Chapter 9

Cupid carried Psyche’s inert form to the amphitheatre’s altar and tenderly lowered her to the unyielding marble. For a while, Cupid gazed at her, tears trickling. After a time, sure footsteps approached.

Apollo touched Cupid’s shoulder in consolation, saying nothing at first, simply bowing his head.

“I did not know, Cupid,” he murmured.

Cupid nodded.

“I don’t blame you, Uncle.”

“For what it is worth,” Apollo said, “she loved you. Anyone could see that.” He paused. “And unlike most of the mortal realm, she atoned. Found herself again. It is no simple accomplishment.”

“Did she have to die, though?”

Her heart would never mend. Could never mend.

“All mortals die, Niece,” Apollo continued. “It is unavoidable. One cannot deny destiny.”

She wanted to hear Psyche’s laugh. She wanted to feel Psyche’s nails on her back. She wanted Psyche’s lips pressed against her own.

She. Wanted.

With a final comforting pat on her shoulder, Apollo wandered away, his footsteps fading as he left the theatre.

Birds chirped happily in the trees. Cicadas sang joyfully upon summer breezes. Clouds scudded across azure skies. Notes of celestial harps vibrated through the air.

Cupid wished Psyche could simply wake from her slumber and experience this place.

But this world could not belong to her. Mortality ensured it.

They sat on the low benches below the dais where Psyche rested. Unyielding marble pressed against Cupid’s thighs and palms.

“I watched her closely,” Venus murmured. “In the end, she became what she wanted to be.”

“I miss her,” Cupid lamented. “She deserved better. So much better than to die in that place.” Tears streaked her cheeks, but her sobs had retreated for the moment.

Venus nodded.

“She was never a threat to you, Mother,” Cupid remarked. After a moment, she added, “Neither was Helen.”

Venus remained quiet for a time, then nodded reluctantly.

“I suppose,” she admitted. “Sometimes I get carried away. The temperament of immortals burns in me.”

Cupid gazed at Psyche’s broken body. “Will she end up in the Underworld?”

Venus shrugged. “It is not for us to decide. In her mortal world, it is difficult to say.”

The thought of Psyche’s spirit descending to the Underworld unnerved Cupid, but she lacked any power to influence the decision. The worst part? Eventually, the one named Walter would greet her there.

“Apollo said she atoned.”

“She would not have found you again, had she not,” Venus observed.

Cupid nodded. She hoped Psyche’s atonement would suffice.

“Perhaps she found her salvation,” Cupid said hopefully.

Venus remained silent. After a time, Cupid spoke again.

“I still love her, Mother.”

Venus hesitated before speaking.

“Of course you do. You drank the elixir meant for her.” Olympus had witnessed her resultant wrath.

“You know as well as I: the elixir cannot remain upon an immortal, as it would for a mortal.”

“Notwithstanding, Daughter.”

After a time, Cupid spoke again.

“I miss her. My heart aches without her. I’ve never felt this before, Mother.”

Tears threatened again, but Cupid pushed them back. Goddesses should not meddle in the affairs of mortals. Impartiality reigns.

“It will pass,” Venus assured her.

But unlike others, Psyche would never abandon Cupid’s heart.

Never.

The tapestry flowed like a river of filaments, sparkling and tumbling through the dim chamber where the Moirai spun. Her own thread existed somewhere deep beneath the surface, near the bed of the stream. Tendrils of mist drifted through the space.

Clotho peered upwards from her loom as Venus approached tentatively. Venus bent and whispered into Clotho’s ear. When she finished, Venus straightened and intently watched the sister of conception consider her request.

“It has not occurred in many years,” Clotho pronounced.

Venus nodded.

“Are you absolutely certain? There is no assurance this will work.”

Venus nodded again.

“She loves her,” Venus elaborated. “We must try.”

Clotho returned to her loom, her fingers nimbly weaving a new glowing teal thread.

