Free The Gatekeeper's Sons (The Gatekeeper's Trilogy) by Eva Pohler Page A

close to dying herself. She had believed herself to be the author of her own dream, and in that dream, she wanted her parents alive. Who wouldn’t? If she had exerted her will and demonstrated strength, she had done so in ignorance. She had not set out to challenge him.
    She hadn’t come like Sisyphus to bind him so humans could not die. She hadn’t com e like Hercules to steal Cerberus. She had not come like Orpheus first to persuade with song and then to defy a broken agreement.
    She had come, put her arms around him, and told him he was lovely —so lovely—and she had kissed him. Who in the history of time had ever done that to Death?
    And the deal with Hades required Therese to do something that not just any mortal could do. He wasn’t sure that even Therese could do it.
    Plus, he had only forty days. Why had his father chosen forty days? To Than, this seemed an arbitrary number. Why not one hundred? Why not twenty? At any rate, forty days seemed hardly enough time to make a selection among the billions of girls on earth. No, unless Therese was less than she seemed, he would spend his time courting her. He would not do like his father had his mother and take her unwillingly. Than had seen how her resentment had poisoned her relationship with his father. He wanted to win Therese’s heart.
    From the conversation below him, he came to understand that the woman was Therese’s aunt, Carol, and this woman was now encouraging Therese to visit her friend , Jen. Than soon learned where Jen lived, and so he turned his attention to her, to see if he could use her in his efforts to meet Therese in the flesh.
    When he found her, he was surprised to hear her praying to him. Most mortals prayed to a different god, unless they or someone they loved were dying or already dead. But this young woman was asking for death?
    “Everything would be easier for everyone else if you just took me. Then he could come back, and they’d all be a happy.”
    Than saw a way to befriend Therese. He would first study Jen and her family.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Eleven: Invitations
     
    A few weeks passed since Therese had identified the man she saw the day of the shooting, and, after mostly lying around in bed and spending time with her pets, she finally returned to the woods with Clifford. She didn’t go as far as usual, but she went a little ways, and Carol stood on the back deck watching her in full view. The police were no longer standing guard at the house, and Therese could finally take Clifford out to do his business without a leash and without him barking and growling and driving her mad. The wild animals, which had not come around while the officers were here, returned to eat the sunflower seeds Therese sprinkled across the deck and railing.
    Jen had called several days ago and had begged Therese to come and groom the horses with her, and Therese decided today she felt like going.
    Carol turned on to the gravelly drive leading up to Jen’s house. Clifford leaned his head out of Therese’s open window, his tongue hanging happily from his mouth, his stubby tail wagging. Clifford loved to come to Jen’s and run around the ranch, though he wasn’t allowed in the pen. He knew Jen’s family and their horses, and they knew him, and so everyone got along just fine. Therese loved to come too. She looked at the big log cabin, similar to her own, on the right of the property, and the barn and pen to the left. On the opposite side of the pen from the house, two pastures spread out to the north at the base of the mountains. A stream cut across the entire property behind the house and pen, and through the center of the pastures. Tied to the base of the front wooden steps of the house was a lone goat, which bleated as Jen opened the front door and skipped down the five steps to the ground.
    Jen’s blonde hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, and she wore a white tank top and old blue