Of Gaea (19 page)

“I’m
sorry.”

Ghita
didn’t shrug though Ari heard it in her tone.
“It’s not your fault.”

Ari idly
tapped her fingers on the table. “If you’re at the institution all
day with Lyris, where does our money come from? It’s kind of
apparent you’re not working.”

Silence filled
the space and Ari thought Ghita wasn’t going to answer her.

“
Inheritance.”
She spoke even as Ari opened her mouth to ask a different
question. “It goes into a protected account that I transfer from
into another protected account. There’s no way to trace
it.”

“Am I… are we
legally in the US?”

When
Ghita didn’t instantly answer Ari realized she was calculating what
to say and what not to.
Even with her full focus on dinner preparations her answers
were guarded.

“
We are
and we aren’t.”
She
glanced over her shoulder. “We have papers that allow us to and fro
if we so chose it. Those papers say everything the government wants
them to say.”

“They’re not
real are they?”

She
nodded at the stove. “That’s right.”

“
I
didn’t get sick at school. I need you to understand that. I wasn’t
sick.” Ari kept her voice firm and unwavering.

She
brought Ari’s plate to the table and set it down. “I’m not going to
argue about it. You’ll go to school tomorrow and everything will be
fine.” She bowed her head for her dinner prayer.

“
Gaea
protects the Faithful.” Ari murmured to herself when Ghita said
Amen. It had protected her once and Ari wasn’t about to look a gift
horse in the mouth.

Ghita’s
fork jerked and scraped across the plate. Then clattered to the
table. Surprised Ari looked up from her plate to the wide eyed fear
on Ghita’s face.

“
She
protected me.
From
Damia.” Ari said quietly, “today at school. I don’t know why
Damia’s trying to hurt me. But you do. Why is Damia trying to kill
me?”

“
It’s
forbidden.” Ghita stood up so quickly her chair tipped over. “It’s…
not allowed… there are rules.”

“Rules you’ve
already broken?” Ari questioned.

Ghita’s
hand jerked to her throat even as she paled. “I am protecting you.”
She fled the room. Ari heard the car start and pull out of the
drive.

Ari
sighed and pushed away her pasta.
She was in no way hungry. There was no way for Ari
to know what Ghita had put in it anyway.

Ari
rolled to her room and packed a bag for Kleisthenes’s house.
She hadn’t lied to Ghita. She
wasn’t going back to school until after the tattooing was
done.

Sasha
was seated on the porch steps as she rolled outside with her duffel
bag slung over the back of her wheelchair. He stood and took the
bag before she could even ask and waited patiently as she locked
the door.

He had
been waiting patiently since his da had seen Ghita drive
away.
He would have gone
over without Da’s prompting. When Ghita was upset Ari usually was
too. Even if it didn’t show he knew she had a wide array of
emotions.

He
walked with Ari the few doors down in companionable silence.
Kleisthenes stood on the porch
and watched. Nasya sat in the porch swing and rocked slowly and
easily.

“
I’m
going to guess by the way Ghi recklessly drove down the street that
you talked to her.” Kleisthenes stated with a smile even as he bent
to lift her chair and herself up to the porch.

“
I know
the money comes from an inheritance and Lyris hasn’t woken up.” Ari
sighed. “That’s about it. Well, and that she freaked out when I
mentioned she broke the rules enough for Damia to potentially kill
me for unknown reasons.”

Nasya
chuckled softly. “I hope you had more tact than that.”

“Of course I
didn’t say it like that.” Ari scowled at her.

“
Come
on,” Kleisthenes held the door open. “Let’s get you settled
in.”

A
ri was startled out of
sleep by the
slamming of a door. Bleary eyed she looked up at her door, but it
was still closed and Sasha still lay on the floor next to the bed.
He wouldn’t have slammed the door anyway.

When she
looked down to see if he was still asleep his eyes were closed but
his hand was fisted over his heart with a dagger in its
grip.
Where he got the
dagger Ari wasn’t sure, but considering there was a shed full of
sharp pointy items just outside the patio doors it wasn’t hard to
put two and two together.

“
Where
is she?” Ghita was frantic and very loud. “What have you done to
her?”

“
Sleeping,” was Kleisthenes’s tired reply. “At least I hope
she is with the way you’re slamming doors. We both know that she’s
safer here than anywhere else unless we were in Sparta.”

“
You
cannot keep doing this Kleisthenes. Your interference is not
helping her.”

A jaw
cracking yawn was his answer. “You’re wrong. Sasha and I have done
everything needed to protect her by
your
rules. It’s
you
that’s
failed, Ghita. You cannot prevent or change what’s going to happen
next month.”

“
We’re
not in Sparta. Nothing is going to happen.”

“
Has she
told you? She hears her. She told Sasha she heard her. You know
what that means. Anything you do now is futile.”

“
It’s
not possible.
It’s
not.”

