13. To Follow Your Lead
To Follow Your Lead
Essemteu is in our garden.
He sits on the bench, his head tilted back to stare up at the sky above. The moon hangs low, the smallest sliver of a crescent above him. His light blue eyes are closed, his face serene as he smiles.
“Thoth smiles on us tonight,” he says as we pause just over the threshold.
“For the last time, I think,” you say. Your body is rigid with pungent rage.
“I am here in peace,” he says.
“You enter our home uninvited, that is hardly a peaceful act,” you say.
He shrugs and pats the space next to him on the bench. You don’t move, instead crossing your arms over your chest. “You are a bold creature.”
“It is how I got to where I am. I have heard stories of you, Mother of Silence. If I am to die, it would be an honor at your hand,” he says.
“So you are suicidal? Very well.” You take a step toward him, your fingers flexing at your side.
“I speak for a small community of lamia. I was sent to beseech you,” he says.
“Lamia?” You scoff. “I did not think you followed the Greek gods. Do you not prefer to think of yourself as a child of Sekhmet?”
“Hmm,” he considers, tilting his head at you. His irises are so pale they nearly match the whites around them. From far away it looks as if his eyes rolled into his head. “Is that what we are? Sent to punish the humans for their transgressions? A curse for them?”
“Does she not also heal?” you ask.
I know little of the Egyptian gods. I meant to learn their language so as to explore the scrolls, but that fell by the wayside in my indulgence of pleasure.
How fascinating the Egyptians should have a goddess that is of our kind, while we Greeks believe Hera punished a woman to create lamia.
We are not lamia though. We are so much more.
“She does indeed,” Essemteu is pleased. “She is a goddess of many sides. I think you can understand that.”
You regard him for several long moments.
I don’t know if you will strike—I don’t think I’ve seen it before.
Yes, we kill often when we hunt, but those are humans.
They are our prey. It is like faulting the humans for eating their cattle, or unearthing a plant to devour.
But you’ve never acted in violence. I suspect you have the stomach for it, but not the patience.
What would I do, if I were you? I think of Theon and his repulsive grin and his game of questions.
I would rip Essemteu’s head off and be done with it, I think.
“You were sent to beseech me—for what?” you speak at last. Essemteu’s smile grows as he pats the space next to him on the bench once more.
You move to sit next to him, and I next to you. My thigh presses against yours, but you keep distance from him. His gaze slides to me, considering. “And what is your name?”
I wait for you to answer for me, to tell him it’s none of his business. I only speak when you do not. “Melinoe,” I say.
“Ah yes, with your train of ghosts following you about,” he says, his fingers moving to mimic a person walking.
“You broke into my house to ask for her name?” you ask.
“I am a man of manners,” he says, as though showing up in our garden unannounced is in good taste. “I mentioned I represent a small group of local lamia. They heard you walk amongst us, and request an audience.”
“Why?” you snap.
“Curiosity? Venerance? To look upon an Elder?”
“So you don’t know. You were just told of their whims, and now I must oblige them?”
“Our group is…diverse. Some of us feel that we should not kill humans, others see us as the preferred species—gods and goddesses amongst man. Some are heretical, to the point of believing there are no gods or goddesses and only us. The stories told by humans of gods are really encounters with our kind. Most came to Alexandria because it is the collection of knowledge and commerce. They wish to learn from others, either human or not. You are an original source, if not the original source,” he says.
“I am not the first, if that is what you are insinuating,” you say.
“I insinuate nothing. Like I said, I am here as a proxy to the group. We agree on little, but this is something we all share an opinion. If the Mother of Silence—”
“Do not call me that.”
“…if you would grace us with your presence, we might have answers we long for.”
“I’m to follow you to a group of our kind, none of whom I’ve met before, and trust you mean me no harm?
That you will accept me and what I have to say as truth?
” Your voice is steel, but I can feel the warp to the metal.
There’s a vulnerability in your words I’ve never heard before.
A plea for safety? Are others of our kind so dangerous to someone like you?
“You fear us?” He is incredulous, his smile flickering. “That we should kill you?”
“There are things worse than death,” you say quietly. “I do not fear you, I fear what you are capable of. Perhaps the truths of the past should not be resurrected. Perhaps our origins should remain clouded and storied. Who am I to rob them of their idealistic theories of what we are?”
“We are divine, of that we all know.” Essemteu laughs. “I don’t think your words could unsettle them. These are great thinkers from all sorts of lands and time.”
“Divine?” You laugh. “What is divinity?”
“To never age? Or grow ill?” Essemteu presses. “Is that not like the gods?”
“Have you controlled the weather? Changed shape? Flew in the sky? Felt the sun on your face?” you ask. You lean toward him as you speak, the distance devoured by your line of questioning.
You enjoy this, I realize. This debate against someone you deem equal. Had I spoken like this, you would have silenced me. Jealousy burns in my throat but I swallow it down, instead searching for my own rebuttal.
“Well, no,” Essemteu blanches. “But not all gods can do that.”
