The Gatekeeper's Sons

Chapter 21

Therese was glad when she came home Thursday afternoon to find herself alone—except for the company of her pets—because she could hardly contain her excitement. She couldn't wait to have more of her questions answered, to find out what the Furies were like, and to spend more time with Than.

The phone rang just after she had stripped down for a shower, but she picked it up in case it was Carol, or better, Than. It was Vicki Stern.

"So can you go to the movies tonight?"

Therese had completely forgotten her promise to call Vicki back. "I'm sorry. I've actually got plans again. I was invited to have supper with another friend."

"But I asked you first, Therese."

"This is a family thing that came up. I'm sorry. My aunt's in town and..."

"You just said it was a friend."

"A friend of the family. Hey, let's shoot for next week, okay?"

"Okay."

"Bye now."

"Bye."

"Ugh," Therese said to herself. What was she going to do with that girl?

After her shower, she threw on a comfy t-shirt and shorts and went downstairs to make a batch of brownies to take to tonight's dinner. She hummed as she poured the chocolate batter into a pan and popped the pan in the preheated oven. Although she was humming "Poker Face," it dawned on her that she wasn't faking this new feeling of liberty as she had on the dance floor. Something about Than's presence and his apparent love for her had freed her from the dark depression that had threatened to overtake her. She still wanted to go to the Underworld, but now she could do it without dying. She could be with her parents and the sweetest, sexiest guy she had ever met.

Things hadn't turned out so badly for her after all.

As she made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she wondered if she truly loved Than. There was no doubt that she was enamored with him, no doubt that she crushed on him harder than anyone she had ever met, no doubt that she longed to be with him every second he was away from her. But could she really say she loved him when she barely knew him? And if her answer was yes, as crazy as that would sound, did she love him enough to spend all of eternity with him?

She took her plate and glass of milk with her upstairs so she could log on to her laptop to learn more about Thanatos and the Furies. She found a passage from an ancient poet named Hesiod who described Than and his brother this way:

And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods. The glowing Sun never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven. And the former of them roams peacefully over the earth and the sea's broad back and is kindly to men; but the other has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast: and he is hateful even to the deathless gods.

A new doubt worked its way into Therese's head as she processed the description. Could Than be deceiving her only to show his true self once she's his wife and it's too late for her to change her mind? Was he like his father, Hades, willing to trick her into becoming his queen of death?

Impossible, she thought.

She came across three different images depicting him. One showed him wielding a sword, wearing a shaggy beard and head of curly black hair. His ugly face looked fierce, unrelenting, and cruel. The second image was one she had seen that day she had come home from the hospital: the Grim Reaper, thin like a skeleton, cloaked in black, bearing a deadly scythe. The third image still wasn't her Than, but was closer to how she viewed him: a winged boy, like Cupid, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, with a sweet air about him.