Roy tipped his green trucker hat back on his head and spit into the dirt with a long practiced nonchalance of a tobacco chewer. His wife had made him give up the habit all those years ago, but he still felt the urge to have a wad in his lip and to express saliva into the dirt as he worked it. He leaned out of the cabin of his tractor, and as the engine whine finally died out to eerie silence, he was able to address the young girl standing in the middle of his wheat field.
“My god, young lady. What are you doing out here?”
The girl must have been nudging the edge of puberty, as she was tall enough to be at least eleven or twelve, but her soft features belied a younger age altogether. She was facing partly away from Roy and the immense harvester with its swirling blades of silver, and for all Roy could tell, she did not care in the least. She deigned to shift her gaze to Roy’s sun baked face, and a brief moment of eye contact sent a shiver down his spine. Her eyes were as silver as the harvester blades.
“Young lady? This is my field. Shouldn’t you be in school?” Roy asked again, stepping down the small ladder from the cab, wishing again he has a dip. It was too early to be dealing with a young girl standing in the middle of his wheat field.
The girl did not look back again, she only looked up. Roy followed her gaze into the blue bird sky of the morning, but there was nothing above, not even a wisp of cloud. She was dressed simply, a white dress shirt tucked into a simple uniform skirt of gray. She was oddly barefoot, and did not have a backpack or lunch box or anything of the sort that would indicate that a school was noting her absence.
“Uh huh.” Roy kept his distance, walking around the edge of the blade enclosure, and stood on his heels, nervously glancing back towards the spot in the sky that did not exist and then again back to the girl.
“I am waiting for my brother.”
Her voice was crystal clear, as if fashioned from the resounding ring of the town bell. There was no innocence in her voice, no child like wonder or insecurity. None of the hallmarks of a child that would give Roy comfort in finding a kid in the middle of hectares of wheat, miles away from the nearest road.
“You brother, huh?” Roy tried. He started feeling his pockets for his smartphone.
“Yes. Are you simple?” Her gaze did not drop from the point in the sky.
“Simple?”
“Yes. A way to describe someone of low intelligence in a kind way.”
Roy stopped fiddling, remembering that he left his phone in the cradle back up in the cab. “I don’t consider myself a slow one. You shouldn’t talk to your elders like that.”
“There are no Elders here,” the young girl sighed. “I am older than all of you and I grow weary of it.”
Roy’s eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, but knowing what his wife would say, he let it go.
“Can I get you back to the road? I can call my wife,” Roy tried.
“No. I must stand here. Exactly here.” The girl pointed at her bare feet, but again, did not move the rest of her body at all. “I do not care what you do, as long as you do not interfere with my welcome.”
“Ok,” Roy sighed. He stepped back up to the wide side of the tractor, pulling himself up to the cab with the same grunts and heaving sighs he expressed on each trip up the short ladder. He settled back into his worn leather seat, and it bobbed up and down as the air system compensated for the sudden addition of his weight. He wiped at the window with one sleeve of his flannel so he could keep an eye on the young lady while he dialed his wife.
“Roy?” His wife sounded worried. “You don’t call unless something is wrong… Is the tractor down?”
“Oh no, nothing like that love. Mary…” Roy took a deep breath thinking on what to say. “There is a girl in the south field. Just standing here.”
Mary’s voice shifted to curiosity. “A girl?”
“Yeah. She looks like she is about the age of grade schooler or something, but strange. No shoes.”
“Well I would hardly say that no shoes is rare,” Mary tittered.
“Maybe for a summer run or lounging at the lakes, but it is October, Mary. It ain’t exactly summer weather for a young lady in nothing but a school uniform standing in the middle of a wheat field, going around barefoot. This ain’t right.”
“Alright, let me hop in the truck. I will head over.” Mary paused. “Wait. Do you see that?”
“See what?” Roy glanced away from the odd girl and looked over his fields.
“Uh, let’s see, east. In the sky. Is that a meteor?”
