Pandora Gets Angry (13 page)

“Have fun,” he said.

Homer had to duck through the doorway and, like the others, instantly found himself in pitch-black. Without listening or trying to get his bearings, he straightened up and banged his head on the ceiling of the enclosed space, knocking loose several snakes, which began to slither across Homer's shoulders. He brushed them off as if they were raindrops and stumbled forward, crashing into first one wall, then another. It didn't take him long to realize that the space was crawling with serpents, but he didn't bother to think about where they had come from, only that they were in his way. He felt, roughly, along the walls, batting away tiny, fanged heads, clearing large spaces with a sweep of his palm. He pulled them off his legs as they wound their way up his calves. Like Pandy, he got backed into oddly shaped corners and down dead ends, but he plowed his way through so fast and so furious that it was almost no time at all before he was standing at the end of the walls, clean air on his skin, and lamplight in a room just ahead of him.

As he set foot in the room full of copper coins, the voices began to whisper.

“How strong!” “How handsome!” “Come this way. Over here.” “Take some of these!”

Homer began to stumble in a different direction with each new voice. And then an alarm went off in the very back of his mind. The effects of gullibility were still strong—too strong, and Homer wouldn't be able to resist unless he did something. So he did the first thing that came naturally, the first thing anyone would do if they heard a noise they didn't like or knew they shouldn't hear.

Homer put his fingers in his ears.

In the alcove, the old man smiled, nodded his head, then laughed once … and disappeared.

Homer made it safely through the rooms full of copper and silver. Then he came to the room of gold and one particular glint of lamplight off a single coin was so bright that he took one hand away from his ear and shielded his eyes.

“Hello?”
came a voice from beyond the room. Homer heard a soft tinkling, like glass beads hitting together.

“Hello?” he answered.

“HOMIE!” Alcie cried.

“Alcie!”

“Oh, Homie …
what
is going on? Pandy and then Iole and somebody else, I think, were where you are right now and then they were gone!”

“Hang on,” yelled Homer, “I'm coming to get you!”

He stepped into the room and the voices swirled around him like leaves in a vortex.

“This one is mine!” “Attack him!” “Assassin!” “Handsome youth, come this way.” “No, over here.” “Gold—all for you!” “Listen to me …”

Even with his fingers in his ears, Homer could hear everything that was being said. He turned in so many different directions, he began to get dizzy. He wanted to go one way first, and then another … he believed everyone and everything that was being said. He was an assassin, and a handsome one, a thief and murderer; he should go this way, no!
That
way. The voices began to blend into a continuous roar, so loud and so persistent that Homer did what he always did when things became too confusing. He just stopped thinking altogether. Then something—some
thing
wound tightly around his brain—snapped, and in the middle of the chaos Homer suddenly knew that none of these other voices mattered, especially when the one voice he truly wanted to hear was so close.

“Alcie!” he called.

“What?” she cried back.

“Keep talking!”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Anything,” Homer yelled.

“Figs! Neat! Okaaaayyyy …”

Alcie proceeded to recount her adventures in the underworld with Persephone and Hades as Homer tried to focus in on her voice only. Twice, the spirit voices led him to a jar full of golden coins and twice he stretched his fingers out to take a bright piece of metal. Twice he had almost forgotten the warning of the old man not to touch any of it. And twice Alcie brought him back. Because it wasn't the money that he was after ultimately. It was her. The voices became more cunning, taking on the sounds of his mother, father, and teachers. Taunting him, tempting him. Playing upon his gullibility. He shouted for Alcie to keep talking, not to stop. Sing, if she had to. He fought the voices: the incredible delights that were promised him, the shiny money and the fear of a dozen horrible deaths, as hard as if he were back in the training ring at gladiator school. He sweated buckets as he forced his mind not to be swayed. He slashed at the air with his fists, as if his opponent were flesh and blood, not unseen tormentors trying to break his mind.

As he crossed the midpoint of the room, the dark garden spread out before him; he felt a strength return to his mind as the last of gullibility seeped in perspiration through his pores.

The spirits saw that they were losing their chance and redoubled their efforts. But with no gullibility in his body, Homer lowered his hands; there was no one to fight. He lowered his head; he had no need to look around. Gold was nice, he supposed, but somewhere in the garden, Alcie was talking, and he was on his way.

He walked straight to the end of the long room and out into the dark grove of trees. Immediately, the lamps in the room of gold were extinguished, making it almost impossible to see.

“Oh, pomegranates,” Alcie said, half to herself. “And the lights go out again and
again
I am stuck in the tree and no one is around.”

“I'm here,” Homer called from below.

“Homie!” she squealed.

“Hang on,” he said. “My eyes, like, need to adjust.”

“Yeah,” Alcie called. “There's a tiny light way over that way. You can just make out big shapes. Should I keep talking?”

“Absolutely.”

By the single flame of the far-off lamp, Homer felt his way around each tree. As Alcie was coming to the part of her story where she had tasted the roasted garlic and snail custard, Homer was standing underneath the tree in which she was stuck. He started to climb.

“Ooof,” she said, looking down as he jostled the tree. “There you are!”

