Chapter Fourteen
Just before dawn, Lucas touched her face to wake her up. When she opened her eyes, he kissed her forehead and told her he’d be back in a bit to take her to school. Then he jumped out her window and flew away. Helen decided there was no way she was going to be able to fall back asleep, so she got up and made a big elaborate breakfast for her dad.
“You okay?” Jerry asked between mouthfuls of pancake, syrup, and bacon.
“Considering? I’m great,” she answered honestly as she sipped her coffee.
“How are things with you and Lucas?” he asked cautiously.
“Weirder ’n hell,” she replied with a smile. Then she shrugged and laughed. “But what can you do?”
“What can you do?” her father repeated. His chewing slowed down as an all-consuming thought hijacked his motor skills.
Helen knew he must be thinking about Kate, but an instinct told her to let him be. He still needed more time, and when he was ready he would come to her to talk about it.
Lucas picked her up as planned; they sparked and blushed at the sight of each other. Just sitting in the same car with him put Helen in such a good mood that when one of her favorite songs came on the radio she danced in her seat and somehow convinced Lucas to sing along with her as they drove to school. He would deny it later, but he got really into it, and Helen stopped to listen to him with her mouth hanging open.
“What?” he said, stunned when he noticed he was belting out the refrain all by himself.
“You have a beautiful voice! Is there anything you’re not good at?” she asked with exasperation as she hit his arm playfully.
“Apollo also happens to be the god of music. Now quit complaining and sing along with me,” he said, turning up the volume until the bass was rattling the car windows.
Helen’s voice was not nearly as pretty as his, but she made up for her lack of skill with sheer enthusiasm. They finished the song together, and even stayed in the car after they had parked to play the instrumental ending. Lucas was on steering-wheel drums, and Helen was lead air guitar.
“God, we sound amazing! My guitar solo was just inspired!” Helen enthused as she hopped out of the car.
“We should tour,” Lucas agreed as he took her hand and led her into school.
They were getting stares, but Helen didn’t care. She didn’t feel stomach pains anymore. She could relax now that she knew the Curse Cramps would only come as a result of her using her powers in front of normals and not from any other kind of attention. She began to wonder how many of her past episodes had been real, and how many had been brought on by the fear of them. It was a relief to know that she had some control over the curse, and for the first time in her life, Helen felt like it might actually be okay to be a little bit different.
“Aren’t we old news yet?” she asked him with a sly glint in her eye.
“I don’t know. Let me check CNN,” Lucas said, pulling out his phone and pretending to open a browser. Helen gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth.
“Oh no, my phone! I forgot to tell my dad it’s broken again!” She stopped dead in the hall as she remembered how Hector had made her take a little swim with it.
“Hector will buy you another phone. A better one,” was all he’d say as he kissed her forehead. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“That sounds really bad,” Helen groaned, but the bell rang and she had to run or suffer Hergie’s wrath.
The rest of the day was as near to perfect as a day spent in high school can get. Helen felt hugely energetic, Claire was a ninety-pound ray of sunshine, and Ariadne, too, seemed in fantastic spirits as Matt helped her with her golf swing in the auditorium at lunch. Matt was the captain of the golf team, and Ariadne was thinking about joining, although first she had to learn how to play.
“No, you’re still gripping the club too tight,” Matt directed her gently. “Think of it as a rapier, not an ax,” he said, unwittingly hitting the metaphoric nail on the head for her. Her swing instantly improved.
“Cassie, why don’t you put that book down and come learn how to golf?” Ariadne called to her cousin.
In response, Cassandra opened another book.
“What are you looking for, anyway?” Matt called.
“Charms or spells in ancient Greek myth that protect against wounds,” she said as she wiped a hand over her face. The gesture reminded Helen of Lucas. If Matt found Cassandra’s response strange, he let it go easily enough and focused on Ariadne and her “stance” instead.
“How much longer do you think we have before we get caught in here?” Claire asked.
“Who cares? This is one of the best ideas Lennie’s ever had. We should enjoy it while we have it and not ruin the moment worrying about losing it,” Matt answered serenely.
Claire looked at Helen and they both nodded, surprised by Matt’s wise answer.
“To Matt Millis. Friend. Philosopher. Golf Pro,” Helen called back, saluting him with her thermos.
“Here, here,” called Claire. She raised her soy milk in a lazy toast. Matt took a dignified bow and blushed when Ariadne smiled at him.
“Hey, Len? Did you get a new necklace?” Claire asked, reaching out to touch the charm that Helen always wore.
“No, it’s the same old same old. Are you going crazy again, Gig?” Helen responded, trying to eye her heart charm.
“It looks like a strawberry, not a heart. Or maybe it’s just shinier. Probably I’m crazy.”
The next few days were blissful, and Helen felt a peace she hadn’t experienced since the Deloses had arrived on the island. It was as if someone had put a combination of Spanish fly and Prozac in the water. Helen kept up her training in the afternoons, but as the days passed with no sign that Creon had returned to the island, Helen found herself forgetting about the danger. The only person who seemed immune to the good cheer in the air was Zach. He kept trying to talk to Helen alone but she was avoiding him, which was easy enough when she was being guarded by a family of demigods. Still, each time she dodged him she could tell that he got more and more resentful.
