Only Everything (22 page)

I crossed my arms over my chest, then quickly dropped them, annoyed over feeling self-conscious. I was a goddess, for Zeus’s sake! There wasn’t a human on Earth who could touch my beauty. Except for my mother, of course. And as for bras and underwear, those things were purely archaic. The human body was not meant to be so constricted.

I glared around the room and, for the first time, noticed several people glancing from their phones to me, then back again. A pair of boys in green jackets laughed behind their hands. A girl with a million braids in her hair gave me a look so disgusted it was like she was eyeing a pig in slop. I stood up, shoving my chair back so hard it slammed into the wall and shook the framed cupcake art behind me.

“Evil trolls!” I shouted.

Everyone in the shop laughed.

I could smite each and every one of you,
I thought, my fists like rocks.
When I get my powers back, I
will
smite each and every one of you.

But for now, there was nothing I could do. I turned on my heel and stormed into the kitchen, through the baking area, and into the back room, slamming the door behind me.

At least I thought I slammed it. I didn’t recall touching it, but that was probably fury blackout.

“Are you okay?” Dominic asked, opening the door tentatively and sticking his head in. Flour streaked his long nose, and a swipe of red icing decorated the front of his apron.

“I’m fine,” I said, pacing the room from end to end, trying to work off my anger.

“This is what I get for hiring teenagers,” he said under his breath. “Look, I need you back out on the floor in five. I’m gonna have Torin train you on the register.”

“Great,” I blurted. “Fantastic. I’ll be there.”

He shook his head and closed the door quietly. I glared at it, wishing like hell I were anywhere but here. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse. Katrina was moving in with Ty, I was the school jester, and Darla and Charlie were clearly a mismatch.

I sat down on the plush couch that took up one wood-paneled wall and hung my head in my hands. This was a nightmare. Clearly, I couldn’t make one match without my powers, let alone three. I was never going to get this right. Never.

Orion was doomed.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

True

The sun was sinking behind the shingled rooftops and towering spires of downtown Lake Carmody as I walked home from work that evening, my eyes trained on the ground. Normally, dusk was my favorite time of day on Earth. A time when colors were muted, sounds seemed less harsh, friends met up with friends, and families gathered together again after a long day apart. It was the time of day when more first kisses happened than any other time. But today I couldn’t have cared less. Today I hated Earth and everything that came with it.

The kids at school were picking on me. Me. Eros. The Myth. The Legend. The Goddess of Love. No one was ever going to want to be friends with me now. No one was even going to want to be seen talking to me. Darla, bless her weak little heart, had taken a huge risk even sitting down with me today, but who knew if she would ever do it again unless I hit her boutique and bought myself some underwire. Not that I had any money to do so.

If no one wanted to talk to me, it would be a cold day in the underworld before I coupled anyone. As if that mattered. I’d been talking to Charlie ever since I got here, and all I’d managed to do was find him three inadequate candidates.

I took a deep breath and looked up. Somehow, I had walked myself to the corner of a square park near the center of town. A twentysomething couple sat on a bench nearby, smooching over milk shakes. I felt like spearing them both through the chest.

Why couldn’t Charlie have that? He was such a great guy. So handsome and accomplished and mature. There had to be someone out there who would love him for him, not for the him he could become with a few tweaks. Why was this so hard?

I turned my back on the couple and walked up the pathway toward the center of the park. Never in my entire existence had I felt so defeated. Even when I’d been banished, when I’d had Orion ripped away from me, I hadn’t felt this desperate, because I’d known I was going to find my way back to him. I’d known that I could and would complete the task set before me. But now, my heart felt heavy and sick. I was failing him. With each slipping sand grain of the hourglass, I was failing him. Just as I had once before. . . .

•  •  •

“He’s suffering,” I wailed at Harmonia, kneeling at the edge of my Earthen window. “He’s suffering and it’s my fault.”