“Keep talking,” he said.

“Oh, okay. Well, then I ate some more and then I met Lachesis, who gave me my life-thread. Oh, yeah, tangerines, I got my very own life in my pouch! Then I contacted Pandy the first time.”

Homer climbed way out onto the branch on which Alcie was sitting.

“Hi,” he interrupted.

“Oh!” she said with a start, not realizing he was so close. “Oh, hi.”

“Hi,” he said, grinning.

“Hi,” she said, smiling back. “Do you want me to keep talking?”

“For the rest of your life,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her quickly and very gently.

“Guess what?” he said as they broke apart.

“What?”

“I'm not gullible!”

“Okaaay,” she replied, not having the faintest idea what he was talking about. “And I'm not an eggplant, so we both win!”

“Oh, Alce,” Homer said, tears in his eyes. He just sighed deeply and shook his head.

“I know,” she said, reaching with her far arm to stroke his cheek. “I know. But, apples, do I have stuff to tell you!”

“I have to get you out of this tree first,” Homer said, wiping his eyes.

“That's not going to be so easy,” Alcie said. “Hades and Persephone both said I might end up stuck somewhere. I kinda thought they were joking at first, but look.”

She pointed to her right shoulder. Sure enough, a small branch, about the diameter of a string bean, was growing into her shoulder from the back and sprouting out from the front in several smaller branches from which hung two clusters of hard red cherries.

“Actually, the tree is in me.”

“Does it hurt?” Homer asked.

“No, that's the weird part.”

Homer pulled a short knife from his pouch and began to cut the tree branch about a centimeter away from Alcie's back. Homer sawed fast, keeping the blade away from Alcie's skin. At last, Alcie was free. As she went to throw her arms around Homer, she nearly fell out of the tree.

“I think I'll wait until we're down,” she said.

Descending as fast as they could from branch to branch, Alcie not wanting to let go of Homer even for a moment, at last their feet hit the ground. Alcie threw her arms around Homer, then immediately drew back.

“Ouch!” she cried, staring down at the tiny branches poking through her shoulder.

“Gods!” he said. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be sorry,” she said, gazing at him. “Don't ever be sorry. Just be careful.”

Homer pulled her left side close to him and draped one arm lightly around her neck. They stood like that until a breeze shook the fruit around them and brought them back to reality.

“First things first,” Alcie said. “We have to find Pandy and Iole and whoever else that was.”

“His name is Douban and, man, is
his
story wild!” Homer replied. “We need to be able to see. Let's go check out that light.”

He led the way through the grove to the far wall of the garden, where a single flame burned low in a dull, brass lamp. Alcie went to reach for it, when Homer suddenly stopped her hand.

“Wait,” he said. “I just remembered. Douban's father said something about this lamp. He said that a genie might be living in it. And it's a bad genie. Like, not good.”

Alcie now regarded Homer as if he had gone mad.

“Excuuuuse me?” she said. “In this? Something lives in this?”

“Or he might have escaped.”

“Well, I have no idea what a genie is, but I don't care if the Minotaur itself is inside, I say we use it,” Alcie said. “We got nothin' else.”

Removing the lamp from its niche, Alcie carried it back through the grove of trees. Now, even with such a tiny source of light, the fruit on the trees sparkled brilliantly.

“What in the name of Hercules are these things?” Homer asked, catching bright flashes of red, green, and purple. He was trying to keep up as Alcie, nimble as a dryad, hurriedly picked her way around the thick tree trunks.

“Don't know,” she called back to him, moving fast. “Don't care right now.”

At that moment, Alcie nearly tripped over an oversized root growing several centimeters out of the earth. Homer neatly caught her just before she fell flat.

“I've missed doing that.” He smiled.

“I'm not
that
clumsy,” she said.

“Whatever you say,” he said, and he threw his arms around her again.

“Come on,” she said, breaking away with a laugh.

Reaching the large opening to the room of golden coins, Alcie stopped abruptly.

“You came through here, right Homie?”

“Yep,” he answered.

“Well, this was the last place I heard both Pandy's and Iole's voices, so they have to be here.”

“Yeah, but there are other voices in here, too,” Homer began, trying to warn her of malevolent spirits.

“Good,” she interrupted him. “They can help us look.”

“Or not,” he said softly. “Alce, don't touch anything. I mean it. There's lots of gold … like, coins. We have to be careful not to touch any of it. I think it may have something to do with Iole's and Pandy's disappearance.”

“I am not interested in gold,” she said, surprising herself. “I have to find my friends.”

She stepped into the room and held the lamp high.

“Wow!” she said, surveying the enormous piles of coins. “You weren't kidding.”

“Do you hear anything?”

“No,” she answered.

“Good. Let's see if we can get some light. There are lamps hanging from the ceiling,” Homer said.

He took the brass lamp from Alcie and, reaching as high as he could, tried to get the oil to catch. But the room remained dark and cold. Taking back the lamp, Alcie doggedly, and very carefully, picked her way around the jars of golden coins, mindful not to touch a single piece. She moved deeper into the room, calling for Pandy, lifting the lamp high and low as Homer trailed after her.