Pandora Gets Heart (9 page)

“Not fair!” Athena yelled.

“QUIET!” Zeus bellowed.

Pandy felt her stomach flip at the sheer size of his voice. Zeus paused for a moment, his brows suddenly furrowed.

“If two relatively sane immortals and my wife are so ridiculous over this bauble, I suffer to think what its power would do to a human. Therefore, to mitigate the destructive power of Eris’s spell, I am enchanting the apple with an invisible shield,” he said when he spoke again. “Which will be broken only when one of you receives it in your big, greedy hands. Give it to Paris and let him judge.”

At once, Aphrodite felt the apple heavy in a silver silk pouch hanging from a new hook on her enchanted girdle.

“Well,” Zeus said, when no one moved. “What are you three waiting for? Time is ticking . . . and some of you need all of it you can get.”

Athena and Aphrodite vanished straightaway, but Hera shot one last look at her husband, murmuring something inaudible, and then she was gone.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Zeus said softly. His gaze went to Thetis, who mouthed the words “thank you.” Zeus nodded his head, then he swept his arms wide to include all the guests.

“Well, the boy is in for it, I’m certain, but at least we’ve avoided our own little war, yes?”

The immortals cheered.

“And the best part of all is that now I may have one dance with the bride without my wife wanting to peck out my eyes!”

To which everyone laughed and agreed.

“That is, of course, if her husband will permit me?”

King Peleus bowed low and assisted Thetis off the dais. The new queen did not go rushing into Zeus’s arms as she might have only several hours before, like an infatuated schoolgirl. Instead, she walked slowly and regally, mindful of her husband’s feelings, to the Sky-Lord.

“Friends?” Zeus asked her.

“Always,” she answered.

“Orpheus?” Zeus called out. “How about something with a little kick?”

“At once, Cloud Gatherer!” Orpheus cried, then softly to his orchestra, “Boys, ‘I Found Love in a Syrian Spice Shop’ on three. A one, a two . . .”

Soon almost everyone was out on the floor, feet stomping and arms waving.

But Pandy was slumped over the railing at the top of the stairs, her mouth slightly open . . . in complete and utter shock.

CHAPTER TEN
Departure

Pandy stared blankly at the guests, celebrating madly in the great hall. By now, she thought, she should be used to this particular feeling . . . she’d felt it so many times before: she was completely at a loss.

“Pandy?”

Iole was nudging her, but Pandy was oblivious. It had been so
close,
right in the room, only several meters away: the golden apple that was Lust . . . or contained it . . . or led to it. And she’d done nothing. She could have quietly tiptoed up behind any of the three most powerful goddesses in the universe and tried to take it. It shouldn’t have mattered that they would have killed her on the spot. She could have kicked them or tickled them or pointed in another direction, grabbed it, and raced out of the room when they weren’t looking or . . .

“Pandy!”

Alcie was pinching her arm, but she didn’t care. The entire day had been a series of “watch” or “look” or, worst of all, “wait.” Not one single “run!” or “go!” She was disgusted with herself.

And now the golden apple was gone. Vanished with Aphrodite and the others to someplace called Mount Ida in Phrygia, which was no place in Greece, that much she knew. But it was of no consequence to Zeus where he sent them; he could have told the three quarreling goddesses to go to China and it would still be the same to Pandy—too far for three mortal maidens and a youth to travel in the single day before the shepherd would choose.

“Pandy!”

Alcie had her by the shoulders and was shaking her forcefully.

“Hey!”

“What? What!” Pandy said.

“What do we do now?” Alcie asked as Iole came around to join them. Pandy had no earthly idea what they were going to do.

“I . . . I . . .”

“That
was
it, wasn’t it? Lust?” Iole asked.

She put her head in her hands, unsure if this was a question she could even deal with. Just when she thought she might pass out, a voice deep inside her head screamed, “Knock it off, Pandora. You’re in charge, remember?” She lifted her head and forced her mouth open.

“It . . . has . . . to be. Right?” she began slowly and uncertainly, but almost at once, her brain miraculously found a thread and she ran with it. “Okay. We were sent here
today.
Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Not earlier and not later.
Now.
We were meant to see everything that just happened. So . . . so, look around . . . ” There was that inactive word again, but this time she said it for a specific purpose. “Do you see anything that resembles Lust anywhere? No. Nowhere. Even Peleus and Thetis . . . they look happy, but not crazy. Not Athena-crazy.”

