The Gatekeeper's House (3 page)

“
Therese?” Pete whispered,
looking in her direction.

Therese gawked at him. “What? You can
see me?”

“
Therese?” Pete asked again,
apparently able to see, but not hear, her.

A second horse came alongside Pete’s,
and Therese recognized her best friend Jen in the
saddle.

“
Don’t tell me it’s a creepy
ol’ snake,” Jen said as her body shuddered with disgust. “This time
we’re killing it. Therese isn’t here to stop us.”

Pete drew his eyebrows together and
looked from Therese to Jen and back to Therese. “Yes she is. She’s
right there.”

Jen gazed past Therese and then
frowned. “That’s not funny. You know I’m worried about her and
dying to see her. Kill the snake, or whatever spooked the horses,
while I round up the others.”

Jen rode off, but Pete continued to
stare at Therese. “I must be imagining things,” he muttered. “Maybe
I miss her more than I thought.” With that, he took up the reins
and trotted off.

“
Wait!” Therese was left
alone and frustrated, wondering why Pete could see her when Jen
could not. She turned toward her Colorado house as she prayed to
Than.
What’s going on? Why aren’t you with
me?

She stepped up on the wooden deck at
the back of her house and peered through the kitchen window. Carol
stood at the sink talking out loud, her red hair pulled up in a
ponytail.

“
Yes, you like grapes, Lynn.
I know you do. Let me finish cutting them in half for
you.”

Two-year-old Lynn sat in her highchair.
Wisps of Lynn’s red hair and patches of her caramel complexion were
covered with what looked like mashed potatoes. She held one hand
out toward Carol and said, “I like gapes,” over and over. “I like
gapes.” Therese smiled and resisted the urge to rush inside and
kiss her little sister.

The memory of how Carol had nearly lost
Lynn while she had been pregnant brought a wave of grief over
Therese. If Therese hadn’t succeeded in Artemis’s quest to bring
back Callisto, who had been turned into a bear by Hera and made
into a constellation by Zeus, Lynn would not be a part of their
lives. She would have been one more dead soul escorted by Than to
the Underworld. It was only after Therese had proved herself
beneficial to the goddess of the hunt that the life of Baby
Lynn—Therese’s natural cousin and her sister by adoption—had been
saved.

Carol turned with a handful of cut
grapes and laid them on the tray of Lynn’s highchair. Lynn pinched
them up in her fingers one at a time and popped them into her
mouth. Then Lynn met Therese’s eyes, recognized her, and
pointed.

“
Terry!”

Carol spun around, her eyes moving past
Therese without recognition, just as Jen’s had earlier. As Therese
processed this new information (Lynn could see her but Carol could
not), two figures entered the kitchen, and neither were her Uncle
Richard. Her mouth dropped open when she recognized who they were:
they were the souls of her parents.

Linda and Gerry Mills sat themselves at
the granite bar as they had every day since Therese could remember,
before they were killed three years ago by Ares’s man, McAdams.
Therese’s mother had been on the verge of discovering an antidote
for the Mutated Anthrax C, but Ares wanted no antidote as he urged
the Middle East to make war with the Western World, hoping to see
the US fall. Feeling nostalgic for those days when her parents were
alive, Therese entered the room without opening the door (she
didn’t want to frighten Carol) and approached her mother’s
side.

“
Mom? Dad?”

They looked at her blankly.

Then her father asked, “Is there any
coffee made?”

“
Dad, don’t you know me?”
Therese asked, rushing to his side. She placed an ethereal hand on
his transparent back, but could not quite feel the feathery soul
beside her. “It’s me. Therese.”

At that moment, Lynn pointed once again
at Therese and shouted, “Terry!”

Carol took a towel to Lynn’s face and
said, “You silly little goose. You miss your Terry? I do, too. Her
last visit wasn’t nearly long enough.”

Therese frowned. She had really wanted
to stay longer than a week. Seven days hadn’t given her time to do
half of what she’d planned. She and Jen had gone to the movies with
Todd and Ray one night, had gone dancing at the Wildhorse Saloon
when Pete’s band was performing a second night, and had gone for
pizza with some friends from their swim team a third, so that had
left only four evenings at home with Carol, Richard, and Lynn. But
her duties as the goddess of animal companions required her
attention, and she had to get back to them. Of course, she couldn’t
explain that fact to her aunt and uncle. And as much as she’d like
to rush up to throw kisses on her sister’s cheeks, she didn’t want
to frighten her. Therese was, after all, a ghost.

Then Lynn pointed again and said,
“Cowboy!”

Therese followed her sister’s finger
and turned to the living room. To her horror, she found the room
full of souls. They were mostly cowboys and Native Americans, and
they wandered around the room as though they were looking for
something.

Suddenly, Lynn started to cry, probably
as overwhelmed as Therese at the sight of all these strangers
wandering through their house. As Carol lifted Lynn from the
highchair, one of the cowboys upset a lamp in the living room, and
it toppled to the wooden floor.

“
What in the world?” Carol
muttered.

Then Therese’s father turned a page of
the newspaper, and Carol noticed the paper flutter on top of the
granite bar. With Lynn on her hip, she rushed to the kitchen window
and closed it.

“
A wind must be picking
up.”

Therese rushed through the crowd of
ghosts toward the front screened porch and out onto the wooden deck
that wrapped around the house. Her jaw dropped when she saw
thousands of souls wandering the land outside. Some walked and
others floated. What on earth had happened?