She was hoping that if she put the whole situation off for long enough no one would even remember how she had collapsed as she chased some shirtless stranger. Hoping that if she stalled him long enough, Zach would let it go. But instead his attitude was becoming more and more urgent. The last thing Helen wanted was to tell Lucas and make an issue out of it. After the whole “Hector tried to drown me and ruined my phone in the process” incident, Lucas had happily beat the stuffing out of his cousin in the newly finished arena, and an hour later a toothless Hector had given Helen a new phone that she was pretty sure had enough computing power to put a satellite into orbit.
But Zach was making it impossible for Helen to protect him. The more he kept trying to corner her, the more suspicious Lucas became, until the inevitable happened. After school on Wednesday as Lucas walked with Helen to track practice, he saw Zach wandering around nearby. When Zach saw Lucas he changed direction and went to the boys’ locker room, but not before his suspicious behavior was noticed.
“Is Zach after you?” Lucas asked with wide eyes.
“Oh, not really. He wants to talk to me about something, I think,” Helen said as if it wasn’t important. She shut her mouth before she could say too much.
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Lucas said with a sneer, his blue eyes turning nearly black as he sensed her untruth. “Is there any reason for Zach to think that you might be single?”
“No! Wait, what?” Helen stammered, not understanding Lucas’s anger.
“Did you tell him that you and I weren’t really a couple because I won’t . . .” he trailed off, and ripped a hand through his hair as he paced around in a circle. “What are you telling people about us?” The outline of his body began to smear as he scattered the light around him in agitation.
“I haven’t told anyone anything!” Helen said, her voice pitching up to an unnaturally high register.
“Are you trying to make me jealous or are you just so frustrated that you’re already looking for someone else? Someone who’ll give in to you?” He was so angry Helen could barely see him as he began to blur himself out, but she was angry, too.
“I am NOT looking for anyone else!” she howled at him.
Lucas took an involuntary step back as he stared at the halo of pale blue light crackling around Helen’s head and hands. Her lightning didn’t seem to respond to Lucas’s light control, and as the distortions he created were thrown back by Helen’s metallic glow he was forced to shade his eyes.
“Oh, boy,” she tittered nervously. She felt like she was going over the top peak on a roller coaster—and she was just about to drop down.
She threw an arm out to the side to steady herself. Lucas took a step forward to grab on to her, but wisely stopped himself before he touched her and got electrocuted. Then the blue light went out like a switch had been turned off and Helen plopped onto the floor like a half-baked soufflé.
“I feel awful,” she told him, a bewildered look on her face.
“Are you . . . grounded yet?” he asked her, practically vibrating with worry.
Helen looked at the floor and giggled insanely as the electricity running around her body tickled her brain.
“Nope. Linoleum,” she said, slapping the palm of her hand against the nonconductive floor. Her vision swam in static. “You were r.r.right. I should have learned to u.u.use this.” She had to get rid of the energy, stat.
“Luk.k.k. Run.n.n,” she said, her jaw jittering uncontrollably with energy as her bolt demanded to be released. She had held it too long.
Lucas wouldn’t leave her, and Helen knew she could kill him if she didn’t do this right. She racked her lightning-filled brain and luckily remembered fourth-grade science class. Desperate to rid herself of the monster she had summoned, she slid on her knees to the exit door at the end of the hall and rammed her shoulder against it.
As soon as she came in contact with the metal release bar that ran across the middle of the door it glowed orange with heat and started melting. She barely moved fast enough to open it before the whole door turned into a solid block of smoldering metal. Tumbling down the short flight of steps and crawling outside on her knees, she threw herself forward onto her hands. With a welcome sigh she discharged her bolt into the one place that it would be safely dismantled—the ground.
After a few seconds she felt herself get pulled up from the forgiving earth and carried away.
“Are you injured?” Lucas asked anxiously.
“Just wicked tired,” she sighed, a little surprised at herself for using the word wicked. She was too weary to care. “Really, put me down,” she demanded when he didn’t respond. He stopped and balanced her on her feet. She rubbed her tongue across her teeth and then sucked at the roof of her mouth.
“Wow, I’m thirsty! And I think I know why! It’s like lightning, right? So that means I’m generating the electic—I mean, erlecic—I mean, the bolt—by ripping apart the water in my body! That makes total sense,” she said, hearing herself sound like a cheerleader who had suddenly figured out how her pom-poms were made.
“Helen? You’re scaring me. Here, sit, please. Do you need something?” Lucas asked, making her look him in the eye. She still seemed to be throwing off sparks.
“I do need something,” she said, struggling to control her diction and her fuzzy brain as best she could. “I need to tell you what’s going on, so that you and I don’t accidentally kill each other over a dumb misunderstanding, and I need you to promise me that if I tell you, you’re not going to beat anyone up.”
“I don’t think I like this deal,” he said dubiously.
“Tough.”
He nodded his agreement. She looked around for a moment and then decided to sit down on the top step of the outside stairs before she fell down.
“Zach was the one who saw me chasing Creon. He dropped some pretty threatening hints in class the other day, about me and about you and how abnormally fast and strong we all are. Now he keeps trying to talk to me alone and I think he might be trying to blackmail me or something. I’ve been dodging him for as long as I can because . . .”
“The longer you wait, the more likely it is that the whole thing turns into a big fish story and no one believes him, anyway,” Lucas finished for her with a knowing nod.
“Right. You are so smart,” Helen marveled.
“And your brain is fried,” Lucas said, smiling at her indulgently. The smile fell away. “Because of me. I’m such an idiot,” he mumbled, looking down at his twisting hands.
