The Dig (24 page)

And then I can‘t see anything again. The darkness rushes in, tighter this time, and my body hurls backward. Trapped inside the black, impenetrable ball of darkness, I feel myself soaring up, up, higher and higher, and Hera‘s cackle will be the last thing I hear before I‘m dead.

Boom!

Thunder cracks all around me. The ball shakes and starts to drop.

―Zoe, I‘m here!‖

―Zeus!‖

―Hang on.‖

He‘s pushing me back to earth. The darkness crackles and vibrates from the bolts of lightning he‘s sending at it. I‘m like a chicken inside an egg, watching as the egg cracks, revealing sky.

Sky?

―Zeus!‖

―What?‖

―You have to stop! If you crack this open all the way, I‘ll fall and die!‖

―Trust me.‖

―But we‘re going so fast!‖

―Trust me!‖

I trusted Hera, who was plainly rude to me the first time we met, who excluded me and took advantage of my neediness and plied me with ambrosia to get the truth out of me, then tricked me into entering the deadly maze. And I trusted her to release me from her powers. But why is it so hard for me to trust Zeus? Zeus, who has saved me time and again, who has been there for me and who opened his heart to me. It‘s funny that all this time, I‘ve thought of trust as a symbol of greatness. Like, if I could trust Hera after all the bad things she did, I would know that I‘m a better person, forgiving and accepting. But trust isn‘t about being better than someone. Trust is about faith.

And I have faith in Zeus.

I close my eyes because I don‘t want to see the walls around me crackle and splinter and disintegrate. I just want to feel his wingspan save me When I open my eyes, we‘re about to touch down. The sweetness of the rescue is overwhelmed by the sight of the gods surrounding us.

They‘re circling like sharks. Hades throws fire at Zeus but I throw dirt to put out the fire. Ares throws a punch, but Zeus deflects it with a bolt of lightning, making him vulnerable to the wild-eyed dogs that have appeared, courtesy of Artemis, their teeth gnashing. They‘re about to bite him but I call upon a hail of stones and they duck their heads, whimpering from the assault, and retreat in fear. But it‘s far from over because then Poseidon raises his hands and water comes rushing toward us, hard as a fist, and I‘m struggling to escape and through the surge of gushing water I see Zeus wrestling Ares, for me,
for me
, and I can‘t let him die. I crack the earth to swallow all that water, and as the forest floor splinters apart, the gods are all thrown off balance, and Zeus seizes the moment and grabs my hand.

―Zoe, run!‖

―Are you kidding?‖ I reply. ―Fly!‖

He scoops me up and we take off. In seconds we are soaring above the land, speeding away from the gods.

―Are you okay?‖ he asks.

―I‘d be better if those things weren‘t chasing us.‖ Behind us come the bats. A dark swarm of them catches up to us and they surround us, flapping and biting at us with their protruding shark like jaws. My stomach flips and twists as Zeus zigzags to avoid them.

―We can‘t stay up here with them, Zoe.‖

There is fear in his voice. It‘s my turn to rescue him. ―We need a wall.‖

―We can‘t fly into a wall!‖

I shriek as a bat-shark catches my boot and I kick it off. My boot is torn. The bat-sharks know they‘re winning. ―Just trust me,‖ I tell Zeus.

―Get low to the ground. As close as possible.‖ Instantly we‘re plummeting down, like the airplane that took my parents, like an elevator without the hope of pulleys. Zeus pulls up at the last minute and we are skimming the ground, feet above the earth.

I stare ahead, fixing my eyes on the ground. I can‘t do it all at once, fight off the bat-sharks
and
cling for dear life
and
conjure a wall. Again I must let go of the fear. I cover my ears so that I can‘t hear the bat-sharks screeching right behind us, lusting for my blood, and I focus as hard as I can.
Now
.

A twenty-foot wall of rock erupts out of the ground. We are headed straight for it.

―Keep flying!‖ I scream.

Zeus shakes his head and, trusting me, bears headfirst for the wall. Just as we smash into it, I soften the center of the wall into sand, and we fly right through it without impact. Instantly I seal it back up behind us, as hard as stone. The bat-sharks slam into it. They die en masse, exploding against the rock wall, their blood scattering into the blue sky.

We‘re flying fast, and I should be cold but feel hot, and when I look back, I see a column of fire tunneling toward us. The fire burns and chases faster after us, closing in. There‘s no time to tell Zeus what I‘m going to do, and when I smell the smoke, I push aside my fear and stare at the ground.

