Volcanoes (12 page)

Children of varying ages were out in the field of bubbles working on their physical training. For some, this me
ant weapons training. For others it was simply brutal exercise. Although calling it simply brutal was probably understating what these kids had to go through.

There were a few that didn't look older than eight years old. 
I opened my mouth to tell my mother exactly what I thought of that. She clapped her hand over my mouth and whispered in my ear, "Shush. They're advanced kids. Either we start training them now or they start a blizzard in their parent's house before freaki
n
g out."

"Touché
," I whispered back.

Watching them here was amazing. Sometimes as parents it's easy to get caught up in coddling your kids. We run around under them frantically like chickens with our heads cut off, holding out the safety net
–
hoping they
don't crash to Earth.  We spend so much time protecting and nurturing them that we forget how resilient children can be. They are amazing creatures so full of possibility - it hit me like a ton of bricks to realize I'd been holding my son back instead of
e
ncouraging his progression.

He looked so beautiful on that field. Okay, not really. He looked gangly
–
all arms and legs with sweat pouring down a face covered in peach fuzz and a few pimples.  But he was beautiful to me. I saw in him the possibility of w
hat he could become and I was proud.

Yes. He was bitchy and the mood swings were probably going to drive me to drink. But he was beautiful and growing into a fine young man. I just needed to exercise patience…
and maybe drink a bit more.

"Wow," I whisper
ed.

"Yep," she replied and turned me around. Her face was wreathed in smiles and it gave me warm fuzzies. If anything happened to me, this woman would guard my son with every single bit of power and energy at her disposal. She looked every inch the proud g
randma and some of the anger and hurt that I'd been holding on to broke away to fall into the Sea of Fuckitall.

Much more of that and I'd end up forgiving her completely. What was this world coming to when Grace Murphy gave up a grudge?

My face must have
shown my train of thought because she smiled and shook her head. "You don't have to yet, babe. It will come soon enough. Come on. It's time to get you back to Pie so he can take you on that mission. After that, we'll talk about starting a routine. I under
s
tand that you have a book to write and a life to lead but until you have the ability to protect yourself again, we need to do as much as we can to shore up your defenses."

That all sounded perfectly reasonable to me so I nodded and followed her back to the
living quarters.

What a surprise, they were still arguing about whether I'd go or not. Diana turned back to me and raised her eyebrow in question.

I nodded. Yes, they were still at it.

She rolled her eyes, sighed and turned back to insert herself into
the middle of their argument. "Gentlemen," she began quietly. "Can you please remind me who is in charge here?"

That shut them up.  I couldn't keep the shit eating grin off of my face. Yeah
–
that was
my
mom. Hephaestus narrowed his eyes when he saw my mir
th and gave me a look that promised pain and suffering when he got me alone. Guess who wouldn't be doing Forge duty any time soon if she could help it?

"That would be you, Diana," Heph growled.

"Are you sure?" she asked. Was that a smidge of sarcasm in he
r voice? I smothered a giggle and let her continue.

"Don't be ridiculous," he bit out before turning to leave. He stopped at the door and shot back, "When she dies, please remember that I wanted her safe instead of out in the open where anyone could kill
her."

Ouch
–
that wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all and it reminded me that I was going to be leaving this sanctuary and the safety that it provided. Crap. "Insert paranoia here," I muttered.

The smile I got for that comment was so smarmy that I wanted t
o smack him. But wait, prudence inserted itself and instead I said, "I'm certain that my mother would not send me into a dangerous situation unprotected. Poseidon is one of our greatest warriors, after all."

Volley and score one for team Murphy.

"Is he?"
was the quiet reply. It was enough to leave a lingering trail of doubt in the back of my mind and I shivered.

"That is enough!" my mother shouted. "Poseidon will take Grace with him. If you have issues, you can take it up with Zachary. Good luck finding t
he bastard.”

She turned away from the group and stormed out of the room leaving a trail of wide eyes in her wake.

"They had a tiff," I said in way of explanation.

"Ah," replied Poseidon.  Heph just grunted and left.

"Well it looks like it's just you and
me, buddy." I smiled with as much hope as I could muster and waited for him to tell me what we were going to do.

"Is it always this chaotic around you?"

The question was fair. The truth was that it hadn
’
t always been. A little over a year ago you could h
ave generally found me holed up in my office pounding away on a keyboard eating a snickers bar and surreptitiously avoiding my soon to be ex-husband.

Mmm, Snickers bar. Just one more thing
I couldn't pop out and get. I slumped in defeat and Poseidon took it as affirmation of my sadness regarding the state of chaos in my life.

He put an arm the size of a small tree trunk around my shoulders and squeezed. "It's okay kid. It will get easier. T
hings won't always seem so big or crazy."

I looked up at him in confusion and said, "Huh?"

"You look so dejected," he replied with another comforting squeeze.

"I am," I slumped a little further. "I just want a Snickers bar so damn bad."

It was his turn to
be confused, but he shook it off and grabbed my hand. Three seconds later we were standing on an island off the coast of who knows where.

Once the vertigo passed I asked, "Where are we?"