“Correction, you’re a jealous idiot, and that has to change right now,” Helen replied seriously, still feeling light-headed, but fighting her way through it. “You have no reason to be jealous. I told you that I don’t want anyone but you. I never have.”
“You’ve lived your whole life on this island, you don’t know what ‘anyone’ means yet,” he sighed. “And you have no idea how . . . Attractive isn’t the right word. It doesn’t fully describe the effect you have on men. On me. Look, I’m not a jealous person, Helen, really. All the other girls I’ve dated . . .” Lucas broke off, took a breath, and regrouped his thoughts before starting again.
“You know, I never believed in ‘The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships’ thing. I used to hate that part in the Iliad. I even laughed at it,” he said. Then he paused and shook his head ruefully as he raised his eyes to the sky for a moment, mentally kicking himself. “It’s ridiculous, when you think about it. A ten-year war because some selfish coward ran off with an unfaithful woman? It made me angry, and I hated Paris and Helen for being so weak. Then I did something very, very stupid. I swore I would never have made the same choices they did—that I would have been stronger. Then, two weeks later, I saw your face for the first time.”
“Wait,” Helen said. She blinked with thirst, fatigue, and shock. “I’m not some spoiled queen who left her husband, ran off with another guy, and destroyed an entire city. I don’t care what my rotten mother named me, I’m nothing like Helen of Troy.”
“It doesn’t matter what either of our mothers named us,” he said with an ironic laugh. “Trust me.”
“Hamilton!” yelled Coach Tar, clutching her clipboard and marching toward them with her eyes wide. “Are you on fire?!”
Helen looked at where Coach was pointing and realized that the ground all around her was seared and black. The exit door looked like something out of a Dali painting.
Luckily, Lucas was a fantastic liar. As a bevy of teachers came rushing to their aid, he explained that there had been some kind of electrical sparking from above the door, suggesting that perhaps the exit sign had shorted. He and Helen had run outside to stomp out the sparks that had drifted onto the grass. As he wove his story, Helen could hear how honest he sounded, how convincing. She nodded every time he looked at her, knowing that she needed to keep her mouth shut or she’d ruin the whole thing. Since the fire was obviously electrical and the only possible source was the exit sign, the story was believed.
Helen and Lucas insisted they were uninjured, but as a precaution they were told to go to the nurse’s office for a quick checkup. Just before Lucas led her away, Helen spotted Zach staring at them from the crowd, his eyes frightened and resentful. He knew they’d caused the fire. Helen touched Lucas’s shoulder and pointed Zach out, and Lucas nodded, understanding her meaning perfectly.
“So much for letting it blow over,” she murmured ruefully.
“We’ll discuss it tonight with my family. Cassie will know what to do,” he whispered, taking her sooty hand in one of his and texting his cousins with the other as they walked down the hall to the nurse.
Mrs. Crane checked them over, shook her head in wonder, and declared them both perfectly well enough to go home, or even back to practice if they wanted, though she gave both of them a nonsensical lecture about hanging around under electrical death traps.
Then she looked at Helen’s necklace and smiled sweetly. “I’ve always loved butterflies,” she murmured, lightly touching Helen’s charm, before shooing them both out of her office in her stern but kindly way.
Helen and Lucas beat everyone else back to the Delos compound, deciding once they arrived that they were entitled to a few moments of relaxation before they began what Helen had started thinking of as her superhero lessons. They stopped in the kitchen to get Helen another bottle of water and then went for a little fly.
“Jase and Hector will call when they’re home from practice. We’ve still got about another hour or so,” Lucas said confidently when they touched down in the dunes. They walked down to the half-damp sand that was flat and firm and perfect for a stroll.
“We’re supposed to have our first track meet next weekend,” Helen said suddenly, biting her lip with worry. “I don’t know if Coach’ll let me run after missing so many practices.”
“Yeah, about that,” Lucas said, sighing heavily and making her stop and face him. “You need to quit track.”
Helen stared at him for a moment. “Quit track? Are you nuts? How else am I going to get a scholarship?”
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Lucas said, shaking his head.
“Doesn’t matter? Lucas, this is my life you’re talking about.”
“Exactly. You’ve been attacked, how many times now? We still don’t know who those women are. And I don’t think you realize just how big a threat Creon is even with me standing right next to you, let alone when you go running off by yourself across the island. This is your life we’re talking about, not just an athletic scholarship,” he said evenly, calmly. “I want you to quit. For now, anyway.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” she replied, completely deadpan.
“I’m not. Quit track. Until we figure out how to deal with Creon, it’s too dangerous.”
“What if I just walked up to you and told you to quit football?” she asked sarcastically.
“Done,” he said, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. “I told you once, and I meant it, that I’d never ask you to do something that I wouldn’t do myself. We’re in this together.”
“You’re . . . That’s . . . I can’t believe you’re putting this on me!” she yelled, pointing a finger at him childishly. She stomped around in a circle, kicking at the sand and trying to figure out why she was so upset.
“I’m not putting it on you! It’s on both of us! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” he urged, raising his voice in frustration.
“I’ve always felt stuck on this island, and I always thought track would be my one way to get off of it. Now you’re telling me to give up on all of my plans like it’s the easiest thing in the world!”
“It’s easier than dying!” he shouted at her, but there was a humorous lilt creeping into his voice and a smile tugging at his lips. “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but you can fly. You’re not going to be stuck anywhere again!”