“But Lust is going to Mount Ida,” said Iole.

“Why does that sound familiar?” asked Alcie, her eyes gazing at three nymphs flinging their arms out to their sides with the beat of the music.

“Aphrodite is probably back on Olympus right now, preparing,” Pandy said, grasping for something hopeful. “That’s still in Greece, at least. If Alcie and I pooled our tips, we could get the . . . the swiftest chariot.”

“Even if we could travel there in a day, no ordinary chariot could ever get up the slopes of Olympus,” Iole countered. “We have to get to Mount Ida.”

“I’ve heard that name before,” Alcie said, her brow furrowing slightly.

“Right, Mount Ida,” Pandy said, a measure of authority creeping into her voice.

“Phrygia is to the east,” Iole said. “It’s fairly close to Troy, but it’s across the sea.”

“Okay,” Pandy said, staring at her. “So we’re in the same spot that we were in Alexandria . . .”

“Gods!” Alcie yelled. Several immortals close by looked at her as if she had summoned them all at once, but Pandy was too engrossed in her own words to notice.

“. . . except now we have to get to Mount Ida,” Pandy continued. “There’s no Sun Chariot to take us.”

“I don’t think we need it,” said Alcie, unusually quiet, grinning from ear to ear.

“No dolphins,” Pandy went on.

“Pandy, we couldn’t even depart Mount Pelion in a day,” Iole said.

“Oh, lemons,” Alcie said softly. “Guys, I, like,
so
don’t get to do this that often, please just listen to me.”

“Huh?” Pandy said. “Do what, Alce?”

“Be smart.”

“What are you talking about?” Iole asked.

“Pandy,” Alcie said, folding her arms across her chest. “
Look
in your red pouch.”

“Why?” Pandy asked, looking from Alcie down to her waist. Then she looked back up at Alcie, her eyes wide.

“Gods!” Pandy cried. Several immortals turned to glare at the girls, but Pandy stared at Alcie, who just nodded, smiling. Pandy ripped open the pouch and poured the coins into her hand. There, on top, was the large gold coin from Zeus with the words MOUNT IDA just readable in the fading afternoon light.

“You’re brilliant,” Pandy said to Alcie.

“I have moments.”

“Are you certain that’s not simply where it was stamped?” Iole said, never having seen the coin before. “I’m certain,” Pandy said. “Look what it says on the back.”

Pandy flipped the coin over.

“We’ll lose two weeks of time, but my guess is that this will get us all there tomorrow . . . or instantly whenever we use it.”

“And when do we use it?” Iole said. “Or more specifically, how? And where?”

Pandy glanced about the room, again at a loss, but this time confident that something would present itself.

“We know that the gods don’t do anything without a reason, and this came from Zeus himself. We’ll know it when we see it.”

“Or when I think of it,” Alcie said.

“Don’t get cocky,” Iole replied, rolling her eyes.

“Can if I want to!” Alcie sang out, poking at the air in front of Iole.

“Come on, let’s get back to the cave and get our stuff,” Pandy said.

“Everything of mine is in the bride’s dressing room,” Iole answered.

“Okay,” Pandy said, “we’ll get Homer on our way out. You meet us at the fork in the path to Chiron’s cave in ten minutes.”

“Done.”

Iole split off and headed toward the purple curtain as Pandy and Alcie headed in the direction of the main wine bar, all three completely unaware that two beady eyes, lids painted with pale green shadow, were watching their every move.

Leaving Homer at the fork to wait for Iole, Pandy and Alcie walked past many large ox-drawn carts, each being loaded with sacks of garbage from the evening’s festivities.

Suddenly Pandy grabbed Alcie’s arm.

“What?”

“It just hit me,” Pandy said, turning slowly to look at her friend. “Zeus
gave
me the coin. That means he doesn’t just know that I’m here and why I’m here, but that he’s helping as well. Hermes
and
Zeus!”

“Uh-huh,” Alcie said, as if she’d already figured that out. “I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna take that as a good sign. C’mon.”

Inside Chiron’s cave, there was almost no activity except for a few servants cleaning up and carrying sacks out to the waiting carts. Walking to the spot where they had put their cloaks and pouches, they stopped when they heard a high-pitched laugh followed by a deep guffaw.

At the back of the cave, Myron and Chiron were sitting, one on his haunches, the other at a table, laughing uproariously. Suddenly Chiron sighed, and Myron became very solemn.

