The Dig (20 page)

It‘s late at night but it‘s not the darkness you might expect in an ancient land without electricity. The air is tinged with a faint blue hue, like the light from a television screen. As I walk across the grounds in the direction of the boys‘ apartments, I get a nervous chill at the thought of being the only one out here among the empty open-air marble halls. It‘s okay, Zoe.

Soon you‘ll find Zeus and you‘ll never be alone again.

I turn the corner and the source of the light comes into view. It‘s the Petros, giving off its faint blue glow. I think I hear voices coming from somewhere behind the pool and I kneel down, out of sight. I guess I am still a little scarred from what I overheard at their meeting, or else I would just walk right up to whoever is talking. But instead, I keep low to the ground and creep forward, hoping to see who it is before presenting myself.

My hair is still damp and I‘m starting to shiver. Apparently the Petros doesn‘t give out heat.

Ignoring the frantic buzzing of the obolus in my back pocket, I take cover behind a bush and listen.

There are two voices, one distinctly male, one female. I hear a couple of words and start shaking my head. It can‘t be. I pry apart two branches just enough to make out figures, and it‘s the last two people in this world, in any world, that I want to see together.

Zeus and Hera.

So they‘re talking, it‘s not a big deal, I tell myself. They‘re friends. They talk all the time.

Yeah, sure. But alone, at night, by the romantic glow of a natural pool?

Come on Zoe, you‘re smarter than that. Just look at them. That is not a casual conversation going on. Whatever they‘re saying to each other is very personal. And suddenly I feel painfully aware of my status, alone in the bushes like some stalker in the night. There‘s an intimacy between them I haven‘t seen until now.

Or did I just not want to see it?

Hera reaches toward him and runs her hands through his hair. He doesn‘t push her away.

Girls like Hera always get what they want eventually.

This is all my fault. I let her take me into that den of ambrosia. I stupidly accepted her drink and I drank so much that I confessed everything.

Hera‘s hands are still in his hair. What if she‘s told him everything?

What if she‘s told him about the future and my pathetic crush on him? He might think I‘m not half the person he thought I was.

She lifts her chin. He doesn‘t back away. She leans closer and her lips touch his and his wings flutter and I gasp and I‘m running as fast as I can.

I need to get away. I desperately need to get out of here.

My tears dry in the wind, salting my cheeks and disappearing into streaks. How could I have been so stupid? I could never get a guy like Zeus.

Even if he wasn‘t a member of the Olympus clique, he‘d never go for me.

Ever.

Every few seconds I turn around. He‘s not chasing me. I kick at the dirt. I don‘t want to be here anymore. Olympus‘s beauty only makes me feel worse about everything, brings me this heightened sense of insecurity, of displacement.

I walk the rest of the way to the olive tree grove. A hundred feet past the edge of the grove, a single olive tree stands, as if unaware that all the other trees stopped a while back. I go up to the tree and run my hand along its bark. A wind ruffles through the branches and I watch two small green leaves detach and start to fall. They dance and graze each other with ease, like synchronized swimmers, as they slip through the air. I put out my hands. The two leaves land in my hands.

And that‘s all I need to see. It‘s like the theory of pairs has literally fallen into my hands.

Hera was right. There‘s no place for me here.

I leave the solitary olive tree and make way down the slope until I reach the entrance to the labyrinth, feeling a sad peacefulness overtake me. Zeus was never interested in me. And I‘m so lonely and desperate that I wanted to believe that Hera was, at heart, humane, that there was goodness under all that ecru vitriol.

The door to the labyrinth is huge and forbidding, a mammoth piece of iron hinged directly into the side of the mountain. I bring my hand to the large handle. It is my destiny to be alone.

There is nothing I can do, ever, to change that, and it‘s this knowledge that gives me the physical strength to pull and yank until, finally, the thick, iron door opens just enough to let me in. I step inside with one foot.

My legs are shaking. I can‘t seem to bring my other foot in. A big part of me isn‘t ready to go. And another part isn‘t sure that I even
can
go. Hera claimed the door to the future is in the center of the maze. But Hera also tricked me into revealing all my secrets by giving me all that ambrosia.

I would be a fool to trust her. But then again, the last thing she would lie about to me would be the way out of here. After all, she wants me gone.

