Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest (10 page)

She did. The cyclops squirmed and writhed, but she held firm.

“Game over, Clifford,” she said.

Victory over the Gateway guardian had earned Helen and Troy more than permission to carry on their quest. They'd also earned a special reward from the town's prize cache, rare and unusual items of interest that had made their way into Gateway's possession. They were kept in a shack behind Clifford's house.

“You get one thing,” he said as he slipped the key into the padlock.

“But there are two of us,” said Troy.

“You fought as a team. That means only one item. That's the rules.”

“Who makes these rules?” asked Helen. “Everyone keeps acting like they're written down somewhere. Is there a manual we should have?”

“They're just the damn rules. Everyone has to follow them. Don't ask me where they come from.”

He pushed open the door and walked away, scowling.

“What's wrong with him?” asked Helen.

“You kicked his ass,” said Troy.

“Oh yeah. I did, didn't I?”

Smiling, she unfolded their map and used a pen to mark out the scowling cyclops' face with an X. It felt very satisfying.

“That was amazing, Hel. I didn't know you could take a punch like that.”

“Neither did I. Nobody ever punched me before.”

“How are you feeling?”

She rubbed her chin, stretched her right arm out. “Little sore. But considering I just wrestled a godling, I can't complain.”

They entered the shack. Knickknacks and collectibles lined its shelves. Troy picked up one golden chalice among many. “Do you think some of this stuff is magic?”

Helen shrugged. She held up a Gilgamesh Pez dispenser. “Behold the awesome gifts of the gods: chalk-based candy.”

“Does it come with Pez?” asked Troy. “Or would that count as two things?”

She put the dispenser back on the shelf. “Good question.”

They picked through the various items. Troy tried on a rubber mask of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. “Here's a serious question, Hel. Just how strong are you?”

She tapped a plastic skull. “Too strong.”

“How can you be too strong?”

She hesitated.

He said, “It's cool. You don't have to talk about it. It's none of my business.”

She sat in an old rocking chair. “No, it is. We are questing together. You should probably know.”

“I wasn't trying to pry, Hel.”

“Forget it. It's cool.”

She picked up a banjo.

“Until I was seven, I was only a little stronger than kids my age. Then the full enchantment kicked in, and I got stronger. It started slowly at first. I even got a kick out of it. And so did my friends.”

She strummed the banjo.

“Until I started breaking bones.”

“Jeez,” said Troy. “How did that happen?”

“Accidents. Kids just being kids. Except roughhousing can be a little…rough when you're a little girl who is stronger every day. I broke an arm, two legs, and cracked some ribs in the space of three days. After that, parents stopped letting their kids play with me. Not that any of my friends were eager.

“I took it hard. I'd always known I was different. Not like I couldn't know. But the way my folks raised me, they always made it seem unimportant. Horns? Tail? Those were just things I was born with. Superficial stuff. I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me sometimes. Or that I didn't sometimes have fantasies about a handsome prince kissing me and making me normal. Not even beautiful. Just normal. But for the most part, I was OK with my condition.”

She rocked in the chair, drumming her fingers on the instrument's neck.

Troy said, “Hel, you don't have to—”

“That day,” she continued, “with me sitting in my room, playing with dolls and action figures because they were all I had, it's the first time I felt alone. And even Mom and Dad couldn't change that. I was afraid to even touch them. The whole world seemed like this delicate, special place, and I was a monster stomping my way through it.”

Troy prided himself on his ability to know the right thing to say, and in a moment like this, saying nothing was exactly the right thing to say.

“They called in specialists who were able to make an enchanted bracelet that eventually reduced my strength to acceptable levels and kept it in check.” She held up her wrist to show the band of silver around it. “It works. Although the prescription needs to be increased every few years. The doctors say that one day it might not be enough or the counterspell might eventually cause a severe allergic reaction. But it works, even if it gives me hives during equinoxes and solstices.”

She scratched around it. It'd been insistently pricking her arms since she'd put it back on after the cyclops battle. It was as if her enchantment had been given the chance to run loose, and was unhappy to be chained again. The Lost God's curse had something to do with it too. Troy had been scratching his hand as well, and if he was like her, entering the shack had triggered something, causing their marks to throb.

He said, “Wow, Hel. That's…I don't…” He shook his head. “I mean…jeez.”

She chuckled. “I've never seen you speechless before.”

He shrugged. “It happens. Not very often, but it happens.”

“They tell me it's OK to take it off now and then. I don't. I know it's dumb because it's not like I'm going to Hulk out the second it leaves my wrist.”

“But you took it off when you were fighting Clifford,” said Troy.

