Pandora Gets Heart (3 page)

“Gods!” Iole cried.

Alcie suddenly jerked up, eyes still closed, and spit out a tiny bit of water. No one moved.

“Oh,” Iole whispered, clutching the eye.

Then Alcie thrashed again, threw up an
enormous
amount of water, and flopped back down on the sand. The blue color was starting to fade from her lips. Her eyes opened and she coughed and gurgled, her head rolling from side to side. She was breathing heavily. Finally, she focused on the three shadowy faces staring down at her, blocking the sun. Her brow furrowed into one long line.

“Owwww!”

“Alcie?” Pandy said, looking at her friend like she was a beached naiad.

Alcie stared hard at Pandy for a moment.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?”

“Wahooo!” said Pandy, dancing around and hugging Iole, who still hadn’t moved. “You did it!”

“I thought I’d killed her,” Iole said, being whirled about by Pandy like a little doll.

Homer hugged Alcie tightly, then helped her to sit. A second later, she leaned over and coughed up another huge amount of water.

“Good! Get it all out!” Homer encouraged.

“Thank you, thank you!” Pandy mouthed over and over.

Iole stepped up and gently hung the Eye of Horus around Alcie’s neck.

“Anything?” Iole asked, after a few moments. “Feel better?”

Alcie looked up and nodded weakly. At last, her breathing became calmer and more regular.

“Say something, Alce . . . say anything!” Pandy begged, a huge grin on her face. “Say ‘figs’ or ‘dates’ or ‘eggplant.’ Tell me I’m a rotten bit of watermelon rind! Call me an apple . . . or a prune!”

“You’re . . . a . . . prune.”

“Yes! Yes I
am
!” yelled Pandy, jumping up and down.

“Lemon peels. I hate water,” Alcie said. “And I hate boats and swimming and sand and stupid, mean captains. I hate pork . . .”

“Yay,” Iole said quietly.

“. . . I hate almost drowning. I hate everything.”

“Good. You’re fine,” Pandy said, panting with relief and throwing herself down in the sand next to Alcie. “You’re fine. Gods, you’re fine.”

All four were too shaken to really say anything for the next several minutes. Then Pandy finally raised her head.

“Now, let’s see where we are.”

CHAPTER FOUR
A Deal

Seeing and hearing the commotion, several people were approaching from other parts of the long, curved white beach. Two fishermen, having just unloaded their catch for the day, offered to carry Alcie farther inland, but Homer insisted that he was perfectly capable of doing that. A young mother with her two children approached Iole. After formal greetings, she explained that she had traveled from Oloosson in the north to the nearby city of Iolcus.

“There’s a small tavern off this beach,” she said. “We heard you all shouting from there. I’m sorry I didn’t come to help sooner, but I couldn’t bear to let my children see any more tragedy. There’s just been so much trouble in the last few months.”

“Really? Of what sort?” Iole asked, knowing perfectly well what sort. Her gaze wandered over to the boy and girl splashing in the sea, oblivious to Alcie, now being helped up by just about everyone.

“Kumquats! Stop babying me! I can stand by myself!” Alcie yelled. “Pandy . . . Pandy, will you just let go! Oh . . . oh, thank you, Homie . . . yes, if you would just take my arm . . . oh, that’s it, thank you . . .”

“Looting, fistfights, greediness,” the woman went on. “People I’ve known for years have become ill tempered and cruel. My husband is a trader doing business in the south. We’re meeting him here until we decide what to do and where to go next.”

“Perhaps it is just a phase of the moon, or Zeus is angry, or some such,” said Iole, never considering revealing that the source of all the calamity in the world was only three meters away, sporting stringy brown hair and a soaked toga, trying to get Alcie to move slowly.

“You say there’s a tavern close by?” Iole continued.

“It’s just a shack, really,” the woman said, pointing toward a line of trees at the edge of the beach. “For sunworshippers, people from Iolcus with summer homes here, and the fishing trade. But I’m sure you can find something to drink there.”

“Iole,” Pandy said, joining them, “Alcie thinks she can walk a bit, so we’re heading inland.”

“Thank you,” Iole said to the woman as she and Pandy moved away. “And I’m certain things won’t stay this way for long. At least I hope they won’t.”

