Percy Jackson and the Greek Heroes by Rick Riordan
Aphrodite was vacationing on her sacred island of Cythera when she heard that her son had become the laughing stock of the cosmos. She sped off to find him – partly because she was concerned about him, but mostly because it reflected badly on her.
She arrived at her Adriatic palace and burst into Eros’s room. ‘Who is she?’
‘Mom,’ he grumbled from under the covers, ‘don’t you ever knock?’
‘Who’s the harlot who broke your heart?’ she demanded. ‘I haven’t been disgraced this badly by a mortal since that Psyche girl a few months back!’
‘Well, actually, about that …’
Eros told her the truth.
Aphrodite hit the roof. Literally. She blasted the ceiling to rubble with a pretty pink explosion, giving Eros the new skylight he’d always wanted.
‘You ungrateful little boy!’ she screamed. ‘You were always trouble! You never listen. You mess with everyone’s feelings, even mine! I should disown you. I should take away your immortality, your bow and arrows, and give them to one of my manservants. Any mortal slave could do your job. It’s not that hard. You never apply yourself. You never follow directions. You –’ Blah, blah, blah.
And on and on like that for about six hours.
Finally she noticed that Eros’s face was sweaty and pale, which you don’t normally see with an immortal. He was shivering under the blankets. His gaze was unfocused.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Aphrodite moved to the side of his bed, pulled back the covers and saw the festering, steaming wound in his shoulder. ‘Oh, no! My poor baby!’
Funny how a mom’s mood can change like that. She wants to strangle you, then BOOM! – a little life-threatening injury and she’s cooing about her poor baby.
She brought him a cold washcloth, some rubbing alcohol, a bandage and some chicken-soup-flavoured ambrosia. She summoned Apollo, the god of medicine, who was mystified by the wound.
‘Normally you don’t see this from a drop of hot oil,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Doctor Amazing,’ Aphrodite grumbled.
‘No problem!’ Apollo said. ‘Now, I have to get back to my groupies … I mean my concert on Mount Olympus.’
Nothing seemed to help Eros’s wound, not even Aphrodite’s magical beauty cream, which usually cleared up blemishes right away.
Aphrodite made Eros as comfortable as she could. Then she turned her attention to a blemish she could eliminate – that mortal witch Psyche, who had caused all this trouble.
She was about to leave when her front doorbell rang. The goddesses Demeter and Hera had arrived with flowers and balloons and sympathy cards.
‘Oh, Aphrodite!’ said Hera. ‘We heard all about Eros.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you did,’ Aphrodite muttered. She imagined all the other goddesses were delighted to learn about her new family scandal.
‘We’re so sorry,’ Demeter said. ‘Is there anything we can do?’
A few rude suggestions popped into Aphrodite’s mind, but she kept them to herself. ‘No, thank you,’ she managed. ‘I’m going to find this mortal girl Psyche and destroy her.’
‘You’re angry,’ Hera said, because she was perceptive like that. ‘But has it occurred to you that the girl might be good for Eros?’
Aphrodite became very still. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Well, Eros is a grown man,’ Hera continued. ‘The right woman might help him to settle down.’
Demeter nodded. ‘His happiness might even heal that wound in his shoulder. Apollo told us the burn wasn’t responding to godly medicine.’
Aphrodite’s eyes glowed pink with anger.
The other goddesses knew they were taking a chance, so why did they risk getting on Aphrodite’s naughty list? Simple. They were more afraid of Eros. They saw this as a chance to get on his good side.
Eros was random. He was dangerous. He could shoot you with one of his arrows and mess up your entire life by making you fall in love with an ugly mortal or a pair of bell-bottom jeans or anything. That prophecy about Psyche marrying a monster? It applied to Eros just fine. Everybody was scared of him, even the gods.
Aphrodite glared at Demeter and Hera. ‘I am going to destroy Psyche. No one will get in my way. No one. Understand?’
She stormed out of the palace and started her search.
Fortunately for Psyche, Aphrodite really sucked at searching.
If she’d been looking for her hairbrush or her favourite pair of pumps, that would’ve been easy. But looking for a mortal girl in a world full of mortals? That was hard. And boring.
