Chapter 1
This Lonely Place
1
A tiny girl with pink ribbons in her chestnut curls bounced down the pale green hall of her mother’s brownstone. Her father was coming home tonight and he had promised her a special Christmas present. The dress she wore was the one he had sent her from Paris, the burgundy velvet one with the pale pink roses. Her black patent shoes winked under the hall lights as she dawdled by the mirror. She turned her ankle this way and that, admiring the tiny silver bells her aunt had fastened to the buckles.
Her aunt called her down again.
“Coming,” she replied. Six years old and in school now, and still she was treated like a baby. She poked her tongue out at the mirror.
She picked at the tiny acorns and red ribbons that bedecked the pine garland that curled around the banister. Heat from the fireplace rose in waves from the room below and pinked her round cheeks. The warm smell of turkey and pie drifted in from the kitchen and made her anxious for her father to get home.
Her aunt and her had a peekie-boo game they liked to play, so she stopped on the landing and crouched down on her hands and knees to survey the festivities going on in the room below.
Her mother whirled around the living room making sure everything was perfect, every candle flickering, the wood glowing, the mirrors shining, and not a pine needle on the floor. She looked beautiful, her dark hair in a French roll, her beautiful silvery eyes shining, she wore a sheer, silver blouse with a camisole underneath and black trousers.
Her aunt sat at the harpsichord, her willowy fingers drawing out a haunting tune that filled the room and drowned out the rain that pelted the windows. Her aunt turned to call her down again and saw her peeking between the railing. She twisted away pretending not to see her quite yet.
The little girl giggled into her palm. The hair on the back of her neck suddenly stood at attention and the child shivered.
A knock at the door caused her mother to freeze and turn upon the clock ticking on the mantel. Her mother’s eyebrows drew together and she exited to answer the door.
A police officer followed her mother back into the living room, his hat in his hands.
The one real thing the girl remembered was the policeman dripped rain all over the Oriental carpet. Her mother always reprimanded her whenever she got that rug wet.
Her aunt’s music faded to a halt the moment she saw the cop. Her mother offered him a seat on the divan and sent Hilma, their governess, running for a cup of coffee. Her mother’s knees gave out from under her and she took a seat on the hassock. Her aunt moved next to her mother and motioned the girl to go to her room. Her mother turned and caught sight of where she sat on the top riser.
From the landing, the child watched the scene unfold like a play.
“Well, what could possibly bring you out in this weather on Christmas night?” Her mother finally managed.
“I’m sorry I’m not here on better business, Mrs. Mercado.”
“No,” her mother shook her head in denial. “Just tell me it’s not about my husband.”
“There was an accident in
“What kind of accident?” Her aunt asked.
“Julian is okay, though? He’s just hurt?” Her mother pleaded.
“Mrs. Mercado, I’m sorry but your husband is gone, there was an explosion or something to that end. His car.” The officer shifted around on the divan.
“Maybe he wasn’t in his car, maybe it was someone else?” Her mother’s tear-filled eyes shone with hope.
“There was a witness, ma’am, they saw your husband get into his car.” The officer stood and handed a card to her aunt. “This is the number for the
Hilma returned from the kitchen and spoke in low tones to him before showing the officer out.
Her mother, full of grief, opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her aunt tried to hold on to her, but her mother slipped to the floor and grasped at the damp rug. It seemed she was trying to hold on to something, anything.
“A towel, get me a towel,” she said.
The governess returned with a dishtowel and her mother scrubbed at the Oriental. She made the strangest sounds while she dried the rug.
The noises, the awful grieving noises her mother made were the only memory the girl had left of her.
Her mother turned those wet silver eyes on her, tossed the towel aside, and climbed to the landing. Her mother’s face so close, she could smell her sour, sick breath. The girl inched back and her mother’s hand gripped the velvet dress. With her other hand, she ripped the girl’s pendant off. Her mother tossed the chain aside and pocketed the child’s charm, a tiny gold key.
“Momma?” She had whispered. “Momma?”
Her mother ran out into the raging storm and never came back. Never came back.
They waited for weeks and when it was clear that her mother and aunt were gone – she was shipped off to her Aunt Camille, her father’s sister, in
The song her aunt had played that night ran along quietly in her mind until two days ago, she heard it aloud for the first time in seventy years.
In a hospital bed in
2
The Villa
Ares turned the engine off and no one made any effort to move. Sunflowers bowed heavy heads just beyond the
Calliope.
