The Lost Gifts of Mount Olympus and Other Almost-Stories

by Rachel WhelanIntermediate FictionSiddhartha DebFinal PortfolioMay 2009

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The Lost Gifts of Mount Olympus

A column of six-hundred-year-old stone stood guard at the waterfront of Thessaloniki. When Ares gave the city to the Greek Army in the fall of 1912, the Bloody Tower of the Ottoman Empire had become the White Tower of Greece. A century later, the late summer breeze still swept beads of the sea onto its faded white wall.

In September, the throngs of tourists were beginning to diffuse and intermin-gle with students. The line at the entrance to the tower had dissolved by the af-ternoon. Inside, children ran orbits around pieces of glass-protected history. As a guard accompanied a rickety woman up the wide stone stairway to the second floor, a college boy slipped past a red rope to a hidden staircase.

Six flights up, Damien walked to the brim of the tower, squinting at the dis-tant peaks of a mountain. Traces of snowcaps hung suspended amongst the clouds. This was the first day that was clear enough to see past the water’s edge. Thessaloniki was comfortably strange, as if he had always lived there but one day lost all memory of the place. Home, where no one knows your name. His eyes re-laxed as he turned away from the sun, walking toward the staircase and back to real life.

Damien veered off Nikis Avenue onto a side street, away from the crowded waterfront, and stepped into a little restaurant with a small sign that read “Salo-nika Salon” in slender script. The doorway introduced seven steps leading down to the floor of the sunken restaurant. The diminishing sunlight sifted through three windows, obscured by linen shades. Damien sat at a table beneath the sec-ond window, between a group of five or six unabashedly noisy teenagers and an elderly couple. He stacked his books onto the closest chair. His roommate had not yet arrived.

Damien was becoming interested in Hellenistic Fortifications from the Aegean to the Euphrates when a sharp little squeak cut through his concentration. He looked up just in time to see his tower of books topple to the ground. Above the ruins stood a petite girl with long, deep-dark hair, green eyes, and an apologetic look

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on her face.“Sorry,” she said in English. “Weekend is crazy.” She pulled the chair up-

right with one hand, clutching an empty circular tray in the other. “But it’s Thursday,” Damien replied in Greek.She bent to pick up the books. “Don’t worry about it,” Damien said, stand-

ing to shoo her away, “I’ll take care of them. I shouldn’t be setting up obstacle courses in crowded restaurants.” He smiled at her, blindly gathering his scat-tered belongings. Her eyes truly were beautiful - fireworks of green between more subdued hazel hatchings - but everyone told her that. Damien elected not to.

“Would you like something to start? Or are you waiting for someone?”“Oh, no, no,” he replied to reassure her that he was certainly not waiting for

someone. “Just my roommate. He’s always late. I’ll have a coke I guess.”She scrawled coke onto her pad in curly letters. He re-evaluated his

choice. “Make that a beer. Whatever’s on tap.” She smiled. He smiled back. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.” She wrapped the bottom of her knee-length skirt around one hand, keeping it close to her as she squeezed her way through the crowd to the bar.

“Stupid,” he said out loud to himself.“I told you to stop calling me that.”Damien looked up to see a tall figure suddenly standing above him.“Charles. Nice of you to stop by.”“Must make my rounds. You understand.” Charles subtly slurred his words

in that charming English drunk fashion he had perfected over years of practice. “May I sit, or do you prefer your hard-bound friends to your rat arsed flatmate?”

“Some of us actually attend classes,” said Damien, sliding the books into his bag and under his chair. “But I guess I could take a break in honor of my favor-ite miscreant.”

Charles banged his fist on the table. “Damn right. Still can’t find your key, then? Where’s the waiter? I need a drink.”

Right on time, the girl reappeared with a full tray of drinks. She shifted the tray from her shoulder to her waist with one elegant turn of her wrist, and placed a frothy glass in front of Damien.

“It’s amber. I think you’ll like it.” She swung the tray back up to its perch. “I’ll be right back for you,” she said to Charles, and slid back into the crowd.

“They always come back for me,” Charles said with a smirk.“I saw her first.”“All’s fair in…” Charles took a sip of Damien’s beer. “Sex and Politics.”

Nine drinks, four hours of sleep, and three painkillers later, Damien slumped into a seat near the back of his Myth and Controversy lecture. He knew it had been a bad idea to take an elective on Friday mornings.

