“Hector! It’s your turn to clear the table!”
Helen noticed Noel had a tendency to parse out her anger as judiciously as she possibly could. She needed a good yell, but she couldn’t scream at Lucas because he was hurt, and she couldn’t yell at Jason because he was helping Lucas, so she picked the next boy she could find. It was the same thing Noel had done when Helen was just waking up, speaking softly to Helen and then yelling for Hector. Poor Hector seemed to get the brunt of her frustration, and from the way he slunk into the kitchen shaking his head, Helen had the feeling he’d been Noel’s favorite whipping boy since Lucas got hurt. For a moment she almost felt bad for him, but when she saw the way Noel stared worriedly after Lucas as he winced his way out of the kitchen, she couldn’t blame her.
Lucas paused before he left the room.
“Dad?” he called back without fully turning around. “Helen has questions.”
Still seated at the head of the table, Castor nodded, deep in thought for a moment, and then stood up. “I thought she might,” he said, smiling kindly at Helen. “Would you like to join me in my study?”
Castor took her to a quiet end of the sprawling house and into a half-unpacked study with a spectacular view of the ocean. Leather chairs and boxes of books in a dozen different languages fought for floor space with rolled-up carpets and un-hung paintings. Two large desks stood on opposite sides of the room. The tops of each were already covered in various papers, envelopes, and parcels.
Along the back wall was a row of French doors that opened up to a patio bordering the beach. In front of the doors were two sofas and a big armchair, all three set up facing each other.
Cassandra sat in the oversized armchair reading a book, which she put aside when Helen and Castor entered. Helen expected her to leave, or at least be asked to leave, but after a few moments it was clear that Cassandra had been waiting here for Helen and Castor to come to her and have this conversation. How Cassandra knew there would be a conversation at all was beyond Helen, but Castor didn’t seem surprised.
Castor offered Helen a seat on one sofa and then sat down on the other. He glanced at Cassandra, dwarfed by her giant chair, and then began.
“How much do you know about Greek mythology?” he asked.
“You mean, like the Trojan War?” she asked in return. When Castor nodded, she shrugged. “I know bits of it. A queen named Helen left her husband and ran off with a Trojan prince named Paris. Her husband came after her with a thousand ships full of Greek soldiers, and there was a long war. Something about a wooden horse . . . and that’s about it.” Helen grimaced sheepishly. “I never read the actual book.”
“Well, that’s notexactlyhow it started. But close enough for now,” Cassandra said, passing Helen the book she was reading. It was an anthology containing both theIliadand theOdyssey.
“Keep it. We’ve got plenty of extras,” she said with a wry smile.
It was the first attempt at a joke Helen had ever seen Cassandra make, so she forced a smile in response.
“I’m pretty sure my son has already told you that we are descendants of what are known as the Greek gods,” Castor began. When Helen grimaced uncomfortably, he nodded with good humor. “I imagine it’s hard to grasp, but you have to understand that Homer was a historian, and theIliadand theOdysseywere accounts of a real war that took place thousands of years ago. Most of the ancient myths and great dramas are based on real people. The gods are real, and they had children with mortals. Half human, half god. We are their descendents. Their Scions.”
“Okay,” Helen said, hearing how frustrated her laugh sounded. “Say I believe you, and all this did happen. Gods had babies with humans? Fine. But wouldn’t all that magic, or the god-ness or whatever, been bred out of us by now? That was areallylong time ago.”
“The gifts don’t dilute,” Cassandra responded. “Some Scions are stronger than others, and some have a broader range of powers, but the strength of those powers isn’t dependent on how strong their parents were.”
Castor nodded and took over to clarify.
“For example, my wife is entirely mortal, but both of our children are stronger than I am. And I am very strong,” he said without boasting. “We think it has something to do with the fact that the gods are immortal. They never fade, so neither do the talents they’ve given us, no matter how many generations pass. In fact—” he started, but broke off, looking at Cassandra.
“We are getting stronger, and each successive generation of Scions is being gifted with more and more talents than their parents were. But there is still some argument as to why this is so,” Cassandra finished.
“Okay,” Helen said mostly to herself. “I knew I had to be something not entirely human. It’s actually a relief to know what I am and that I’m not something awful. But can I ask another question? What are the Furies? And why aren’t they bothering us anymore?”
This question earned a long pause. Cassandra and Castor made eye contact as if they were trying to read each other’s minds before Cassandra began to speak.
“We aren’t completely sure why they went away. In the past, there have been rumors about pairs of Scions, usually a man and a woman, who have found a way to be together and not see the Furies, but it’s never been proven. As far as we know for sure, you and Lucas are the first to manage it. I think it might have something to do with saving a life. I think somehow you managed to save each other, and this freed you from the cycle of vengeance, but I can’t be certain about that,” she said.
Helen had a fleeting thought about Lucas in the dry lands—blind and lost and unable to get off his knees. She pushed the horrible image aside.
“Vengeance?” Helen questioned. Castor saw her confusion.
“The Trojan War was very long with many casualties. It was the worst the world had ever seen at that point, and a lot of sins were committed. No one knows where the Furies came from; all we know is that they started plaguing our kind after the end of the war. It started in Agamemnon’s family, but as the years passed it spread to all of the Four Great Houses and set them against one another. Over the years it developed into a blood feud that has left us as we are now . . . with each House set against every other House to the death.”
Helen remembered the story of Orestes, and how he was forced to kill his own mother to avenge his father, Agamemnon, who had killed his sister. It still struck her as dreadfully unfair, like the Furies created a no-win situation where everyone ended up dead.
“‘Houses’ are what we call the four different bloodlines of Scions,” Cassandra interjected when she saw Helen frowning. “They were royalty in ancient Greece.”
“So, are you saying we’re Greek?” Helen asked, trying to put poor Orestes out of her head and keep up with the conversation.
Castor smiled. “We don’t consider ourselves either Greek or Trojan anymore, but as members of four different Houses that were started by four different gods. Who was Greek and who was Trojan doesn’t matter to us. The war ended a long time ago,” he said quietly. “And the Furies have been our curse ever since.”
