Free The Gatekeeper's Secret: Gatekeeper's Saga, Book Five (The Gatekeeper's Saga) by Eva Pohler Page B

already wrapped in freezer paper so they could be eaten throughout the year. Everyone loved her mother’s banana bread.
    Lynn tore open a few of the presents from beneath the tree. She’d been right about the robot and had apparently picked it out at the store. For the rest of the evening, the conversation was punctuated by the beeping sounds and monotone words of the blinking, slow-moving robot.
    Later, after slices of pumpkin pie had been eaten and dishes had been put away, after leftovers had been d ivided among them and thank-yous and good-byes had been shared, the Holts loaded up the Suburban with their food and gifts and headed home.
    Jen helped her family put away the food and unload the gifts and then headed upstairs to her room. When she opened the door, she was shocked to find Hip, in mortal form, sitting on her bed with a gift in his hands.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Six: Artemis’s Contest
     
    One day in January, Therese responded to a distress call coming from a woman in Dorset, England , about her pet red fox, Anya. The woman explained that her sweet little fox had been bought from a special breeder in Russia for almost five thousand pounds and had become an important part of her family in the past three years. The woman and her husband had built an outdoor enclosure for their Anya that reached a full acre and was fenced along the ground as well as the sides, but their little digger had somehow managed to find her way out and had been lost for four days. Even though fox hunting had been outlawed, people in the countryside continued to practice it, since the law was difficult to enforce and since it was an important part of their family traditions. The woman prayed to any god who would listen to please help her to find her Anya before the hounds did.
    By this time, Therese had stopped taking the chariot, against Hades’s recommendation, because she refused to live in fear until the wedding, which was still a full five months away. Plus, it wasn’t fair to Stormy to leave him idle in the Underworld stables. So she and Clifford mounted Stormy and sailed through the air to England in search of Anya, the red fox.
    The woman, whose name was Belinda, prayed frantically. Therese wondered why she had waited four days to ask for help. In the two years she had been a goddess, Therese had discovered that it was typical for people to use prayer as a last resort when it should be the first thing they tried.
    When the English Channel came into view, Therese descended, searching with her keen eyes for Belinda’s home in the countryside. Stormy passed a ridge of bluffs, skirted down a deep limestone ridge, and headed into a low-lying valley full of trees and few country roads. There among the sparse cottages was Belinda’s, and, sure enough, less than a mile away, a fox hunt was taking place with at least a dozen hounds and four horsemen.
    Therese attempted to hone in on the foxes in the area, hoping to distinguish Anya from the wild ones. Meanwhile, she commanded the hounds, “Do not kill.”
    She watched with amusement as the pack of dogs circled in on one another, barking and whining.
    “You’ve confused them,” Clifford said.
    “I know,” she replied. “Poor things. I’ve asked them to go against their instincts.”
    “And their training,” Clifford added.
    Therese didn’t normally interfere with hunts of this nature, but someone’s animal companion was in danger, and it was her job to save it.
    Amidst the horsemen and their confused swearing, Artemis appeared. The two goddesses spotted one another immediately.
    “You’ve crossed the line into my territory,” Artemis exclaimed. “I’ve ordered the hounds to continue their hunt.”
    “But there’s a domesticated fox lost in these woods,” Therese said. “I need to find her and return her safely to her humans.”
    “Foxes were never meant to be pets,” the goddess of the hunt insisted. “People could use a good