A Midnight Mind

Chapter 32: Mind the Gap

Standing before Ethan was a statuesque woman dressed in hanging white robes. She had braided hair peeking out from under a bronze helmet with what looked like a flat red mohawk sticking out of the top. It made Ethan think of movies about Spartans, except the helmet was tilted back on the woman's scalp to show her unsmiling face. Even stranger than the helmet was the spear she held beside her, as tall as she was, and the huge bowl-like bronze shield leaning against her hip.

For a hot second Ethan thought he'd slipped into a dream, and then he remembered that a dream might have slipped into the Worldmind instead. And here he was without a fadeblade to defend himself from getting skewered.

The woman took a step closer to him. All he could do was picture his room at Vic's house. The desk, the bed, the wall, the—

Before he could manage to project himself to safety, the tall woman raised her shield and pointed it at Ethan. There was a face on it—a horrible screaming face, wreathed with snakes.

And then he couldn't move. He couldn't look away or concentrate on thoughts of home. He could barely think at all.

"Now then," the woman said. "Let me get a good look at you."

She came nearer, her shield still facing Ethan, and looked over its rim at him. Her eyes had a starry glow.

"I," Ethan voiced without moving his lips or tongue, "I—"

"Invaded the sanctity of Eleanor's hearth and home. I am not your host and there will be no guest-friendship."

Ethan's mind reeled. Eleanor? That was Stafford's first name. But who was this woman? A dream? Someone's projection, still dressed up from a Halloween party somewhere?

"So you came looking for Eleanor's fadeblade, hmm?" the woman inquired. She had a smile in her eyes, but not on her lips. "Did that other manling tell you where to find it—Neil Edwards?"

She must have seen the flash of recognition and surprise in Ethan's eyes because she nodded as though he answered.

"I thought as much. I will release you from Medusa's gaze. If you attempt to escape before I give you leave, you will meet the tip of my spear."

She turned the face of the shield away from him, and all at once his bones seemed to turn to jelly. He fell to his knees, his chest crashing against the locked trunk, and he fought for breath. Then he remembered he didn't technically need to breathe in the Worldmind and quickly calmed down. He hoped his body was breathing just fine in Violet's car.

"Medusa?" he said hoarsely. He avoided glancing at either the shield or the starry eyes of the tall woman.

"My aegis—my shield—bears her countenance. And her powers of paralysis."

Ethan wanted to tell her that Medusa wasn't real, but it felt like a very stupid thing to tell to a goddess.

"You're Athena," he said. He should have known. He'd drawn pictures of Greek gods before. He didn't remember why. Either for fun or for a school assignment. "At least, you look like—"

"I am Athena," Athena said firmly, pounding the butt of her spear into the concrete floor. "Tell me who you are, manling."

Once again Ethan had to use his old trick of pretending he was a character in a movie just to mentally deal with what was currently happening. "Shouldn't you be on Olympus or something?" he asked. "Shirewood is pretty damn far away from Greece."

Athena cocked her head. "You must be new to this world. Yes, I see the ignorance in your eyes."

"Uh, okay, ouch. But fine, I'm stupid. Sure. I'm a new psychic, okay? One of Stafford's—Eleanor's—students. So, like, are you a real goddess, or...?"