He let out a heavy sigh and gazed at his reflection in the car window.
His face was smeared from where Clio had tried to push him away with bloodied hands. He suddenly needed out of the car, he fumbled with the handle and pushed madly at the heavy door, but it wouldn’t budge. After several attempts, he elbowed the window in his fury and shattered the glass. His hand felt for the handle outside the window and he fell to one knee when the door popped open. He pulled himself up.
“Fuck,” he growled and kicked the garage door. The aluminum barked in defiance to the kick. He kicked and punched it a few more times before he was done.
Mel fumbled with the trunk.
“Tragedy, what do you think you’re doin’?” He asked her.
“How can she be dead?” Mel asked, her voice cool and composed once again.
“Yeah, well, we need to put her on ice, because I know the historian isn’t going to take that for a bleedin’ answer.”
Mel nodded in agreement. “I’ll have
“Yeah, and I’ve got a lovely fucking hole in my chest to match, pet, where’s your point?” His jaw flexed in tight irritation. Her unflappable, sightless gaze made him turn away. “I’ll bring the Poet in,” he said. “Do you need me to – ”
“I can manage,” Mel said and walked up the drive. A cane unfolded in her hands and she guided herself up to the house. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her do that before.
Ares searched his jacket for cigarettes and came up with an empty pack.
“Right,” he said as if he expected it and found a squashed, stale one in an old pack in the glove box. He lit it, took a heavy drag, and exhaled before glancing down at the mess in his trunk.
Calliope’s eyes were open in a confused, hurt stare. He reached inside and closed them. He tried to cover her exposed breasts from where Clio had ripped the nightgown.
“She is never going to be able to get through this without you, Poet. You picked a bloody piss-poor time to up and die on her, y’know.”
The freeway below them hummed a lullaby, a dog barked incessantly a few blocks away, and the wind whistled through Clio’s garden, making the leaves rustle and dance. Ares stared at the stars and wished he hadn’t been tossed into this mess.
“What happened to Annie?”
“Shit, don’t fucking do that.” Ares spun on his heel and looked at the pale, tiny lamia before him.
“I thought you could ‘smell’ me. Remember? I nauseate you,” Bliss said.
“Annie’s dead.” The Lucky was tossed on the asphalt and crushed beneath his heel.
Her indifferent gaze swept over him and she turned to leave. “As long as you’re sure, seems as though nothing stays dead around here anymore,” she tossed back.
His scowl followed her right up to the front door. Ares shook out the blanket in his trunk and wrapped it around Calliope’s still, stiffening frame. His bullet wound opened and began bleeding again from the strain of lifting her. The pain was nauseating and he had to grit his teeth to bear it.
In the guest bathroom, he laid her gently in the tub, and turned the shower on. Mel knocked on the door, a silver satin nightgown in her hands. They didn’t say a word to each other, they had read each other’s thoughts – clean up Calliope before Clio saw her again.
Mel stripped off the dead muse’s bloody, torn gown and cleaned the wounds from her starkly white body.
“Ares, would you help me lift her so I may dry her?” She asked when she was finished. He pulled her dripping from the tub and laid her on the towels Mel had laid out.
When Mel was finished, Calliope looked as though she was merely sleeping on the bathroom floor. Mel had dried her hair, combed and smoothed the blue-black waves and reddened her bee-stung lips, after she had Ares read her the color of every tube of lipstick in the house. Ares bent down and carefully lifted her to carry her down to the basement.
The freezer in the basement was about six feet long and shallow, about two and a half feet deep, all the meat had been removed, and was stacked up against the washer and dryer.
“Do you want me to help you with that?”
“If you could hold the bloody lid up that would do it, I think.” The war god laid her in the freezer and did the best he could to straighten her dress and hair. The mangled mess that were once her hands hung ruined at her sides, so he crossed them like they did with the dead.
She is dead.
“Did you forget something?” Mel asked. She reached into the little bag she had in her hand and flashed a coin in her palm. The ancient gold coin was pushed beneath Calli’s tongue. Mel kissed the muse’s forehead, “For Charon, my sweet one, don’t forget to pay the ferryman.”
Ares flushed head to toe – he hadn’t buried anyone in a long time, and had forgotten the coins. They shut the freezer and
“Ares, are you coming?”
“Yeah, I’ll be up in a moment.” He opened the lid again.
With one last look at the muse who now bore more than a passing resemblance to Snow White, he slowly shut the freezer, and climbed the stairs. A flick of his wrist turned off the lights, and after a moment, he flipped them back on so she wouldn’t be alone in the dark.
