CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR #2
‘You know what they’re like – so delighted to have power until they find out someone else has more.
’ Her eyes pierce me – shrewd and shockingly light, a yellow so pale it is nearly white, and a marked difference from the black she drapes herself in.
‘But we are strongest when each other is too. Hecate knew this when she brought Persephone and Demeter to Eleusis. And I know this sitting here with you.’
That light within my chest pulses.
This is not only my cousin but the woman at the centre of half the stories my mother told me as a child. This is the hope I clung to, manifest.
‘I think I might be able to wield some sort of power,’ I admit. ‘But I don’t know how to practise it or summon it or control it.’
‘The women of our family are often capable of great magic. The sun becomes energy and energy becomes … potential.’
She stands and holds a hand out expectantly – and I do not stop to contemplate what blood might stain it, because then she might pause to wonder about the rumours circulating about me too. So I take it.
I feel something skirt along my skin, some ghostly touch that freezes me in place. Her magic is cold and precise, probing like Myrto testing for broken bones. Medicinal.
‘Oh yes, I can feel something here.’ She shuts her eyes. ‘Like a path, a maze.’
‘A labyrinth,’ I say dejectedly. I had been hoping that power might have been an entry into something more useful rather than its entirety.
‘That’s it,’ she says, nodding. Her eyes open. ‘I can’t help you.’
She lets me go.
‘What? Why?’
‘Magic is emotion; it is feeling.’ Her voice is low, heavy. Like a part of her is sinking with every word. ‘Anger is all I know to channel. But my life is ruled by vengeance and yours is not.’
‘That’s not true! All I want is revenge. It’s the thing that drove me here and –’
I break off as she shakes her head and smooths down the folds of her chiton.
‘Perhaps once. Not any more. Your rage is fading. I could teach you my ways. Have you come into your powers snarling your demands for retribution. But I won’t.
’ Her fingers fist in the fabric. ‘Everything has been taken from me, Ariadne. My fury is the only thing keeping me warm, but you – you have other suns blazing within. Discover what makes you burn. That is the key to your magic.’
The pain lacing her words is so intense I take a step back, almost … almost a little afraid.
But she is here. And if she will not teach me to wield my powers, there is still one thing I must ask of her.
‘Very well,’ I say. ‘But I’m not the one who needs your help.’
On a beach a little way from the docks, the thiasus are already setting up their camp.
Sheets flutter along the length of the sand.
Zosime’s sharp, curt laugh cuts above the chatter so I begin following it before hearing Myrto’s soft, melodic tones answering back.
Which is definitely not something I want to interrupt – and evidently they aren’t the only ones, because Calybe sits a few tents over.
‘Hermes set Dionysus up over there,’ she says. ‘Do not go that way. Opora and Silen have our tent and even for the cult of Dionysus the noises coming out of there are … Well, the sex I can at least mock her for. The fevered declarations of love, however, are stomach-churning.’
‘I can quite imagine,’ Medea mutters, the corners of her lips turning down.
I spot Dionysus’s usual cylindrical shelter in the centre – the bright green and orange sheets sprung like flowers in a meadow.
Inside, Dionysus is arranging his craft table – his hair in wet ringlets that suggest he’s attempted to shock himself again.
He greets Medea politely and pours out wine for us all and though he’s mostly alright – one of his better moments – he still has that quick, frantic pace to him as he relays the tale of our escapades in Crete.
There are the halted sentences. And there are the times he breaks off to look at something none of the rest of us can see.
Medea draws me aside, and I make some excuse to speak with her outside.
‘It’s not the curse of a god,’ she says. ‘So I can’t lift it.’
I’d been so afraid she would say that. But hearing it …
it’s not quite the fearful plummet I had expected.
Alright, so Dionysus will remain ill. We can cope.
I am far more interested in halting his suffering than curing the illness itself.
The hallucinations would not be so awful if they did not strike such fear within him.
‘Is there anything you can do?’
She shrugs. ‘There are potions I could brew. Concoctions. Things to help him sleep better. Something to bring the chemicals firing in his mind into better equilibrium. He’d need them daily and the ingredients are difficult to source, though with Hermes on your side I’m sure we could manage it.
But I’m not sure we need to – not when we have you. ’
‘Me?’
