“Of course I can,” Stella replied between spoonfuls of blueberry yogurt. “But you would hardly learn your lesson if I make your problems disappear. You’re just lucky Daddy’s not here to see the mess.”
She smiled with satisfaction at the look of horror on Phoebe’s face, even if it wasn’t really justified. Although Daddy could be a bit of a stern disciplinarian, he had a soft spot for Phoebe that made Stella’s ears itch. He never let her get away with half the stuff Phoebe did. If Stella had been the one who visiomutated all the water in the house into glitter, she would still be grounded. Just like they were still finding glitter in the bathroom.
Hrmph. Stella would let Phoebe struggle a little longer with the manual Skittles removal before reversing the results of her misfire.
“Hey, what’s this?” Phoebe asked from where she was digging rainbow candy from beneath the sofa. “They feel like paintings.”
Stella froze.
She had forgotten about the paintings she’d hidden away so she wouldn’t have to face the reminders of bittersweet memories. Paintings she hadn’t laid eyes on in years. And now Phoebe was pulling them out into the light.
“Wow,” Phoebe said as she set the paintings onto the sofa and studied them. “They’re beautiful. Who painted them?”
Stella set her half-eaten yogurt on the kitchen counter and went to stand next to Phoebe.
There were four canvases. The first three were goddess portraits, commissioned by teralynnchilds.com
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Hera, Athena, and Artemis. The fourth was a portrait of a hematheos woman with looseflowing blonde hair, soft gray eyes, and a joyful smile.
“My mom painted those,” Stella answered, pointing at the goddess portraits. Then, facing the painting she could never bring herself to destroy, she said, “And I painted that one.”
“Stella ...”
Phoebe’s voice had taken on such a strange tone of awe and surprise that Stella couldn’t help turning to meet her steady brown gaze.
“That’s amazing.” Phoebe shook her head, like she couldn’t quite fathom the situation.
“I didn’t know you painted.”
Stella looked back at the portrait she’d done, the portrait of her mother.
“I don’t.”
***
As Stella flicked her hand at the room, sending the sea of Skittles back into oblivion—except for the jarful she zapped onto her desk ... for later—she wished she’d just cleaned up the mess in the first place. Then she wouldn’t be facing Phoebe’s questioning look about the paintings.
But it wasn’t like she had to stay and answer those questions.
“I’m going out for a while,” Stella said as she snatched the portraits off the sofa and headed for her room. “Try not to bring any more plagues to the house before I get back.”
She could practically hear Phoebe’s teeth grinding behind her. That almost made up for her discovering the paintings.
Stella quickly slid the canvases under her bed. They should be safe from Phoebe’s curiosity—and her powers—until Stella could decide what she wanted to do with them.
Now that they’d come out of hiding she couldn’t just put them back and forget.
When she heard Phoebe’s door slam—not an unusual occurrence—Stella stepped into her silver ballet flats. Seconds later she was walking the path to the village, heading for her favorite refuge: the pantheon temple. Perched on a cliff overlooking the gorgeous Aegean below, the pantheon temple was built as a tribute to all the gods and goddesses teralynnchilds.com
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of Olympic descent in an attempt to diffuse any arguments about preferred patron deities and the like. Not that anything could prevent the gods from arguing.
The temple was rarely used anymore. The gods didn’t visit the island with any regularity, and the residents didn’t feel compelled to pay formal tribute. Which meant that Stella usually found the temple deserted—the perfect environment for clear thinking.
As she climbed the shallow steps and passed through the colonnade to enter the temple proper, she felt a growing sense of calm and clarity. There was something about the brightly colored mural the covered every square inch of the interior walls that just ...
made her smile. It portrayed all the gods and goddesses in their most resplendent glory.
Like a massive and ancient family portrait.
Stella went, as she always did, to stand before the goddess on the far wall. The one wearing a beautiful golden crown, holding a plump pomegranate in her elegant hand, and with a proud peacock lying across her feet. Hera.
It had been years since Stella met with her immortal ancestor. The great deities rarely left Olympus anymore, and Stella hadn’t had time—or an invitation—to attend their court. If she couldn’t speak to Hera face-to-face, then this was the next best thing.