Chapter 2
Two Daughters
When Danae and her mother returned home and told her father that Alea had disappeared, Odell immediately ran to gather her brothers and search the island.
News of what happened at the Thesmophoria spread swiftly through the villages.
Doors were barricaded and the all-seeing eye of the Twelve was daubed across the lintels.
There was little the islanders could do to exact punishment on the Maenads.
In the past, attempts had been made to discover their encampment, but the men who hunted them always returned bloody and battered, muttering that Dionysus protected his flock.
The people of Naxos would have to leave their punishment to the gods.
By noon the following day, the news of Alea vanishing had reached her betrothed.
Philemon was a thin man of twenty with milky skin, sandy hair and forlorn eyes.
He reminded Danae of an ear of wheat. She and her mother were fixing the awning of the goats’ lean-to when he and his father came striding up the path.
Thaddeus couldn’t have been more different to his son.
He was thickset and bullish, dressed in a maroon tunic which did nothing for his ruddy cheeks.
He shoved open the yard gate, Philemon scurrying behind him.
“Odell!” he bellowed, wiping beads of sweat from his brow with a meaty hand.
Her mother hurried over to greet them.
“Thaddeus,” Eleni inclined her head, muttering the sacred greeting.
He responded then barged past her to stick his head through the hut door.
“Is it true? Has my son’s intended run off with the Maenads?”
“How dare—” Danae began, but her mother interrupted.
“My daughter was terrified when those women attacked the festival. She would never run with them. Alea was lost in the mayhem, but Odell’s taking care of it. There’s no need to worry, she will be home soon.”
Thaddeus did not look convinced. “Well, if she hasn’t gone with those whores, she must have joined the Missing.” He turned to his son and shook his head. “She was your choice.”
Philemon looked down at his feet.
Danae dug her nails into her palms. “Alea hasn’t joined the Maenads or the Missing. Pa and my brothers are out there searching now. They’ll find her.”
Thaddeus turned to Eleni as though she had been the one to speak.
“If by some miracle they do find her...” He paused. “She’d better be intact.”
Danae felt like he’d punched her. The shame of it. She imagined taking her father’s fishing spear and ramming it into Thaddeus’s ham-like face.
“Of course she will be.” Her mother did well to keep the anger out of her voice. But Danae could tell from the pulsing vein in Eleni’s temple that she, too, was furious.
“Father,” Philemon took half a step forward, his eyes still firmly downcast, “I want to help search.”
“It’s a waste of time.”
Philemon mustered a glance at his father. “Please.”
Thaddeus sighed and rubbed his face. “Where have they looked?”
“They’ve searched the fields around the temple and our village. They moved on to Sangri this morning.”
Thaddeus nodded. “We’ll take my ship around to the other side of the island. See if anyone there knows anything.”
“Thank you.” Eleni’s hands twitched.
Thaddeus responded with a gruff “huh” that jarred Danae to the back of her teeth. If they didn’t leave soon, she was afraid she’d say something she’d regret.
“We’ll find her,” Eleni said to Philemon. “And the two of you will be married before you know it.” Her mother presented a brave mask, but Danae sensed the reassurance was really for herself.
The boy shot Eleni a weak smile.
“Come, son. We’ve got work to do.” Thaddeus placed a hand on Philemon’s shoulder and steered him out of the yard.
Danae watched them walk away along the path.
“What a bastard.”
“Thank the gods the son is nothing like the father,” Eleni muttered. “I pity his poor mother.”
Danae looked at her palms and the rows of crescent moons imprinted by her nails.
“Ma, what if Thaddeus is right?” She hesitated. “Do you think Alea has joined the Missing?”
“Listen to me,” her mother said with the heat of a newly forged blade. “Your father will find her. We just have to be patient.”
Danae nodded under her mother’s fierce gaze. All they could do was wait.
It was the blue hour. That quiet time between night and day, when the moon fades before the sun has risen, and the sky belongs to no one.
Danae ran down to the beach, an empty pail swinging in her hand.
Normally, she’d never be sent out of the hut alone, but she couldn’t sleep, and her mother had grown tired of her relentless pacing, so sent her to “do something useful.” In this case, collect brine for the cheese they made from Mopsus’s milk.
She was glad. If she spent any more time waiting in the hut, she would lose her mind.
