She was wearing a light-yellow sun dress. It was the kind of dress that he had seen in documentaries about the mid-forties. Not that he was any kind of fashion expert it just looked old, to him. Maybe it was the way the woman carried herself in that dress that gave it the aura of classicism.

The woman’s clear green eyes showed no age at all. But the weight of her gaze was something that he had come to expect from everyone who lived in this city. Meeting the weight of her gaze was like trying to push a boulder up a mountain. The combined weight of power, knowledge, and the wisdom to temper those others was too much to take in and he had to avert his gaze.

“Well, are you just going to stand there or are you going to help?” she asked with a smile.

William straightened himself. “Who are you, again? I’m sorry you look and sound so familiar…”

“I’m Eustace, remember?” the older woman said, her smile getting broader with each word.

William shook his head.

The older woman reached up and patted him on the side of the face. Her weathered and wrinkled hand was cool and soft, the tender touch of a grandmother. “I’m an Elder of the City, doofus.” She said with a light, rich laugh that somehow filled the entire dome.

William almost slapped himself in the face. His cheeks immediately warmed at the embarrassment of not remembering an Elder. His eyes grew wide in uncertainty and immediately dropped to study the floor.

Eustace laughed out loud again. “Oh, kiddo, please don’t feel embarrassed on my account. I don’t blame you for not remembering me.” She lifted her hand to William’s face once more directing his eyes back to her face. “It was not so terribly long ago that I have forgotten about the test that we all had to traverse on our first day.”

William’s mind recalled what his first day was like. The only thing he could clearly remember about that day was pain and exhaustion. He studied the wrinkled face that smiled at him now. There was no hint of malice or condescension in those eyes or her voice. He nodded.

Eustace patted his face. “Besides, I think that maybe you were a little too interested in another Elder at the time of our meeting to pay me much mind,” she said with a sly smile.

William thought of the other Elders and his mind went to Huan Li and Ansuya. The meaning of Eustace’s words struck him dumb, and he shook his head.

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Eustace’s laugh rang out through the dome again. It was full of kind hearted mirth. Eustace wiped a tear from her eye with a broad smile and turned back to the rather large amount of things that were splayed out on the floor around her. “Now, didn’t you say you were going to help an old lady with her duties to the deities?” she said that last with a knowing wink.

William scrunched up his face at the inappropriateness of the joke in this place. All it did was bring another laugh from the older woman’s lips. “The gods are not serious all the time, William, they appreciate the odd joke here and there.” She began to open a mason jar that was near the dais. She stopped and looked up at William, who was still standing there looking down at the assortment of containers. “Are you going to help or stand around gawking like a parrot?” William dropped to a squatting position and began to open a jar of his own.

The two of them spent a good amount of time laying the contents from the containers out onto the dais. The jars held mostly preserved food, but also rice and water. The water was poured into large saucer shaped gravy boat looking things and set at the corners of the dais. They removed the food from the jars and containers and placed them in various bowls and plates. The filled plates were then placed on the dais. William had always been skeptical about the whole ‘laying out offerings’ for the gods thing, but here in this place with this woman it seemed like the most reverent and natural thing to do.

Once they had all the jars empty and their contents laid out, Eustace removed a large, covered platter from the basket. William hadn’t even noticed it was in there. The space they had left clear in the center of the dais had been a mystery to him until this moment. Eustace unwrapped the giant mound from the silver platter.

William was unsure what he was looking at. The cloth Eustace had removed was sodden. The lump of ‘whatever it was’ was glistening in the diffuse light of this place. There was a strange and tangy scent coming from it. William watched Eustace lift the platter and place it on the dais. He could identify everything else on the dais, but this new addition was a complete question mark. William had thought that all the rest of the food looked tempting, and he was a little sad to see it go to waste. The large lump on the platter was the exact opposite and he wondered what god would find such an offering pleasing.

Eustace looked at William. She had her eyebrows raised.

“What is that?” he blurted out without thinking.

“What is what?” Eustace asked with wide eyed innocence.

William’s brow furrowed with consternation. “That,” he said pointing to the mound of crap on the platter.

“Oh, you mean the calf fat?” Eustace said still all wide-eyed innocence.

William almost gagged on a lump that had mysteriously formed in the back of his throat. It took him a moment to find his tongue again before he could speak. “Why is there a lump of calf fat on the offering dais?”

Eustace looked at him. To William she looked like she was trying to figure out if he was being facetious or not. William met her gaze with a wide-eyed stare of naiveté of his own.

“The calf fat is for the Greek gods of Olympus.”