“What about Demeter?” Harper asked.
“She’s even trickier,” Lydia said. “She’s been off the grid for a very long time. Something really spooked her, and she hasn’t interacted with any other immortals in centuries.”
Harper raised an eyebrow. “Something spooked her?”
“I’ve heard that it was Achelous’ daughters. I know that the sirens are his daughters, but that’s not how my source referred to them. I’m assuming that they are one and the same, but I don’t like passing off assumptions as fact.”
“So what did Achelous’ daughters have to do with Demeter?” Harper asked.
“They were trying to kill her,” Lydia explained. “They hate her. Demeter doesn’t have a lot of enemies because she’s the goddess of earth and growth and helped people farm and raise families. She’s a nice one. So she stayed above the surface for most of her existence, but then, once she had a target on her back, she went underground the way a lot of gods have. Hades has been off the grid since almost the beginning of time.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Marcy waved her hands to stop Lydia. “Hades is still alive?”
Lydia nodded. “Yeah. He lives in Iceland.”
Marcy put her hand to her chin and seemed to think about that. “Interesting.”
“If he’s off the grid, how come you know where he is?” Harper asked.
“Nobody messes with him there. He’s lived there for like five hundred years. He has a quiet life now,” Lydia said. “And Demeter did pop up for a while in Asia, but I’m not sure if she’s still there. When I find her, I’ll tell you.
“In the meantime, I do have more bad news about the muses.” Lydia frowned. “I thought they were all probably dead, but the last two that I thought had any chance of being alive—Erato and Polyhymnia—have been confirmed dead. Sorry.”
“How many muses were there?” Marcy asked.
“Nine originally,” Lydia said. “The first one died fifteen hundred years ago, and they’ve been dropping off ever since. The last one died only fifty years ago, and she lived right in Maryland. The sirens might have been looking for her when they came to Capri.”
“Why would they be looking for a muse?” Harper asked.
“Muses keep secrets. Their lovers were gods and immortals, and they would divulge all their hidden truths. A muse might know where Demeter is, or Achelous, or how to break a curse, or any of a million other things the sirens might want to know.”
“You think a muse would know how to break the curse?” Harper asked.
“Possibly.” Lydia wagged her head from side to side, like she was skeptical. “But we’ll never know. When the last muse died, she took all her secrets with her.”
“Why would the sirens come to Capri for a dead muse?” Marcy asked.
“They didn’t know she was dead,” Lydia said. “It takes a while for news to travel in supernatural circles. It’s not like they can post things on Twitter. And Thalia was the last one, so they’d—”
“What? Thalia?” Harper cut her off. “The last muse’s name was Thalia?”
“Yes, she was the muse of comedy,” Lydia said, looking confused by Harper’s reaction.
Harper had read about the muses a hundred times, but somehow, all their names had become a blur in her mind. She hadn’t been focusing on the ones who weren’t related to the sirens, so she’d almost completely overlooked Thalia.
But it had stayed somewhere in the back of her mind. That’s why the name sounded so familiar when she was looking at pictures of Bernie’s wedding. And now it all came together.
“Bernie’s wife was named Thalia,” Harper said, speaking rapidly. “She died in 1961 or ’62. That’s like fifty years ago.”
“You’re talking about Bernie of Bernie’s Island fame?” Marcy asked. “That could just be a coincidence, Harper.”
“It could be, but…” Harper shook her head, thinking of what Professor Pine had said yesterday about things being too coincidental. “It’s not. Bernie always used to say that his wife inspired him to build that cabin for her. I think he even referred to her as his muse before, but I just didn’t put it together until now.”
“How did Thalia the muse die?” Marcy asked.
“I’m not completely sure,” Lydia said. “She was mortal, and it was natural causes.”
“That’s Thalia McAllister!” Harper persisted. “She died falling off a ladder after she’d married Bernie. She probably became mortal for him.”
“Muses have done that,” Lydia said. “Fall in love, get married, become mortal, then die. That’s part of the reason why there aren’t any left.”
“She might have known how to break the curse?” Harper asked, the excitement making her voice high.