Unamused Muse (Mt. Olympus Employment Agency: Muse Book 2) (21 page)

Demeter’s grin was a little too wide, and her eyes a little too open. Madness danced behind those eyes. I hadn’t been comfortable with her as Terry from the beginning. Now I understood why. Madness couldn’t disguise itself entirely. I’d sensed it lurking behind her fake smiles and polite banter.

Demeter was, at best, unbalanced.

She fluttered around the room in her yellow, ’50s poofy skirt, touching her pearls and flashing that crazy grin. “I can’t believe how lucky I am! Both my girls have finally come home.” She paused at the fireplace mantel and adjusted a few of the Precious Moments figures arranged there. “What are you doing, little shepherd boy? You should be watching over the flock.” She twisted the porcelain boy so it faced out into the room.

“Mother, Wynter came all this way for a visit. Maybe we should make some cookies or something.” Mom’s hands twisted the dishtowel into a knot while she spoke. Her voice wavered.

Demeter’s smile slipped a centimeter. “A visit?” She shook her head and pierced me with her manic gaze. “Don’t be ridiculous. I already have a room ready for her.” She waved her hand in the air as if erasing any objections. “But we could certainly make cookies. In fact….” She tapped her finger against her cheek. “Let’s roll out sugar cookies and decorate them. We’ll do it together. This will be so much fun.” She gathered us with an arm around our shoulders and guided us into the kitchen.

Mom flashed me a look of warning, so I didn’t resist. If grandma wanted to bake cookies, we’d bake cookies. But I’d be damned if I was staying there for the night—especially since I had the impression the crazy woman expected my stay to last forever.

Cookie baking would be okay, though, right? We could visit, maybe talk her down from the crazy tree.

How long could it take? It was just cookies.

Chapter 22

We baked a lot of cookies. A lot. Like, church-bake-sale quantities. After several hours and twenty-four dozen, my wrists hurt from rolling out dough and pressing it with cookie cutters. My feet hurt from standing because Demeter wouldn’t let us take a break. My eyes burned from weariness and repeated blasts of heat from the oven.

Each time we paused for a drink, tried to sit down or, heaven forbid, attempt to leave the room even to pee, Demeter’s eyes flashed red, and she appeared beside us to correct the errant behavior. It didn’t matter how far away she was in the room, she was right next to us in a blur of yellow chiffon.

The first time I’d tried to leave to find a bathroom, she’d been clear across the room putting pink sprinkles on a tray of flower-shaped dough. She’d been humming a happy little song and wasn’t even looking in my direction. I turned toward the door, and she was already there, grinning that maniacal grin and shaking her finger at me.

“Where do you think you’re going, young lady? The timer is about to go off.”

“It’s about to go off down my leg if I don’t use your bathroom. I’ll make it quick. I promise.” I shifted from one leg to the other, a little desperate for relief. I’d been there for hours, and it had been a long drive in the first place.

Her gaze darted from me to Mom, busy adding eggs to a new batch of dough. “Yes, alright. Of course. In fact, let’s all go. Sephie, let’s take a potty break.”

The timer went off. Mom put on an oven mitt and took out the latest batch to cool. She wiped off her hands and gave Demeter a forced, weary smile. “Maybe we could relax for a little while before we continue.”

Demeter studied us both, then flicked her gaze to the window where the sun was on its way down. “Not quite yet, I think.” She turned on her heel and led us out of the kitchen to the small downstairs bathroom, then let me go in first while she and Mom waited outside.

The tiny room had no windows, which I guessed was why she made sure I didn’t use a different bathroom. I took my time and tried to understand exactly what was happening.

I hadn’t tried to make a break for it, yet. For the moment, we were all playing along as if nothing was wrong. Frankly, I wasn’t sure Demeter
was
entirely off her rocker. There was something so calculating about it all. Hades had said Demeter must have only recently found my mother. The speed at which she’d moved to gain Mom’s confidence was impressive.

I washed my hands and dried them on a hand towel covered in sunflowers. My appearance had thrown Demeter off for a moment. But she said she already had a room ready for me.

I was earlier than she’d planned.

“Wynter, are you alright, sweetheart? Should I come in?” Demeter’s voice was laced with sticky sweetness.

“I’m okay. Be right out.” I matched her tone with syrup of my own.

No, I decided. She wasn’t batshit crazy. A little unstable, but calculating and wholly aware of what was going on. In fact, I was betting the entire point of the cookie baking was to keep me there until it was too dark to find my way home.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. No harm in staying one night while I figured it out, right? She wasn’t
that
crazy. I opened the door with my best cheerful expression on my face. Mom gave me a quizzical look, then took her turn in the bathroom, leaving me alone with Demeter.

