The Deep End of the Sea (27 page)

“Wyoming?”

Jocko chuckles as I pan around. There are mountains and open spaces and trees and they look nothing like any I’ve ever seen in Greece or Olympus. “Why not? We’re hundreds of miles away from the coast. I thought you’d appreciate that.”

I’m apparently horrible with gratitude. “I do!” I quickly tell him, but he winks to let me know he isn’t offended in the least. Which is good, because it would truly be further testament of my wretched luck if I were to get off on the wrong foot with Death so quickly. I add, “It makes a lot of sense.” And it does.

“Jackson is a small town.” He motions out of his car window. “Pretty touristy at times, but it’s got everything you need to alleviate boredom yet but also maintain anonymity.”

I stare out of the passenger window at the boutiques and cars. “It seems nice.”

“One of my favorite places,” Jocko tells me. “It’s why I picked it. I love to ski, and the snow is prime here.”

I unsuccessfully hold back a snort of disbelief. Death, a skier? Death as, well ... anything other than what I’ve long believed him to be?

“You should try it,” he tells me, and I’m surprised to find he’s absolutely serious. “Skiing’s good for the soul. Or so I’m told. Can’t verify that one for certain, as I’m soulless.”

I already know the answer, but I ask anyway. “Does anyone know you’ve brought me here?”

The crinkles around his eyes soften. “No, child. My lack of soul is exactly why I was chosen to be your guardian. No god can find me unless I wish to be found.”

I turn back toward my window and nod. The loneliness I’d been dreading finds me and pulls me under. The rest of the drive is done in silence as I languish in a vicious undertow of misery until we arrive at a smart looking two-story log cabin. Jocko cuts the engine and pats the steering wheel. “This is yours to do with as you please, as is the house.”

Mine. So different from the temple I inhabited for millennia, but in so many ways, it feels like a worse punishment. I am being unfair, I know this, but it can’t be helped.

I don’t get out of the car right away, even though Jocko does. I watch him head up the paved pathway but refuse to look at the house much. Why should I? It’s nothing more than a prison, my newest set of cells. Hate, loathsome and potent, threatens to suffocate me. Hate for Poseidon. Hate for what he’s done to me, what he’s taken. Hate for Athena. Hate that I ever could have worshipped her.

It’s all too much. I don’t know if I can take a step out of this car, because I just ... can’t.

A short, plump, elderly woman steps out of the door onto the front porch and confers with Jocko for several minutes before I’m motioned to join them. It takes Jocko calling out my name two, three times before I manage to open the car door. I am a coward in the worst of ways. Getting out of this car means it’s all true. I will have officially started a new life robbed of anyone I hold dear, even my cat.

How can I do it? How? Hermes wants me to be strong, but I don’t feel strong enough to even get out of the car right now.

Jocko is at the car door, his hand outstretched. “You can do this, child,” he tells me, and the weird thing is I want to cry, rail that I can’t, but all I end up doing is placing my hand in his. He extracts me gently and leads me up to the woman, now leaning heavily on a cane. His hand still at my back, he says, “Bernadette, your ward.”

“Ain’t she a pretty thing?” the woman named Bernadette says. She’s missing a tooth on the bottom row. “A face to tempt the gods indeed.”

I hate my face. I hate that she lays a hand against it like it’s precious. Like it’s a gift I ought to be proud of. But it’s not. My face, both ugly and beautiful, has brought me nothing but misery.

Jocko says nothing in correlation to this statement. Instead, he propels me through the front door into what appears to be a very comfortable sitting room. Once Bernadette shuts the door behind us, he asks, “Is everything prepared?”

“Got the paperwork just a bit ago from our contacts,” the older woman tells him before lowering herself into a chair. “Wouldn’t be surprised if you passed their car on the way here. Everything is clean. Untraceable.”

Jocko steers me towards an overstuffed chair. My back is ramrod straight when I sit, my bottom at the very edge. “Excellent. It bears repeating that there can be no mistakes, Bernie. Your master has made it quite clear that the punishment for any failure to comply with his orders will be dealt with the swiftest and harshest of consequences.”

