Little Gods

more closely. Luke saw her doing this and quickly came out of the room shutting the door behind him. ‘You don’t want to know,’ he said to her. ‘Just try to ignore the noises you hear,’ he said. He was standing up against the door, his hand still holding the doorknob, blocking her from the room. He was standing right up close to her, and Rhiannon had to take a step back in order to look him in the eyes.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘I don’t really know anyone else here yet so I thought I’d ask you.’

  Luke looked at her. ‘What do you mean ‘what’s going on?’ What’s happening? I don’t get to see much where I am here,’ he said. ‘The classrooms are quite isolated.’

  ‘The main Reception area,’ she said. ‘Its going crazy! It’s really crowded all of a sudden. Overflowing! I’ll never be able to go through all those people. I think we’d run out of space in the records!’

  Luke looked slightly shocked. ‘Have you spoken to anyone up there?’ he said gesturing upwards. ‘Any of the gods or goddesses in the upper realms? They might know.’

  Rhiannon shook her head. ‘No, I don’t know any of the big Gods or Goddesses. My mother is just a minor Goddess,’ she said. ‘She protects seafarers and helps with fertility and the abundance of crops and things like that. And I haven’t spoken to her for awhile. She’s usually out by the Great Sea, out on the Western Coast, keeping an eye on all the ships and their crews,’ she said. ‘She’s too far for me to get ahold of with my mind,’ said Rhiannon. ‘My telepathy abilities have never been very strong,’ she said. ‘I didn’t inherit much of my mothers Goddess skills. Mostly my fathers side of things - you know, stubbornness, talking too much - all those annoying human traits.’

  ‘Let me ask my father,’ said Luke. ‘He might know what’s going on.’

  ‘Who’s your father?’

  ‘Solanus,’ said Luke.

  Rhiannon didn’t know who that was so instead just gave Luke a blank stare.

  ‘He’s a God that’s a mediator between the Gods and humans,’ explained Luke. ‘He can go down and find out what’s happening down on the earth. If it’s chaos down here, it must be chaos up there.’

  ‘Oh okay, I was wondering-’ started Rhiannon when she was interrupted by Luke, ‘Shhh. Be quiet, I need to concentrate to reach my father’.

  ‘Oh,’ said Rhiannon who stood still and wrapped her arms around herself.

  Luke closed his eyes, his brow wrinkled in concentration. After a few minutes he opened them.

  ‘My father said it’s a mess up there. Everything is getting out of control. The oceans are rising in tsunamis and flooding everything. Most plants and vegetation seem to be withering up and dying. There are earthquakes in some places and thunderstorms happening all over. The people are fighting each other, people in neighbouring villages that used to get along are now warring.’ Luke stopped and turned back to the door he was blocking. ‘Hold on, stay here I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said slipping inside and quickly shutting the door behind him. From inside Rhiannon could hear strange, and not very pleasant noises. She stuck her fingers in her ears and started humming. Not long after Luke re-appeared. ‘Come on,’ he said.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Rhiannon following him down the hall back towards the central hub of the school.

  Luke glanced back at her, ‘To find out what’s going on, of course!’ he grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hall, past the young lady with the little tail at the reception area and out of the honeycomb of domed buildings. And he skidded to a stop. The Reception/Intake area of the Underworld, usually quite full of souls coming to sign in with the Records Department and fill out the required forms if necessary, was nearly overflowing. ‘Oh my god!’ yelled Luke. ‘Something is definitely wrong!’

  ‘I know,’ said Rhiannon. That’s why I came to find you. I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to get up to the topside,’ Luke said.

  ‘I have a way,’ said Rhiannon grabbed Luke’s hand and dragging him past the lines of disgruntled souls to a giant gleaming white horse. ‘This was a gift from my mother,’ she explained. ‘Apparently girl’s named Rhiannon have something to do with horses.’

  Luke laughed. ‘You mean the Goddess Rhiannon. She’s one of the most famous of Goddesses. The goddess of horses and other stuff, fairies and magic, all that silly girly stuff.’

  Rhiannon shrugged. ‘I guess so. I’ve never met her, so….’ she trailed off. She grabbed the reigns of her horse and swung herself up. She leaned down to give Luke a helping hand but he swung himself up behind her without any help.