She combed all the cities of Greece, flying overhead in her golden chariot pulled by giant doves. (Which I find kind of creepy. Does that seem romantic to you – getting pulled around by big white birds the size of Ford pickups? And the poop those things must’ve dropped … Okay, I’ll stop.)
Aphrodite kept getting distracted by sales at the mall, or cute guys, or the shiny jewellery and dresses that the mortal girls were wearing this season.
Meanwhile, Psyche kept trudging along, searching for her husband in all the most remote shrines, temples and LA Fitness centres.
By this point, her pregnant belly was starting to show. Her clothes were torn and muddy. Her shoes were falling apart. She was constantly hungry and thirsty, but she would not give up.
One day she was roaming through the mountains of northern Greece when she spotted the ruins of an old temple. Hey, she thought, maybe this is a temple of Eros!
She struggled up the steep cliffs until she reached the abandoned building. Sadly, it wasn’t a temple of Eros. Judging from the sheaves of wheat carved on the altar and the amount of dirt on the floor, it was a temple of Demeter that hadn’t been used in decades.
What was a temple to the grain goddess doing on a barren mountain in the middle of nowhere? I’m not sure, but Psyche looked at the dusty altar, the broken statues lying across the floor, the graffiti on the walls, and she thought, I can’t leave the place like this. It isn’t right.
Despite all her problems, Psyche still respected the gods. She found some supplies in the janitor’s closet and spent a week cleaning the old temple. She scrubbed off the graffiti, polished the altar and repaired the statues with some strategically placed duct tape.
As soon as she was done, a voice spoke behind her. ‘Good job.’
Psyche turned. Standing at the altar was the goddess Demeter. She wore green-and-brown robes, and she had a crown of wheat on her head and a golden scythe in her hand. Psyche fell to her knees in reverence, which is a good idea when you’re facing a goddess with a scythe.
‘O great Demeter!’ she cried. ‘Perhaps you can help me. I need to find my husband, Eros!’
Demeter winced. ‘Yeah … about that. Aphrodite is out for your blood, girl. She won’t rest until you are destroyed, and I can’t cross her. Honestly, I would love to help you. If I ever get the chance to do something, like, off the record, I will. But you’ll have to find Eros on your own.’
Some people might’ve gone mad. Psyche just lowered her head. ‘I understand. I will keep looking.’
Deep down, she knew she would have to solve her own problem. She’d messed up, and no goddess could fix that for her. Just because she’d cleaned Demeter’s temple, Psyche didn’t expect a reward. She’d done it because it was the proper thing to do.
I know. Weird concept, right? But the girl was kinda heroic that way.
The goddess disappeared, and Psyche kept travelling. A few days later she was walking through a forest when she came across an abandoned shrine in a clearing. From the faded inscriptions and the ivy-covered statues, Psyche guessed it had once been a shrine to Hera.
I can’t leave it like this, Psyche thought. (Me, I would’ve have drawn eyeglasses and moustaches on all the statues and run away. But Hera and I have a history.)
Psyche cleaned up the altar, pulled the ivy off the statues and did her best to make the shrine nice again.
When she was done, Hera appeared before her in
Psyche fell to her knees. ‘Queen Hera! I expect no reward, but I am alone and pregnant and being hunted by Aphrodite. Could you protect me, just for a little while, until my child is born? I know you are the goddess of all mothers.’
Hera grimaced. ‘Ouch. No can do, my child. Aphrodite is absolutely crazy about killing you. If she ever stops getting distracted by clearance sales, she’ll tear you limb from limb. Perhaps one day I’ll have the chance to help you in some subtle, secret way, but I can’t protect you now. There’s only one solution to your problem. I think you know what it is.’
Psyche rose. She was so weary she could barely think straight, but she understood what Hera was saying.
‘I have to face Aphrodite,’ Psyche said. ‘Woman to woman.’
‘Right. Good luck with that,’ Hera said, and courageously disappeared.
Psyche continued her journey, but now she had a different focus. She went looking for the palace of Aphrodite.
Eventually Psyche found the right place: the big white villa on the shore of the Adriatic, with great views and lovely gardens all around. The place reminded Psyche, painfully, of the palace she’d shared with her husband.