The room hushed as a man in a tattered brown suit set down his leather brief-case and placed his notes on the lectern.

“Good morning, students! My name is Henry Brown. You may call me Professor, or whatever you’d like, provided I can’t hear you. Good to see your bright, smiling faces at this early hour.”

Damien grunted a laugh, took another sip of coffee, and opened his note-book.

“Never fear, no boredom here! I’ll let you read the syllabus on your own time. I have a story for you.” Professor Brown moved across the well of the room and began climbing the stairs through the rows of students. “Who has heard of ‘Pandora’s Box’?”

Hands rose.“You!” said the professor, pointing at Damien’s crumpled frame. “What’s

your name, and what do you know about ‘Pandora’s Box’?”“I’m Damien. Theodorakis. The Greek gods put a pile of evils and diseases

into a box... a jar, actually. Erasmus incorrectly translated the Greek word pithos into the Latin pyxis, which means box. Pandora opened it, and that’s why our lives are so miserable.”

“A bit simplistic, but accurate, Mr. Theodorakis, thank you.” The professor made his way back down into the pit. As he spoke, his arms conducted the tune of his suddenly theatrical, thundering voice. “Prometheus, son of the Titan Ia-petus, had stolen fire from Olympus for the good of the human race. Zeus pun-ished Prometheus for eternity. Chained him to a rock as a vulture ate his liver, which regenerated nightly, so that he may endure the same torture the next day.”

The crowd grimaced. Damien sat up.The professor’s voice returned to its usual rumble. “Yes, gross, I agree. Yet

his punishment of men was far more gruesome,” the professor said, retreating behind the lectern. “As Hesiod wrote: ‘Forthwith he’ - Zeus, for those of you who have been sleeping - ‘made an evil thing for men as the price of fire... that which was sheer guile, not to be withstood by men...’”

The professor lifted his eyes from the page. “Woman.”A kid in the back row whispered, “Hesiod didn’t get many chicks.”Professor Brown circled the podium. “This first woman, this ‘beautiful evil,’

was given a gift from each god: strength, grace, lust, deceitfulness, speech... She was thus called Pandora, ‘all gifts.’ Pandora was also given a jar, which has come to be known as Pandora’s box.” He rifled through his papers, then began to read again:

“For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sickness which bring the Fates upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar with her hands and scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar

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stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds. But the rest, countless plagues, wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and the sea is full. Of themselves dis-eases come upon men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently; for wise Zeus took away speech from them. So is there no way to escape the will of Zeus.

“This should sound familiar. Pandora’s box is a very popular myth. What you are unlikely to have heard, however, is the recent Pandora controversy plagu-ing the academic community. A revision of the myth has been unearthed.” He leaned against the table in front of the chalkboard. “Some claim it as Hesiod’s lost manuscript, some decry it as apocrypha. Its language is identical to that of Works and Days and Theogony, and its story is much the same as the original. However, in this version, there is not one jar, but two: one of glass and one of gold. Pandora opened the latter, releasing all its evils into the world. The former remained untouched.”

An older man with a briefcase appeared in the doorway. He had thick, dark eyebrows which he nervously tugged at, rolling the short hairs between his finger and thumb the way another man would stroke his beard. He leaned against the doorframe, listening to the professor.

“The new story explains that when the gods created the first jar, filled with evil and disease, its complement was simultaneously brought into being. For each plague, there exists a cure, which Zeus hid away so that man would be properly punished for his unapproved use of fire.”

Standing behind the podium, he continued, “There was an article in Age-lioforos last week about the local proliferation of groups dedicated to finding the mythical jar. Even in scholarly circles, the story of Pandora’s second box has sparked a certain nostalgia and renewed public fascination with ancient Greek myth. So you see, fiction has a power over man that pure fact cannot subvert.”

Finally noticing the man standing in the doorway, the professor collected his notes. “All right, early dismissal today, folks! Please read the syllabus and the first chapter of your text for next week. Remember, there is no way to escape the will of Zeus, or the Great Professor Henry Brown.”

Damien arrived at the Saloniki Salon just before six. The Babel of the night before had vanished. There was a single customer, drinking a glass of wine at the bar. Damien sat at the table by the window, with a fresh stack of books from the library. He had read four versions of the Pandora story, none of which men-tioned a second mythical jar. He scanned another translation of Theogony.