Birds chirped brightly and pleasant zephyrs drifted through open arched windows, shivering diaphanous silks surrounding the enormous bed. Morning sunshine peered inwards, illuminating the chamber like the muted glow of a million candles. From somewhere distant, notes plucked from a harp drifted.

Psyche stirred as the shimmering sun rays kissed her cheeks. Wrinkling her pert nose, she blinked as the scent of lavender and honeysuckle embraced her. Contrastingly, a half-remembered remnant of a dream disquieted her thoughts. Vague images of brandished guns, an ethereal bow, and sapphire auras flitted marginally beyond her conscious grasp. Tentatively, she touched her jaw, another indistinct memory of violent contact surfacing.

Her jaw ached, as did her perfect teeth, but the discomfort paled in comparison to the agony she oddly expected. A more pleasant memory supplanted the disquieting violence. Lips. Yielding warm lips, her body pressed against familiar, feverish softness.

Cupid. Against all odds, she’d found Cupid, far outside of Psyche’s world. Exactly where Apollo had whispered.

A blanket of eiderdown feathers supported her supine in the oversized bed; fluttering colours danced in a summer breeze. For a while, she watched the silks rhumba in the diffused illumination from the window. Wherever this was she rested, peace infused the air. A comfortable September coolness replaced the oppressive August heat and humidity she last remembered. She cast her mind backwards. The final memory she clearly retained: a young bearded Scot advising her in a deep brogue to avoid The Zone. She blinked, sleep dusting her eyes as she rubbed at them. A deep ache and exhaustion invaded her body, descending all the way into her marrow.

Surprising her, as her fingers abandoned her eyes, her hand glowed. The aura emanating from her fingertips glimmered an intense teal, competing with the dappled morning sunlight. An insubstantial linen sheet covered her body, embracing her curves like a delicate lover. The fabric easily compared to the exceptional linens in the finest presidential suites in which she had ever stayed. In her former life.

She blinked sleepily. Staccato images flipped through her mind like a stuttering movie reel. Suites. Airplanes. Tigers. Lovers. Cupid. Fingers. Tongues. Nails. Foyers. Fireflies.

She had been searching for Cupid.

A filthy mattress. A needle.

Her body pressed to Cupid’s, ignoring the decay, the smells, the indistinct voices.

Gunshots.

Agony.

Her hand glowed.

If her former life ever existed, where did she exist now?

Psyche cautiously lifted the linen, peering underneath in the dancing sunlight. Her naked skin glowed beneath the gauze, shimmering teal. One finger reached beneath, tracing her bare skin from her collarbone, between her perfect breasts to meander to the left side under her breast where her third rib met her fourth. There, a round scar marred her otherwise flawless skin, shiny and new. A memory of agony flooded her mind, but the slightly raised disc of tissue only emitted a vague warmth, the agony a distant memory.

She lazily glanced to her right. Between the silks, an antique chair rested unoccupied, stripes of sunlight patterning the floral seat. Draped over the chair’s back, a white silk dressing gown beckoned her. Idly, she wondered where her designer jeans, Adidas and blood-soaked t-shirt might now reside.

For a long while, she listened to the harp and birds, staring at the dancing silk, her mind wandering.

The white silk robe fluttered as Psyche stepped barefoot carefully across warm ceramic mosaic, her toes passing through stripes of bright sunshine and shadows cast by the bed silks. Beyond the chamber’s entrance arch, a tiled plaza, surrounded by massive white marble pillars, sprawled in oversized grandeur. Clearly, gods and goddesses dwelt here, wherever here might be.

On the far side of the open patio, a hammock stretched between two pillars, sunshine illuminating a familiar form swaying in the autumn breezes. Clouds tumbled playfully across the otherwise blue sky, ignoring the villa.

Cupid relaxed in the swinging hammock, glimpses of her white robe peeking through the knots. She reposed with her ankles crossed, engrossed in a book, her fingers lazily turning crisp white pages as her eyes scanned the paper. As Psyche watched, Cupid flexed her toes and sighed, tilting her head back into the hammock and closing her eyes, unaware of Psyche’s observation.