Roy leaned forward and looked at the very spot the girl had been looking. A fireball was streaking downwards, leaving a thin trail in the sky behind it.
“I don’t know, Mary. Stay put. I will call you back. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Be careful, Bear.”
Roy put the phone in his overall pocket and stepped back down the tractor. He carefully walked around the edge of the blade enclosure, and looked up at the sky. The object was too far away to hear, but the sense of it grew as it hurtled through the atmosphere.
“What is that?” Roy called to the girl.
“A chariot. Apollo arrives.” The young girl shifted in place, her limbs lengthening and her body growing as she stood a full body length above Roy. “And I am here to welcome him back to my Earth.”
“His sister?” Roy felt extremely confused. Not by the sudden metamorphosis of the young girl to an Amazonian goddess, but by the fact the girl insisted it was her brother arriving by flaming chariot.
“I am Athene. Apollo is my brother, simple man.”
Suddenly, from the east, a fantastic roar could be heard and felt. The ground trembled as if it was about to be taken by a hunter, and the air itself vibrated visibly. The windows on the tractor all shattered, and Roy clamped his hands to the side of his head. There was no explosion. There was no great rending of the earth. One moment, Athena stood alone with Roy in a wheat field in the middle of the eastern plains of Colorado, and the next the two of them were joined by a man that appeared to be made of gold, his skin flickering from the fires of his descent. No chariot or horses were with him, but Roy had felt a moment of seeing great flaming beasts stamping about before the vision was lost as his reality reformed back to what he was expecting.
And Roy was thankful none of the wheat had caught from the sparks.
“My sister, goddess most tempestuous, wise and beautiful,” the golden man spoke aloud as if it was a formal greeting that was an old exchange between the two of them. “I take great joy in seeing you.”
“My brother, god most beloved, intelligent and protective,” Athena bowed her chin slightly, not lowering her silver eyes from the face of her brother. “Welcome to Terra Firma, may it take joy in your return from absence.”
The golden man stopped flickering and started to shift as Athena had, and in a moments, a handsome teenager stood in his place. He was no taller than Roy, but the muscle and tone of the body that shifted under the classical white robes made Roy feel uncomfortable. Roy felt as if he was watching sexuality in its purest form. He had not noticed, but the tall Amazonian had returned to her previous girl-like shape and size.
“Whatever are you wearing, dear sister?” Apollo’s eyes flicked over to Roy, and it was if Roy had erupted from the earth to surprise the god. “And who is this strange man?”
Athena sighed as if annoyed by the merest mention of Roy. “This is the local farmer of these fields, Roy O’Bannon. He claims he is not a simple man, but I am left to wonder. And this, my dear brother, is considered modern clothing. You will need to change.”
Apollo suddenly stood in a flannel and overalls, but still barefoot, and still very radiant. Roy noticed they were an exact copy of his own work clothes. Apollo had not replicated Roy’s favorite hat, choosing to leave the luxurious brown curls in place.
Athena made a face. “By Father’s beard, not that. But it will have to do. Much has changed here since you left. The people believe themselves to be… advanced.”
“As if they ever could. And much has changed since you were exiled dear sister,” Apollo frowned slightly as if the next thing already left a bad taste in his mouth. “Father…”
Roy stood there, preferring to be ignored. He wanted to call Mary, but he knew it would be a bad idea to attract attention. Even in the presence of seemingly benevolent gods, he felt like a caged rabbit within eyesight of a pair of hawks.
Athena made a face that matched Apollo’s. “What of Father?”
“He suffered wounds… wounds that he did not tell us of.”
“Wounds? From the Titanomakhia? Impossible… it was eons ago!” Athena put a finger to her chin. “He could have made and unmade his form countless times since then. Countless times.”
“Father was wounded in a way that we cannot understand. His very spirit was seemingly cut deeply in the battle. He pursued healing every way he could, but his very psyche was brutalized by it. No amount of love, sex, or fury could bring him the healing he so desperately craved. Eons of secret suffering, my dear sister.”