“What are you reading so intently?”As he began to reply, “a book,” he glanced up to see the waitress from the

night before, with the same long, black hair and emerald eyes. He smiled.“Not so busy tonight, huh?”“No, it’s still early. People here eat later. Are you American?”“Yes. I’m only here for the semester. At Aristotle University. That’s where

I’m going to school, I mean. I live around here, actually. I’m Damien.”“Pia,” the girl said, extending her hand.“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Pia.”He ordered a beer, and she delivered it to him. He returned to his book.

‘I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction.’

Pia didn’t look like she could destroy mankind, he thought. She glanced at him, combing her hair up into bun. Then again... He hid his smile in his book.

So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud. And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athene to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs.

She walked past his table. He slid a book onto his lap and avoided eye con-tact. She returned with a basket of garlic sticks. “You looked hungry, working so hard.” She spun around back towards the bar.

“Thanks,” he said to her back.

...the Slayer of Argus contrived within her lies and crafty words and a deceitful nature at the will of loud thundering Zeus, and the Herald of the gods put speech in her. And he called this woman Pandora, because all they who dwelt on Olympus gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread.

Damien chewed. He looked at his watch. Seven-thirty. Charles had not ar-rived. At eight-thirty, Charles did not arrive. Nor at nine-thirty, nor ten-thirty, nor eleven-forty-five. The restaurant filled up with people and emptied out again. Damien read, looking up to watch Pia light candles on the tables, then weave through the crowds, then mop the floors, then blow out the candles.

Everyone had left. Pia disappeared into the back of the restaurant, and re-turned in jeans and a white t-shirt. She approached his table, carrying a bright

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blue purse over her shoulder.“Are you planning on staying the night?”“Oh! Sorry. I didn’t realize how late it is.” Damien hurried to collect the

books, notes, pens, and candy wrappers that had taken over his table. “I was just waiting for my roommate. He’s probably lost in a bottle somewhere.”

“Your British friend?”“Not friend, exactly, but yeah - I lost my keys a while back and I’m too cheap

to pay the fee.”“Are you going to be able to get in all right?” she asked, cocking her head to

one side. Her hair fell around her head, reaching for the floor.“No, but I’m sure there must be an alleyway nearby with a comfy cardboard

box lying around,” he said, half kidding.“Don’t do that. You can stay at my house, if you want. I have many card-

board boxes. A couch, too.”He thought about refusing, but she would have insisted anyway.“I suppose I can’t say no to cardboard and a roof.” He moved toward the

door. “You do have a roof, don’t you?”She led him off the mainstreet into an alleyway. It was littered with bottles

and bags of trash, with bricks crawling up its sides. “Where are we going?”“My parent’s house. Don’t worry. Just a shortcut.” The alley walls opened to

reveal a sprawling park filled with ancient trees. Damien paused for a moment before he noticed Pia ten feet ahead, walking down the path that cut across the grass. He ran to catch up.

“You live with your parents?” he asked, trying to cover any hint of disappoint-ment in his voice.

“No.” Her eyes hovered on the horizon, staring out towards the mountains. “They died when I was little.”

“Really?” he said, then reigned in his surprise. “I’m sorry. I just never. Well, my parents died too, a long time ago. It was a car accident. My grandparents raised me.”

“I’m sorry.”“Don’t be. They were lovely people.” He smiled.They walked a block in silence. He turned to Pia. “Does life ever scare the

shit out of you?”She brushed her hair behind her ear and squinted back at him without an-

swering.“No? I’m sorry.”“Don’t be sorry. What do you mean, exactly?”“Sometimes I feel like all of history and everything that exists now in the en-

tire world are suddenly in front of me, and I’m supposed to do something with it, but I have no idea what.” Their walk slowed to a stroll. “I’m supposed to do something. And when I feel like that, nothing I could do would be right. Nothing is right. There’s just too much wrong with the world, and nothing I can do about it.”

Pia stopped, tilting her head at him.

“Why did you stop?”She looked up at the sky, lifting her arms above her head in an effort to touch

some small piece of the universe. Her hands dropped down to comb through her hair while her eyes remained on the stars, her face illuminated by the yellow streetlamp.

