The Gatekeeper's Daughter (25 page)

As he finished his dessert, she could wait no more. “We’ve asked you here to offer a truce.”

“And how do you propose to leverage it?” Ares dabbed his chin and lips with his white linen napkin.

Therese took her hand from
Than’s grasp and opened the blue velvet pouch to reveal Hera’s golden apple of immortality.

Ares’s mouth dropped open. “I thought the mission was a failure.”

“And now you see you were wrong,” she replied.

Ares looked first at Hermes, then at
Than, and back again to Therese. “Is it authentic?”

“Absolutely,” Than said.
“Do you need us to bring in Apollo?”

“No. I can tell with my own eyes. I just find it hard to believe you managed to get this apple without Hera’s knowledge.”

“I’m sure she knows,” Than said. “I have felt her watching me ever since I took it.”

“And if I take it from you, I will incur her wrath.”

“She did nothing to Artemis,” Hermes said. “What could she do to you that she couldn’t to Artemis?”

“As her son, I often make alliances with her. Artemis has never cared for Hera.”

Therese and Than exchanged worried glances.

Than asked, “Do you reject our offer?”

Ares seemed to consider it for a moment. Therese returned her hand to Than’s and gripped it tightly.

The boat pitched to one side, knocking over the glasses on the table, except for the one belonging to Ares, as he held it in his hand. Red wine soaked into the white table cloth. Ares wore a smile on his face where the others looked confused. Across the horizon, Zeus’s chariot led by four horses dropped from the sky and glided across the waves toward their boat. The four black stallions stampeded from the sky, their manes lifting in the wind behind them like dark flames. The air filled with the sound of a loud train. As the chariot neared, Therese saw Hera held the reins in one hand and a whip in the other. Her golden crown sat firmly on her head, her red hair fastened in a bun. A gold silk gown billowed at the sleeves against the wind. She was coming for her apple.

Therese knew that if Hera took her apple back, Therese would have nothing left to bargain for her safety. She glanced at Hermes and Than, wondering how the three of them would fare against Queen Hera and the god of war. She took a second glance at Hermes, unsure if she could count on his support, since he often favored neutral ground. Wishing she had her sword and shield, she sent a distress prayer to Hephaestus. To her surprise, the god of the forge appeared in person, bearing not only her weapons, but Than’s and his own. Then Athena appeared beside Than, her sword drawn at the ready. Ares’s smile faded.

Although Therese firmly held the apple, it left her hand and appeared across the table on Ares’s empty dessert plate. Before she or
Than could retrieve it, Ares took it up. The boat leveled as Hera approached. Then a massive wave arose from the sea, and a silver hand snatched the apple from Ares’s fist. The apple floated on the wave in the silver hand twenty feet above them before Dione showed herself, emerging from the wave as a giant silver gleam. In another moment, a second chariot appeared on the opposite horizon, and by the time Dione’s wave settled itself back into the sea like a soft blanket and she returned to her original size, Poseidon drew his chariot beside her and brandished his sword, pointing it directly at Ares.

“So much for our secret meeting,” Hermes muttered.

“Give me back my apple!” Hera commanded from her chariot, which was alongside the boat.

“I will keep it with me, thank you,” Dione said in her sing-song voice. “It deserves to rest beside Hippolyta’s golden girdle in the bottom of the sea, safeguarded from all who would use it unwisely.”

Therese glanced anxiously at Than. If Dione kept the apple, how would Therese protect herself from Ares?

As if the silver lady read her mind, Dione said, “Ares, I know you wish for balance among the gods as well as the people of the world so that one power will not dominate over another but will always be in conflict. I swear on the River Styx to keep this apple in neutral territory until it is needed to restore balance.”

Ares stood up, and pointed at Therese. “Her very presence among us unsettled the balance.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Than said, also standing.

All eyes turned to him.

“You witnessed Therese face off against her parents’ murderer two summers ago. We all did. If she carried vengeance in her heart, we would have seen it then. You have nothing to fear by her presence.”

