Pandora Gets Heart (8 page)

CHAPTER NINE
“To The . . .”

“Gods. Prunes!” Alcie whispered. “Where have I been?”

“Meaning?” Iole said. The girls stood at the staircase railing, watching the crowd stare down at the apple.

“I had clues in front of me this entire time. I gotta start thinking more,” Alcie answered quietly. “This is
that
wedding. Even if I wasn’t paying attention in class, I know enough to know about that . . .
this
. . . wedding.” She was trying to get another glimpse of the golden fruit as Athena, her brows furrowed, rolled it to and fro with her sword.

“So,” Iole said, arching one eyebrow, “you’re all caught up now?”

“Fully informed, thank you very much.”

“Pandy, what do we do?” Iole asked.

Pandy was silent. She knew what was about to happen, but she still didn’t know exactly where Lust was hiding—if it was even in the room. Yet, looking at her friends, she realized that she felt incredibly ineffectual. For hours, all she or any of them had been doing was observing and looking for clues. She’d taken no serious action of any kind. With great effort she reminded herself that this was not the moment to spring, that biding their time was all that they could do until they were certain of something, anything, but she’d never felt so . . . bound . . . in her life.

“We let it play out,” she sighed, staring across the hall into the middle of the crowd. “Watch.”

Athena bent and swiftly scooped up the apple. Holding it by the tiny golden stem, she twirled it slowly in front of her. She stopped, suddenly noticing something, and out of nowhere, a delicate smile appeared on her face.

“What’s that on the side?” Ares called to her.

“Nothing,” Athena said softly, hiding the apple from view with her hand. “It’s nothing.”

“Something’s written on it,” Hebe said, standing close by.

“Athena,” said Triton from across the wide circle, “what does it say?”

Athena, as if she never wanted to look anywhere but at the apple, tore her gaze away and looked at Triton, still smiling.

“It says, ‘To The Fairest.’ ”

“Here we go,” Pandy murmured.

“Excuse me! Pardon me! Step to the left, if you would . . . thank you very much. Pardon me!”

Aphrodite’s voice sounded like wind chimes as it carried throughout the hall. From her vantage point, Pandy saw a ripple in the crowd and flashes of white and rose-colored robes as Aphrodite began to move toward Athena.

At the back of the hall, Pandy caught a whirl of blue as Hera rose up off her throne, her arms waving madly as she yelled something toward Zeus. As Hera began to stride toward Athena, rolling up the sleeves of her deep cerulean robes, her words became audible.

“You better
not
have gotten that for her,” she called back over her shoulder. “Getting her married off was present enough!”

“It is not my doing, my stuffed grape leaf of love,” Zeus said as he watched his wife hurry away. Unlike Aphrodite’s insistent but gentle parting of the throng, Hera was actually sending guests flying into walls and floral displays if they didn’t get out of her path fast enough.

“I don’t care if your power
is
greater than all the rest of us combined, husband,” she was yelling to herself. “I will kick your big and powerful butt!”

Pandy, Alcie, and Iole watched the two goddesses move through the hall. Hera arrived first at Athena’s side.

“For the fairest? I’ll just take that, if you don’t mind, dearest,” she said, making a quick grab for the apple.

But Athena was too swift and dropped the apple into her palm. Pandy saw that the moment her hand closed around the apple, Athena’s knuckles went white and her body tensed.

“With all respect due to you, Queen of Heaven,” Athena said, holding the apple high. “I don’t think so.”

“Hear me, Gray Eyes—”

“Of course you wouldn’t give it to her,” Aphrodite said, gliding up. “It says ‘To The Fairest,’ and I think we all can agree on who that—”

“You would
disobey
the wife of Zeus? Acknowledged as the most beautiful of all the immortals?”

“Right, well, we all know
that’s
not true. Give me the apple, Theeny,” said Aphrodite.

“Alpha, I’d disobey you in a heartbeat,” said Athena, glaring at Hera, “because you’re not going to do anything about it, and beta, this is obviously meant for me . . .”

“Me!” Aphrodite said.

“Me, you shield-wielding savage!”

“. . . because it rolled right to me!”

“
You
are not the fairest!” spat Hera.

“It landed
at my feet
!” Athena screamed. “That means it’s supposed to be for—”

“You don’t even look right in a
gown
with that silly sword!”

“Hellooo!” Aphrodite called out. “Goddess of Love and BEAUTY! Right here!”

