Chapter 24 The Way of the Mother
The day after Metis freed Danae of the collar, the woman led her across the sun-rusted earth, towards the northern reach of the island. As they clambered over the rocks Danae paused by a cushion of spiny spruce, a perfect grey circle marring the plant’s centre.
‘What happened to the spruce?’
Metis glanced over her shoulder. ‘I used much of my ichor to save your friend’s life. It needed replenishing.’
‘Ichor?’
Metis tilted her head as though surprised Danae did not know the word. ‘Life force. The threads of the tapestry that live within each of us.’ Her lips quirked at the perplexed expression still lingering on Danae’s face.
Danae gestured to the dead patch of bush. ‘Surely it would be more effective to drain the entire plant? Or better still a tree.’
‘Better for who? The spurge I’ve left living will grow again in time, and balance will be restored. If I drained the entire bush, the lives of all the creatures that rely on it would be threatened. Balance destroyed. See?’
Danae nodded slowly.
A lone gull soared overhead. Metis tilted her face to the sky, mimicking the bird’s cry. The gull swooped low to land on her arm. Metis’ caws softened to coos as she stroked its feathers and continued to walk.
‘Why do you live alone on this island?’ asked Danae, hurrying to keep up.
Metis looked at the gull. ‘I am not alone.’
‘Without other people.’
The woman launched the bird back into the sky, watching its flight against the wind.
‘Punishment.’
Danae waited for the woman to elaborate. She did not.
Metis led them to the cliffs looking out towards Myconos.
Lining the divide between earth and rock was a crop of flowers unlike the hardy little blooms scattered throughout the dry grass.
Despite the baking land beneath, their leaves were a vibrant green, thick and strong like pointed fingers, their blooms the size of Danae’s palm with pale feather-like petals the colour of a sun-bleached sky.
A line formed between Danae’s brows. ‘If Demeter does not command the seasons, then why does the earth cool and warm? Why do trees wither only to grow new leaves?’
Metis stared at her for a moment, then blinked. ‘It is the cyclical nature of the tapestry of life. The old must die to make way for the new. It is the way of the Mother.’
‘When are you going to tell me who the Mother is?’
‘All in good time.’ Metis squatted down beside the flowers.
‘How am I meant to learn her ways if I don’t even know who she is?’
Metis pressed one of the thick leaves between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Collect a couple of handfuls of these. They’ll aid Heracles’ recovery.’ She threw the bag she’d carried from the hut to Danae. It was woven from strands of dried seaweed.
‘Where are you going?’ Danae called as Metis walked away.
‘To check the lizard traps,’ the woman said without turning back.
Chewing the inside of her lip in frustration, Danae crouched beside the crop of flowers. Their leaves proved tough to harvest, and she was forced to use the knife Telamon had given her.
She’d collected ten of the leaves when she caught a dash of movement out of the corner of her eye.
A little way off, in the crevice between two rocks, a speckled yellow lizard had become caught in one of Metis’ traps.
Danae opened her mouth to call for the woman, then paused.
She watched the creature struggle, her fingertips tingling.
Take its life-threads, urged the voice. Metis will be pleased at your skill.
Like an avalanche, longing cascaded through her. She had not yet used her powers since being freed from the collar.
She recalled a time, back on Naxos, when her mother had shown her how to end a creature’s life swiftly with minimal pain.
Then she remembered the reptiles pinned to the wall of Metis’ dwelling: the woman was evidently used to killing the creatures.
She thought of the burst of ecstasy she knew waited for her.
She crept forward and reached into the trap.
It was over so quickly. One tiny wave of pleasure. She could barely feel the threads spreading through her body. Such a little life. It was not enough.
‘What are you doing?’
She turned to see Metis standing behind her. The woman’s dark eyes were wide with fury.
‘Killing a lizard that was caught in your trap.’
‘You took its ichor.’
‘Yes.’ Danae was unsure why she suddenly felt like a scolded child.
‘That is not the way of the Mother.’ Every word was laden with reproach.
Danae frowned, anger rallying to her defence. ‘You kill them too – I saw the lizards in your hut.’
‘I eat their flesh but I do not take their life-threads.’ Her voice was low and dangerous.
‘Why?’
‘Because we are guardians not masters. Nature does not exist to serve us. Stealing a creature’s life to feed your power is a crime against the Mother. However small that creature may be.’ Metis bent down and grabbed the cut leaves, stuffing them into the seaweed bag. ‘You have much to learn.’
