A quiet calm rested over the grassy field before everyone sprang into action. Dionysus immediately ran over to Felix and Max to offer them help. He pulled a golden flask from beneath his robe and passed it to both of them. Managing a quick swig first, Felix poured some of the whiskey onto Max’s wounds, thankful that he was unable to hear the agonizing screams brought on by the burn of the alcohol. After dousing them well, he encouraged Max to drink some, too. Anything to offer the poor guy some relief.
Ares, in the meantime, gathered up the decapitated remains of Proteus and excused himself. He wanted to bury the body immediately. He sought closure and the obliteration of any reminders of the evil God.
In the meantime, Athena raced over to Leucosia and Portia.
“My dearest sisters, a great victory have you won here today. I pray there will be much time to rejoice. But now, I beg you, tell me how we shall treat the mortals that have witnessed both the horrors and the miracles we have seen here today?”
Leucosia and Portia both slumped to the ground, exhausted and breathless.
Looking over at Felix and Max passing the golden flask between them and Dionysus blotting Max’s wounds, Leucosia was the first to speak.
“I fear the only approach is to feed the mortals the lotus flowers.” She turned to Portia. “Unless you would like to erase the memory with your voice, Portia. I myself do not have a single song left to sing.”
Portia shook her head. “I’m with you, Leucosia. I’m tapped out.” But while the lotus flowers were the obvious answer for Max, she wasn’t as sure about Felix.
Maybe it was selfish, but Portia needed Felix to remember. Why shouldn’t he? He already knew she was a Siren. She had nothing to hide from him. She knew that he would never hold the events of today against her. And how refreshing would it be not to have to hide anything from him? A friendship without secrets, without barriers.
Reading her mind, Athena looked directly at Portia.
“Why don’t you give him the choice?”
Portia nodded silently and headed over to Felix and Max. She could hardly look at Max, his wounds pulsing, their blood drawn by her own hand. Keeping a comfortable distance, she motioned for Felix to come over. When he approached, she noted how tired he looked, the darkness underscoring his eyes, making him appear much older than his almost seventeen years. His chest was still bare, except for the smears of Max’s blood that spotted it every so often. She reached out to touch his face.
Felix closed his eyes and rested his head heavily on her hand. His skin felt warm to her touch.
When he reopened his eyes, Portia signed to him.
“Felix, I need to ask you something. Let’s sit down.”
“No,” he signed back, “just ask me. What is it?”
“We, um, have decided that it’s in Max’s best interests not to remember what just happened here. There’s a certain flower, you see—”
“The lotus flower?” he spelled out with his hand.
She had forgotten that he, too, was taking the elective on
The Odyssey
. That world seemed a million miles away right now.
“Yes, the lotus flower. Anyway, I thought it should be your choice whether or not you wanted to forget this day. I mean, you might have nightmares or PTSD or something.” She attempted a weak smile. “You might come to think of me as a horrible monster…” She dropped her hands to her sides, humbled and vulnerable.
“So Max gets to forget and I get to remember, huh? I had a feeling something like that might happen.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way, Felix. I just thought you actually might
want
to remember, because, um, because you are my best friend.”
He moved in closer to her, wiping away some silvery residue that had fallen to her collarbone. His touch was electric, a bolt of lightning zapping away the words ‘best friend,’ replacing them with something more alive. More charged. They were a long way away from platonic now, as the back of his hand swept the side of her neck.
“Portia, I would never want to forget anything about you—good or bad.” He leaned down and whispered into her ear, “You are so etched in my mind, Portia Griffin, that I don’t even think a lotus flower would make a bit of difference. I don’t think arsenic would make a difference. You’re going to haunt me well beyond the grave. So no lotus flowers for me, OK? Not today.” He stood up straight and looked sharply at her. “Not ever.”
He walked away then to tend to Max Hunter, the boy who Portia had thought was definitely ‘the one.’
But now she was not so sure…
♪
Athena and Leucosia were speaking in hushed tones when Portia reapproached them.
“He doesn’t want the flowers.” She looked to each of the Goddesses, who seemed suddenly very distracted. “What? What’s going on?”