Helen didn’t want to laugh. In fact, she was working very hard to give him a penetrating glare, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep a straight face. She made a horrible noise, a huge piggy-sounding snort, and that made Lucas double up and laugh so hard he had to put his hands on his knees to brace himself. As Helen covered her face and really let herself laugh, she felt Lucas put his arms around her.
They held on to each other, each of them propping the other up. That’s when Helen started to understand how things really worked between her and Lucas. They had to do this together, had to share fifty-fifty the huge burdens that had been placed on them, or they would be crushed.
Lucas turned his lips toward her cheek as he ran his hand up her spine and began to stroke the back of her neck. She felt the muscles across his shoulders tense and he suddenly pushed a knee between her thighs. Helen gasped and tried to decide if she should pull him down on top of her like she wanted, or push him away like he wanted, but she didn’t get the chance to do either. As quickly as he had changed, he switched back. He pulled away from her with a sad smile, and then jumped into the air.
“You know, you don’t need to run track to get into a good school. You’re going to kill it on your SATs,” he said breezily, but with the faintest bit of a quiver still lingering in his voice.
“That’s what Hergie thinks, too,” Helen said. She still felt a bit dazed and shaky. She joined him in the sky and continued her thought when she finally had one. “I just didn’t want to be that girl, you know? The girl who does whatever her boyfriend tells her to do because she wants someone else to make all the tough decisions for her.”
“I hate that girl,” Lucas said with a wrinkled nose as they flew back, hand in hand, to his house.
“Everyone hates that girl. That’s why I can’t automatically do whatever you say, even if you are right. I’ve got my pride,” Helen said jokingly as they landed in his yard, but he didn’t laugh. She squeezed his hand. “What is it?”
“Pride is a really dangerous thing for Scions. We’re prone to it, and it’s usually our downfall. I know you were kidding, but be careful, okay?” he said gently.
“Oh, yeah. Hubris. Ancient Greece’s big no-no.” Helen nodded sagely. Lucas gave her a surprised look. “What? I’ve been doing my mythology homework. Actually, I guess it’s my history homework, isn’t it?”
“It is. Family history,” he said, and pulled her close to him.
They walked down to the fight cage with their arms around each other before separating. They changed into workout clothes and met back on the practice mat.
Helen was expecting there to be a little lingering tension between her and Lucas after his “slip” at Great Point, but if anything, that momentary loss of self-control only served to make him more focused on training. Usually, there was a moment or two when one or the other of them would become conscious of the intimate positions they pressed each other into as Helen tried to grasp the basics of jujitsu, but not that afternoon. Lucas was all business.
“I just realized, we’ve been fighting all day,” Helen said as she tried and failed to break out of his armbar for the tenth time. “And I don’t think I’ve won once.”
“How long has it been?” he asked, suddenly curious about something she didn’t understand right away. He craned his head and looked at the clock on the wall, then back at Helen. “Do you have your bolts back yet?”
Helen connected to that strange sense at the bottom of her belly and felt a spark there. She nodded at Lucas, a bit surprised, and he grabbed her hand, pulling her to her feet.
“Then let’s go try it out,” he said with a grin as he led her out of the gym.
“Wait,” Helen said uncertainly, stopping him with an outstretched hand. “My lightning almost killed you today.”
“Because you don’t know how to control it yet.” Lucas turned and cupped her shoulders in his hands. “You have to accept this. I know it freaks you out, but as harsh as it sounds, you’ve just got to get over it. This is who you are, Helen, and I’m not afraid of you, or your lightning. So you shouldn’t be, either.”
Helen looked up at Lucas. His eyes were so sure, so accepting.
“You know what?” she said, standing up straighter. “I want to learn how to control my lightning.”
“Yeah, you do!” he nearly shouted. When they got outside, they saw Hector’s truck pull up and the rest of the Delos siblings pile out.
“We’re going to test her bolts!” Lucas yelled toward them. Jason and Hector glanced at each other briefly with wide eyes. They both broke into a run.
“How long has it been?” Hector shouted, sprinting toward them, giddy as a schoolgirl.
“About an hour and forty-five minutes,” Lucas said. “She drank two gallons of water.”
“And I still feel a little thirsty,” Helen admitted.
“Well, get her some more water, Lucas!” Cassandra ordered as she and Ariadne caught up. “How is she supposed to make lightning bolts without hydrogen?”
“Right,” Lucas said distractedly. Jumping into the air, he flew to the house and back in about twenty seconds. “Why didn’t you tell me you were thirsty?” he asked Helen, handing her a large bottle still cold from the fridge.
“I didn’t know. I guess I should start paying better attention to that,” Helen mumbled to herself sheepishly.
“You have to pay attention to everything that makes you more powerful. And your bolts make you very powerful,” Hector said, a feline grin spreading across his face. Helen tipped the bottle back and drank deeply.
“That door was insane!” Jason exclaimed. Recalling it, he rubbed a hand across his face in that Delos gesture that Helen always noticed. “It was like you had taken an industrial-strength welder to it.”
“How many volts do you think you have stored right now?” Cassandra asked. They all entered the arena.
“No idea.” Helen shrugged. She felt for the charge and tried to gauge it, but she couldn’t describe it. “It’s a feeling, not a digital readout, Cass.”
“Oh, then wait!” Cassandra said, holding up her hands. “Maybe I can devise a way to measure it.”