The specks of dirt rise up until I can see the variations of colors that make up the clutching strands of soil, and then we are swallowed up by the earth, plunging through the darkness, falling into a deep black tunnel, going where, I do not know.

We‘re both on all fours, blindly crawling. Zeus leads the way so I can just follow and concentrate on moving the earth out of our way, pushing the tunnel forward to safety. We don‘t know where we are or where we‘re going and the quiet is eerie. We can‘t stay down here forever and we don‘t know how long we have. And it‘s my responsibility to get us out of here because there‘s nothing Zeus can do about the dirt. God, I definitely prefer flying to tunneling. Imagine how he feels, being dependent on a new girl and her mastery of the dirt? The
dirt
.
I don‘t know if it‘s because I‘m nervous or scared or annoyed at the fact that I am, once again, caked in filth, but suddenly I‘m doubting everything and I know it‘s only a matter of seconds before I pick a fight with him. I lose focus and he crawls smack into the dirt.

―Sorry,‖ I say.

He‘s coughing. He‘s probably going to bite my head off. ―It‘s okay, Zoe.

You‘ll get your concentration back.‖

Why does he have to be so calm? How can he be so calm when we might die any second?

―Well, that‘s easy for you to say.‖

―Zoe, what‘s wrong?‖

―Nothing. Just let me focus.‖

And I try, but my head is clouded with doubts. Every time I lose focus and he bumps his head, he doesn‘t jump all over me and get mad. I don‘t understand why he‘s so patient with me when I‘m losing patience with myself.

―Zoe,‖ he says. ―Remember, we‘re deep in the earth, surrounded by land that you, and only you, control. So just relax.‖ And that does it, because I hate when I‘m nervous and someone tells me to relax. ―It‘s not that easy for me, Zeus. You know, I‘ve only been at this for a few days. I haven‘t had five hundred years to perfect my powers.

So it doesn‘t really help when
you
tell me to relax.‖

―I‘m sorry.‖

―God! Why do you have to be like this?‖

―Like what?‖

―So…
nice
.‖

He stops moving. I wish I wasn‘t a crazy person. I really do.

―I‘m sorry, Zeus.‖

He doesn‘t say anything. He probably hates me. It‘s probably over. He probably curses the day we met.

―Zoe,‖ he says, after what feels like years. ―You know there‘s nothing arbitrary about our powers.‖

I remember that we‘re on the run from gods who want to kill us and I know I must really be in love because I don‘t care about the pack of seething enemies. It‘s far more important that my new boyfriend and I get to the bottom of this mess. Oh lord, if I die, I‘ll know it‘s my own fault.

―I thought I got earth because everything else was taken. Isn‘t that how it works?‖

―No, not at all.‖

Oh good. He‘s going to tell me that I‘m beautiful and blessed and otherworldly and amazing and special and then I‘m going to feel all good again and I‘m going to dig us out of here and then we can kiss again.

―You see, you‘re the most…‖

Beautifulblessedotherworldlyamazingspecial
…

―Grounded girl in the whole world. And we‘re
under
ground. So we‘re okay. We are.‖

Grounded?
Is he kidding? ―Grounded‖ isn‘t a compliment. ―Grounded‖ is something that your guidance counselor writes on your college recommendation.

―Did you hear me?‖

―Yeah.‖

―Well, we should go.‖

―Fine,‖ I say. But I don‘t do anything. I‘m frozen. I‘m on the verge of tears.
Grounded
.

―Zoe, what‘s wrong?‖

―Nothing, it‘s just, well, I don‘t know, Zeus. Maybe I‘m just too
grounded
to focus on my ethereal powers right now.‖

―You know that was a compliment.‖

―Oh sure. You‘re the god of the skies, who can soar anywhere in the world, and then Hera‘s all exotic with her power of darkness, and your friend Dio there, well, he‘s Mister I-Can-Make-Champagne-Flow-Out-the-Pipes, but yeah. I‘m supposed to be convinced that you‘re all into the dirt girl.‖

―Of course I am.‖

―Sure. Dirt is really glamorous. I mean, every guy dreams of being in the center of the earth where he can‘t see or move without getting dirty.

Now
that’s
a hot date.‖

―Zoe,‖ he says seriously. ―I wouldn‘t want to be anywhere else right now.‖

I feel tears well up in my eyes.

―Someone like Hera,‖ he says, shaking his head, ―she‘s not grounded at all. She hides in the dark where nobody can ever see her, not really anyway.‖ I think of Zeus chasing her for hundreds of years, trying to catch a glimpse, and I might cry so much that this place floods.

