Free The Heir of Olympus and the Forest Realm by Zachary Howe Page B

saddened more by her son’s childish bravado, but she seemed to accept the inevitable.
    “Okay. Just know that your father would have died a thousand times over if it meant protecting you. Revenge is dangerous, but I would go to the end of the earth to keep you safe. That may even be necessary given our situation.” She smiled weakly, but it somehow looked even sadder than her look of pained resignation. Gordie wished she would stay there in Madison, move in with her father and continue teaching at the high school just down the street; lead a normal life and eventually recover from her husband’s murder—but he knew there was no way he could convince her to do so.
    “Thanks, Mom. So how do we get there, Grandpa?”
    “We’re gonna fly of course. How the hell else would we get to Greece?”
    “What?” Gordie said, bewildered. “We’re just gonna take a plane? Can you do that on a, I don’t know . . . a quest?” Flying to Greece using modern transportation with the intention of looking for gods who were thousands of years old was not something Gordie could wrap his head around. It just didn’t fit . But he supposed his Grandpa was right: How else were they supposed to get there?
    “Let’s be careful about calling this a ‘quest,’ Gordo.” Atalo had reverted to a cautious tone. “That word fails to express the seriousness of our situation. Your mom’s right—we aren’t ‘gallivanting with gods.’ This is no Easter egg hunt. We’re dealing with incredibly dangerous and unpredictable beings. We need to remain vigilant.” His grandfather’s chastisement felt a little hypocritical considering his giddiness with this whole business, but Gordie nodded politely. He caught his mom roll her eyes; she apparently felt the same way.
    “So let’s go get those plane tickets, huh?” Atalo clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I’m gonna need some help using the internet though,” he said, with a crease running from his hair line to the bridge of his nose.
    While Ellie and Atalo went to his office to use the computer, Gordie remained at the table lost in thought. He had no idea what to expect from this endeavor and the uncertainty was the scariest part. Was he actually going to see Hephaestus? Would Hephaestus try to kill him? Was the god even real? Gordie kept trying to determine how Hermes could have been a hoax, but he knew in his heart of hearts that the youthful deity was all too real. Gordie was still excited, but an impending sense of doom had started to take hold of him; it was an odd combination. And it persisted.
    ***
    At 11:00 pm Gordie was in bed. Atalo had bought the one-way plane tickets to Athens out of O’Hare with a layover in London that was too long for Gordie’s taste. It was fifteen hours of travel time, excluding the drive to Chicago. They would leave the next morning. Why not? Why stay any longer and prolong the inevitable? There was nothing left for any of them here.
    Atalo was retired, which he referred to as ‘waiting to die;’ he could not have been doing a worse job of masking the childish glee he was experiencing over this adventure. Ellie was more solemn. After her husband’s death, she took extended leave from work. Gordie didn’t know what she was thinking: whether she intended to come back here, or to just wander around the Mediterranean. He guessed the latter was his plan. Before he went off to bed, Ellie had asked Gordie one last time if he was sure that he didn’t want to go back to school. Her heart hadn’t been in it though. There was something deeply defeating about his Mom—a teacher—asking him if he wanted to go back to school, and knowing she didn’t even care. But why should she? Why should he?
    The shadow of the window frame stretched across his bed in the glow of the full moon. Gordie had been watching its progression without really noticing. He supposed the cross-hatches were stretching across his face now, reaching. Thinking about his checkered