“Cassie, geek out later! We’re all dying to see this right now,” Hector whined.
“All right, fine! Sorry, Helen. Whenever you’re ready,” she reluctantly allowed.
The Delos family moved behind Helen, giving her plenty of room to aim her bolt out across the nonconductive sand of the arena. She held up her right hand. That was the hand she wrote with, but it didn’t feel like the best fit, so she switched to her left. Then she summoned her bolt—deliberately for the first time.
Lightning shot out of her hand. Not static, not some pathetic splinter of a spark, but actual lightning. It arced forward in a bright, branching blur, and it made a huge cracking sound, like an orchestra of leather bullwhips snapping simultaneously. One second the air was full of blinding icy blue light, and the next second half of the arena was coated in a thick sheet of smoking amber-colored glass.
No one said anything for a second.
“Unbefrickinglievable,” Hector cussed quietly into the silence.
Helen smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and stumbled toward the water bottle that Lucas automatically held out for her. She finished an entire liter in five gulps.
“Maybe that was a bit much,” she said as she leaned against Lucas.
“You could have fried about fifty people,” Ariadne murmured distractedly, looking from Helen to the irregular sheet of glass.
“I don’t want to fry fifty people. Fifty French fries, sure. Who wouldn’t want fifty French fries? Delicious,” Helen said. She felt herself give a goofy grin.
“The electricity makes her a little confused,” Lucas explained to his siblings in an embarrassed tone. “I hope it isn’t bad for her.”
“It’s not the voltage, Lucas. It’s severe dehydration!” Cassandra chastised. “Her body is built to handle electricity. It’s the drain of the fluids out of her tissues that makes her seem like an airhead. And that isn’t permanent or damaging, so stop worrying.”
In the kitchen, Helen put her lips under the faucet. Everyone waited patiently for Helen to drink her fill while they stared at one another behind her back. She could feel their fear. It was exactly why she had suppressed her power to begin with. That power was so intense, so destructive, it was impossible for anyone to trust it.
Helen shut off the tap and turned to face them. “Did I just freak everyone out?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Lucas said, his face a mask. Helen’s throat closed and her whole body went still. She kept her eyes on Lucas, but she was waiting for any one of them to condemn her for going too far. Lucas looked at Helen and smiled at her. He smiled like he was proud of her.
“But that’s our problem, not yours,” he said firmly. “There’s nothing wrong with what you can do. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Plus, I bet you’re real good at making s’mores,” Ariadne added.
“But the real question is, can she do it without liquefying the chocolate?” Jason asked, like he was some kind of s’mores guru. Helen looked from face to face, her heart aching a bit with gratitude to find nothing but acceptance and compassion wherever her eyes landed.
After all the talk of French fries and s’mores, everyone had junk food on the brain, so they headed to a local mom-and-pop burger shack by the beach. When Helen and Lucas got up to the counter, the cashier reached out to touch Helen’s necklace.
“It’s a sea horse! I love sea horses,” the woman enthused, raising her hand to touch it, and dropping it again in embarrassment. Helen thanked her—because she would have felt rude if she didn’t—put in her order with Lucas and then they sat down in one of the booths, where they looked at each other, confused.
“Your necklace isn’t a sea horse, it’s a heart,” Lucas disagreed vehemently.
“What are you talking about, Luke?” Hector said, sounding disparaging. “Helen’s necklace is a cockleshell. Always has been, although I just noticed it today. Weird,” he said, twisting up his face in confusion.
“Nuh-uh,” Jason said with a disagreeing grimace. “It’s a strawberry. I was just looking at it this morning.”
“Heart,” Lucas insisted.
“Has everyone lost their minds? She’s wearing a golden key with pavé rubies on the top,” Ariadne said, reaching out to touch it. “Which, by the way, I think is so lovely.”
Helen, still a little punch-drunk with dehydration, got up and went over to a pair of complete strangers at another booth. She smiled at the two shocked tourists, pointed to her necklace, and asked the man closest to her what he thought it looked like.
“A rose. Of course,” he said with a hopeful smile. His friend leaned in and took a look, as if he were drawn to it.
“That’s a locket,” he said with a faraway look in his eye. “Just like my mom used to wear.”
“Thanks,” Helen said to them, then turned and went back to her table with a shrug. “You’re all wrong, except for Lucas. My mom gave me this charm when I was a baby. It’s a heart, and I’ve never worn anything but this heart since, like, forever.”
“That’s what I see!” Cassandra said like she had just solved a mystery. “I’ve been wondering what everyone was talking about!”
Helen sat back down next to Lucas. “Personally, I think you all see what you want to see.”
Cassandra’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my gods! She’s projecting! That’s why everyone is so cheerful and suddenly started jumping on top of each other like it’s mating season at the zoo.” she said. Her eyes were wide. She looked at Hector. “I need to go home right now.”
“But . . . our burgers,” he said, slightly forlorn but also aware of the fact that he was going to end up doing whatever Cassandra told him to do.
“We’ll need all this to go,” Cassandra said to the food runner. She turned to Helen. “I think I’ve figured this out, but I still need to test it.”
They raced back to the Delos compound, the rowdy group storming into the library and upsetting Castor and Pallas. Cassandra dragged one of the ladders over to a high shelf of her choosing and then had Lucas hold the bottom for her while she climbed. As she did so she told her father and uncle to look at Helen’s necklace and describe what they saw.
