Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
MEDUSA
Cawmistress woke me hopping along the edge of my nest, her eyes curious. There were no urgent cries or anxiously flapping wings, so I didn’t hurry, washing my face and donning my clothes. I heard a happy caw from the temple and smiled at the sound.
Then a second.
And a third.
My smile fell. I hefted my spear and lengthened my stride, unsettled by how vocal my friends were.
Then I stopped, frozen, at the threshold of the temple.
She sat on the ground, her tattered finery around her, dark mane of her hair windswept and the bottom of her robes wet with dew.
There was a loaf of bread in her hand that she was tearing into tiny pieces, her patience infinite.
Every now and then she’d throw a few pieces around her, scattering them so the same bird couldn’t gobble them all up.
She was making friends with my crows.
She was here. She’d walked from the village to visit me, and she’d brought bread for my crows.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat.
Before I was ready to announce myself, Crowlie spotted me and did a short loop in the air, coming to perch on my shoulder.
Out of habit I put one hand over my hair so she didn’t worry at it. She rubbed her gleaming head against my hand.
“You must have been very patient, to get them to love you so,” Cassandra said, smiling from the floor of my temple.
No one smiled sitting on my floor. They’d weep there, or cower.
She likes your crows. What wasn’t to like? Maybe this did make sense, after all. “Crowlie has been with me since she was a chick,” I told Cassandra. “You brought them a feast.”
“I brought us a feast,” she corrected. “But they weren’t sleeping. Can you feed them by hand?” she scooped up as many pieces of bread as she could hold, standing with a small huff of effort and a bit of a wobble. I moved forward but she was steady before I got there, leaving me disoriented.
She laughed, glancing at my friends who’d rushed into the space she’d left to pick at every crumb she’d dropped, bolder with me beside them.
“I love them,” she declared. “I hope that’s okay.”
I was still in a dream. That made sense, didn’t it? That was why she was here, so bold and so fearless and so frank. “Yes,” I told her, not really believing it was a dream, and unwilling for it to end either way.
She came closer, bread falling from her hands in a short trail. I struggled not to fall back, reminding myself of her familiarity last we’d met. She wasn’t scared of me.
“Here,” she said, and I set aside my spear, but I didn’t need to. My one empty hand could hold everything from the two of hers.
Her touch would be so delicate. So sweet. And, I had no doubt, so relentless.
I ached as my body made ready to experience the sensation, as if my thoughts might make it real.
Crowlie hopped down my arm, wings half-spread, one eye on my visitor and one on her crow competitors as she stole a bit of bread.
Beside me, Cassandra made a high-pitched noise of joy in the back of her throat, her hands going to her mouth and her feet doing a rapid dance on the cracked floor.
I glanced over, feeling her joy spilling over onto me, breathing it in and languishing in it.
She wasn’t smiling. The expression she wore was high-browed, big-eyed wonder.
Infected by her happiness, I felt myself smiling for the both of us.
“Can I pat her?” she asked. “No. No I can’t. Don’t be so hasty, Cassandra,” she said, and even the way she chided herself poured more of that warm, vibrant pleasure into my veins.
She’d have to move fast if she wanted to touch them. They’d spotted Crowlie. “Here,” I said, opening my other arm and spreading my wing. “Come in close. If you’re with me, they’ll trust you.”
And she did.
My heart skittered in my chest like my friend’s feet as they hopped closer. I enclosed her in my wing. Her breath against my chest was warm and quick. She trembled, then did the quick feet movement again. Joy. She was trembling in joy.
My head swam. I took her hand. Anything to draw out the pleasure. She moved with me, looking along our outstretched arms as I guided her to reach toward Crowlie.
My old friend, she wasn’t fooled. She knew how many arms I had.
But she was happy with her feast. Cassandra’s delicate, rounded hand got a look, a quick, curious snap of her beak, and then a bump of approval.
It was probably done so she could get back to gorging herself as others alighted on me.
Cassandra trembled again. I couldn’t see which friends landed on my arm, as it was a number in quick succession and I found it hard to care when the woman in my arms was… trembling. With joy.
They landed on her, too. And she made a noise of astonishment.
Her arm dropped under their weight and I bolstered her, feeling her eyes on me.
We were so close. I could barely breathe.
Someone else hopped onto her head, just for a moment. She ducked, staggering into me. Everyone on us took flight, scattering the last few bits of bread, and I caught her.
Behind the softness of her breasts, her heart was drumming insistently. It was the same rhythm that mine drummed.
“I’m sorry,” I said, worried they’d scared her.
She looked up at me. Her mouth wasn’t smiling, but it was parted slightly. One of her hands was still tangled up in mine and her hair was a welcoming mess.
