Sweet Shadows

“I thought you were coming home early tonight,” she says in a slightly irritated tone.

“No, I told you I was going to study at a friend’s house.” At least, I think I told her that. “I swear I did.”

“You didn’t,” she says.

I’m still walking a fine line of being in trouble for disappearing last week. Mom especially has been extraconcerned over my whereabouts. I wish I could go back to the freedom I had before, but I’m stuck with the consequences of my actions. The consequences of my secrets.

Living a shadow life comes with a cost.

“We’re going out for a family dinner,” she says. “To celebrate Thane being back home.”

“Mom, I—” I glance at Nick. I told Gretchen I’d watch him. She might not have beaten him to a pulp, but she still doesn’t trust him enough to set him free or leave him alone. “I can’t right now.”

There is a heavy pause. “Why not?”

I hold the phone against my chest. This is the part I hate the most, the lying. The secrecy. I wish there were another way.

“We’re right in the middle of a project.” Kind of true, right? “I can’t leave.”

Also true. That doesn’t make me feel any better, though. And when Mom sighs at the other end of the call, I feel like the worst daughter in history.

“I feel like you’re drifting away, Grace,” she says, her voice sad and soft. “You’re barely home anymore. I can’t remember the last time all four of us had dinner as a family.”

I can picture her perfectly, staring out the tiny kitchen window, tears glistening in her eyes. Tears I put there.

I really wish there were another way.

“You know we can talk about anything,” she says. It sounds like one last, desperate attempt to hold on to a daughter who’s floating out of reach.

I can’t tell her I’m not floating away by choice.

“I know, Mom,” I whisper. We can talk about anything but this. I stiffen my spine. “It’s just schoolwork. Everything at Alpha is much more challenging than back in Orangevale.”

Another half-truth. More challenging, yes. But I’m still keeping up with my work without much effort. And it’s not the schoolwork that’s keeping me away.

“Okay.” She sounds resigned. “When will you be home?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I’ll call when I’m on my way.”

“Don’t forget your curfew.”

“I won’t.”

We say our good-byes and then I collapse on the couch. I don’t mean to cry, but before I know it tears are running down my cheeks and I’m sobbing into my hands.

“Family is hard, isn’t it?” Nick asks.

I sniff and wipe at my silly tears. “It is.”

“It will get better,” he insists. “Once the seal is broken, and the battle is over. Things will get—”

“Easier?” I scoff. “I doubt that.”

“No,” he agrees. “Not easier. But … steadier. Once balance is restored, you will find a rhythm. A pattern.”

“But what about the rest of our lives?” I ask, because he seems willing to talk. And there’s no one else around to ask. “Will we ever be able to have anything like a normal life?”

“I can’t answer that,” he says. “Only time will tell. But I can tell you the Gorgon sisters guarded the door in harmony for millennia. With lives and loves outside the destiny. Otherwise you and your sisters wouldn’t even be here. They managed the balance until someone got it in their head to stir the pot.”

Thanks a lot, pot stirrer.

Actually, that’s something I’ve been wondering about. The truth about how all the lies began. I’ve found few clues about what really happened, other than that the story we learn in mythology is a lie. The book I saved from Gretchen’s library makes only vague references to Athena and another power. It seems Athena is the face of the lies, but another deity is pulling the strings.

“You don’t know who?”

“No one knows.” He shrugs. “Most suspect Athena, because she sent Perseus to kill Medusa, but that seems the obvious choice. She is too blatant in her efforts.”

“Who else could it be?” I ask. “Who else would have a vested interest in letting monsters loose in the human world?”

“Many. Hades, Hephaestus, Hera, Chaos, Nyx, Eris, Adikia, Epaphus. The list is long.” He sighs. “Those of the third faction—our faction—have been trying to unmask the instigator since Medusa’s death. Whoever is responsible is also clever.”

We fall into a silence. My mind spins at thoughts of my family, my adopted family, the original Gorgons, the mother I can’t find, the others I don’t know about yet. Athena, the conspiracy, the seal. Destiny. Fate. I suppose those are two different things, destiny and fate. Destiny is a gift, something to rise to. Fate is something to make for yourself.

“Will it really get easier?” I ask.

Nick smiles. “It can hardly get worse.”

I can see why Gretchen likes him. They have almost the same sense of humor.

I flop back against the couch. Maybe that shouldn’t make me feel better—maybe I should be waiting for fate to say, Ha, that’s what you think!—but it does. And besides, we’re going to make our own fates. I close my eyes, just for a second, and next thing I know Gretchen is shaking me awake and telling me to go home.