Polyphemus sat in Sheriff Dearborn’s car on a dirt road that dead ended at Goode Lake. The body he’d unzipped and removed from Dearborn’s spirit had guided him here, though he wasn’t sure why. His only guess was that the skin he wore still searched for its true owner like a lost lamb searched for its shepherd.
He removed his sunglasses and squinted out at the water through his one good eye. “Back to this, now.” He wiggled his calloused fingers in front of his other eye. Nothing. Not even a shadow. It had completely clouded over, gone blind. “Always back to this … Cyclops.” Self-pity hardened in his stomach like a pound of gold. It was a useless, ineffective emotion, but he couldn’t break free of its chains.
Goode Lake’s crystal blue skin shivered with each gust of wind. He rolled his window down and hung his arm out. He knew the sun was warm just as he knew the water was wet, but he couldn’t feel its pleasant rays. He only felt the sticky heat of his true form inside, pressed against the slopes and ridges of this human skin.
He flipped his hand over and cupped the sunlight in his palm. He couldn’t stay in this world without nesting inside of a human form, but oh how sweet it would be to feel the sun against his own skin. Tartarus, the Greek Underworld from which he escaped, had no sun. It had no aquamarine lakes or sandy beaches. Tartarus was dark, cold, barren.
Polyphemus ran his tongue along his bottom lip and pressed his teeth against the wet flesh.
He had promised himself that this would be his last escape. Curse or not, he couldn’t live as the monster these killings were turning him into. When Sheriff Dearborn’s body failed and its time in this world ended, so would Polyphemus’s. If this small town didn’t hold the cure, this was it for him, his last hurrah before he was sucked back into darkness. He might as well live a little.
He turned off the car and opened the door. It swung open without a sound and he closed it just as quietly. He squinted back toward the road and the trees that encircled the lake as he crept toward the shoreline. He didn’t want to be seen, or rather, he didn’t want Frank Dearborn to be spotted. The townspeople liked Dearborn, needed him. But no one had ever needed Polyphemus. He paused and frowned at the thought. There it was again. The self-pity that kept him jailed just as well as Tartarus had. But he had escaped the hell of Tartarus, and he had done it more than once.
Polyphemus untied his boots and struggled to kick them off as he fumbled with the buttons of Dearborn’s long-sleeved khaki shirt. The last time he’d felt this level of excitement, he’d been traveling to meet her. But that had been before she’d broken his heart and before she’d doomed him with this curse. His hands fell by his sides as a gust tented the open shirt. That was also the last time he’d been in the water.
“Nomia.” He twirled the name around his tongue before it slid past his lips. Only briefly had he wondered why such a beautiful creature wanted him. He had assuaged his fears and padded his ego by saying that she was attracted to his greatness and the power that came with being a son of Poseidon. After all, Nomia was a water nymph and he had been a prince of the seas.
His jaw ticked and he stared down at his bare feet slowly sinking into the sand.
No, he wasn’t a prince of the seas. Nomia had reminded him of that.
“You thought I could love you?” She crouched atop the large boulder that jutted from the center of the lagoon like a tooth. Her waves of moss green hair lapped against her bare breasts as she threw back her head and laughed. One by one, Nomia’s sisters rose from the depths of the lagoon. They encircled Polyphemus, their blue eyes sparkling as they fed from his anguish. “You are a bastard, Polyphemus. Denied by your father and unloved by his wife.” She brushed back her hair and her iridescent skin glimmered in the sunlight. “I would never love you. As Amphitrite has proven, no woman could.”
“Curse him, sister!” the nymphs chanted as one as they tightened their circle around him.
“He dared to make you his!” Their webbed hands and feet churned the cobalt depths and pinned Polyphemus in place.
“Now make him ours!” Water sloshed against his shoulders as the nymphs wrung out the space separating them from him.
Polyphemus blinked the water from the single eye pressed into the center of his forehead. His eye was the same deep brown as Nomia’s, the only difference between her and her sisters. “Nomia, we’re alike, you and I.” He tore his hand free from the current pressing against him and patted his eyelid. “We match, remember?” His chin trembled as he stared up at the woman he loved more than he loved himself.