And while Athena was distracted, still arguing with Hera, Aphrodite reached up and snatched the apple out of Athena’s hand. As her flesh touched the golden fruit, Aphrodite lurched forward in an ungainly way, a gasp escaping her lips. Before anyone could even blink, the tip of Athena’s sword sliced neatly between two strands of Aphrodite’s twelve-strand necklace of perfectly matched pearls and pressed not so lightly into the flawless white skin of Aphrodite’s throat.

“Theeny, you wouldn’t!” Aphrodite gasped.

“Try me.”

“Give me . . .
that,
” Hera growled as she viciously snatched the apple away from Aphrodite. Grasping it, Hera let out a truly ungoddesslike yelp as her body shook once, violently. Athena redirected her blade at Hera as Aphrodite slapped at Athena’s arms.

“Heeeey!” came a loud screech from the main wine bar.

The crowd quickly parted to reveal Dionysus lying on his stomach on top of the bar, his head turned toward the fracas. His lips were pushed out as his face mashed into the wooden bar top.

“Anyone even consider actually giving it to the—
uuurrrrrppp
—excuse me, bride?”

The three goddesses gaped at him with blank expressions for a moment, then broke into a simultaneous derisive laugh and went at one another again as the wedding guests watched in astonishment.

Suddenly, as she and Aphrodite were flailing about like children, trying to grab the apple from Hera, Athena paused.

“Listen . . . listen!” She wheezed ever so slightly. “I have an idea.”

“What is it, you big bully?” Aphrodite said.

“We shall allow the assembled populace to decide.”

“Who?” asked Hera.

“The guests, you goat!” said Athena. “We’ll do it the mortal way. We’ll all take a vote.”

“All right,” said Hera after a moment.

“Goody,” said Aphrodite, taking a quick count of all of her suitors and lovers in the room. “I’m a shoo-in.”

The first immortal Athena grabbed was Ocean. As the three goddesses stood before him, Hera began winking wildly, Aphrodite puffed out her stomach to make her magic girdle (known for its seductive powers) a focal point, and Athena rested both hands on the hilt of her sword.

“Choose!” said Hera.

Ocean looked, blindsided and terrified, from one to the next to the last.

“You have got to be k-k-kidding!” he finally stammered. Then he dissolved into a saltwater puddle, which flowed toward the nearest exit.

“Uncle!” cried Athena, watching Poseidon rushing his tank-bearers toward the stairs.

“Not a chance!”

“Why not?” Aphrodite called out.

“And risk the wrath of the other two?” Poseidon answered. “I’d rather look into the eyes of Medusa!”

“Ouch,” Alcie muttered.

“Can’t take it personally, Alce,” Iole said. “You haven’t been born yet, and he doesn’t know Medusa is your aunt.”

“Right. Not personal. Right. Still kinda tacky, though, right, Pandy?”

But Pandy was watching the goddesses as they chased after the guests, many of whom were heading slyly and slowly for the exits. They had fallen upon the God of Wine, still lying on top of the bar.

“Pick one, you besotted lout!” Hera yelled, digging her finger into his side.

“All right!” Dionysus mumbled. “All right. Stop poking. I’ll pick one!”

There was silence as everyone close by held their breath.

“I think the fairest is,” he slurred, raising his goblet full of crimson liquid, “the
red!
See? The wine!”

Athena moved to strike him with the flat edge of her sword, but Dionysus, with a smelly belch, fell backward off the bar.

“Look at Athena,” Pandy said.

“Why?” said Iole.

“The other two . . . I get it. Of course Aphrodite would think the apple is for her. And Hera’s ego is the size of Egypt, so no big mystery there. But Athena is too wise to let something like this go to her head. And she knows . . . she knows . . . she’s not, like, the super, all-time,
woo-woo
fairest. But then she touched it!”

At that moment, Hephaestus appeared with the newly repaired doors and began pounding behind them.

“So, it’s the apple?” Alcie said, cupping her hands around her mouth to be heard.

“It has to be. Aphrodite and Hera . . . you saw them; they felt its effects as soon as they got it. And did you see how Athena’s face changed when she held it? She is always so serious and . . . and . . .”

“Tense, resolute, reserved, decorous . . . grave?” Iole offered.

“Yep,” Pandy agreed loudly. “But holding the apple, she glowed.”