His job here wasn’t done while that lab still stood. With a heavy sigh, he walked back out to the
Besides, he needed cigarettes.
3
Miranda’s heart hammered in her aching, beaten chest. She tried to swallow around the tube in her throat and gagged. Pulling the offending thing out, she looked around for something to remoisten her mouth and throat with.
She clutched her chest and worried she looked a mad sight. A large lump sat covered by a yellow blanket on the chair next to her bed. A plastic water pitcher sat beyond her reach on the bedside table. She reached for it and groaned.
“I’m thirsty,” her grandmother croaked.
“Right, of course,”
Miranda snatched the cup from her in impatience and took great gulps from it.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Only a couple of minutes.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did I wake you?”
“I wasn’t sleeping. Are you feeling alright?”
“I woke up from a nightmare,
“I’m fine,” Miranda said. “Where’s your brother?”
“He’s trying to reach Clio,”
An enigmatic expression came over Miranda as she brooded over
The quiet in the room was cloying and
Miranda stared at the ceiling for a couple of minutes. “Clio has been searching for her, of course she would be.” She sighed at her granddaughter, “How much do you know?”
“What?”
“
“Grandma, maybe I should get a doctor, let them know you’re awake.”
Miranda’s gaze darted to the door, “They know. When I pulled that tube from my throat it should have set off an alarm at their desk, if they haven’t come in yet, they’re not going to, they’re obviously busy.” She looked contemplative and finally gave
“You’re crazy,”
“You do know.”
“I know. I saw your pictures.”
“She is who I think she is?” Miranda asked.
“You’ve seen her, then? You’ve seen my mother?” Miranda was trembling.
“I’ve seen her. She has no idea.”
“Does Crow know?”
“He knows what she is, but not who she is to us.”
“Why?” Miranda asked.
“Because I know what she did to you, and I know why and I don’t even think you do. She’s despicable,”
“
“That’s not enough?”
Miranda touched the hands that wrestled in
“Because she doesn’t know, and-and…”
“What is it?” Miranda wanted to shake the girl like a rag doll.
“He loves her,”
Miranda shook her head in denial. “Clio has no idea?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“We have to get me out of here,
4
The Villa
Mel raked her fingers through her hair and sighed with relief when she heard the
Her feet would not obey her command to climb the stairs to Clio’s room, and it was positively maddening. It was terrible how she wanted to abandon the mantle that had been heaped upon her. How was she expected to have all the answers surrounding Calliope’s death?
Mel clung to the pain, lest she feel nothing, which would be much, much worse. Her hips turned towards the kitchen and her feet obeyed her this time. She decided to make some hot chocolate.
She could hear the plastic creak and twist in his hands.
He made no move to change and she went to work on making the cocoa. They were silent in the dark room, the only light coming from the burner beneath the kettle. Three envelopes of cocoa were dumped into mugs and she found a bottle of peppermint schnapps.
“I don’t know if I can begin to sort that out yet, but you’ll be the first to know when I do,” she replied with some irritation. She left the kitchen in the direction of the staircase.
Feeling her way with each tentative footstep, she found the hall console and placed the tray atop it. She found her purse on the chair next to the table and pulled her cell phone from it. Flipping through the phone numbers, she finally heard the one she was looking for and autodialed it.
Mel listened to it ring with her heart in her throat until someone finally answered. “You had better come. The worst has happened,” she said and hit END. The phone burned with guilt and she dropped it back into the bag.
Her feet felt like lead as she tried to climb the stairs, wishing there was someone else to do this, to care for Clio and Cory, and then blushed at her own vicious self-interest. Slipping through the bedroom door, she found them both on the bed, Cory weeping softly in a ball in one corner. Clio was still unconscious.
Mel put the tray down and sat on the corner nearest Cory, she put the dancer’s head in her lap and petted her hair.
“We’ll solve this, sweet one, we will, you’ll see. As soon as Clio comes to her senses, we’ll figure this all out. My poor darling, please don’t cry, she is Calliope, the greatest Muse of us all. She can take care of herself. She’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
She hoped she sounded more convincing than she felt.
5
Crow stirred from his spot in the corner of the room, he had slept in a terrible position, and his neck and shoulders complained loudly of it. A book of mythology lay open on his chest. Shutting it and stretching, he looked with disorientation at the two women regarding him with mildly alarmed expressions. He yanked his arms down and straightened his twisted shirt.
