Pandora Gets Greedy (9 page)

Tiptoeing down the stairs, they saw a light burning dimly in the food-preparation area. Cautiously, they peered around the doorway.

“You might as well come in, you two,” Zeus said, his mouth full.

“We don't have enough to share,” Jupiter said, his hands quickly covering the platter in front of him, piled high with the remnants of the evening meal.

“Who said anything about sharing,” Zeus replied. “They're here and we have questions. It works.”

“What's going on?” Hermes asked. “Do you need anything, Father?”

“Father?” Mercury asked, looking at Jupiter.

“Right now,” Zeus replied, “all Jupiter and I needed was to polish off the leftover dormice, and have a little wine and a little chat. But, now that you're up, come in. You can tell us what's going on with my wife.”

“Yes,” Jupiter said, licking dormice off his fingers. “How far along is she? Are all the parts in place? Is the hip bone connected to the thigh bone? Is the neck bone connected to the shoulder bone? Say, you know, that's rather catchy. Hip bone connected to the—wait for it—thigh bone! Leg bone connected to the—here it comes—ankle bone!”

Jupiter got up and began to dance around the food-preparation room singing his little song until he saw Mercury and Hermes staring at him.

“Father, are you well?” asked Mercury.

“What? Supreme Rulers can't sing? Have a little fun?”

“I have only now just returned from Persia,” Hermes said, looking back at Zeus, who was greatly amused by his own counterpart. “I placed the final piece, her head, with the others, Sky-Lord. Hera is all there, but not all together … yet.”

“Where have you been keeping her?” Zeus asked.

At that moment, undetected by anyone, a dark figure slipped past the entryway and came to rest against the back of a nearby column.

“I found an abandoned insula directly over a section of the old sewers,” Mercury answered. “Caesar has relocated all the inhabitants to make way for the new construction.”

“It's perfect,” Hermes added. “She's leaning against a couple of walls in a tiny storeroom way at the back. You have to walk a veritable maze to get there. Well, you would if you were mortal. No one has seen us coming or going.”

“Excellent work, boys,” said Zeus. “And no one has asked about her. No one misses her. Fascinating.”

“Not entirely true,” said Jupiter, sitting back down at
the table. “Juno has been sniffing around; I don't know how much longer I can put her off.”

The figure behind the column leaned in, straining to catch every word.

“Do you think she suspects anything?” Zeus asked.

“If she does, she should go onstage with a chorus behind her; her acting is that good,” Jupiter replied. “She's curious and a little ticked off that she's the only one who doesn't have her counterpart here. But, I think our story is a good cover: Hera is off visiting family, making a few stops at some of her temples and she'll be here in time for the big feast at the home of Lucius Valerius, or when and if Pandora manages to capture Greed, whichever comes first.”

“It's a little illogical,” Hermes said. “I mean … I only mean … that we don't know when or if Pandora will ever discover where Greed is hiding.”

“Yes, well, the wife has bought the story thus far and that's good enough for me.”

In the dark shadow cast by the column, the figure tensed slightly.

“Beauty and War, at my suggestion,” said Zeus, “have cooked up a nice little plan. Just a little nudge for the girl. They're trying it out tomorrow morning. If it works, Greed should be in the box very, very soon. Possibly even before the feast. No muss, no fuss. And Pandora
might be able to journey to her last destination before you reassemble Hera. And that would so disappoint my better half.”

“You like this girl, don't you, Brother?” asked Jupiter.

“At first I didn't,” Zeus said, a smile beginning to play across his lips. “You have no idea what I wanted to do to her—the punishments, the eternal tortures I wanted to inflict on her for releasing the great and lesser plagues upon mankind and the world. When she accepted the quest, I thought she would be dead within the week and then Hades could deal harshly with her while I figured out what to do about all the evils. But Pandora has not stopped surprising me: her cleverness, ingenuity, and, above all, her courage have actually made me rethink the nobility of mortal man. Or, maiden, as it were.”

“Let's not forget her friends,” Hermes said.

