Chapter Text
She pinned the little white card that he’d left up on her wall, where it joined a mass of newspaper articles, photocopied pages, and Post-It notes, all connected by, yes, string. She’d been stupid to think it would have been helpful. Her goal had been information, maybe some advice, and instead, she’d received a riddle.
She hated riddles.
Snatching a binder off the shelf at random, she flipped it open. The Pesedjet. Fine. As good a place to start as any. She sat down and pulled out a blank pad of paper as she paged back to the very first section, titled “Creation” in Kay’s jagged handwriting. Her head throbbed. This was surely completely pointless. There was no way the answer would be so obvious as to be written down, but she didn’t know what else to do.
“In the beginning,” she muttered under her breath, and began writing. Like Kay used to say, it was a good start.
-
Somewhere between Aphrodite and Apocatequil, her phone rang. She picked it up without looking.
“Mars, are you doing anything tonight?” Lùz sang through the phone. “Mama has the girls until Thursday, and I’ve been hearing about this new club I’m dying to try.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. I have research to do.”
“You know it’s okay to have fun once in a while, don’t you?”
“It’s not that, I just-”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” She could hear the gentle exasperation in Lùz’s voice. “Well, let me know if you get sick of hitting the books, okay? You’re only gonna be young once, Marcia.”
She rolled her eyes, but with a smile. “Yeah, I will.”
“I mean it!”
“I know. I’ll give you a call.”
-
Hours later, she threw the final binder to the floor in a fit of pique. It didn’t look like finding answers was going to be the problem; on the contrary, she’d found hundreds of them. It seemed that there were as many ways of springing into being as there were gods. Most were born like humans, but some hatched from eggs or spawned from body parts or just sprung out of the earth fully formed. If there was a common thread, she couldn’t identify it.
What if it was a trick? Had he met with her just to send her on a wild goose chase through millennia of lore? Damn everything, she should have known better. There wasn’t an answer at all, was there? She dropped her head to the table and let out a groan.
“Hell, you’re pathetic.” Her head snapped up and she locked eyes with the woman sitting across from her. She was surprisingly young-looking, though there were a few streaks of silver in her reddish-brown hair. She took a drag on her cigarette and smiled darkly at Mars. “Really. You really thought talking with one of them was going to get you anywhere? Did I teach you anything or not?” She pushed back her chair and stood, walking to the single window. “And this place is a wreck. When’s the last time you cleaned your guns? When’s the last time you used your guns?” Her hazel eyes were cold. “I used to wonder why people didn’t think we were related, but I’m starting to see it now. How anyone with my blood could be this weak is beyond me.”
“I - “ she started to say, but the words caught in her throat, mixed with tears. Then she blinked, and she was alone in the room. Like she had been for months.
-
“Mars?” Lùz sounded frantic. “Chica, where have you been? It’s been three days!”
“What? Really?”
“It’s Saturday! What the hell have you been doing?” She pulled her phone away to check the date.
“Lùz, I need to go out.”
She moved the phone away from her ear again, but not soon enough to save her from Lùz’s shriek of delight.