Chapter Seven
Lucy is unfathomably bouncy this morning.
I don’t know how she managed to squeeze this much energy out of a night of sea-tossed sleep on the ferry, but she bounds off looking disturbingly bright-eyed.
Liam and I linger at the back of the group.
We’re both sporting cute dark craters under our eyes, which I’m not above teasing him about.
“I’m just saying, you were very smug about not being seasick for someone who spent all night throwing up,” I point out, and he groans.
Henry is Icarus’s hugest fan, so he tells the beginning of the story as the van trundles down the road toward Knossos.
“King Minos commanded Daedalus and his son Icarus to build an elaborate labyrinth under his palace to house the Minotaur,” Henry says, putting his phone flashlight under his chin and waving his fingers spookily around his face.
George giggles at his ridiculousness. “They obeyed and built a labyrinth so complex that Daedalus himself could barely find his way out when he had completed his task.”
“Metamorphoses-coded,” Liam says, nodding appreciatively as he cites the text from which Henry pulled that detail. “Nice.”
“But King Minos feared that Daedalus would reveal the secrets of the labyrinth and thus prevent his yearly human sacrifices to the Minotaur. So he imprisoned them in a tower overlooking the sea.”
I crane my head to peek out the window of the van at the sea. It’s the same water that Daedalus and Icarus looked down on from their mythological prison, yearning for the freedom promised by the waves. The thought thickens in my throat.
“But they desired their freedom, because, obviously,” Henry goes on.
“Daedalus gathered feathers fallen onto their windowsill from birds’ wings.
He built wings fashioned from the feathers, the threads in their blankets, the straps in their sandals, and beeswax.
Before they took off, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the water, lest it soak the feathers and dissolve the wings, nor too close to the sun, as it would melt the wax, and the wings would fall apart around him. ”
Henry turns off his flashlight and tucks his phone back into his pocket, and a hush falls over the van. If there’s anything guaranteed to make a group of classics students emotional, it’s the fall of Icarus.
“But the joy of freedom and the delights of the world buoyed Icarus’s spirits, and he could no longer bind himself to any cage. He soared as high as he could and did not realize the wax had melted until it ran hot down his arms, and the wings turned to feathers around him.”
We all sit in heavy silence for a moment, and then Ms. Barlowe breaks us free by applauding. We join her, and Henry unwisely stands to take a bow as the van jerks to a stop. He flops onto his seat, and George thumps him on the back.
“The palace ruins also teach us a lot about the Minoan period,” Ms. Galanis reminds us as we file out of the van.
“It’s remarkably well-preserved, and it has a lot to offer us.
We’ll spend the morning here and go to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum after lunch, where we’ll see some of the artifacts that were uncovered from this site. ”
The air outside the van still carries the light smell of the sea, as well as the old smell of dirt and dust gathering from the palace ruins. It’s quickly becoming my favorite combination.
I follow Liam and Lucy toward the entrance, half listening as Henry tells the story of Ariadne and the Minotaur.
I’m a huge fan of Ariadne. She helped save Theseus from the Minotaur by teaching him how to fight it and how to escape the maze—and he thanked her by abandoning her on the island of Naxos a mere few days later.
She won, though, because the god Dionysus fell in love with her when he saw her asleep (likely thing for an ancient Greek god to do). Her crown became a constellation, so proof of her love glitters forever in the stars.
A tale of hope and inspiration for the romantically unfortunate everywhere.
I quicken my step to catch up with the rest of the group, but when I make my way into the site, everyone’s already off in their own corners.
Bodhi is scribbling in his notebook, earphones in to indicate that he wants to be alone.
Liam is deep in his latest poem. Even Lucy, queen of wanting this to be a summer of togetherness, has disappeared into her books.
I pull out my own project materials, not wanting to be the only one looking like they’re wandering aimlessly around these gorgeous ruins.
Unfortunately, it only gives me the appearance of a purpose.
Unlike my classmates, I still have only the loosest vision for my project.
Something about Artemis, with a focus on her followers.
Maybe sprinkle a few representations of the moon in there. Somehow.
