that they had many happy hours back in ancient Norway, but the point still stood).
Wiping my hands on my jacket, I paid close attention to the feel of the fabric as I ran my fingers over it. The move was quick, the fabric a mix of soft but hard.
I took a breath and began to walk. I put enormous effort into focusing on my environment. The way the lamplights made the pavement seem a different color. The way the noise of traffic from the busier main roads beyond filtered through as I passed near the mouths of connecting alleys. The way the stars above were mostly enshrouded by a growing, thick cloud.
If I was careful to pay attention to the details – and to stay within them – then my power would remain with me. The true divinity that kept me a goddess wouldn’t be far from my grasp. The details enthroned me. And if I enthroned them in my awareness, then I would be divine.
I clicked my tongue against the base of my mouth as I walked. The sound was hollow and quick, and echoed through my jaw like a judge banging a gavel in a silent courtroom. Though a growing voice in my head kept questioning whether this was a good idea, I dismissed it. I'd decided to go alone, so alone I would go.
Plus, I was a goddess for crying out loud – a bona fide immortal female with powers beyond the imagination. I wasn't like some poor old nanna who couldn't hope to defend herself against an armed robber or a slippery step.
No. Just because Loki and his dodgy mates were supposedly big-time gods, didn't mean they automatically bested me. I’d shown Hera up, hadn't I? She was as big as they came.
As I walked, the tingling in my stomach continued to grow, but I tried to rationalize the unpleasant sensation away. It was left-over nerves. It was the effect of being cast into the care of a god who couldn't care less about my welfare (or the universe's, apparently) and cared more for sitting at a table and watching eternity through the bottom of his empty ale glass.
Or maybe it was the slight chill in the air.
I tapped my fingers against my legs then clenched and unclenched my hands.
In the Integration Office, I’d been taught that the classic distinctions between the gods – the assumptions of power that came along with their slice of believers and legend – didn't count for much these days. The system mattered, not the individuals who went through it. When Jupiter had been banned from Italy for a destructive bar-fight, the system had overpowered him. If the system could do that to one of the most powerful gods out there, then it could do it for Loki, Hades, and Seth, too.
Yes, they had thwarted it somehow by getting to Earth/letting out sea monsters/kidnapping me in the first place. But that fact didn't stand alone. I knew what they were up to, I could bring this information to the system, and everything would work smoothly again.
It had to.
My strides became stronger – my legs stiffening in a determined fashion that saw my pace increase measurably.
Plus, Loki and his assorted illegal brethren were hardly likely to attack me on a populated, modern, human city street. They might have gotten away with using their godly powers in ancient times, when such powers would cause les
s of a ripple in the belief of the humans who saw them. That wouldn't be the case here. Seth could hardly order up a sandstorm to pin me down, and Hades wouldn't be able to pop out from the drains with a couple of thousand denizens of the dead. That would draw real and quick attention from the Office. They might have gotten away with their sea-monster-in-the-flood-drain escapade, but there were more people to notice their inappropriate shenanigans above ground.
Some part of me knew all of this self-posturizing was just that. I didn't want to listen to her. I needed to justify why I’d left Thor – who could demonstrably protect me against everything but a lack of beer and his half-wife.
I swallowed.
I looked up and saw something. No, that wasn’t right – I heard it before I saw it.
It wasn't Jupiter clicking his fingers and munching on a cigar, and nor was it a sea monster throwing a ladder at me in the hope I'd climb it before it attacked me.
It was an oak tree.
It was... beautiful. The leaves shone and the trunk was so indented and gnarled you could spend your life following every twist and turn.
Its leaves were rustling.
I smiled up at them.
How long did I smile for? How long did I watch it? How many details did I process before I realized... it was smack bang in the middle of a street?
It was in the middle of a street. There was a giant, beautiful, old oak sitting right in the middle of a main road.
Okay, that wasn’t normal, unless the city's pro-tree council had upped their ante.
I twisted my head left and right, checking whether any cars were speeding around the tree. There were no cars. No traffic. No pedestrians.
I clicked my tongue, and it echoed along the empty street.