Ares scrutinized Therese and then Than. He opened his mouth to speak, and then didn’t.

Hephaestus put a hand on
Than’s shoulder. “The boy speaks the truth.”

“You need to let it go, Ares,” Athena said. “There’s nothing more to fight about.”

“I don’t want vengeance!” Therese said. “I just want to be happy with Than. I swear!”

“You’re an oath breaker,” Ares said, scowling.

“She broke no oath,” Athena said. “You have nothing to fear from her.”

“Fear?”
Ares scoffed. “She’s just a girl. I don’t fear her.”

“Then we’re done here,” Than said.

“I want my apple!” Hera screamed.

Ares rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Mother!”

Before Hera could object, Ares climbed into her chariot and took the reins, leading them back into the sky across the horizon.

Therese turned to
Than and the others, and they exchanged the smiles of victors.

Chapter Forty: Goddess at Large

Therese hovered above a dilapidated townhouse on a pock-marked street corner in Sant A’gata Bolognese, Italy with an arrow fitted to her bow. The tabby cat named Belle, from the Lamborghini Museum, sat on the front stoop lapping up milk the boy Luis had given her while his mother was away. Therese spotted the woman with her meager groceries walking on the sidewalk among the other people. The woman stopped at a corner to wait for the traffic to clear, and then continued on her way. As soon as she reached the front of her house and spotted the tabby, Therese let the arrow fly. It pierced the woman’s heart.

“Well, hello, kitty,” the woman said cheerfully to Belle in her native tongue. “Are you cold out here? Come inside and I’ll make a fire.”

Luis opened the door with his mouth agape, having heard his mother’s voice. He watched in silent bewilderment as the tabby followed his mother inside the house.

Therese later found the boxer whose owner beat him. The man returned home from work one day in his tiny sports car, and as he parked in his garage and carried his briefcase indoors, Therese hovered, invisible, in the kitchen above the dog, who lay forlornly with his head on his paws near an empty bowl. When his human entered the house, his tail, which had once wagged excitedly at this time of day, tucked under him as he shivered and whined. Therese took aim and shot the man before he had opened his mouth to complain about the noise, and what came out was a surprise to the dog.

“Are you hungry, Butch? Come here and let me have a hug.”

Tears sprang to Therese’s eyes as she watched the boxer lift his head and dare to approach his human. When the man wrapped his arms around the dog, the tail, for the first time in months, began to wag.

Zeus had denied Therese the power of disintegration, apparently still troubled by Than’s reaction to the Cyclopes and worried another office with such power might prove a threat. But he did revoke his decision to banish the two of them from Mount Olympus, though Than’s annual punishment at the hands of the maenads would stand.

Ten days after the confrontation with Ares on the dinner boat off Boracay, Lynn was born at eight pounds, four ounces, twenty inches long, with wisps of red hair and blue-green eyes. She was healthy in every way, and the joy in Therese’s Colorado home carried the other three members through the adjustments necessary to accommodate a new little addition to the household. Therese helped with nighttime feedings, since she rarely slept, and after she obtained her driver’s license, was able to run errands into Durango for more diapers and formula. Soon, she was doing most of the grocery shopping for the family, which she didn’t mind, since it took her very little time to locate the items on Carol’s list. She also found she enjoyed driving the red Honda Civic Carol and Richard had bought her a year ago, and she would often take Jen, and sometimes even Bobby, into town with her.

Though Therese was also busy finishing her coursework, grooming Stormy, and working at her new job at the animal rescue shelter, the freedom to god travel made it easy for her to respond to prayers from both humans and animals all over the world. And she always found special time every day of the week to be with Than.

In April, when Lynn was nearly six months old, Therese’s seventeenth birthday arrived, and
Than surprised her by getting Hip to take his place so Than could attend her party with her family. Carol and Richard hadn’t seen Than since the summer before last, and it filled Therese with happiness to have him there, her family complete. The Holts also came—all except Mr. Holt, of course, who now lived permanently at the assisted living center—and Ray and Todd and a few other friends from Therese’s swim team.