‘You’re in a unique position,’ she says. ‘Him suffering like this, and you having powers that pair so suitably. I suspect this is what you can do: help others find the way out of their own labyrinths. Be the string to guide them.’
‘But how? I don’t want to get this wrong, he’s too …’
She places her hand over mine. ‘You won’t get this wrong. You’re not a healer, Ariadne. This isn’t a cure. It’s a way forward. It’s the next step.’
‘It’s a fucking labyrinth! It’s nothing!’ My outburst surprises even me. For days now I have been keeping my voice calm even when all I have wanted to do is shout.
‘Ariadne,’ she says gently – and in that moment she sounds like my mother.
Patient. And empathetic. ‘The labyrinth isn’t nothing.
Hecate herself is goddess of the crossroads.
You’re the counterbalance to an aspect of the goddess of magic.
She represents choices. You represent the roads of destiny, the certainties ahead and the obstacles lying in wait.
But labyrinths are contained – they are not everything, their walls exist within a wider world and so …
you also represent the way out. Find it. ’
She stands and turns her face up to the sun. ‘Stop squashing down your emotions. Embrace them. Quiet women do not alter the fates of heroes – let them hear you scream.’
I gather my friends, sending Calybe after Opora and collecting Myrto myself. I’m not sure where I stand with Zosime, only that she protected me even when she did not like me very much.
So here she is too.
‘What do you need?’ Myrto asks. And isn’t that it?
That from the first moment they were drawing me into their world, checking I had all that I needed and ensuring I had shoulders to lean on and arms to fall into and hands to hold when it all felt a bit too much.
Beyond, the thiasus swarm – and, gods, it’s all of them too. Who made sure I was fed and had music to dance to, and put joy into every breath I took. Who embraced me without question.
‘I need to use whatever magic hums through my veins to help Dionysus. But when I used it in Crete it was debilitating. I can’t risk that again and … it’s stronger, Dionysus says, when people believe in you.’
It is Zosime who gets to me first – her hand on my shoulder, her eyes intent on mine. ‘We believe in you.’
My throat is thick, the words just as swollen. But looking at my friends, I manage them. ‘I guess I’m asking for help.’
I can’t do this by myself. And perhaps my mother was right – maybe it’s not all on my shoulders.
And suddenly I’m not sure whose arms are whose because I’m clutched in them all. And it’s rousing choruses of: you can do this, and we’re here for you and there’s no one we trust more.
I push into the tent and Dionysus is caught, arguing with something that isn’t there, and I take his hand, intent on helping in any way I can.
The walls shoot up, solid and unwavering and so very real that whatever else Dionysus had been seeing he turns now, seeing the corridors encasing him and the long brick road both ahead and behind.
‘Ariadne.’ He startles. He gazes up at the towering walls. The ceiling we cannot see. ‘Where are we? What is this place?’
I turn – and yes, the path behind is just as viable an option.
I glance up … The ways we would not consider taking.
I think Medea may have been wrong. Labyrinths are a sort of crossroads too – a singular path, yes.
But always a choice. To head back. To look up.
To tear down the walls entirely. This power …
it is the way forward and the choices we make.
It is the escape we will find, and our destiny drawing us forth, all at once.
‘It’s the way my powers manifest. A metaphorical path of the mind.’ I flash him a smile. ‘I’m sure simpler, more straightforward powers were available. But something this absurd? This dramatic? It’s very me, don’t you think?’
‘Utterly,’ he says, and he looks at me like he can see the sun itself – burning painfully bright, and lingering long after he looks away. ‘What do we do?’
It is so difficult to look past the misery – the tired lines and dark shadows.
But once I do, I find the same determination fuelling me reflected back.
There’s something different about him here, something almost wavering in this dim light – but it’s his eyes I rest on.
Bright and sharp – and I’m not sure I’ll ever see that precise shade of green and not feel a surge of hope spike through me.
‘I’m not sure,’ I admit. ‘I’m still figuring it out. I can’t walk the path for you. But I can take your hand and I can be by your side. I can be the thread that guides you through. I think eventually we will make it out.’
Dionysus takes a breath and looks at the path ahead. He shifts his hand so that his fingers lace between mine. ‘Well then, let’s go.’
Together, we step forward.