“Some do. None of us ever will. If we are divine, it is of the lesser stock. Perhaps we were created, then found wanting. Perhaps we are escaped from the river Styx? Or perhaps we emerged separate from the humans for the sole purpose of controlling their population?” you muse.
I’ve never heard you speak of us like this—as though we were wanting.
Do you find me wanting, still?
“Wanting!” Essemteu barks. “Wanting. We are immortal.”
“Simple sunlight can kill us,” you say, waving your hand.
“Maat’s feather tells us there is always balance.”
“Convenient, that your gods give you answers, yet we are gods ourselves.”
Essemteu snaps his fingers. “This! This is the call they wish you to answer! Such is the nature of our meetings—debate, stories, conjecture! The thoughts of an Elder hold much weight.”
“So you wish for me to join your club and wax poetic about what it means to be old? Forgive me for not finding this appealing.”
But you do. Why are you playing coy with this man? He must see through your protestations. You are no longer coiled, waiting to strike. You are amused. He need not spend centuries at your side to see that.
“I see we are at a stalemate,” Essemteu says, standing. “I would apologize for wasting your time this evening, but what is time to someone like us?” He winks at me and I frown back at him. “Should you change your mind, we meet very near the Mouseion. It is the abode with the handprint on the door.”
He smiles when you flinch at the symbol.
“Our next meeting is on the full moon,” he continues, leaving our home at last. I watch him go with narrowed eyes.
Had we the gifts of gods I would wish for fire, so I might incinerate him on the spot.
So what if he longs for the same knowledge I do?
He was able to pull pieces of you free that I’ve only dreamed of knowing.
I turn to you, expecting to see you unspooled and unmoored.
You will return to the house and pack, deciding on a land route somewhere else until we can leave Alexandria.
Do I blame you? Do I want to leave? Of the others of our kind I’ve met, I dislike them both. I suspect that’s more due to their gender than them being another like us. How is it that men are named the natural leaders of the world when they fall so short so often?
Part of me wants to answer the siren song of his offer. They cannot all be men, can they? And even if they are, will they have the answers I long for? In a few short moments, Essemteu teased out more of your truths than I ever dared. Is this the way into your secrets? Others?
Jealousy burns in my throat like bile. I swallow it down and study your face.
You want to stay. It’s written along the pout of your lips, the way your gaze tracks his retreating form. You look to me at last.
“What is that look you wear, Melinoe?” As if you don’t know. As if you are not intimately aware of every thought that I cannot hide from you.
How is it that I can read you so well, but you remain a mystery to me?
“Is it time to pack now?” I ask.
You brush your fingers along my cheek, to my hair, your nails digging into my scalp. I lean into you, longing for the soft bite of your love.
“You are intrigued by his guild of intellectuals,” you surmise. “You’ve become quite a scholar yourself.”
Had I? It was an unintended consequence of boredom and the quest to understand what we are. Would I be able to stand amongst the others? What did I know that they did not?
“The invitation was not to me,” I say. “My wants are irrelevant. Do you wish to stay or go?” Your hand stills in my hair, then retreats.
“Have you no opinion?” you ask. My skin heats at the accusation in your words. I have an opinion, I just know better than to voice it if it runs counter to yours.
I kneel before you, my hands pushing your dress up your thighs. I am slow with my movements, pacing my thoughts in time as I consider.
“You are ancient,” I say, the dress to your knees. “You have seen the world as they never have. You have lived what they’ve only read in their silly little books, penned by men they admire.” My lips ghost your inner thigh just above your knee.
“I wonder—who do they revere more? A woman older than any monument”—my teeth skim higher. Your knees fall open to allow me access—“or the dead humans that are little more than food to them?”
I find that delicious vessel along your inner thigh and sink my teeth into it, lapping at the slow flow of your blood. You groan, your hands in my hair once more. Your fingers grip me tightly, trying to guide me higher.
But I am not done.
“Perhaps they will worship you, as you deserve. Perhaps they will dislike when you dispel their illusions of our kind. Perhaps we never go, and instead head south to Cairo. Perhaps we burn their meetinghouse down with them in it.”
I’ve made it to my prize now, and I stroke you with my tongue, just as I know you like. I may not know our history, but I know your body. Perhaps there are secrets I’ll never unravel, but at least I can make you scream my name.
“Do you fear those thoughts?” you ask breathily.
Fear that you will be worshipped? At the time, I thought it was what you deserved. Those simpering creatures will never replace me, they’ll always be last as long as I am around. So what if you crush their ridiculous dreams and notions of our kind?
Leaving to Cairo? I do not fear that, but I do not want it. Not when I am so close to the knowledge I crave. I bring you close, cresting on the wave of your release, when I speak again.
“They should fear us,” I say.
You call out my name and tremble as I bring you to climax.
After, you pull me close, tasting yourself on my lips. You stroke a hand down my face. “One meeting,” you say.
“What’s the harm?” I agree.
These words, as the humans of the current time would say, were famous last ones.