After Richard’s grilled burgers and Carol’s homemade fries were served and eaten and the Happy Birthday song sung and the cake cut, and while the guests sat around a fire pit on the deck beneath the countless stars, finishing off their cake and ice cream,
Than asked if he could have everyone’s attention. Even Baby Lynn was silent.

He stood in the middle of the group near the fire pit with Therese beside him. “All of you already know what a special person Therese is. She’d do anything for her friends and family and pets. She also helps others when she can. Her compassion seems boundless. Most of you also know I fell in love with Therese two summers ago when I visited the Melner Cabin next door and took a job as a horse handler for the Holts. Therese and I have grown close in the nearly two years we’ve known each other.” He looked at her and smiled.

She smiled back, a bit nervous, wondering what all this speech-making was about and beginning to suspect the reason.

When he went down on one knee and pulled out a tiny black box from his trouser pocket, her heart stopped.

He opened the box to reveal a beautiful tear-drop diamond ring on a delicate gold band. “Therese, I love you with all my heart. I knew the moment we met that you were the one. Will you marry me?”

Her family and friends remained silent for a moment as she gazed back at
Than with her mouth open, speechless. Finally, some of her friends whooped and hollered and someone said, “Answer him!”

Therese went down on her knee beside him, took his hand in hers, and said, “It would be impossible for someone to love another more than I love you. I want to spend eternity with you.”

Everyone around them applauded. Someone whistled—Jen, Therese realized. Therese’s aunt and uncle appeared happy but concerned. Than took Therese by the arm and helped her to her feet.

“Just so you don’t freak, Carol and Richard, I promise to wait another year. This time next year, when I turn eighteen, we’ll be married, and all of you are invited.”

Than gave her a quizzical look, but she kissed him before he could say anything.

Later that night, when they were alone in her room after he had received his office back from Hip,
Than wanted to know why she wanted to wait a year.

“A year to us is nothing,” she said, sitting beside him on her bed. “And it will mean so much to them. Eighteen is considered the age when a person becomes an adult. I should be done with my coursework this summer, so I can graduate, and I can spend time with Lynn before I move out. They need me right now.”

“But what about our plans to travel the world together?”

“We can do that while I’m planning our wedding. Believe me, my aunt and uncle are going to expect a traditional wedding. Do you suppose the Olympians will come?”

“They’d be too curious to miss.”

“So you’re okay with waiting?” she asked.
“Because if it bothers you, I’ll marry you now. I don’t want to disappoint you, Than.”

“You could never disappoint me.” He kissed her gently on the lips. “Besides, we said we’d wait till you graduated high school, and your eighteenth birthday is really only another six months from your estimated graduation date. And, as you said, you should spend Lynn’s first year here at home, bonding with her. She’s your sister, after all.”

Therese circled her arms around Than’s neck and pressed her lips hard against his. “I love you so much! Sometimes it hurts and feels good all at the same time!”

“I know exactly what you mean.” He kissed her back, and in between kisses he said, “That’s how I felt when the maenads ripped me apart. It hurt like hell, but knowing it meant being with you forever made it
feel good, too.”

Therese found herself spending more and more time in the Underworld, preparing Than’s rooms for her official move in date. The two rats that perched on her shoulders during her final challenge last summer found her again, and they sometimes flew with her on her missions to help humans and animals to better love one another. This gave her the idea of inviting along Clifford, who at first found flight and god travel disconcerting, but who eventually adjusted and even came to enjoy their missions together. A few weeks before the wedding, Therese shot an arrow into Jewels and gave her the gift of immortality. Therese set up her tank in their chambers in the Underworld to help her adjust to her new quarters. She’d been gradually moving more and more of her things from Colorado into her new rooms, and on occasion solicited Charon’s assistance with some of her bulkier items. Luckily, Cerberus took an immediate liking to Clifford, and the two of them sometimes played together outside of the gates while Therese organized and decorated her rooms. Than surprised her by bringing in the souls of plants he’d been collecting and by giving her the idea of bringing Stormy.