The Gatekeeper's Challenge (15 page)

The door to her room swung open, the twins vanished, and Carol and Richard rushed in.

“Therese!” Carol cried. “What’s happening?”

Therese gaped at them.

“Therese?” Richard asked. “You okay?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What made you scream?” Carol asked.

“I don’t know. I think maybe I was having a nightmare. Maybe I was sleepwalking just now. I don’t know.”

Carol and Richard exchanged worried glances.

“Why don’t you come downstairs and watch a little TV with us, sweetheart?” Carol suggested. “I’ll make you some hot tea.”

Therese glanced at the black box on her dresser. Carol followed her gaze.

“Oh, what’s that?” Carol asked, crossing the room and taking the box in her hands.

“Don’t open it!” Therese shouted. “Put it down!”

Carol did not put down the box, but instead looked Therese hard in the eye and asked, “Then tell me what’s in it.”

“A gift.”

“For whom?”

“Uh, I, um, Jen.”

“Then why didn’t you give it to her earlier?”

Richard took the box from Carol. “This better not be drugs. Are there drugs in here? Were you hallucinating just now?”

“No! No! I promise! I’m not taking drugs.”

Richard cupped the bottom of the box in one hand and the lid in the other.

“Don’t!”

He pulled the lid from the box.

Therese dropped to her knees. It was over, her life with
Than forever out of reach.

Richard and Carol looked inside.

“Oh,” Carol said. “A ring. It’s lovely. For Jen?”

Therese lifted her eyes and examined her aunt and uncle. They looked unchanged. Why hadn’t the beauty charm escaped and transformed them? Not that they weren’t already attractive people. “Um…”

Carol plucked the ring from the box and held it up in the light. “Is it silver? Or white gold?”

Therese stared at the thin metal band, wondering if the charm only worked when the ring was placed on a person’s finger.
“Silver.” Please don’t put it on, she thought. Please.

Carol closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. When she opened them again, she asked, “Did this belong to your mom?”

Not knowing what else to do, Therese nodded.

“There’s nothing wrong with giving it to Jen. Did you think I’d be upset?”

Therese nodded again.

Carol tucked it back inside the box. “I’m sorry we didn’t trust you. It’s just that, well, after what happened…”

“I know.” Therese climbed to her feet.

Richard returned the lid to the box and handed it over. The two of them hugged her, asked again if she was okay, and, after she told them she was, left her alone with her pets and the box.

She returned the box to her dresser, wondering now if it was all over. She had failed to deliver it to Persephone without opening it. Technically, she hadn’t opened it. Her uncle had. Did that count?

She asked
Than to send her a message. What was she supposed to do?

She looked up from the box to her reflection in the mirror over her dresser. The red-haired twins had called her ugly and plain. She knew she wasn’t beautiful, but was she ugly? She studied her features and thought they’d been right. Why had
Than chosen her, of all the girls in the world? She was the first to ever kiss him. Was he sure he loved her? Would he always love her? For all eternity? Or would he grow tired of her plain looks?

Maybe she should take a bit of the beauty from the ring. Just a little, so
Than wouldn’t spend eternity regretting his decision. She could still return the ring to the box. It had already been opened. It had already been touched by her aunt. Who would know if Therese slipped it on her finger?

She put her hand on the lid, her fingers tingling. No. There was still a chance she hadn’t failed. She pulled her hand away and flung herself on her bed.

Throughout the day, Therese searched for signs of what she should do with the box, continually praying to Persephone, Aphrodite,
and Than, to the point she worried she was either annoying them or had already failed and no god wanted to speak to her again. She sat on her bed with her laptop and researched the five challenges. She read the story about Cupid and Psyche. Aphrodite tested Psyche with the black box of beauty, and Psyche failed.

She researched the golden apples of the
Hesperides. Hera was given the orchard as a wedding gift. They were her apples. Maybe Therese could find a way to get a golden apple without having to fight the dragon. Hmm.

It was a relief to leave after lunch, after hiding the box in the bottom drawer of her dresser beneath several pairs of sweats, to groom Stormy at the Holts.

That is, until Pete came into the barn.

He sauntered up to her with a confident smile and took her in his arms. “Afternoon, good-
lookin’,” he said with his chin on the top of her head. He released her and pecked her nose. “I sure enjoyed last night.”

“Me, too.”
She plucked Stormy’s brush from a shelf, trying to keep her hands from shaking. “Isn’t Jen coming?”

“I told her I’d groom Sassy today.
Hope that’s okay.” It was Sunday, which meant no trail rides. He stepped to the back of the stall to avoid getting between Stormy and Sassy.

“Sure. I just thought she might want to talk, that’s all.” Therese sat on a stool at the front of the stall and held the brush out for Stormy to inspect. Then she gently rubbed
Stormy’s withers. Stormy didn’t need to be groomed at such a young age, but the Holts wanted him trained and used to people before he was weaned. “She told me how hard it’s been on her with your dad...”

Pete’s voice was low and strained when he said, “Let’s not talk about that right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

They brushed in the silence for a while, and then Pete asked, “So how about a movie sometime this week? We could go to dinner, too, if you want.”

Therese closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“You don’t seem enthusiastic,” Pete said, standing over her.

She looked up at him from her stool, unaware till that moment he could see her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“A change of heart already?” he asked softly. He took her hand and lifted her to him, searching her eyes.