  ‘So how do we get from down here to up there?’ asked Luke. Before he could say anything more Rhiannon leaned over and whispered in the beasts ear.

  Suddenly they found themselves standing in a withered vegetable garden at the back of a small wooden house.

  Luke was looking around stunned. ‘How did that happen?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ said Rhiannon jumping down. ‘My mother gave me him, like I said. It has some kind of magical abilities. Only Gods and Goddesses would have things like this,’ she said. Luke slid off the horse and they walked it towards the back of the wooden house and tied it up.

  ‘Can you talk to your father again? find out if he knows anything else about what’s happening?’ she asked

  In the distance, over a ragged mountain range, threatening black clouds began to roll in towards the small village they were standing on the outskirts of. Flashes of lightening and rumbles of thunder were visible and quickly heading in their direction.

  From the other end of town emanated the sound of a battle. Shouts and screams, clanging and banging.

  Luke was standing still, his eyes closed. ‘It’s a rebellion,’ he said, eyes still closed. ‘It’s all the demi-gods, they aren’t happy and are rebelling. They’re going on strike. And with the Gods not having their assistants to keep their operations running smoothly, everything is breaking down!’ he said.

  ‘So all these dead gardens and crops,’ Rhiannon said.

  ‘They are the responsibility of the Goddess Antheia,’ said Luke. ‘But because her assistants are not doing their job and helping her, she can’t keep on top of everything in the world, so gardens and vegetation are dying.’

  The warm spring sun that had been shining over them when they arrived started to wane. A chill breeze whipped around them, and little white flecks started to fall.

  ‘Is that snow?’ said Rhiannon, bewildered, reaching up, some flakes landing on her out stretched palm. ‘But it’s May,’ she trilled, ‘not November!’

  ‘Well blame Eostre,’ said Luke. ‘She’s the Goddess of Spring.’

  ‘So all her assistants have just quit?’ Rhiannon asked. ‘And so she can’t keep Spring from happening and so winter is just taking over?’

  Luke nodded. ‘Eostre isn’t the strongest of Goddesses. And the Goddess of Winter, Skadi, is very harsh and mean. You know how long winter can hang on, sometimes not going away until March. Or even April.’

  ‘Winter is controlled by a Goddess?’ said Rhiannon, surprised.

  Luke nodded. ‘Yes, but she’s a Norse Goddess, they’re very strong and controlling there. Being Northern European and all. The Vikings were a strong willed people, so they needed strong Gods and Goddesses to control them.’

  And as the snow continued to fall, strong blustery winds began to batter them from all sides. Rhiannon put her hood up on the cloak she wore over her gown to protect herself from the bitter cold. And then the hail came, little hard ice bullets bouncing off the roof of the wooden house they were standing near, and into the dead vegetables they were standing in. They ran towards a small lean-to that was against the back of the house. Not for protection from the hail, as they weren’t affected by it, but more so they could hear each other. The lean-to happened to have a cushioned roof which muffled the sound of the hail which was getting heavier and noisier by the minute.

  ?
??What now?’ yelled Rhiannon to be heard over the noise as she entered the small shed. She lowered her voice once inside. ‘Who’s doing this now?’ she asked.

  ‘Caillech,’ shouted Luke. ‘She’s the Goddess of Weather. I guess she must be a bit angry that all her assistants are rebelling against her. So this is how she’s expressing herself.’

  ‘And punishing all these poor people? They haven’t done anything wrong!’ exclaimed Rhiannon. ‘Why should all the gods be punishing them with these dead plants and Winter in the middle of Spring!’ she said exasperated.

  ‘And don’t forget Thor and Enlil,’ said Luke.

  ‘I know that Thor is the God of Thunder, so that explains those thunderclouds and lightening bolts heading towards us’ said Rhiannon, ‘but who is Enlil?’

  Luke sighed. ‘Haven’t you learned anything in History classes? Or from your mother at least?’ said Luke. ‘I can understand you not learning anything from your father, since he’s just a human…’

  ‘He’s not just a human’ said Rhiannon hotly. ‘You take that back, right now!’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Luke raising his hands up defensively. ‘Calm down, I didn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘I was raised mostly by my Father,’ said Rhiannon. ‘Mother was never really around, she mostly spends time around all the different sea ports and around lighthouses, keeping an eye on all the sailors, and fishermen. Sometimes even pirates,’ she said. ‘If