“Look at this,” she said.He looked up and searched the night’s dome with his eyes. Everything and

nothing stretched in front of them.“Isn’t it wonderful?”He looked at her and smiled. “Yes, it is.”They began their walk again. He turned his face toward her as she talked,

unworried about whatever lay ahead. She continued to look upwards at the sky.“For everything that’s bad, there’s good as well. You just have to decide what

you want to look at.” She slowed to a stop again, this time in a well-worn place where she had stopped many times before.

Damien looked up to see a wrought-iron gate rising to a height three feet above his head. Beyond it lay five circular stepping-stones leading to a striking old building. Ivy crawled up its sides and over the line that divided its stone face from the sky. They walked through the gate. “You live here?”

“In fact, I do.” She stepped gracefully from stone to stone, her eyes focused on the sky. “It really is an amazing night,” she said.

He smiled, but he didn’t look up. “Yes, it is.”He followed her inside, into a room of delicate lamps and monumental arm-

chairs. One wall was covered in canvases of various colors, sizes, and splotches, each trapped in a metal rectangle. The adjacent wall was empty save a picture window. They walked up two flights of wooden steps, into a wide room with low ceilings. A diminutive bust shrugged its bronze shoulders in a corner. A wispy chandelier hung low in the center of the room.

“My parents were collectors.” She gestured to the couch. “Your home away from home. Would you like a drink?”

Pia walked over to a small bar cut into the side wall of the apartment and poured two glasses of wine. They watched each other as she passed one stem to him. His eyes grazed her lips for an undetectable moment before averting to the clear liquid in his glass. It had a citrus smell, but with a mysterious hint of smoke behind it.

“It’s from Santorini. Have you had it before?”“I haven’t. I’ve heard of the island, though.”“It has beautiful beaches but its wine is better. A long time ago, the volcano

erupted, covering the entire island with lava, ash, and pumice stone. The soil is unlike that of anywhere else. It holds water from the night for the Asyrtiko grapes to drink in the heat of day. The vines soak up the flavor of the volcanic soil. They also grow Asyrtiko just outside of Thessaloniki, but the wine isn’t the same.” As she spoke, she slid across the floor in a slow waltz to the music wafting through her windows. When the music ended, she approached the couch. She pivoted slightly before sitting and her skirt twisted around from her hips, spiral-

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ing down to her knees. She smiled at Damien. “It’s good, right?”“Yeah. It is,” he said. “How do you know so much about wine?”“I know everything,” she said, and she laughed. Then he kissed her. She

smelled like citrus, too, and smoke, and -She pulled away.“I’m sorry,” he said. “Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”She didn’t look down, or away, and she didn’t get up from the couch. She just

said, “It’s okay.”“It’s okay?”“Yes. It’s okay.” She kept her eyes on him. She leaned into the arm of the

couch behind her. He looked at his feet while running through his mind for memories of any park benches they had passed. But instead of throwing him out, she kissed him on the forehead.

“It’s past my bedtime. Forgive me? I have work in the morning.” She walked towards the door at the end of the room. “Goodnight,” she said.

“Goodnight,” said Damien.Pia gave a little bow and disappeared behind the door.“Well done,” Damien whispered. He thought about the things he should

have said, if only he had thought of them sooner. The couch cushions were soft and forgiving and soon enough he had forgotten everything, because now he was climbing.

He was very high up, above everything, and suddenly he felt very afraid. He clung onto one tree and the next as he made his way through the forest to the top of the mountain, because he was looking for something he couldn’t remem-ber, but he felt he needed it very badly. It began to rain heavily, but somehow it was easier to climb now, he could just wade through the muck, without fear of falling. In fact, he was sliding slowly upwards, pushing off trees as he went. The trees began to thin out and he could see the peak now. There was a group of people standing at the top, having a cocktail party of sorts, all with flowers and leaves in their hair. He hid behind a rock near the bar, beside a large glass of invisible wine that someone had left, which smelled like heaven, even from far away. He reached for it, but his arms were too short, and the rock that sheltered him was no longer there, and all the guests could see him reaching, and he knew he had made a mistake. They all looked at him angrily, except for one girl who looked very nice, who just looked sad, and then a tear ran down her face. He managed to escape through a secret door in the floor, reminding himself never to climb the mountain again, and never to drink wine.

