Chapter 2 #2
The paradise of Elysium, where souls were sent to be anointed with immortality, then raised up to the heavens in the sky, was reserved for great warriors and heroes who died in battle.
Danae always thought it sad that those brave people didn’t get to spend eternity with their loved ones.
No matter how splendid it was, heaven would feel empty without her family.
Last of the three realms was Tartarus, a place of torment and everlasting pain for those souls deemed to have led an unworthy life.
Imprisoned in this deepest, darkest level of the Underworld were the Titans.
An evil race of giants who had sought to destroy the world before the Twelve defeated them in a great battle known as the Titanomachy.
Danae owed the ground beneath her feet to the courageous Olympians. All mortals did.
Eleni’s hands fidgeted in her lap. A drop of blood dripped onto the skirt of her tunic from where she’d absentmindedly torn the nail bed. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Ma?” said Danae.
Her mother blinked. “Come on,” she said gruffly, hefting the milk toward the hut. “The cheese won’t make itself.”
Danae watched her for a moment, then followed her inside.
Her mother tipped the milk she’d collected into an iron cooking pot, set on the blazing hearth. “She’s not producing as much these days. Poor girl’s getting old.”
Steam billowed into Danae’s face as she added a splash of brine, then reached for a small clay jug beside the hearth, pouring a dash of vinegar into the milk.
Eleni had just dipped a wooden spoon into the mixture when Danae heard the creak of the gate. She dived through the doorway and skidded into the yard.
Her father was running up the path, he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Behind him were her brothers. Alea was draped over their arms, her auburn curls cascading toward the dusty earth.
Her father caught Danae as she hurtled toward her siblings.
“Is she alive?”
“She is.” Her father held her back. “But we need to get her inside.”
“Alea!” Eleni rushed toward her brothers as they entered the yard and ushered them into the hut, cradling her sister’s lolling head. The boys gently laid Alea on the pallet where the sisters slept. She was pale as marble.
Her mother raised Alea’s eyelids. She did not respond.
“Where was she?” asked Eleni.
Her father sank into a chair. “One of the priestesses found her this morning at the feet of Demeter’s statue.”
Her mother drew in a sharp breath. She knelt by the pallet and took Alea’s hand in hers. “The goddess has returned her to us. She was pleased with the sacrifice and gave us our Alea back.”
Danae didn’t know how to feel. “When will she wake?”
Her father shook his head. “I don’t know, Danie.”
She caught her brothers sharing a look. Unease prickled her stomach, and she stared at Santos until his eyes met hers. She twitched her head and stepped out into the yard. A moment later he followed her.
“What are they not saying?”
He shifted his large feet in the dirt.
“Santos.”
“Pa told us not to say anything to you.”
Danae punched his arm. “Tell me. I’m her sister, I have a right to know.”
“All right.” Santos rubbed his bicep and glanced toward the hut. “Alea’s been drugged.”
Her frown deepened. “Why would...” The words turned to ash on her tongue at the sight of Santos’s eyes, awash with grief and fury.
Odell emerged from the hut looking as though he had aged a decade in the last three days, Calix following behind him. “Your mother needs some time alone with your sister.”
Before he could grab her, Danae darted around him.
She entered the hut to find her mother peering between her sister’s legs. Eleni looked up, her face stricken, and a stony weight settled in Danae’s chest.
There was an unspoken need to keep busy the next day. Calix and Santos had gone back to their families, her father had risen before dawn to fish and so Danae and her mother were left alone in the hut with the still sleeping Alea.
Eleni kept vigil by her sister’s side, endlessly mopping Alea’s brow with a damp cloth, Danae loitering behind her.
Her mother loosed a sharp sigh. “Make yourself useful—go to the riverbank and collect a bushel of Sideritis. The herb might help revive her—remember it’s the one with the little yellow flowers.”
Eager to help, Danae grabbed a hessian bag from its peg by the door, but before she’d stepped into the yard, her mother cried out. She turned to see Eleni bent over the pallet, arms wrapped around her sister.
Alea was awake.
Danae rushed forward and threw herself in a heap on top of them. They stayed entangled until Alea rasped, “I can’t breathe.”
