Earthrumbler

Chapter Eight: The Healer

The light faded before my eyes. I held my hands over the shadows of bruises over my mother’s neck and her chest, and it returned. I laughed as the bruises melted away. A smile decorated my face. I moved my hands down her arms and her stomach.

She moaned and shifted. “Easy, Jenny. You don’t want to overexert yourself.” Her voice was hoarse. As she propped herself up on her elbows, she let out a small gasp. “Are you well? You’re bleeding.” Her hair was tangled. Her eyes had dark smudges beneath them. She’d never looked less like a goddess.

“I was.” I scraped the dried blood off. “I hit my nose against a wall, but you—”

She interrupted, “We each fought our own battles. Let us leave it at that.” There was no hurt or anger in her tone, nothing except simple fact. “I made a choice, Jenny, and even if I could go back to that moment, I would act in the same manner.”

“I should’ve stopped you. I could’ve…I shouldn’t have just let you… I’m so sorry. Do you feel okay?” I clutched the wet rag tightly.

She said, “Perhaps not okay, but not so horrible. There are more important things at hand, aren’t there?” A grim smile painted itself across her face as she tilted her chin toward the light coming off of my hands.

“Why didn’t you tell me that I was a healer?” I asked.

Her smile stretched a little farther. “How did you expect me to know? I did not even know that you preferred to be called Jenny until six months ago.”

I held my hand over the branding on my chest. The light faded from it.

“The healer’s burden,” she said, “You can remove the pain of others, but you may never take it away from yourself. It was the first thing Apollo taught me.”

Cocking my head, I asked, “You learned to heal? You weren’t a born healer?”

“You know so little of me, don’t you? I was not born a healer, no.” A wince crossed her face she sat up and leaned against the wall. “When I returned to Olympus, years into life, Apollo offered to teach me to heal, an apology of sorts.”

I furrowed my brow, unsure of how to piece together what she was telling me. I leaned against the wall beside her. My hand slowly unclenched the rag.

“Maybe you should hear everything from me.” She met my eyes with a glimmer of sadness, but also with the ghost of a smile. When I nodded, she began, “I was born of my father’s arrogance. He never expected any of his children to equal his power. My mother aimed to prove him wrong, a rather unfortunate choice on her part.”

When she paused, I asked, “So, did he truly swallow her or is that part myth?”

“Oh, no, he swallowed her, and my brother had to split his head open.” As I opened my mouth to interrupt, she stopped me. “This is where the myth is inaccurate. I wasn’t grown fully nor was I armed. I was a child. When your kind finally came around, my father did not want any of them to know that their godly king feared a child, a daughter no less, overthrowing him. And that is where it falls into myth.”

I said, “But they do know that he feared you.”

She laughed. “That’s often how it goes with your kind. Their curiosity and intellect is unrivaled. Perhaps, it’s why we’ve kept you around. We’ve had several opportunities to destroy your kind and yet, we never do. You fascinate us.” She wrapped her arm over my shoulders and pulled me close to her. She kissed me on the forehead. “But, that’s another story for another day, yes?”

“So, your father feared that you would overthrow him?”

She continued, “Yes, so he banished me from Olympus. I’d not known what to do with myself. A young goddess, stinging with rejection, is not a good combination. I nearly destroyed a continent. There was one person who was able to calm me. He spoke to me like I was a child. His name was Triton. He brought me to his home and told me that it could be mine as well. He gave me a sister.” She closed her eyes as a grin swept over her face. “I didn’t think that I would ever love anyone as much as I loved Pallas.”