She knocked at the big polished bronze doors.
When a servant answered and saw who it was, his jaw dropped.
‘You came here on purpose?’ he asked. ‘Okay. I’ll take you to the mistress. Just let me put my football helmet on first, in case she starts throwing stuff – like furniture, or me, or you.’
He brought Psyche to Aphrodite’s throne room, where the goddess was resting after another boring search for Psyche. When Aphrodite saw the girl she’d been looking for walk in, it was the most annoying thing ever – like when you spend all morning searching for your glasses and you find them on your head. (I don’t wear glasses, but my buddy Jason does. It’s pretty funny when he loses them like that.)
‘YOU!’ Aphrodite charged at Psyche. She started kicking the poor girl, pulling her hair, raking her with her fingernails. The goddess probably would’ve killed her, but once she saw that Psyche was pregnant she couldn’t quite bring herself to do that.
Psyche didn’t fight back. She curled into a ball and waited for Aphrodite’s rage to subside.
The goddess stopped to check her fingernails – because tearing a mortal to shreds can totally ruin your manicure – and Psyche spoke.
‘Mother-in-law,’ she said, ‘I have come to face my punishment for mistrusting my husband – whatever you think is appropriate. I will do anything to prove I love him and win his forgiveness.’
‘Forgiveness?’ the goddess screamed. ‘I don’t recognize your marriage. I certainly don’t recognize you as my daughter-in-law! But punishment I can certainly arrange. Guards! Take this mortal girl to my dungeon! I do have a dungeon, don’t I? Whip her, torture her and bring her back to me. Then we’ll see how I feel about forgiveness.’
The guards did what they were told. It was nasty. They didn’t kill Psyche, but when they brought her back she was beaten up so badly she was hard to recognize. Aphrodite was a wonderful host like that.
‘Well, girl?’ the goddess demanded. ‘Do you still wish to prove yourself?’
Amazingly, Psyche struggled to her feet. ‘Yes, Mother-in-law. Anything.’
Aphrodite couldn’t help being a little impressed. She decided to give Psyche a series of challenges – impossible ones, so she would still fail and die, but at least nobody could say later that Aphrodite didn’t give her a chance.
(Except me, telling you right now: Aphrodite didn’t give her a chance.)
‘I will test you,’ announced the goddess, ‘to see if you are worthy of my forgiveness and my son’s love. You’re so ugly, the only way you could make a good wife is by being a good housekeeper. Let’s see how well you can organize a pantry.’
Totally sexist challenge? Yeah. Totally Aphrodite? Pretty much.
She dragged Psyche to her godly kitchen and ordered the servants to dump out every sack of grain in the storeroom – barley, wheat, oats, rice, organic quinoa, whatever. Pretty soon the kitchen was buried in a blizzard of fibre.
‘Sort out these grains,’ Aphrodite ordered. ‘Put all of them back in the proper bags before dinnertime. If you fail, I’ll kill you. Or you can just admit defeat now and I’ll go easy on you. I’ll toss you into exile. You will NEVER see my son again, but at least you’ll still have your miserable life.’
‘I accept the challenge,’ Psyche said, though looking at the mountain of grain she didn’t see how she could possibly succeed.
Aphrodite left in a huff to get her nails redone.
Psyche began sorting. She’d only been at it for a few minutes – quinoa, barley, dust bunny, oat – when an ant skittered towards her across the kitchen counter.
‘ ’Sup?’ said the ant.
Psyche stared at it. ‘You can talk?’
‘Yeah. Demeter sent me. You need some help here?’
Psyche wasn’t sure how a single ant could help, but she said, ‘Uh, sure. Thanks.’
‘Okay. But if anybody asks we were never here.’
‘We?’
The ant let out a taxi whistle. ‘All right, boys, we’re on the clock!’
Millions of ants swarmed out of the skirting boards and set to work, sorting the grains into various bags. In about an hour, the whole kitchen was clean and tidy and the cupboard was back in order. The ants had even filled a new bag and neatly labelled it DUST BUNNIES AND OTHER FOUND OBJECTS.
‘Thank you so much,’ said Psyche.
‘Shhh,’ said the ant. ‘You never saw us.’