Nomia’s talons snapped as she dug her fingers into the rock. “When I look into your eye, I see everything I hate about myself.”
A howl of laughter erupted around Polyphemus. Had he not been held up by the nymphs’ power, he would have sunk to the bottom of the lagoon.
“Sisters!” Nomia shouted. “Make him yours!”
Claws sliced his flesh as the nymphs pulled him beneath the water. Ribbons of blood twisted around him as he thrashed and reached for the surface. It was no use. This was their domain. And Nomia was right about his father. The great king Poseidon would never come to Polyphemus’s aid.
His chest burned as he reached for the sunlight that splintered against the water’s surface. His fingers broke through, then his palm, his wrist. He was almost there, almost out, almost free to take another breath—
A nymph caught his foot. She stabbed his leg with broken talons as she climbed him like a rock. Brown eyes met his when the top of his head split the water’s surface.
“Nomia…” Her name escaped his lips on bubbles of air.
A smile lifted her full cheeks and she pressed her lips against his. She cupped his face in her hands and pressed her warm tongue between his lips.
Polyphemus welcomed the kiss. It was proof that she loved him. That she was sorry.
More webbed hands were on his feet, his legs, yanking him back down. Pain flashed against his cheeks as Nomia dug in her nails. A grin stretched her lips taut against his as she sucked air from his lungs. She pulled her mouth from his and water filled his chest. Nomia pressed against him as he convulsed. The lagoon darkened around him as Nomia whispered a curse against his ear.
How delicious life would be
If only it could make you see
The hunger for what it truly is,
A way to set you free.
Now carry on with your cursed life,
And cut their eyes out, these orbs are so rife
With magic, but only one pair of these
Has what it takes to end your strife.
One of the buttons smacked him in the face when a sharp gust pulled up his shirt. He smoothed down the fabric and took a deep breath. He wasn’t drowning. He was here, at the edge of Goode Lake, sunk to his ankles in the sand. He shook his feet free, shrugged off the button-down, and stripped out of the undershirt and his pants. It was time to make new memories to take back with him to Tartarus. He shook his head. No, this time he would find a way to break free from his curse.
Polyphemus waded into the lake. He couldn’t feel the cool water against his skin, not in the same way he could in his true skin, but the sound was enough to make goose bumps rise from Dearborn’s arms. His heartbeat sped up and he dug his toes into the silt to keep from running back to shore. He wouldn’t let Nomia continue to control him. He balled his hands and fell back. Goode Lake enveloped him. His chest shuddered as he sank deeper and watched the sunlight blur against the water’s surface.
He couldn’t end the curse by dying in another realm. He’d learned that time and time again. There was no quicker path back to the torment of Tartarus. And the number of humans kept growing. He couldn’t kill them all. Nor did he want to. What he needed was an oracle, a vessel through which he could speak to the gods.
He tucked his feet under him and pushed himself back above water. He took a breath and ran his hands down his cheeks, pausing where he knew the scars lingered just beneath Frank Dearborn’s skin.
“This world doesn’t have an oracle.” He shook water from his ear. Droplets rained into the lake as he set his hands on his hips and stared out at the water. “But it does have magic. The gate to Tartarus proves that.”
He stiffened with realization. “This world would be overrun by vengeful, evil creatures if it wasn’t being protected.” He ran his hands through his hair as excitement crackled beneath his skin. He’d been so busy following the curse’s instruction, he’d never stopped to look at this world.
He ran to his clothes. Water splashed with each hurried step.
No, the humans didn’t have an oracle, but to protect this world, to protect this town, they must have a witch.
Polyphemus’s hands shook as he tugged on his pants and brushed the sand from his undershirt. He could find Goodeville’s witch. Like he’d watched death darken a person’s eyes, he could also see within them the fire of life, and magic’s flame blazed bright. He threw his shirt over his head and stuffed his sandy feet into his boots. He covered his mouth as a wet cough shook his barrel chest. He stilled and swallowed against the tickle building in his throat. It was starting again. His stomach lurched as he suppressed another cough.
Polyphemus needed to find the witch and he needed to find her fast.