The Dig (13 page)

―Zoe,‖ my aunt called. ―Come in here and put your boots on or you‘ll catch a cold!‖

―No! You come here and see this!‖

―What‘s there to see?‖

―Duh,‖ I said. ―The driveway is magic.‖

She ran outside and took my hand. ―Zoe,‖ she said, ―it‘s not magic. It‘s just heated. And it‘s rude to make a fuss out of people‘s luxuries.‖ I thought about that driveway for weeks afterward.

What if they could heat the floor of the whole world? Then nobody would ever go skiing or build snowmen.

A box of water plops and misses me by an inch. Come
on
,
Zoe, snap out of it. I climb higher and higher on the tree. The water is following me.
Oh geez, it’s up to my knees
. Maybe I wasn‘t daydreaming. Maybe I was brainstorming. I‘m afraid to look down but I do. The water world is gaining on me and this tree doesn‘t go all the way up the mountain. I see that driveway again and I have my answer. I can freeze
the whole forest. I control the earth.

I cling to the tree and close my eyes as the water sloshes at the soles of my boots. I concentrate on the soles and imagine that they could spread, which they can‘t. What I need is a floor, and though it‘s a long shot, it‘s all I have.

―Dam.‖

There aren‘t enough words to describe the beauty. Marbled streaks of black crawl through the burgeoning water like dark bolts of lightning. The raging flood is waning as the streaks intertwine and the rocky bolts crash and meld. The sound is so loud that I wince, and within seconds the water is stopped. The boxes of water dissipate on impact and run off into the cracks in the wall of the dam I made—I
made
. I must have done something right, because I feel the sun on my cheeks and I look up. The storm has passed.

Victorious, I will it all to break, and the water cascades and bubbles down the mountain. I try not to think of anyone who might be hiking, any daring nymphs who might be smothered by an aquatic mudslide.

The reality of my powers hits me in a whole new way: I can hurt people, unintentionally.

But I must go on.

There is a strange lull after the trial of water. I climb the mountain warily, watching everything around me, anticipating the next trial. But for what seems like hours I walk unchallenged. Is this the psychological torture part of the trial? Like when the doctor says to close your eyes and raises the needle and promises it will only hurt for a second and in that moment of anticipation the pain swells endlessly? I feel as though my eyes have been glued shut for eons, waiting for that shot that never comes, that nanosecond of pain. I unzip my pocket and feel around for the obolus I found in the temple. I do this every few minutes, as if stroking the smooth, luminous coin will stop me from drowning in my own anxiety. All I can think about, however, is my next trial. I want it the way the jocks at school want to win, and I catch myself snarling, growling, ―Come on!‖ Nothing. Disgusted, I lurch up the mountain and reach for a branch to steady myself. That‘s when the wind comes.

It‘s like a giant oven mitt, scooping me off my feet. I‘m airborne and squinting and it feels like my ribs might crack apart at any second. I block the dirt swirling at me for long enough to see what‘s happening, and in that instant I almost wish I hadn‘t. I am in a tornado. My powers are useless up here. So what if I can make rocks rise out of the ground? The earth is nothing but fodder for a tornado. There‘s nothing you can do to survive a tornado except go underground into a basement where cans of peas and candles await you. But I have no such shelter. I‘m exposed, caught in the clutches of angry tunnel of wind. How do you exhaust the power of a spinning tornado, charged by its own momentum, growing stronger every second?

You don‘t.

A tree trunk broadsides me and I am out. Cold.

In my freshman year, we had to take sewing class because of some lawsuit filed by a girl who claimed that Greeley was not preparing us with life skills, the kind of skills you learn in home ec and shop. Shop was fun, but home ec was a disaster. I couldn‘t seem to replicate the pattern for the dress I was making for my final project. To distract the teacher from my failure, I embellished the dress with beads, feathers, fringe and anything else I could find in the red crates at the front of the room. On our final day in class, we had a mandatory fashion show. (Yes, a few months later some girls discussed suing the school for forcing them to participate in a fashion show. Yawn.) When I put on my dress, which weighed about twenty pounds, I immediately knew I‘d made an even bigger mistake. The dress was too heavy for the small straps. It fell off and I couldn‘t walk the makeshift runway. It‘s the only C on my transcript at Greeley. I cried when I got that C, but now, waking up to find myself still trapped in the growing wind cone, I am more grateful for that C than any of my As.