“Wha-? How long?” He asked sleepily, “When did she wake up?” This last he demanded with some acid in his voice, his knitted brow and pinched mouth indicating his mood.
“We didn’t want to wake you,”
“You didn’t what? You didn’t want to wake me?” His gaze switched to his grandmother, “Are you alright? Has a doctor seen you?” Relief finally washed away his indignation and Miranda patted his hand.
“You just missed him. He said I was doing well, all things considered.” Miranda smiled at her grandson. How had I not seen the resemblance before? So much like Daddy, she wondered.
Miranda nodded to Alice who cleared her throat and said, “Crow, call Clio and find what’s going on with the Calliope situation.”
Crow’s expression changed, he cocked his head at
“I think something bad happened,”
Crow nodded grimly and picked up the telephone. He dialed the Villa’s number, although he doubted they were there.
The phone rang a number of times on the other end as he looked expectantly at his sister.
“
“Yeah?”
“It’s Crow, man, listen, is Clio around?” A cloying anxiety suddenly seized hold of him.
“No.”
“Have you gotten any news on Calli?”
“You’d better come.”
“What’s happened?”
“Just do Clio a favor and hurry.”
Stunned, Crow stared at the receiver as though it had licked him. “You’re right, something has happened.” He replaced the telephone. “I’ve gotta get over there.”
Miranda looked at
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Crow said, a wave of his hand indicating her hospitalized status. He decided that
Miranda considered this for a moment and said, “Agreed.
“I understand, Grammy.”
“
“Yes?”
“Don’t say anything until I’m there, okay?”
In his frantic concern, Crow did not even register their conversation.
6
Just Outside of the Underworld
Bitter, cold stones bit into her delicate bare feet on the path below her. With hands on her hips, she stood on the stony path trying to figure out how she got here. After a moment’s hesitation, she took a step forward, testing her dream. This had to be a dream, after all. The sky had a surreal quality, violet and bruised looking. There were naked, shivering oak trees lining the path. Beyond the trees was a thick, impenetrable blanket of fog.
Calliope opened her mouth to say something, anything, and found her mouth was full. She spat it out. It glittered in the darkness, and she crouched down to examine it. It was an Etruscan coin, the kind Mel always carried with her. Calliope shuddered and clutched the coin tightly in her fist.
“Hello?” She called out. “Help? I’m lost, I don’t belong here.” Her only company was the silent fog. “This sucks,” she kicked a rock and winced in pain when it wounded her naked toe. “This is a terrible dream.”
There was a derisive snort from behind her and she whirled around. Tisphone stood there, her long, auburn curls wildly unbound around her shoulders. A deep red, girdled gown fell around her ankles and a quiver and bow was strapped to her back.
“Just like a muse, you guys always think you’re too good,” Tisphone said. An Erinys, one of Persephone’s three warriors, Tisphone was an avenger of murder.
Calliope jutted her chin out, “I am lost, I have no guide, and I do not belong in this place.”
“That’s what you think, sister,” the woman said wryly and then she was gone. Her form faded as though she had been made of the very fog that surrounded them.
Calliope looked around and nothing greeted her but dense fog, in front of her sat a small dock. “Right,” she responded dryly.
On the dilapidated ash-colored dock, she found an ancient, weathered bell with a hammer attached to it by a heavy, iron chain. The bell was pitted and scarred from countless usage and rust came off beneath her fingers when she touched it. The hammer was heavy and she had to use some effort to lift the thing and actually clock the bell with it. Its ring shook her down to her bones and sent ripples through the water beneath her. The bell woke a few dozen crows that had been perched in the shadows of the oak trees. The crows were so well camouflaged Calliope had not even known they were there. They took flight in a noisy show of displeasure.
Nothing happened.
Calliope waited for several minutes and grew bored. “So much for preferred treatment,” she said. Her hands smoothed over the silvery satin of her gown and she sat on the dusty bank. She picked up some pebbles and began plunking them into the black water. After what felt like a few hours, but was probably closer to one, she noticed the crows were back.
They chattered back and forth and she carefully glanced over her shoulder at them in the oaks lining the path behind her. When she turned, she saw they were all regarding her with great curiosity. She stood and dusted her butt off.
Making her way to the great, black birds, she eyed them frostily, “Tell your Master that there’s been a mistake and he had better remedy it fast.”
