The Goddess Test (Goddess Test #1)(49)
Author: Aimee Carter

The closer I got to Henry, the further removed from the real world I became. Even though it was beginning to feel like I would never go back, like those six months would somehow find a way to stretch into eternity, I knew they wouldn’t. There was an end, and we were rapidly approaching it.

Despite Henry’s company and constantly being shadowed, I was lonely. Ella spent all of her time with Theo now, and while Calliope stayed with me when Henry wasn’t there, even she seemed subdued after the incident at Christmas. And though James was the enemy now, I thought about him often. It couldn’t have all been fake, our friendship, and I missed being able to miss him without feeling angry. He wasn’t the one trying to kill me, I was sure of it now, and something about knowing he was on my side even though I wasn’t on his was comforting.

I missed Ava most of all. Every time I came across something I wanted to show her or thought of something I wanted to tell her, it took me a few seconds before I remembered that I would never see her again, at least not as friends. Occasionally I caught glimpses of her leaving a room as I entered or at the other end of a hallway I turned down, but she was never there for more than a moment.

Henry never made me talk about the pain and guilt I felt at the separation, even though it sometimes kept me up at night. He let me work my way through it on my own, and I wasn’t sure if I were grateful or resentful. Knowing that Ava must’ve felt as badly as I did only made me feel worse. Maybe she wasn’t the best friend in the world, and maybe she was a little too selfish sometimes, but I wasn’t perfect either. With each day that passed I regretted my judgment more and more. Ava was allowed to make mistakes—we all were. And what gave me the right to punish her for them when all she’d been trying to do was make the loneliness a little easier to bear?

To try to fill the empty hours, I spent more and more time in the stables with Phillip. It was quiet, and he didn’t press for conversation. He seemed to understand what I was going through, and he offered to let me spend as much time with the horses as I wanted. It was a generous offer, considering how protective he was of them, but it wasn’t enough to make me forget what I was losing.

It was near the end of January when one afternoon, Henry found me in the garden, wrapped in a cloak and kneeling next to a dormant, snow-covered rosebush. The memory of how I’d gotten there was hazy at best, but I didn’t particularly care. Once Irene had told me the date in the middle of our tutoring session, everything became fuzzy, and it was Henry’s voice that brought me crashing back down to reality.

“Kate?” Dressed in a heavy black coat, he stood a few feet away, sticking out like a sore thumb against the snow. I didn’t look up.

“It’s my mother’s last birthday.”

He stood still. Part of me wanted him to keep his distance, but a much more insistent part wished he knew me well enough to know when I desperately needed a hug.

“She always hated being born in January,” I continued, my voice blank as I stared at the lifeless plant in front of me. “Said she never felt like celebrating when there weren’t any flowers and all of the trees were dead.”

“Sleeping,” said Henry. “The trees are only sleeping. They will return when the time is right.”

“My mother won’t.” I sat down heavily in the snow, not caring if my jeans got wet. “We’ve been celebrating her last birthday ever since she was diagnosed. This time it’s really it.”

“I’m sorry.” He sat down beside me and wrapped his arm around me, and the warmth from his body stopped mine from becoming numb. “Is there anything I can do?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”

Henry was silent for a long moment, and when he did speak, his voice sounded distant. “May I show you something?”

“What sort of something?”

“Close your eyes.”

Fairly certain of what was about to happen, I obliged, expecting the change in climate. Instead of going from the cold outdoors to the warm indoors, however, I felt sunshine on my face and a warm breeze. We were still outside.

When I opened my eyes, half expecting to still be in the garden, I had to steady myself against Henry as I looked around. We were standing in the middle of Central Park on a summer day, exactly as my mother and I did in my dreams, except now the park was empty. My mother was nowhere in sight.

“Henry?” I said uncertainly, looking around. The lake was nearby, and I heard the strains of a familiar song being played somewhere in the distance, but we were alone. “What are we doing in New York?”

“We are not in New York.” He sounded wistful. I inched closer to him, both afraid and fascinated by this place. “This is your afterlife.”

I stared at him, his words taking several seconds to settle properly in my mind. “You mean this is—we’re—”

“This is your corner of the Underworld.” He raised an eyebrow at my expression. “Do not worry, it is only temporary. I wanted you to see it.”

Wildly I looked around, hoping my mother would appear, but it was just us. “Why?”

“I wanted you to see it so you would know—” He stopped, but he didn’t need to finish for me to understand what he wasn’t saying. He wanted to show me where I would go when I died. My stomach twisted into knots, and I glared at an unoffending patch of grass. So he wasn’t really fighting after all.

But he continued, his eyes lowered to the ground. “I am showing you so you will have some firsthand experience if you pass the tests.” A lie, but I tried to believe it. “Once you become immortal, when you are here, the Underworld will take on the shape as the mortal sees it.” Several seconds passed, and he added in a quieter voice, “I also wished to know you will be content in the end if the council does not rule in your favor.”

My favor, not his. Not ours.

I whirled around to face him. “Why are you letting them walk all over you like this? The council, your family, whatever they are—if you think I’m good enough, then why don’t you tell them to put a sock in it and respect your decision?”

Henry’s expression was unreadable. “I am not omnipotent,” he said, taking a cautious step toward me. I didn’t move away. “It is within the council’s power to make those sorts of decisions, not mine.”

“But you could at least try, and I don’t see you doing much of that lately,” I snapped. He flinched, but I kept going. “Aren’t you a member of the council?”