Chapter 14 Claret
Daylight attacks me with the force of a hundred hammers, searing off my sight.
I don’t have time to squint, to shield my face.
We’re tumbling downhill, with rocky boulders raining chaos behind us.
Hopefully, enough to slow down the Erinya, if such a force can ever truly stop once she’s unleashed.
The ground rushes to meet us, and all I can think is that we made it out of that bloodied, whispering tunnel; we outran those gnarly, ghostly voices, that screeching shadow; we broke the world that tried to break us.
And that is a much better death.
‘She looks so angry when she sleeps …’
‘Shh, do not wake her yet.’
‘Not yet, not yet, not yet.’
Soft voices flit around me, barely substantial, like buzzing insects bouncing drunk on flower petals. It must be spring in Hades’ realm; Persephone welcoming lost spirits with a gentle hand. A drop of rain falls on my lips, soothing and syrupy and –
Oh. I don’t know what death tastes like, but it can’t be this. It can’t be sweeter than ambrosia, stronger than fig wine. Not when I’ve spilled so much warm blood while still alive.
‘Still alive …’
‘Still alive …’
‘Better hide …’
My eyes flutter open. I am assaulted by cerulean skies glistening with the splinters of shiny stars, reflecting all the colours of Iris’ bow as they slowly melt and fall.
This not-quite-rain, not-quite-meteor-shower lands on my eyebrows, my cheeks, the tip of my nose, coating me with its sweetness as if preserving me in honey.
Sweetness, such sweetness! The sudden feather of my heart soars higher, about to take flight.
I open my mouth wide, welcoming this sweetest rain, laughing as it tickles my eyelashes.
Propping myself up on my elbows, I marvel at once again being unharmed.
Unharmed and … in a meadow, wildflowers stretching as far as the eye can see.
In front of me, not so far away, a rocky hill.
Did we fall from up there? I laugh. How am I alive?
‘I don’t believe I’ve heard you laugh before. It’s quite unsettling.’
Anassa’s voice takes me by surprise – but of course she’s here too! Why wouldn’t she be? We fall together, crawl together, fly together. Bonded together by the Weaver’s expert hands, one claret thread and one coal black, making our own macabre tapestry of mayhem and murder.
‘What are you speaking of? What tapestry? Did you hit your head during our fall?’
Anassa’s eyes are wide and green, so very green. Can green eyes see my thoughts? Or did I speak out loud? ‘Ha! I’m fine! It’s this rain; it makes me think of sweet, sweet, sticky things.’
She shrugs, her narrow shoulders rising like ravens’ bones under her open cloak. Brittle, brittle bones. I could break them with a hug. ‘It rains constantly, back in my … realm. This light drizzle is nothing. The skies are even blue. Perhaps this place doesn’t hate us.’
It dawns on me that she’s too sombre for my liking. Those pouty lips could do with loosening up. ‘Don’t you feel different here?’ I ask, struggling not to giggle. ‘From the rain?’
‘You’re the one acting differently.’ Anassa approaches carefully, as if I might burst into flames. Ha! That would be a glorious sight, golden light, ancestral right. ‘Are you hurt? May I?’
‘May you what? Touch my head to see if it drips? No spilled pomegranates here, not like Agamemnon’s; mine are all still trapped inside!’ I knock on my forehead for good measure. But my words don’t seem to soothe her, and that makes me sad, so I nod yes, she can touch my head.
Anassa’s blackened fingers trace my forehead, my skull.
She even checks behind my ears, on the back of my neck – and then, for some peculiar reason, her long fingers stray further down, patting my shoulders and my cloak, reaching my waist. I wiggle, bursting into laughter, her touch so ticklish, so inquisitive, like little blackbird beaks pecking, pecking.
Sticky warmth spreads in their wake, and suddenly I yearn to toss this cloak aside, to only clothe myself in rain.
Anassa takes a step back, her hands quick to retreat into the folds of her own cloak. ‘You seem unharmed. I wonder if our cloaks protected us from the fall, when that horrible tunnel …’
She shivers. And then it hits me – our cloaks. She’s still wearing the hood of hers.
I reach out with both hands. ‘Anassa, you need to feel this rain on your head. It will melt your gloomy mood, I promise! Taste it, like that!’ I open my mouth, swallowing sweetness.