They broke into a cacophony of what sounded like laughter. Her glance turned scathing, she bent to pick up a good size rock, and threw it at the nearest one. It dodged the missile merrily and settled back on its branch. It wasn’t as lucky with the second one, and feathers scattered when she hit her mark.
“You don’t scare me. Did you hear me? You don’t scare me!” Calliope cried. With greater confidence than she felt, she whirled back around and stormed back onto the dock. The hammer slammed into the bell much louder than before. “Charon! Come on, Ferryman, move your ass! I haven’t got all god damned day,” she yelled with colossal impatience and stomped her foot for good measure.
7
2:00 am
After stumbling into the bar, the man sat in a booth closest to the door. The bar was dimly lit, which was what he needed right now.
A waitress with greasy hair pulled into a thin ponytail stood over him, snapping her gum impatiently. A gray T-shirt with the bar’s logo on it was tucked tight into her black Levi’s. She wore a thick smear of tangerine lipstick, and smelled like sweat and Juicy Fruit.
“Well?” She finally asked.
“Bring me a bottle of Jack,” he managed.
“It’s past last call.” Her voice spoke volumes of her trailer park upbringing.
“Listen,” he looked at her name tag, “Wendy, move your scrawny ass and get me a bottle of Jack.”
“Jackass,” she muttered as she walked away.
He sat in the booth and contemplated what to do next. Wendy came back and slammed the bottle on the table in front of him. His hundred was swiped off the table and he didn’t expect to see any change from it. With gritted teeth, he unscrewed the top and took a long pull off it, wincing afterwards. He picked up a napkin from the booth behind him, poured whisky on it, and shoved it beneath his torn and bloody shirt. Silently, he thanked the gods that he wore a black shirt, or he would’ve been a violent mess had it been white. When the alcohol touched his wounds, he bit the cap to keep from yelping.
Escaping the Kraken while the police drove around the warehouse had taken its toll on him. Blue lights washed over him as he stumbled through the alleys, and finding the bar was sheer luck.
With his back to the wall and his legs propped up on the dirty, red vinyl seat of the booth, he ignored the curious stares of the patrons and Wendy’s biting gaze. He sat there until he felt he might be able to walk without looking like a drive-by victim.
With a great gulp, he finished his bottle and called out, “Wendy, call me a fucking cab.”
“Okay, asshole, you’re a cab.”
Annie giggled from his place in the booth.
8
The Villa
Crow pulled up in front of the house and saw the lights blazing from every window.
“Looks like everyone’s up,”
“Looks that way.” Crow wasn’t certain he wanted to go inside.
“Crow?” His sister asked.
“Give me a minute.” They both sat there for a few minutes. When he was ready, he opened his door and got out. He wasn’t expecting his legs not to hold his weight.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Something’s wrong here, Al, what if it’s something I can’t fix? What then?” His eyes turned the color of stormy skies.
“We’ll get through this, all of us will get through this, Crow.” He looked curiously at her statement, but she shook her head and helped him up.
They walked into the villa together and
Crow looked at
“She’s still asleep, there’s something you need to see first, come with me.” They followed him to the basement. Once downstairs,
An eternity passed before
“She was shot to death,”
“Who did this?” Disbelief washed over his face.
Crow shook his head, “No.” His strength drained into the floor and he had to sit. Raking his fingers through his hair, he said, “No, no, no, no, no, this did not happen!”
“We don’t know how she’s going to react to this, we needed you here,” said
“This, this is crazy! This can’t be happening!”
“Get it together, she’s gonna need you, man.”
“‘Get it together’? My girlfriend fucking murdered her sister, accident or not!” Crow wanted to hit something.
“It doesn’t, that’s what’s fucked up. This is unbearable.”
“Clio, must be –” Crow began.
“Insane with grief? Understatement, pal. We had to knock her out, the cops were comin’ and we had to get her out, she wasn’t all together,”
“Knock her out?” Crow asked.
“He had to, he didn’t want to, he had to,”
“Ares! Where is he?” Crow looked ready to take on the God of War.
“We don’t know, he took off after he took care of Calliope, he is not the issue, we had to do what we had to do, the situation was out of control.”
Crow flew up the basement stairs and up to Clio’s room. He opened the door to find Mel rocking Cory. They looked at him with surprise and relief in their expressions.
His gaze dropped to Clio, she was sleeping, covered with blood, and her hair was tangled and knotted. Little jumps and cries erupted from her as she slept fitfully, and he touched her hair.
“Clio?” Crow said. Her eyes fluttered open at the sound of his voice. She said nothing.