She slowed as the dirt track gave way to white sand. The itch of the grains between her toes was a familiar comfort. This was the beach she had grown up on. It was in these waves she’d learned how to swim and caught her first fish. This was her true home.
She broke into a sprint, the pail bumping her side.
She didn’t have long and would have to make every moment of freedom from her mother’s supervision count.
As soon as she reached the rocks she began to climb.
Pail slung over her shoulder, she clambered the well-worn route, over rock pools she’d plundered as a child, up onto the shallow cliff.
Once at the top, she padded across the craggy surface until she could see the concealed cove below.
She dropped the pail with a clatter, pulled her tunic over her head and slipped off her sandals.
A shiver of anticipation sang through her body as she dived.
Sleek as an arrow, she sliced into the sea, the cool water drawing the tension from her sun-bronzed limbs.
She needed this. As much as she wanted to be at home when news of her sister came, the sea was a salve to her racing thoughts. Besides, she wouldn’t stay long.
She surfaced, took a big gulp of air, then dived under again.
The cove held a secret. She liked to think it was one that belonged only to her.
She opened her eyes. The salt water burned but she was used to it. Then the ruins came into focus. She swam down, past swathes of mottled seaweed to the long-forgotten stones.
It must have been a special place. Many of the slabs were worn smooth with the grind of the tide, but some still had markings on them.
She swam, following the circular layout, to her favorite stone.
It was almost as tall as she was and stuck out of the seabed like a lone tooth.
Carved upon it was a tree, its branches bowed with fruit mostly erased by the ocean.
She stretched out a hand and traced the groove of its trunk.
There was something about the image that fascinated her. Perhaps the stones had once been part of a temple. Probably constructed to honor Poseidon, God of the Sea.
She flattened her hand against the carving.
Please watch over my sister, Lord Poseidon. Help my father and brothers bring her home.
Her lungs started to ache. Reluctantly, she left the ruins and kicked up toward the surface. She broke the water and gasped in a deep breath of cool, salty air. Lying on her back, she stared at the brightening sky through beaded lashes.
Her father used to call her his little Nereid, his sea nymph. Even as a babe she had loved the water. As a young child she would splash after lightning-quick shoals of red tunny, desperately wishing she had fins to match theirs.
Things were simpler in the water. The ocean could be a dangerous beast, but it had always held her and never let her fall.
Danae ran back along the beach, the pail sloshing in one hand, her sandals clacking together in the other. The blush of dawn had already fled the sky. She’d stayed too long.
As she ran up the track to her hut, she almost collided with Carissa hurrying in the opposite direction.
Her pulse quickened. “Any news?”
Carissa shook her head, pursing her lips at Danae’s sodden hair and sand-splattered legs. She carried on her way without a word.
Her body heavy as stone, Danae dragged her feet through the yard gate.
Her mother looked up from where she sat in the goat pen, a bucket of milk beneath Mopsus’s belly.
“Was Carissa here about Alea?”
Eleni shook her head. Her cheeks were pale. “It’s Melia’s daughters. The temple hands dragged them from the blacksmith’s hut and sacrificed them before dawn.”
Danae almost dropped the water. After the commotion of the Maenads’ invasion and Alea’s disappearance she had forgotten that Demeter had demanded blood at the Thesmophoria.
“Both of them?”
Her mother’s hands shook as she smoothed the flyaway hairs that had escaped the cloth tied around her head.
“Demeter, in her wisdom, desired an additional life to amend for the desecration of her festival.”
Her legs suddenly weak, Danae set down the pail and leaned against the goat fence.
“The goddess chose two daughters from the same family?”
Her mother held up a hand. “It’s not for us to question the will of the gods.”
“No, of course,” Danae said quietly.
Eleni let out a shuddering breath. “Gods, I am not fond of Melia, but I would never wish this on anyone...” she trailed off and wiped her face. “They’ll be reunited in the Asphodel Meadows. As will we all one day.”
There were three realms of the Underworld, all presided over by the god Hades.
The Asphodel Meadows were the plain where all the souls who’d lived a devout and honest life passed to after their death.
Danae’s grandparents and her uncle Taron were already there.
It was a blissful land of sunlit fields and undulating hills, carpeted with eternally blooming flowers.
A place of endless peace and joy, always spring and never winter.