Helen rubbed the bracelet. “I didn't have a choice. We were fighting for our lives.”

“But you didn't hurt anyone either,” he said.

“He's a godling. I don't know if that counts.”

“It counts. You were in control.”

“Next you'll tell me I don't need this.”

“I wouldn't tell you that. If you need it, you need it. But let me ask you this. If you wore glasses would you be self-conscious?”

She smirked. “It's not the same.”

“Sure it is.”

“The nearsighted can't accidentally kill people.”

Troy turned around, thick spectacles on his face. “Why do you think the
Titanic
hit that iceberg? Hundreds dead. All because the captain thought he looked old in glasses. That's a historical fact.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, I read about it in the book
Tragic Tales of Reckless Astigmatism
.”

Helen said, “No matter what else I take away from this conversation, I can at least be glad I'm unlikely to drown hundreds of innocent people.”

“Not my original point, but you can take that away if you like.”

They wasted another few minutes looking through the shack until Helen found something special in a pile of old shields. She knew she was on the right track when the divine throb became a sharp tingle in her fingertips. It subsided the second she touched the relic.

“I found it.” She held up the small circular shield made of dented, tarnished silver. There was no doubt it was what they were looking for. If the vanishing pain wasn't enough of a clue, the swirling pattern etched into its surface matched the symbol burned into their hands by the Lost God.

“Should we take this as a sign that we're on the right path?” she asked.

Troy ran his fingers across the cold metal. A slight tingle ran up his arm as his own ache faded. “I'd say yes.”

They exited the shack. Thunder rumbled. The skies darkened, though there wasn't a cloud in the sky, only a supernatural inky void. A gale kicked up with hurricane force, but somehow they remained anchored to the earth. The shack wasn't so lucky. It collapsed. Half of it was carried away by a tiny tornado. Drops of darkness fell from the sky to strike the ground as slithering black liquid creatures. The things howled an earsplitting dirge before evaporating along with the darkness and the wind, leaving only the heap of aluminum and plywood to mark their passing.

“Now that's a sign,” said Troy.

“Yes, but of what?” asked Helen.

Clifford came running up. “What the hell did you do?”

“Act of gods,” said Troy.

While Clifford was sorting through the broken shack, they quietly slipped away.

Billi helped Helen load her luggage into the Chimera.

“Thanks for your help,” said Helen. “I don't know if we could've beaten Clifford without it.”

Billi patted Achilles's back. “If I can be honest with you, it's good to see Cliff get his ass handed to him sometimes. Keeps him from getting overconfident. As much as I like him, everyone needs to lose every so often so they don't forget what it's like.”

Helen gave Billi a ten-dollar tip. “Just my way of saying thanks for everything.”

“Thanks.” Billi shoved the money into her pocket. “Were you born like you are?”

“Yes.”

“That's cool. I wish I was special like that.”

“I'm not special. I'm just hairy.”

“Is that why Troy isn't your boyfriend?”

Helen bit her lip. “It's complicated.”

“No, it's not,” said Billi. “You should grab him before someone else does.”

“It's not really up to me.”

“You do like him then.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You didn't have to. People say too much. They're always talking like it means something. But one of the things I've learned from living in Gateway is that the questers who talk the most do the least. It's not what you say that matters. It's what you do.”

Helen laughed to herself. “You're pretty smart, but Troy and I are just friends.”

“If you say so.” Billi sounded unconvinced.

Troy, having settled their hotel bill, came over. “Are we ready to go?”

Helen shut the trunk. “Ready when you are.”

He shook Billi's hand and bowed to her in a way that should've been corny but somehow wasn't. “Thanks for everything.”

Billi nodded knowingly at Helen, who wiped the smile from her face.

“We should get going.”

Billi pointed down the road. “What you're going to want to do is take this road out of town and follow it all the way. It gets a little bumpy in places, but keep to it until you get to the crossroads. You'll pass about a dozen crossroads before you get to the one you're looking for, but you'll know it when you see it. There will be a sign.”

They jumped in the Chimera. Billi gave Achilles one last scratch behind the ears and then they were off.

They drove all day along the dusty road. Patches of broken pavement sometimes eased the ride. Some stretches of lumpy asphalt were worse than others. They endured the unpleasant miles, assuming this was yet another trial on their road to glory.

They reached the crossroads they were looking for as the sun was setting. Troy pulled off the road and parked the Chimera in front of a store. The old wooden structure was quaint in a decidedly deliberate way. Strings of multicolored lights ran along its porch and traced its outline in the shadows, while a soft glow came from its many windows.