“Look, Horsey, here’s the thing,” Myron said. “We can joke about it all we want, but it’s resentment, pure and simple. Just because you didn’t get an invitation . . . doesn’t mean a thing. We’re better than just about everybody we serve. Artistes, that’s what we are! I cook, you teach . . . and look great. And do we ever get the recognition we deserve?”

“Nope,” Chiron answered.

“The answer is no. You should have been there to-night. I fed everyone and do you think I would ever get a ‘Hey, Myron, come up and enjoy the party’? Never. But it’s the fate of resented genius—always bridesmaidens, never brides.”

Pandy looked at the spot where she’d put her pouch; it was gone. Tensing, she searched the back of the cave with her eyes. Nothing.

“Where’s our stuff?” Alcie whispered.

“Excuse me,” Pandy blurted out to Chiron and Myron. “I am sorry to bother you, but we put our things down here before we went to the palace. Do you happen to know where they are?”

“Nope,” Chiron said.

“There was some stuff that smelled like horse poop,” Myron said.

“That’s me!” Chiron yelled. He laughed loudly once, then sighed and put his head in his hands.

Myron just looked at him for a long moment, then turned back to Pandy and Alcie.

“I thought it was trash. It’s probably in one of the sacks outside.”

“Figs, figs, figs,” Alcie muttered as they ran. Pandy beat Alcie to the entrance of the cave and out to the first cart. She caught one of the clean-up servants by the arm.

“Hi! Did you, by any chance, pick up two cloaks, a couple of togas, and some pouches by the back of the cave?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

“I don’t know,” the tired, glassy-eyed youth said.

“One cloak was a dirty white and the other was—,” Alcie began.

“It all smelled like horse poop,” Pandy said.

“Oh, yeah,” the youth said, scowling. “Strong stuff. You could smell it through the bag! It’s on one of the carts. Not the first two, that’s all palace trash. Farther back. Don’t remember which.”

Pandy raced onto the top of the third cart, while Alcie took the fourth, sniffing at every bag. At that very moment, drivers began mounting the first two carts, readying to drive their teams away from the site.

“Pandy! Pandy!” Alcie cried, pointing to the lead cart when Pandy looked up. Then Pandy saw a driver with his crop heading toward the cart she was on.

She looked around, her mind in a spin. She knew what she had to do . . . but where would she focus? If she targeted the trees of the forest, the whole mountain might go up; she couldn’t target the metal wheel spokes, because the carts would never move afterward. Then she saw it—and it was so obvious.

Pandy focused her power on the topmost sacks of garbage in the first cart, just as the oxen were turning to head back toward the fork and down the mountain. Instantly, the sacks were ablaze; flames were shooting a full meter into the air, and the light wind was carrying the smell of day-old fish eggs and sour boar sauce back toward the waiting drivers.

At once, surprise turned to panic as embers began rising into the trees and all the drivers and nearby servants ran to help put out the flames. The distraction gave Pandy and Alcie time to hurriedly search several more carts. The flames were finally doused, the oxen had been calmed, and Pandy was just climbing onto another cart, when the first cart began moving again. Pandy was about to torch a different load, when the wind shifted and her nose caught the unmistakable scent she had been searching for. She ran back another two carts, calling to Alcie as she passed. Quickly, they clambered onto one of the last carts, found the sack, and loosed the knotted cord. Digging deep into a mass of half-eaten grape leaves, soggy squash blossoms, rancid lentils, and crusty hummus, Pandy felt the fabric of her cloak, balled up around her old toga . . . then her water-skin . . . then the leather carrying pouch. As she pulled them out, Alcie dove in.

“Beyond gross,” Alcie said, retrieving her belongings.

“At least you won’t find any meatballs in there,” came a voice from the front of the cart. Pandy and Alcie looked up to see Hermes sitting in the driver’s seat. When the two girls just stared for a moment, he rolled his eyes.

“Because Aphrodite ate them all,” he said, grinning.

Pandy smiled back at him.

“Going someplace?” Hermes asked.

“We are,” Pandy replied.

“Me too,” he said.

“Same place?”

“Odds are good.”

“Can we get a ride?”

“Do you have the fare?”

Pandy wiped the lentils off her hands and dug into the red pouch, handing the large gold coin to Hermes.

“This should cover it,” she said. “I think.”

“That’ll do it,” Hermes said, with a wink. “But it’s good for four mortals.”

“Gods!” Alcie cried. “I’ll go get them!”