I was a sensible, in-control goddess, or so I liked to think. Before my recent run-in with out-of-control kidnapping situations, I’d led a stable life. A life that didn't involve leaf-filled hallucinations or oak-filled streets.
But there was a problem: I hadn’t always been the same goddess I was. Or rather, my power hadn't always been refined in the way I now displayed it. There was a time, long ago, when I'd have been the worst person to leave in charge of a global divine immigration scheme. When I was still a young newbie goddess, I would wander about with my head in the clouds, mesmerized by the details that unfolded around me. I wouldn’t think, I wouldn’t process, I wouldn’t reason.
I'd been a real airhead.
Thankfully I'd grown up and out of that stage. I was an adult now. I was sensible. I was rational.
Except... somehow, I’d just stared at a tree for god knows (not this god) how long without picking up it was in the middle of the bloody road! The incongruity hadn't been noticed because I'd been too mystified by the detail of the bark.
This... this was old me. This wasn't Officina Immigration Officer to Earth – this was Officina Airhead Goddess who walked around like she was perpetually off her head.
A spike of genuine fear shot through my belly, and I clutched a hand to my stomach immediately. The kidnapping I could intellectually take. Loki wanted me and was going to find a way to get his fiery paws on me, story closed. This... this was me losing control....
I drew a sharp breath and took several snapped steps back from the oak tree. It didn't disappear. It stayed merrily in the middle of the road, shining in a light I realized couldn't be coming from the sky. There was no sun – it was night.
How hadn't I noticed that before? Why hadn't I been suspicious of the dappled sunshine playing across the leaves sooner?
Another spike of fear raced through me, leaving an angry, nervous tingling in its wake.
The oak tree didn't have roots. It sat on the road as if it had been cut in half by the bitumen. Yet another all-important detail I’d failed to see.
I knew the tree was not changing before me. I knew the roots hadn't been there before only to disappear when I checked. I just hadn’t noticed them the first time around.
The problem was with me, not the tree. Reality was normal. I was not.
I put a hand up to my throat and rested it there. I kept glancing this way and that along the street – trying to convince myself I was alone, that Loki wasn't standing right in front of me with a giant goddess-catching net. That was just the thing: I didn't trust my eyes. I didn't trust myself to be concentrating on the right details. If I hadn’t noticed the incongruity of the oak before, then I could still be allowing myself to be drawn in by the wrong details of this scene. I could be concentrating so hard on the fact it didn't have roots, that I couldn't notice the cyclopes leaning behind the trunk munching on some goat kebabs, getting ready to wash down his tucker with some goddess blood.
I was doubting myself like I never had before.
I closed my eyes tightly, then opened them again, giving the world time to revert to normality in between.
The oak was still there.
So I ran. It wasn't dignified. It wasn't sensible. It wasn't reasonable. It wasn't something an in-control, powerful, knowledgeable, dignified goddess would do. I was reverting, body and soul, to that airhead who couldn't see the forest for the trees.
I ran, and for all I knew, I wasn't running from anything. An oak in the middle of the road, sure. But it was hardly likely to uproot itself and start chasing me (hopefully).
I ran from myself. From the realization that the person I thought I was, was not who was there.
I ran until I saw the cars, the pedestrians, and the buildings.
I didn't stop running. The slice of normalcy restored to me by the sight of headlights reflecting in puddles (and not through the foliage of lane-dividing giant trees) was not enough to restore faith in myself. For all I knew, the headlights were attached to giant titans running along the road playing catch with toasters.
I couldn't trust... anything.
So I ran. Where did I run to? Home, of course.
It was my temple, my shrine, my house of solace and worship.
If I’d been able to trust my senses – if I’d been in a state capable of appreciating reason – I would have either headed for the Immigration Office or back to the Ambrosia. But reason was far from my grasp. Reason required justification – proof that something was the right thing to do given the situation – and I could no longer justify a thing. For all the details I could still pick out, I had no idea what I was missing beyond them. For all the certainty I could concentrate on, the uncertainty that bounded it was insurmountable.