In my grip, her fingers flexed. I let her go immediately, struggling to straighten my cloudy thoughts.
Her hand came up to rest on my bare shoulder and I looked down at it, confused until I saw the red pinpricks left by my friends’ feet.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, horrified. How hadn’t I realized she needed help?
“They’re heavy—their claws—” I stepped back, tucking my wing away carefully, hastening to the fresh water.
“I’ll treat it for you. Over here. Just—wait a moment.
” Urgency and humiliation pulled me on. What had I been thinking? “They’re used to me. I didn’t think—”
“It’s okay,” she said, as I scooped up some water and took a fresh cloth. “It’s barely a few scratches.”
Still, I hurried to her side, offering her the bowl. She took it. Of course she took it. Why would she want me to clean her? She was capable of it herself.
The desire to take over writhed in my chest.
I sat, watching. The water ran down her arm, tiny little marks left in her flesh by my friends’ claws making me ache.
“You bear no wounds,” she said, puzzled.
“No.”
“Why?”
I watched her fingers in the cloth. “My skin is thicker, now,” I said, as she wrung out the fabric. Water ran into the bowl, spilling out between her digits. I wondered what it’d be like to lick them, and guilt hit again.
“Since the curse?”
A cold wind blew away all the warmth and the lingering joy, but she was unchanged. A little disheveled, pink-cheeked, soft. “Yes.”
“Oh.” There seemed to be a world of understanding in that one noise.
Suspicion, dark and sickly, coiled in my belly. We all of us knew, of course, those who were brave enough to think. But… “Did Perseus hurt you?” I asked her, the rage starting to simmer.
“No.” She ran the cloth slowly over her arm. “No, he didn’t. They would’ve. If I’d stayed, they would’ve. I still feel a little bad for tricking them.”
“Don’t,” I told her, the word an order.
She shrugged with a sigh. “They believe convenient lies, but never inconvenient truths,” she said, weariness creeping into her voice. “I’m sorry, Medusa, I’ve ruined your morning.”
“No, you haven’t.” I stayed where I was, but every part of me wanted to go to her and fold her back into my wing again. This time, without my friends. “You’ve made it. I’m glad you tricked them. I’m glad you had the skills to do so.”
She looked at me, then, with the wisdom of someone who’d survived. And she could see everything. The decades, the centuries of loneliness. The hurt. The healing. The rage and the grief. I struggled not to shy away.
“Who cursed you?” she asked me, the question as soft as her hands on the cloth, wiping away the blood.
It was my turn to tremble. Not at the memories. They’d weathered like sandstone, those experiences. It’d taken time, and the right conditions, but I’d worn them away. No, I trembled at that gentleness.
“Athena,” I told her, the word a little scratchy. It was decades since I’d even said her name. It held no hurt. Not even grief. It just…was. “I sought safety in her temple from Poseidon.”
“And she cursed you for it,” Cassandra breathed, the words vibrating with fury. “She cursed you.”
I shrugged. “They were rivals. He’d already claimed me, I suppose.”
“They’re wrong.”
“Gods often are,” I agreed. “Who gave you to Perseus?”
She paused for a moment. “Apollo,” she said, finally, frowning.
The rage rumbled. If they were coming for me, not the village, then I may need to separate myself. And yet then the village would be unprotected. As wonderful as my sisters were, as brave and sweet as they were…they were no warriors.
“And…Athena gave him a special sword,” Cassandra said. “I’m sorry, I’m problem-solving, Medusa, and you’ve just shared a horrible truth with me. I shouldn’t be. Can I…can we…walk, or do something to make you feel better?”
All the rage vanished at that thoughtful, sweet acknowledgement. “It’s been a very long time,” I assured her. “But…thank you.” I struggled, moved and unsure how to express my gratitude. “Thank you.”
She shook her head, brows gathered. “I’ve food. Could you eat? We could break bread.”
“Yes.” I looked around, disoriented. Of course she was hungry.
She’d walked all this way, and fed my friends, and I was simply talking her ear off.
“What have you? I can help.” She reached under the table for a knapsack, still frowning.
And, gathering up my courage, I said, “I like your problem-solving. Just so you know.”
She paused, for a moment, as if shocked. “You do?”
“I think so.” I took the bowl, surprised at her reaction. “Surely, such an insightful woman as you is accustomed to that?”
“People don’t like the truth,” she said, an echo of her earlier statement. In the words I heard the layers of old hurts, healed over but not forgotten.
“It can be terrifying,” I agreed, because it was true. “But it doesn’t go away if it’s ignored.”
Her smile was quick, beautiful, and heart-mending. “Exactly.”
My feet barely touching the ground, I carried the bowl away and allowed her to prepare our breakfast.