My head is heavy, like when I drink unwatered wine.
Everything is so soft, my fingers on Anassa’s cloak as I lower it, her hair while rainbow raindrops fall –
‘Stop it! What are you doing?’ The little raven slaps my hands away. I would pluck her feathers one by one and use them for a pillow if I was not so busy basking in this softness.
I step back, and back, and back, walking backwards from Anassa until she gets all blurry, and then I start spinning round slowly, a dance with just myself, while my toes luxuriate in the tall grass underneath and my hands are raised like sails as I am soaring to the sky …
And then I hear it: a laughter. It’s small and dainty, daintier than a daisy.
Anassa joins my dance, her head tossed back, her rain-kissed lips spread into something I did not believe them capable of: sincere, ecstatic laughter.
She nudges me with her shoulder and starts swaying next to me, hands fluttering to her side as if swimming in a secret sea that parts only for her.
Greedy sea. I reach out and steal Anassa’s fingers back, lacing them with mine, sticky, sticky, cold at the blackened tips, and she does not complain, only laughs again, so I swirl her and I swirl her and her private dance melts with mine, slowly at first and then faster, spinning around in the softness, until our knees grow weak and we fall down on the grass, still holding hands.
We breathe unsteady breaths, punctured by rain.
‘Oh,’ she says, her cheeks so flushed they make her scar glint silver. Pretty scar! Will it taste like lightning if I lick it? ‘Oh, Claret, have you ever experienced anything more exquisite?’
‘No,’ I whisper, huddling closer. She smells like a burning forest that has just been saved by rain, like pine and promises.
I remember her trapped in that cave, screaming and crawling with me as the Erinya chased us, clearly after me, yet so willing to hurt her too, to get to me …
Something inside me snaps. It could be my heart.
I bet it’s soft enough by now. ‘Exquisite,’ I agree, my forehead touching hers.
I can reach her, with both of us lying like that.
Her skin is hot and cool at the same time, buzzing with the beehive of her many, many thoughts.
I could almost taste them, scoop them out and –
‘Cla-ret,’ she says so very slowly, ‘your nose almost stabbed me in the eye.’
For some reason, we both find that so hilarious we laugh ourselves to tears.
‘It’s not … my fault … you don’t have … a nose of your own,’ I manage between cackles. Mood swirling with mirth, I pin her down and straddle her, pinching her tiny, tiny mushroom of a nose to prove my point. She squirms and squeals, which makes me laugh even harder.
But then my laughter fizzles out. Because my knife is in Anassa’s hands, and its blade points to my throat.
I blink, trying to comprehend what’s happening, this damn rain making me too soft and slow, all my muscles like molasses.
I don’t react fast enough – and she pounces.
With a push she tumbles us around, until I’m on the wet, wet grass and she’s on top of me, perched like an onyx-plumaged omen, my knife’s blade glinting rosy bright, a sliver of shining sky.
Will she push that sliver on my neck, let the sweet, sweet rain wash my blood away?
And is it fear or longing that makes my breath hitch?
‘Not as fun when you’re on the other side of this, is it now?’ The glint in her eyes puts the whole meadow to shame, and I can’t tell if I should fear her or admire her.
Or strangle her swan neck with my bare hands.
‘Did you plan this all along, sneaky Anassa?’
‘No … Yes.’ She shakes her head and the movement pushes the tip of the blade into my skin, drawing the tiniest bit of pain.
Perhaps the tiniest bit of blood, but I don’t care.
Even that pain is soft. ‘I thought I shouldn’t, not after the cave.
But when I searched you for injuries earlier …
It felt good, knowing that I’m the one wielding this for a change. ’
Ah. That explains her roaming hands before. I’m impressed. Disappointed. Befuddled at my lack of care. I arch my neck. ‘It’s only fair. I’ve tried to kill you thrice. Take your chance.’
The forest of her eyes parts at my words, irises lightening like sun-kissed leaves. ‘Thunder met and thrice a threat …’ she mumbles, which makes no sense to me at all, so I stay quiet, waiting to see what she’ll do next with my knife.
She is considering it – or she pretends to.
