Mortal Gods

“Is there a way?” Cassandra asked quietly. “Where do gods go? To the underworld? Somewhere else? Is there a way to go there, and bring him back? People used to. And gods could. I remember that. So is there? Is that where he is?”

Athena’s eyes went glassy.

“We’re not those kinds of gods, Cassandra.”

“What kind?”

“The kind who know everything.”

Cassandra closed her eyes. As usual, Athena was no damn use. All at once Cassandra’s frustration reared up in her chest and ran hot to her hands. She had to let it go or she would burst. She reached across the seat and grabbed Athena’s wrist.

Athena jerked the wheel hard. Someone screamed, and Cassandra wasn’t sure if it was Athena or her as the Dodge jumped the curb and narrowly missed a signpost. She rocked forward into the dash as Athena hit the brakes.

The burning in her hands was gone. It had disappeared and left them cold and clammy. Beside her, Athena pulled up the sleeve of her coat and held her wrist up to her face. A broken red ring, cracked and enflamed, marred the skin where Cassandra had grabbed her. Small, speckled feathers protruded in a grotesque bracelet, pushing through the flesh like blossoming seeds. As they watched, a few more tore through the surface and twisted outward, tinged with blood.

“I’m sorry,” Cassandra blurted. The anger that had seemed so fresh a second ago felt a million miles away. “I didn’t mean to … I don’t know why—are you—” She took a hitching breath and opened the door. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“It’s all right. It’s all right. It’s stopping.” Athena stared at the wound as the feathers took over her wrist. A trickle of blood ran; one of the quills must’ve nicked a vein. It had to hurt like a bitch, too, like a thousand bee stings, but she watched it as if it were happening under glass. “There’s a first aid kit in the trunk,” she said, popping it, and Cassandra took wobbling steps around the back of the car and brought it back.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, I said.” Athena rolled gauze around the wound and tore the strip to tie it with her teeth. Her movements were brutal and efficient. It was that, and the lack of feeling on her face, that made Cassandra start to cry.

“What?” Athena asked. “It’s fine. I’ll just pluck them out with tweezers later.” She took a deep breath. “The one in my lung isn’t any worse. Whatever you did, it was localized.” Cassandra exhaled, relieved to have the wound covered. Seeing it even for those few moments had made her nauseous. Athena patted her back awkwardly. “It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right. And you’re an idiot.” Cassandra wiped her eyes. “Odysseus made me promise not to turn you into a feather pillow. But I almost did. And I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t mean to.”

“He said that? A feather pillow?”

“Will you shut up?” Cassandra asked. How could she make a god understand? Until just recently, they were creatures without consequences. And even now, the way Athena studied the feathers in her arm, more curious than scared, as if it were a science experiment. As if it weren’t real.

“Aphrodite killed Aidan, do you understand? She killed him. And Hera almost killed me.” Cassandra remembered the stretch of road beside Seneca Lake. The blackness behind her eyes after her head struck the pavement. “I’m sixteen years old. And I’m two thousand. But none of that means anything to you.”

Athena paused a moment. “You can kill gods with your bare hands,” she said. “A prophetess who died at the end of an axe. But you’re also a brown-haired girl in a red wool coat, with flushed cheeks and frozen toes. I see you, Cassandra. I see that you’re young.”

“But it doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“Yes it does.” Athena hesitated. “I know what it means, to be too young to die. Whether you believe it or not. And I am sorry about all of this. I wish I didn’t have to use you. But I do.”

Cassandra watched her carefully.

“What did Demeter tell you, in the desert?”

“That it wouldn’t really be over until I’m dead,” Athena said. “So I have to survive the longest, do you understand? And then I’ll go. And it will be over.”

Cassandra wiped her face. Athena gripped the wheel hard with her unspoiled hand.

“You think you’re going to win, don’t you?” Cassandra asked.

“I think we are. Yes.”