“Portia,” Leucosia responded. The calm in her voice did not jibe with the look of concern on Athena’s face. “I need you to go somewhere with me. Athena has promised to watch over Felix and Max for a bit. It won’t take long. Just something I have to do.”
Portia looked over to Athena.
“Go, my sweet child. I will take care of everyone here. Worry not.” And then she turned to Leucosia and embraced her fiercely. “You will always be my dearest friend, Leucosia.” The clear-eyed Goddess’s eyes were even more haunting when they were filled with mist.
Leucosia stood up and brought forth her wings, Portia following behind, though something about this sudden journey seemed altogether foreboding. Rising up into the air, the two Goddesses plunged into the dense fog that covered the peak of Mount Olympus.
Leucosia took Portia’s hand in hers and guided them toward a small reef at the edge of the angry waters that neighbored the mountain. As they landed on the rocky surface, Portia felt a severe panic rise up in her.
“What’s going on, Leucosia? Why are we here?”
“I’m so tired, Portia.”
“I know, so am I. Let’s go home.”
“No, Portia. I mean I am
tired
. Tired of it all. I have lived too long with the weight of these wings.”
Portia began to tremble. “What are you talking about?”
“I CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE!” the ancient Siren screamed, her voice echoing off the crevices of the mountain range. “I’m done. I can’t even bear for a moment to think that Ligeia and Proteus might have a daughter out there somewhere,
do
have a daughter out there somewhere. Who knows what traits she inherited from her parents? I’m too old—too worn out to find out! I have lived so long among Gods and mortals. So many have I buried, so many have I missed. So many have I hurt. Your own Felix I’ve hurt immeasurably—”
“You haven’t hurt anyone, Leucosia. What are you talking about? You’ve only helped us all.” The desperation in Portia’s voice was palpable.
“Portia, don’t you see? I did it to him. I caused it.”
Portia looked back at her mentor, utterly confused.
“The deafness—it was my fault. I needed you to have a friend, an ally who would ride out the storm with you. I met Felix when I followed you to RPA and convinced his father to hire me. Something about him struck me. He had a maturity about him, a wisdom and a kindness beyond his six years. At that point, we had made the decision to slow down your voice until you reached womanhood. I thought that maybe I could forge a special bond between the two of you if he was unable to hear. This way you’d never feel self-conscious around him. You’d be able to be free and honest.”
Portia stared dumbstruck as Leucosia admitted her crime.
“And so at the end of second grade, I called him into my office and injected him with the virus that brought about his deafness. He doesn’t remember it because I laced the injection with lotus flowers. I’m sorry, Portia. I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t have it all rest on me. I needed you to have somebody other than me!”
The admission came as a terrible blow. How could Leucosia have done this?
“Is it reversible? Can you fix him now?”
“I wish I could. But the same force that prevents me from enabling Dean Fein to walk again and prevents Athena from granting sight back to Tiresias prevents me from restoring Felix’s hearing, even though I myself created the damage. Besides, even if I could, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t alter one thing about your relationship with Felix.
He
wouldn’t alter one thing.”
“Leucosia, how could you have done that? You ruined his life!”
“Yes, I did! And I regret it every day. But now he has you. And that seems to be enough for him. I know that doesn’t excuse what I did, but please, let me go in peace. Let me die knowing that my crime—”
“Die? Who said anything about dying?” Portia was confused. Desperate. “OK, Leucosia. So maybe you made a bad judgment call, but it’s not worth ending your life over. I mean, we all make mistakes, right?”
Leucosia reached out and stroked Portia’s silken hair. With the cuff of her sleeve, she cleaned off the remnants of dark lipstick that still coated Portia’s lips.
“There, you’re already looking back to your normal self.”
“I don’t know who my normal self is, Leucosia.”
“I think you do, Portia. We have all seen today just what a powerful Goddess you are. It was
you
who defeated my sisters and Proteus.”
Portia dropped to her knees. “Please, Leucosia. Whatever it is you are thinking of doing, please don’t do it. I don’t want to be alone.”