“Indeed,” said Zeus. “Let us not. Here's to them.”

Zeus raised his goblet and drained the last drops of wine.

Leaning against the column, the figure disappeared.

Conversation … The Second

“Hi,” whispered Iole, sticking her head into Pandy and Alcie's tiny room. “Melania's asleep and I wanted to
ascertain where you both disappeared to today. One instant I think I see you two on top of a fountain, and the next, you've vanished. Then I see you two sneaking toward the Theatre of Pompey. Exceptionally exciting about Homer, huh!? I'm thrilled and relieved I didn't see the actual battle … what is keeping both of you from paying the slightest bit of attention to me?”

“Huh?” said Pandy, turning. “Oh, hi, Iole.”

“Hello. I half expected to run into you in the corridor going into Lucius's private rooms to do whatever you do in there.”

“I haven't had time to straighten his things from the day today. Hang on,” Pandy said, fidgeting with something in her hand.

“She's trying for the, like, billionth time to talk to her dad, even though it's so late back home, everyone will probably be asleep,” Alcie said, curling her knees up underneath her as she sat on her sleeping cot.

“Oh! I'll be quiet.”

“I don't care if it's late,” Pandy said. “He might still be up.”

Pandy, as she had done every few moments since she and Alcie had retired to their room that night, ran her finger down the lip of her special, enchanted shell. Then she held it to her ear and waited. As before, nothing. She was just about to run her finger over the lip
again, thereby ending the call when she heard a rustling, like the crinkling of parchment, on the other end.

“Hello!” she cried, then muffled her voice. “Dad! Dad! It's me!”

“Uh, hello?” said a young, unfamiliar voice on the other end.

“Dad?”

“Uh … who's this?”

“Who is
this
?” Pandy asked, now afraid that her father had somehow let his shell fall into strange hands.

“This is Xander,” said the youth.

“Xander who?” said Pandy, her mind not focusing clearly.

“Xander, only son, only child of the Great House of Prometheus,” the boy said very fast and with a sigh, as if bored by saying it whenever he introduced himself.

“What? Who
is
this?” Pandy exclaimed.

Suddenly, there was a sound of exasperation on the other end and then Pandy heard nothing.

Immediately, she ran her finger again over the lip of the shell.

“Something's wrong,” she said to Alcie and Iole. “Really wrong.”

“Yeah?” said the youth when the line opened on the other end.

“Listen, don't touch the shell again, please. I am trying to speak to Prometheus, my father, and …”

“Okay, well, I don't know who you are, but my dad only has one child and that's me and he can't talk to you anyway.”

“What do you mean, ‘one child'?” she asked, getting perturbed.

“I had a sister but she died and, like, I don't even know you.”

And that's when Pandy lost her grasp on every word she ever knew. She peered into the corner of the small room, seeing nothing, unable to comprehend. Alcie and Iole saw her mouth moving wordlessly; her fingers clenching and unclenching around the shell. Alcie got up off her cot and circled in front of Pandy for a better look. Iole followed and together they stared down at their best friend whose eyes were as large as bowls of cream.

“Where's my dad?” Pandy asked softly after a long pause.

“Where are
you
?” the youth asked sharply. “And how are you doing this?”

“Xander … this is … it's …” Pandy faltered. “Just answer one question, okay?”

“What?”

Persephone's face floated in Pandy's mind; her odd use of the words “years.”

“How old are you?”

“Who
is
this? Why do you want to know?”

And suddenly, without warning, Pandy found her
resolve and her focus. She shook off the fuzziness all around her and stared into Iole's face. Then she looked right into Alcie's eyes as her brain pushed an answer up her throat and out of her mouth. She needed this boy to confirm the information she already knew was the truth. So she lied.

“This is Athena, boy,” Pandy said with authority, her voice deep. “Certainly you know who I am.”

“Uhhhh. Hi,” said Xander, the cockiness now gone.

“I have enchanted the shell you hold so you may hear my voice. Now, answer my question: how old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

Pandy's breath caught in her chest.

“Where is your father?”

