‘If I have been known to you at all,’ I began, ‘I have been known as a nuisance. Few of you have gone untroubled by my arrows.’
The crowd chuckled softly. Gods liked to be acknowledged; it was a good start.
‘During the summer months,’ I went on, ‘You may recall a time when I did not trouble you unduly. I was happy with my wife Psyche, whose apotheosis I seek today. I could tell you of her many wonderful qualities or regale you with stories of her skill at arms. I could tell you about her great beauty, or the sweet way she snores very faintly when she falls asleep after a long day. But perhaps the greatest evidence of Psyche’s gifts is the fact that I am standing here in front of you now. I do not humiliate myself lightly.’
Another ripple of laughter. But I knew I would not win over the gods with flowery words. They only cared about one thing: saving themselves. So I continued, ‘In her I have found my peace, and if she is taken from me then none of you will ever have peace again. No longer will you find pleasure in the arms of your husbands and wives and lovers. Never again will you feel the joy of your craft sing under your fingers. You will know my grief, because you will endure it yourselves.’
I was nearly panting as I finished, the high vaulted ceilings ringing with my voice.
An uneasy silence reigned. At last, someone in the crowd called out, ‘What domain would this Psyche rule over, if we do grant her apotheosis? A goddess must preside over something.’
Hekate stirred from her seat next to Demeter. ‘The human soul has no ruling deity,’ she said evenly. ‘I propose we offer this to the goddess Psyche.’
This prompted shocked muttering among the crowd. What a thing to rule over, the soul! But the gods’ murmuring was not particularly venomous, since no one felt very territorial about this idea. In the end, the crowd assented to this condition.
With the speeches concluded, voting began. Gods like to decide things by vote: It is clear, public, and involves no maiming or bloodshed, both likely to cause centuries of consternationamong immortals. Servant nymphs set up two baskets filled with tiles, one black and one white. The former represented a vote against Psyche’s apotheosis, the latter a vote in favour of it. An empty basket sat next to them, where the tally would be gathered.
I was vexed but not surprised when Aphrodite dropped a black tile in the near-empty basket to match my white one. Hephaestus followed suit with his wife, which pained me. Hermes took a black tile as well, though I had expected that. He was always doing whatever he thought might win him Aphrodite’s affections.
Hera dropped in a black tile. ‘I thought you’d be pleased to see that I’ve settled down,’ I remarked to the stately goddess.
‘What you’ve done is a mockery of matrimony,’ she sniffed disdainfully. ‘That mortal girl has no manners at all.’
Zeus chose a black tile, but at least he had the good graces to seem ashamed about it. ‘Sorry, dear boy,’ he said with false cheer. ‘The wife would give me hell if I didn’t.’
But there were others – many others – who dropped in white tokens. Myself, Demeter, Hekate, and Zephyrus, of course. There was also a dark messenger, envoy of Persephone and Hades, who deposited two white tiles on behalf of the absentee voters and left without a word. Luminous Apollo approached, shooting a glare at his old enemy Zephyrus before dropping another two white tiles into the basket.
‘For myself and my sister Artemis,’ Apollo said to me. ‘She will not leave her forests, but she is fond of the girl.’
Afterwards came an array of minor gods and Titans, deities of rivers and mountains, who cast white tiles on Psyche’s behalf. From their darting glances, I think they appreciated the chance to get one over on the Olympians.
But still, black tiles predominated in the basket. My palmsbegan to sweat. For the first time, I began to truly consider what it would mean if we lost.
Distantly, I could see Aphrodite’s smarmy grin as she observed me with the nonchalant malice of a housecat watching a songbird. Hekate was muttering, and Demeter wrung her hands. My shoulders felt heavy.
A thought occurred to me. I had an ally I had nearly overlooked, a source of help I had almost forgotten. I crouched down and laid my hand on the earth, whispering to it.
The ground beneath us began to tremble.
Smooth floors of marble fragmented as the earth erupted. The gods nearest screamed and leaped back, clutching the hems of their robes. The tidal wave of earth grew, soaring up to the domed ceilings. An arm emerged from the roiling mass, then a leg. The rubble shaped itself like clay, taking on the appearance of a woman – a goddess – taller than any I had ever seen, with generous hips and large breasts, loose hair flowing around her shoulders.
She towered over the assembly. Gaia, mother of our world. My elder sister.
With remarkable delicacy for one so vast, Gaia strode leisurely across the hall, each thunderous footstep making the torches jump in their brackets. The lesser gods clung to one another and gaped.
Gaia flashed a dazzling smile as she passed me, teeth white as the peaks of mountaintops. In a voice that echoed in my skull, she whispered,‘The earth and everything upon it will be moved to help you.’
With my head craned up to look at her, I could only manage the slightest nod of acknowledgment, but my heart was re-joicing. Gaia had heard my call. She remembered our friendship stretching over long eons. Or perhaps she merely thought ittime at last to take a midnight walk, to see for herself what her great-great-grandchildren had done with this world.
Gaia walked towards the voting baskets. With an enormous blunt-nailed hand, she reached into one of the baskets, then placed a single white chip into the other.
I would have cheered, but stunned awe stifled the cry in my throat. Gaia turned and walked away, her shadow looming over the assembly like that of a passing cloud, until she returned to the ragged hole in the marble from which she had torn her makeshift body. Gaia tipped back her head and spread her arms, falling back into the earth with a crash that rattled the teeth in my head. The marble closed over her like the surface of the ocean, settling down smooth and undisturbed. There was no sign it had ever been broken.
The denizens of the hall stared after her, then burst into a flurry of whispered hissing. I laid a hand on the earth and thanked my sister for the gift she had given me.
But Gaia had cast only one vote. The contents of the basket looked like the variegated wing of a magpie, partly black and partly white. Athena, goddess of justice, tallied them. Though she had once elected to turn a mortal girl into a spider for having the audacity to be a better weaver than her, Athena was considered the arbiter of disputes among the gods.
Athena’s mouth twisted as she finished the tally. ‘Eros’s side is still several votes short,’ she announced to the gathered throng. ‘The vote goes against apotheosis.’ She raised one slender hand and turned the thumb downward, a garroter twisting a noose.
