The Search for Juno

Chapter I

Angie Nohl should have been asleep.

Instead, she was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bedroom floor, ancient motor oil worn into the creases of her hands, a screwdriver balanced between her teeth, nappy hair pushed back by a llama-printed headband she had probably owned since she was six years old.

The problem was this: Angie Nohl could not sleep when her mind was so terribly awake. The night before was on constant replay in her mind: shadows following her, a hand on her shoulder, knife buried into skin. The rest? A violent haze.

Though it took effort, she trained her focus back on her newest creation. What sat before her was nothing much, yet: a pile of frayed wires tied together in incomprehensible shapes, a few half-rusted pieces of sheet metal she had welded together in the shape of the heart. Or at least it sort of looked like a heart, if she tilted her head to the side.

Angie never knew much what she was making until it was done. She sat back on her knees, mopping her brow as she examined the other creations pushed back against her wall, or balanced on her bookshelf, or poking out from underneath her bed. They were everything from perfect spherical balls of scrap metal to tiny wire women with iron fillings for hair. They were Angie's soul, these metal masterpieces, and they held a strange place in her heart that very few people, if any, could ever usurp.

Renewed, she set at it again, working by the two AM moonlight. Sleep pressed at the backs of her eyelids, but she ignored it. She was getting somewhere, approaching something, and she was afraid she would never reach it if she stopped now.

When there was a deafening crash, however, she stopped.

Angie sprang to her feet, snatching up the crowbar beside her and taking her best battle stance. Her eyes darted around her bedroom: unmade, slouchy bed, paper-strewn desk, debris-strewn floor. Shadows, shadows and more shadows. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words were stolen from her when something knocked into her chest.

She let out a gasp, straining to get away, but her back was pressed against the wall, crowbar held up above her head by an unfamiliar firm grasp. She blinked and looked up into a young, curious face, his gold eyes almost...kind.

A moment of awkward silence passed.

Angie started, "How did you—"

"You killed Poseidon."

"I killed who now—"

"I told them I would find you first. They didn't believe me. And look who found you first—"

A vivid self defense lesson with her father replayed itself in Angie's mind, and but a second later, she swung up her leg, kneeing him swiftly in the groin. Instantly his grip faltered and he slumped to the floor, cowering. Hissing through his teeth, he groaned, "Oh, I forget how sensitive the human body is..."

Angie grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, which was a terribly ratty wifebeater that depressed her to even look at. "How do you know I killed..." She shook her head. She'd made sure no one would find out; she'd made sure. "How'd you find me? Who are you?"

"Of all the gods to upset," said the man, plucking Angie's fingers from his collar as if he might pluck petals from a flower, "you had to go and upset one of the craziest ones."

"What are you talking about?"

A roll of his eyes. "Don't play dumb. You're the one that murdered Poseidon. He showed us the knife you buried in his chest. I'm not saying the guy is the best person ever, but it certainly was not wise to stab him."

Angie sank to the floor, her hands trembling. She hadn't meant for the night to end that way, but regardless all the images conjured themselves now: the vacant Phoenix, Arizona street, black with the settling night, the sound of footsteps behind her, matching her own. Whirling to find a crazed smile and a lifted fist—what else was she supposed to do?

Still shaking, her fingers went to her brow. "This is a joke."

The man shook his head. "You wish it were, maybe."

"Poseidon. The Poseidon. He's a real guy?"

"He's already pissed at you. Now you're going to deny he exists?"

Angie sputtered to reply, but didn't get the chance to before the stranger, still unnamed to her, took her hand, pulling her roughly to her feet. "Enough of the chit-chat. Judgment awaits you on Olympus..."

Silence filled the space between them yet again as Angie stumbled into the light and the man's eyes no doubt found the bruise along her temple, busted and bleeding, haphazardly covered by the inch of gauze Angie had found in one of her apartment's cupboards.

Angie couldn't read his face. He was frustrated, or angry, or was it...regretful?

He dropped his hand, his voice suddenly quiet. "He did that to you?"

Angie exhaled, not quite sure why she bothered. "He said he was going to...to take me away; he wouldn't say where. And he seemed so upset when I told him no, saying all this stuff like, 'But I'm a god'—which did not at all make sense then, but is sort of starting to now—and that's when he...he did this."

"You're not lying."

"No."

"No, I know. I can tell. I'm the god of thieves, after all. I know a lie when I see one."

"God of..."

He knelt, undoing the laces on his tennis shoes. He tossed them aside, and they struck Angie's half-finished sculpture with a dissonant clang.

Angie's brain was mush.

It was all playing out right in front of her and yet with every glance she still convinced herself it wasn't real—there was no way this man had small wings sprouting from his ankles, just like the sculptures, just like the folktales.

"Hermes," he said, and after an awkward moment, held out his hand. "Sorry for pinning you against a wall earlier."

"Angie," she said, regarding his hand, but not shaking it. "And it's alright. Plenty of girls would have liked that."

A pause. "But not you?"

She shrugged, then gestured to the flag hung above her bed: pink, red, white.

Hermes clicked his teeth. "I see."

Angie sat back down on the rug again, fumbling around until she located the screwdriver she'd dropped. "Well, if you're not going to take me for 'judgment' after all," she said, "can you leave now?"

When Hermes spoke next, there was something frightening about his voice, a livid concern that hadn't been there before. "I don't think you want me to do that, Angie."

She set the screwdriver down with a timid clink, blinking up at Hermes. He was resting on the edge of her bed, head dipped so that his black hair tumbled over his forehead. "And why is that?" asked Angie.

Hermes lifted his chin. "I may have been the first to come looking for you, but I won't be the last, and certainly not the worst."

Angie narrowed her eyes. She was never one for the poetic or cryptic. Words were not meant to be hidden in other words. "Your point?"

A slow smile spread across Hermes's face. "I can help you run away."