Little Gods (3 page)

“Oh, yes.” She nods, her hands folded neatly in her white lap. “Without a doubt. You can be destroyed by your loss, emptied out and drained. But without our help ... it is unlikely that you will come out whole on the other side."

“It's supposed to get easier with time,” I say.

She smiles, perhaps, but the light touches her slantwise, so I can't be sure. “Yes. I make it so."

“I don't care. Without Emily, nothing matters.” And then, bitterly: “And it
is
my fault that she died."

“I can help,” she says, and I hear the pattering of moths again, white moths against the windows. “The process is broken, but ... I can make you forget. Carry away your memories, carry away your pain. This house and everything in it"—she makes a sweeping gesture—"is an engine of grief. But that engine cannot run smoothly, now; your perception ruins that. Let me soothe you. Let me make it easy. Let me take it all away."

The moths are inside now, flying around her head, and I remember reading once about a sort of moth that drinks tears to survive, clustering around weeping eyes to drink. I wonder if these are that sort of moth, and think: of course they are. They can drink my pain away, and leave cool white flutterings where the hurt used to be. That's her offer, her gift.

Anger penetrates my grayness. “No,” I say. “No, no, no. No forgetfulness. I loved her. I won't give that up."

She brings her hands together, as if in prayer, and kisses her fingertips. The moths swarm together for a moment, then disappear like candle flames going out. “Then another way,” she says, and puts her gentle hand on my knee. “We'll find another way."

I do cry, then.

She stays with me. She holds me while I shiver on my too-empty bed. She makes me drink water, but she won't let me take pills; instead, she sings to me when sleep won't come, and though I suspect the songs are funeral dirges from some lost civilization, they serve as lullabies. She says that everything will be all right, and from her, how can I doubt it? And yet, of course, I do. I doubt it.

She washes my sheets, clearing away the dust, taking away the scent of Emily that clings to the fabric. She opens the drapes to let light in. I talk about loss, my loss, and she listens somberly. She watches while I rage, when I punch my fist against the wall until my knuckles are bloody, and in the presence of her patient eyes I calm down, I sit. I am not angry at the house. She says little, but somehow her presence helps me. The grayness of the days just after Emily's death is gone; I am plunged headlong into the furnace, into the boiling pool, into the whirlwind of my life without her.

After the first two weeks, the goddess doesn't stay every day. She leaves me to sort through pictures, clothes, musical instruments, books—these are Emily's earthly remains, as much as the body I saw buried, and I divide them, some to go to her family, some to be given away, some to be kept deep in a closet. I feel as if I'm burying her all over again.

The goddess comes every few days, and though I tell her that I feel so broken and torn-apart at times that I fear I'll never be whole, she never offers me the solace of her tear-drinking moths again. I hate her for that, but I am also grateful. She is the queen of grief, and she wants me to pass through the dark and the tunnels and the shadows of her kingdom, and emerge into the light on the other side.

I ask her if she was ever human, if her helpmeets ever were, if Emily might, perhaps, have her wish fulfilled—become a goddess of ice water on hot days, goddess of warm oil on sore muscles, goddess of breath in a sad lover's lungs. The queen wraps her arms around me, and the smell of dust that surrounds her is almost sweet. “What I am, I have always been,” the queen says. “And as for others, who knows? If it pleases you to imagine your wife in such a way, do."

Like all her comfort, it is somewhat cold and all too truthful, but I accept her words as best I can.

She leaves that night, after brewing me a cup of black tea and kissing my forehead. My grieving is not done, she says, but the time for her direct intervention is past. From now on, the process will proceed on its own. From now on, it's up to me.

My first moment of happiness comes three months after Emily's death. I sit on a bench in a little park near the sea cliffs, watching the sailboats in the bay. Sailboats have no particular association for me—I never went sailing with Emily, she never particularly exclaimed over the grace of wind-driven boats. Watching the colorful sails in the water, I find myself smiling, a true smile that won't turn to poison in a moment, that isn't a smile over something Emily said or did. This is a smile of the rest of my life.