He woke up in a block of suffocating light, shining on him through the cur-tained windows. There was a note on the coffee table in curly blue ink:

Hope you slept well. I forgot to find you a box. I made waffles. In the fridge. Enjoy. (Toaster is on the right side of the counter.)

~ Pia

He left without eating. He didn’t feel very hungry.

Damien waited in a windowless room on a backless chair. He could hear voices from behind the door to his left.

“I certainly understand your concern, Mr. Xenos, but I assure you that I can take care of myself.”

“Have you considered --”“Thank you, Mr. Xenos. I’m afraid I must get back to work. I appreciate

your visit.”The door opened, and the two men emerged.“Professor Brown. I was wondering if you could help me with something.

I’m in your Myth and Controversy class? My name’s Damien.”“Mr. Theodorakis. Of course.” Mr. Brown turned to wave the frowning old

man away. “Good day, Mr. Xenos. Don’t forget this,” he said, handing the man a briefcase. Then he gestured to Damien. “Please, come in.”

Damien walked in, stepping neatly from foot to foot, cheating catastrophe with every footfall. The office was a labyrinth of books. Some stacks reached the ceiling. He couldn’t see the window, only a subtle implication of the outdoors by the way the light filtered through the shelves. He turned around, careful to place his arm directly behind him to avoid any avalanches. The room had swal-lowed Professor Brown.

“Professor? I’ve been trying to find the text you talked about in class. About Pi-Pandora’s other box?”

“Yes! Yes, the lesser-known jar, of course!” The voice resonated through pages and bounced off bindings. He was somewhere near the window, it seemed. The phone began to ringggggggg.

“Well, do you know where I could find it?”The professor’s head appeared above a leaning stack of thin volumes. He

placed a hand on top of them. “Even if you truly believe it exists, I would advise against looking for it. People are protective of their myths, even those that are transparently false.” The professor disappeared again.

“The text, I mean.”Ringgggggggg.“You could look in the library. They have everything, if you know where to

look. The librarians are very helpful. Hello?”“Professor?”“Yes, yes, this is Henry Brown.”Damien craned his neck. “Professor?”“No…”He picked at his fingernails.Then it happened. First he heard the simple plat of one book on top of an-

other. Then plat platplatplat – THUD.“GODDAMMIT.”Damien hurried to the door, dodging the threatening towers along the way.

“Thank you, Professor! See you on Friday!”It was a narrow escape.

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“I have never heard of such a thing,” the reference librarian said, glaring up at him from behind the desk.

“Well, do you have any Hesiod in the original Greek?”“This is a library, isn’t it?” She led him through rows upon rows of books, into the dark recesses of lit-

erature and then out again. They approached a brick wall at the very back of the library. He hadn’t even known there were books back there. Before they had reached the last stacks, the librarian stopped short while her arm gestured to him to continue moving forward.

He stared at spines he couldn’t read. There was a thin black book on the top shelf, a piece of paper edging out from its binding. He opened it. Hesiod, he understood, but the rest was indecipherable. He had learned Greek as a kid, but not this Greek. He took the book anyway.

He thought he might know someone who knew how to read it.

He waited outside the restaurant, determined to find the breath to speak once she came out. He paced up and down the sidewalk. Hi. I was wondering if you could help me with something strange. No. Hi. I’m – Hi. I have this book. Can you read it?

He pivoted and bolted upright to stop from running into the girl in front of him.

“Ah!”She laughed, brushing blonde bangs off of her face. “Pia went home. She

wasn’t feeling well.”“Oh… thank you.”He speed-walked to Pia’s with flushed cheeks.When he arrived at the iron gate, he stopped. He turned around to walk

back, then turned again. Nothing made sense. His head gently thumped into the gate.

“Ow.”“Hey!”Pia leaned out her window, with her hair pinned up behind her. “One of

these days you’re going to hurt yourself.”Damien lifted his head and his lips naturally curved to mirror her smile.“Are you hungry? I just made some dinner.”He walked from stepping-stone to stone, then through the door and up the

stairs into the wide room with the low-hanging chandelier. No Pia there. He sat on the couch, waiting. Couldn’t think of an excuse to leave, so he just sat. He rationalized. Maybe he had imagined all the humiliation of the week before?

