Fate Forgotten (8 page)

“You’ve been gone for so long.”

“Would seeing me more frequently have made it easier?”

She sighed. “You would know better than I, wouldn’t you?”

“As well as you, at least.” He stared at the ground, though he couldn’t see much of it. “I’m sorry.”

“I hoped you’d at least need some kind of comfort. That you’d at least turn to me for that.” She was standing in front of him now. Her white stola gleaming, and her pale skin like cream.

He shook his head. “It would’ve been cruel of me.” But he raised his eyes to hers and caressed her cheek. “And this has been going on for so long. This thing with Sif. I resigned myself to the pain of it long ago. I’m well, Athena, truly.”

She pressed his hand to her cheek and held it there, her eyes drifting half closed. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t so honorable, Thor.” Then she pulled his hand away and looked up at him again. “Come stay with us. Father won’t object. You should not have to be alone, wandering the earth like some beggar. Mount Olympus is no Asgard, but let it be your home until you can return.”

It was a generous offer, and it touched him, but he knew he would not be comfortable there. Zeus’s daughters would give him no peace and Sif’s jealousy and spite would be enflamed, even if she wasn’t his wife any longer. Even if she had never loved him to begin with.

Athena smiled sadly, as if following his thoughts. “Then at least go to Ra. He worries for you, Thor. You’re like a son to him.”

He nodded. A journey to Egypt would not be without its own benefits. He’d hardly spoken with Ra since his exile, and before that, it had been the coming Council meeting which kept them apart. In truth, he had meant to return there, long ago. If anyone would know the answers to the angel’s riddles, it must be him.

“If it will ease both your minds, I’ll beg a bed from him. But I don’t mind sleeping under the open sky. I hardly need worry about the weather.” That made her smother a laugh and he was glad, though he didn’t smile. “The things that pain me a bed won’t help, one way or the other. I wait for Odin’s forgiveness.”

“And Eve’s love?” He knew she tried to hide her jealousy, but there was still a hint of it in her tone. A longing.

He looked away. “I try not to think of what I cannot have. It cuts too deeply even to dream of.”

“Yes.” She sighed again. “I understand.”

“Do you regret helping me? Saving her?” He wasn’t sure why he asked, but he felt that he needed to know.

Athena turned his face back to hers. “I regret only that there is nothing I can do to help you now, Thor. I wish I could give you peace. I wish you could find peace in me.”

He leaned down to kiss her forehead. “You are too generous.”

She grimaced. “If only it served me better.”

“Are you sure you will not consider my brother, Baldur?”

She laughed and pushed him away, but it faded quickly and her expression became solemn. “Perhaps if your brother Baldur had stood at your side instead of letting Odin cast you out, he would have had a better chance.”

He smiled then, for her loyalty. “Thank you, Athena.”

She waved him off. “Go to Ra. If not for your sake, then for his. And come back to the grove after you’ve reassured him you are well, if you wish to share a meal with a friend.”

“Aye.” He offered her a bow, to make her smile more than anything else, and then did as he was told.

Ra was scowling deeply by the time Thor finished his story about what Gabriel had told him so long ago, and what Frigg had said before he had left Asgard. It had been keeping him up at night, and of all the gods, Ra knew the most about the True God and his angels.

“Could my mother, Jörd, have come here to this world?” he asked finally. “And why has she not shown herself?”

Ra shook his head, looking at him through narrowed eyes. His expression was unreadable. “You say that Gabriel called you by your mother’s name? A mother you don’t even remember?”

He nodded. “Frigg seems to believe I have a sister. But Odin has no daughters. She could only mean a half-sister, born of my mother, though I was led to believe that my mother was not just gone, but no longer living. That all we had left of her was the world-tree.”

“Yes. The tree with the golden apples.” Ra frowned, and turned to stare out the window. “Athena mentioned it.”

“If anyone would know if my mother was here, it would be you. Surely she would have made her vows, and you hold all our oaths.”

“Blood calls to blood, Thor. My not knowing does not mean she isn’t here, only that I haven’t seen or heard of her. From what you say, if she came, it was a long time ago. Perhaps before the Covenant. Perhaps before even Bhagavan. If the angels know her, it is likely, though I don’t understand their interest in you.”

He rubbed at his face and tried not to be disappointed. Ra’s words reminded him of Evaline, and the questions she had asked. Her baby would be long born by now. She was probably wondering why he had not returned for the birth. But it wouldn’t have been safe. Not with Loki knowing to look for him there.

“You’re distracted, Thor. You’ve spent too much time alone these last years. Just because Odin does not wish to see you does not mean you must forsake all company.”

Thor forced himself to smile. “I haven’t been wholly alone. I’ve been spending time with the House of Lions. Odin did not think to take that much from me, at least.”

“Odin’s punishment was excessive,” Ra said, his eyes sad. “I wish it had gone differently for you.”

He shrugged. “I would have left them anyway, even if Odin hadn’t driven me away. How could I live among them knowing what my father had done? Knowing how I had been used? No. I would not have remained for long.”

Ra raised one eyebrow. “Perhaps not, but it is a different thing to leave than it is to be denied by your father in such a way.”

“He granted Sif her freedom. I don’t know if Athena told you. I no longer have a wife.”

“If only it were so simple for you.” Ra poured him a cup of wine. “But I’m afraid that even with Sif’s divorce, you are still married. Or will you pretend that you are not suffering from that decree of Odin’s as well?”

