Queen of the Clueless (Interim Goddess of Love) (4 page)

I couldn't help it; I wanted to believe that he felt the same way about me, even if it was just that one time during dinner at my aunt's house or something. Even before he asked me to be the temporary goddess of love, he was such a great friend. He seemed to like hanging out, and talking to me, and I knew that guys didn't just do that, even if they needed the girl to take over for a goddess who had mysteriously disappeared.

Wasn't that what love was all about? No? Damn it.

Recently
, all Quin and I ever did was train.

What did goddess training look like? Nothing too exciting. The first "power" I got was the aforementioned ability to see and feel people's thoughts and memories related to love. The Original Goddess could do more than that
. She could hear people from anywhere in the world and plant the solution in everyone's minds at the same time.

But because the Interim Goddess (me) did not have that power yet, I was stuck with hearing the problems near me, but with no efficient, easy way of handing out solutions. How do you prompt someone to change a mindset, without access to the mind? It wasn't easy. A few months ago I tried bringing together fellow sophomore Kathy and this guy Jake. Even though they already really liked each other, it still seemed to take forever.

Of course, when I complained about that to Quin, he just delayed my training even more. "We won't proceed until you quell that urge to be matchmaker. Love isn't just about that, and you know it."

But it felt so good, making people happy! Quin was such a downer sometimes. And who said
quell
anymore, or ever, in that context?

In any case, a week or two later, he agreed to start my training again. The lesson? Long-distance commands.

So that day we met after class, and he was trying to teach me how to send a command to someone who was within sight, but some distance away. We were at the open field, sitting on the makeshift bleachers that looked out onto the running track. About a dozen other students were there too, either preparing for a run, already running, or sitting on the grass just doing stuff.

Quin took a seat on the row just above me, his back against the row above him, while lazily munching on an apple. "Which one do you want to go for?" he asked.

I surveyed the field and the other students there. I recognized a few fellow sophomores, another person who was in the basketball team with Quin, some girls from my Lit class. Not that it mattered, if I knew them. I slowed my breath, and tried to tune out the scorching heat, the sounds of conversation, and my own physical reaction to
hot guy sitting near me
. I exhaled, and focused, and then I started hearing it. Hearing them.

Lullabies.

The sound that each heart makes, it sounds like a lullaby. Each person called to the goddess to be heard with that song, and each one sounded slightly different. I learned in the past few weeks that if I chose to listen to one, I could, and that person's heart would unfold for me.

Figuratively, of course.

The chorus started, and I zeroed in on one particular voice. It sounded sweet.

"I got one," I said under my breath. "Girl in white, doing stretches."

Crunch crunch crunch, as he chewed loudly. "What does she want?"

The song in my mind became a voice, and her most immediate memory of love was sucked into my head. "She's waiting for Franco from student council to reply to her text."

"What do you want to say to her?"

Experiencing a memory goddess-style was always overwhelming. In the beginning, it felt like sticking myself into someone's movie, taken with only one camera. But with more practice I started to see how differently people remembered things (as opposed to what actually happened, or what other people saw), and I learned to make judgments based on the assumption that people were generally delusional.

"I want her to relax, and go see a movie with her friends tonight, instead of just waiting. Because he doesn't even know she's expecting something from him," I answered.

"Focus on that, the way I told you to. And then tell her that there's a stone in her shoe and she should take it
out."

I rolled my eyes. He would tack on a physical challenge like that, just so we could be sure I had done it right.

He grinned at me. "Ready?"

I gave him a salute. "Yes, sir."

This wasn't that easy for me just yet, and I knew that even before that total failure with Sol. A few weeks ago, I started with something simple: plant the thought to a person I was talking to, and was within touching distance. It took maybe three tries, and that was why Ms. Farrah, one of our Guidance Counselors, suddenly pinched her nose three times in the middle of telling me how to file the career skills exams.

I wish I could show you how it all happened. To me, it was as if I grabbed the lullaby with my hand, opened it up, and placed a fistful of thought inside. But that doesn't make any sense.

The problem with the distance was that the lullaby wasn't stable enough in my head. Like, as soon as I could pin it down, it would dissipate in my mind, in my grasp, and I didn't have enough time to plant a thought, much less a crazy physical stunt, in there.

This girl, her name was Mara, and every time she dipped into a lunge, I would lose her song. She lunged a third, and fourth time, and I lost her again.

I felt a bead of sweat roll down my temple, and I was about to ask Quin for a break, when he reached forward and put a hand on my shoulder. Just there, so near the curve of my neck.

Mara's song became louder.

I inhaled, grabbed her song, and set my thought in the middle. Gently.

Mara paused, shrugged, and stood upright. She took off her left shoe and turned it over, shaking the imaginary stone off.

I felt Quin take his hand away, and heard another loud crunch.

"Sorry," I said automatically. "I probably needed another minute. You didn
't need to rescue me."

At least I
heard
Mara's lullaby, instead of the silence I got with Sol. Maybe being near Quin made me so much better at this?

He smiled. "Practice, that's all. Come on, I'll buy you dinner."

We trained only after class, and he would always buy me dinner after. I could complain about training all day, but honestly? Post-training dinner with Quin made everything worth it.

