Helen knew that Scions only get sick in one way. Orion was trying to tell her as gently as he could that his mother, Leda, was insane.
Based on the fact that Daedalus needed Daphne to help him control Leda, Helen knew Leda was not only strong, but that she had to be the kind of insane that was truly dangerous to be around. The house they lived in was miles away from anyone, as far away from civilization as they could get without tipping into the sea. Helen could only imagine the amount of screaming that must accompany the “spells” as Orion had called them. She wondered what it was like for him to have grown up with all that as a small boy.
Orion released Helen gently and turned away from her as he swiped the back of his hand across his face. Helen reached forward and took his other hand, cradling it close to her chest as he collected himself. She studied him carefully, waiting until he turned back to her and nodded, letting her know that he had it together again, and then he led her back toward the house.
“You said she was dead,” Helen whispered. Orion shook his head.
“You assumed she was dead when I told you I was the Head of the House of Rome, but death isn’t the only way a House gets a new Head,” he looked away. “I didn’t know you well enough then. I was too ashamed to tell you. . . .”
Helen nodded, stopping him. He didn’t need to explain himself to her. “It’s okay,” she said quietly.
Another light switched on inside the house, and both Helen and Orion turned their heads sharply to look in the window.
Helen saw a frantic woman with long chestnut hair descend the stairs in a nightgown. Barefoot and mussed from sleep, her disheveled state only added to her appeal. She was older, in her forties, but still shaped like a pinup girl. Her light reddish-brown hair danced around her in a cloud of fat, silky curls that take most women hours with a blow-dryer and a curling iron to achieve. They were Orion’s curls, and the long, shapely arc of her muscled limbs had the same balance, the same perfect proportions as his did.
Half bursting out of her nightgown in all the right ways even though she was obviously oblivious to this fact, Helen guessed that this woman would probably still look seductive even if she’d fallen ass over teakettle down the steps. She was a smaller, female version of Orion, and as such she was the perfect temptation for the opposite sex. Everything about her screamed that this woman was Leda, a daughter of Aphrodite, and Orion’s mother.
“He’s here!” she rasped, running to the widow. Orion pulled Helen away from the circle of light just as Daedalus jumped up from his seat and pulled Leda back before she could get a good look outside. Even from a distance, Helen could see the feral look on her face. Her eyes were opened so wide they were showing the whites, and they were rolling around like a spooked horse’s. Helen shuddered involuntarily.
“There’s no one here, love,” Daedalus said in a weary voice, taking Leda’s shoulders and turning her away from the window.
“Adonis! I can smell you out there!” the hysterical woman shrieked, viciously fighting her husband to get away. “I won’t let you kill my baby!”
Daphne was up now and grabbing Daedalus by the shoulders so they formed a cage around Leda with their bodies. They pressed into her from opposite sides, using their weight to restrain her arms and keep her from tearing at her hair and face. Helen could tell by the gentle, but almost clinical way they went about this, that Daedalus and Daphne had done it many times before.
“I’ll kill you if you try to hurt my baby!” Leda howled, sobbing now, her voice shredding with pure crazy. “I’ll kill you myself!”
“Adonis is dead, Leda! Your brother is dead!” Daphne shouted over Leda until the distraught woman stopped bucking and started to relax.
“My baby brother,” Leda said, calmed momentarily by her confusion. “My baby. My baby brother. But which is which? I know I killed one of them. Who did I choose?”
Leda started rocking back and forth, quietly chanting the words, “My baby. My baby brother,” over and over as Daedalus and Daphne tried to soothe her. Each time she repeated this pitiful mantra, her volume raised another notch until she was screaming.
“Get me out of here, Helen,” Orion said in a shaky whisper. Helen looked at him and saw tears streaming silently down his face.
She immediately wrapped her arms around him and they shot into the air, leaving behind the sound of Leda’s inconsolable wailing. Orion buried his face in Helen’s neck. She could feel his hot tears streaming across her skin and quickly turning cold in the thinning air as they gained altitude.
Shivering, they hovered high over the ocean, clinging to each other. Orion didn’t make any noise. After what Helen guessed was years of practice, he’d gotten good at silencing the sound of his own crying until there was nothing—not even the flutter of his diaphragm—just the fast and deep throbbing of his heartbeat. Helen pulled him closer and flew him away from this nightmare, even though she knew she’d never get him far enough away to make it any better.
Heading south along the coast, she brought them to a pretty little beach somewhere around Cape Ann in Massachusetts and lowered them to the ground. They sat next to each other on the sand, him staring out at the water and her staring at his profile.
“They were close. Adonis and my mother,” he said finally. “They loved each other very much—until she fell in love with my father. All the Houses, but especially the House of Rome, don’t allow for Scions from different Houses to have children together out of fear that it will create the Tyrant.” Orion paused here and gestured to himself ruefully. “When my mom got pregnant with me, Adonis came to kill me—and her, I guess, since she was still carrying me. But my mother killed him instead.”
Helen leaned against Orion’s shoulder and looked out at the dark waves crashing on the beach. She’d figured it was something like that, but sensed there was more to the story. The dull colors crawling out of Orion’s chest were heavy and leaden with guilt and regret.
“The worst part came later,” Orion continued in a strained voice. “You know how the members in each House have certain physical characteristics? There’s always some variation, like Lucas, Jason, and Ariadne who don’t look like the other members of their House. But in general, Thebans are blond and look like Lucas’s dad.” Helen nodded. “Did you also know that every generation has a handful of specific characters who get repeated over and over? They are almost exact replicas of the main characters who fought at Troy. As soon as one of these main characters die, another is born to take his or her place.”
“No, I didn’t know that.” Helen bit her lip, processing this. “I don’t think the Delos family knows this, either, or they would have explained it to me.”
“The House of Athens figured this out a long time ago, but the House of Thebes may not have. The Thebans have always had a lot of variation in their line, and probably haven’t been able to spot the pattern yet. Your House, the House of Atreus is the only exception. You hand down the Helen archetype mother to daughter, but for the rest of us, an exact look-alike can only happen if a main character dies first.”
“Like the Fates have to recast the play with a baby when one of the lead characters dies,” Helen said musingly. “You look exactly like Aeneas, you know.”
“Yeah, I remember Automedon calling me ‘General Aeneas’ right after you electrocuted him,” he said, smiling a little at the memory. His face scrunched up momentarily. “Wait. How could you know what Aeneas looked like?”
“Long story,” Helen said, waving a dismissive hand. “Keep going with yours first.”
“Well, apart from Aeneas, there’s someone else I look like exactly.”