“He's sick.”

Pandy paused.

“How sick?”

Alcie grabbed Iole's arm.

“He can't move or talk anymore. He sleeps a lot. He can't die or anything.”

Pandy fought to keep her voice even and low.

“How long has be been sick?”

“I dunno. Maybe, like, ten years. Maybe. They say he got sick when my sister died.”

“And now he can't talk?” Pandy asked.

“Nope.”

“How did your sister die?”

“I dunno. She wasn't here.”

“How did you find the shell?” asked Pandy, her mind trying to move to something she could envision.

“I just found it behind a cushion on the floor. I heard it making noise. I guess it's been here for a while.”

“And you're at home—I mean, in your home—now?”

“Yeah.”

“The shell belongs to your father, Xander. I want you to take it over to him and put it next to his ear. Okay?”

“Okay.”

For the next several moments, as she listened to her little brother get up off the floor cushion, walk up the stairs of her home back in Athens and into her parents' sleeping room, Pandy hung her head and took in deep breaths, trying not to panic. Alcie put her hand on Pandy's arm and Pandy grabbed it tightly.

“Dad,” she heard Xander say from a distance. “Dad, Athena wants to talk to you. Okay, I'm putting it up to his ear now.”

Pandy listened for a moment, trying to catch any sound. At first she heard nothing. Then, ever so faintly, she heard a delicate rasping breath—like a single leaf blown down a street by a gentle wind.

“Dad …,” she said, fighting like Hercules to keep her voice calm. “Daddy, I'm here. I'm alive, Daddy. I don't know what's happened, but I'm
not
dead.”

She heard the sound of someone trying—and failing—to sound out words on the other end.

“Daddy! Listen to me, I'm alive. It's Pandora and I'm
alive
! I'm coming home, Daddy. I'm coming home as soon as I can!”

“Hey!” she heard Xander yelling in the background. “Hey, what are you saying to him! Dad?
Dad
, you okay?”

She looked at Alcie and Iole, now both truly frightened, and collapsed into a sobbing heap on the sleeping cot. Alcie took the shell away from her and held it to her own ear: silence. Then she ran her finger down the lip and sat next to Pandy on the cot.

“P?” Alcie said. “What just happened?”

“Xan … Xan …,” she choked out. “Somebody who said he was Xander said that he's
thirteen years old
and that my dad is sick. Really sick! He wouldn't talk to me …”

“Yes, well,” said a deep, familiar voice from the opposite side of the room. “I think some of the blame for this lies with me. Not all, mind you, but some.”

Conversation … The Third

Pandy, Alcie, and Iole turned to see Hermes, crouched into a ball so that his huge form wouldn't knock out the
walls and ceiling of the little room. There was no blinding flash to alert them of his presence and, at this point, no one felt like kneeling or paying any kind of homage to the god. Alcie and Iole simply stared, too worried about their friend. But Pandy looked at him with agony and the tiniest hint of reproach.

“
You?
” she asked. “You knew my father was sick?”

“No,” he said, shifting and trying to find a more comfortable position. “Not that. I didn't know that. Listen, you know—and you're lucky—that most of the evils in the box landed somewhere in your time—and in the
same
time. But there were a couple that kinda bounced around. Look, I don't have to tell you that you didn't just release a few little bits of nastiness. These are some of the most powerful forces known to man and gods alike, all right? And because they're the ‘Big Bads' they don't necessarily follow the rules of time. They're timeless. Remember how you had to go back in time when you were looking for Lust? Roughly thirteen hundred years or so? Well, this evil, Greed, went forward in time. Not much. Only ten years. But when I brought you here, I had to take you all ten years into the future.”

The girls just gaped at Hermes.

“We didn't think … I mean we didn't think it would be such a problem, you know what I'm saying?”

“And you didn't
think
it might be sorta—smart—to tell me?”

At any other time, Hermes might have told Pandy to watch her tone, possibly by turning her into a rabbit or a lizard for a few moments just to get his rather powerful point across, but he saw the desperation on her face and restrained himself.