I exhale, mustering my courage, and bring my other foot inside.

It‘s dark and hot, and there‘s no word for the smell that I encounter. I‘m reminded of the foulest smell I‘ve ever smelled in my life—the bathroom on a bus on the way home from a field trip to a marsh, that combination of hot dogs and low tide and cheap air freshener. I pinch my nose but the force of the scent is stronger than my fingers and now it‘s as if those bad hot dogs and satchels of air freshener are being shoved into my mouth. I‘m coughing and I can‘t see more than a few feet in front of me in this dark, low-ceilinged vault. This can‘t be right, I think, the temple was nothing like this, and I start to back out but the door slams shut behind me.

I grope for the handle but can‘t find it. There has to be one, I tell myself, there was a handle on the outside so there has to be a handle on the inside. After all, as I know all too well by now, everything in this world comes in pairs to maintain the natural order.

Only as hard as I try, I can‘t find the handle and I can‘t take the smell and I‘m banging on the wall because there
is
no handle in here. I scale every inch of the wall but there‘s nothing. My hands are flat, my fingers pulsing.

This cannot be. There has to be a handle. Everything comes in pairs.

And at once I stop hunting. My spine tingles.

I may not be able to see, but I can hear. And the sound that assaults me is a perfect companion to the smell that I can‘t escape, a coarse and ungodly growl. It sounds like it‘s coming from the bottom level of hell or the soul of a mother who just lost her firstborn. It‘s a roar and a call and a threat, and whatever demon made it is in here, in the labyrinth with me.

I lunge for the wall, hammering both my hands against it in a panic.

But of course it doesn‘t give.

And then it hits me. Zoe, you idiot, you have
powers
.

I laugh with relief. Of course! I can control the earth, remember? And what is this dark, nasty, hot labyrinth made of except black rock?

I focus my attention on the wall around the door, willing a tunnel to form, like the one I made to spy on Hera and the others at the meeting. In seconds I‘ll be out of here, and whatever monster made that horrible noise can remain a mystery.

Only nothing happens.

The wall doesn‘t move. The rock doesn‘t bend. What is going on?

I try again, concentrating harder. Come on, wall! You‘re made of earth.

Obey me…

It doesn‘t budge.

I try another part of the wall, this time placing my hands directly on it.

Nothing.

My powers. They‘re…gone.

Then the growl erupts again, like a horn calling for war. Only it‘s closer this time.

Whatever is making that sound is coming for me.

Coming for me fast.

I have no other choice. I set off into the labyrinth.

And as I run through the dark, stifling maze, listening to the snarls and roars growing closer and closer, I can‘t help but feel certain that my time has come to an end.

I shaved my legs for this?

Ex-Boyfriends And Other Monsters

It isn‘t fair. I‘m not a dumb girl in a horror movie who followed the noise into the basement only to be slaughtered so the girls in the audience can squeal and cling to their boyfriends. I walked in here assuming I could go out the way I came in.

Another roar. I run with my arms outstretched so I don‘t smack into a wall. I‘m horrified at my lot in life—Zeus kissing Hera, Zeus was
kissing
Hera—and now
this
. I get trapped. In a labyrinth. Three thousand years before my time. Maybe I am dead already and this is all just some sort of purgatory. But why would I be in purgatory? I‘m a good person.

I run into the ruddy clay wall hands-first and dust blows at my face and sharply I shift, like a boat tacking in strong winds, setting off in a new direction. But the growl is getting closer, and while I can‘t see in the dark, from the way it‘s gaining on me, whatever‘s growling probably can.

I know I shouldn‘t stop but I can‘t keep going because the smell is swallowing me and the dust is blinding me. I scratch my eyes—surely my lashes are all gone, not that it matters, as I‘ll be gone soon too. I‘m coughing and retching and I don‘t want to slip and I have to run but then it‘s too late.

It‘s happened. It‘s here.

The Minotaur.

Its saturated yellow eyes prove me right—yellow eyes see at night; that‘s one of the many advantages that monsters have over young girls who don‘t follow the rules. But as hateful and huge as its eyes are, they aren‘t the scariest feature on its face—if you can call it a face. The worst thing on that face would have to be the mouth, really just an asymmetrical hole bursting with sharp teeth.