He took the cup and said nothing. Ra did not need him to make the admission, and he did not want to consider it. Dwelling upon Eve only made him more miserable.

“If you desire to stay, Thor, a place can be made for you. Even if it is only a spare room with a bed for the nights you are sick of sleeping in trees. You need not even tell us when you come or go.”

“Athena worries.”

“As do I.”

He drank down the wine and set the cup aside. “I’m well able to care for myself, Ra. It is not the first time I’ve spent my days wandering the earth, nor do I suspect it will be the last. And perhaps it is fitting. Perhaps I am more my mother’s son than I had realized before now.”

“How so?”

He looked up at the old god, surprised he had to ask. “In the oldest language known to the Aesir, Jörd means earth. Where my father prized wisdom, my mother preferred the world itself. Worlds, I suppose, and understanding those magics which connect them.”

Ra’s face paled, and then he turned away, walking to the window and staring out at the Nile. “There are only two stories of trees that bear golden fruit, Thor. Only two that I have ever known in all my travels. Have you heard them before?”

He shook his head, then realized Ra was not looking. “I have not.” But he wasn’t sure he had followed the conversational leap the older god had taken.

“It is said that Hera keeps such a tree in her garden, guarded by a dragon. But she did not bring it with her to this world. I believe she found it growing wild sometime after your people arrived. The only life in an otherwise dead place. Surrounded by ashes, she told me once. She had Zeus and Poseidon uproot it for her, and replanted it with the other fruit bearing trees she had collected. The source of the golden apples that Aphrodite sometimes uses to tempt those poor, unsuspecting women who aren’t interested in their suitors—you heard of Atalanta, I’m certain.” Ra turned back to him then, at last, and his face was grave. His age carved deeply in his skin. Thor shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “But there is an earlier story, perhaps you heard it from Eve and did not realize the significance, for Elohim’s chosen people write that the Tree of Knowledge also bore golden fruit, and it was for eating this fruit that Adam and Eve were punished with exile from Eden.”

“Eve said that Adam burned the Garden after he had been cast from it. Because the angels refused him entrance to that which he felt belonged to him.”

“Burned it to ash and cinders?” Ra asked, his tone mild, musing.

“You believe the trees are the same. That the one which Hera keeps is this Tree of Knowledge from Adam’s Garden?” He wondered what Eve would think of this. What Adam would do, if he knew that the Olympian goddess had taken the tree he had coveted. If he ever remembered it.

“It seems a reasonable conclusion.” Ra was studying him again, closely, but Thor was not certain why. “Don’t you think they’re related? Two such trees, existing independently of one another, seems an incredible coincidence, otherwise. An even greater coincidence for there to be three, unrelated.”

“Perhaps so. Though if it is Elohim’s tree, from the Garden, I’m surprised the angels have allowed the Olympians to keep it.”

Ra looked as though he was trying not to smile. “Yes. It is odd, isn’t it? Michael certainly watches over this world jealously. I don’t believe anything of God’s escapes his notice.”

Thor thought of Eve. Of the hostility the angel had shown him, unprovoked. “No. I don’t believe it does.”

Chapter Eight: Present

“Abby. Garrit.” Adam nodded politely and took the luggage from her hand. “It’s kind of you to come.”

She balanced Alex on her hip and frowned, trying to catch her brother’s eye, but he turned away. “How is Mia?”

“She’s doing just fine. A little bit anxious and terrified but nothing that isn’t normal, from what I remember.” Adam guided them through the house, keeping his back to her even while he spoke. “I’ll take your things up to the bedroom for you. Mia is in the living room with your mother, Abby, if you’d like to join them.”

The house was beautiful. All hardwoods and incredible workmanship. She followed the molding with her eyes and would’ve walked into a banister if Garrit hadn’t grabbed her. “This is amazing.”

“Thank you.” Adam nodded to Garrit. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your guestroom. Abby, the living room is the next door on your right.”

She glanced anxiously at her husband, but he had fixed his expression into a polite mask and was already following Adam up the stairs. For people who couldn’t stand one another, they sure spent a lot of time in secret conference behind her back. She shook her head and shifting Alex slightly, walked on to the living room.

“Oh, Abby.” Mia was reclining in an easy chair, her feet up, and her mother was sitting nearby on the sofa. Both had their eyes glued to the soap opera on the television.
Afterlife
.

Eve sat down next to her mother and let Alex squirm onto the cushion next to her. He had a hand wedged into his mouth as he took in his new surroundings. It always took him some time to warm up to new places, and it had been a long time since he’d seen either his grandmother or his aunt.

“Where’s Dad?”

“Oh, he’s somewhere.” Mia shrugged.

“In the library,” her mother added. Then she smiled at Alex. “How big you’ve grown!”

Alex hid his face against her side, and Eve laughed.
It’s all right.
“Say hello to your Grandmother Watson, Alex.”

He peeked out, his hand still in his mouth, and his eyes wide. “
Bonjo’
.”

“Oh!” Her mother smiled again, her attention finally diverted from the television. “How long has he been talking?”

“Not long. And not much yet, but we’ve been practicing hello and goodbye.”

“He’s barely a year old!”

“Almost thirteen months, now.”

“We see so little of you, Abby. Why can’t you move back to England? Poor Alex will never get to see his cousins, and he’ll never understand them if you raise him to speak French.”