Bernadette’s eyes settle on me. They are so clouded that I can’t help but wonder if she actually can see anything. “I’m not an idiot, you old fart. I know what’s at stake. The question is, does this one?” She shoves her cane in my direction.

I thought it rhetorical, but as nothing else is said and expectant eyes fall on me, I tell them I most certainly do.

Jocko says in that bland, calm voice of his, “What name has been selected?”

Name? I blink and look up at him. I’d forgotten that they’re even stripping my name away from me. I don’t even get that.

Bernadette lifts herself out of the chair with some difficulty and limps to a nearby table. She picks up a manila folder and hands it to Jocko. “Madeline Gregorson.”

One of Jocko’s eyebrows goes up.

The older woman cracks the smallest of smiles as he sorts through the papers within. And, as hideous as the thought of going by anything other than my own name is, I can’t help but let loose a tiny smile of my own. Madeline. Maddy. Meddy. Medusa. It wasn’t too far apart, was it? And Gregorson is almost laughable in its similarities to Gorgon.

“I afforded her twenty-three years, based on your description,” Bernadette is saying, “but I could nearly smack your skull, Jocko. The girl looks like she belongs in school. How old are you, child?”

“Two thousand—” I begin, but she waves her cane at me so closely I’m forced to retreat further in the chair.

“Lords, not that one. The age you held before this all went down. How old were you when it all went to pot?”

“The same—the very cusp of twenty-three.”

Bernadette harrumphs and taps Jocko on the shoulder with the tip of her cane. “She’ll be constantly asked for ID because nobody will believe she’s twenty-three. What an inconvenience that’ll be.”

“I am sure she will be able to handle herself quite capably in any circumstance.” He bats the cane away. “She’s already shown such aptitude time and time again.”

My eyes widen in surprise. He thinks me capable? What a joke. Much to my everlasting chagrin, I am the most helpless train wreck alive.

“Child,” he says calmly, as if he can hear the words in my mind, “there are few who have survived what you have and come out the other end intact. And yet, here you are.” He smiles; it’s not a fantastic smile, nor is it hideous. It’s just a plain smile for his plain face.

Bernadette seems to agree with me, though. “Hmph. We’ll see.” Her milky eyes swing my direction. “None of this Bernadette bit for you, by the way. You’re to call me Granny.”

She’s kidding, right?

Jocko keeps on smiling that nondescript smile of his. “It was decided you needed somebody with you. Somebody who could protect you when I am not around.”

And
Bernadette
was chosen? An old, overweight woman who relies on a cane and has bad eyesight? “And this came from Ha—”

“You are not to say any of their names,” Jocko snaps, cutting me off. I jerk back at the bite in his voice, so unlike any tone he’s used before. But just as quickly as the anger comes, it fades to the one I’ve become familiar with. “Names are like beacons. Remember that, if you remember nothing else. And this particular request came from Bernie’s mistress, who determined her to be a suitable guardian. If I am not mistaken, Bernie, your master has no idea about your placement with Madeline?”

She taps the side of her nose. “A lady’s got to have her secrets.”

I can’t help but stare in mystified horror at Bernadette.

“Looks can be deceiving.” Her cackle is so very witch-like. Plus, those eerie eyes pierce me just as easily as the gods’ do. Can she actually even see? “Wouldn’t you know that best?”

“Bernie,” Jocko sighs, “we haven’t time for that at the moment. I am needed across the globe shortly, and as we all know, mortality cannot wait. A few things bear repeating, old friend. Anything Madeline wishes for is to be accommodated,”—he glances down at me—“within reason, of course. It is up to her whether or not she chooses to work or goes to school. We’ve been instructed she be allowed to pursue whatever she likes locally as long as we can ensure her safety in said endeavor.” The manila folder is passed to me. “Details on your bank accounts are within, along with a driver’s license, birth certificate, employment history, and notable particulars on your past.”

