John pulled into the parking space and turned off the car as Aph opened her door to allow the other two out. "This is it?"

"Classic Americana." Aph let out a breath, "It's so gorgeous they'll be copying this look for the next few decades. The internet'll be covered in pictures of these places as oases from the world."

"Internet?"

"That's right." Aph took a deep whiff, "There's nothing you can't accomplish with the internet and some determination."

"What's the internet?" John turned to the others but they were already talking to one another.

"It's not around yet." Aph pivoted a moment, "How did people ever live without it. Or smart phones? Or wifi."

"Before what?"

"Never mind," She waved a hand, "It's the indoor plumbing of your grandchildren's generation. One in every house and sometimes two."

A hand came down on John's shoulder and he turned to see Osiris, "Just ignore her when she rants like that. She just needs to talk but you don't have to listen. It's mostly nonsense anyway."

"I heard that and I resent it." Aph held up a finger at Osiris, "I don't have to put up with your nagging."

"My nagging?" Osiris adjusted his scarf, "I'm the only one here with any sense."

"That's still under debate." Kali crossed her arms over her chest and squinted at the town. "He'll know we're here."

"Right." Aph clapped her hands together, pivoting to face John. "We've not got much time befor the denizens of our opposition descend on our position so I'll be quick."

"Will you now?" John shuffled in place, "I was under the impression most women didn't want to hear those words."

Aph grinned, wagging her finger at him, "You've still got a sense of humor. I like that. Keep it, you'll need it."

"For what?"

"For what lies ahead." Aph sobered, "Do you remember what I told you in the car?"

"You told me a lot in the car and I'm still convinced you're all just a fever dream from the alcohol still leaving my system."

"You're drier than you think you are and no, we're not a fever dream." Aph put a hand on his shoulder, "I warned you that this would be a war fought on the battlefield of your heart over your soul."

"I remember."

"Then remember this too." Aph tapped the spot on his chest above his heart. "This is stronger than you know. You're still alive, you're still here, and you've got the strength for what lies ahead of you."

"What lies ahead of me?"

"Trial, trouble, and triumph." Aph stepped back, joining the other two. "We'll be back, when he's not around."

"Got to get home before the carriage turns back into a pumpkin then?"

"Something like that." Kali stepped forward, putting her hands together and bowing to John. "Remember, time is a gift. Try not to waste it."

"And you're not dead yet." Osiris flipped his scarf over his shoulder, the jade embroidery in the black of his suit glinting in the sun. "It's worth it to fight until the end."

"Yes," Aph raised her fists in the air, "Fighting!"

In a moment all three of them vanished and John let out a rush of air, pressing his palm into his forehead. "You're not mad, you're not mad, you're not mad. You're just…" He dropped his hand with a sigh, "Mad as a box of frogs."

"We've not got any frogs but I'm sure you'll like what they serve all the same." John turned on his heel, putting his hand out on the car to get his balance as a blonde woman approached him. "Mrs. Patmore's Kitchen is the best place you'll find for at least the next fifty miles."

"I think I've had enough of the car for one day." John held out a hand, "I'm John Bates."

"I'm Anna Smith." They shook and John thought he felt something spark through his arm. He disconnected and she pointed just up the street. "I work at Town Hall."

"What is it you do there?"

"I manage the Records Office and help at the Library." She shrugged at him, "And you? I can tell you're not from around here by the sound of your voice."

"Yours is distinctive as well." John pursed his lips a moment, "I'd guess you're from the North of England. Not quite Newcastle because you're not a Geordie and a little more east than the Lake District. I'd hazard somewhere in Yorkshire."

"Well spotted." Anna smiled at him. "I'm from Scarborough and Whitby."

"Dracula's castle."

"Common misconception." She held up a finger, "Mr. Stoker was inspired by the abbey there but it was never a castle. He just wrote that into his book."

"Still a good story."

"Quite an adventure, to be sure." Anna narrowed her eyes, "And you just dodged my question."

"I did," John admitted, "I'm from London."

"How wonderful. I love visiting London."

"When were you last there?"

Anna looked up, as if counting something John could not see. "Probably in forty? It's been at least a decade and a half."

"Then I'm sorry to disappoint but it's not the same city anymore."

She sobered, "Have you seen it? Since the war ended, I mean?"

John nodded, "I was there. Living, as well as I could, in the East End until I got rehoused when the foundation of my building cracked. Undetonated bomb found buried in one of the many craters that pocket that area."

"Then what brings you from London to Downton?"

"Isn't everyone coming here?" John asked and Anna laughed with him.

In the next moment she shook her head, "I'm afraid that's part of the problem. This town isn't what it used to be."

"To be honest I'm surprised it used to be anything at all." John knocked his knuckle against his car window, "I had to strangle a map and use a magnifying glass to even find it."

"It's a right paper town to some people." Anna agreed, dry washing her hands a moment. "Mostly the issue is that no one wants to come to rural West Virginia."

"Somehow you found your way here."

"I did." Anna bit at her lip, "But I didn't come the way I'd want anyone else to really. If I can say that."

"Please do," John opened his hands to her. "I've got no stake in this town."

"Then what brings you here?"

"It was petrol but now," John did a slow circle. "I think I need to paint it."

"Are you a painter?"

John motioned her to follow him as he unlocked the boot and opened it. "Behold, the tools of my unmanly trade."

"There's nothing unmanly about creating art, Mr. Bates." Anna snapped her fingers, "That's how I know you. You're the one who did the series of German landscapes."

"You know about those."

"I was in London for that exhibition Mr. Bates." Anna ducked back into the boot, gingerly lifting and adjusting the contents there. "It struck me to the core."

"It did."

"Of course." Anna stood again, closing her eyes as if remembering the moment. "I was only a girl but I remember reaching out my hand to touch one as if it was a mirror into another world and I could just fall right through."

