2

The babies grew quickly; one into a young boy, who he named Milo, and the other into a young girl, who he named Adaline. Adaline was whip-smart from a young age, with blue eyes and blonde hair that she grew as long as possible. She protested loudly when Silas tried to braid it or brush the leaves and sticks out of it. Milo was shy, and very kind, but he also liked to hide, and when the three of them travelled into town he would often sneak away and be found sitting in haystacks or underneath the canoes by the river. Silas would tie a rope around his waist to keep him from running off (before he learned how to untie it).

Silas only worked at the temple for the first two years of the twins’ lives, After which he took a job at the quarry instead. He would leave the twins with a close friend in the village while he worked; an old woman whose children were already grown.

One night after collecting the twins from her and bringing them home, he was met with resistance at bedtime.

“I’m not tired yet!” Adaline proclaimed, trying to crawl out of her blankets as Silas tried to tuck her in. “I wanna go see the stars!”

“You have to go to sleep, Adaline, or you’ll be sleepy in the morning.”

“Can I have a story, first?”

Milo sat up from his bed, his attention grabbed. “Oh, please can we?”

“No,” Silas said firmly. “Sleep is more important.”

“But Mrs. Iddonea tells us stories all the time!” Adaline said. “Like the one about Palla!”

Silas stopped, a little bit surprised. He stayed quiet, thinking deeply.

Milo spoke quietly, sensing that Palla’s name gave Silas pause. “She’s the most beautiful goddess in the world, Silas. That’s what Mrs. Iddonea told us. And she’s the leader of all the Gods, too...a very good leader.”

Silas finally sat back, speaking carefully. “Do you want to hear how Palla became head of the Pantheon?”

Adaline was ecstatic that her plan worked. “Yes please!” She said, and Milo nodded enthusiastically.

Silas closed his eyes, and began:

“Once upon a time, there was a time when the world and the Gods didn’t exist.. There was only nothing, until that Nothingness birthed Nemain, the Demon King. He had six arms, with three eyes on each of them, and mouths on the tips of his fingers. With those six arms he created the sun and moon, and they became his followers. Their names were Aodh and Arian.

“The Demon King and his two followers soon grew bored of living in nothingness, so they created the earth and entertained themselves by hunting its animals. Their lives went on that way until they found the Gods.

“The Gods weren’t like the Demon King, or the Sun, or the Moon. They looked like us mortals, and each of them was born from something on the Earth, like the leaves of the trees or the blue of the sky. They weren’t created by the Demon King.

“The Demon King decided that the Gods couldn’t be trusted, so he rounded them all up and put them on a mountain. He created a wall, and kept the Gods there for years, without food or water.. The Gods were mere children then. They had barely just sprung from the earth, but the Demon King had no mercy for them.

“As the years passed, the Gods became angry. They needed a domain, for what was a God without a domain? They asked the Demon King for one, but they were denied. They even asked Aodh and Arian, but those two were deaf to their requests.

“But then, there was the Day it All Changed. The day that the earth sprang up mortals, instead of Gods.

“The Demon King was fascinated by mortals. They were smarter and stronger than all the other animals on the earth, and they were much more fun to hunt.

“The Gods could not abide this. The mortals looked like them. They were intelligent like them. They had to do something about it.

“And so, a few young Gods banded together in the night. They helped each other climb the wall and sneak over to where the Demon King slept. Their intent was to kill him, but the moon, which was only a sliver that night, saw them sneaking out, and warned the Demon King. He was ready for them.

“The young Gods were killed by the Demon King, one by one. ”

“This is scary,” Milo whispered into his blanket.

“I’m not scared!” Adaline said, but she had retreated further into her blanket too.

Silas smiled. “Don’t worry. The Gods didn’t stay dead. The Demon King took their bodies and placed them within the walls, for all of the other Gods to see. hat was his fatal mistake. The Gods’ grief for their fallen brothers and sisters brought them all back, powerful enough to tear down the Demon King’s walls and free every last God and Goddess. Together they imprisoned the Demon King, and the Sun and the Moon as well. The Demon King is locked tightly away in the earth, and the Sun and Moon can never escape from their rotations.”

“Wow!” Adaline said. “The Gods really did that?”

“Yes!” Silas said, smiling. “They really did that.”

“What happened next?” Milo said, yawning.

“The young Gods formed a Pantheon of benevolent rulers, and every God chose something to be God over, in order to become protectors of the mortals. And that’s the end of the story for now.”

“What!” Adaline said. “That’s not a good ending! You didn’t even mention Palla!”

“I’ll tell you the rest of it later,” Silas said, then kissed both children on the forehead. “Goodnight, I’ll see you in the morning.”