Damaged Gods

Something is different about this place.

“We should go back,” little Pell says. He’s panting from the effort of the run. “We’re not supposed to be out here.”

“But it’s so close,” I hear myself say. “If you squint your eyes, and look through the trees, you can see. Can’t you see it, Pell?”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then he nods. “I can. But we should stay here.” He’s looking at me now, his eyes filled with hesitation.

“Don’t you want to peek?” I don’t even know what I’m talking about. But I don’t care, either. I stop trying to understand it and just give in to the wood nymph life with Pell.

“Of course I do. But if we’re caught—”

“We won’t get caught. We’re so fast. We’re like the wind.”

Pell isn’t buying it. “He doesn’t need to chase us to catch us.”

I look across the flower meadow and sigh. Things are different here. The tree leaves on the other side are a burnt orange color. Like fire. They remind me of the burning glow of embers inside Pell’s horns. And the flowers are mostly yellow. And both orange and yellow are pretty, but these flowers and trees use the color as a warning. Like a poisonous frog.

I hold out my hand. It’s balled up tightly into a fist. Pell looks down at it, then back up at me. His yellow eyes are the color of sunshine on a summer day. He knows what the fist means, even if I haven’t quite caught up to myself yet, so he just nods his approval.

I take a deep breath, then close my eyes and picture what I want to see. Then I open them and my fist at the same time and an army of fluttering moths bursts up out of my palm.

The beautiful wood nymph moths are a flurry of orange and brown and yellow spots as they take off across the meadow. They hold a swarm formation until they reach the burnt orange leaves of the trees. Then they drift apart and flutter off and when I close my eyes again, I can see through them. As them. Hundreds of eyes see millions of things as we make our way through the wood, our wings brushing against leaves.

Some of us are eaten by perching lizards or waiting frogs. But most of us just keep going.

“What do you see?” Pell’s voice is low. Like he’s afraid. I don’t blame him. This wasn’t his idea. It was all me. I’m the one who wants to break the rules. I’m the one who wants to see their secrets.

He’s here so I don’t have to be alone.

I’m never alone. I love that about him.

“There’s a temple,” I say, telling him what my million eyes are seeing.

“What’s it look like, Pia?” Now he’s excited. He wants to know just as much as I do.

“It’s stone,” I say. “Dark stone like the kind you see in a river. And there’s an archway—”

Then… I don’t know what happens. I shift. My current consciousness collides with the fantasy and the little chimera me says, “It’s the freaking sanctuary. And did you just call me Pia?”

But it’s my grown-up voice, not my kid one.

Pell says, “You feel so fucking good.” But his voice is different too. And when I stop looking through the eyes of the beautiful wood nymph moths and see through my own eyes instead, he’s regular Pell again. Tall, muscular, monster Pell.

And when I look down, I’m grown-up Pie. Wood nymph Pie. Sitting in his lap, gripping his shoulders as we move in a rhythm. We’re still in the woods. But the dream world of chimera children is gone. Now we are just heavy breathing and sweat. Pell is looking at me with lust. We’re on the ground now, his back pushed up against the smooth white bark of the tree trunk, and he’s twisting his fingers into my long, blonde hair as we go searching for the climax.

I close my eyes, and for a moment my vision flickers between the two places. Those moths are still on their mission. Circling the temple in the burnt-orange woods. And I can still see through their eyes.

“What do you see?” It’s little Pell again.

“Gods,” I say. “Fighting.”

“Who? Which ones?”

“Juno,” I whisper. “And Saturn. Ostanes is there as well.”

“What is he doing to her?” Little Pell’s voice is no longer calm. He sounds worried. In fact, he doesn’t sound like Pell at all.

“They’re just shouting.”

“He’s going to hurt her, Pia. He’s going to hurt her until she tells him where she put it.”

I shake my head, eyes still closed. “She’s going to hide us. She told me.”

“What?” Pell’s voice is deep again, but his question is just an instinct. Like the running. He and I are moving fast. Frantic to reach the end and get relief. And when I open my eyes the view of the temple is gone and there is nothing left but us.