Finally, I blocked the attic stairway with a couple of cardboard boxes full of junk from Dad’s office. I was sure Aphrodite would know instantly if a mortal was in her room. That wasn’t a scenario I wanted to see play out in front of half of my school.
As I rolled up the living room rug to make room for dancing (I saw that in a film once), someone came through the front door.
Uh-oh. Had Dad forgotten something for his trip? Had Aphrodite decided she was going to have a cosy night in front of the mirror instead of going out?
“Why are you rolling up the rug? Ooh, are you going to do that mermaid yoga pose I told you about?”
It was Eros. I’d forgotten about him! And now he was in the living room. The party flashed before my eyes. Was it ruined?
I didn’t like the idea of lying to my favourite family member, but needs must. “Oh, I’m just having a few friends over for New Year’s Eve. You’ve got big plans too, right?” I asked, not at all subtly.
“I think I’ve celebrated New Year’s Eve in every way possible, Helen,” he said. “This year I’ll be burning sage and playing my cleansing meditative music playlist. You know, start the year right.”
NO. NO NO NOOOOO.
Eros was going to be in all night. Why, oh why, did I assume that Eros would be partying it up? He loves nothing more than a night in of burning incense and chanting.
If this party had any chance of going ahead, I had to come clean. But could I trust him?
“The thing is, Eros, it’s going to be more than a few friends,” I said.
I told Eros everything: about this party being the party everyone’s talking about, and how we could never show our faces at school again if it got cancelled. Plus, Yasmin’s big chance with Jayden would be ruined and that would almost certainly result in heartbreak. That was bound to grab Eros’s attention.
“So let me get this straight. Father doesn’t know about the party?” he asked. I shook my head.
“I did think it was unusually lenient of him to have a bunch of unsupervised mortals in the house.”
“It will be fine though, right? Aphrodite and Dad aren’t here, I’ve hidden all the weird immortal things around the house, and—”
“It’s not that, Helen,” Eros said. “Believe it or not, we gods are more than capable of hiding our identity in front of mortals for a few hours. We’ve been doing it for centuries.”
They may not reveal their identities, but they could be hella embarrassing. I pictured Dad boring my friends to sleep with his collection of Edwardian postcards (some of which are rude for all the wrong reasons), and shuddered.
“If Father isn’t aware of the party, then chances are that he hasn’t deactivated the intruder lock,” Eros said.
“What, like an alarm system?” I asked. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like it’d be good for my party.
Eros smiled indulgently at me, like I was a small child. I hated it when the gods did that.
“Not quite. Allow me to demonstrate,” he said, and we walked to the hallway.
That was one more immortals-only secret they were all in on. Couldn’t they keep me in the loop? You know, at least pretend we’re part of the same family.
“When we moved in, Father created an intruder lock. No one outside of our family can come into our house unless expressly welcomed by an immortal.”
He opened the front door. “Stand outside,” he said. I obeyed. “Obviously you can come in and out as you please. But this is what your mortal friends will feel if they try and come in. Give me one sec.”
Eros muttered something under his breath. “I’m changing the intruder lock settings so only full gods are allowed through.”
“This is getting silly now. I’m coming back in.” I tried to walk back in the house, but my feet couldn’t get past the entrance. The door was wide open. I could see that with my own eyes. But I couldn’t get through it, like there was a wall of invisible brick.
Eros held his hand out and pulled me into the house. The invisible brick wall didn’t hold me back this time.
“Do you see what I mean, Helen? Unless Father deactivates the intruder lock or another god is here to override it, no mortal is getting into this house.”
“Can you override it? Please, Eros, I’d owe you big time.”
Eros sighed. “Thing is, I really had my heart on trying out my new sage incense at midnight…”
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. My new friends are the only ones keeping me sane – I can’t let them down, Eros.”
“Fine, I’ll help just this once. But you should know that my powers are weaker than Father’s. The easiest way to override the charm is for another god to welcome them in,” Eros said. “I’d have to greet every single party guest.”
Eros looked too old to pass for a friend. But with his brown skin and curly hair, we actually bore a resemblance to one another.
“I’ll just have to introduce you as my cousin, then,” I said. That wasn’t even a lie.
“I could make it work for a few hours at least,” he said. I gave Eros a massive hug. What would I do without him? If I’d tried to have this party alone, how would I have explained an invisible FORCE FIELD that literally wouldn’t let my friends in? I pictured a queue forming round the block while I stood at the front door, trying not to have a meltdown.
It was entirely too weird. What other secret booby traps was I oblivious to in this house?
Now that I had Eros on board, the house looked nearly normal and the small matter of how people were going to get into the house was solved, I had a much more important crisis on my hands.
WHAT THE HECK WAS I GOING TO WEAR?
I emptied the measly contents of my wardrobe on to my bed, but there was nothing suitable for a New Year’s Eve party.
As I looked at the only four dresses I had in my wardrobe (a floral number I wore for church with Grandma Thomas, two sundresses and what appeared to be a dress but was actually a really big T-shirt), I realized there was no other way. I was going to have to jailbreak an outfit from Aphrodite’s wardrobe.
I crept upstairs to find the bedroom empty. The first thing I noticed was the sheer size of the room. I got shafted on the bedroom choice, that’s for sure. Aphrodite’s room was three times the size of mine at least. She had space for a four-poster bed, for goodness’ sake! Why was I living like a second-class citizen in my single bed?
The second thing I noticed was Aphrodite. Not Aphrodite in the flesh, thank goodness. But she had images of herself everywhere. A huge Andy Warhol-style portrait dominated the room, and it didn’t stop there. Photos of herself throughout the years hung on the walls and in frames on the dressing tables (yes, she had more than one). I took a closer look at a small black-and-white framed photo that looked like it came from a 1940s murder mystery film. It was Aphrodite, all right.
Maybe it was the huge vases of white orchids dotting the room or the soft lighting, but even though it was a miserably grey day, the room felt bright and airy. This room felt like it belonged in another house altogether.
I made a mental note to ask Aphrodite for interior design tips, then remembered I was explicitly told never to come up here. Back to business!
I turned on the light in her walk-in wardrobe (which was bigger than my entire room – ridiculously unfair). The rows of clothes were organized by colour, with dozens of shoeboxes neatly arranged on the floor and top shelf. It was like a fashion wonderland, if you were into that kind of thing. It would have made Daphne weep.