“So we go get it,” Alcie said.

But Pandy hesitated.

Suddenly a cry went up from Thetis. Pandy couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying, but she was gesturing to the departing crowd, Hephaestus hammering away, and the three goddesses racing all over the hall. She fell sobbing into Peleus’s shoulder.

“ENOUGH!”

Those guests still in the hall stood stock-still.

Zeus was off his throne and walking toward Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite.

“This has gone on long enough!” he bellowed. “Everyone . . . attend!”

In an instant, all the guests who had managed to escape were back in the hall, including Ocean, dripping wet.

“This was mildly amusing for about two ticks of a sundial. Now the three of you are displaying as much selfishness and self-centeredness as I could stomach for the rest of eternity. Aphrodite . . . well, never mind.”

Aphrodite only smiled.

Then Zeus turned on Hera.

“You, wife. I expected better of you. But then, I always do and I am always disappointed.”

“Oh!” Hera sniffed.

“But Athena. You of whom I am most proud. What has become of my daughter? To be reduced to this . . . begging for favor, scrabbling about, threatening your family?”

“I don’t know,” Athena said slowly, kicking at the floor. “I just want it. Is that so wrong?”

“It is when you ruin everything around you,” Zeus said, glowering. Pandy flashed back to the first time she saw that glower, when it was directed right at her as she stood facing Zeus for the first time.

“Let me put it this way . . . and I’ll use a term that will gain popularity many centuries from now: ‘You’re bringing down the room.’ ”

Many immortals looked suspiciously at the ceiling.

“I
mean
,” Zeus said with exasperation, “that you are spoiling the festivities. Destroying everyone’s good time. Forcing friends and family to make a decision that is impossible. You are all three the fairest in your own way, and your lack of confidence astounds me. Especially you, Athena . . . and you, Aphrodite. Hera . . . all right . . . not so much. But don’t the three of you think it’s odd that this apple appeared after Eris was banned from attending? Perhaps this might have something to do with her? A trick of some sort, a bit of cold revenge. Did that not occur to
you
, at least, Athena?”

“Maybe,” she mumbled, “but I don’t care.”

She glanced sideways at Hera, who, somehow, had gained possession of the apple, and whacked Hera’s bottom with her sword, sending the blue-robed goddess sprawling with a yelp onto the tiles. Immediately Aphrodite was on top of Hera, grappling for the shiny piece of fruit. Then Athena jumped onto Aphrodite, creating a goddess dog pile. Almost instantly they began to roll around the floor in a screeching ball of fabric and flying limbs, scratching, clawing, biting, and kicking.

“THAT’S
IT
!” yelled Zeus, and now a little dust
did
fall from the ceiling as some of the timbers and stones began to loosen slightly.

At the sound of his voice, the three goddesses found themselves at opposite points in the room, guests scattering away from them.

“I had hoped that reason and good sense would prevail, or at the very least, good manners. That whatever enchantment of desire Eris has put on this foul thing . . .”

And at this point, attempting to disguise it as a display of disgust, Zeus shifted his gaze ever so slightly in Pandy’s direction.

“I get it,” Pandy thought.

“. . . might not affect you, as immortals, as shamefully and revoltingly as it has. But I can see that I was wrong.”

Zeus strode to the middle of the room and gazed at each goddess in turn.

“You will, together, leave this place at once. I am giving you one day from this moment to prepare yourselves as you will. Don your finest robes; adorn yourselves with your costliest jewels. Hera, my little swan, you might want to moisturize. Since this inane contest is so important to you, you will have your answer. But we will allow . . . a mortal to decide.”

Smiling, Aphrodite quickly totaled up the number of mortal lovers and suitors she’d known and thought, again, that she was a shoo-in. Athena and Hera both opened their mouths to protest. But a look from Zeus silenced them.

“We will need someone young; someone with little to lose and naive enough not to know the danger in which he’ll be. Someone several arrows short of a full quiver. Fortunately, I know just the boy. You will go together, with Hermes as your escort, to Mount Ida in Phrygia and find the shepherd named Paris. It shouldn’t be too hard . . . he’ll be the one who’s dressed the surrounding trees and several of his flock to resemble residents of his village. He’ll probably be yelling at them for moving too slow . . . trying to dance with them or some such nonsense. Aphrodite, for the life of me I don’t know why, but in this instance I trust you to safeguard the apple until then.”