My strength is fading—those teeth are too much—and the Minotaur knows it and flashes something like a mutated smile at me with its off-centered mouth. It bucks its head, showing off its horns, as hard as bone and twisting above its head, rising like spears. Then it snorts through a nose pierced by a thin ring, the breath puffing up its broad, hairy chest.

Nothing should be this big, this cruel and this powerful. It could pick up six bodybuilders from Muscle Beach and eat them like jelly beans.

As I‘m backing away, slowly, I can imagine what it sees. The girl who mistook herself for a god, weak, scared, shaven, scented with olive oil goop.

Look at her, her curly hair spiraling out in so many directions, untamed.

What a mess she is. What a treat. What a fool.

Something this massive and smelly and robust shouldn‘t have a brain, but from the look in its eye, I fear it does. It advances one step toward me but I hold my ground. It stops in its tracks, reconsidering me. A grimace appears on its hideous face. I know it‘s trying to tell me that I‘ll never escape it, that it‘s armed with a multitude of ways to horrify me, to beat me. But you know what I‘m going to tell it?

―Not just yet, demon.‖

I fly around a corner, then another corner. It‘s following me, slowly picking up speed. I notice it‘s not good at quick changes in position, so I zigzag through the maze as often as I can, but even so, I can feel it getting closer. I turn right, burst along a short corridor, and then realize I‘m heading toward a dead end.

No! I don‘t have time to double back and there isn‘t a way out.

I‘m trapped.

The sound of the creature snarling in the distance shocks me out of my stupor. I have to do something.
Now
. I glance toward the eight-foot-high clay wall on my right. It‘s a long shot, and it probably won‘t work, but what other choice do I have? I sprint toward the wall, and when I‘m a few feet away, I jump as high as I can, grabbing on to the wall with my fingers. My nails dig into the clay and I twist and push, springing upward until finally I‘m on top. The wall is no more than two feet wide and I lie down on my stomach, balancing nervously, my hands at my side. I am trying to catch my breath while also trying not to breathe and then the Minotaur appears at the entrance of the corridor. It thunders forward, searching for me, and I try as hard as I can not to move even a fraction of an inch. If I so much as let one speck of dust fall, it will see me up here, and lord knows it can probably jump.

When it reaches the end of the corridor and doesn‘t find me, it lets out a roar of anger and frustration. But it doesn‘t leave. It knows I‘m here, I realize in horror, from the way it‘s sniffing around. I can hear its nostrils puffing in and out, hunting. It‘s only a matter of time before the creature finds me up here. Think, Zoe. Do you really want to die like this? Don‘t you want to see your family? Don‘t you want to tell CeeCee about all this and maybe give Columbia Darren one more shot, now that you‘re single again?

Oh God, why am I thinking about this stuff
now
? These cannot be the last thoughts of my short life! I need to get to that giant iPhone door in the center of the labyrinth and—

The iPhone! It has a compass, I remember in a flash. I can use it to orient myself, then find my way to the center.

But the iPhone is in my backpack. Which means, I have to somehow get into my backpack without making any noise. The last thing I want to do is alert that thing to my presence.

As quietly as possible, I shift my weight onto my hands and slowly push up off the top of the wall until I am kneeling. The Minotaur takes a step, snarling and scuffing along the dark corridor. I pause. It continues to growl, sniffing the ground for my scent. Gingerly, I slip my right shoulder free of the strap and use my free right hand to stabilize the bag on my left shoulder. Then, holding my breath, I reach across and carefully pull the backpack off my shoulder, laying it in front of me.

That‘s when I see that the zipper is shut on the small outside pocket containing the iPhone.

There is no way I can unzip the compartment without the Minotaur hearing me. But the compass is my only chance.

Opening my backpack could kill me. Not doing it
will
kill me.

All right, Zoe, here goes. It was nice knowing you.

I grab the zipper handle and tear it aside like it‘s a Band-Aid on my arm. As the Minotaur lets out a confused growl, I yank out the iPhone and wake it from sleep, then quickly tap the compass app. The Minotaur spins around and spots me up on top of the wall. Panicking, I rotate the phone until I find north, swinging past it and then returning to it. The creature is bounding toward me, its huge teeth glistening with anticipation, and I set off in a mad dash.