Skye Maddox

Darkness, a chill running down your spine that feels like someone struck you with lightning. There’s a ringing in your ears, growing ever louder until it’s all you can comprehend. You’re falling, down, down, down, and suddenly you’re laying on the ground. There’s no impact, just the feeling of soil underneath you, still damp from the morning dew. Your arms are outstretched, your palms left upwards, you feel the dirt on your skin, real and tactile. You’re not sure why but you feel an urge to dig into it, to feel it underneath your fingernails.

Your eyes snap open, and the darkness is replaced with open sky, still pink from the morning sun. There are no clouds, just an open expanse of blue that seems to remind you of something, before the thought slips from your mind like smoke. You breathe for a moment, feeling the air enter and leave your lungs and it starts to sting.

You sit up slowly, gingerly, and almost every movement alerts you to how sore your muscles are. Your throat hurts like you’ve been screaming, your head aches, you can feel the salt on your skin, the remnants of tears. Something has happened, but your mind is blank.

You’re in a clearing, surrounded by forest. Faraway you can hear the sounds of cars mingling with birdsong. Yet here, all is quiet. You can hear the blood pumping in your ears, adrenaline leftover from something you can’t remember. Questions fill your head and leave just as quickly. Where are you? Who are you? What happened to you?

It takes a couple tries to find your feet. Each attempt is met with another ache, and you fall to your knees. You’re like a newborn deer, trying to find your place in this world.
When you finally stand, you’re rewarded with your first answer. Your name is Skye Maddox. You are seventeen years old. You are a demigod. These facts repeat in your head until they’ve found their place. You seem to understand, make a choice, get more answers. So, you decide to follow the noise.

You’re a daughter of Tiberinus, the god of the river Tiber. You’re a great granddaughter of Luna, goddess of the moon, and Fortuna, goddess of fortune. When you think of the Tiber, you can feel it calling to you, pulling you towards it. You decide to follow.

Your mother’s name is Irene, she left you. Your grandparents are Nancy and Charles. They raised you. You love them, even your mother. More memories of them come back to you. Your mother is tall and beautiful, she smells like roses and gasoline. Your grandmother is short like you, you can feel her hands guiding yours on piano keys. She smells like polished wood and linen. You can hear your grandfather laugh, deep and raspy from too many years of smoking. He smells like cigars and newspaper. Your grandparents call to you, like a melody you’ve heard your grandmother play. You follow.

More thoughts come, endless facts that you acknowledge and try to place. You’re in the first cohort. You gain power from the full moon. You like being a leader. You drink too much coffee. You’re a centurion. You lose power when there’s a new moon. You can control water, within reason. You’ve served eight years. You look down at your forearm, where you know your tattoo will be, and there it is. Eight lines, a moon and a cornucopia over a wave. Yet down at your wrist there’s a new tattoo. A sun. You know it’s important, but you can’t remember why.

You’ve made it to the edge of the clearing by now, and you’re left with more questions than answers. Where had you been? Why can’t you remember? How did you get here? What if you forget who you are again?

You stop walking and close your eyes. You will not forget. You’re Skye Maddox. You’re seventeen years old. You are a demigod. You are a centurion of the first cohort. Then, another answer comes to you. You were sent on a quest.

You take this and hold on to it. Thinking it over and over again, trying to find a continuation. You were sent on a quest. Who went with you? What was the objective? You can see yourself standing at Caldecott Tunnel, you’re dressed differently, but the season is not unlike the current one. Still, something deep inside you is telling you time has passed.

You continue on, following the pull of the Tiber. You will always know where home is, but you don’t know what you’ll face there. Flashes of home come to you. Your bunk, organized mess you call it. Your grandparents’ house, tall and proud along the homes of the other famous families of New Rome. You can see yourself sitting in the parlour, your fingers gliding across the keys of the grand piano, while your grandfather sits and reads one of his old books. Your grandmother is out in the garden, and the smell of earth and leaves makes its way back to you and you’re not sure if you’re smelling home or the forest around you.

Its while you’re walking that you realize something is in your back pocket. You pull it out, turning it over in your hands. It’s a tarot card, made of thick cardstock, old and creased at the edges. An armored skeleton rides a white horse, holding a black flag high. There’s a setting sun in the distance. Painted figures beg for their dead king. It’s the tarot card of death. You don’t know what it means, or why it’s your only possession, but you put it back in your pocket, and continue on.

You’re not sure how long it takes for you to reach the road, but by the time you do the sun beats down on your skin, and the day turns sweltering hot. Cars drive past you without pausing to notice the strange girl standing at the side of the road. They’re more concerned with getting to their destination, and so are you. You see the mouth of a tunnel, hidden to mortal eyes. Two legionnaires stand tall, donned in armor and holding spears. You recognize them, and by the time you get close enough they seem to recognize you. Yet they don’t run to you, they stand their ground, crossing their spears over the entrance. They stare at you like you’re a ghost, and maybe you are. You know something has happened, but then you realize, it’s still happening. Your problems have not ended, your story is not finished. In fact, you have a feeling it is just beginning.

You speak for the first time, and the words almost get caught in your throat.

“Let me in.”




Now, here’s what the rest of the world knows. Its June 6th, 2019. Exactly one year earlier to the day, Skye Maddox, Caroline Hanson, and Dominic De Luca leave to follow a portion of the Sibylline that read:
The moon, the sun, and the stars
Three beings of ichor and clay
Will return the future of Rome
From the land devoid of life
The home of the keepers of the hearth
Guarded by the second King

Interpreting this to be the land of the dead, they head to the underworld. They’re heard from on June 11th. Silence passes, summer turns into fall, fall turns into winter. On the first day of the new year a message comes through, staticy and warbled, We’re in the valley... they’ve got Caroline. Then they’re never heard from again. Search parties are sent, pyres are consulted, the augur waits for another page to appear, but nothing happens. Eventually burials are given, and people start to move on.