It’s nothing compared to the masterpieces everyone around me is putting together. Even Lucy’s dissertation, which on the surface might not sound like it would give artistic genius, might end up in a peer-reviewed paper.
But I have to have something to show for my time here. Something more than just the sideways glances I keep stealing at Melanie, who looks as exhausted as I do from our shared sleepless, seasick night. Because there’s not even anything to show for that. I keep making sure of it.
—
Even after we leave the palace to check into our hotel, everyone still seems completely immersed in their projects.
We unload from the bus and into the hotel courtyard.
It’s a cozy, intimate space animated by the splash of a circular stone fountain set in the middle of the cobblestones.
Little balconies equipped with breakfast tables line the building surrounding us, potted greenery exploding from their chipping white fences.
The rich red-purples of a far-reaching bougainvillea plant frame the deep blue doorway as the plant climbs up the whitewashed walls of the building.
As Ms. Barlowe checks us in, I slide onto the bench set by the fountain and watch the water droplets spatter on the cobblestones at my feet.
Ms. Barlowe emerges from the front desk area holding room key cards.
As she passes them out, she tells us that we’re due back in the courtyard for our decathlon art show in half an hour.
It’s a reminder that makes me cringe. I have a series of printed photographs ready to go, but the results of this competition are preordained.
None of us can top Henry’s painting talent.
That doesn’t stop everyone from bringing forth their best shots.
We come back down to the courtyard to find it set up with easels along the sides.
Ms. Barlowe directs us to our stations. I’m in a corner by the bougainvillea, which is exactly where I want to be.
The flowers themselves don’t have a particular scent, but the leaves smell fresh and clean, and the colors are so vibrant against the white walls that I hope some of their beauty rubs off on my photography.
On the other side of the fountain, Liam is setting up his poems, which he’s copied onto posters he got from a local supply store and decorated with penciled doodles and colorful watercolor splotches along the margins.
Bodhi has turned his poems into concrete poetry, the words linking to form images of the sites that inspired them.
Lucy has, indeed, put the cast of Mamma Mia!
on horseback as part of her contemporary frieze project.
Even Amalia, whose work is always decidedly academic, has shown up with pages of her essay folded into origami animals reflecting the myths she’s writing about.
Henry, of course, shows us all up with the two paintings he brings of Icarus and Daedalus in mid-flight.
He’s captured Icarus in the moments before his fall, when he’s at his highest, soaring closer to the sun than ever.
The joy on his face is darkened only by the foreboding shadows in the background, warning us of his height and the fall we know is to come.
“When you’re set up, walk around the courtyard and take in everyone’s art,” Ms. Barlowe says. She and Ms. Galanis have already started their rounds, clipboards in hand.
I finish propping up my last photograph—a blowup of a shot I took of Hadrian’s Library—and join Liam in the circle around the courtyard.
A light evening breeze rustles my hair as we make our way by the fountain.
The sky above us sinks into a deeper blue, fringed with the pink tint of the dying sunset.
“Everyone is so good,” Liam whispers as we pass George’s station, where he’s set up fashion sketches of dress designs inspired by each of the twelve gods and goddesses and ancient Greek fashion.
Liam is the most anticompetitive person I know, but even so, his voice is tinged with intimidation. I can’t say I blame him. As I look at the talent around me, the takeaway is nothing but amazement weighed down with the realization that truly, I don’t belong here.
It doesn’t help that Ms. Barlowe and Ms. Galanis are adding copious scribbles to their clipboard notes as they make their rounds.
I flinch when they get to my easels, desperate to know what’s coming out of their pens.
Though everyone’s trying to pretend that they’re unbothered, I can see all the cohort’s eyes flicking to our pair of teachers as they evaluate our work.
When Henry is declared the unsurprising winner, he’s met with applause that feels polite compared to the cheers that echoed on our ferry open mic night.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s realized that he’s now won two of our events.
We all slump back to our stations to take down our art, no one making eye contact as we troupe inside with our pieces.
—
“Sure you don’t want to come?” Liam asks me as he examines his hair in the mirror.
I nod. “I need to work on my project. I’m feeling so behind.”