I glance at the folder in my hands. It’s not too thick, but big enough to hold an entire life history of somebody who never existed. Something akin to panic blooms in my lungs. “I ... I don’t know how to drive.”

I know it’s a dumb thing to say, especially when Jocko and Bernadette trade looks steeped in exasperation. “You’ll learn.” Bernadette thumps her cane against the floor.

A clock chimes somewhere deep in the house; Jocko straightens his coat before laying a hand on my shoulder. “I must go now. An earthquake is set to strike in Southeast Asia and my presence is required. Due to my job, I will not be here at all times, but if you need me, I can come to you within seconds. Bernie here will show you how to contact me.”

I trail him to the door, where he hands me the keys for the Range Rover outside. “Bernadette thought it best you had something sturdy, especially with the weather around here. Personally, I thought you could do with a bit of flash, but what do I know?”

“Not much,” Bernadette says. She ducks under my arm and steps out onto the porch with Jocko. “There’s a reason the mistress wants me here, and you and I both know it has nothing to do with my spellbinding personality. It’s because I’m the best choice at keeping my granddaughter safe. And safe is not behind the wheel of some convertible hot rod better suited to cinema. Or,” she adds, jabbing her cane forward, “somebody who has nothing to fear from Death.”

She’s apparently taken to the whole grandmother bit quickly.

One of Jocko’s thin, gray eyebrows lifts in amusement. “Madeline certainly has nothing to fear from me, old friend.”

“Not with me here, she doesn’t. Be gone with you, lovely—as you found fit to point out, your presence is required elsewhere.” Bernadette’s face is soft despite her hard tone.

As for me, I don’t say much at all. The panic in my lungs expands to the whole of my chest. Jocko, the last link I have to ... to anything, fades from sight as he walks down the front path. I watch until the black wisps of smoke that emanated from his body during his vanishing act dissipate in the chilled morning air.

“Might as well come on in and get acquainted with your new home,” Bernadette calls out, already back in the house. “Don’t want to leave the door open too long. My bones get chilled more often than not nowadays.”

I close the door behind me. I consider about what I know about Wyoming. “And yet you are now somewhere where snow piles up.”

She cackles. “True enough, that.” Her cane juts out at me, but thankfully, I’m a good fifteen feet away. I’ll need to remember to always keep at a distance if I want to stay away from that thing. “You want something to drink?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer; instead, she shuffles further into the house, leaving me no option other than to follow. “Didn’t know what you were into, so I made sure to stock up on a little of everything. Got us some coffee, tea, lemonade, both flat and still water, wine, hard liquor ...” Her head tilts toward me, those bizarre eyes narrowed. “Well? Speak up, child. What’s your poison?”

There’s a generous wine cabinet here in the kitchen behind Bernadette, alongside a built in hutch filled with various sized glasses and decanters filled with different colored liquids. I can’t help but flash back to the last time alcohol passed my lips, of the night Hermes and I lounged next to Hades’ fountain, drinking champagne and making love for the first time. How his mouth felt on mine, his body as it moved inside mine, and how that magical experience was headier than any drink ever could be. Even now, I can taste him on my lips, hours after our last kiss—a kiss broken apart all too soon because of Poseidon.

“Goodness, child! I had no idea asking for a drink preference would be so traumatizing,” Bernadette says, and she’s right in front of me, concern etched all over her worn face. And I am crying, and it’s so strange that I am and not knowing exactly when it started.

She doesn’t hug me, though. Instead, she pulls down a bottle of whiskey and gets to work filling a pair of shot glasses. Hers is held high when she says, “To freedom.”

I clink mine to hers. Funny how freedom can burn in your throat and taste like prison.

My bedroom could be taken directly from a designer’s magazine layout. It’s the master suite, which I initially balked at when Bernadette showed off her much smaller room down the hallway, but she brusquely reminded me that this is my house, and technically, she’s a guest (although I should never get it in my head to order her out, because there would be literal Hell to pay). Enormous yet sparsely decorated, it has a very Parisian feel to it in terms of fabrics and furniture. I love it, I truly do, but at the same time, I can’t help but feel out of place in it.