Free Love or Fate by Clea Hantman

bad for someone with no powers. He would try again.
    “Fates, I beg of you, show your faces!”
    This time a minuscule firecracker appeared, popped in midair, and then fizzled to the ground, leaving a small pile of ash on the hallway floor.
    “Hmmm, still nothing. Okay.” Apollo tried one last time. “Fates, please, you are my only hope, show your faces!”
    This time there wasn’t even a fizzle. The room was silent.
    It was useless without his powers. He was useless without his powers. How, he pondered, how does one reach the Fates when they have no godly powers of their own? And then he remembered an old children’s tale that his grandmother used to read to him. It was about Tartarus and the Fates. How did it go? He concentrated on the memory of sitting in his grandmother Gaia’s lap, in her overstuffed brocade chair, the book in her hand.
    There was once a young mortal boy named Gerard, who, curious as he was, was constantlyfinding himself in places he didn’t belong. Once, he followed a soldier twenty miles on foot, wandering straight onto a battlefield — all because he’d been enthralled by the soldier’s uniform. He even managed, at the tender age of eight, to gain entrance into Aphrodite’s changing room.
    But one particular time he took his curiosity a step too far. In the dark shadows of a particularly deep and dastardly swamp where he and his father were camping, Gerard spotted a boat that caught his fancy. He quietly tiptoed toward the vessel and, seeing that no one was inside, he climbed aboard. He pretended he was a great sea captain, commanding hundreds of men. But then he heard someone coming and crouched down into the bow, under a large box. Little did he know that he had stowed away on a boat bound for Tartarus.
    Gerard shivered and shook the whole ride there. Once the boat docked and the coast was clear, he got out — a big mistake — for as soon as he took one step onto land, the boat disappeared. He had no way of leaving Tartarus.
    Gerard was frightened, more frightened than he had ever been. He sat on a rock next to a small muddy creek and began to weep. The next morning a very old Tartarus witch, one of the Secret Society of Witch Tarts, found himcrying. The Secret Society of Witch Tarts were a particularly evil brand of witches with many special powers, but this one in particular thought Gerard looked a lot like her own grandson, whom she hadn’t seen in many years.
    “What say you, boy?” she asked in her witchiest voice.
    “I’m not scared of you,” said young Gerard through tears.
    The witch liked the boy’s spunk and asked him why, then, he was crying.
    “I am crying because I miss my home. I would like to see my mama again. I cannot, can I?” And he began to cry even harder.
    The witch, who had a soft spot for young Gerard, could hear no more of his weeping. And using her special Witch Tart powers, she called on the Fates for help in getting Gerard back to his family. They came and listened as the Witch Tart pleaded the young boy’s case. The Fates then returned the boy to the mortal realm of the living.
    Yes, he thought, the Witch Tart was indeed able to contact the Fates, and the Fates had been able to get the boy out of Hades.
    Well, that was it. He would go in search of a member of the Secret Society of Witch Tarts.

THIRTEEN
    U pon seeing the Furies—all three of the Furies—my sisters and I mustered up a weak, “Tizzie!”
    That’s right, Tizzie wasn’t dead at all. But the toad was. Turns out my powers had been strong enough to create a toad out of thin air but not strong enough to turn one wicked witch goddess into the aforementioned toad.
    After the Furies had sent their scraggly pet bird creature on his way, and after they were finished laughing at our lousy attempt at an escape, our poor magical skills, and our wretched hairdos, they escorted us back to our “home,” aka the concrete box. It was a long walk, as filled with slime, bile, and gobbledygook as