***

Than pushed his way through the fallen
rocks and debris of what was once the Underworld and cried out for
Therese, but she had vanished. His disintegrated selves struggled
to cling to the souls he was supposed to be transporting to
Charon’s raft, but they had nowhere to go now that Hades was in
ruins. He also could no longer feel the call of the newly dead. The
thought of the mortals suffering on the verge of death but being
unable to die filled Than with horror and rage. More alarming was
the fact that many of the souls were no longer bound to the Fields
of Elysium, and even some may have escaped from the pits of Erebus
and Tartarus. Than could not sense where they went. He was no
longer bound to them, and they were no longer bound to
Hades.

Although he could not get through to
his parents, his brother appeared beside him with a look of
dismay.

“
Who’s responsible for
this?” Hypnos asked, as though he would take vengeance then and
there, before the souls had been retrieved.

“
I don’t know. Do you have
any contact with our parents?”

“
None.”

“
Then we have no choice but
to go to Mount Olympus to report what’s happened in
person.”

“
What about the dead?” Hip
asked. “And what about the Titans? Are they unleashed?”

“
The dead, but not the
Titans,” Than said grimly. “At least, not yet. Our sisters are
holding the pit of Tartarus as we speak. Hecate and her familiars
are helping.”

“
What about Therese?” Hip
asked as they prepared to god travel.

“
Killed. Her soul left with
the other dead before she could regenerate. I don’t know where.”
Than had barely had time to register this fact. He had already
disintegrated and dispatched in the hundreds to search the earth
for Therese. Another one of him had gently carried her body from
the ruins of the Underworld to Demeter’s winter cabin. He’d taken
her animals there as well.

Than and Hip left the rubble around
them and materialized at the gates of Mount Olympus. After asking
the seasons to let them pass, they hastened up the rainbow steps
and into the court where the gods of Olympus were
convening.

Hades immediately heard and responded
to Than’s prayers as Than and his brother entered the
room.

“
Someone’s put a block
around our court!” Hades bellowed. He looked at his fellow gods.
“Who’s responsible for this destruction? Who would dare destroy my
kingdom and upset the balance among the living and the
dead?”

Than had never seen his father so upset
before the other gods. His face had turned a hue of purple and his
voice shook the court.

“
Thanatos,” Zeus said. “Come
forward and report to us what has happened.”

Than moved to the center of the ring
and described the attack on his father’s domain. “The dying cannot
die. Those already dead are no longer bound, and the Titans will be
next.”

Zeus’s eyes widened. “The Titans? That
can’t be.”

“
The Furies are holding them
for the moment,” Than added. He clenched his fists, waiting for the
king of the gods to react to this bad news.

Zeus jumped to his feet. “This must be
our top priority. We must all stop everything and put ourselves in
the service of Hades.”

Than sighed with relief and unclenched
his fists and was rather surprised at Zeus’s response.

“
That’s impossible,”
Poseidon objected, his sun-bleached beard framing a frown. “You
know my duties consume me.”

Than could relate to that, and for a
moment he felt sorry for those gods without the power of
disintegration.

Zeus turned to the god of the sea.
“Yes. What you say is true. You alone will be excused,
brother.”

“
But I’ve got several wars
to mind.” Ares raked a hand through his bright red hair. “I don’t
have time to clean up my uncle’s mess.”

Hades bolted across the marble floor
toward Ares with a look of rage on his face, but Zeus beat Hades to
Ares’s side. The two brothers stood with their faces close to the
god of war.

“
You will serve Hades now,”
Zeus commanded. “Am I understood?”

Than blanched at the public reprimand
Zeus gave to Ares.

Ares did not reply but gave a subtle
nod before glaring across the room at Than.

Than suspected the god of war was
behind the attack on his father’s kingdom, but, without proof, he
would not speak his thoughts. What a brazen move, though, even for
the son of Zeus.

***

Jen could not get the horses to settle
after she and Pete herded them back to the pen. Her mother had had
to reimburse the trail riders, because the horses had seemed to
lose their minds. And they had been the last trail riders of the
season, since Autumn had officially arrived. Even now, with her
younger brother Bobby’s sweet talk, she and her brothers had a hard
time removing the tack and turning the horses out. Jen used this
opportunity to remind her mother why attending an online university
from home was better for Jen. The family ranch needed
her.

To make matters worse, Pete was
freaking out.

“
What’s the matter with
you?” their mother hollered at Pete when he had flinched, pale
faced, for the millionth time. “You feeling alright?”

“
No,” he said. “I’m having
some kind of bizarre hallucination or somethin’. What was in that
stew you fed us?”

“
Same stuff is always in my
stew,” Jen’s mom replied.

Once they had turned the last horse
out, Jen overheard her mother sidle up next to Pete and ask softly,
“You ain’t been drinking, have you?”

Pete’s eyes widened into a look of
reproach. “How can you even ask that? God, Mom! You think I wanna
turn out like Daddy?”

Mrs. Holt dropped her head. “No, son,
but some people can’t seem to help themselves. I hope you’ll tell
me if that ever happens to you.”

Pete glared at their mother. “It won’t
ever happen to me.”

They all four headed back to the house,
exhausted and nervous. The horses continued to fidget and buck out
in the pasture. Jen’s mom took the behavior of the horses as a sign
of bad weather coming and told the kids to get washed up and stay
indoors. She turned on the Weather Channel and listened as she
heated up the leftover stew for their supper. Pete didn’t seem to
mind canceling his plans to go dancing at the Wildhorse Saloon. His
face had taken on a hint of green.

When Jen returned downstairs after her
shower, she was mortified by reports on the news of unexplained
events occurring all over the world. Pete was glued to the screen,
as though searching for answers to his own strange condition,
looking less ill and a bit excited.

“
People are seeing ghosts,”
he said to Jen, as she took a seat on the couch beside him. “Not
everyone can see them. That’s why they can’t explain all the crazy
things that are happening—windows breaking, objects floating in
mid-air, stuff getting moved around. It’s the ghosts that are
making all that stuff happen, but most just can’t see
it.”