All in

Chapter 20

Salvete viri. Ergo deus est hodie Até. Gratias tibi. Fruor.

Translation - Hey guys. Today's god is Até. Thank you. Enjoy.

The next time you see a little girl in your neighborhood who loves to cause a bit of trouble and seems to laugh at the problems it causes, think of the Greek goddess Até. She was the Greek goddess of ruin and mischief.

In the old times when Greece was a country full of gods and goddesses, Até belonged to the kind of family that people usually avoid. Her mother was Eris, the goddess of trouble and conflict. Some say her dad was Zeus. She had many brothers and sisters, all of whom were involved in causing difficulties. They represented wrongs, lies, forgetting, pain, and fights. They weren't the kind of gods you'd invite into your home for pizza.

Até took her little tricks way too far one day. Hera, the wife of Zeus, got Até to trick her husband. The god Zeus was the god of thunder and the sky. He was the ruler of all the gods and men. After Até was through with her lies, Zeus swore that his son who was born that day would become a great ruler over man.

Hera was pregnant with twins and Zeus as their father. Hera wanted her favorite, Eurystheus, to be that great ruler. To do that she had to delay Heracles from being born long enough for Eurystheus to be born early and claim the title.

As it usually happens, Zeus found out about the trick. In his anger, he threw Até off Mount Olympus and forbade her ever to return. Since that day, Até has wandered among us on Earth, causing trouble wherever she goes.

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Catherine's POV

The summer I turned eight, I went through a phase of jumping into situations without thinking. Like literally. One afternoon in particular, my parents took me and Anabeth to this waterfall amusement for a picnic. There were water slides and sprinklers and a wave pool. But as soon as we got there and with no hesitation, because I'd been planning my move since I knew we were going, I ran for the waterfall, ignoring my mother's screams, and I dove in. With my shoes and everything.

At the time I was convinced that I was a mermaid, and everyone knew mermaids didn't die in the water. Apparently, everyone except my mum. She practically had a heart attack, waded in (yes, in her shoes, and hauled me out before I could go far. She caused a scene and didn't seem to care that everyone and their mother was watching. Which totally isn't my mother's style, but that's how mad she was.

And I wasn't allowed to play on the water slides as my punishment for not listening and, as she said, "pulling a stunt like that."

She didn't get that it wasn't a stunt. I begged. I pleaded. I cried. I told her I was a mermaid. She threw her hands in the air and told my dad I wasn't allowed to watch Saturday cartoons anymore. I had to spend the entire afternoon watching Anabeth as she made new friends going up and down the water slides. I was mad and resentful and thought my mum was the meanest person on the planet.

Of course, my teenage self knew that she was only trying to protect me from getting hurt. That she'd been scared, and I know that it had been a reckless thing to do. And sure I could argue that most eight-year-old kids would have done the same thing, except I was pretty sure that they wouldn't.

That summer, I'd been hit with "the crazy stick," as my father called it. I was a little adrenaline junkie who jumped in with no thought of the consequence, because that feeling, that one that hits just before you're about to do something out of this world, that feeling was worth the punishment.

That feeling meant that I was alive. Really alive. Not all that smart, just alive.

It took some doing, but after endless chats and groundings, I eventually calmed down. Or maybe I just grew older and outgrew the crazy stick stage. Who knows?