Harmonia put her hand on my shoulder as we watched Orion, who lay on a cot in a small, sparsely furnished cabin. He was curled up like a frightened child, mewling, crying, thrashing in his sleep. I’d had only the time to find him shelter before Aphrodite called me back from Earth. My envy for the upper gods and their powers always burned inside me—a small, irritating flame in my gut—but it now overtook everything. I had to get to Orion, but as a lower goddess, I couldn’t go to him without the help of an elder.

“Is there nothing you can do?” I asked Harmonia.

“I’ve done the best I can, but I can’t control his dreams,” Harmonia told me, kneading her fingers before her. “He’s seen endless destruction and misery, suffering and pain . . . you must have expected this.”

“I didn’t expect anything!” I ranted, unfairly taking out my frustration on her. “I didn’t even mean to bring him to Earth. Not really. I was just fooling around. I never thought it would work.”

Orion let out a guttural wail, and Harmonia and I clasped hands as he spun on the mattress, clawing at the sheets. I was glad I had chosen to trust her with this, my greatest secret. There was no way I could have dealt with the consequences of my actions alone, and I knew that my sister was loyal to me above all else, as I was to her. No matter what, we would always keep each other’s confidence.

“He’s not equipped to deal with the atrocities he’s seen, as we are,” Harmonia told me. “Mortals can’t process such things as we can. If Artemis knew what she’d done to him—”

“She must never know,” I told her, squeezing her hand. “Promise me.”

“Of course,” she replied. “No good could come of it. Even I know that.”

Orion screamed so sharply it pierced my heart.

“You must go to him,” Harmonia said, breathless.

“I can’t. I’ve tried. You have no idea how many times I’ve tried,” I whispered.

A stiff, warm wind swept our hair across our shoulders, and my mother appeared on the far side of the window. My heart stopped beating.

“So try again,” Aphrodite said calmly.

Harmonia and I exchanged an alarmed look. “What?” I asked. “Do you even realize what I’ve done?”

“I do,” my mother said, with an eerie sort of calm. “It seems you have developed some new powers, Eros.”

I scrambled to my feet as Aphrodite strolled around the rim of the window, her white robes sweeping behind her.

“I didn’t—How did you—?”

“Did you think I wasn’t watching you? Did you think I wouldn’t mark what you’d done?” she asked.

She was calm. Too calm. And an unmistakable anger sizzled within her words.

“You are not supposed to wield that kind of power,” she said, looking down her nose at me imperiously. “How did you, Eros? Did you make some sort of deal with Zeus? Because deals with Zeus do not come without consequences.”

“No!” I replied as Orion let out another soul-shaking wail. “I didn’t—”

“Who then? Please tell me it wasn’t Hera,” she said with a sneer.

My mother’s feelings about Hera were well known, although she managed to hide them whenever we were in the royal court. Barely.

“No! Mother, I made no deals. I was shocked when it worked,” I told her. “Truly. I don’t understand how it happened.”

My mother studied me for a long moment, and finally her features softened. I let out a relieved breath. She must have decided I was telling the truth. “Well then. Let us see what else you can do.”

She stepped aside, opening a pathway to the window. I looked down at Orion uncertainly. “What do you mean?”

“Go to him,” she replied.

Harmonia raised her shoulders. “She’s tried.”

“Too hard, I’m sure,” my mother said with a knowing smirk. “What were you thinking about when you returned him to Earth?”

“I wasn’t thinking about anything,” I replied. “It was just for fun. I was playing.”

“Then relax.” My mother put her hands on my shoulders and steered me to the edge of the window. Her hands were warm, and I felt calmer suddenly. Like nothing was wrong. Like everything was possible. “Don’t think about anything other than what you want.”

I looked over my shoulder at her, wondering if this was some sort of trick. Was she trying to get me in trouble? Everyone knew that lower gods and goddesses were not permitted to come and go as they pleased. If any of the upper gods caught me, they could take me right to Zeus for punishment. He could banish me to Mount Etna, or worse, rob me of my powers.

“Don’t worry,” she told me. “I will cloak you both. No one will be the wiser.”