“It looks like . . . That’s impossible,” Pallas said, his eyes hardening with anger as he took an involuntary step back.
“What do you see?” Castor cautiously asked his brother.
“I gave that to Aileen,” Pallas said, pointing to Helen’s necklace like he was accusing Helen of stealing it.
“Cass?” Lucas called up to his sister, worried.
“Her necklace looks like whatever would attract the person who looks at it. That ability is only related to one goddess and one relic,” Cassandra called down, still searching for something. “Aphrodite’s cestus.”
“That can’t be,” Pallas said, shaking his head. “We might as well say she has the aegis of Zeus. Or the Loch Ness monster, for that matter. It’s folklore, it doesn’t exist.”
“What’s a cestus?” Helen asked quietly, in case it was such a stupid question everyone needed to be able to pretend like they didn’t hear her.
“The cestus is Aphrodite’s girdle,” Lucas responded automatically, his eyes darting from Cassandra to Castor before they landed back on Helen. “It’s a mythical object that makes the wearer impervious to any weapon.”
“And impossible to resist,” Castor added. He cast a worried look at his son.
“And I’m supposed to have this thing on me? Well, I hate to break it to you, but I’m fresh out of mythical girdles,” Helen said with a sarcastic laugh, but no one laughed with her.
“Let me see that necklace your mother gave you,” Cassandra replied, coming down the ladder with a book tucked under an arm. Reaching the bottom, she stretched out her hand.
“How long are you going to want it for?” Helen asked as she fingered her necklace uneasily. She really hated to take it off for any reason, even if that reason was as important as Cassandra was making it seem.
“I’ll give it right back. I promise,” Cassandra said, keeping her eyes locked on Helen.
“Yes, of course,” Helen replied, feeling silly for balking. She obediently muscled through the naked, panicky feeling that came along with the thought of removing her necklace. Taking it off, she handed it over. As soon as she placed it in Cassandra’s outstretched hand she felt a burning sensation across her forearm.
“Cass, are you crazy?” Lucas yelled. He snatched a small blade out of his sister’s grip.
Helen felt someone step against her back and put a hand on her shoulder, and, from his size, Helen knew it was Hector, supporting and protecting her.
“I’m sorry, Helen. But it was the only way to prove it,” Cassandra said, biting her lower lip and looking up with defensive eyes.
“It’s okay,” Helen mumbled, not understanding what had happened yet. Everyone was staring at her arm. She looked down and saw a thin red cut dripping blood onto the carpet.
“But it’s just a necklace,” Helen repeated as she ran the charm along the chain and looked at her arm. The cut had already healed.
“It becomes whatever you need it to be, that’s part of its magic,” Cassandra said, grasping for words with frustration. “It’s like the way it looks different to everyone. That’s because there’s no such thing as the most beautiful ornament, or the most beautiful anything for that matter. How can I explain this?”
“What I think is beautiful is very different from what even my twin would think is beautiful because we’re all turned on by different things,” Ariadne explained bluntly for her.
“That’s right,” Cassandra said.
“But why a girdle?” Helen persisted.
“You have to remember, a few thousand years ago girdles were considered very attractive, but they were also a form of protection for the wearer. Some even had bone or bronze plates in them, like lightweight armor,” Castor explained. He looked remote, though, not his good-natured self. “But there were two parts to the cestus. The girdle itself, and its adornments. It was the adornments that made the goddess irresistible to whomever she wanted to seduce, and they had the power to change to suit the tastes of whoever was looking at them. Time passed and girdles fell out of fashion, but the transformative magic of the cestus is still the same. It can become whatever you need it to be to make yourself more attractive, Helen. And all these years you’ve only needed it to be a simple necklace.”
“I’ve always loved it,” Lucas admitted softly. “The way it falls into that place.” He touched the dent at the bottom of her throat for the briefest of moments. “I think it’s perfect.”
Helen could see a hot flush wash across his cheekbones, but he kept his eyes down, conscious of the fact that everyone was staring at them with worried frowns. Castor especially looked so stricken he could have been at a funeral.
“What I don’t understand is why are we all noticing it now? It’s like it just got charged with love mojo in the past few days or something,” Jason mused to no one in particular. Then a thought occurred to him and he looked from Helen to Lucas, then away.
“Like it just switched on,” Ariadne said. She looked over at Helen and Lucas, sharing the same idea as her twin.
“What if I wanted it to be something else?” Helen asked, ignoring the strange stares she was suddenly getting from everyone. Cassandra shrugged.
“I don’t know. Maybe try changing it?” she asked with an excited look. “But I’d take it off first! You never know,” she added quickly.
Helen unlatched her necklace and tried to think about sexy things, but she couldn’t come up with anything. After a moment she realized that it didn’t matter what she thought was sexy, but what other people thought that would be important. She needed a guinea pig. She looked at Hector, focusing on him alone, and she felt her necklace change shape in her hand.
“Helen!” Hector exclaimed.
Helen looked down and saw that she was holding a tiny scrap of lace that more closely resembled diamond-encrusted dental floss than underpants. Everyone burst out laughing, pointing at Hector and making fun of his trashy taste. She looked at Lucas, concentrated, and it turned back into her necklace. He grinned.
“I told you. I love that necklace,” he said openly.
His gaze was so warm Helen felt she had to do something to divert all the stares they were getting. She looked around the room, pointedly seeking out a new victim. Everyone wisely decided to scatter.