For at least twenty minutes, she lay there with her eyes open. No one dared disturb her. She slowly roused and dragged herself from the bed’s edge. Crow followed behind silently, prepared to catch her should she fall.
“Calliope?” Clio called.
Crow winced as though she had struck him.
“Where’s Calli?” She asked innocently.
“Clee, Calli’s –” He started helplessly.
“Calliope!” Clio called, louder this time. “God, she never answers me.”
“Stop it, Clee, just stop it!” Cory demanded with a scorching shriek.
Clio turned and regarded her sister with a slow cock of her head. Crow took her by the arm, which she quickly tore away.
“Clio, you need to come back, your family needs you. You know that Calli’s...” He couldn’t finish.
“Calli’s what, Crow?” Clio demanded with a wrath that Ares would be sorry he missed.
Suddenly, Crow understood. Clio knew but needed to hear it aloud, to confirm it.
“Calliope is gone.” Mel said thickly from behind him.
Clio suddenly whirled around onto her knees and vomited all over the tile. Muffled and far away, people tried to comfort her. Clio stumbled towards her sister’s room where she found
The air she breathed seemed heavy and oppressive and Clio could feel the room growing smaller. Faltering into Calliope’s bathroom, she opened the glass shower door. With a hard twist, she turned on the cold water and stood beneath the nozzle.
Clio watched with fascination as her sister’s blood washed down the drain. She backed away from the drain, not wanting the bloody water to touch her, until she felt cold tile on her back. Sliding down the shower wall until she was sitting, she could hear somewhere, far away, people telling her to get out of the freezing shower. The voices told her she would freeze to death.
Death was for her sister, not for her.
“Why not me?” Clio whispered.
Calliope opened the shower door and stepped inside.
From where she sat in the corner, Clio watched her with wide eyes.
“What are you doing? You’re getting your clothes all wet and, Jesus, Clee, this water is freezing! Are you high or something?” Calliope said.
Clio stared at her raven-haired sister, “Calli?”
“You were expecting someone else?” She gave Clio that lopsided grin of hers.
“But I thought....”
“Shh, never mind what you thought. You can’t stay in here, Clee,” Calliope said and squatted down beside her.
“But, I can’t go back, there’s nothing back there,” Clio said.
“There is a room full of people back there,” Calliope replied. “They need you.”
“Me?” Clio shook her head in misery.
“You.” Calliope made her look at her seriously, something she rarely did. “You can do this. I believe in you.”
“What? I can do what?” Voices reached into the shower, pulling her from her reverie. They demanded her return. “Do you hear that?” Clio whispered conspiratorially.
Calliope’s eyes darted towards the voices. “Yes. You have to go. Be careful, Clee, there’s more than what you see going on here.”
“What?” Clio asked again.
“You are not alone.”
Clio grappled for her sister, “Calli? Don’t leave me, please!”
“I haven’t, nerd, haven’t you gotten it yet?” She teased and playfully poked Clio in the nose.
The voices were louder now, calling out to her, pushing and pulling at her from beneath the cold water. They would never let her be, it was as if she were at the bottom of a pool and they were on its surface, telling her to come up, to hear them.
How long she sat beneath that shower was inconsequential to Clio, it could’ve been minutes or years. All that mattered was that when she came out, Calliope would still be dead. She will still have killed her own sister when she came back to the voices who said they cared about her, said they loved her. They all knew what she had done. She had murdered her sister. Sororicide was what they called it in all the textbooks.
The voices were getting closer now and she was beginning to make out what they were saying. Water dripped from her chin and nose, poured in little rivers from her elbows.
“Why couldn’t it have been me? Why?” Clio asked them, desperate for an answer. She dragged herself out of the water, little puddles pooled beneath her on the tile. The person looking back at her in the mirror was a stranger.
The wild expression engraved on her face frightened her. Her silver eyes were the bullets that had torn and rendered her sister’s flesh. Her colorless lips trembled fitfully and dark half-moons lurked beneath her eyes. Her shaking hand grazed the purple bruise embellishing her cheek, a token from the war god.
Crow tried to embrace her and she pulled away.
“We have to get her back! We have to get her back! We can do it! I got you back, we can get Calliope back!” Clio blathered.
“Baby, we can’t bring her back,” Crow replied.
Everyone stood around her and listened to her sobbing. To keep from screaming, Mel shoved a trembling fist into her mouth and bit it until she felt the hot, coppery taste of her own blood fill her mouth.