“Fetch her some water, Danae,” her mother shouted.
She rushed over to the hydria that lived next to the fireplace, poured water from the large vase into a bowl, then hurried back to Alea.
Her mother took the vessel and lifted it to her sister’s lips.
Alea spluttered before she pushed herself up and took the bowl in her own hands, drinking deeply.
As she wiped her mouth, a furrow formed between her brows.
“How do you feel?” Eleni took the bowl from Alea.
“Like a herd of cattle have trampled through my head.” Her frown deepened as she looked down at her crumpled tunic. “Weren’t we just at the festival?”
“Alea, you’ve been gone for days,” said Danae.
Confusion creased her sister’s face.
“But...we were just at the Thesmophoria. We watched the play and the pig being sacrificed and then...” Her breathing quickened.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” her mother interrupted. “Did you see a man?”
Alea shook her head. She looked on the verge of tears.
Her mother smoothed her sister’s hair. “All right, enough for now.” She turned to Danae.
“Go to the village and get a chicken from Myron, to celebrate.” She was already on her feet, whirling about the hut.
“Calix and Santos must come for dinner too. The whole family. Here—” she pushed Danae toward the door while scooping up the bag she’d dropped and pressed it into her hand, then a coin into the other.
“But—”
“Go on! Or he won’t have any left.”
With a last look at Alea, Danae stepped out of the hut.
She ran down the coastal track that led into the heart of the village, her sandals slapping the sun-dappled path, the cerulean sea her constant companion.
At the edge of the village, she sprinted past the little shrine dedicated to Dionysus, only slowing when she reached the ramshackle collection of canopied stalls that lined the village square. She took a moment to catch her breath, then headed straight for the butcher’s awning.
Her determination to return to Alea as quickly as possible was jeopardized by the arrival of a fisherman’s wife from the next bay.
Ceto, a thin woman with sallow skin and sharp eyes, stepped squarely into Danae’s path.
She quickly mumbled the sacred greeting before asking, “Is it true? Has your sister been found?”
“Yes. She’s home.”
“Bless the mercy of the gods.” Ceto clutched her hands to her chest. “Has she said what happened?”
“I really must get on...”
But Ceto wouldn’t let her pass. Biting her lip in frustration, Danae dodged right and broke into a run toward the butcher’s stall.
“We’re all so glad she’s home,” Ceto called after her. “But only time will tell if it’s a blessing or a curse!”
Her words unsettled Danae so much that she ducked under Myron’s faded awning with a scowl.
The butcher, a man with the stature and complexion of an oak tree, was hacking slabs of meat from the carcass of a goat.
She was used to the smell of fish, but she always found the metallic sharpness of Myron’s hut unpleasant.
He glanced up, wiping a bloodstained hand across his brow.
“The Twelve see you and know you,” she said breathily.
He touched a bloody finger to his forehead. “You shouldn’t go around with a frown like that. Wind might change and you’ll end up looking like me.”
“I just ran into Ceto,” said Danae.
“Ah. Say no more.”
“I’m after a chicken if you’ve got any?”
Myron nodded and thudded his cleaver down into the stained wooden block. He shuffled through his hut, then out to the yard at the back. After a few moments, Danae heard a squawk and the fluttering of feathers. Then a crack.
Myron reemerged, the chicken dangling from his fist. Danae opened her hessian bag for him to place the bird inside and held out a small copper coin.
He looked at her with a twinge of discomfort.
“The price has, ah... It’s two obols now.”
Danae looked at the coin in her hand, and her heart sank.
“I’ve got another little one on the way and what with the temple tithes going up...” The butcher scratched his bald head. “I hate to do it, but I’ve got no choice.”
“That’s all Ma gave me.” Danae held her head high. “But I’ll go home and get another. Here.” She held out the coin and her bag containing the chicken.
The pity in his eyes brought heat to her cheeks.
He took the coin and pushed back the chicken. “Just this once.”
Danae hoisted the bag onto her shoulder.
“I’m glad your sister’s home.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
The butcher cleared his throat and took up his cleaver. Relieved the interaction was over, she darted out of the shop.