30. Analinda Elpis
30
ANALINDA ELPIS
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
— GEORGE AUGUSTUS MOORE, THE brOOK KERITH
I texted Reina to let her know I’d be missing our picnic, and I’d meet up with her later for fish and chips by the harbor.Jonathan and I had a lot more to discuss, and my friend understood, given everything else she knew about the strange sorcerer.
“So, the deaths of the Council members,” Jonathan said as he resumed his seat on the couch after I’d fixed us both plates of salami and crudité. “From what I’ve learned, they were similar to Penny’s—mental asphyxiation, memory burglary, arson. Mbotu worked in a clinic in Tanzania. A patient was hiding in the supply closet and watched when she was killed by an invisible force on the exam table. The boy thought she was possessed by some sort of demon and immediately ran to the local priest, who happened to be a sorcerer. According to the priest, Mbotu’s last words were very clear: ‘ Analinda Elpis.’ ”
I swallowed a bit of carrot. “What does that mean?”
“The first bit is Swahili for ‘she guards.’ The other is Greek.”
Recognition bubbled. “ Elpis . Yes. It has varying translations, but generally, it means ‘hope’ or perhaps ‘expectation,’ right? My Greek isn’t great.”
Jonathan nodded. “ Elpis was also the spirit who stayed in Pandora’s box after it was opened. There’s much debate about why she stayed or what exactly she was hoping for—the men or the gods. Hope is such an abstract concept.”
“You don’t think the box is the same one, do you?”
His brows lifted. “The box? No. To start, Hesiod and Homer both set their histories during Bronze Age Greece. And that’s just human history. Not fae.”
I waited for him to connect those dots. “So…”
He rolled his eyes. “Your grandmother didn’t send you a four-thousand-year-old wooden recipe box, Cass. It wouldn’t have survived.”
I sighed with a bit of relief. The box was hidden safely in my closet, wrapped in brown paper so I wouldn’t have to touch it. I hadn’t since that first night, months ago. But the idea that I might have shoved a many-thousands-of-years-old artifact behind a pile of old shoes made me feel more than a little bit guilty as a scholar of antiquity.
“Secondly,” Jonathan continued, “the box probably isn’t a box at all. The original Greek term, pithos , was mistranslated.”
“I actually knew that. Most references to ancient Celts are in the Greek and Roman texts. I’ve read most of them at this point.”
Jonathan nodded with approval, then started lecturing as fluidly as any of my professors. “So maybe you’re familiar with the debates about the meanings and etymologies of pithos . Usually, it refers to a large ceramic storage jar used to store things like wheat, wine, and oil. They also occasionally functioned as coffins for the Greeks, who borrowed from the earlier Urnfield cultures in Europe.”
“So in other words, she couldn’t have sent me a pithos in a recipe box,” I said dryly.
Jonathan popped a few salami pieces into his mouth. “Doubtful, yeah. But she might have sent you something related to it. At least that’s my theory.”
I looked down the hall toward my bedroom, where the box lay in the closet. “I don’t know what’s in there. To be perfectly honest, I’m terrified to look. But even if it has something to do with Pandora’s box, that’s a myth . If, and this is a gargantuan-sized if, these mythologies are actually remnants of fae history like Gran said, there is no way of knowing what parts are fiction and what’s fact, right?”
Jonathan didn’t respond, just continued looking at me expectantly, as if none of what I had said deterred his belief that I could be in possession of a long-lost mythical treasure. But something else was bothering me. Nothing good came out of Pandora’s box—just blights and evils. Why would anyone want to guard the origins of human misery?
“Why don’t I just show it to you?” I asked.
I knew I was supposed to keep it hidden, but Jonathan was already aware of its existence. He also already knew most of the intimate details of my life—why not this too?
I walked back into my bedroom while Jonathan made noises in the kitchen that sounded like washing dishes. I bent down in the closet and spun the combination dial on the small black safe.
“You don’t think that would have kept out a sorcerer, do you?”
I turned to where Jonathan was standing at the foot of my bed, arms crossed as he watched me open the safe. I looked back at the lockbox, which seemed so solid and secure with its rigid black exterior. He was right, though. A few quick words from a talented sorcerer, and the whole thing could turn to vapor. The safe was more of a guard for me than anything.
The lock between my fingers began to spin without my touch, and seconds later, a click sounded behind the steel door. It opened, revealing the contents: a small bronze urn holding Gran’s ashes, her will, some extra money, my passport, and the old black recipe box wrapped in brown paper.
I glared at Jonathan, who was now sitting on the edge of my mattress with a satisfied smirk.
“Proud of yourself?” I asked.
“Quite.”
“Want to make it float over to you too?”
He chuckled. “You can carry it.”