Leucosia fell to her knees, too, and gazed hard into Portia’s eyes.
“You are not alone, Portia. You have wonderful friends and family who cherish and adore you. And there are Gods with whom you haven’t even yet been acquainted who will delight in getting to know the new and powerful Siren whose reputation spreads even as we speak.”
Realizing her pleas weren’t getting her anywhere, Portia began to sob. “I’ll reverse the current, Leucosia. I will. You’ll keep floating back to shore.”
“No, Portia. You won’t. Oh, please don’t cry, sweet Portia. You must think of me finally being reunited with the spirits of Nereus and Melina. In time you will recognize that this is what is best.”
Portia grabbed Leucosia’s hands in her own. She was desperate. She couldn’t fathom a life where she would have to navigate her way through the twists and turns of immortality without Leucosia’s guidance.
“I can’t do it, Leucosia. I can’t let you go.”
A single silver tear slid down Leucosia’s cheek. Portia stared at the teardrop and as it fell, the flawlessness of Leucosia’s skin began to fade. Within moments, she became unrecognizable, deep wrinkles lining an age-spotted face, her fiery red hair streaked with gray, her eyelids drooping so heavily that the green of her eyes was impossible to make out.
“This is what I am, Portia. Please, you must let me go. This is what I am…”
The aged face of Leucosia was terrifying to behold. Portia had always marveled at the beauty of the Goddess, but now all she could see were the thousands of years that had taken their irreversible toll. How could she ask her to keep going?
“Why did you bring me here? Why didn’t you just do it quietly? Without telling me?”
Leucosia’s voice was suddenly thick with age. “When my spirit travels into the halls of Hades, dearest Portia, I want it to be blessed. Blessed to enter the Elysian Fields, blessed to command a visit with the spirits of my loved ones. If I had deceived you about my intentions, had not told you of my crime against Felix, I would have been commencing my afterlife with a lie. That is not how I want to go.”
Portia wept shamelessly.
“Besides, I had to say good-bye. You have given me such great peace, Portia, and for that I must thank you. You are no less than a daughter to me, and you have made me proud. You have found the goodness that lies deep within you, have traveled beyond your voice and back again.”
Leucosia stood up again and brought forth the cumbersome weight of her giant wings, whose feathers now appeared wilted and worn.
“Will you sing to me, Portia? I would like more than anything to hear you sing one last time.”
Portia felt sick. How could she possibly rise to the occasion here? She thought of the beautiful school nurse who had followed her from elementary to high school, honing her expertise in checking for lice and dispensing aspirin, all so that she could keep a watchful eye on her charge.
A mental image of Leucosia coming across the webcam, scratching Hermes lovingly under his chin, popped into her mind. The joy they had shared on their first visit to Mount Olympus when together they had created miraculous music.
Portia looked up again at the old withered face of Leucosia. She felt like she was looking at a stranger. She knew then that she had to let her go.
Rising up, Portia conjured her own wings. Their emergence was still painful but nothing like what she had experienced that morning with the sisters. Her own feathers were so lustrous compared to Leucosia’s. She suddenly admired the way Leucosia had camouflaged her age all these years.
With a sadness unlike any she had ever known, Portia opened her mouth to sing
.
“Did I know all those years ago?
A scraped knee and ego bruised,
A poultice then to ease the blow,
Hurt lovingly diffused…”
The Goddesses took flight, hand in hand. Portia could feel the sudden effort it was taking for Leucosia to gain height, so she exerted extra force to help propel the aged Siren.
“You followed me for many years,
And now you are too old.
We’ve shared metallic silver tears,
But these ones will be gold.”
They were circling the stormy waters beneath them, their molten tears falling into the waves of the sea.
“Upheld promises with patience true,
Oaths sworn in moments dying.
But now these oaths have conquered you,
And loose ends you’ve been tying…”
Leucosia kissed her charge gently on the forehead before prying her hand out of Portia’s grip. Her wings flapped slowly, suspending her in the air just long enough to brush away the new tear that was streaming down Portia’s cheek. Without another word, she turned around and began to plunge downward.