If the tornado is like a dress, I reason, I can weigh it down with boulders and stones and hunks of earth. I summon objects into the spiral, smiling at the plan, but within seconds I realize the flaw: the moment they enter the spiral, I lose control over them. I may be burdening the tornado but I‘m also inviting projectiles to hurtle themselves at me. With a scream, I duck as a basketball-size stone misses my skull by a millimeter. I have to do something
now
.

I curl up into a ball and focus all my power on the area just outside my body. I have no idea if it will work and if I‘ll ever get out, but it‘s no time to be timid. Dirt and stone pack themselves tightly against each other until I have formed a thick boulder shell around me. Engulfed in stone, I can‘t see anything. I move my fingers and all I feel is rock. The only air I can breathe is the little that I entrapped when forming the boulder. If I‘m inside for too long, I will stop breathing and lose my focus and I won‘t have the strength to get myself out.

But I can‘t think about that now. I just keep packing on the dirt and the stone, absorbing layer after layer, until eventually I get so heavy that I start to fall. I‘m too much for the tornado to handle. When I hit the ground, my body jolts from the impact. The inside of a boulder isn‘t padded and my knees sting and my joints throb. And if I keep rolling like this, I‘ll roll all the way back down the mountain, in which case I‘ll have to fight water and wind again—and in this condition, bruised and weak and oxygen-deprived, who knows if I‘ll win again? But if I break the rock apart, I might emerge only to crash into a tree or fly, unprotected, right off the mountainside.

Better to die trying. I will the boulder to break in half, and at once my legs and arms are flying as I plunge through the air, tumbling and screaming for dear life. When I look up, I recognize where I am. Oh, Zoe.

I‘m exactly where I was when the tornado struck. These really are trials.

I dust myself off and forge up the mountain, wondering what comes next—even though I have a pretty good idea about what to expect. I have the earth as my weapon. I‘ve fought water and wind. It‘s only a matter of time before I‘m forced to face the fourth and deadliest element.

Fire.

I‘m more than halfway up the mountain when I pause to catch my breath. While the past hour has been uneventful, I know the trial by fire must be coming any minute now. It‘s been a long journey and I‘m exhausted. But even if I were just starting out, how does the Oracle expect me to conquer fire? Encasing myself in rock won‘t help me against a raging firestorm—it‘ll just cook me. I need a strategy. I think about the television footage I‘ve seen of firefighters battling wild forest fires. They come in droves, camping out on all fronts. I need an ally. I should have had Blondie come with me after all. He might not have helped me complete the trials, but if I‘m going to fail, why not fail in the company of a gorgeous blond guy who makes me feel giddier than I‘ve ever felt.

I plop down on a fallen log and take off my backpack, tearing into a pack of almonds. And this is how my war with fire begins, with my mouth full of nuts and my backpack idling on the ground.

I hear it rumbling in the distance and it‘s coming for me, hot and fast.

I whirl up the dirt instinctively, the way you might grab your hair when you‘re in a panic, but the fire only rises, snaking through the trees. I wish I could knock down the trees one by one; if you take a fire‘s kindling, it will stop burning, right? But I can‘t, which isn‘t fair. But fairness doesn‘t matter when you have a fire coming at you fast. I run but it follows me. I throw stones but they fly right into it. I build a wall but the fire practically laughs in my face as it leaps and climbs over it, swift as the tail of dragon, deft as a heat-seeking missile. I‘m running and screaming for help even though there is nobody around. Why do I keep screaming? I make a wake of dirt, hoping it will blow back at the fire. But the dirt is just fuel. Everything is fuel, and my earthen powers are nothing. I will soon be nothing.

Fourth grade. Mrs. McClutsky was my teacher. My report on fire began with this sentence:

―Fire is our best friend and our worst enemy.‖ Of course these trials were designed for me.

Naturally, the only way for me to beat fire will be to make it my ―friend,‖ because it‘s always been so hard for me to make friends. It‘s not like I‘m having a party and I want to roast a bunch of chickens. I don‘t need the fire right now and I don‘t see how a friendship can be forged if there‘s no mutual interest or need. I trip and stumble. Come on, Zoe, get out of your head. I waste so much time analyzing my quirks. I‘m me and so what if I‘m not Little Miss Friend Maker? I will win this trial only if I focus on what I
can
do.