“How do we know this is the place?” asked Helen.

He pointed to the neon sign attached to the roof, which read
THREE SISTERS DRY GOODS AND NOVELTIES
. Beneath that, in smaller letters, was written
DIRECTIONS GIVEN AS NEEDED
.

She unfolded the map under the Chimera's interior light. He pointed to the three crude faces drawn as their next destination.

“Why are we always arriving at these places at dusk?” asked Helen.

“Twilight is the time of transition,” replied Troy. “The moment the previous day ends and the new one begins. It's sacred, and even the gods above respect its power.”

She shook her head. “Sounds like metaphysical nonsense to me.”

Troy said, “Probably. But it does set a nice mood.”

Helen let Achilles out. The dog wandered off to find a bush worthy of his mark.

A bell rang as they entered. The interior matched the impression given by the facade. The cluttered shelves were filled with merchandise, equally divided between traditional groceries and novelty items aimed at tourists.

Helen's hooves clonked loudly against the wooden floors. “Hello? Anyone here?”

A dark-haired girl, tiny and perhaps ten years old, spoke up from behind them. They'd only taken a few steps into the store, and there'd been no way for the girl to get into that position without being spotted.

“Hello,” said the girl. “And welcome, noble questers.”

“Thanks,” said Troy. “We're here to see the sisters, we think.”

The girl brushed her long bangs from her eyes, but the hair just fell back into place. “You are.”

“Are you one of them?” he asked.

She nodded. “I am.”

Troy and Helen took their eyes off the girl for a moment. When they looked back, she was gone.

“Where'd she go?” asked Helen.

The girl cleared her throat. She was behind them again.

“I'm always with you,” she said. “For some people, I'm always by their side. For others, I'm far in their rearview mirror. But regardless of how far away you might think I am, I usually catch up to you. Usually at the most inopportune times.”

“You're the anthropomorphic manifestation of the past,” said Helen.

“I'm
an
anthropomorphic manifestation,” said the girl with a slight grin. She was behind them again, though neither of them remembered looking away from her.

Helen was tall enough to glance over the shelves and saw no other signs of life, no tops of heads. Aside from the sound of her own heavy footsteps, she heard only a radio playing “Que Sera, Sera” by Doris Day.

“Are you alone here?” asked Helen.

“We're never alone,” replied the girl, with a grin so coy and enigmatic it had to be rehearsed. “Do you need directions?”

Helen nodded.

“Why do you think I'm the one to give them to you?” asked the girl.

“You have a sign out front that specifically says you give directions. A great big one. It lights up and everything.”

The girl said, “We do that. But what I'm really asking is why do you assume you need directions at all?”

Helen said, “Terrific. You're going to be vague and inscrutable, aren't you? Because really, all we need are directions. You can skip the Zen.”

A new voice spoke up from beside Helen. “You'll have to excuse my sister. She's young.”

Helen jumped.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” said the middle-aged woman with brown hair. Except for the color of her hair, she could've been the young girl's twin, aged an additional thirty years. “Did I sneak up on you? People tend to ignore me. They're too busy with my sisters to bother with me.”

“You must be the present,” said Helen.

“I must be,” answered the sister as she rearranged a display of clams with googly eyes glued to them.

“Where's your third sister?” asked Helen.

A voice called from an aisle in the back of the store. “I'm here. Stocking some canned goods. We have peas, buy two get one free.”

Helen saw the top of a dark-haired head and a wrinkled hand waved at her.

“You never get a clear glimpse of the future,” explained Helen.

Troy chuckled. “And you said you weren't interested in Zen. So are you really the Fates?”

Present replied, “We are fates, though we aren't necessarily
the
Fates, with a capital
F
. There are many of us on these old roads. Wherever monsters still roam and heroes seek their destinies.”

“It's a franchise thing,” added Past. “Like Stuckey's, but with more prognostication. Speaking of which, if you're here for directions, you need to buy something first.”

“Does every oracle of the road sell junk?” asked Helen.

“We have to pay the bills some way,” replied Present.

Troy scanned the shelves. “This isn't one of those things where we buy some seemingly unimportant items that end up being essential to completing our quest, is it? Like we purchase one of these vanity mirrors and then we end up facing a monster that turns us into stone if we look at it directly? Or we cross paths with a giant who collects novelty postcards?”

“A touch clichéd,” said Present, “but not beyond the realm of possibility.”

Future chuckled from the shadows. “Don't listen to her. She's just trying to sell you something.”

“You're saying that won't happen?” asked Troy.