There is a list of things that the God of the Sun concerns himself about. It is written in patterns of shadows cast against any surface. Throughout time, Quin has "left notes" to himself on patches of earth, and floors, and windows, and walls, manipulating light and letting patterns form just so.  You'd know what these notes said if you could, well, read shadows.

I couldn't do that. But I imagined that in the face of world hunger, war, and malaria, the possibly-thieving boyfriend of Sol Delloro would have to go to the bottom of a list of
a god's priorities. Besides, this was probably why he recruited me in the first place—so he could outsource this stuff.

"I'm making Sol my new project," I said, waiting until he had bitten into the burger to announce it. Quin never really let me choose the people I helped, as this was some sort of divine assignment. But I was ready to defend this. Sol did come to me, after all, just like anyone else would. She even went to the Guidance Office, just as everyone else who became a "project" had. We even went to the cafeteria for snacks after, which always seemed to happen with other projects too.

He chewed slowly. I tried to pretend I didn't care and wasn't anticipating what he would say next, but all that effort just made me notice how chiseled his jaw was and that his cheekbones were perfect. Not that I knew what perfect was when it came to cheekbones...

"We talked about this. Did she summon you?"

"She came to Guidance and asked for my help. She texted me that she needed to talk."

"You know what I mean. Did she summon you?"

He meant did Sol's heart open up to me, did her heart plead for the help of Goddess of Love and all that.

Which it didn't.

"Well, no. But she's my best friend, and her boyfriend is causing trouble. I think I should do something about it."

Quin did
not
believe a word of that. I was getting good at noticing this about him, these moments when he obviously wanted me to drop it, but wasn't going to make me. Instead, he looked slightly to my right. A light behind me flickered, and the pattern of shadows moved ever so slightly.

"What are you writing about me?" I demanded.

He blinked. "You have to tread carefully if you're going to help her out, Hannah. She asked for her best friend, not the Goddess."

"I know. But this is cool. I know Sol enough. I can handle it, and I think I know what can make her happy.
It’s not matchmaking – it’s the opposite of matchmaking!" If I had this gift, why waste it on people I barely knew? Those close to me should be able to find the love they deserve too.

"No seriously. It's one thing to come to the aid of a stranger who specifically summons you, but another thing entirely to do the same for a friend. This thing you do, the access you have to someone's mind and heart like that, some people find it intrusive."

Did I mention that Quin, the Sun God, was the eldest of the children of Bathala and also official Wet Blanket of Everything? I didn't? Well, he always said things like this, and I would be reminded of that fact.

"And you know that thing I keep telling you, that I have probably have good instincts, and that's why you recruited me for this?" I said. We'd had this conversation so many times already that I had this line memorized, down to the tone that was equal parts weary and syrupy sweet.

This was when I bit into my own cheeseburger, and we just looked at each other, chewing.

"Fine," he said, fully sounding like he didn't believe it, "If you think that Sol's situation is so dire that she
really
needs the Goddess of Love, even though she
did not ask for the Goddess of Love
, then you should do your job."

"Thank you. Honestly, I can't think of anyone else who is more worthy of my time."

He sat there and continued to chew. I was sure he had something else he wanted to say, but he let me have this one.

"We have to get going," he said instead. "Your
tita
will get worried."

"She never worries when she knows I'm with you. It's your fault, anyway, for always scheduling training after class."

"Your aunt worries about you. You have to be more respectful of the people who worry about you."

Quin also had a way of talking about something and another different thing at the same time.

"Fine," I said, mimicking him. "Drive me to my aunt's house now. I command it."

I started to settle into the comfy couch at the waiting area of the office of the Dean of Student Affairs, and then realized that the security guard was tapping my shoulder.

"Please surrender your ID, Miss Hannah."

"I'm sorry?" I was confused for two reasons: the being asked to hand over my zombie-face ID, and
manong guard actually knowing my name.

"New policy, Miss
Hannah. Everyone entering Dean's office has to leave their ID."

"I'm just going to ask him about something. I'll be out of here before you know it."

"Just hand me your ID then, Miss Hannah. I just need to log you in, and you'll get it back when your meeting is over."

"Never mind," I said, leaving the Dean
's office in a huff.

It wasn't about the ID, really, but the principle of the thing. I suspected that they were asking for IDs because they wanted to keep track of the people entering and leaving the admin offices, where valuables were often lying around.

Because who had access to the admin offices apart from the faculty and staff? Student employees, most of them SKs, just like me.

I
just needed a meeting with the dean, and I couldn't even remember why anymore. Because I spent the next five minutes pacing up and down the hallway, getting more and more offended by this.

Why exactly? I guess it was the first time that I felt not completely welcome. Which was scary, because I uprooted myself from my home in Manila to go to Ford River, and this was supposed to be my new safe place.

"Hannah."

Hannahhhhhhh.
Vida Castillo's voice gave me the creeps. It seemed like it left her lips and was delivered by invisible arrow right to my ear.

Vida Castillo was the Goddess of the Moon, child of Bathala, sibling to Quin, and inexplicably enrolled at Ford River College doing who knows what. She and I had a brief conversation last year because she didn't approve of me becoming Interim Goddess.

Well that was an understatement. She actually kind of put some silver bangle on my wrist, which disappeared after a second, and told me she would do everything to make me quit. Quin said I should just ignore her, but Vida was also the most popular girl in school. Quin probably didn't realize how hard it was for someone to ignore the most popular girl in school.