“I know how we can get her back,”
There was a loud thump and they all turned to see. Clio had fainted.
9
The Underworld
Calliope could hear the boat long before the dragon nose of Charon’s gondola parted the mist. He hadn’t even aligned himself with the dock before she hopped in. His dark gaze burned at her beneath his black hood.
Charon had been the High Priest of Hades when he was mortal and his reward was to become the Ferryman of the Dead. His long, gray beard was greasy and dirty and his skin sallow and drear.
“Lovely, lovely,” he muttered to himself and held out a crusty, filthy hand for the coin. His hand seemed to be made of stone from the calluses the oar had left behind.
Calliope looked at it with indifference, and sniffed contemptuously. “I need safe passage to see Hades.”
Crows exploded into the sky like a volcano and cawed mercilessly above them. The ferryman took a great deal of time observing the birds curiously. “Nobody sees Hades uninvited,” he finally muttered, still staring at the crows.
Melpomene’s coin was slapped into his great mitt and Calliope stated, “I do.”
Charon looked down at it. “A gift from the Mother of the Sirens,” he said with some interest, but then smiled a yellowed, rotten grin. “You are still not expected.”
“Do you know who I am, Ferryman?” Calliope jutted her chin out proudly.
“I am Charon, I am not the Judge. I care not of such trivial things.” The coin disappeared and he pushed off from the dock.
Silently, they cut through the black waters. Each time the oar lifted from the river, Calliope could hear the despair of the Underworld emitting from the water. Small wails and sobs erupted from the river whenever he parted it with the paddle’s blade. They were crossing Kokytos, the
“Will you take me to see Persephone?” She entreated quietly, trying to blot out the cries from the river.
“You do not want to see the Queen, muse.” Charon said and then added, “But you are Calliope, you know all.”
“I didn’t know you were funny. What does the Etruscan buy me?” Calliope could feel her patience waning.
“Anyone crossing with Melpomene’s coin is to be taken to Hypnos.”
Calliope should have guessed that’s all it would get her. This was an entirely different world. They had no privileges for being the Inspirations of Zeus, they were nothing to Hades, and he was Lord here.
The boatman’s stink overwhelmed her. It rolled off him in waves and smelled of decay and rotten meat. Choking down the need to retch, Calliope’s desire to get off the tiny boat was becoming more than she could bear.
“How much farther is it?” She asked, trying not to sound rude, he might realize her discomfort and slow their progress out of spite.
“A minute? A millennia? The only thing I am sure of is I haven’t any idea nor any interest, and neither should you.”
“I thought you’d say something like that,” she said as she fidgeted on the wooden seat. With her elbows on her knees, she rested her chin in her palms. Her gaze drifted to the empty banks that she could sometimes make out through the mist. The crows still circled above. Her hands trembled, and curiously enough, she was jonesing for something, anything.
“Say, you wouldn’t be holding, would you?” Her nervous laugh echoed up and down the river and caused little ripples in the water. The river screamed and cried back at her unwelcome laughter. Charon simply ignored the enquiry.
“Well, I guess that serves me right for trying to score off the Boatman of the Dead.” Calliope responded dryly and giggled again, a mad sound amidst the weeping and wailing that came from the dark water. Little tremors coursed through her veins.
They traveled the Kokytos for some time until he pulled into a small harbor littered with rowboats in the water and tiny cottages along the riverfront. He pointed his finger at the shore as indication that this was where they would part ways.
Calliope stood on the dock as he pushed off and drifted into the mist. “Charon! Where do I find Hypnos?”
There was no response. “C’mon, Charon! You can’t just leave me out here,” this last bit trailed off at the end when she realized he wasn’t listening. “Dammit.”
A lantern glowed atop the trail leading down to the dock. With the lantern in hand, she could do nothing but wait.
“Calli?” A voice whispered from the oak grove by the trail.
“Nos?” She responded cautiously.
He emerged from the grove, a beautiful dark angel. Hypnos was the striking God of Rest, a young man with straight, raven hair down to his waist. He was white as a corpse, as all the residents of the Underworld – the lack of sun stealing their pigment long ago. His eyes were large and dark, a gorgeous creature, who often aided the Muses with inspiration of their mortals through dreams. The Muses counted him among their dearest loves and Calliope couldn’t believe how relieved she was to see a familiar face.
“Oh, Nos!” She threw herself into his arms and cried into his chest, “I don’t know how I got here!”
