P. Hoover - Solstice

Shayne purses his lips. “Spoils. I like that.” He walks back to me and takes my hand, leading me over to Rhadam. “This is Piper.”

Rhadam lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it which, even though I’m sure I’m already at the stage of infinite red, still makes me blush deeper. “You’re even prettier than Hades said.”

I look at Shayne. He rolls his eyes and looks away, so I turn back to Rhadam.

“He’s mentioned me?”

Rhadam laughs. “Gods, he hasn’t talked about anything else all week. It’s been ‘Piper this’ and ’Piper that.’ I feel like I’ve already met you twenty times over.”

My eyes flicker back over to Shayne. It’s his turn to be embarrassed. I can’t resist. “I had no idea the Lord of the Underworld could blush.” But the mere fact that he’s been talking about me this week to his best friend is making my stomach flip around in all sorts of ways I never thought possible.

Shayne clears his throat and gives Rhadam the evil eye. “Rhadam may be exaggerating just a bit.”

Rhadam takes my hand away from Shayne’s. “Trust me, I’m not exaggerating.” And he starts walking with me following at his side.

I look at Shayne who, though still bright red, winks and follows on after us.

Rhadam leads us out of the atrium and into the house. With the structure of the house, we slip between where walls should join, move through doors that don’t come close to shutting, and walk up onto the roof on individual stairs that don’t connect.

“I moved the house because of the view.” He motions out to the river which now looks like it has waves big enough to capsize the Titanic. But behind the ocean, like a giant monolith, a glacier fills the horizon. It’s blue and green and white, and the suns above reflect off it, making it look almost neon. It’s so much ice all in one place and like nothing I’ve ever seen on Earth.

“I don’t blame you.” Shayne stands next to me, so close our legs touch. He takes my other hand, leaving me standing between him and Rhadam. Shayne gives the hand Rhadam still holds a suspicious look, and Rhadam lets go of it.

“The ice,” I say. “There’s so much of it.”

Shayne traces his thumb along the back of my hand. “Sometime we should visit the polar caps.”

I love that this implies there will be more of us in the future. “I’ll hold you to that,” I say.

“Good,” Shayne says.

Rhadam clears his throat. “Of course. I’d love to come. Thanks for asking.”

“You can leave?” I ask.

He sighs. “No, not really. It’s one of the funny things about paradise. I can’t ever leave, but whatever I want, I get.” He glances away from the glacier and turns back toward the beach, but instead of being up high, we’re again on ground level. We leave the house and start walking back in the direction of the beach party.

“So how did you die?” Rhadam asks.

It takes a second for his words to make sense. I look down at myself to make sure I’m all still there. “I’m not dead.”

Rhadam laughs, and I realize he’s joking. “Don’t worry. You don’t look dead. You don’t even smell dead.”

It makes me wonder how dead people in the Underworld smell. I haven’t noticed anything, but then again, I’m not sure I’d know what to smell for.

Rhadam purses his lips and then looks to Shayne. “It’s too bad, you know. You should do something about it.”

It’s like Shayne is actually considering it. But then he replies. “I’m not sure that’s the best way to win a girl’s heart.”

“Definitely not,” I say. Though he’s already got the heart part under control.

As we walk, people fill in again until the beach party is back in full swing. Shayne is like a rock star. People rush up to him constantly, telling him how happy they are here in paradise and how their only wish is that he would visit more often. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye as if to apologize, but he doesn’t push them away. In fact, he lets go of my hand so he can have more space.

I’m fighting stabs of jealousy because so many of the girls are gorgeous when Rhadam leans over and whispers in my ear. “They love him here.”

I smile and pretend I’m totally fine with all the attention Shayne is giving them in return. “I can tell.” I can’t help but wonder if that’s how Chloe would act if she were here, all fawning over him and stuff, but I push the thought aside since Chloe will not be here.

As we walk, I decide to ask Rhadam everything I want to know about paradise. Like where people live and if they get married and do they have to work. He tells me about how people fall in love all over again and how weddings are held barefoot on the beach and how everyone has some purpose for his or her existence, whether it’s constructing sand sculptures or trying to get their golf swing just right. He talks about friendships that bond over eternity and children that are reunited with their parents once they pass on. And even though he answers my questions endlessly, what I really can’t understand is the judging criteria. What makes one person better than the next?

“What if someone is kind of good? What then?” I ask.

Maybe I ask too loudly because Shayne pulls away from his most recent group of adorers and comes back to my side. “They get judged,” he says. “Just like everyone else.”

I press him. “Who judges?” I glance to Rhadam, but he has his lips pressed together like he doesn’t want to be part of this conversation.

Shayne stops walking and turns me to him. “I judge.”

“Everyone?”

He nods. “Every single soul that comes across the River Acheron gets judged.”

Rhadam clears his throat. “How about I catch up with you two later?” And before either of us can answer, he simply vanishes. It’s hardly the strangest thing that’s happened today.

“Isn’t that kind of a big job?” I ask once Rhadam’s gone. I’ve never heard the exact numbers, but I know tens of thousands of people die each day. And that number’s only increasing each day the Global Heating Crisis continues. I can only imagine how world disasters affect the death toll.

Shayne’s eyes get a faraway look, and they aren’t meeting mine anymore. “I’ve had help. But it’s still a big job.”

“And an even bigger responsibility,” I say. After all, trying to decide who gets paradise and who gets stuck with eternal torment could probably keep someone up at night.

“Don’t you ever get a feeling about people?” he asks.

“Like what?”

“You know. Like you can look into their soul and see what they’ve done wrong.”

I grab his wrist. “All the time. I swear. My mom tells me I’m imagining things, but I just have this way of knowing who’s to blame.” It’s the reason I want to go to law school once I get out of college. Whether it’s bullies at school or criminals on the tube, I get so sick of seeing people get off with no punishment. I think of the black fungus on Councilman Rendon. For some reason, I’m not only able to sense guilt. Now I can see it.

He nods, and I realize if anyone can ever understand, it’s Shayne.

“That’s how it is for me, too,” he says and motions out across the world. “But it’s just on a bigger scale here. And judgments last forever.”

We reach the dock, and Charlotte runs back up to greet us. She’s every bit of her eleven-year-old giddy self. She grabs both our hands and pulls us. “Come on. They’re just about to judge the contest.”

We let her pull us, and then we run after her as she moves through the people. I worry about running into someone, but it’s like a path has been cleared just for us. People have even stopped flocking around Shayne. And then we head up a dune and down the other side to the contest.