The Gatekeeper's Sons (The Gatekeeper's Trilogy) (15 page)

“I really am sorry, Therese,” his voice was low and husky. He stopped and took her hand. “I’m so sorry people and animals have to die. I wish there were another way.”

He seemed more upset than she had realized, as on the verge of punching something, and she wanted
badly to fling herself into his arms and let them each wash away the other’s pain, but she checked herself. “Thanks.”

He released her hand and walked her up to her front screened porch. “Will you come early tomorrow for a swim?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“You need to do something to heal the pain,” he said.

“You see your first death, and now you’re an expert,” she snapped, and then immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. See you in the morning.”

Therese went inside to find Carol wrapped in a blanket on the living room couch watching a movie. “You alright?” Carol asked.

“I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

“Are you sure? You don’t want to talk about it?”

“I’m sure.”

Clifford jumped from the couch beside Carol and followed Therese up the stairs. She turned off Jewel’s lamp and told her good night. Puffy was in his wheel already at work. Therese climbed out of her soggy clothes and went to her bathroom to take a long hot shower. Clifford stood outside the shower curtain waiting, as though he sensed she was upset and needed a friend.

Once she was dry and in her nightshirt, Therese cuddled with Clifford on her bed. She felt bad for snapping at Than when he was only trying to help. She was also worried he might not like her anymore. Why did she have to be so rude? She took the stringy stuffed animal toy lemur from where it hung on the headboard post and wrapped it around her neck. She couldn’t stop her mind from replaying the tragedy with Dumbo over and over. Her mind went from the tragic events on the pasture to those at Huck Finn Pond. Therese closed her eyes, wishing she could die, too.

Before she had fallen completely asleep, she felt a presence other than her pets in her room, and her eyes snapped open. The moonlight washing into her room wasn’t bright, and she could see no one. She could have sworn she felt someone standing over her bed looking down at her, about to touch her face. She stopped breathing to listen, but after seeing and hearing nothing more but Puffy running in his wheel, she closed her eyes and told herself it must have been a dream.

Chapter Sixteen: Doubts and Confliction

After leaving Therese safely at her door,
Than went to her room and, in invisible mode, conversed with the hamster and the tortoise.

“I love her,” he said in each of their tongues. “And she’s hurt. Please comfort her. Can you please?”

“If she picks me up!” The hamster said, as he ran round and round. “Good human! Good human! I’ve known others, and she’s good! If she picks me up, I’ll lick her with my tongue!”

Than
turned to the tortoise, which now said, “She’s loving and tender. So gentle and loyal. I try as best as I can to let her know I love her, too.”

A noise came, and the
n Therese entered. Than softly thanked the animals, and listened as the tortoise said a bit more. Then Than took his leave.

He
soared down past the abyss, past Cerberus and the gate and down to his father’s chamber in such a state of fury that the bats swirled down from their perch and made their escape into the cold night earlier than was usual. Although Hades must have foreseen his son’s arrival, he still showed surprise at his son’s rage, the son whom he was used to seeing as the more temperate of his two boys. A tinge of guilt ran through Than as he told himself to show more control.

His sister
Alecto stood in the shadows beside their father. Her fire-red hair stood up in a Mohawk and contrasted with her deep black, beautiful eyes. A choker of black stones adorned her neck and similar stones served as buttons in her leather jacket and tight leather pants and high-heeled boots.

“
Thanatos?” Hades asked. “Alecto was just apprising me of her progress in a number of the Furies’ pursuits, including the killer of your girlfriend’s parents. But something tells me you are not here for a report.”

“Have you found him?” he asked his sister.

She shook her head.

“Why are you here?” Hades asked Than.

Than tried to think how to put his sorrow and his shame and his desperation into words, but no words seemed to fit the caged and raw emotion he had never before felt. Finally, seeing his father was in a patient mood, Than swallowed and said, with more control and less rage than he felt, “I used to envy the humans their short lives. Their deaths make their lives more meaningful.”

“You no longer think it now?”

“I still think it, Father. Death is better than immortality, a yoke only we gods must bear.”

“I can’t see your thoughts, son. You must speak them.”

“Death is good for those who die, but not for those left behind. Why haven’t I understood before tonight the depth of that pain? If a horse could raise so much anguish in my mortal heart, I can only imagine what the loss of a parent or child would do. Father, I’ve ignored countless prayers from billions of souls because I felt there was nothing I could do; but I’m a god. Surely there is something?”

Hades looked down his thin nose at Than. He scratched at his beard and, Than could see, stifled a smile.

“Are you laughing at me?” Than said, moving dangerously close to his father.

Alecto
stepped back, further into the shadows.

“Not at you. At the whole cosmos.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Than asked.

“Son, nothing is free.
Everything comes with a cost. As you have said, the mortal creatures of the world, at least the good ones, are fortunate that their lives end and their souls spend the rest of eternity in near oblivion; unlike we who must endure our mundane tasks forever. You said yourself that the brevity of their conscious lives makes their journey more meaningful than ours. We are like caged hamsters in a wheel, spinning, spinning, spinning. Humans have but one spin, one go, one bright moment and then the flame goes out.

