Untamed

'Hey, are you okay?' I asked.

Her body shuddered, and with what was obviously a huge effort, she lifted her head and opened her eyes.

'Oh my god! What happened!' I hurried over to her, turning on the Tiffany's light that was on her bedside table. When Maleficent stirred and hissed a warning at me, I told the beast, 'Try it and I will throw you out the window and call down rain to soak the crap out of you.'

'Maleficent, it's okay. Zoey's hateful, but she won't hurt me,' she said wearily.

The cat growled again, but subsided back into a white ball. I turned my attention to Aphrodite. Her eyes were completely bloodshot—it was so bad that the whites of them were totally red. Not pink and inflamed like she was allergic to pollen and she'd just walked through a field of it. They were red. As in blood. As in blood filling her eyes and staining them scarlet.

'This one was really bad.' She sounded awful. Her voice was shaky, and her face was scarily white. 'C-can you get me a bottle of Fiji Water from the fridge?'

I hurried over to her mini-fridge and grabbed a bottle of water from it. Then I detoured into her bathroom, where I got one of her gold-embroidered washcloths. (Jeesh, she is so darn rich!) I quickly poured some of the cold spring water onto the washcloth before hurrying back to her.

'Drink some of this, and then close your eyes and put this across your face.'

'I look terrible, don't I?'

'Yep.'

She took several big gulps from the Fiji bottle like she was dying of thirst, then put the cold, wet washcloth over her eyes and leaned back against her mound of designer pillows with an exhausted sigh. Maleficent watched me with mean, slitted cat eyes, which I ignored.

'Have your eyes ever done that before?'

'You mean hurt like hell?'

I hesitated and decided to just tell her. It wasn't like Aphrodite avoided mirrors. She'd see for herself soon enough. 'I mean turn bright, blood red.'

I saw the little jerk of surprise her body gave, and she started to reach for the washcloth, but her hand stopped and plopped back down on the bed and her shoulders slumped. 'No wonder Darius freaked and ran for you like the hounds of f-ing hell were after him.'

'I'm sure it'll go away. You should probably just keep your eyes closed for a while.'

She sighed dramatically. 'It's really going to piss me off if these damn visions start making me ugly.'

'Aphrodite,' I said, trying to keep my smile out of my voice. 'You're too pretty to ever be ugly. Or at least that's what you've told all of us about a zillion times.'

'You're right. Even with red eyes, I'm better looking than everyone else. Thanks for reminding me. It just shows how stressed this vision bullshit is making me that I'd even consider worrying about it.'

'Speaking of the vision bullpoopy. You want to fill me in on this one?'

'You know, you really wouldn't melt or anything if you'd cuss a little. My Goddess, bullpoopy is unbelievably lame.'

'Could you please stay on the subject?'

'Fine. But don't blame me when people tell you that you sound lame and annoying. Over there on my desk there's a piece of paper with a poem written on it. Do you see it?'

I went over to her pricey vanity/desk, and sure enough, there was a single sheet of paper lying alone against the glistening wood. I picked it up. 'I see it,' I said.

'Good. You're supposed to read it, and I hope you understand what the hell it means. I never can figure out poetry. It's all boring bullshit.'

She emphasized the shit part of the word. I ignored her and focused on the poem. As soon as I got a good look at it, my skin started to tingle and gooseflesh lifted on my arms as if a cold wind had just blown over me.

'Did you write this?'

'Oh, yeah, right. I didn't even like Dr. Seuss when I was a kid. No damn way I wrote that poem.'

'I didn't mean did you compose it. I meant did you physically write it down?'

'Are you getting stupider? Yes, Zoey. I wrote down the poem that I saw in my horrid and way-too-painful vision. No, I didn't compose it. I copied it. Satisfied?'

I looked at her reclining back on her pillows in the middle of her expensive four-poster canopy bed with the gold-embroidered washcloth over her face and one hand petting her awful cat and shook my head in irritation. She looked one hundred gazillion percent diva bitch. 'You know, I could smother you with your pillow and no one would miss you. By the time they found you, that hateful cat would have eaten you and all the evidence of my crime.'

'Maleficent wouldn't eat me. She'd eat you if you tried any crap. Plus, Darius would miss me. Just read the damn poem and tell me what it means.'

'You're Vision Girl. You're supposed to know what things mean.' I turned my attention back to the poem. What was it about the writing that was making me feel so weird?

'That's right, I vision. I don't interpret. I'm just the very attractive oracle. You're the High Priestess in training, remember? So figure it out.'

'All right—all right. Let me read it out loud. Sometimes it helps make poems understandable when you can hear them.'

'Whatever. Just get to the figuring out part.'

I cleared my throat and started reading.

Ancient one sleeping, waiting to arise

When earth's power bleeds sacred red

The mark strikes true; Queen Tsi Sgili will devise

He shall be washed from his entombing bed

Through the hand of the dead he is free

Terrible beauty, monstrous sight

Ruled again they shall be

Women shall kneel to his dark might

Kalona's song sounds sweet

As we slaughter with cold heat

When I was finished I paused, trying to understand what it meant and trying to figure out why it made me feel so freaked out.

'It's scary, isn't it?' Aphrodite said. 'I mean, it's definitely not love and roses and happily ever after.'

'It's definitely not that. Okay, let's see. What's earth's power, and when does it bleed red?'

'Don't have a clue.'

'Hum.' I chewed my cheek, thinking. 'Well, the earth could look like it's bleeding when something is killed and the blood leaks into the ground. And maybe the power part comes from whatever is killed. Like a powerful person.'

'Or a powerful vampyre. It's like when I found Professor Nolan's body.' The smartass in Aphrodite's voice was subdued by the memory. 'The earth looked like it was bleeding then.'

'Yeah, you're right. So it might have something to do with this Queen Tsi Sgili dying or being killed because a queen is definitely a powerful person.'

'Who the hell is Queen Tsi Whatever?'

'It sounds familiar to me. The name seems Cherokee. I wonder if it might—' My words were broken off by my gasp of shock as suddenly I knew why the writing had made me feel so weird.

'What?' Aphrodite sat up again, lifting the washcloth off her eyes and squinting at me. 'What's wrong?'

'It's the writing,' I said through lips that had gone cold. 'This is my grandma's handwriting.'

CHAPTER 21