Discord's Apple

He didn’t remember falling asleep. When he awoke, the sun was rising. He lay on the floor, curled on his side, the sword near to hand. Evidently, he’d collapsed where he knelt and slept through the night.

At once, he sat up.

The sun was rising, meaning that it had set and that night had come to the Sun Palace.

13

Evie went to the Storeroom.

The instinct assailed her as soon as she crossed the threshold.

It’s not hers.

“I know, I know,” Evie murmured. She was speaking to herself, because the whispering voice was her own.

She opened the drawer that held fruit: dried fruit, jeweled fruit, some pomegranate seeds in a little crystal box—the ones Persephone hadn’t eaten. She had to dig in the back of the drawer for the apple of Discord, as if it hid from her. Her fingers skittered off it as it rolled away. She used both hands to trap it and pick it up, then secured it in the pocket of her army jacket, where it lay like a lead weight.

When she turned to go back to the door, the Storeroom had become a mess: boxes pulled into the aisles, flagpoles toppled across her path. Evie had to wrestle through the mess, shoving crates back into place, straightening spears and poleaxes out of the way. The shafts of wood were slippery, and she never imagined she could be so clumsy. She kept knocking things over.

This was taking too long. She slumped against a set of shelves and glared at the would-be museum pieces around her.

“I’m in charge of this place, aren’t I?”

Only when your father dies. She didn’t want to be in charge of it, not ever, if she had to watch Frank die.

She pushed on. It shouldn’t leave here.

“What difference does it make? Hera gets the apple, she starts a war that’s going to start anyway.”

There is no story for this.

The apple belonged to Aphrodite; that was how the story went. Paris had given it to her. She might return for it someday.

“I don’t know what Hera will do to Dad. I don’t know how else to help him.”

At last she cleared enough of her way to reach the threshold. She put her hands on either side of the doorway and waited. The apple seemed heavier than even a sphere of gold ought to be—so heavy, she couldn’t drag it another step.

She took a deep breath. She hated this. She’d escaped, she’d gotten away from this town, and now the house itself wanted to lock its hold on her. That was the destiny she’d fought against: she hadn’t wanted to grow up to manage the Safeway or be a cop in town, or at best go to Pueblo to work in a bank or in real estate. That wasn’t her destiny, she was better than that.

Better than her dad, who’d stayed to take care of the Storeroom?

He’d had a family, worked like a dog his whole life to support them, to send her to college. He’d taken care of his parents, all of it with strength and patience. She’d abandoned all that. She couldn’t wait to leave her parents, and soon they’d both be dead.

That was why he had to live, why she had to save him. She couldn’t watch over the Storeroom, because she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in Hopes Fort. She didn’t have the courage.

“Isn’t the whole Storeroom more important than one thing in it?”

No answer came.

“If I have to use this to bring him back, so he can be caretaker again, isn’t that okay?”

It was a rationalization. She didn’t need the phantom voice of instinct to tell her that.

“If I don’t bring this to her, she’ll come and take it. She might destroy everything to get it.”

Something in that rang true, because the instinct wavered, the sanctity of the Storeroom thinned.

You’ll return. You’ll stay to take your Father’s place.