The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. Her stomach clenched into a tight knot and the rest of her body went numb. His eyes were full of hurt. “Pete, I…”

He kissed her, and though she accepted the first gentle kiss, she pulled her lips away. “I’m sorry. I’m confused, Pete. I still have feelings for
Than.”

He closed his eyes and sighed. Then he squeezed her hand and said, “Let me know when you’re over him.”

She stood there as he put away Sassy’s brush and left the barn with his head down.

After dinner, Therese sat on her bed with Clifford and stared at the little black box on her dresser. Could her chances with Than really be over so soon, on the very first challenge? If Hades cared at all about justice, then no. For the first time since her failure last summer on Mount Olympus, she directed a prayer to Hades. She stood up, stared fiercely at her reflection over the dresser, and said in a low, angry voice, “I have
not
failed. I have
not
failed. Send me to Persephone, so I can deliver the box.”

She waited. Nothing happened.

She put her hands to her head and pulled her hair. “Then I’m going to Mount Olympus to look for her myself!” It was summer. Persephone should be with her mother, Demeter. Than told her that in fall and winter, when Persephone returned to the Underworld, Demeter left Mount Olympus and shut herself up in a winter cottage on Mount Parnassus. But in spring and summer, both goddesses lived on Mount Olympus.

Therese took the traveling robe from her closet and slipped her arms through each sleeve. Picking up the box, she imagined herself in the middle of the court, and before she could think twice about what she was
doing, the invisible plastic wrapped around her, and she was god traveling.

She closed her eyes, afraid to discover where she had landed, when her feet hit solid ground, and afraid to look upon the gods without warning. Last summer, they had protected her from their brightness, but would they today, after she barged into the palace uninvited?

In her mind, she prayed, “Please accept me, please accept me, please accept me.”

“Open yo
ur eyes, Therese,” came a woman’s soft voice.

Therese pee
ked through one half-closed lid to find Persephone before her, her hands on the box.

“Thank you for delivering the box to me. You have completed your first challenge.”

Therese opened her other eye and looked around the court. Not all the gods were present today. The virgin goddesses—Athena, Artemis, and Hestia—were absent, as were all the gods save Zeus and Hephaestus. The latter now approached her carrying a sword and shield. Her sword and shield.

“Much luck to you,” Hephaestus said, handing them to her. “And congratulations for getting this far.”

Therese accepted the weapon and shield from Hephaestus and thanked him with a bow.

His misshapen face crinkled into a grin full of deep lines and hanging flesh, reminding Therese of a French bulldog. Now that she had a good look at him, he didn’t seem ugly. He wasn’t beautiful, but he wasn’t ugly either. He had character. “If there’s anything more I can do to help, please let me know,” he said.

“Thank you, sir. But I’m not allowed to accept help with the five challenges.”

“But you can accept advice.”

Therese glanced around the palace courtroom where only a few goddesses remained talking among themselves. No one paid attention to her and Hephaestus. “Yes. Yes, I can.”

“So how can I help?”

“Can you tell me how I might get Hera to like me?”

“I’m afraid not. She’s my mother, but she has no love for me because I’m ugly.”

Therese frowned. “Sir, you’re not ugly to me.”

He gave her another crinkly smile.

She bowed to him once again and turned toward Hera, her heart picking up speed and pulsing in her throat. She wasn’t sure yet what she was going to say, but she had to try something. A hundred heads were too many for anyone, except maybe Hercules, even with the crown of invisibility.

In her mind, she prayed to Hera, “May I approach you?”

Hera turned to her and bid her forward to her throne, Zeus’s side still unoccupied. A lucky break, Therese thought.

“What do you ask of me?” Hera said.

Therese had trouble forming a thought much less a string of words. She bowed her head and said, “Hades has given me a set of challenges.”

“I’m aware of what goes on in this court.”

Okay, not a good start. “I don’t want to offend you by taking a golden apple from your orchard without your permission.”

“Permission granted, so long as you don’t eat the apple. Return it to Mount Olympus intact.”

“Could you give it to me, madam? I would be happy to serve you.”

“You would serve me even without the favor.”

Oh, no. Therese just did what she’d hoped to avoid. She had offended Hera. “Yes, madam.”

“Then bring me a fan made of peacock feathers when you deliver the golden apple.”

Therese nodded and bowed. “How will I get past the one-hundred-headed dragon?”

“A bit of cake laced with sleeping pills will put
Ladon to sleep, but he’s not your problem. The Hesperides won’t fall for that trick.”

She’d read online the
Hesperides were three nymphs, daughters of Atlas, but she found nothing more about them. “How can I convince them to let me take an apple?”

“Distract them with your flute. Now leave me. I’ve other matters to attend to.”

Therese meant to ask where Hera’s garden was located, but she didn’t dare delay the goddess.

Chapter Twenty-One:
Than’s Objection

Than had hovered above Therese’s house watching the sons of Aphrodite and Ares, Fear and Panic, taunt Therese as she held the little black box. He shouldn’t have been surprised by her resistance to their powers. Her strong will had amazed him from the beginning. But when the twin gods had finally vanished and Therese had looked at her reflection with new doubts about her beauty, he wanted to kill the boy lions with his bare hands.

He rushed to his father’s chambers to object, his heart pumping fast and loud, like it might burst from his chest. Hades sat at a golden table with
Tizzie and Meg, apparently arguing. They all three looked up as Than approached, unable to hide his anger.