She was tired in the morning. It had been hard to sleep, even though the bed was soft and the sheets were silky. Alice had ended up tossing and turning for most of the night.
Still, she got out of bed almost immediately when the first rays of sun began to slip through the window curtains. She’d just worn her t-shirt to bed, even though it still had dust on it from the building collapse. Now she slid quickly back into her jeans and went over to the window.
The curtains seemed to draw her there. What did this place look like outside? She hadn’t even thought about that yet, she’d just appeared in the middle of this place. This…palace, or whatever it was. Cautiously, she approached the window, not really sure she was ready to know what lay beyond it. What if she opened the curtain and an alien landscape lay before her? What if it was something she’d never seen before?
Her fingers were trembling a little as she reached for the red velvet curtains, but there was no way she was going to walk away. She needed to know what was out there. What was the afterlife made of?
She gripped the curtains and ripped them back, a little harder than she’d intended to. The curtain rings jingled on the bar overhead, and sunlight suddenly blazed in, bathing Alice’s face in a wash of light. She blinked, a little stunned, and then her vision cleared.
Beyond the glass lay a garden. The most colourful garden she’d ever seen.
Pink and white-blossomed trees bent their heads over the garden, softly nodding in the wind. Purple flowers burst from patches of deep green vines, and bunches of shiny red berries drooped from the branches of a bush that Alice had never seen before. In fact, many of the plants looked exotic. Like they’d been whisked away from some kind of tropical rain forest and planted here. Alice couldn’t identify half of them.
All around the garden, a clear blue river wound itself like a ribbon, so deep blue that it had to have been fed by some sort of glacier.
She found herself pressing her face to the glass. Her chest was aching, she realized. That was how badly she wanted to go out there, to walk between the trees. To have the wind blow through her hair and wrap her in the scents and sounds of the garden.
A gentle tap on the door made her pull her face away, suddenly mortified that she’d left a smudge on the glass. Hurriedly, she pulled the curtains back in place.
“Uh, come in.”
The man who opened her door was tall and thin. He was dressed in white robes and sandals, and he had very blonde hair. Definitely a god, or at least a half god. He gave her an awkward bow and cleared his throat.
“My mistress requests that you take breakfast with her.”
“Oh.” Alice’s hands flew to her clothing. “I...I’m afraid I’m rather dishevelled.”
“Not to worry.” The servant, Alice guessed that’s what he was, turned around and picked something up from the ground behind him. He offered it to her, a small wooden chest with silver handles.
Alice hesitated, then took it. “Um, thank you.”
“Clothing,” he explained. “And a towel. My mistress says she expects you will be here for a few days.”
“Oh, but my friends—”
“Time doesn’t work the same way here.” His dark eyes went narrow. “And you have a very important choice to make.”
Somehow she didn’t think these were the servant’s words. He’d been told to say this. Gaia had known exactly how this conversation was going to go. It was a little eerie.
“Yes, thank you.” She hugged the wooden chest to herself and waited until he nodded and turned around, closing the door quietly. She set the chest down on the bed and flipped the clasps on the front, tipping the lid up to reveal a swath of shiny fabric on top.
Alice plucked it up, and it unravelled all the way to the floor. A dress. Her stomach shifted uncomfortably. What was she expected to do with that? Surely she wasn’t supposed to wear a dress to breakfast. That seemed ridiculous.
No, there was more clothing in the chest. The next outfit Alice pulled out was a divided skirt and a loose fitting white shirt. That would suit breakfast much better than a fancy dress.
She wasted no time in slipping into the outfit, smoothing her hair back and wrapping it up into a bun. Hopefully she was semi-presentable now. The idea of having breakfast with a goddess without having a shower beforehand wasn’t an appealing one. But the idea of making a goddess late for her breakfast was even worse.
Alice turned for the door, taking a deep breath while her hand was still on the knob. This would be fine. She’d talk with Gaia, maybe get to know her better, then she’d make her decision about the wishes.
How on earth was she going to make everything return to normal with just two wishes?
Alice pushed the door open and jumped a little when she came face to face with the same blonde servant. He gave her a quick, insincere smile and turned abruptly on his heel. She was supposed to follow.
Of course, he’s here to lead me to breakfast.
It was a good thing too, because as Alice soon learned, Gaia’s house was massive. She’d been right to assume it was a palace. It made her smile when she thought about first being shown around Ambrose’s mansion. She’d thought that was big. You probably could have fit several of Ambrose’s mansions in this place.