“Don’t even think about it!” Ariadne shrieked, running out of the room so Helen couldn’t focus on her.
“Come on! That’s not fair!” Jason said. He backed away from her, alternately covering his eyes so he couldn’t see her and covering his face so she couldn’t see him.
“All right, nobody panic!” Helen put her necklace back on and laughed, but no one was left in the library to witness her mercy but Lucas and Cassandra. “I like it best like this, myself.”
“Good,” Lucas said, averting his eyes and trying to pretend he wasn’t embarrassed.
“Why aren’t you running?” Helen asked Cassandra playfully, but when she saw the dark look on her face she knew she had said something terribly wrong.
“That will never work on me,” Cassandra said in a flat, distant voice. She brushed past Helen.
“I’m sorry,” Helen said to Lucas, as Cassandra stalked out of the room. She put her hand on Lucas’s arm and made him look at her. “I don’t understand, Lucas. What did I say?”
“Aphrodite’s power only works on adults—on sexually mature individuals,” he answered with a raspy voice, like his throat had gone dry.
“Oh. I didn’t know, but that’s nothing for her to be ashamed of. She’s only fourteen. So she’s a late bloomer—”
Lucas cut her off. “My sister will never bloom. She was taken by the Fates.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that even if she wants to, even if she feels what other woman feel, she’ll never fall in love or have children. She won’t even be able to have the kind of careless physical relationships that Hector has pretty much once a week,” Lucas said. “She is sacrosanct to the Three Fates, and they will not share their daughter.”
“But if she feels like a woman, why can’t she act like one? Who cares what three dusty old spinsters say?” Helen asked persuasively, but that made Lucas even more upset.
“You’re not understanding this, Helen. We’re talking about the Fates, not a couple of overprotective parents with virginity issues. The Moirai can’t be avoided or tricked. Cassandra won’t be able to sneak out of her bedroom window and have sex with some hot guy she met at a party,” he said, pacing around. “Even if he was a man she truly respected, a man she could grow to love, the Fates would separate them. Fate herself would make sure Cassandra never laid eyes on that man again.”
“How cruel,” Helen said, horrified.
“And someday the Fates will separate her from us, her own family. You can barely tell now, but she and I used to be so close. She used to take my hand anytime we walked next to each other, but not anymore,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “She was the sweetest little sister ever, I swear. Such a big, warm heart and such a big, clever mind—all packed into the tiniest girl you’ve ever seen. Now she’s becoming more like them. Cold, meticulous, unrelenting.”
Helen put her hands on his waist and waited silently until he was ready to pull her into his arms and relax against her, which he finally did in a wave. She had held him for only a few minutes when Ariadne came into the library and told Helen she needed to come out to the kitchen.
“What is it?” Lucas asked.
“Your mom found out about the whole cestus of Aphrodite thing and she’s sort of throwing a fit, Luke,” Ariadne admitted with a heavy heart, her gentle eyes darting between the two of them with sympathy. “Aunt Noel has asked for a meeting with Helen.”
All the air seemed to leave the room, most of it sucked into Lucas’s lungs. Ariadne spun on her heel and Lucas took Helen’s hand.
“Is this bad?” Helen asked Lucas breathlessly as they followed Ariadne through the house.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Listen, will you promise me something?”
“What?”
“Promise me that no matter what my mother says, that this isn’t the last time you talk to me.” Lucas made her stop and face him. He held her by her stiff shoulders and placed his lips against her forehead as he spoke. “Promise that you will speak to me again. Even if it’s just once.”
“I promise,” she stammered, not sure if this was really happening to her or if she’d wandered into some bizarre dream.
She and Lucas went into the kitchen holding hands tightly, as though for the last time.
Noel looked over at Castor and gestured to them as if they were “Exhibit A” in her prosecution.
“Luke, go upstairs,” Castor said without being able to look him in the eye.
“I think I’m entitled to hear this,” he replied calmly. Helen clutched his hand and glanced around at everyone’s solemn faces.
Something was very wrong. Helen started to breathe so fast she felt like for the first time in her life she might actually hyperventilate.
“I want you all out. It’s my hearth, and my sacred right by Hestia,” Noel said firmly, as if she were invoking some old ritual. “This is between Helen and me now.”
After a few moments of silence, Jason was the first to move. Seeing the look in Noel’s eyes, he went to Lucas and physically separated his hand from Helen’s. If it had been anyone else, Helen was convinced Lucas would have put up a fight, but he allowed Jason to lead him upstairs. Everyone else filed out of the kitchen, looking sad. Everyone except for Pallas, that is. Helen noticed that he looked satisfied. Even a little smug.
“Sit,” Noel said, pulling out a chair for herself, facing Helen. “You don’t understand what’s happening, do you?”
Helen shook her head and swallowed. Noel asked another question. “Ariadne explained the Truce to you, right?”
“She said the Houses have to stay separate or the gods will come back and start the Trojan War all over again,” Helen croaked through a tight throat.
“Right. Now what does that mean? What would be the simplest way for the Houses to be unified?” Noel asked sharply. Helen shook her head again, scared dumb, and Noel continued. “There are two obvious ways. One House can destroy the others, or the Houses can intermarry. Usually this is impossible for Scions because the Furies keep everyone hating everyone else, but that isn’t an issue for you and Lucas.”
Helen let out a giant breath of relief.
“Is that it?” she asked. “Nobody’s marrying anybody! Lucas and I are way too young! We’re not that stupid.”
