Chapter XIII #2
Eupraxia, who’s leading our procession, nods.
We are free to break from our line and find a place to settle for a few minutes before we go back in for the night.
Some of the younger and more fervent priestesses fall to their knees and pray under their breath; the older, more seasoned priestesses, the ones who’ve been doing this for many decades, simply find a bench to sit down on, groaning as they relax tired joints and old knees.
I sit on the grassy knoll and reflect on the day’s events.
I think of Glaukopis, with his piercing yellow stare; of the wood-carver in the Agora and how much Theo would have enjoyed the statuettes.
I even find myself thinking of the boy who helped me find Glaukopis and of how kind he was.
Something small strikes me in the arm, and I lurch, startled.
Next to me is a small, sharp rock that wasn’t there before.
I lift my gaze, searching the lawn, and trace an invisible line back to Kallisto.
She’s not looking at me, but she’s studying her fingernails with slightly too much focus.
I know, instinctively, that she’s the one who threw it, just as I know she’s taken care to make sure no one else saw.
My eyes dance between her and the rock, and I clench my teeth.
In the end, I enjoyed my time in Athens, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was Kallisto’s actions that sent me into the city in the first place.
I think back to Athena’s stern words with me earlier.
I nearly lost my opportunity to be an acolyte—to stay in Athens—because of Kallisto.
I’m still staring when she looks up and meets my gaze.
There’s a taunting smile on her face. Her gaze drops briefly to the rock before she shrugs, then turns back around. I curl my hands into fists.
An old anger flints against my skin for the first time since my arrival in Athens.
I haven’t felt it since the night my father wrapped his hands around my mother’s neck, but it’s there now, hot and tingling, just beneath my skin.
I stare at the back of Kallisto’s blond head and imagine everything I wish I could do: hurl the rock back at her, or march right up to her and pull her hair the way she pulled mine the morning I arrived.
Instead, I take a deep breath and force myself to calm.
Something rustles near my hand, pulling me from my thoughts.
I start, then relax. It’s only a harmless black garter snake with a yellow stripe running down its spine.
I keep still as it slithers closer to me, then settles.
I find that I’m not afraid of it at all.
I’ve come across plenty of snakes in my mother’s gardens.
A thought occurs to me, sudden and vicious.
“Our time for meditation has concluded,” Eupraxia announces. “Acolytes, you’ll now return to your quarters.”
There’s only a half second to consider the potential consequences. I bat those thoughts away as I turn to make sure no one is looking, then nudge the garter snake into the pocket of my chiton before standing to join the other acolytes.
—
Our preparations for bed are uneventful.
We have now finished our fifth full day at the Acropolis, enough time for us to begin to fall into a kind of rhythm and routine.
Our daily work is intensive enough that there’s little chatter as we wash our faces and prepare for bed, and after Eupraxia comes into the quarters to do a final check and extinguish the oil lamps, it doesn’t take long for the room to fill with the sound of soft snores.
I lie in the dark staring up at the ceiling, waiting.
Moments later, I hear a slight rustling in the bed pallet a few places over from me, a confused groan, then a shrill scream.
In an instant other acolytes are yelling, running around the room in a panic.
I rise slowly and move to stand against the wall.
It takes only a second for Eupraxia to return to our room, eyes wide.
She holds the oil lamp she is carrying high, and I see that the room is now in disarray.
Several pallets have been trampled, and the acolytes are clustered together in the opposite corner.
In the middle of the mess stands Kallisto.
Her usually tidy blond hair is disheveled, and she’s shaking.
“What is the meaning of this?” There is no tenderness from Eupraxia as she looks around at all of us. “What happened?”
At first no one speaks, but then Kallisto points. Her words are barely audible, but I hear “In my bed.”
Eupraxia’s nostrils flare. “Stop mumbling and speak plainly, child.”
“There’s a snake in my bed pallet!” Tears fill Kallisto’s eyes. She begins to redden. “It tried to bite me.”
Eupraxia gives Kallisto a wary look, then crosses the room to the place where the girl has pointed. She picks up a blanket, jumps, then groans. The high priestess glances over her shoulder, looking annoyed.
“Foolish girl,” she snaps. “It’s just a garter snake.” She stomps down hard. There’s a single hiss that’s cut off abruptly, and I flinch. It was not my intention for the snake to be killed. Eupraxia picks the dead snake up by its tail, then eyes the room.
“To bed,” she orders. “All of you.”
Slowly, the acolytes shuffle back to their respective pallets.
Only when we are all beneath blankets again does Eupraxia leave a second time, casting us back into dark.
In the quiet, I hear someone sniffling. I’m almost sure it’s Kallisto.
I lie on my back and stare up at the ceiling as I listen to her toss and turn on her pallet. My stomach twists.
I expected to feel vindicated when I slipped the snake into Kallisto’s bed pallet, like some score between us had been settled.
The truth is, the emotion I feel as my eyes close is very much like guilt.
When I open my eyes, my mother’s gardens are cast in a strange, silver light.
It is the first indication that I have left the waking world and entered a different one. The sky above has darkened to a deep violet and is devoid of its usual stars.
I inhale unseasonably crisp night air and let my eyes wander.
I am standing before an aged olive tree I’ve never seen before—it’s thick, knotted, and ripe with fruit.
My gaze traces along its boughs, then stops.
A white owl is nestled within its dark green leaves, large and unassuming.
Glaukopis. His round eyes wink in the night like golden coins, but what holds my attention is what is clutched in one of his talons.
A garter snake hangs limp from it, dead.
“Why?” The word escapes me before I can stop it, and in my dream I do not question that I am speaking to an owl as though it can understand me. “Why did you kill it?”
Silence stretches between us as Glaukopis stares back at me, as I wait for an answer. Without warning, he opens his beak. A woman’s voice, low and sonorous, fills the air. It’s Athena’s voice.
You are my greatest disappointment.
“What?” I frown at the owl. “What do you mean?”
Glaukopis does not answer my second question. Instead, he launches himself from his perch, dropping the dead snake at my feet before soaring up and into the night. I wait until he’s gone before looking down.
The garter snake’s mouth is slightly ajar in death; moonlight gleams off one of its white fangs.
A profound, inexplicable grief fills me as I study it.
I know the snake tried to bite Kallisto only because it was threatened, because that was the only way it could protect itself.
My eyes travel to the lacerations near its neck.
The creature has been nearly decapitated.
In that moment, I cannot think of a worse way to die.
I drop to my knees, letting my fingers hover just above the snake’s bright black scales.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I’m so sorry.”
I sit there, alone in the garden, for what feels like a century. I do not know when the uneasiness begins, when the sense that something is wrong skitters across my skin like a spider. I glance down at the ground, and the hairs on my arms stand on end.
The snake is alive, and it is not.
Its once-bright eyes are empty caverns as it raises its wounded head. It hisses, and dark blood spurts from its neck. I crawl backward on my hands and knees, but it is faster than me. The creature coils, then strikes at my arms, my face—
I shoot up in my bed pallet, a scream in my throat. For several seconds, in the dark, I don’t know where I am. I hear the sound of the other acolytes’ soft breathing and run my hand over my arms. The skin is smooth and unbitten.
It was just a dream, I tell myself. It wasn’t real.
I tell myself that over and over until sleep finds me again.