I rolled my eyes, then reached in, gloves on, and took the box from the safe, doing my best to ignore the way the colors of the room dimmed and a horrid emptiness threatened from all directions. The brown paper and my gloves dulled the threat, but it was still there, waiting to swallow me up.
I brought it over to the mattress and set it in front of Jonathan, relieved when the room returned to its normal, sun-dappled self as the sun began to sink through the trees and the apartment-riddled horizon.
Jonathan bent down curiously, eyes blazing but cautious. He seemed to be noting everything his senses could tell him about it, bringing an ear close, even sniffing around the top. He did everything but touch it, assiduously avoiding any contact with the box even as he used my comforter to push it onto its side to look at the bottom.
“Careful!” I exclaimed as he tipped it back over. “You don’t know what’s in there. It could be fragile.”
“I’m not sure Penny even knew what was in here.” When he looked up at last, his eyes had returned to their normal sage green. “The box hasn’t been opened for a very long time. Probably hundreds of years.”
I took a seat next to him, the box cradled between us on my patchwork quilt. “Can you tell that just from looking at it?”
“ I can, yes. But what I was actually looking at the magic that surrounds it. It’s sealed by at least five or six spells. Magic ages, just like wine. It takes on a certain scent, a particular taste. Sometimes it becomes brittle and breaks. Sometimes it gets stronger and more complex. And then sometimes it goes bad completely. I think that’s what’s happened, with one spell. If you touch the box, are your senses blinded?”
“It’s worse than that.” I recalled the horrible void with a shudder.
“Mm.” Jonathan crossed his arms and tapped his mouth thoughtfully. “It also appears to be memory-locked once or twice. Perhaps more recently, though I couldn’t say when exactly. The other magics I can’t See because of the blinding spell, but they’re definitely there.”
“Can you detect those things because you’re a sorcerer or because you’re half-cat?” I wondered, prompting an immediate eye roll instead of a response.
“None of the spells are broken, which indicates that Penny never opened it. But it’s definitely not Pandora’s box.” He focused again on the box with his eyes shimmering brightly, forehead creased with concentration. His head jerked as if someone had just socked him in the nose. “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed as he fell back, holding both of his hands over his eyes.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Fairly.” Jonathan blinked up at me from between my pillows, pupils dilated again. He sat up and shook his head like he was trying to dislodge cobwebs. “I tried to break the blinding spell to see what was inside it.”
“You rebel. That’s not allowed.”
He rubbed the spot in between his eyebrows. Both of us looked back at the box, which still sat innocently at the end of the bed as if it hadn’t just delivered a magical punch. “Put it back, for now. I’ll bind the safe so it will actually protect its contents, but we’ve got to figure out what to do with it. It can’t stay here.” He rubbed his eyes again and looked at me pointedly. “Do you still want to go to Seattle after everything I’ve told you, or straight to Ireland? You don’t have to decide about your place on the Council, but you need to be prepared should it come to that sooner rather than later. Do stop chewing your fingers, Cass.”
I yanked my right hand from my mouth. Damn, and I had been so good for the past five months. “I intended to go to Ireland to learn more about Penny and where I came from, and that’s still my plan. But I need to see my mother if only to know what she knows. Maybe more now.”
Jonathan nodded, then looked at the box with something akin to dread. “Put that back in the safe, then. I’ll secure it properly.”
He gave me a wide berth as I locked the box back inside the safe. Once the door clicked shut, he plucked a hair from my head.
“Ouch!” I cried, rubbing the tingling spot on my scalp.
Jonathan just crouched beside the safe, rubbing the hair between his palms. When he opened them, it was gone. He then placed his hands on top of the safe and murmured a few indecipherable words under his breath. His eyes glowed. Something in the room shifted.
Then he stood up and smiled at me. “All done. If anyone who isn’t you tries to touch that box, they’ll get a nasty burn.”
“That’s a neat trick.”
“For now, anyway. I should get going. I’ve some things to do if we’re to leave soon. Can you make arrangements to go in a few days?”
I glanced around at the mostly packed room. “Shouldn’t be hard. We’ve already found someone to take over my lease, so I’ll work on moving the rest of my things into storage tomorrow and Sunday instead of next week.”
I followed Jonathan into the living room where he scooped his jacket and hat off the couch before walking to the front door.
“I’m staying at the Four Seasons,” he said, setting on his fedora as he opened the door. “I’ll book the travel arrangements and be in touch.”
His gaze softened a fraction as he looked at me, and he reached out to touch my knuckles again, just as he had done by the reservoir. Comfort flowed through my veins, and I closed my eyes, enjoying the mingling of his care and my gratitude. His fingers dropped away, but the sensation didn’t. I smiled.
“Until then, little blackbird,” he whispered.
When I opened my eyes, he was gone.