Athena’s eyes went wide. “I have learned something new.”
“As we all,” Apollo sighed releasing his tension finally. “Our Father is dead.”
“Lie,” Athena whispered, her eyes narrowing. “The Ageless cannot die. They can only fade and lack that which gives life. But that is not death, it is merely haunting. They do not cross the river, and they do not wallow within the deepest limits of creation.”
“We do not understand. But death has come to Olympus,” Apollo laid a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “And worse, Tartarus is unstable. We suspect the great chains will fail. The fire of which they are crafted started to wane upon his death.”
Athena’s silver eyes welled with tears, but none fell down her cheeks. “Then why have you come to me? This is surely the end to all things, then.”
Apollo looked nervous, seeming to shrink into the flannel that he wore. “Father left me a message to give to you.”
Athena’s eyes grew hard, and her size swelled again as if preparing for battle. “No. I will not hear it. He abandoned me. He abandoned all of us! Do you not see the truth of this, dear brother? Even you, on the Mountain, all of you that retreated from the waters… earth and it’s children were abandoned. Our creations and works forgotten! The greatest work was sullied by the stains of Father’s ‘wisdom’! He knew not! He knew nothing!”
“You must hear it, my sister. You must, Athene Pallas, most fierce.” Apollo stood taller, his skin was aglow in the morning light. “They are the last words of your Father, and they erupted from his lips as you erupted from his thoughts.”
Roy realized they were not speaking English. He did not know how he knew, nor did he know how he understood anything they were saying. But he stood, a witness to an event that he would never be able to share. He knew that even his wife would think him mad.
Apollo laid both of his hands on Athena’s shoulders. “He said to me: She who came from my thumos, my making, my very ideals… my golden son, find Athene. Tell her this, she will be the one to heal the wound that I never was able. Tell her that she must find Demeter.”
Athena laughed cruelly, shrugging her brother’s hands from her shoulders as she shrank again. “Demeter hid herself before the Fall of Athens. Do you know how impossible it is to find an Elder? Have you ever tried!?”
Apollo looked uncomfortable. “Little sister, you and I have had our differences in the past. I know that we have not been able to share each other’s viewpoints in things that we cared for. Such matters… I know that Artemis was between us in many things. But hear me now, you are not alone in this.”
“You will come with me?” Athena sniffed.
“I will endeavor with you on this quest. We shall find our Aunt.” Apollo rolled his eyes, “One way or the other.”
Athena laughed shallowly at what must have been an inside joke. Roy was very confused at all this, so he said so.
“I am very confused.”
Apollo turned, his skin shifting to gold again, his brown curls starting to flicker as if made of sunlight.
“Roy O’Bannon, you are confused on nothing. You are filled with peace and joy. You are a master of these fields, and your crops will have my blessings for seven by seven seasons for you and your children. You will forget this encounter, and think never of it again. Go now, to your wife, who worries upon the hill, and show her your love.” Apollo grinned like the two of them shared a dirty joke. He added, “Many times. May you and your love be extremely satisfied in such things!”
Roy’s eyes glazed over and he shook his head briefly. “Yes, I should walk back to the house since the tractor seems to be down again. I will have to come check it later, won’t I?”
Athena nodded. “You will, simple man. And you are not… simple. I forgive you.”
Roy started walking through the wheat, his hands brushing their golden tops and he felt the heavy need to kiss his wife like he had when they were teenagers. He grinned and started to jog instead, feeling as if he could run around the world and understand everything he would ever care to.
Roy O’Bannon ran like the wind to his beautiful wife. His kids would not be home for many hours yet, and he thought he could persuade Mary to set aside her chores. Laughter erupted from his chest and he felt truly alive for the first time in years.
The field behind him stood empty, only a lonely tractor sitting among the rows of wheat awaiting harvest.