~ { Shadow and Beauty } ~

Piper Meets Her Mom

{Piper}

Piper dreamed she was on the Wilderness School dorm roof.

   The desert night was cold, but she'd brought blankets, and with Jason next to her, she didn't need any more warmth. The air smelled of sage and burning mesquite. On the horizon, the Spring Mountains loomed like jagged black teeth, the dim glow of Las Vegas behind them.

   The stars were so bright, Piper had been afraid they wouldn't be able to see the meteor shower. She didn't want Jason to think she'd dragged him up here on false pretenses. (Even though her pretenses had been totally false.) But the meteors did not disappoint. One streaked across the sky almost every minute—a line of white, yellow, or blue fire. Piper was sure her Grandpa Tom would have some Cherokee myth to explain them, but at the moment she was busy creating her own story.

   Jason took her hand—finally—and pointed as two meteors skipped across the atmosphere and formed a cross.

   "Wow," he said. "I can't believe Leo and Kiara didn't want to see this."

   "Actually, I didn't invite them," Piper said casually.

   Jason smiled. "Oh, yeah?"

   "Mm-hmm. You ever feel like four would be a crowd?"

   "Yeah," Jason admitted. "Like right now. You know how much trouble we'd get in if we got caught up here?"

   "Oh, I'd make up something," Piper said. "I can be very persuasive. So you want to dance, or what?"

   He laughed. His eyes were amazing, and his smile was even better in the starlight. "With no music. At night. On a rooftop. Sounds dangerous."

   "I'm a dangerous girl."

   "That, I can believe."

   He stood and offered her his hand. They slow-danced a few steps, but it quickly turned into a kiss. Piper almost couldn't kiss him again, because she was too busy smiling.

Then her dream changed—or maybe she was dead in the Underworld—because she found herself back in Medea's department store.

   "Please let this be a dream," she murmured, "and not my eternal punishment."

   "No, dear," said a woman's honey-sweet voice. "No punishment."

   Piper turned, afraid she'd see Medea, but a different woman stood next to her, browsing through the fifty-percent-off rack. The woman was gorgeous—shoulder-length hair, a graceful neck, perfect features, and an amazing figure tucked into jeans and a snowy white top.

   Piper had seen her share of actresses—most of her dad's dates were knockout beautiful—but this lady was different. She was elegant without trying, fashionable without effort, stunning without makeup. After seeing Aeolus with his silly face-lifts and cosmetics, Piper thought this woman looked even more astonishing. There was nothing artificial about her.

   Yet as Piper watched, the woman's appearance changed. Piper couldn't decide the color of her eyes, or the exact color of her hair. The woman became more and more beautiful, as if her image were aligning itself to Piper's thoughts—getting as close as possible to Piper's ideal of beauty.

   "Aphrodite," Piper said. "Mom?"

   The goddess smiled. "You're only dreaming, my sweet. If anyone wonders, I wasn't here. Okay?"

   "I—" Piper wanted to ask a thousand questions, but they all crowded together in her head.

   Aphrodite held up a turquoise dress. Piper thought it looked awesome, but the goddess made a face. "This isn't my color, is it? Pity, it's cute. Medea really does have some lovely things here."