Noel shook her head, as if Helen had missed the point.
“Do you know how marriage was defined in ancient Greece?” Noel said in a calmer tone. “It’s really simple. A virgin goes to a man’s house with the family gathered as witnesses. The virgin and the man share a fire, a meal, and a bed. If the girl wasn’t a virgin in the morning, then the couple was considered married. That’s it. That’s all it took. You’re still a virgin, right?”
Helen blushed furiously, her jaw dropping. “Yes. But that’s no one’s business but my own!”
“It certainly is our business. Because you and Lucas have shared almost everything else on the list, all that’s left is the consummation of the marriage. If that happens, then as far as the gods are concerned you will be his wife. If you’re his wife, then that unites the final two Houses. And you know what that means.”
“War,” Helen said, completely stunned. Her brain scrambled to find the flaw in Noel’s argument—the one thing that would make it untrue—but she didn’t come up with anything. “It’s impossible.”
“No, it’s ironic. The first Trojan War started because two teenagers fell in love and ran off together, and here are you and Lucas, poised to make exactly the same mistake,” Noel said, her pity beginning to show through her anger.
“And Lucas knew all this? Right from the start?” Helen asked. She felt strangely numb.
“From the first moment he saw you,” Noel replied.
“That explains a lot,” Helen whispered, still putting the pieces together in her head. “I thought he was just old-fashioned or something.”
“Lucas? No.” Noel laughed, shaking her head at the thought. “But he is honorable, so I trusted him with you. I allowed this to go on because I believed that he would be able to control himself and not do anything that the world would regret. But the cestus changes things.”
“Why?” Helen asked, suddenly perking up. “I’ve always worn it, and he’s always been able to control himself. And I didn’t exactly make it easy on him, either,” she added with regret. “But from now on I won’t pressure him, and that way we can still be together, right?”
“And then what?” Noel pleaded gently. All the anger had gone from her once she saw how invested Helen was, how much Helen cared. “You could both stay true to your word and never touch each other, but what do you think that will do to your relationship over time? What do you think it will do to Lucas?” Noel paused and looked at her hands in her lap.
“It’ll be hard, but we know what’s at stake. . . .” Helen began, trying to bargain.
“I’ve already been told that I’m going to lose my daughter to madness. I can’t lose my son as well,” Noel interrupted, her eyes wide with fear. “Please, Helen. I’m begging you. Stay away from Lucas. If you get a little distance from each other, maybe he’ll be able to let you go before it’s too late.”
“You’re talking like I’m going to drive him crazy or something,” Helen said, frustrated. Noel gave her a piercing look that warned Helen not to belittle the situation.
“The cestus isn’t some silly love potion you can buy at the county fair. This is a relic from the goddess of love herself, and if you don’t think it’s possible for someone to be driven mad by love, it’s only because you haven’t truly felt it yet.”
“Then I’ll take it off. . . .”
“You will not,” Noel ordered. “The cestus has probably saved you more times than you can know. Do I need to remind you again how important your life is?”
They sat staring at each other for a few moments while Helen struggled with her thoughts. She’d read the Iliad, and she’d hated Paris and Helen as much as Lucas had. She saw them as selfish. So selfish that they were willing to watch a city burn to the ground rather than part. But was Helen Hamilton any better than Helen of Troy if she wouldn’t give up the man she wanted when it was required?
“Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?” Helen burst out.
“Lucas forbade it. He said he wanted a little time and a little privacy, and no one blamed him for that. Relationships are private things.”
“But we’re not allowed to have a relationship, are we?” Tears tried to make hot puddles out of her eyes. “This isn’t fair.”
“I know it isn’t,” Noel said, brushing a lock of Helen’s hair behind her shoulder so she could see her face.
“Are none of us are allowed to choose?” Helen said, thinking of Cassandra and what she had to suffer. Her whole body was clammy with nervous sweat and starting to shake. How could she stay away from Lucas? She didn’t think she could make herself do that any sooner than she could make one of her hands shrivel up and fall off.
“Castor and I tried to choose differently,” Noel said sadly. “We tried to run away just before Lucas was born. We wanted a fresh start so badly that we didn’t even give him a traditional name.”
“So what happened?” Helen asked, desperate to keep Noel talking and maybe learn something that might give her a reason to hope.
“What always happens,” Noel said with a knowing smile. “Family.”
Helen sat still for a moment, unwilling to stand up for fear that it would end the interview and therefore end her welcome in this house. She knew from witnessing everyone else’s obedient reaction that what Noel said in her kitchen was law for the entire family. Helen had always thought that Noel was the weak one, the one who needed protecting, but she was beginning to realize that Noel had a power all her own. When it came down to the matter of who was to be accepted into the family and who was denied hospitality, Noel had the final say for everyone who lived under her roof. Not even Lucas would be able to break away from that without being forced to leave his entire family behind. Helen had been denied Noel’s blessing, and that was the end of it.
Helen managed to stand up and make her way to the door but when she got there she paused. “May I ask you one more question?” Helen said, following an impulse. She waited politely for Noel to nod before continuing. “What would you have named Lucas?”
“Tradition would have led us to name him after Castor’s father, who died just before Lucas was born.” Noel’s face was closed.
“And what was that?” Helen asked, already half knowing what Lucas’s name would have been, what it should have been if his mother and father had followed the rules.
“Paris,” Noel replied, unable to look Helen in the eye.