“Let me guess,” Pandy sighed. “Somebody else affected by the box getting opened?”

“Yep. And I told her it was all your fault.”

“You didn’t!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The Odyssey,” Iole said, reading the sign posted over the tavern entryway. “Well, it’s fitting.”

“I know,” Pandy agreed. “Like Odysseus, most of the time I don’t know what’s around the next corner for us.”

Inside, several fishermen gave the girls a more-than-casual glance, then saw Homer standing behind them and quickly looked away. As fishermen bartered and bargained with fishmongers, Alcie read a sign over the counter.

“Iolcus is that-a-way,” Alcie said, pointing to the city’s name and a crude arrow burnt into the board. “Doesn’t say how far. Wish there was a sign for Mount Pelion.”

“What do you want?” asked a scruffy barman with a giant, jutting belly.

“Gods!” Iole said out of the side of her mouth. “I just realized we have no money.”

“What was that?” said the barman.

“Hang on,” Pandy said, digging through her carrying pouch. Finally, she withdrew a single copper coin and triumphantly laid it on the counter.

“Four glasses of juice, my good man!”

“That will get
you
a single glass of water with a little lemon twist,” the barman sneered. “Now, if you’re not going to order more than that, get out.”

“Look,” Pandy said quickly. “We really just need some information.”

“What kind of information?” said the barman, subtly placing his calloused hand over the coin.

“We just need to know how to get to Mount Pelion,” Pandy replied.

“Is that all?” said the barman. “Well, I think information should be free of charge, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” said Pandy, reaching for the copper coin.

“But,” the man said, tossing the coin into the air and catching it in a fold of his robe, “it’s not. Talk to the puny guy over there in the corner. He’s from a village on Pelion, I guess. Came in here just before you did, cryin’ like a baby about how he was waylaid by thieves on his journey down the mountain and now has no money to pay for fish. Maybe you can hop a ride with him. I think he’ll probably have room.”

“Oh, yes,” Iole muttered as the barman laughed and walked away. “People are pleasant.”

“Come on,” said Pandy.

In the far corner, they found a very short, extremely thin man staring, red-eyed, out of an open window.

“Excuse me, sir,” Pandy began. “I don’t mean to bother you . . .”

“Bother me?!” the man shrieked. “That’s very funny. As if I could be bothered further. My village saves for weeks to buy supplies, and now I have to go back up that infernal mountain, and tell them we’re all going to starve! How could you bother me further?”

“By asking for a ride,” Alcie said, without missing a beat.

“What?” the man fairly screamed.

“Sir.” Pandy paused to speak calmly. “We just thought that if you were going up the mountain anyway, we might accompany you. We could certainly protect you on the way back, and we could tell your entire village of the trouble you encountered. Homer here would . . . uh, beat up . . . anyone who tried to beat you up.”

“Can you pay me?” the man asked quickly.

Pandy looked at the others.

“All our good stuff was taken on Atlas’s mountain, remember?” said Alcie.

“And I just used my last coin,” Pandy said. She turned back to the man.

“No, sir, we can’t pay you,” she said simply. “I guess we’ll walk. Thanks anyway.”

“It’s over a week walking. If you don’t get eaten. Or worse,” he said, a slight gleam in his eye now. “Are you sure you have nothing?”

“Uh, no,” Pandy said.

“I disagree,” he said, smiling.

Then she slowly followed his gaze to Iole’s wrist.

“That will get you all up the mountain and then some!” he hissed, making tiny pointing motions toward Iole’s new emerald bracelet.

Iole instinctively hid her hand behind her back.

“Don’t even think about it!” Alcie said to the man.

“It was a present,” Iole whispered.

“Have a nice walk,” the man said, turning back to the window.

Iole looked at Pandy. Pandy smiled at her.

“You don’t have to, Iole. We’ll get there.”

“That’s right!” Alcie said. “Moldy apples, that’s right.

My grammy Urania gave me that and I gave it to you. No way does he—”

“Alcie,” Iole said softly, “be quiet.”

Iole closed her eyes for a moment, then brought her arm forward and slowly removed the bracelet.

“As if!” Alcie yelled.

“Alcie . . . shhhhh!” Pandy said.

“I gave that to you!”
Alcie mouthed.