Her eyes opened, "Like Alice did."

"I thought she tumbled down the Rabbit Hole."

"In the first book. In the second she goes through the looking glass." Anna started at the sound of the clock on the church chiming. "I'd better get on. It's been lovely meeting you and I do hope you'll be in town for a stretch. It's beautiful here in autumn. The colors rival even your palette."

"I would love to see the kinds of colors available to me here."

"Then I guess you'll have to stay awhile." Anna walked backward up the street, calling back to him. "They wait for no man and come in their own time."

"I'll keep my eyes peeled then."

"I'd recommend it." She waved and turned, continuing up the street in the direction of the Town Hall she mentioned earlier.

John closed the boot and played the keys in his hand a moment. He rested on the trunk, eyeing the main road and following the branches of it as far as he could before they vanished in curves, hills, and trees. Turning his head he basked in the feeling of the town about him, closing his eyes to better focus.

But, for all his focus, all he could see was Anna Smith and her bright smile.

Aph entered the shop, hands in her pockets, and strolled up an aisle. A voice behind her startled her and she turned. The man standing there leered a smile at her.

"Hello Aphrodite."

"I don't go by that anymore." She moved past him, continuing her pace as the man kept at her heels. "Don't you have civilizations to destroy? Brothers to turn on brothers and all that?"

"I do." His fingers fiddled with some hanging implements before he cocked his curly black-haired head to the side. "But then I felt something and thought, 'how odd' and decided I should investigate."

"I didn't know you counted that in your repertoire." Aph made a motion in the air, as if placing letters on a sign. "God of War, Sacrifice, and Investigation."

Snapping her fingers she turned to him, "You could have an agency. Like that Phillip Marlowe book they made into that Humphrey Bogart movie. With a glass-paneled door and everything. Tohil Investigates, what do you think?"

"I think you know what I felt and why I'm here." He tapped the end of her nose and Aph stepped back out of his reach. "Don't make me wheedle it out of you. That's never any fun."

"Nothing with you is ever fun." Aph sighed, "At least with your Greek counterpart there was a chance of a good time. You're just annoying. All that blood sacrifice and fearful veneration made you boring."

"At least I didn't get my ass handed to me by an Amazonian demi-goddess like your ex-boyfriend did."

"I think it's important that we specify that he was my ex-boyfriend when Princess Diana handed his ass to him." Aph pulled a can off the shelf and showed it to him. "This stuff, you cant find it in Britain. They're still rationing you know."

"Don't change the subject."

"Then don't bury the lead." Aph crossed her arms over her chest and faced him, "Why do you think I'm here Tohil?"

"I think you're here to end my hold over this town." He circled his finger in the air above his head. "You truly think you have a chance to do it, don't you?"

"I think statistics say that in the law of averages there's a good chance we'll get it right this time." Aph shrugged, "Even a blind squirrell finds a nut occasionally. It's not unheard of."

"But why this town I wonder." Tohil paced a circle around her, "What is it about Downton that has the Goddess Aphrodite all in a tizzy I wonder."

"It's a little 'g'." Aph waved her hand, "Not a big deal but it is a thing."

"You capitalized mine."

"It was the beginning of the sentence. I like proper grammar."

"But not proper anything else." Tohil mimicked her earlier tone, "Aphrodite, goddess of Love, sex, and grammar."

"There are worse labels."

"But you're not much of a goddess anymore, are you?" Tohil stroked out a strand of her tightly curled hair, "Little 'g' or otherwise."

"I'm near the end of my tenure, it's true."

"I never understood that." Tohil released her hair, "Why anyone would want to give up immortality to turn to the drudgery of human existence? It's pitiful and messy and disgusting. Honestly I can barely stand to fake a human form to be around them when they're passing around disease and despair like the flu at a children's carnival."

"Then why bother at all? Oh wait, I know," Aph snapped her fingers dramatically, "Because otherwise you'd get bored. You're a capricious, selfish, asshole who toys with humanity because you can."

"It's what I was created to do."

"It's what you chose to do." Aph grabbed the can, "I'm going to buy this. Do you want something?"

"I want you to realize you've already lost here. Like you have everywhere else." Tohil clicked his tongue against his teeth, the condescending pity in the sound grinding on Aph's nerves. "You're at the end of your rope. You're old, beaten, and bedraggled."

"At least I'm not a prick."

"There's that." Tohil snorted, "But last I heard to become mortal you've got to have a partner. And, if my other information is correct, your partner's not too keen on you at the moment."

"At least I have one." Aph put a finger to her lips, "I do believe no one ever wanted to date you. But that's what you get when your followers have to drink human blood as part of the sacrificial process."

"Not sure the woman who considered sex on the floor her tithes for worship can throw stones."

"Please, if we ever had towers they're shattered by now." Aph snorted, "We're far past the worry about stones when we just spent five years lobbing bombs at one another."

"The world is born in blood and war." Tohil pointed at her, "Even birth is blood, as you know."

"I'm not the goddess of fertility or childbirth. That's Hera and we're not on speaking terms."

"Point is, Aphrodite," He drew out her name, clicking it on his teeth to send the hairs on Aphrodite's arms rising. "You're out of your league here. The world's not built for love anymore. It's war, hate, blood, and destruction."

"You're wrong."

"Every victory I've had so far tells me otherwise." Tohil straightened, pulling a can of his own off the shelf. "Thank you for the offer but I think I can manage this one on my own."

Aph scowled as he walked up the aisle, "I wouldn't discount me so quickly. Animals, when cornered, are at their most dangerous."

"I'm sure they are." Tohil nodded to her, "But you're not an animal anymore. You're aging and you're done."

He left the shop and Aph took a deep breath. "I guess we'll see."