“
Just
because we’re not in Sparta doesn’t change what runs through her
blood.” Kleisthenes’s voice was soft. “The only thing you’ve
succeeded in doing is keeping her in the dark, and even now, she’s
not as in the dark as she had been. I have every reason to believe
that she will be what she needs to be when the time
comes.”

“
I won’t
allow it. It’s not going to happen. I have everything in my
possession. She has nothing.”

“
She has
Sasha and Nasya. She has me. Why do you fear this so
much?”

“
She is
wild, and reckless like Lyris. She doesn’t have the ability to make
the right decision.”

“I think
she’ll surprise you.”

A
ri woke the
second time
to birds and sun streaming through the window. Surprised,
she rolled over to check the clock and bumped into
Nasya.

Ari didn’t remember falling back asleep.
After Kleisthenes’s
statement Ghita has stopped shouting. She had reached over the edge
of the bed for Sasha and his fingers had interlocked with hers. She
must have drifted off while waiting for the next bombshell to drop.
Apparently, it never had.

“Good afternoon.” Nasya eyes twinkled. “You have more
color. That’s a good sign. I thought you’d like to sit outside some
before you had to leave.”

“I feel kind of like a hypocrite.” Ari took the clothes
Nasya handed her. “I mean, I don’t really know… the Goddess, I
guess she’s called, but I’m asking her for help.”

“Do you personally know the police man that stops the
robber? Do you personally know the fireman that jumps into a
burning building to save a life? In many instances we don’t know
who our saviors are until they have saved us.”

Her logic was…
well, logical.

“I just feel… I don’t know… it’s like asking the neighbor
across the street for sugar when you’ve never spoken two words to
them before. I’m asking for something without giving anything in
return.” Ari held up the white string bikini in the pile of
clothes.

“For purity.
Unless you’re planning on letting Leonidas see you
naked?” Nasya’s face flushed with mirth. “I thought not. If you’re
really worried about it, I can teach you some.”

Ari nodded even as she motioned for Nasya to turn around so
she could change. “Just some basics I guess would make me feel a
little better.”

“You already know the basics. Gaea protects the
Faithful.”

How Nasya
ended up on the opposite side of the bed in the time it took to
pull the pants on, Ari wasn’t sure, but she felt Nasya’s cool hands
at the back of her neck untying and retying the strings to the
bikini firmly and in what felt like an elaborate knot.

“Is that
really all there is to it?”

“Respect. Her and all her creatures. Honor what is given
and mourn what is lost as is appropriate. Gaea takes no unnecessary
action. She prefers neutrality unless it directly affects those
that are hers. Then she is fierce and unrivaled.”

She helped Ari pull the tunic over the swimsuit. “You will
be fine. Show her respect, do not give into fear and remember she
protects the Faithful. Everything else will come in
time.”

Nasya made it sound so easy but Ari was skeptical. If it
was so simple, why didn’t more people worship her?

Nasya laughed an easy sound.
“The Spartans do, the wiccans, the druids,
everything pagan in this world has something to do with our Mother
Gaea. Whether She be called Gaea, or Terra, or Ki, or The Great
Mother, or Sif and Her names continue. She has many names but it’s
not the name that is important, it’s the faith.”

Ari wasn’t sure if she had voiced her thought or if Nasya
had simply seen the question on her face. Ari didn’t bother asking
which as it didn’t really matter. The knowledge was what was
important.

“Perhaps, we should walk down and see Leonidas.
I’m sure he could
explain as he preps for tonight.”

“I don’t want to get in the way. And from the brief time I
spent with him previously he sees me as a huge pain.”

Nasya shrugged.
“He is… insufferable sometimes, but in the end he
will always do what is needed. Not necessarily what is right, but
what is needed.”

“Isn’t that
the same thing?”

Nasya let Ari
use her as support to slide into the wheelchair.

“Not at all.
Would you say killing a man is right? But if that
man had, oh, I don’t know, killed for sport don’t you think it’s
necessary?”

Ari bit her lip. “You’re saying that life isn’t really
about wrong or right.”

“Gaea only interferes if it’s necessary. Do you think She
cares for wrong or right? Or do you think She cares for protecting
what is Hers and preserving the peace.”

Ari frowned as she mulled it over. She really didn’t see
anything wrong with the idea. Once again, Nasya’s logic was
reasonable.

“Come, I’ll walk you down to Leonidas.
I’ve heard from Sasha,” Her
tone became wry, “That Leonidas forbade him from coming
tonight.”

Ari sighed. “They don’t get along at all, but I haven’t had
the courage to come right out and ask Sasha why.”

“There are guilds in Sparta that work much the same way
castes did in ancient times. Those born of a specific guild rarely
raise themselves to be more than that. Sasha was supposed to be a
simple scholar. Of course all Spartans are taught the ways of
battle, but Sparta is not always at war, thus the castes separate
the men during times of peace. The Politicians of each Guild are,
of course, at the top.”