Love or Fate by Clea Hantman Read Free Book Online Page B

that.

NINE
    “W hy do we need to wash their clothes by hand?” Era moaned. “The Furies have powers. They could just blink this stuff clean.”
    We were in our small gray cube of a room, the floor deadly cold, the Venus flytraps snapping away, me in no shoes (they were somewhere back on the River of Moaning).
    “Why, isn’t it obvious?” replied Polly. “The Blessed Ones want us to suffer. They want us to smell their evil. They want us to see the stains from the elegant feast they had last night. They want us to know their dirt, feel their dirt, be their dirt. Oh, I can’t stand it!” and she threw up her hands. Tizzie’s velvet robe went flying and hit me on the head. “Sorry,” said Polly sheepishly.
    “It’s okay. We’ve all about lost it, and why not? This is ridiculous! Absurd! We are goddesses!” I yelled. The sound bounced back at me off the walls.
    “If you say that one more time, I am going to scream,” yelled Polly, pretty much already screaming. “Of course we are goddesses. Era and I already know that, and Era and I are the only ones who can hear you say it over and over. It doesn’t matter to anyone here.” Polly covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Zeus, we’re doomed. I can’t bear this life. I can’t.”
    My older sister was on an emotional Pegasus ride through the sky. Up, down, up, down.
    “ You can’t bear this? What about me?” asked Era, slumped over an old tin wash basin, which was a major step backward from the washing machine we’d had in Athens, Georgia. “Look at what this cheap soap is doing to my hands! They are dried and cracked and itchy and freezing! I feel that my skin may never recover. And I need a bath; I need one baaaad. When will Daddy get here?”
    “Daddy,” I quietly said.
    “Daddy,” echoed Polly.
    But he didn’t appear.
    I went back to scrubbing silently, trying not to notice the sands of time draining on my wrist. Itwas just too depressing since there was nothing we could do about our situation. Our “room” was tightly locked. We had washed dozens of black gowns, black shawls, black stockings since we’d arrived, after a nap that seemed all too short. According to our hourglasses, our arrival had been almost twelve hours ago. And still no one had come to save us.
    “I’m sick of all this black! It’s making me even more depressed! I wish they could at least have some orange or pink in their lives!”
    And then it happened. POOF. The pair of stockings in my hands went from a dark and dreary black to pink and orange stripes.
    “Whoa.”
    My sisters and I looked at each other, then down at the socks. Powers? Powers!
    “That was my powers, right? These were black a moment ago, weren’t they?” Era nodded, while Polly just stared. “Powers! I have powers!”
    “Let me see that.” Polly snatched the stockings out of my hands. “There must be some mistake. How could you have powers?”
    “I dunno. Maybe they’ve recharged or something, like on those Duracell commercials back in Athens, remember? Like, maybe Hera took them away, but now that we’ve been here for a while, inthe godly realm, we’re getting them back because, well, we’re goddesses.” This time Polly didn’t get mad; she just listened quietly. “You try. Wish for something!”
    “Oh. Oh, no. This is trouble, I know it!” erupted Polly.
    “Oh, c’mon, Pol,” I exclaimed, but Polly wasn’t budging. “Fine. Era, you try!”
    “Okay, I want…um, I want a candy bar!”
    “A candy bar?” But before I was even finished questioning her choice, a paper-wrapped bar appeared at her feet. Era squealed with delight. That is, until she looked at it closely.
    “It’s not candy! It’s one of those granola bar things!” she pouted.
    “Who cares! We have powers!” I cried.
    “Don’t get too excited,” said Polly. “I fear this is a trick. And besides, if we do truly have our powers back, they don’t seem particularly powerful.”
    “Maybe we’re just adjusting to