―But that‘s why I never loved her. See, I‘m like you. You‘re so grounded that people are afraid of you. And I‘m so…I dunno, open, that people are afraid of me. Your feet are on the ground and my head is in the clouds, and as long as we‘re together, I know we balance each other out.‖ I can‘t speak. The claustrophobia that overwhelms me has nothing to do with the fact that we‘re in a tunnel, in the dark, where the boundaries are shifting and invisible and the air thick and the end virtually nonexistent.

The claustrophobia I feel is located in the deepest place in my heart, the place where all my fears of love and death and life lie low and quiet, so latent that I‘ve gone through years not even knowing they were there, thriving and growing. Zeus is my soul mate and he‘s right. We are exactly alike, and we are exactly opposite and the idea of someone‘s personality dovetailing with mine in this very specific and irreplaceable way is scary because it means that I‘m…me.

―It‘s okay, Zoe. You don‘t have to say anything.‖

―Zeus,‖ I say. And that‘s all I need to say. I have my focus back and the dirt is crumbling and we‘re moving ahead. I‘m dreaming about the babies we‘ll have one day, in, like, a hundred years of course, and about all the things we‘ve yet to do together, and my dreams are so intense that I know we‘ll survive and nothing will ever go wrong again.

And then he barks at me.

―Slow down!‖

―Huh?‖

―Zoe, you‘re moving way too fast.‖

Oh no. Was he reading my mind? Should I tell him I was kidding about the babies and am in no way ready to be a mom?

―I‘m sorry.‖

―Zoe, you can‘t think that running away is just going to solve everything.

It doesn‘t. I mean, when you met me, I was hiding my wings and thinking I‘d just stay there, pretend to be mortal. I thought that‘s what I wanted.

And now you tell me that I may as well be mortal because in a few hundred years I‘m just a joke.‖

―You‘re not a joke.‖

―Not now.‖

―Zeus, you know how you just picked me up? I was freaking out—‖

―What does that mean?‖

―It means I was scared. Anyway, you have to let me be there for you too.‖ ―Well, look how it all worked out for you, Zoe. Trapped underground and under attack and outnumbered.‖

I lay a hand on his closed wings. I feel them flutter and I put my other hand there too and wait for his wings to settle. ―It worked out great, Zeus.‖ He won‘t look at me. ―I‘m sorry, Zoe.‖

―I‘m not sorry. I never would have found you if I hadn‘t broken the rules.‖

―Look around, Zoe. It‘s not looking so great for us.‖

―We made it this far. And maybe the others will help us if we go back to Olympus.‖

He turns now. I can barely make out his face in the dark. He says,

―They won‘t, Zoe.‖

―But they didn‘t follow Hera before. There‘s no reason to think they‘ll follow Hera now.‖

He stretches out and lies down. ―Come here.‖ There is just enough room for us to lie side by side. He pulls me in and his arms circle my body and he holds my hands on my stomach. We don‘t say anything for a few minutes. We just breathe each other in. We just memorize the way our bodies feel together, his sweet breath on my neck.

His lips find my ear and he opens his mouth. Softly, he sings me the chorus from Rihanna‘s

―Umbrella.‖

I laugh and he lets go of my hands. We both know that we can‘t stay here forever, that it‘s time to move on.

We start crawling through the tunnel again. Within two feet we hear them.

We‘re not alone.

The invasion starts mildly enough. I feel something on my leg and I swat it away and then it‘s gone. It‘s okay, Zoe. You‘re in a fresh tunnel a few hundred feet below the surface. Of course there are going to be a few critters.

Like the one squirming across your forehead right now.

I scream and flick it away. I‘m embarrassed by my response. I‘m usually not that prissy, like those Greeley girls who climb on top of a desk if a silverfish tries to make a run for the closet.

―Worm?‖ he says.

―Just a bug, I think.‖

―Nothing bit you though.‖

―No, I‘m fine.‖

We move forward. Trudging through the dirt. And it happens again.

Only this time it‘s Zeus who screams.

A waterfall of worms pours over us from every direction.

I would scream, but if I open my mouth, they‘ll get in there. The worms are on my thighs and in my hair and wriggling onto Zeus‘s wings. We‘re not in a tunnel of dirt anymore. The worms are bursting out of the walls and the floor and the space for us is shrinking every second.

―Artemis is sending them after us,‖ Zeus says, his words garbled. He ducks his head and shakes off more of the foul creatures.