We Bent Fate

Chapter 39

MARTHA

My stomach churned as I walked around the trees in my backyard, trying to find enough calm I could get to concentrate. Austin was following behind the tracks I left for him, his chocolaty brown eyes glancing from time to time at me in worry.

"Austin, am I ready? Are you sure that I should do it?" I asked him from the thousandth time and he readily nodded like he had been nodding at me all this time.

"But what if they still find some flaw in it? They always come up with something." I said, trying to ignore the deafening palpitations of my heart beating against my eardrums.

"Martha." I pulled her mouth in my hand and squeezed it, watching her lips turn into a blow-a-kiss meets duck face. "They will always criticize you for something or the other. But this is huge. Time heals everything! It is an improvement, indeed."

"So should I do it?" I asked again.

"Of course. I will come with you."

"I don't think that is a very good idea. I'll go alone." I said, my teeth were chattering, because I was anxious or because I was out in this brass monkey weather, I couldn't tell.

"No, Martha. I am coming with you." He argued and I sighed in defeat. There is no point in arguing with him.

"Fine." I said and gave my sisters a last glance who were smiling triumphantly at us for some reason. "See you guys later." I try to smile and they nod at me.

"Let's go." Austin's hand reached out to me and I took us there. To Mount. Caucasus.

The white snow covering the striations of the rock is the first thing we see when we arrive there. It looks like the wisps of white hair of an old man, they sweep the tallest of the blue gray clouds complimenting the sky and then a slap of stale blizzard slaps us hard.

"Why the hell did you bring me here?" Austin shouted and I tried not to smile. The wind kept roaring to its highest volume that we couldn't even hear ourselves.

"Its Mount Caucasus. where Prometheus was tied. Epimetheus and Pandora live somewhere closer to here." I shouted back.

"Why did you not take us to their house directly?" He chided loudly.

"I forgot the directions!" I told him and he shook his head. "Now, come on. Let's go!"

The track snaked around the side of a mountain with a sheer drop to the right. He was somewhere off the ridge and there should have been a view, but it had been wiped out by the rain and the fading light. A few trees twisted out of the side of the hill with leaves as hard as thorns.

"Where is it?" I thought aloud.

"This way?" Austin said and I propped my head to look at his side. There on a plateau like rock platform stood the small two storeyed square shaped house of Prometheus and Epimetheus.

"Yes! Come on!" I pushed past him excitedly and almost collapsed in the snow. Austin laughed at my imbalance and followed behind me.

After a few minutes of trudging and violently shaking the shiver out of our bodies, we reached the building and knocked. The door opened after a minute, revealing a much older version of the silly little curious lady I had known back in that time. Burnt Sienna never looked so beautiful on a woman. With black hair of wool and her head held high, she waltzed on with an effortless smile. Her eyes, the deep pool of restless gold like an ocean of hopeless grief, scanned her visitors in determination.

"How may I help you?"

"Could we meet Epimetheus or Prometheus, perhaps? We are their friends." My trembling mouth managed to say.