“Oh, it probably will. Or something like it. Though whether it's fate or your own resourcefulness that allows you to defeat a dragon with a teapot is anyone's guess.”

Helen and Troy exchanged glances.

He asked, “You're saying to buy a teapot?”

“If you're so inclined,” said Future. “But you didn't hear it from me.”

Helen and Troy grabbed a few items from the shelves: a bumper sticker, a Lucille Ball bobblehead, some beef jerky for him, some dried apricots for her, a teapot, a bottle of hot sauce, a snow globe of the Library of Alexandria, and a handful of postcards with photos of adorable kittens romping with equally adorable puppies.

They dropped the purchases onto the counter and Present rang them up and dropped the items in a bag.

Troy grabbed several balls of yarn out of a bin marked
TEN FOR A DOLLAR
.

“That's a good price.”

“We have tons of it,” said Present. “Too much. We tried to stop delivery after we gave up weaving, but they just keep sending the stuff to us. If you like it, just take it. Take as much as you want. We don't need it.”

“Leave us a purple,” said Future. “I'm finishing a sweater.”

He sorted through the balls of yarn.

“What do you need yarn for?” asked Helen.

“I knit.”

“And you never shared this information before?” she asked.

“You didn't ask.” He tucked a bright blue ball under his arm. “I find it relaxing. And it's the closest I'll ever come to doing magic.”

“Magic, huh?”

“If someone came up to you on the street and gave you a ball of thread and two sticks, and asked you to make them a scarf, wouldn't your first reaction be to call them a nut?”

She decided he had a point.

“So you aren't weaving anymore?” she asked the sisters. “Isn't that your job?”

“Destiny has ever been a complicated business,” said Past. “Back when we tried to weave the threads into something sensible, everything still always managed to get tangled together into a great big mess. Eventually we determined that the kings and the peasants, the heroes and the villains, the winners and the losers, they all end tied together in one giant knot. If we worked very hard, we might be able to direct the course of a single mortal life. But as a cosmic profession, it seemed like a lot of effort to ensure that John ends up where he's supposed to be when, really, Jill or Jerry or Jacob will do just as well in the end. Chaos and fate are mostly indistinguishable. Their end results are basically the same.”

“That's depressing,” said Helen.

“Is it?” asked Future from over Helen's shoulder. When Helen turned, she caught only a fleeting glimpse of Future's skirt disappearing around a corner. “What's more depressing from a mortal perspective? To believe that there is no grand plan and that all is random chance? Or that all is by a single unified design and that you are nothing more than the dancing puppets of a universe that merely sees you as a means to an end?”

Helen did find each equally unsettling.

Present said, “But you aren't interested in existential discussion, are you? You're here for directions. And considering the distance you must still travel on your journey, we've wasted enough of your time.”

“But you just said you don't bother with fate,” said Troy.

“Oh, we dabble still. More of a hobby at this point. As to your ultimate destiny, we can't say anything for certain.”

“I can,” said Future. “But I won't.”

Present whispered, “And she wonders why nobody likes her.”

Helen said, “I don't want to sound ungrateful, but we really only stopped in for directions, not existential dilemmas.”

“You haven't earned your directions quite yet.”

“We're buying your”—she almost said
junk
again—“your souvenirs.”

Present laughed. “It's not as simple as that. You can't just purchase wisdom on an expense account.”

Past said, “You have to face the storeroom. The place where your worst fears are made manifest, where you will confront that which terrifies you most. Only after you have overcome that last spiritual hurdle, when you have looked into the maw of your inner self, will you have proven yourself worthy of the next stage of your journey.”

“We beat a cyclops,” said Helen. “Isn't that enough?”

“You would think so,” said Present. “But apparently not.”

Helen uttered a noncommittal grunt. “Fine. Let's get on with it.”

The sisters led Helen and Troy to the back of the store and an unmarked door. Blue mist swirled under the frame, and something big and shadowy stomped behind it.

“My worst fear, huh?”

Helen paused before the door.

“I hate to ask this, but this isn't one of those things where I go inside and discover a horrible monster in the dark. Then I fight it, and just as it looks as if it's about to overcome me, I end up killing it. And then I look at it and see that the monster was me all along?”

The sisters hesitated.

“That's it?” asked Helen. “That's what it really is?”

“Well, I must say,” said Present, “you're a very wise young woman.”

“Not really. I saw it already in
The Empire Strikes Back
. Kind of a big movie. Maybe you've heard of it.”

“Maybe you shouldn't sass the fates,” whispered Troy.

She shrugged.

“I keep telling you we should update the test,” said Past.

“But it's a classic,” said Present.