The servant was completely silent as he led her down one wide hallway after the next. Alice was too busy looking around to really be bothered by it. Each hallway was lavishly decorated. There was soft, red carpet underfoot, and it muted their footsteps and swallowed up any sort of noise they made. Along both walls there were paintings, and every frame housed a ridiculously good looking individual. Lineups of gods and goddesses. Alice found herself wishing she’d at least washed her hair.
There were golden globes of light along the walls, the glass orbs dangled from silver hooks and chains, and Alice had to resist the urge to reach out and touch one. What were they made from? Was the light from electricity? She didn’t think so. The light was too warm, too orange. It was magic.
Gaia’s magic, though, since every hallway they walked down was utterly devoid of any threads. It was a little spooky, actually. Alice found herself missing the familiar presence of the threads pulsing above her. Her fingers itched at the thought. If only she could reach up and brush the threads and feel that warm charge of electricity shoot through her. It would have been so reassuring right then.
The chain around her neck felt heavier. She had exactly three threads of magic in the little vial that Azura always insisted she wore. After the poisoning incident at Ambrose’s mansion, she hadn’t taken it off. The threads wouldn’t be much good if something really horrible happened, after all, it was only enough for one spell, but still…it was comforting to know they were there.
At last the servant led her into a wide open room, once that was decorated in gold and purple. There was a very long table in the center, and Gaia was sitting at the end of it. She was being served food and drink from silver platters by more of the white-robed servants, but when she saw Alice she waved them away. “Alice, welcome. Do sit down for some breakfast. I believe in getting a healthy start to the day.”
Alice noticed, with some trepidation, that Gaia was not alone at the table. There were three other gods sitting there, two men and a woman, and all of them looked up as she came in. The woman was very beautiful, though she didn’t have the same regal bearing as Gaia. Still, she had flowing blonde hair and very dark eyes. Those dark eyes examined Alice up and down, then flicked back to Gaia as the blonde goddess apparently grew bored with the newcomer.
The other two didn’t look away though, and Alice shifted uncomfortably under their stares. One god, the one sitting on the left side of the table, even gave her a wide grin and winked. It wasn’t just that he was good-looking, though he was incredibly attractive, it was the fact that he was shirtless that made the blood rush to her cheeks, and she hoped he couldn’t tell she was blushing.
“Sit.” Gaia gestured to the far end of the table, and the servant stepped forward and pulled out the chair. Alice, knowing that it was an order and not a request, sat down rather quickly.
“Don’t be rude,” Gaia said, glancing around sternly at her breakfast companions. “Introduce yourselves. She maybe be a mortal, but she is an honoured guest here.”
The blonde goddess still looked bored, but she shifted her gaze back to Alice and said coolly, “I’m Iris. Pleased to meet you.”
Alice resisted the urge to retort that she clearly wasn’t. She resolved to ignore the goddess, and turned her attention to the other two. The god on the far side was the one who had winked at her. Alice thought he was a bit ridiculous actually, the way he was sitting back in his chair with his arms behind his head, stretching out his upper torso…of course, it was a particularly nice torso, but still…
“Bacchus,” he said, his voice laced with amusement. “So pleased to meet you, Alice.”
Alice snapped her eyes back up to his face, furious with herself. Yes, he’d definitely seen her looking. Instead she fixed her eyes on the goblet that was sitting on the table in front of him. Dark red liquid filled it halfway, and now she remembered where she’d heard the name Bacchus before.
Bacchus: god of wine, music, and ecstasy.
It made sense.
The third god sat up a bit straighter in his chair, clearing his throat. He was still attractive, though he was considerably less flashy than Bacchus. Shaking strands of brown hair out of his eyes he gave her a shy smile.
“Charon, nice to meet you.”
Alice blinked at him. “Charon, oh…” she cut herself off, suddenly afraid she was being rude. “I’m sorry, I didn’t expect—”
“Me to be in any kind of paradise?” Charon smiled ruefully. “Don’t worry, it’s a common misconception. The ‘ferrying the dead back and forth’ thing is a part time job. I like to get away sometimes and go somewhere nicer.”
“And you are always welcome here,” Gaia said smoothly. Then she smiled at all of them and gestured at the table, which was laden down with more dishes and platters than Alice had seen in her life. “Now, let us enjoy our breakfast.”
Servants came, whisking away the lids of the platters and plates, and Alice found herself enveloped in a burst of deliciously scented steam. There were pastries of every kind, platters of eggs and slabs of juicy looking bacon. Bowls were piled high with fresh fruit, and a giant basket of freshly baked bread graced the center, still steaming from the oven.
So the gods didn’t just stick to nectar. That was a relief.