The Weight of The Moon

Chapter Thirteen

Up in the air, drops fell, and I don’t mean rain drops, but tear drops. In the only place they every seemed to escape the prison of my eyes. In the moon. The whispers of my tears however, soon became shouts and screams, as I sobbed, creating rhythmic wails.

Once or twice, I caught myself, certain that I had heard a noise other than my over-powering cries, but made the conscious decision to dismiss it as my imagination. After all, what else could it be, all the way up here?

Obviously, I forgot about my heritage.

As soon as I heard the soft clearing of a throat, I knew that my imagination wasn’t creating a mind of its own. There was someone behind me.

I turned to face, a beautiful woman. No, no, beautiful isn’t the right word to use. Pulchritudinous, statuesque, resplendent; words that don’t do her justice. Put it this way, my tears immediately refrained from emerging from my eyes, as if they wanted to hide their unsightliness from the woman stood before me. And that’s how I knew exactly who she was. Aphrodite. Goddess of love and beauty.

She wore her hair in a long, black braid down one shoulder, and it stretched down, almost to her waist. She sported a long, full-length, Greek-style dress, held in with a belt between her hips and breasts, made of woven strands of gold. Timidly, her feet wore a pair of flat, gold sandals, yet if anything, that, her appear more attractive. Everything about her screamed beauty, and she seemed to sparkle with radiance, but I can’t be certain if whether that last part was down to my imagination or not.

In fact, her beauty prevented me from noticing the creature stood tall beside her. A black, winged Pegasus. Had the Pegasus been stood beside any other being, it would have left me gob smacked, but needless to say, I had been distracted. I could only image how men, often very famous men, so I’m told, threw themselves at her, shamelessly.

Her pink lips, very fittingly in the shape of a heart, parted slightly and formed the shape of a knowing, sympathetic smile. “My dear.”  She spoke in a tender-hearted voice, one that gave me goosebumps. “I think I owe you an explanation.”

My brows furrowed, and, although I knew it was highly unattractive, something unwarrantable in the presence of Aphrodite, I couldn’t help it. Why would she need to justify anything to me? Her, shimmering with comeliness, and little, irrelevant me. 

She laughed a laugh that sounded like a million tiny bells, tinkling at once. From an unpleasant frown, I beamed with pride - I had made Aphrodite laugh. “It’s about Marlie.”

And that sent be crashing back down to earth - not literally, that would have hurt. The name she spoke of pulled my head right out of the clouds (even though I was way above them, in scientific reality), and I was no longer drooling over Aphrodite. My tall stance curled back into its usual slouch, and my suddenly hardened face relaxed. 

And Aphrodite didn’t like that one little bit. 

She too straightened up, almost as if she was squaring up to me, only in a more lady-like manner. This lasted no more than a few seconds, before she relaxed again, and allowed her beauty to overcome her, without even having to make an effort. 

A long, heavy sigh escaped her lips, and I felt for her. She seemed so… sad. “Selena, I have to tell you…” An icy tear rolled down her cheek, but she pulled it off. Her beauty remained, despite her tear, unlike when I cry. “There is no Brandi.”

Had something happened to this goddess? Who had brainwashed her? Or hit her over the head with a large, heavy object? “Yes, there is. I was with her just now.”

The goddess of love shook her head so slowly, probably hoping that I would not notice it. “You were with a -- a robot. A model made by Hephaestus.”

I struggled to take all of this in. It was certainly possible. Hephaestus, the blacksmith to the gods could make anything, or so I’d heard, and he was married to Aphrodite, which would explain the links between the two. But… “You’re the goddess of love! Why would you want to stop love?!”

“Why indeed!” The goddess of love seemed even more exasperated than I. “You know my father.”

I closed my eyes, and thought back to the bedtime stories my mother had filled my head with as a child. “Zeus?”

“And you know how he hates you…”

But hate is such a strong word…

“…he asked me to do this. To create a being, with the assistance of my husband, something or someone to prevent you falling in love with Marlie.”

My jaw had dropped, and I couldn’t manage to make it rise again. “B-but why?!”

Aphrodite pursed her lips, as if the answer was taboo. And I wish it had been.

“Because you were late for work.”

Of course, everything would always link back to that one slight mistake. A mistake that hadn’t even been caused by Marlie, and yet he too was being punished for my previous wrongdoings. 

And then I realised. If Brandi was a robot, then she wasn’t real, and if she wasn’t real, everything she said must have been false.

“So Marlie hasn’t given up on us?” I burst, now full of a new-found hope.

“Ah. About that.” Aphrodite began. “Marlie has been, ah- captured by Zeus.” She hushed her tone on the last three words, and spoke them quickly, probably in hopes that I wouldn’t hear. But I did. 

I could have been sad. I could have been hurt. I could have been in doldrums. But no. Something snapped within me. I was angry. 

“So how do we get him back?”