Discord’s Apple (2 page)

Evie still thought of it as her grandparents’ house, a place she went to for holidays and backyard adventures. Her father hadn’t changed it much when he moved in—he took over the furniture, the heirlooms, the pictures on the wall, the shelves full of books. At first, Evie had had trouble thinking of her father as anything more than a house sitter there. But over the last couple years, when she noticed that his hair was gray and that he had started wearing bifocals, he reminded her more and more of her grandparents. He had stopped being a visitor and metamorphosed into the house’s proper resident.

She was his only child, and the house would come to her someday. By the time she retired, there’d be nothing left of Hopes Fort and no reason to be here. Except it had been the place where her grandfather and father had grown up. She supposed that meant something.

Later in the afternoon than she’d planned, she pulled into
the long driveway behind her father’s twenty-year-old rusting blue pickup. Out of habit, she locked her car, even though this was possibly the one place in the universe she could comfortably leave it unlocked. The house itself was well cared for, neat if unremarkable. It had a carport at the end of the driveway rather than a garage, screened windows, a small front porch, and an expansive front yard with a lawn of dried prairie grasses. She’d driven by a dozen places just like it to get here.

A dog, a huge bristling wolfhound-looking thing, sprang from the front porch, barking loud and deep like a growling bear.

Evie almost turned and ran. Her father didn’t have a dog.

The front door opened and Frank Walker appeared, looking out over the driveway. “Mab! Come, Mab, it’s all right.”

The dog stopped barking and trotted back to him, throwing suspicious glances over its shoulder.

He scratched the dog’s ears and took hold of the ruff of fur at its neck. “Come on up, Evie. Mab just gets a little excited.”

Cautiously, Evie continued to the porch. She had to lift her arm to show the animal the back of her hand—the thing’s head came up to her waist. The dog sniffed her hand, then started wagging its tail. Evie hoped it didn’t try jumping on her—it would be a body-slam.

“Meet Queen Mab,” her father said.

“When did you get a dog?”

“She was a stray. Showed up on the porch a while back. Since I caught a couple of prowlers last month, I thought having Mab around might be a good thing.”

“Prowlers? Out here?”

“Oh, prowlers, salesmen—you’d be surprised how many visitors I get.”

In fact, someone was standing in the doorway behind him.

He wore a black leather duster and carried a large paper-wrapped
package in both arms. Edging around Evie’s father, he looked suspiciously at Evie.

Frank said to him, “If you won’t be needing anything else, you’ll probably want to get going before nightfall.”

“Right. Thanks for your help.” He nodded at Evie as he passed. “Ma’am.”

He had an unplaceable accent, almost New England, almost West Texas. Wire-rimmed spectacles rode low on a long nose. He might have dressed himself out of a studio costume shop rummage sale. Playing the part of the doomed hero in a historical horror film.

The stranger walked down the gravel driveway, the light breeze licking the hem of his duster. There wasn’t another car. No buses ran this way. Where did he think he was going?

“Who was that?” Evie said.

“He came for something in the storeroom.”

“You’re selling Grandma and Grandpa’s stuff?” As far as she knew, the basement storeroom hadn’t been disturbed since her grandparents’ time. The place was dusty and sacred, like a museum vault. She’d never even been in it. As a kid, she hadn’t been allowed in there; then she’d moved away.

“Oh, no,” he said. “He just showed up and asked if I had what he needed. I did, so I gave it to him.”

“What was it?”

“Nothing important.”

Evie looked at her father, really looked at him. She searched for any sign of illness, any hint that gave credence to his announcement of two days ago. His phone call had sent her roaring out of Los Angeles the next morning. She didn’t know what to expect, if she would find him changed beyond recognition, withered and defeated, or if he would be—like this. Like normal, like she had always seen him: a little over average height, filled out through the middle but not overweight, straight gray hair cut short, his soft face creased with age, but
not ancient. He wore slacks and a button-up shirt, and went stocking-footed.

“Come in out of the cold.” He held the door open for her. A lonely wicker wreath decorated it, a solitary concession to the holiday.

He might have been paler. Were his hands shaking? Was his back stooped? She couldn’t tell. She went inside.

“Dad. Are you okay?”

He shrugged. That told her. If he’d been fine, or even just okay, he’d have said so.

“Should . . . should you be in the hospital or something?”

“No. I have to stay here and keep an eye on things.”

“What is there to keep an eye on? No farm, no animals—” Except the dog, which was new. Her voice was beseeching. “Are you okay?”

“It’s metastasized. I’ve decided not to undergo treatment.”

He said it like he might have said it was going to snow. Simple fact, a little anticipation, but nothing to get excited about. Evie thought her rib cage might burst, the way her heart pounded. Her father stood before her; he hadn’t changed. Everything had changed.
It’s prostate cancer. It’s serious,
he’d said when he called her. She wanted to grab his collar and shake him. But you didn’t do that to your father.

So she stood there like a child and whined.

“You’ve given up,” she said.

“I’ve accepted fate.”

“But—” She gestured aimlessly, arguments failing in her throat. He wasn’t going to argue. He was stone, not willing to be persuaded. “But you can’t do that. You can’t—”

“I can’t what?” he said, and he had the gall to smile. “I can’t die?”

She didn’t believe him then. For a moment, she let herself believe that he’d been lying about the whole thing. This was a trick to get her to come early for her Christmas visit. He didn’t
look sick, he didn’t act sick, except for a horrible calm that made his features still as ice.

Evie turned away, her eyes stinging, her face contorting with the effort not to cry.

“Shh, Evie, come here.” While she didn’t move toward him, she didn’t resist when he pulled her into an embrace.

“You can’t die without trying,” she said, her voice breaking, muffled as she spoke into his shoulder.

“I’ll hold on as long as I can.”