I see a woman on the sea cliffs, and at first I think it is the queen of grief because she has the same sort of presence, the same sort of
bigness,
but this woman is dressed in yellow, not white. Her dress seems to be composed entirely of gauzy scarves. She dances lightly along the precipice, and when her face turns toward me for an instant it is a morning star, a sunrise after a long night, a sudden downpour of water in the desert. I recognize her in the deepest chambers of my heart—this is the goddess of joy. And behind her come other women and men, dancing in colorful costumes, feathers and shawls and hats and capes—the retinue of joy, her small gods. The goddess of joy leaps into the air over the water and shatters into light, becomes motes of brightness drifting, becomes the reflection of sunlight on the waves. The small gods follow, jumping after her, whooping and singing and laughing, and I find myself still smiling as they, too, turn to light.

The last of the small gods hesitates on the cliff. She wears a purple dress sewn all over with stars and moons. She turns her head toward me, her hair a cloud of soft black corkscrews, hiding her face. My breath stops. I look at her, wondering—do I know that shape, that hair, that stance?

I smell, faintly, a trace of cinnamon on the wind, and nothing has ever been sweeter.

The small goddess (of cinnamon, of one man's love) leaps from the cliff, and turns to light.

I sit, watching, until her brightness merges with the sparkles on the surface of the water, and then I walk away, mouthing a prayer of thanks to the small gods of waking up in the morning, the small gods of drawing breath, the small gods of holding on.

THE FALLEN AND THE

MUSE OF THE STREET

“Pretty wild place,” Madisen said, stepping aside to avoid a drunk retching his way out of a strip club. Madisen splashed through a puddle of rainwater and beer, breaking up the reflection of neon signs and streetlights. The air smelled of liquor, smoke, and sweating bodies.

Samaelle snorted. “Gomorrah was a wild place. This is a playground. Why couldn't we go to Bangkok?"

Madisen took her arm. At six-foot-two, Samaelle topped him by four or five inches. They strode down the middle of the street, and the crowd of drunken pedestrians parted before them, unaware of the angels in their midst. “Eight-year-old prostitutes make me uncomfortable, and Beelzebub is there, testing plagues. You know how he feels about me. I like New Orleans."

“Bangkok's better,” she said stubbornly. Samaelle had relinquished her armor and black wings in favor of a tank top and ragged denim shorts. She kept her sword, strapped firmly to her back, but no mortal would see it. They never did, until the last moment.

A red-bearded man with a dozen strands of beads hanging around his neck lurched toward them. “Aren't you hot in that?” he asked, pointing at Madisen's red velvet tuxedo.

“I've been hotter,” Madisen said, stepping past him.

They passed under a wrought-iron balcony packed with leering, shouting people. Dance music thundered out of the bar below. “Hey!” someone called. “Hey, Red! Show me your tits!"

Samaelle looked up and pointed to herself. The man on the balcony nodded and held out a handful of beads. Samaelle smiled.

The man squawked and tumbled headfirst over the railing. The small portion of the crowd that noticed gasped. A moment later the man stood, unharmed by his fall to the street, and let out a whoop of triumph. He high-fived random members of the crowd. People applauded.

Madisen tugged her arm. “Samaelle, we've talked about the value of subtlety."

“You didn't have to cushion him,” she said, irritated. “It was only a one-story drop. You're no fun any more."

“I don't want a repeat of our last vacation."

Samaelle rolled her eyes. “It was only a small village."

They shouldered their way through the crowd, passing drunk college girls lifting their shirts for beads, hard-bitten middle-aged women drinking daiquiris, and serious bald men with video cameras. “We could have at least come during Mardi Gras,” Samaelle said. “I hear it's a thousand times—"

A quartet of black-clad teenagers passed them. A boy bumped into Samaelle hard, almost knocking her over. Madisen hooked his fingers under the boy's leather collar and pulled. The boy squawked. His dyed-black hair stuck up in rooster-tufts, and silver rings glinted in his eyebrows and nose.

“Apologize,” Madisen said. Samaelle stood smiling, her arms crossed.

“Fuck that!” the goth-boy said, trying to twist out of Madisen's grip. Madisen pulled harder, and the boy gurgled as leather bit into his throat.

“Don't be a dick, Jimmy,” one of the girls with him said. “This guy's cool. Check out his tux.” Her green eyes glinted with good humor and provided the only touch of color in her flour-white face. She wore a silver choker, a purple plastic skirt, and at least a dozen pairs of earrings.