“Just a few more batches of cookies and I think we’ll have enough,” she said.

“Enough for what?” Part of me thought I probably shouldn’t have asked.

She tilted her head at me. “For the cookie jars. Why else would we make cookies?” Her eyes widened again in that weird, crazy expression.

For the first time, I
really
looked at her face. The pop-eyed look of imbalance didn’t go all the way into her gaze. A cunning intelligence and a wily manipulation pierced through.

What was worse? A scheming goddess or a crazy one?

Neither sounded like a safe choice. I could play along for a bit until I could figure out how to get us out of there.

“Maybe…maybe we could finish them tomorrow?” I flashed what I hoped was a charming smile. Two could play this game. Three if Mom was on board.

Demeter grinned her fox-like grin. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

~*~

After we cleaned up the kitchen, we had dinner, then spent an hour around the table putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a field of wheat. We didn’t get very far on it before Demeter declared it to be bedtime for everyone.

My room was cozy. I had a featherbed covered in quilts, an overstuffed chair by the window, and a white dresser with a mirror on top. It would have been a nice guest room if it weren’t for the silver hairbrush engraved with my initials, the framed photo next to the bed of my mom and me at my high school graduation, and the dresser drawers full of clothes in my size.

I had to wonder what she would have done to get me there if I hadn’t shown up on my own.

I also had to wonder how the hell we were going to get out.

If I’d had any sort of a plan, I couldn’t have shared it with Mom. Demeter’s room was between ours, and she didn’t give us a second alone. I’d figured eventually the woman would have to use the bathroom, too, but she never did. And the one time I tried to sneak over to Mom’s room in the middle of the night, Demeter’s light popped on in her open doorway.

She was sitting up in bed, arms folded. “It’s drafty in this old house, Wynter.” She narrowed her eyes in a show of disappointment and clucked her tongue. “And you could get hurt in the dark. Best to get back in bed.”

My arms broke out in goosebumps at her vaguely threatening words. I didn’t even try to lie and claim to be thirsty or lost. We both knew what I’d been up to. I turned around and went back to my room.

An hour or so later, I awoke to the light snapping on under my door and heard a similar exchange between Demeter and my mother, though Mom did pull out the old standard that she was thirsty.

I fell asleep again after I heard Mom’s steps receding in the hallway. The bed was too comfortable to lie awake fitfully, and so far, we weren’t in any actual danger. It was possible the bed had been enchanted or something, but at 2:00 AM, I didn’t much care.

I’d figure it all out in the morning.

~*~

Morning came early on a farm. Nobody warned me about that, so it was a good thing I’d slept so well.

I was no expert on farming, but it was always my understanding that people kept their cows in a barn. It was still dark out when we went outside with flashlights and buckets to hunt through the rows of wheat, listening for the soft moos of Demeter’s three cows.

She told us during the day the cows grazed in the pasture out back, but at night, they wandered into the wheat for protection and to wait for her to milk them.

Milking a cow is a lot harder than it looks, especially when you’re squatting in a wheat field with no stool to sit on or earthly idea of what you’re doing. It seemed to take hours.

By the time I’d done a sufficient enough job for Demeter to nod her approval, the sun was up and I was half-starved.

“Be faster next time and you can eat sooner,” she said.

I snorted at the idea of
next time
. I had no intention of staying past breakfast, even if it meant lighting a roll of toilet paper on fire, grabbing Mom, and making a run for it in the cover of the smoke.

Not my best plan ever, but it was all I had so early in the morning, smelling of cow udders, and on an empty stomach.

Demeter and Mom made breakfast. But first, my grandmother shoved a wicker basket in my arms. “You need to get the eggs. They’re all around, so look carefully. Under bushes, in flowerpots, at the edge where the field starts. Be careful of the black one with the white spots. Astor doesn’t like giving up her hard work.” She patted my arm and followed Mom into the house.

Astor pecked the hell out of my knuckles. And when I finally managed to grab the damn egg from her hiding spot behind a hedge, I was trying to snatch it so fast, I lost my grip and dropped it. It cracked on my foot and dribbled yoke all over my sneaker.

Demeter had told me to expect to find close to a dozen eggs. By the time I trudged into the kitchen, I’d found five—four, since Astor’s had broken.

My grandmother frowned in disappointment. “Well, it was your first day. Next time, try harder and be more careful. Now have some breakfast.”