I control earth. And I stand with my feet firmly on the ground. I‘m not shaking anymore. I eye the fire and I hold my ground and this earth below me will do as I say when I say. I look at the rising fire without fear and I finally understand something frightening about my newfound power.

If I don‘t like what‘s happening on earth, I can do away with the actual earth.

―Quake.‖

You know in the movies when they show the cop standing breathless, scanning the crowd?

And the camera zigs and zags and everything is moving, everyone except him? I am that cop. And while there might not be any people around, I am watching the trees snap, upend. I see exposed roots and cracks in the mountain. The fire almost yelps in pain and I say it again.

―Quake.‖

Another one, magnitude 3.6, if I had to guess, and the fire falls into the earth and I‘ve won but I haven‘t because it‘s creeping up. No, no.

―Seal!‖

And now it‘s an earthquake in reverse as the grounds careen together, sealing shut. The fire has no oxygen anymore. It‘s been swallowed by the earth,

My earth.

I walk easily now. I can‘t explain exactly how I know that I‘ve passed the trials, but I have, and this is my graduation march. I‘ve shown that I‘m grateful for my powers, that I‘m not afraid of them or careless with them.

I‘ve won. And I feel like Mother Nature as I step on the freshly sealed earth.

I didn‘t just close it all to kill the fire. I did it to preserve this mountain.

I‘m gazing up at the sky in gratitude and wonderment when suddenly an inky blackness fills the air, thick and obliterating. And as everything disappears into the mysterious darkness, I take another step…and my foot finds nothing.

I‘m falling.

Impossible because I sealed the earth and commanded all chasms to close.

Impossible because I survived the trials.

Impossible because I am dropping into nothing, sure to die, in the same manner that my parents did, falling to earth.

And then I feel something tugging at my backpack, as if it is being clawed at by something.

A giant eagle? I‘m staring down into blackness as I soar upward, my arms and legs dangling. The grasp on me tightens, some kind of golden feathers cross my abdomen.

As I watch the ground recede from view, I remember the premonition from my last night at Greeley, that my destiny and doom would snarl together in Greece.

Only I am not dead. I am safe. More than safe, I am flying, soaring above the mountain, carried aloft by an eagle. The blackness is gone now, utterly dispersed, and I am dipping among the clouds and there are no words and no land.

Eventually we drop back down, slowing with the descent. Gently I‘m laid on an electric green lawn at the top of Mount Olympus. Thank you, mystery bird.

I turn around expecting to see the giant eagle that rescued me, but there is no eagle. There is only a beautiful, blond-haired boy about my age.

―Blondie?‖

He smiles.

―But…how did you get here?‖

He shrugs, and in one regal, liquid motion, his cape falls to the floor.

And then, like magic, golden wings slowly open and spread behind him.

―You saved me,‖ I say, in awe as the truth crashes over me in waves. He carried me at the chasm when the wild dog was coming for me. And he caught me just now as I was falling off the mountain into blackness. All this time, he has been hiding his wings with his cape. He doesn‘t want anyone to know what he is.

Or who he is.

―Tell me your name,‖ I say.

―Zeus,‖ he says. ―Welcome to Olympus.‖

There is no more denial, no more sarcasm; there is only one incredible, staggering truth: There are gods.

And my crush is one of them.

―Here are the rules, Zoe,‖ he says, while I nod mutely. ―You cannot say that I helped you.‖

―Wait, you‘re Zeus. I mean, Zeus as in
Zeus
.‖

―I don‘t follow and we don‘t have time. Listen to me, Zoe. We just met.

Do you understand?‖

―When you said you were sick of your friends,‖ I say, as the neurons fire in my brain, desperate to piece it all together, ―you meant…‖ He nods. I nod. Whoa.

―You need to listen me, Zoe. When we get inside, you‘ll be friendly and open to everyone.

No matter what they say or—‖

―You tricked me,‖ I interrupt him.

―I didn‘t trick you.‖

―You told me you were a human!‖

―And you told me there was a bridge.‖

―But you knew there wasn‘t because you‘re Zeus and you know things like that.‖