“The advantage of mortality is clear to us, but not to them, and that is why those left behind suffer. They miss the company of their loved ones, but it is the feeling that the deceased no longer exist
that hurts the most. This is the cost mortals must pay. Let me put it to you this way: Mortality is better than immortality, but only the immortal have the ability to see this, and there lies both the irony and the cost of human happiness.”

Than shook his head. “So there really is nothing then? Nothing we can do to ease that cost?”

“If there is a way we gods can ease that burden, it is by inspiring this understanding into the human heart. I don’t know if it is possible, though. They have such limited minds.”

Than
sat at the foot of his father’s throne on the hard, cold rock awash with defeat.

Hades asked, “A horse’s death has brought you to me in fits?”

Than looked up, ashamed. “Hip winked at me as he took the soul of the creature, completely ignorant of the pain we were feeling. How many times have I been so calloused as that?”

“Never. You and your brother are very unlike each other, as I am to mine.”

“It wasn’t the horse’s death that hurt so much as the pain I could feel in the humans left behind. That and the overwhelming feeling of helplessness. And also the rage that I, a god, could do nothing.”

Hades smiled. “I am familiar with the feeling. I suppose it is good that gods are humbled now and then.”

Than said nothing.

“How goes it with the girl?” Hades asked.

Than, used to being honest for so many centuries, could not find it in his heart to lie. He glanced at Alecto, unsure if he wanted her to hear, but went on and said, “I love her, but I’m having second thoughts about teaching her to love me.”

Hades lifted a brow. “You find her unworthy?”

“No. Just the opposite.”

“I find that insulting and despicable. Don’t weary me this way.”

Than stood up. “You don’t understand me because I can hardly explain myself. What I’m trying to say is that she loves the Upperworld and its inhabitants more than most humans, and I worry I would make her into a despondent wife down here.”

“There is no other kind of wife down here,” Hades said. “Remember that.”

Chapter Seventeen: The
Wildhorse Saloon

Therese woke up sore Wednesday morning. She climbed out of bed, stiff and in pain. She replayed the events of the previous evening over in her head and shuddered. Maybe she should stay home. She picked up the phone and called Jen.

“My mom warned me you would call,” Jen said on the phone. “But she says it’s really important that you come this morning. You’ll
heal a lot faster if you do. Moping around all day will make it worse. My mom had to threaten Bobby for the same reason.”

“But I’m in pain,” Therese objected. “I hadn’t gone riding in a year. And I fell down and hurt myself, remember?”

“We can’t make you come,” Jen said, “but my mom will be very disappointed and really upset. It’s your choice. Don’t forget we still have the Wildhorse Saloon tonight. I’ve gotta go.”

Therese groaned. She couldn’t have the entire Holt family angry with her, especially when she still felt guilty over what had happened. She kept thinking if only she had been in better control of Dumbo, things might have happened differently. Reluctantly, she threw on some clothes and sneakers and headed downstairs. She shared some breakfast with her aunt before they and Clifford climbed into Carol’s car. She kept her eyes out for Than as she absently made two braids in her hair, but didn’t see him along the dirt road. When they reached the tall grass across from the Holts’ house, she craned her neck to see if he might be swimming. His golden figure glided through the water. After she climbed from the car and thanked her aunt, she followed Clifford across the field to the lake where Than was swimming.

“Come in,” he said when he saw her watching him from the bank where his clothes sat piled in a heap. “It feels great.” His eyes sparkled in the sunlight, and his wet hair and body glistened.

Sometimes a weird feeling that he was merely a product of her imagination made her long to touch him to make sure he was real. “I didn’t wear a suit.” She was relieved he wasn’t mad about the way she had snapped at him yesterday. “But maybe another time.”

He swam toward the shore and stood up where the water grew shallow. His skin glowed as the sun behind her sprayed its rays across his wet body. Therese turned away from his beauty. Sadness still hung over her.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you yesterday.” Her voice cracked.

“No apology necessary.”

She waited for him while he climbed into his clothes. She tried not to steal glances at him, but she failed miserably. Clifford came up to Than for some affection.

“Hi, Clifford.” Than patted the dog’s head. Then he turned to Therese. “Ready?”

They walked across the tall grass and dirt road to the gravel drive leading to the Holt house. Than asked her a few more questions, like what was Clifford like as a puppy and she as a little girl. He laughed when she told him about the time she lost Jewels in the woods and had actually called 911 and the person on the phone thought Therese was talking about a younger sister.

“I got in a lot of trouble for that,” she said. She looked over at him and took in his grin. It unnerved her, but she managed to ask, “Have you ever gotten into trouble?”

“Never,” he said.

“Never ever?”

“Nope. I’ve always been good. My brother, on the other hand, well, that’s another story.”

“You have a brother?”

“A twin. But we’re not identical. I got the good looks, the sense of humor, and the charm. He got the more devilish qualities.”

Although Than was laughing, like he was only joking, Therese froze in her tracks.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She’d heard something like that before. A chill moved down her back. “Um, nothing.” She shook her head, reminding herself that what she was about to suspect was entirely impossible, but as she looked at Than through the corner of her eye, she could have sworn he was laughing at her.

Jen and Bobby were coming from the house at the same time Than and Therese approached the pen. Mrs. Holt was already in the pen working on the General.