Olympus Bound by Jordanna Max Brodsky

Author:Jordanna Max Brodsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Fantasy / Urban, Fiction / Fantasy / Contemporary, Fiction / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology, Fiction / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Historical, Fiction / Literary
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2018-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

PANTHEON

I have a new diagnosis for you …

Theo imagined some shrink with an Austrian accent, peering excitedly over the rim of his glasses.

First you exhibited all the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then manic depression with suicidal ideations. And now… The shrink would nod wisely and stroke the little gray goatee on his chin. Classic masochism.

Ah, come on, Doc. It’s not that bad …

The shrink would gesture to their surroundings with a pensive frown.

Then tell me, Mr. Schultz, why are you sitting in a temple to the Olympians if you just want to forget them all?

Theo stared up at the sky through the round oculus in the domed ceiling, searching for an answer he already knew: In all his many visits to Rome, he’d always made a pilgrimage here.

The Pantheon.

The great Roman temple to all the gods, still intact nearly two thousand years after its construction. Within its enormous, vaulted sanctuary, he’d felt most in touch with the ancient world. For much of his life, that meant he’d felt most fully himself. It had been a place of peace and meditation to him—the closest thing he knew to a sacred space.

The massive twenty-foot-tall bronze doors remained firmly locked this late at night, but his time with Selene had taught him a thing or two about sneaking in through side entrances.

Only a few small lights illuminated the interior of the temple. In the dimness, he could easily ignore the crucifixes and oil paintings of saints—reminders of the building’s current function as a Catholic church—and fall under the spell of the original Roman design. The geometric pattern of green, gold, and red porphyry across the floor. The soaring coffered dome of concrete, a masterpiece of Roman engineering. At the very apex, a large circular opening to the sky: the oculus—the eye. In the daytime, as clouds drifted by against the backdrop of pure blue and the occasional bird swooped through like a messenger from the heavens, he’d always thought it a window onto the gods themselves. Now he knew better.

Theo lay down on the floor directly beneath the opening. The marble cupped him gently, worn concave from centuries of libations poured by the Sky. He stared straight up into the infinite black of space. The stars, he knew, told the stories of Artemis and Zeus—the heroes they blessed, the monsters they created. Yet from inside the temple-turned-church, Theo could see only a smattering of pinpricks, the constellations as broken and hidden as the lives the gods now led.

Is this what I want? he wondered. To no longer know the gods’ stories? To imagine them as lost figments and fractured tales rather than breathing, feeling flesh?

When he heard the side door creak open, he knew it was no night watchman. He could smell the sudden breath of pine on the summer air. Her appearance didn’t surprise him. She was the Huntress; she’d always track him down, no matter how far he ran. Perhaps he’d even come to the Pantheon because he wanted to be found.

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