“And now I have to give it up, Alce,” Iole said. Turning her head to the side, she whispered, “Nothing—no bracelet, no present—nothing is worth delaying what we’re doing.”

“Figs!”

“Thank you, Iole,” Pandy said. “Thank you.”

“It was great for a day,” Iole said.

“I am never speaking to you again,” Alcie said, turning and clomping out of the tavern.

“Alcie!” Iole called, running after her.

Twirling the bracelet on one finger, the man grinned at Pandy and Homer before dropping it into a leather pouch.

“Eteocles, that’s my name. And now, if you’d like to get started, my oxcart awaits.”

“Don’t you want to use the bracelet to buy some fish?” Pandy asked dryly. “You could buy tons.”

“All the decent fish are gone now,” Eteocles sniffed. “Besides, this will buy a whole new life for me.”

“What about your starving village?” Homer asked.

“What about them? Let them starve. I’ll take you to the mountain and then it’s off to Persia or Rome for me!”

“What if we tell your village what you did?” Pandy said.

“What if I drop you an hour’s walk from my village? That’s a nice head start, I think. Now, do you want to continue this conversation here or on the road?”

Pandy turned and walked toward the door, but Homer blocked Eteocles’ way.

“That bracelet is worth way more than a ride up a mountain,” Homer said.

“Your friends don’t seem to think so,” Eteocles replied, trying to get around Homer.

“It would be only, like, a couple of coins to hire a chariot in any city,” Homer said, sidestepping quickly.

“Then I suggest you find a city and hire a chariot,” Eteocles said. “Iolcus is fairly close. Why don’t you and your friends—”

Homer bore down on the man.

“I don’t like seeing people I care about getting cheated. What’s to keep me from taking that bracelet right now, flattening you, and taking your team and cart? Huh?” Homer asked, his eyes cold and his voice low.

Eteocles stopped in his tracks and stared up at Homer.

“First,” he said softly, “the deal was made between myself and the girl. Second, you must certainly be aware that appearances can be deceiving. I might have reserves of strength and agility that are belied by my small, wasted exterior.”

Something in the man’s eyes made Homer take a step back.

“And third,” the man said, brightening slightly, “your code of honor, my friend. You would never do such a thing.”

Following Eteocles out of the tavern, Homer saw Pandy and Iole petting the two old oxen yoked to the cart, and Alcie, in the opposite direction, staring straight up toward the sky.

“Alcie, come on!” Pandy called.

With a giant heave of her shoulders, Alcie turned and walked to the cart, looking straight down. Arranging themselves on the dirty tarp, Alcie made certain that she was staring anywhere but at Iole.

“We have quite a ride ahead . . . get comfortable!” Eteocles called over his shoulder. And they were off.

The forest became denser and greener the higher they climbed. Occasionally, Pandy spotted a cave or a small waterfall, but there were very few signs of life on the mountain. With four extra bodies to haul, the oxen were quickly spent and Homer had to jump off several times and help push the cart over bumps and out of deep ruts. He quickly realized he needed to walk alongside if they were going to make any progress.

Late that afternoon, Homer and Eteocles went off in different directions to hunt for game, while Alcie and Iole gathered twigs and Pandy started a fire. Homer came back empty-handed, but Eteocles had caught two rabbits and three wild birds, which made a tasty evening meal for everyone except Iole.

Alcie, still not speaking to Iole, made certain that she sat close to her and, as Iole ate some dried dates and figs, casually and “accidentally” waved bits of rabbit in front of Iole’s nose.

As the moon rose, the girls curled up on top of the tarp, their cloaks spread like blankets. Eteocles slept on the ground while Homer kept watch.

At dawn the next morning, after a quick first meal, they were back on the road. The incline grew very steep very fast, and one by one, the girls all joined Homer at the back of the cart, pushing and pulling with the oxen.

“This is ridiculous!” Alcie whispered as they lay on the tarp that night. “What in Hades did we pay for? We could have walked up here faster.”

“We’re eating well,” Pandy said, still marveling at the animals that Eteocles had snared for that evening’s meal. Homer had again come back empty-handed, but Eteocles had caught a small goat and several wild hares.

“And I don’t know what he’s using to catch anything,” Alcie said.

“Must be his hands,” Iole said. “Disgusting.”