Light footsteps bounced up the stairs, and Pia emerged with two plates of fish and kremedopitas. “Lucky you, I made extra.” She sat on the couch next to him.

“I’m really sorry about leaving you here the other day. You looked so peace-ful, I didn’t want to wake you.” She took a bite of fish and chewed like she was starving, but somehow managed to look elegant.

“That’s sweet of you,” Damien said. He leaned against his book bag and remembered his justification for coming back. “I didn’t get the chance to thank you for being so hospitable. Turns out that cardboard is less comfortable than I’d hoped.”

She laughed kindly.His cheeks flushed again. He took out the book. “Yeah. Anyway. I actually

came here to ask… Is there any chance you know how to read this?”Pia took it, running her finger along its leather spine, where the title was

imprinted. “Possibly,” she said, opening to an arbitrary page. She cleared her slender throat. “Fools. They know not more - not much more the part is than the whole... for the gods keep secret from men the truth of life.”

“No, skip ahead a few pages,” Damien said. He leaned in, turning pages from memory. He pointed to the top of the right page. “Try starting from there.”

She read again, with impressive ease. Damien didn’t move a muscle. “For ere this men lived without ills and burdensome labor and heavy sicknesses which bring the Fates

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upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took the first of the two...” She wrinkled her brow. “It stops making much sense after that.” She closed the book.

“It doesn’t say anything after that?”She returned to the page. “Everything gets murky… it’s unclear.” She looked

up at him and her lips curved into a pale quarter moon that tilted to one side. “You read a lot, don’t you? You must think about wonderfully complex things.”

He looked down, taking the book from her. She cocked her head to intercept his line of sight.

“You have something --” she licked her finger and gently pressed it against his cheek. “An eyelash. Got it.” She blew it off of her finger into the air.

And then her lips fell into his, her eyes closed. He fell back, stunned. She looked at him without betraying emotion, her eyes mining his. He moved quickly to kiss her back. One arm slid around his waist and another around his neck as they both slipped deeper into the couch and soon they could only think in sweet nothings.

Damien awoke in bed, entwined in a wash of sheets and limbs. Pia’s breath flowed softly out onto his neck. Her dark eyelashes were locked around her eyes. Her hair was splayed across the pillow behind her.

Damien’s head throbbed.“Pia,” he whispered.She stirred. “Mmm?”“I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”He carefully untangled himself and tiptoed from the room. He searched the

bathroom, filled with lotions and unidentifiable bottles with pink, swirly labels. Nothing useful.

He returned to Pia’s room. “Pia,” he whispered again, “do you have any Ad-vil?”

She gave a soft noncommittal moan and turned to her other side. He looked in her closet. Nothing. He studied her shelves, full of vases and books and trin-kets. On the bottom shelf he found a wooden box engraved with curled lines and spirals. He opened it. No prescription bottles, no makeup, no over-the-counter medication. Just a glass jar wrapped in a velvet blue cloth.

Strange. An empty jar.He began to open it, careful not to make any noise.Pia bolted up from bed suddenly, eyes wide. “Damien? What are you do-

ing?”

He strained to hear but there was nothing. Pia’s mouth was wrenched open. Her eyelids were squeezed violently shut, the top against the bottom in an everlasting war. Her body lunged toward him as though through water, as though she was slowly diving into a dream. The jar dropped from his hand. Now he was only grasping at the lid, as it grew evermore slippery in his fingers. Droplets of glass splashed against the floor, but Damien heard nothing. Pia was in his arms now. Tears dripped down his shoulder. He held her as he watched the shards sink into the floor as the floor turned to glass and the walls slipped into the air, as if all the molecules that made up everything were shrinking and diffusing, blending objects and spaces and then even him and the girl with the glossy green eyes until everything was one thing and then, suddenly, everything was clear. There was an absence of everything except a beginning.

And so the end came as the Fates had ordained: What woman had broken, man fixed.

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The LighthouseA continuation of the unfinished work by Edgar Allan Poe

Jan 4.