For perhaps five minutes, Psyche simply stood in the archway, her shoulder resting against the cobbled warm brick, content to watch Cupid without betraying her presence. As Cupid bent to resume reading, Psyche paced towards the hammock, her soles silent upon the tile. Her hand lifted, and she gazed at her fingers in the brighter light of the patio. The teal aura continued to shine, but outside, without protection, the glow faded until she barely noticed it. A deeper sapphire aura glowed around Cupid, perhaps more mature and older. Hints of that sapphire aura tickled Psyche’s memory: touching Cupid’s hand in the café, bullets passing through in a haze of violence, her fingers wandering over Psyche’s breasts in a dim foyer. All sapphire hued.

Cupid sensed Psyche’s presence as Psyche lowered herself to the ground near the hammock, settling into a comfortable cross-legged pose, smoothing the robe across her bare thighs. She leaned back on her hands and gazed up at Cupid.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Cupid murmured. Both relief and joy curled the shape of her lips as she spoke.

Psyche’s head swam with questions. Settling on one, she bit at her lower lip. She held up her fingers and wiggled them.

“I glow,” she remarked. The words sounded strange emerging from her lips, as if someone else had uttered them.

Cupid nodded.

“All goddesses glow,” she replied mildly.

Psyche absorbed the words, but the meaning failed to penetrate her muddled mind. She decided on a safer tack. She gestured to the plaza and the sky above with her glowing hands.

“Where are we?”

Cupid laughed, her voice musical and rich.

“Don’t you recognize Olympus?”

Psyche shook her head, more confused than ever.

“Why would I recognize Olympus?”

“Olympus, Heaven, Valhalla. Gods and goddesses live here.”

Psyche paused, the import finally registering, perhaps with the mention of Heaven.

“I’m dead?”

Cupid surveyed her carefully. With one hand, she reached down and pressed a cool finger to Psyche’s throat. Psyche’s pulse beat against the finger before Cupid withdrew it. The touch ignited desire deep in her chest.

“Your pulse seems fine,” Cupid remarked.

Psyche blinked, unsurprised. Her pulse also beat strongly in her ears.

“I’m a goddess?”

“Alive and well,” Cupid confirmed.

A vague memory of a bullet striking her chest unnerved Psyche. Her fingers wandered beneath the robe to touch the scarred circle of flesh beneath her left breast. Walter would kill her for allowing damage to her flawless skin. Except, Walter didn’t matter. Not anymore. She bit at her lip again, choosing her words carefully.

“I died,” she intoned. She expected more emotion in her voice, but it emerged as a flat statement, not a query.

Cupid shifted in the hammock, placing her book on the ceramic floor. She faced Psyche and answered as simply as possible.

“Yes.”

Psyche inhaled sharply. The news of her demise oddly failed to rattle her. The sun shone. Birds sang. Harps played somewhere in the distance. Her heart continued to beat.

“How?”

Cupid gazed into her eyes for a long moment.

“I couldn’t live without you,” she said simply. The straightforward truth of the statement struck Psyche like a bell ringing.

“I was resurrected?”

Cupid shook her head.

“More like reborn.”

“As a goddess?” Disbelief.

Cupid regarded Psyche, her eyes dancing.

“You sacrificed everything for us. Everything. Your comfort. Your entire world.” Cupid paused for a moment. “Your life.”

Atonement. Her world had dissolved like fireflies at sunrise.

“I couldn’t live without you,” Cupid repeated. Her voice dripped with veracity.

Psyche stroked her tender jaw. The memory of the origins of the ache surfaced, but she pushed the violence from her mind.

“How long?”

Cupid looked up towards the sky.

“I’ve waited for you to wake for six weeks,” she said sombrely. “Uncertainty plagues the process. Nobody has attempted the making of an immortal in millennia. Many restless nights you lay in the sheets. I held your hand. Pressed compresses to your brow.” Cupid hesitated for a minute.

“I slept for six weeks?”