I hoped I’d never have to deal with another chicken in my lifetime.

After breakfast, Demeter had Mom churn some of the morning’s milk into butter while she put me to work grinding wheat with a hand-crank machine attached to the kitchen counter.

Then we baked bread. Six loaves.

By lunch, my hands were stiff and blistered, and I could barely keep my eyes open. Mom didn’t look any better.

For an after-lunch treat, we had ice cream—which Mom and I took turns hand-churning.

I had high hopes of taking a nap, but afternoon was not for napping. Afternoon was for picking vegetables, then canning them.

We ate dinner earlier this time, but it was already dark by the time we finished. Mom and I both dozed a little while we worked on the jigsaw puzzle.

“Girls, my goodness.” Demeter laughed and put an arm around each of us. “Is it time for bed already? Let’s get you both tucked in. Tomorrow starts early!”

I didn’t know if Mom managed to get out of bed in the middle of the night, but I never did. I slept hard. And my grandmother had trouble getting me to wake up the next morning.

But I was marginally better at milking the second time. And I found six eggs. Grandmama put a soothing ointment on my palms where blisters had grown the day before. It helped. I didn’t get any new ones when I painted the fence.

The jigsaw puzzle was coming along nicely, but we couldn’t do much after working all day.

I crawled on my hands and knees, peering behind the ivy-covered trellis. “Come on, Astor. Gimme your damn egg. It’s not even fertilized.”

I reached my hand out and Astor gave a warning peck.

A shadow fell across my view. “Wynter, what are you doing?”

“I’m collecting the eggs. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Honey, I’ve been worried sick. Why haven’t you answered my calls?”

I frowned. Where
was
my phone? And why hadn’t I wondered that before? I’d been here for two days without even thinking about my phone. Weird. I peered up at the figure behind me. “We’re fine. We would have left last night, but we fell asleep.”

Hades stood with his hands on his hips, casting angry looks around the yard. “Last night? What about last week?”

I frowned. “What about last week? I was with you last week.”

His expression softened. “No, sweetheart. You’ve been here for five days.”

Chapter 23

I didn’t have time to process what Hades was trying to tell me. I was too exhausted to think. Grandmama’s farm needed a lot of work. Mom and I were helping. But tomorrow, we were going to leave. She’d agreed. She knew I had to go back to work.

We certainly hadn’t been there for five days. That was insane.

The back door slammed open, and Grandmama came flying out of the house pointing her entire arm at Hades. “You! You get off my property right now!”

His scowl deepened. “I’m not leaving without my family.”

The crazy in her eyes was real this time. “
Your
family? I don’t think so!” Her voice was shrill and made my head hurt. “Sephie was mine long before you decided to steal her for yourself.”

Hades’ face was nearly as red as his hair. “Don’t tell me after all this time you believe the stories you made up to make me look bad.”

She spit in the dirt at his feet. “It’s in all the reference books. Look it up.”

He made a low growling noise in his throat. “That doesn’t make it true. It just means your PR people are better than mine.”

The door nudged open and Mom stepped outside. A smudge of flour streaked one cheek. “Hades?”

Everything in his demeanor changed when he saw her. The anger washed from his face leaving him with a lost, vulnerable look. His fingers loosened and let go of the fists they’d formed. A whoosh of air escaped him, as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

“Persephone.” The word was whispered with both reverence and awe. “You look…perfect.”

Her hair was pinned to her head and tucked under a kerchief. Circles ringed her eyes, and she had a grease burn on the side of her neck where she’d splashed bacon grease on herself making breakfast.

All the same, I had to agree with him. Her eyes lit up when they rested on his face, and she was perfect.

“How did you find us?”

“Sweetheart, I never lost you.” He glanced at me, still crouched in the dirt. “Either of you.”

I pulled myself to my feet and examined my hands. The palms itched where old blisters had begun to heal. Yeah. We’d been here longer than I’d realized.

“Persephone, darling. Go back inside. And take your sister with you.” Demeter’s sickly sweet smile had returned.

“Daughter,” Mom said. “Wynter is my daughter.”

“Of course. What a silly mistake. Just go on and finish breakfast. I’ll take care of this…interruption and join you.”

For a moment, I thought she might actually do as she was told. The look on her face told me she was at war with herself, caught between loyal daughter and beloved wife.

Hades turned on Demeter. “I swear by all the souls in the Underworld, if you don’t stand aside and allow me to take my wife and stepdaughter home, you will suffer.”