Today Neptune has been quite sluggish. Perhaps my memory deceives me — but I seem to recall him having been more spirited.... It is I who is acting sluggish, in truth. It took almost twice as long as yesterday to climb to the top... the soreness in my legs has slowed the process, I am sure. The depth of the light-house continues to perplex me... I have not found a reasonable answer for it. What could the use be in such depth? It seems to be deeper each time I look at it — but that is absurd. The water has risen again, past the high point of yesterday. Yet still nothing stirs outside, and the sea is unmistakably flat. It is nice to have some quiet, now that I am finally rid of Orndoff and the cutter has returned home -- She should have reached the meeting place by this time, if not earlier... But it is of no consequence to me. Neptune has proven himself worthy company, certainly..... never a complaint from him — but at times it seems the smallest sound will take on its own life inside of the light-house. At sunrise I swept the floors.... the brush of bristles against the ground sent echoes up the walls as if they might crumble at the sound — My hearing has improved, or else the sound is merely inflated in this quiet... These iron walls could withstand the fires of hell or worse.... I am safe, to be sure.

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us to leave -”“Who?”“Excuse me?”“Who else was there?”“My brother,” she said, calming. “He was with me, in our mother’s study.

She said she wanted to rest. I didn’t know - I had no idea...” The dam burst, and she threw herself into the leather couch. I sat down, peeled her off the imported goods, and held her still while she regained composure. The man and his mustache glared from the corner of the room. She sobered up quick, pulling herself upright.

“I’m sorry,” she said.“Nothing to be sorry for.”“Of course,” she said.And I asked her, “Now, Miss White... Who would want to harm your

mother?”

I put the matches in my pocket alongside the cash and a cold metal object - the key. How thoughtful of Miss White.

LATER…Mrs. White (the elder) had stipulated in her will that should her death be

attributed to foul play, her fortune shall be passed to the American Heart Association to further their research into the causes and cures for heart disease, from which her father and husband died, in their tribute. She herself often complained of chest pains in conjunction with a certain tightness when breathing.

Her body was found in her study, quite unexpectedly. She had been missing for weeks and suddenly appeared, dead. Due to a mix up at the morgue, her body was cremated before the autopsy could take place. Nonetheless, her death was decided to have been the result of natural cardiac arrest.

Mr. and Miss White were aware of the Mrs. White’s family history. They were also aware of the ‘foul play’ clause in Mrs. White’s will.

Of course, Mr. and Miss White are not actually Mr. and Miss White. And Mrs. White was never kidnapped; she was in hiding. When Benjamin and Antonia White were abducted, she knew her life was in danger.

Mr. Belmont, being the sharp investigator that he is, realized that Mr. and Miss White used him to find Mrs. White so that they could poison her. At the moment of confrontation, Miss White shot Mr. Belmont dead, cried, and left with the inheritance. The police later recovered this notebook.

Notebook #3 [1234650858]

Thursday. Office.

I came to in the bathroom, handcuffed to the copper pipe behind the sink. The room had the stink of bleach on it; everything had been wiped clean. The hair at the back of my head was matted, wet. There was blood, but not much. My hand was crusted with it. The three hundred dollar bills were clean, untouched, in my breast pocket. The radiator buzzed in my ear, jolting me up as the cuffs held me down. Mercifully my cigarette case had been left within reach, along with a box of matches - Café D’Or set in gold letters across the top.

I took out a cigarette, bit it, lit a match. Quite a storm today.

At about 5 p.m. and this pair of long legs in a black suit blew into my office, reeking of money with a faint undertone of rose petals. Wide eyes, diabolical figure, the whole set. Her friend was much less accommodating to look at: a large fellow, 6’2” at the least, and unfriendly at that. His mustache was even less sociable, as if he kept a porcupine under his nose for protection... Could explain his demeanor.

I told the girl to sit down, get some air in her lungs. Even through the fog of smoke in the room, the light creeping through the blinds reflected off her diamond earrings to the tears dripping past her eyelashes and came to rest on the wall.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, taking my handkerchief. “I’m so sorry, Mister Belmont. I’m Miss White.” She extended a manicured hand.

“Darling, call me Daniel. What can I do for you?”“My mother - she’s missing. I think something horrible has happened,” she

said, her dark eyes glinting with the threat of a flood.“Slow down, darling,” I said. “Tell me from the beginning.”“My mother - she’s a very wealthy woman, but she’s very sharp, she doesn’t

trust anyone. I saw her two days ago, in her study. She seemed worried. She was acting strangely. We couldn’t make heads or tails of it. She said she needed