Go the Distance Read online

  Copyright © 2021 Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

  Cover design by Scott Piehl and Gegham Vardanyan

  Cover illustration by Jim Tierney

  ISBN 978-1-368-06584-9

  Visit disneybooks.com

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue: Some time ago…

  One: In Thin Air: Present day…

  Two: A Change of Heart

  Three: Life and Loss: Before…

  Four: An Offer Meg Can’t Refuse: On Mount Olympus…

  Five: The Backside of Water

  Six: Escape

  Seven: The Great Philoctetes

  Eight: War

  Nine: Do or Die: Years earlier…

  Ten: A Fateful Choice: Back on Phil’s island…

  Eleven: Home Sweet Home

  Twelve: Hard Truths

  Thirteen: I Won’t Say

  Fourteen: Ugly Truths

  Fifteen: Rising Water

  Sixteen: Leverage

  Seventeen: Rash Doesn’t Look Good on You

  Eighteen: Control

  Nineteen: Second Thoughts

  Twenty: The Unknown

  Twenty-One: Cerberus’s Lullaby

  Twenty-Two: Hades

  Twenty-Three: Asphodel Meadows

  Twenty-Four: Lost and Found

  Twenty-Five: Ultimatums

  Twenty-Six: Wheeling and Dealing

  Twenty-Seven: One More Song

  Twenty-Eight: Last Chance

  Twenty-Nine: The End of the River

  Thirty: Reunion

  Epilogue: A few months later…

  About the Author

  For Tyler and Dylan—Always go the distance.

  —J.C.

  “Excuses! Excuses! You give the same ones every week!”

  “They’re not excuses, Thea! It’s the truth!”

  “Truth? You expect me to believe you leave this house every day and go to work?”

  Their voices echoed through the small home, inevitably reaching five-year-old Megara as she sat in the adjacent room at the window. She didn’t flinch as their argument grew louder and more heated. As cutting as their words might be, Megara didn’t understand them. Her parents’ arguments had become as common as the sun rising in the morning and the moon shining at night. Even her mother seemed to anticipate them coming now, like she could feel an impending storm. As the sun began to fade each day, she’d move Megara to the home’s only other room minutes before her father would walk in the door.

  “You wait here and play, Megara,” her mother would say, sounding tired before the yelling even began. “Be a good girl now and keep quiet.”

  Her mother usually placed the stromvos in front of Megara to keep her busy. The top her father had once whittled her was the quietest of all of Megara’s toys, though it had never been her favorite. That would be the platagi, but the rattle was deemed “too loud” by her father, and the spheria rolled all over the floor. One time her father had tripped over the marbles when he walked through the room and yelled so loud, Megara swore the walls rumbled. What she really wanted to play with was a doll with moving arms and legs like the ones she saw the girls at the market carrying, but somehow she knew not to ask for such an expensive gift. Most days her mother struggled to make enough from her mending to buy Megara milk.

  “Where did you spend the money you made, Leonnatos? We need it for the rent! Maya will be here any minute to collect.”

  Megara rocked the stromvos back and forth between her thumb and index finger.

  “I don’t expect you to understand what it is like for me while you do nothing all day but sit here with her.”

  “Her? You mean your daughter? The child who is your spitting image? The one you all but ignore while I mend and clean for others to feed her, since you can’t?”

  Megara gave her fingers a small twist and watched the top take off, spinning wildly across the windowsill, the colors in the wood melting into one.

  “It is hard enough to feed one mouth! You expect me to provide for three when there is no work in all of Athens?”

  “You mean none that you’re willing to do, Leonnatos. I see you when I bring Megara into the market. You stand around with those other louts all day laughing and doing nothing! While I fight to buy her milk!”

  “Enough!”

  Her father’s roar reminded her of that day with the spheria, when he’d landed on his back after catching his foot on a marble. She momentarily looked at the door and held her breath, wondering if he would burst into the room and start yelling at her for doing absolutely nothing wrong, as he sometimes did.

  “I can’t do this anymore, Thea. I never wanted this life.”

  “Yet this is the life you have,” her mother said sadly. “Rent is due today, the food is all gone, and there is a child in that other room who needs us.”

  “I have nothing to give her.” His deep voice broke. “This is on you now. Goodbye, Thea.”

  Megara watched the top wobble as it neared the edge of the windowsill. If Megara didn’t put her hand out to catch it, the stromvos would fall off.

  “Don’t you walk out that door!” Megara’s mother shouted. “Leonnatos?”

  The door in the other room opened and slammed shut.

  Her mother gave a strangled sob, then was quiet.

  The stromvos wobbled for a moment more before it fell onto the floor and skidded across the room, landing in front of the door. Megara turned to retrieve it, but the door opened first, sending the top back across the room and under a chair.

  “Megara, get your things.” Her mother swept into the room, gathering blankets and clothes and shoving them into a giant sack. Her pale face was tired and her brown hair was pulled high above her head in a messy bun held up by one of her sewing needles. “We’re leaving, so move quickly.”

