The Search for Juno

Chapter XIII

"This is bad," said Angie. She was pacing across the floor of the tiny bedroom they'd last-minute rented on Airbnb—she could hear the old woman they'd rented it from singing along to Frank Sinatra in the kitchen below them—while Hermes and Clio watched her tiredly.

"No it's not," he said. There were four bunk beds in a room that barely had space for two; it was cramped and clammy and Hermes, who had claimed one of the top bunks as soon as they'd entered, nearly scraped his head against the ceiling whenever he sat up straight. "Everything is fine."

"We're stranded," said Angie.

"Your car is totaled," said Clio.

Angie whirled, glaring at the nymph, who retreated innocently into the shadows of her lower bunk. "Not helping!"

"I was proving your point," said Clio, and though the words were confident, her voice was timid. "That sort of is helping you."

"Can't you just go back to your enchanted forest?" Angie said, pivoting and starting to pace again. It was a narrow strip of floor to walk across, actually; she made it about five steps—to the trashcan by the door—before she had to turn and head back towards the window again. "No one's keeping you here—"

"On the contrary," said Hermes, jumping from the bunk with unmatched grace and landing in front of Angie with not so much as a thud, "I think she should stay."

Angie said nothing, and nor did she need to. She simply rose a dark eyebrow at him and he immediately kicked into his explanation, like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

"The girl can talk to trees," said Hermes, and Angie just narrowed her eyes at him. "I mean, come on. Not only is that totally sick, if she can use it to sense danger like she did back in the forest, then we might...we might kinda-sorta need her."

"Oh, do we?" Angie said, folding her arms across her chest. The old woman's subpar singing suddenly rose in an amateur run, chasing Sinatra's notes. Angie grimaced. "Look, I don't know what your plans are, Hermes, but mine certainly don't include any more random highway stampedes. We don't need a danger radar because I'm not planning to be in danger anymore!"

Clio cleared her throat; Angie and Hermes both turned abruptly to look at her. "I don't think danger is the sort of thing you plan for," she said, one index finger lifted in the air as if she were excusing herself from a church. "At least, not so often as danger is the sort of thing that just finds you."

Hermes's lip curled in delight. "Ooh, very poetic. Are you sure you're not a Muse?"

Clio shook her head, though she was beaming. "Just a common dryad, I'm afraid."

Angie could only look at her smile for a second before her eyes hurt. Instead, she crumpled to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest. The rug beneath her reminded her uncomfortably of grass—soft, fuzzy, vibrant green. She was aware of Hermes's and Clio's eyes on her, pitying, most likely, but she didn't care. She was far from home and June Dolinski was even farther and the Jaguar was totaled and—worst of all, the only company she had in such dire misfortune was a reckless god and a wood nymph.

She felt like screaming, or crying maybe, though she hated crying. The burning in the back of her throat and the heaving of her lungs and the snot, just the snot—she hated it.

"Angie?"

A voice in her ear, a hand on her arm—and she was stunned to find they were both Clio's.

"That's your name, right?"

Angie, glaring at the floor rather than a risking a glimpse up at Clio's rosy face, nodded her head.