Her mouth twitches, a small tongue darting out, licking the rain from her lips.
Hunger hits me again, impossibly, my whole body humming with it.
It would be perfect if I were to perish now, in this pretty meadow, with these pretty lips so near.
Perfect, and so unfair. Instinctively, I inch forward, my skin claiming the blade’s sharp kiss.
‘You’re mad as a march hare,’ she whispers. But her hand falters, and that’s all I need.
I lift up my torso, slowly, testing the waters of our newfound understanding, blood dripping from my neck into my bosom. Anassa’s eyes follow the scarlet trail. Her cheeks flush.
‘What’s the matter, Anassa, don’t like your handiwork? Don’t tell me you haven’t done this before,’ I challenge her. ‘I know a killer when I see one.’
She huffs, and if I wasn’t at least somewhat wary of her severing my neck, I’d burst out laughing. ‘Not like this,’ she mutters. ‘This is … different.’
I wrap my hand around her wrist, and she shivers. ‘Different how? Death is death. The method doesn’t matter, only your willingness to dole it out. So are you?’ I demand. ‘Willing?’
The meadow holds its breath with us, the constant patter of the raindrops receding. Only my pulse keeps up the rhythm, waiting for Anassa to decide if our journey ends here. If this knife, like a loom’s spoke, will have to cut one of our threads. If I’m deranged enough to let her.
Eventually, she shakes her head. The meadow exclaims, the rain falling faster on us now, my heartbeat quickening along.
Slowly, as if not to spook her, I prise the knife from her hand, storing it back inside my cloak.
She lets me. So pale she is, ivory skin half-cloaked in black, soaking with sweet rain.
Her pouty lips are like a rose revelling in nice weather, petals plumped open for a bee to kiss …
I shake my head, to clear my thoughts. There should be consequences for what she almost did.
I should not be inching closer, tilting my head, inhaling her scent, searching her eyes for any hint of hunger that could mirror mine.
Her lashes flutter, adorned with jewel-like raindrops, and I should stop this now; we’re close, too close, breaths burning at each other’s lips, my fingers squeezing milk-white wrists that feather with a frenzied pulse yet yield deliciously, so deliciously as I tug at them, driving me mad with something like –
A flicker, at the corner of my eye. Three orbs of light flying in a formation too complex to be coincidental.
Realizing we’re not alone, I let go of Anassa, my hands complaining at the sudden emptiness.
Yet the floating lights are trying to show me something …
There. To my left, half-hidden behind a thicket of trees, the telltale curvature of columns rising upward.
The lights disappear in that direction. We’re still playing the Moirai’s game, it would seem.
No time for feeding this wild thing in me that’s turned so ravenous.
‘Come, Anassa.’ I get up abruptly and offer her my hand.
Dazed and flushed, she accepts. ‘I think we may have found the three Moirai again. There is a temple, up ahead, see?’
‘I see … something. A pavilion, perhaps?’
‘I don’t know what your words mean,’ I sing-song as I run, still holding her hand.
By the time we stop in front of the temple, we’re both completely out of breath.
‘Shh,’ I tell her. ‘If the three sisters are here, we should be respectful.’
Her gaze is both pine-needle sharp and sticky-sap sweet. ‘If you say so, Claret.’
We ascend a pair of stairs into a raised circular structure which, upon close examination, doesn’t resemble any temple I have ever worshipped in.
There is a marble bench placed in the middle, curvy like a harp.
And perched upon it, ornate goblet in hand sloshing with dark red liquid, is a grotesque beast not unlike the Minotaur of old.
Man from the neck down, but with a donkey’s head.
And with an appetite for wine, judging by what I can smell is in that cup.
I dissolve into rambunctious laughter. What is this latest trial the Moirai brought us?
Are we supposed to slay this drunken beast, or use it to lead us out of the labyrinth?
I venture closer, to get a better look. It doesn’t seem so scary.
And it’s well dressed, albeit wine-smelling, with strange, form-fitting hides and frilly swathes of fabric. I reach out a hand.
The beast bleats. A prolonged, mindless sound. Funny little beast. I turn around, to share this new absurdity with Anassa, but she’s not laughing. Her green, green eyes are wide.
‘My Lord Macbeth,’ she whispers.