  “Are we going to the market?” Megara asked hopefully. Her stomach growled as if to remind her how hungry she was. They’d had nothing but a roll to split the day before. The money her mother made mending clothes never made it to the end of the week. By the last day, Megara would be lucky if she had one meal to sustain her. Megara recalled the jug with coins being empty that morning when her mother had peeked inside to see what was left. “Maybe today your father will bring home some pay,” she’d said hopefully, but Megara had said nothing. Father never came home with money.

  “We’re moving,” her mother said, not looking at her. “We need to get out of here before Maya comes to collect the rent. Rent we don’t have because…” She exhaled hard. “Your father causes nothing but pain.”

  Pain. “Is he sick?” Megara asked, not understanding.

  “Yes. Sick of us,” Thea mumbled under her breath and then looked at her daughter. Her face softened, and she dropped the bag and knelt at Megara’s side. “Look at me, child.” She held the bottom of Megara’s chin with a single finger. “Your father left us.”

  Meg blinked, unsure what to make of this statement. “Father went to work?”

  This made her mother laugh, but the sound was bitter, like the taste of Kalamata olives. “No.” She looked her straight in the eye. While Megara’s deep red hair and pale skin resembled her father’s, she shared her mother’s unusual violet eyes. Their eyes were so magnetic a day didn’t go by when someone in the street or at the m
arket didn’t comment on them. Today, her mother’s eyes looked as if they were on fire. “No. Your father is gone and isn’t coming back. It’s just you and me now. I need you to be strong.”

  Gone. Megara blinked rapidly. He wasn’t coming back. The way her mother was staring at her, Megara sensed this meant something that would change all she ever knew. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “We will not cry, Megara.” Her mother pushed a strand of Megara’s hair behind her right ear. “We are better off without him. You’ll see.” She held her chin high. “Let this be a lesson, child. Don’t ever let a man dim your light. In this world, you can’t count on anyone but yourself.”

  Megara sniffled, but said nothing.

  There was banging at their door. “Thea? Leonnatos? It’s Maya. Are you in there?”

  Megara and her mother looked at one another. Her mother put her hand to her lips. “Grab what you can and go to the window. We’re going.”

  “Window?” Megara whispered. Their home was only one floor, so there was no need to worry about falling, but she’d never come and gone by window before. “No door?”

  “No door.” Her mother pushed her toward the window and opened it. “There’s no pleading with that woman,” she said as she dropped their sack outside. “You think she’ll feel bad for us that Leonnatos left? That we can’t pay to stay here and she’s placing a child on the street? No. All she’ll see is lost rent money.”

  “Thea? I know you’re in there!”

  “We will find somewhere else to stay,” her mother told her as the banging grew louder. “I promise.”

  Megara looked around at the small home they had rented. The sparse furnishings, the tattered blanket on the bed they all shared, the small table where her mother sat to do her mending, the fresh orchids in the vase (the one luxury Thea allowed herself). None of the possessions being left behind were their own, but there was something about the space she’d lived in for five years that Megara somehow sensed she’d have a hard time finding again: a true home. Their world wasn’t much, but her father had robbed her of it. Her eyes caught sight of the forgotten stromvos under a chair. That top was the one and only thing she recalled her father ever giving her. Instinctively, she went running back for it. Her hands closed around the top just as she felt her mother’s hands on her back.

  “Megara! What are you doing?” Thea hissed, pulling the child into her arms and lifting her up and out the window.

  The stromvos slipped from her fingers as her mother dropped her over the side of the window. Megara could hear it hit the floor as she landed on the other side, but she knew not to ask her mother to retrieve it. Her father and the top were gone, and there was no use crying over them. Megara looked up to see her mother climbing out of the window behind her.

  Maya appeared in the window looking angry. “You owe me your rent!”

  Thea ignored Maya and reached for her daughter’s hand. The two started to run.

  “Thea!”

  Megara could still hear Maya yelling from the window as they disappeared into the crowd at the end of the street.

  If there was one thing Megara had learned in her short life already, it was this: love wasn’t worth the trouble.

  The view was spectacular.

  That was Meg’s first thought as Wonder Boy lifted her into his arms and a cloud carried the two of them into the air, high above the city of Thebes.

  The second? Don’t look down.

  She wouldn’t let her fear of heights ruin the moment. Hercules was beside her, his body awash in a golden glow that burned like the sun. Meg knew just from looking at him that he had finished his quest. Wonder Boy was now a god, and she was…

  What was she, exactly?

  Was she even alive?

  In the last few years, Meg had been to hell and back—literally. She’d sold her soul to the god of the Underworld and spent her days and nights fulfilling Hades’s every demand. While she still walked in the land of the living, her life was no longer her own.

  Meeting Hercules had awoken something in her. Honestly, she wasn’t sure what that something was, but she knew it felt important. Why else would she have leaped in front of a falling pillar to save him, causing her own demise in the process? That moment, and Wonder Boy’s rescue of her afterward, was a blur now, like so many nightmares she tried hard to forget. The next thing she remembered was air filling her lungs as if she’d held her breath underwater for too long. Then there had been a crack of lightning, a flurry of clouds, and she and Wonder Boy were being whisked into the heavens toward Mount Olympus.