A slow smile crept across Demeter’s face. “Bring. It.”

He charged her, howling. She held up her arms, and vines from the trellis next to me shot toward him, wrapping their tendrils around his arms and legs and bringing him to a halt within a few feet of the goddess of the harvest.

Flexing his muscled arms, he tore away from the vines holding him back. He roared, and darkness, black as a void, spewed from his mouth to engulf her. She struggled for a moment, and her arms flailed into sight, only to be swallowed again by the darkness.

“Hades, stop it!” My mother stood frozen, her hands clenched in white-knuckled fists.

Hades hesitated, then waved his hand to release his mother-in-law.

She dropped to the ground, panting on all fours, her hair hanging loose in a curtain around her face. Hades watched with his hands hanging relaxed at his sides.

He wasn’t ready.

Demeter threw her head back and green light flickered in her eyes. A moment later, a soft humming filled the quiet. With every second that passed, the humming grew louder until it filled the air and vibrated deep in my chest.

A single bee landed on Hades’ arm and he brushed it away. A second and third landed on his cheek. The humming became a full-blown buzzing, and Hades became a man-shaped blob of thousands of bees.

I huddled behind the trellis, afraid of being consumed along with him. As horrified as I was for Hades, I was even more concerned for my vulnerable human flesh.

Mom’s voice rose above the cacophony, yelling at both of them to stop, and a wind kicked up in response, bringing storm clouds racing toward us overhead. Unable to see through the mask of bees, Hades flung his arm out and shot an oily darkness from his fingertips. It arced toward the nearest rows of wheat, and the stalks withered, turned black, and died. Demeter shrieked in response.

And there I was, a puny human caught in the middle of a battle between three gods. I was powerless to stop them.

Except that maybe I wasn’t.

No one was paying attention to me, so I darted around the house to the front. My car sat where I’d left it when I’d arrived. I shook my head. It couldn’t have been five days ago. That was crazy. Hades could have lied, but the healing blisters on my palms said otherwise.

The car doors were unlocked, and I entered on the passenger side. The duffel bag I’d thrown together lay on the seat where I’d left it. Hooray for being out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody had stolen it.

I reached inside and snagged the familiar bottle, slammed the door shut, and followed the sound of thunder, bees, and angry shouting. As I ran, I unscrewed the bottle of bubbles and readied my wand.

As I rounded the corner, something exploded and knocked me back. Darkness snuffed out the sunlight, leaving me blinded. I stumbled but kept my footing and eased closer to the sound of voices arguing ahead.

“First you take my daughter without even asking me, and now you’re trying to take my granddaughter, too.” Demeter’s voice came from my left, brittle and choked with tears.

“We were in love. It wasn’t your business. Nobody knew you’d throw a temper tantrum every winter and try to starve the world. You overreact to everything. Do you have any idea how much of a strain that puts on a marriage?” Hades’ words came from somewhere on the right, laced with bitterness.

Mom must have been standing somewhere between them. Her voice was shrill and her words spilled out on top of each other. “Please, just stop it! Both of you! I won’t choose between you. It’s unfair.” Her voice tapered off, and a sob escaped her.

Gods or not, this was a stupid family feud. I didn’t think I could fix everything, but I had to believe all three parties wanted to at least come to an agreement. People wanted to be heard. And these people weren’t listening, they were only shouting.

By feel, I dipped my wand into the bubbles and drew it out. The wand dripped on my hand when I raised it toward my face, so I knew I’d managed to coat it in solution. I pursed my lips and blew, hoping I’d aimed my air correctly and bubbles had actually floated out from the hole. I shifted and did it a second and third time, turning as I blew in the hopes of sending bubbles out into the darkness to touch all three of the fighting gods.

I kept my voice soft and as gentle as I could make it. “Listen to me. You’re all angry, but you don’t have to be. Sit down and talk to each other.” I dipped and blew more bubbles. “Please listen to each other. You know there’s a solution that can make everyone happy. You love each other.” I blew once more. “You can listen. I know you can.”

For all I knew, the bubbles were catching an updraft and missing their targets—or worse, not forming in the first place. It was possible I was aiming my breath wrong and blowing past the wand.

But I had faith. I had to, otherwise the magic of inspiration wouldn’t work, and the bubbles would carry my doubt, instead.

The cloud of darkness dissipated, leaving us all bathed in sunlight. I stood blinking with my dripping wand dangling from one finger. Mom, Demeter, and Hades all faced me in silence, quizzical looks on their faces. Bubbles danced around their heads and popped against their elbows, cheeks, and foreheads.