Something about her face tickled Madisen's mind. Why would a mortal look familiar? She made him think of television, but he'd only seen TV twice, both times certainly long before this girl's birth.

“All right,” Jimmy said, standing on tiptoes to keep from strangling. “I'm sorry."

Samaelle smiled. “Not good enough. Lick my shoes and we'll call it even."

“No way! You've been walking through shit on Bourbon Street all night!” A couple of his friends laughed behind their hands. The familiar-looking girl only smiled.

Laughter makes me think of her, too, Madisen thought. Who is she?

“Jimmy just wears that collar for looks,” the girl said. “He's never licked a shoe before. I tell you what.” She took out two of her earrings. “I think you'll like these. You can have them if you'll accept his apology and let us leave.” She held out her hand to Samaelle, who took the earrings and examined them.

“Let him go,” Samaelle said. “These are nice."

Madisen let go. Jimmy scurried to stand, scowling, behind the green-eyed girl.

Samaelle held out her hand so Madisen could see. The earrings were tiny silver swords, long, thin-bladed and intricately detailed. They looked remarkably similar to Samaelle's sword.

“Jimmy made those,” the girl said.

Madisen looked at the goth-boy. This rat in black was a silversmith?

“Come on, Thalia,” Jimmy said, and pulled the girl by the wrist. She waved jauntily with her free hand, and they disappeared into the crowd.

Thalia. Madisen remembered her now.

“I wonder how she knew I'd like swords?” Samaelle put the earrings in. Her ears weren't pierced, but she shoved them through the lobes anyway, drawing blood.

“She knew because she saw your sword."

“Don't be dumb. Humans never see my sword unless I want them to."

“She isn't human.” Madisen started through the crowd. “Let's follow them."

“I wish I understood what you were talking about sometimes,” she complained.

“Don't you recognize the name?” Madisen said, walking slowly through the darkened street. Jazz music played somewhere nearby, a trumpet wailing over the distant crowd-sounds. “Thalia? Didn't you study the other pantheons?"

“Not really. I saw Gomorrah before it burned and went swimming during the Deluge. You always studied too much.” She snapped her fingers along with the music. She got the rhythm all wrong.

“I'll give you a hint. That girl, Thalia, has a few sisters. Urania, Calliope, Polymnia, five others. I can't remember their names."

“Not ringing any bells,” Samaelle said. She held a cup in each hand. She'd insisted on stopping for drinks, and now they'd probably never find Thalia. Madisen didn't blame her, though. Wearing human flesh meant being able to get drunk, a pleasure they seldom experienced.

“She's a Muse. Thalia is usually associated with comedy, but the Muses dabble in everything. In the beginning, they weren't even differentiated. Their individual personalities only developed over time."

“Muse.” Samaelle spat, then drained one of her drinks, throwing her cup into the gutter. “Silly Greek posers. Our job's more fun."

“Agreed.” Madisen put his arm around her. “But Thalia isn't allowed to inspire any more. Zeus has forbidden her to practice."

“What'd she do?"

He laughed. “She inspired performers. She inspired some of them to death. There was this television show—"

“What's television?"

Madisen gestured helplessly. “It shows pictures ... like a play in a little box."

“I never liked plays. Never saw the point."

“Me either. Anyway, there was a television show, with an ensemble cast, some of the best comedians around, I understand. Thalia inspired a few of the actors, but she drove them too hard. They died of drug overdoses, in car crashes, maybe some suicides, I don't really remember. That wasn't all of it. She worked with stand-up comics, and authors ... Many of them came to bad ends, burned out, killed by success. Even the ones who didn't actually die fell apart in other ways, lost their gifts, became like ghosts of themselves."

Samaelle laughed. “Sounds like she was doing our job."

“Exactly. Zeus reprimanded Thalia for driving humans to destruction. She said it wasn't her fault, that she wasn't responsible, but Zeus had just come off a bad love affair and he wasn't willing to listen. He forbade her to inspire humans any more, and she ran away."

Samaelle finished her other drink. “So she kept on inspiring humans. But why would she get a guy to make jewelry if she's the Muse of comedy?"

Madisen shrugged. “Maybe because no one would expect it. A jeweler isn't likely to become famous, so Zeus won't ever notice. I bet she's still dealing with performers, though, just not famous ones."