‘Never saw who?’
‘Good girl,’ said the ant. The entire colony wriggled back into the skirting boards and disappeared.
When Aphrodite returned, she was stunned. Then she got angry. ‘I’m not a fool, girl. Obviously you didn’t do this on your own. Some goddess helped you, eh? Someone wants to see me embarrassed! Who was it?’
‘Um …’
‘It doesn’t matter!’ Aphrodite yelled. ‘You cheated, so this wasn’t a fair test. You’ve earned yourself one night of rest on the kitchen floor and a crust of bread for dinner. In the morning, we’ll find you a harder challenge!’
Psyche spent the night on the floor. Little did she know that in the same mansion, only a few rooms away, Eros was writhing in agony because of his wounded shoulder and (METAPHOR ALERT!!!!) his wounded heart. Aphrodite hadn’t told him about Psyche’s visit, but Eros could sense her presence, and it made his pain even worse.
In the morning, after another nutritious crust of bread for breakfast, Psyche got her second quest.
‘I need wool,’ Aphrodite announced. ‘Any wife must be able to sew and mend clothes, and that requires good material. At the western edge of this valley, by the river, you’ll find a herd of sheep. Fetch me some of their wool. Return before nightfall or I will kill you! Unless you want to give up now, in which case –’
‘I know the drill.’ Psyche’s bones ached and her eyes were dim from hunger, but she bowed to the goddess. ‘I’ll get you your wool.’
Aphrodite forgot to mention a few details about the sheep. (Probably just slipped her mind.) For instance, their wool was pure gold. Also, the sheep had sharp horns, pointed teeth, poison bites and steel hooves as deadly as battering rams. (Get it? Rams?)
Psyche stood for a while in the morning sun, watching from a distance as the sheep destroyed and devoured any animal that came close – hedgehogs, rabbits, deer, small elephants. The pasture was pleasingly decorated with bones and human skulls. Psyche realized it would be impossible for her to even get near the herd.
‘Well …’ She glanced at the river. ‘I wonder if that water is deep enough to drown in.’
‘Oh, don’t do that,’ said a voice. It seemed to come from behind a cl
‘Who are you?’ asked Psyche. ‘Come out from behind those reeds!’
‘I can’t,’ said the reeds. ‘I am the reeds.’
‘Oh,’ Psyche said. ‘Are you going to lecture me about drowning myself?’
‘Drowning is never the answer,’ said the reeds. ‘But mostly I’m going to give you tips on wool gathering, because Hera asked me to help you.’
Psyche relaxed. Talking to a reed plant about wool gathering was the least unusual thing that had happened to her recently. ‘Thank you. Go ahead.’
‘As you can guess, if you go near those sheep now, they’ll tear you apart. But in the late afternoon, when it’s nice and hot, they’ll get sleepy and slow. They’ll gather under the shade of those big plane trees on the left. You see the ones?’
‘Those trees that look nothing like planes?’
‘Those are the ones. When that happens, sneak over to the thorn bushes on the other side of the meadow. You see them?’
‘The ones I can’t see the thorns of because they’re too far away?’
‘You’re a quick learner. Shake those thorn bushes, and your problems are solved.’
‘No disrespect, O Wise Marsh Grass, but how will shaking thorn bushes solve my problems?’
The reeds said nothing. They had gone back to being regular, non-advice-giving plants.
Psyche figured she should attempt the plan. If Hera was trying to help her, it would be rude not to. She waited until the afternoon. Sure enough, the killer golden sheep gathered for a snooze in the shade of the plane trees.
Psyche crept to the other side of the meadow. She shook the nearest thorn bush and little tufts of gold wool fell from the branches. The sheep must have been using the thorn bushes as back-scratchers. Psyche went along as quietly as possible, shaking golden wool out of the bushes, until she had as much as she could carry. Then she hurried back to Aphrodite’s palace.
When Psyche arrived, the goddess of love was eating her usual dinner: three pieces of celery and a cappuccino-flavoured protein shake (which may explain why she was always in a foul mood). She looked at the golden wool and wasn’t sure if she felt outraged or awestruck. She settled for acting cold and indifferent, which was her default setting when it came to other women.