Whitecaps crashed against the rocky beach as bleak grey storm clouds
swirled above, threatening a storm. I shivered as the frigid wind bit against my exposed skin. "Could have warned me that it would be this damned cold," I shouted over the sounds of the waves.

"Sorry," he shrugged apologetically. "I forgot that you can't
regulate your body temperature anymore. We can go back but I'm afraid that you're going to get wet anyway so it won't matter."

He really hadn't thought this through. I knew that he was used to bringing his daughters with him to these negotiations and like
him, they could manipulate the water around them to adjust to their comfort level. I took a deep breath and gave him a brave smile. "It could be worse," I said.

He clapped me on the back and I stumbled forward with the force. "That's a good girl. We don'
t have to travel far to the underwater cave system. I'll see if I can keep you mostly dry."

"I'd appreciate it."

It took everything I had to not hunch my shoulders in utter defeat. This was what the rest of my life was shaping up to. Tagging along on miss
ions where I
’
d only be fairly useless and...

My diatribe of self-pity was interrupted by Poseidon's exaggerated eye roll. "Are you internally monologuing how pitiful you are? Because that's just
–
pitiful." It was his slightly mocking look that got to me.

"Nooo…
" I said defensively. "Okay, maybe yes," almost immediately after.

He threw back his head and laughed. It was a nice laugh, deep from the belly and full of joy. I wished that everyone in the world could laugh like that. It lifted my heart to just h
ear it.

"You're a nut bag."

"People keep
saying
that about me," I replied shaking my head and grinning.

"When did you get this idea in your head that you were worthless
or
worth so much pity? Either way, you've got to cut it out, kid. You're going to dr
ive yourself crazy and really
–
why do it to yourself when there are so many people out there that want to do it for you?"

He had a point. At the rate I was racking up enemies, I couldn't afford to continue beating up on myself. "Listen, I don't want to fe
el sorry for myself and whoever is up there listening knows that I'd prefer to just get on with it but
–
"

"Wait a minute," he held up his hand and interrupted me. The look on his face startled me. "What do you mean 'whoever is up there listening'?"

I too
k a tentative step back and shrugged my shoulders. "Uh, I don't know the right answer, here. You're confusing me."

"You don't believe in a higher deity?" I could tell he was flustered but I didn
’
t know why.

"Well I used to believe in a God. But then I met
Zeus and Diana and Geb and Poseidon and Aries and who else. I'm sure I've met all sorts of regular Joes that were worshipped at some point in the history of Earth.  I honestly don't know what to believe."

His eyebrows shot up. "So," he began slowly. "You
think that we're the ultimate beings in this Universe?"

"Well that just sounds ridiculous," I put my hands on my hips and took a step back
–
defensive now.  I hated talking about religion. It was almost worse than talking about politics. Frankly the entire
conversation was making me uncomfortable.

He cued in right away and with a smile asked, "Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"Yes, let's not talk about it."

"Mm I promise that we're not the highest power in the big U."

That statement made me exhale with relief. "Well then I'm just going to go back to saying the big G word. It's hard to give up thirty some odd years of thinking."

He chuckled and nodded. "Sounds good to me."

"Well now that that bit of awkwardness is over,
what are we doing here? With all of the arguing and waving of your collective junk at each other to see whose was bigger, you never did tell me."

"Waving our collective junk at each other?"

I gestured to my lady parts and shrugged. His eyes widened and he
stepped back with a look of horror. "My gods do you have absolutely no manners or humility whatsoever? You are one of the foulest mouthed, chicken brained people I've ever met in my extensive years. You say the first thing that comes to your mind and be-d
a
mned the consequences. The thought of bringing you into a diplomatic situation fills me with dread, Grace. Dread."

"Oh," I said softly. "Well I suppose you could take me home," I continued over the sudden lump in my throat.

"Oh for the love of…
" He threw
up his hands. "Are you going to start crying?"

"No," I answered choking back the quavering in my voice.

"Good. Because much like baseball
–
there is no crying allowed here. Man up." He scowled toward the water, took a deep breath and picked me up. "She's p
aying me back," he growled. "Paying me back for past sins, that grudge carrying witch."

I goggled at him. Poseidon had watched
A League of Their Own
? Hmm perhaps I could change my perception of him. "You're sure I'm not going to drown," I asked suspiciousl
y.

"Yes, Grace. I'm sure you won't drown. Now hold on tightly."

I did. I held on for all that I was worth and only barely flinched when the cold water touched my feet. Then we were underwater and barreling through the depths at incredible speeds.

People
typically only saw the dark of the ocean unless they were in the warmer climes where the colorful coral and fish swam closer to the shore.  Here it was pretty much just dark. It made me claustrophobic and itchy. I needed to see the sun. I needed to breath
e
more air.

The funny thing was
–
I was breathing just fine.  Poseidon had created a bubble of air around us that kept me fairly warm, dry and full of oxygen.

Wait, I don't think I explained that well enough. This wasn't a Glenda the Good Witch kind of bu
bble. What he was really doing was separating the hydrogen molecules from the oxygen in large batches as we sped through the water. It created pockets of air just around our combined body mass.