“What?” I asked. “Why would you do that for me?”

“Sheer curiosity?” she replied, her eyes glittering with mischief. “Let’s see what you can do, my daughter.”

She took a step back and nodded at me. Instantly I was bathed in a cool pink cloud. I glanced at Harmonia. Her forehead lined with concern as she gazed without focus at the spot where I’d been. The cloak was working.

“I’ll be right here,” she said, unable to meet my eyes.

I knew what she meant. She would keep an eye on my mother and make sure Aphrodite didn’t betray me.

I took a deep breath and concentrated on Orion, my arms flat at my sides, as I’d seen many upper gods do before they traveled to Earth. Orion cried out in anguish.

“Orion,” I whispered, gritting my teeth. “I wish to go to Orion.”

Nothing happened.

“It’s not working!” I said, looking at my mother.

“Relax,” she told me. “Relax your body, your mind, your soul. Think only of where you want to be.”

I took another breath. I felt my muscles relaxing. I tried to quiet my brain. I opened my fists, relaxed my jaw, softened my elbows and knees. I closed my eyes and saw myself at Orion’s bedside.

“Orion,” I whispered.

Suddenly I felt my hair lift off my shoulders. My skin prickled, and with a blast of heat, I burst into a million tiny pieces. I cried out, anticipating the pain, but it never came. The sensation, instead, was like a pleasant tickle in every inch of my body. And then, just as suddenly, I was whole again. I felt the solidity of the floor beneath my feet. The scent of raw wood filled my nostrils. I opened my eyes. Orion lay before me.

“It worked,” I breathed, looking up at the heavens. “Mother, it worked!”

I imagined Aphrodite watching me, laughing at my reaction, but the joy lasted only a moment as Orion gripped his pillow and screamed. I fell to my knees and reached for him. His skin was on fire, and he was bathed in cold sweat.

“Orion, wake up,” I said gently, laying my hand against his cheek. “Wake up. It’s all right. Everything’s all right. You’re safe.”

With a jerk, Orion’s hand darted up and grabbed my wrist. He sat up straight and turned, twisting my arm like he was turning the screws on a torture victim. His eyes were crazed.

“Orion. Please, stop,” I told him calmly, resisting the divine instinct to defend myself even as my fingers hummed, ready to smite him. “It’s me. It’s Eros. You’re alive and all’s well.”

“Eros?” he breathed. He looked down at his fingers and, as if stunned, released me. He turned and drew his legs up on the bed, resting his face in his hands. “I was having this dream . . . this awful, violent dream.”

There was a small kitchen against one wall of the cabin. I went to the sink and wet a towel, then returned and pressed it to his forehead. He reached up and touched my hand, holding it against him as if afraid to let go.

“Do you want to talk about it? Tell me what it was about?” I asked.

Orion shook his head. “I don’t want to think about it.”

I knelt at his bedside, considering Harmonia’s theory, that Orion would be haunted by all the earthly crimes and wars and genocides he’d witnessed.

“I’m here now,” I told him. “And I’m going to help you.”

“How?” he asked, taking in a broken breath. “How are you going to help me?”

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But I’ll stay as long as it takes.”

•  •  •

A pair of cawing crows brought me back to Earth, and I found myself standing at the center of the park, at the foot of a marble statue—a tribute to war heroes long gone. I sat down on one of the wide steps and sighed, wishing that Orion’s nightmares were still my biggest problem. Dotted around the grassy, shaded area were groups of friends and couples, gathered on picnic blankets or sitting on benches near the monument. A pair of girls I vaguely recognized from school sat smoking cigarettes and paging through a magazine. Pathetically, when I saw them, it made me think of how nice it must feel to have a friend.

I needed help, but I couldn’t even tell anyone who I really was or why I was here. And Aphrodite clearly had no interest in being of service. Not these days. The woman didn’t even eat anything unless I brought her a tray, and if I heard her say it was my fault we were here one more time. . . .