Not only had I succeeded in blowing bubbles in the dark, they’d been hitting their targets. Go, me.

Demeter put her hands on her hips. “Wynter, what on earth are you doing?”

“Where did you get those?” Hades frowned at the bottle in my hand. “Did you take those from the Muse department?”

A knot formed in my stomach. What made me think this would work on gods? The bubbles came from gods. And now I was busted for having them.

“I….” I didn’t have an answer for either of them.

My mother swooped to my side and put an arm around my shoulders. “She’s doing what needed to be done.” She scowled at the other two. “Now we’re going to sit down like a family and work this out like she said.”

Hades rubbed his palms on the sides of his jeans. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

Hades and Mom turned to Demeter, and all three of us waited.

Demeter studied each of us in turn, then sighed. “Oh, alright. I suppose we should have done this centuries ago.” She turned on her heel and went into the house. We followed, first Mom and I, then Hades.

As I passed him, his gaze followed Mom, and he shoved his shaking hands in his pockets. His expression had a sad longing to it that made my heart ache.

I wondered if anyone would ever look at me like that.

Inside, we settled at the kitchen counter, each taking a stool on a different side of the rectangle. Demeter made tea and set out plates of cookies. Many, many plates of cookies.

Hades gave me a questioning look when he saw how many there were. I shrugged and pushed a plate toward him. “We’ve been busy.”

He nodded. “You’ve been baking cookies for nearly a week?”

Mom bit into a daisy-shaped cookie with yellow sprinkles. “No. We also baked bread and churned butter.”

He snorted. “You churned butter?”

Demeter set out a variety of loaves and handed him a knife. “It’s good butter. I’ll get you some.”

I hopped up and went to the pantry. “And we made jam.”

Hades sliced himself a thick piece of whole wheat. “What kind?”

I held up a few jars. “Every kind.”

We stuffed ourselves with baked goods and pickles and hard-boiled eggs and all the fruits of our five-day labor. Food made it easier to be civil while we talked, because it was hard to yell with a full mouth and happy tummies.

By the time we’d eaten all we could, a deal had been brokered. Persephone would visit Demeter for a week, four times a year, and one weekend per month. She would split the rest of her time between the Underworld and her own house in the human world, because she missed the sunshine. Hades was welcome to join her whenever he wanted.

I thought it was a pretty good compromise and that everyone would be happy with it. Unfortunately, there were more parties involved in this family feud than there had been back in the days of myth.

Now there was me.

“I missed the first twenty-four years.” Demeter narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m not missing anything else of my granddaughter’s life.”

Hades nodded, finally agreeing with his mother-in-law about something. “We’ve already lost enough time.”

And so, I agreed to spend a weekend every other month with each of them, plus a week with each twice a year. Hades would fix it with Mt. Olympus so I had enough vacation time.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up a weekend a month and a week every quarter, but I agreed to it anyway. It was for family.

My whole life, I’d only had my mother. Now I had a grandmother and a stepfather who wanted to spend time with me. I worried a little that, once they really got to know me, they’d be disappointed.

I patted my pocket where the stolen bubbles were tucked away. “I want….” I swallowed hard. “I just want to tell you all, I didn’t intentionally steal from the Muse department. It was an accident.”

Mom reached across the counter and grabbed my hand. “Of course not, sweetheart. Nobody thinks you did.”

I glanced at Hades and he smiled. “I’m not reporting it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

A little of the tension in my shoulders relaxed, but not all of it. I’d used the bubbles on them out of desperation, but it wasn’t right. Controlling people’s thoughts and desires was dangerous and unethical. “I’m sorry I had to use them on all of you. I was wrong to do that.” Might as well clear the air and get it all out in the open now.

Demeter gaped at me. “Is that what you thought you were doing out there? Inspiring us with pilfered Muse bubbles?”

I nodded. “I had to get you to stop fighting.”

“Oh, honey.” Mom hopped off her chair and ran around to my side to wrap her arms around me. “Sweetheart, that’s not what happened.”

“Mom, I blew the bubbles and told you what to do. And you did it.” I turned to Hades. I might as well confess everything while I was at it. “And I used them on the Bosco and Kevin once—I don’t feel too bad about that.” I paused and scratched my arm. “But…also, I used them on a woman in Tartarus, and she broke out.”

He snorted. “Nobody breaks out of Tartarus, honey. They graduate. You helped her graduate early. That’s all.”

“So, you’re not mad that I cheated?”