He made supper for her—macaroni and cheese. He’d never been a creative cook.
Comfort food, my ass,
she thought. She didn’t eat much. Her stomach clenched every time she looked at him.

They stayed up late talking. He asked her about her work, and she rambled on about the comics business, the stress of deadlines, and the frustrations of markets and distribution. When she talked, she wasn’t thinking about him. She settled into the guest room with the wood-frame twin bed that she’d slept in when she visited her grandparents, the bed that had been her father’s when he was young. She didn’t sleep right away, but lay curled up, hugging the goose-down pillow, feeling small—ten years old again.

He hadn’t asked her to come home. He’d called to tell her he was sick, and she’d just come. That was what you did. He didn’t argue or try to tell her she didn’t have to. Which, when she thought about it, was another sign that he really was sick. He hadn’t yet said,
I’m fine, don’t worry about me. Nothing to worry about.

What neither of them hadn’t explicitly said, what she hadn’t understood until she was lying there in the dark, nested in the bed that made her feel like a child, in the room next to the room where her father lay dying by increments, was that she was here
to help him die. She would stay until he was gone, whether it took weeks or months or—maybe?—years, and then she would be alone with the house and the dark.

She missed her mother at that moment. She missed her mother all the time, really, but the longing was the phantom ache of an amputated limb. It was part of her, and most of the time she didn’t notice. But certain moments were like reaching for something with a hand that wasn’t there. Evie wanted to run to her mother and cry, make her talk sense into Dad, make
her
stay with him and watch him die. But it was left to Evie to do by herself.

She wasn’t ready to lose her father, too. She’d be crippled all over again.

If they’re going to believe that I escaped your plan to sacrifice me, I’ll have to look like a prisoner,” Sinon said.

“I’ve thought of this.” Odysseus had stood so proudly before the war chieftains, not at all cowed by their wealth or power. He made no secret that he thought most of them vain and petty. He had wanted to let Helen rot in Troy and blame Menelaus for letting Paris carry her off.

Now he looked grim, preoccupied with the details of his plan. His gaze turned inward, and his face was furrowed with worry. Sinon thought,
This is what he will look like as an old man.

Sinon had come to Troy a boy, an untried warrior wearing his first growth of beard and carrying his first spear. Under Odysseus’s command, he had grown to manhood, shed his first blood, seen his own blood shed, learned of honor. And of common sense. He would follow Odysseus to the end of time itself.

“Maybe we could get Neoptolemus to have at me.” Sinon grinned, meaning it as a joke.

Odysseus shook his head quickly. “I don’t trust that vicious whelp to know when to stop. I had planned on doing it myself.”

Of course. Odysseus planned for everything, and he hated asking other men to do the difficult work.

Sinon and Odysseus went some distance along the beach,
away from camp, where they could have privacy. The camp itself was in chaos—hundreds of tents being brought down, horses being loaded onto ships, supplies packed and carried off, all by torchlight. More than that, the sound of construction—men hammering hundreds of planks of wood into place—overwhelmed even the sound of waves breaking.

This was all part of the plan.

They stopped along the river that poured from the hills above Troy to form a brackish marsh where it joined the sea. Here, the rolling waves and chatter of night insects were audible again.

An escaped prisoner would have rope burns around his wrists. Sinon stripped down to a thin tunic. Odysseus tied his hands with rope and bound his wrists to a post driven into the beach.

Pulling on leather gloves to protect his hands, Odysseus said, “I don’t want to do this, Sinon.”

“I know. But it must be done.”

“A few choice bruises. A black eye. That’s all.”

Sinon nodded and squared his shoulders, bracing.

His jaw clenched, Odysseus made a fist and backhanded Sinon. His head whipped back as he fell, his arms jerking on the bindings.

Over and over, Odysseus struck him. Sinon had been hit before, he’d been wounded in battle. He knew how to block pain. Keep breathing. No matter that his ears rang and that blood clogged his nose. It would be over soon.

Sinon flinched back when Odysseus grabbed his hair to hold his head up.

“Easy, there. I’m done. Priam himself will pity you.”

He tried to smile, but winced when his lip cracked. His left eye was swelling shut already. “You hit like a thunderbolt. I’m glad you’re on our side.”

“Gods, you’re bleeding.”

“I thought that was what we wanted.”

“Save your breath for the Trojans, my friend. Let’s have a look at your hands.”

The ropes had made bleeding rashes around both his wrists. Odysseus brought a waterskin and made him drink, but they didn’t wash the wounds. Let them swell, blacken, and look as grisly as possible.

The pain would put truth into his voice.

Time was passing. The ships had already set sail, carrying the bulk of the army into hiding. The horse was ready. Odysseus needed to take his place among the warriors hiding inside.

“Wait in the swamps. At dawn’s first light, make for the city gates. If they suspect the horse, if they destroy it—and us—you may still live. They may still believe your story and spare you.”

“No—”

“If so, you must go back to Ithaca and tell Penelope I’m sorry that I could not return.”

That task, bringing news of Odysseus’s death to his wife, was more daunting than lying to a city full of Trojans.

“This will work,” Sinon said to his mentor.

Odysseus took Sinon’s face in his hands. “I will see you again inside the walls of Troy.”

“Inside the walls of Troy. Yes.”

Odysseus left him.

Sinon splashed water from the river on his face to clear blood from his nose, mouth, and beard, and to keep himself awake. The bruises and cuts would heal—Odysseus had calculated the blows to look awful without causing permanent damage. Ever an optimist. His head ached, but he didn’t dare lie down and sleep. Timing was everything. He had to be at the gates before the Trojans could make a decision about the horse. He had to be there to convince them. His tunic was spattered with dirt and blood. He certainly looked the part of an escaped sacrifice victim.