‘Then teach me.’
Metis stared at her, and Danae was unsettled to see something akin to fear flicker across the woman’s gaze.
After a beat of hesitation she said, ‘Did something tell you to take the lizard’s ichor?’
Danae’s lips parted in surprise. She felt as though Metis had suddenly laid her bare. The voice was such a secret part of her she’d never considered that anyone else might be aware of its existence. The shame she harboured over the lives she’d drained to feed her power rose like bile in her throat.
‘Yes,’ she breathed.
The line between Metis’ brows deepened. ‘Trees grow leaves that are shaken to earth by the wind, or wither and fall with the changing seasons. Imagine if one tree in the forest did not wilt as it should, but grew more leaves, and more and more, until it covered all the other trees and starved them of light. Soon the forest would contain only one tree and it would not be a forest at all. This is what the Olympians have done by hoarding their life-threads. They deny others life. Be careful, listening to that voice will do you no good.’ Then she turned and began stalking back towards the hill.
‘What is the voice?’ Danae called after her. ‘Where does it come from?’
Metis stopped, her shoulders hunched as though carrying a yoke. Then she glanced back. ‘Bring the lizard.’
When they returned to the stone hut, Heracles was still asleep. After tossing the leaves into one of the clay bowls stacked against the wall, Metis took the lizard from Danae, then passed her the bowl.
‘Grind these into a paste.’ Metis proffered a large black stone that fitted perfectly in the palm of her hand, before pinning the lizard to a crack in the hut wall beside its kin.
Danae thought of the omphalos shard, lost in the depths of the Underworld.
Her stomach hollowed, and she turned her attention to the leaves.
The bowl, like the vessel that had become Pegasus’ makeshift water trough, was decorated with pictures of owls, black against the red of the clay.
The birds were beautifully detailed, each feather painstakingly defined.
Such fine pottery belonged in the houses of nobility, not stacked in a rudimentary hut on an abandoned island.
‘Where did you get all this?’ Danae gestured to the bowls.
‘My daughter used to visit. She always brought a gift.’
‘Fond of owls, is she?’
Metis’ eyes grew heavy. ‘She was. She doesn’t come any more.’
‘Oh … I’m sorry.’ Danae wondered how many years Metis had spent alone on this spit of rock.
Perhaps her daughter had long ago taken her last steps upon the earth.
Danae thought of her own family back on Naxos, her mind curling as she imagined her little nephews, Minos and Egan, passing through the seasons of life until they too returned to the soil.
And she, through it all, would remain the same.
Ageless. Trapped in an infinite cycle of endings.
Metis checked Heracles’ pulse and lifted his eyelids, then stood.
‘I must commune with the Mother. Make that paste and watch him.’ She glanced back at Heracles and added, ‘I’ll be at the peak if you need me.’
‘But …’ Frustration flared through Danae’s chest as Metis left the dwelling. She was tempted to set down the bowl and follow the woman, but she settled for slumping down beside Heracles and channelling her irritation into mashing the thick green leaves beneath the stone.
Metis was a clam she must prise open without shattering its shell. Patience had never come naturally to Danae, something her mother had often reminded her of, but she would have to learn. Like it or not, she needed Metis’ help and she could not take it by force.
The plant was almost completely pulverized when Heracles murmured. Hastily, Danae set down the bowl and stone and crouched over him.
Heracles’ eyes twitched beneath his lids, his cracked lips shaping the faint echo of words. She leapt up and searched for the waterskin, pouring a little water into her hand and tracing the moisture over his mouth.
‘Heracles?’ she said softly.
His lips moved again, and her heart lurched.
She curled her fingers around his bony hand. ‘Can you hear me?’
His eyes remained closed, but finally sound croaked from his lips. ‘Megara.’
The name pierced Danae’s chest like an arrow.
Heracles’ wife. The woman he had murdered, along with their children, when Hera drugged him and temporarily drove him mad.
She wanted to pull her hand away, but she did not. He would remember his wife was dead soon enough. She would not take this moment of merciful forgetting from him.
Squeezing his fingers, she leant in close. ‘I’m here, my love. I’m here.’
The ghost of a smile parted his lips and his eyelids grew still. Danae waited until his breath had fallen back into the rhythm of deep sleep, then she slipped her hand from his.
It hurt, hearing him speak another woman’s name, but not in the way it should. As she sat back on her heels, it was not heartache that burned through her chest, but shame.