“Shh, Calli, don’t cry. Let’s get you inside, where it’s warm,” Hypnos said. The crows fell into place behind them.
He led her down a long, narrow drive of tightly packed dirt to a chateau in the clearing of the forest that she had mistaken earlier for merely a grove. The chateau cast a reflection on the small lake that it nestled up against, and she dimly remembered when she had stayed here with Clio on their last visit. A visit that had been guided by Iris, the rainbow messenger of the gods, because one needed a guide to get into the Underworld if one wasn’t dead.
Once inside, he lit the fireplace in the great hall and sat her down in front of it. He wrapped a thick blanket around her shivering shoulders and went to fetch her something to drink.
Calliope looked at the familiar surroundings, he hadn’t changed anything in a few hundred years. The dark wood paneling still gleamed in the firelight, the glass sconces spilling light throughout the dimly lit chateau.
Downstairs, there were few windows and most were stained glass scenes of skies, all kinds of skies. Evening skies, cloudy skies, stormy skies, dawn and dusk, the Sun and the Moon pervaded the entire chateau. Hypnos was enchanted with a sky he never saw.
The rug beneath her feet was thick and warm and she hardly noticed the cold stone floor beneath. Dark, antiqued mirrors hung here and there alongside tapestries that long ago had the color stolen from them. Long leather couches and matching footstools filled the small room, looking like hulks beside dainty tables made for candles and cups for nighttime reading.
The room adjoining them was a receiving room, Hypnos listened to the troubles of the common shades of the Underworld and dealt with things as he saw fit. He was a much more accessible God than the Lord and Lady of this place.
The receiving room resembled a small church, with a lounger where the podium would be. Long dark pews fell into nice neat rows a step down from a worn and broken-in leather chaise that Hypnos governed from. The floor in there was the bare stone and Calliope had the sneaking suspicion it was because he wanted to keep these meetings as brief as possible.
This was the least comfortable room in the chateau, and even there, one couldn’t help but feel welcome. Small golden pillows adorned the pews and the room was dominated by a large stained glass window of a sunny morning.
Upstairs, a long hallway was lined on both sides with lofty windows twenty feet high and cathedral ceilings. The windows faced one another, giving the queerest sensation of being outside with the ceiling painted like the night sky. The longest runner she’d ever seen partially covered a mahogany floor and she remembered racing with Miranda from one end to the other. That had been the second to last time she had come here. That time had been a social visit. The last one had not.
She had missed this place, it smelled like books and bread and felt like an old leather coat. Hypnos was the most genuine of her kind. He saw the dreams and nightmares of everyone, from mortals to monsters to Gods. It was a responsibility he did not shoulder lightly.
He returned to the room, a teakettle and two cups upon an ivory tray. “Rosehips and mint, right?” He asked, indicating her tea preference.
She only nodded.
Finally, Hypnos sat by her feet and looked up at her. “What happened, Calliope?”
“I don’t know,” she sniffled. “I was with Annie at that awful place and then Clio was there and Ares.”
“Ares? Did he do this to you?” Hypnos stiffened at the mention of the War God’s name.
“No, I don’t think so.” Her expression turned to bewilderment and she sniffed, “Did he do what to me?”
“Calli?” Now it was his turn to look confused. “Sweetheart, what do you think you’re doing in the Land of the Dead?”
With a shake of her head, she said, “I don’t understand, I thought I was lost. I thought maybe we crossed the Lethe and I forgot why I was here. I must be separated from my guide.”
Hypnos’ shoulders slumped and he shook his head.
“Do you have anything to drink? Something strong? Do you have any laudanum?” She asked, her eyes full of hope. Calliope didn’t think she had ever been as stressed as she was right now.
“You don’t need anything to drink. You are craving a memory, love, a shadow,” he said as he pushed at the fire with a poker.
“I don’t understand.”
“For God’s sake, Calli, look at yourself!” He suddenly said.
Her eyes widened at his outburst and then darkened with her temper. Calliope shrugged off the blanket and raised her hand in front of her face.
Shock exploded onto her face. “No, it can’t be,” she whispered.
She could clearly make out his face and the fire beyond him through her hand. It was a ghastly, phantom image, and she could see the floor beneath her feet, the stool beneath her lap. Calliope gasped, stood, and fell back down onto the stool she had been sitting upon.
“Nos,” she managed in a strangled, tight voice, “what’s happened to me?”
“You’re dead, Calli, you’re a shade.”
The crows exploded into the air at the sound of her screams.
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