  The city sat on a bed of clouds that shone like the sun burning brightly behind it. The majestic home of the gods rose high in the sky with peaks of clouds holding various buildings and waterfalls. As their cloud came to a stop in front of a massive staircase that led to Mount Olympus’s pearly gates, Meg could hear cheering. Lined up on either side of the staircase, every god of Olympus was on hand to congratulate Wonder Boy.

  “Three cheers for the mighty Hercules!” they shouted as they threw flowers and blew kisses of gratitude into the air.

  At that moment, Pegasus landed on a nearby cloud with Phil. The satyr caught a yellow flower in midair and began to chew happily as he surveyed the celebration.

  “You did it, kid!” Phil shouted.

  “Can you believe this, Meg?” Hercules said in wonder. “They’re cheering for… me.”

  “You deserve it,” she said warmly, because he did…but something was suddenly gnawing at her.

  The fact that Phil was there made sense—he’d trained Wonder Boy on Earth, helping him achieve true hero status. But how had she gotten a front row seat to this party? Her association with Hades, and doing his bidding, had almost cost Hercules this moment. Did these gods realize the woman standing beside their newly anointed god had almost derailed his dream?

  “Meg?”

  She looked up. Hercules was offering her his hand. At some point, she must have stopped walking, because she was standing still as the cloud swayed slightly.

  “Are you coming?”

  Meg hesitated, looking from him to the crowd of admirers and those huge steps to the Mount Olympus gates. Her thoughts were coming fast, and not all of them were pretty.

  Wonder Boy might have wanted her there, but it was clear a mortal didn’t belong among the deities of Mount Olympus. Hercules was a god now. Where did that leave the two of them?

  Mortals weren’t allowed to date gods, were they?

  Was this the last time she’d ever see him? If it was, she was just standing there, totally blowing it. She wasn’t saying any of the things she wanted to say…which were what, exactly?

  Well, there was the way he made her appreciate things in life she had never seen before—fragrant lilies in bloom, the way a kid in the market smiled. He had a contagious optimism that filled with her newfound energy. There were also those stolen moments between Hercules’s hero training and triumphs, and Meg’s awful meetings with Hades. The two of them would stroll through the garden, talking for as long as they could. They could not get enough of one another, drinking in each other’s thoughts and observations like parched farmers reaching for brimming wells; Hercules brushing hair out of her eyes, Meg teasing him, making his ears redden so adorably. They had each challenged one another to see such vastly different points of view, to expand their worlds far beyond the reach of Mount Olympus and the Underworld. Those moments had been just for them…or were they? Did the gods know about all the time they’d spent together? Did they care?

  Okay, so it was clear there was a lot to unpack there, and Meg had no clue what the newly minted god in front of her was thinking. That’s what she really wanted to know. But how did she ask Wonder Boy what he wanted when this was the moment he had worked so hard for…and when every god of Olympus was watching?

  There was a sudden hush over the crowd and Meg followed the stares of the others to two figures who had appeared at the top of the stairs. Zeus and his wife Hera were a c
ommanding sight: Zeus, a ball of blinding light with a long white beard and flowing hair, with muscles so large they looked as if they belonged to several men; Hera, a vison in pink, her curly hair and gown sparkling like gems.

  Meg felt Hercules’s sharp intake of breath at the sight of his parents. This was what he’d wanted, what he had been working toward his entire life. He glanced at Meg for a split second before rushing up the stairs to see them. She said nothing as she watched him go, staring instead at his bulging calves as he raced up the steps. Only one thought came to mind: I should have taken the man’s hand.

  Way to go, Meg! Hercules asks if you’re coming and you just stand there like a Greek statue. Why didn’t you talk to him? Why didn’t you say, “Wonder Boy, I want you to stay. Don’t become a god”? Because that sounds selfish, doesn’t it? And what right do I have to ask him that after I almost cost him everything? She could tell him the truth. And what’s that, Meg? she countered herself. How do you really feel about the boy?

  Meg looked at him as he reached the gates and her heart felt a sudden pull. There was only one thing she knew to say for certain.

  “Don’t go,” she whispered.

  He was too far away to hear her.

  “Hercules,” Meg heard Hera say as Hercules sank into his mother’s open arms. “We’re so proud of you.”

  “Fine work, boy!” Zeus punched him in the arm affectionately. His blue eyes that mirrored Hercules’s own shone with pride. “You’ve done it! You’re a true hero.”

  Meg suddenly felt Hera’s eyes on her. Every other god in the joint turned to look at the single mortal among the clouds too. Meg shifted uneasily at the sudden attention of the immortals.

  “You were willing to give your life to rescue this young woman.” Awe coated Hera’s voice.

  Even Meg couldn’t believe that Wonder Boy had almost sacrificed himself to save her, of all people. And yet here they both were. Don’t go. Don’t go.

  “For a true hero isn’t measured by the size of his strength, but by the strength of his heart,” Zeus told his son as he clasped a large arm around him. “Now at last, my son, you can come home!”