Chapter XXXII #2
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to sound as gentle as I can. “I won’t turn you to stone. It’s a power I can control. I won’t harm you.”
Apollonia hesitates, then slowly she faces me with her eyes still screwed shut. She cracks one eye, then the other. I watch as she looks at me and, for the first time, really sees me. Her eyes go wide.
“Meddy! What are you doing here?”
“I never told you where I was from because I couldn’t,” I answer. “Now you know.”
The shock still hasn’t left her face. I can practically see the questions forming in her mind, all fighting to be asked first. I determine the moment she settles on one.
“You’ve left Athens,” she says. “So, you didn’t become a priestess?”
“I did.” Even now, I feel guilty admitting that. “But I was expelled when…I angered Athena. She cursed me and my sisters to look like this. She made us monsters.”
“Why?” asks Apollonia.
“It’s a long story.” And in truth, I’m not sure it’s one I’m ready to tell yet. I change the subject. “You’re hurt.” I nod to a cut on her foot, the cause of her limp. “Let me help.”
Apollonia hesitates a second time before nodding, and I need no further prompt to go to her. She eyes the snakes on my head warily.
“They won’t bother you, either,” I say, extending an arm. “Come on, you can rest in the palace.”
—
Our walk back up to the palace is slow. The cut on Apollonia’s foot pains her more the farther she walks, and eventually, I hook her arm over my shoulders so that she can lean most of her weight on me.
It is strange, having someone from my former life in Athens here on the island, but I have little time to reflect on it as I guide Apollonia to my bedchamber.
“Sit there.” I gesture.
She eases down onto the edge of my bed while I search the room for supplies.
I have no desire to wake one of the slaves at this hour.
I’m not sure any of them would even answer my summons after hearing the commotion outside.
Finally, I tear one of my own tunics, grab a pitcher of water, and kneel at Apollonia’s feet. She scoots back, out of my reach.
“Please,” I say, my hand hovering. “Let me.”
Something in her seems to give, and she relents. Carefully, I use the strip of torn cloth to dab away the sand and crusted blood. Her skin is soft, warm, and I don’t recall the last time I touched another person with this kind of gentleness. When the wound is clean and bandaged, I rise again.
“Are you hungry?” I look around the room. “I don’t have much, but there’s some fruit and bread.”
“It’s all right,” says Apollonia. The hard edge I heard in her voice earlier has receded. “I’m used to eating less now.”
I turn and look at her properly in the candlelight.
She’s thinner than I remembered. Her once-glossy chestnut hair is matted, and there’s a light missing from my friend’s eyes.
Quickly, I gather the remaining fruit and bread and bring the plate to her.
I pour her water, too. She tries to eat with the grace I know she once had, but hunger gets the better of her, and she devours the food within a minute.
“I can get more,” I offer.
“It’s all right,” says Apollonia. “I just need rest.”
“You can sleep here.” The words leave my mouth before I’ve paused to consider them. Apollonia looks up at me.
“What happened to you?” We ask the question at the same time, but I follow up first. “What happened to you, Apollonia? After you were banned from the Acropolis?”
She takes another long sip before answering.
“After I left the temple, I went to my father’s house.
The slaves brought me to him, but when he learned what I had done, when he learned that I’d been expelled…
” She turns white. “It was worse than anything I’d ever imagined.
He told me I’d shamed our family, that from that day on, he had no daughter.
He cast me out, and told me if I returned, he’d have me flogged. ”
Anger flickers in my chest. “What of your older brothers? None of them would help you?”
“They wanted to.” Apollonia stares down at her hands. “But my father told them that if any of them did, they’d be cast out, too. Lycus snuck me some food anyway, and I lived off that for a while. Eventually, though, I was forced to beg on the streets.”
“How did you come to be in the Egyptian’s service?” Even now, the thought of him sets my teeth on edge.
“He came to me, offered work,” she says. “At first, I thought he meant to hire me as a scribe, since I was highborn and educated.” She looks away from me. “I realized too late that he wanted me for a different kind of work.”
I remember the woman I once saw on the streets of Athens, the man who paid her. It feels as though I’ve wrapped my hand around a rose’s stem, only to find it covered in thorns.
“I’m so sorry, Apollonia.”
The words are not enough, I know this from the hurt in her eyes. She holds my gaze a second longer before looking away.
“I told you what happened to me,” she says. “What happened to you?”
It’s a fair trade, I know. That makes it no easier for me when it’s my turn.
“What happened to you, on the night of Panathenaia…” I take a deep breath. “The same thing happened to me, in a different way. When Athena found out, she thought I’d betrayed her.”
“And so she punished you,” says Apollonia. “Just like she punished me.”
Said aloud, the words are even more gruesome. I find myself wondering how many other girls there are in the world who bear the marks, visible and otherwise, of Athena’s cruelty. When I look back to Apollonia, her eyes are drooping.
“Sorry. You must be exhausted.”
“I am,” Apollonia agrees. “I should go to sleep.” To my horror, she begins easing onto the floor.
“What are you doing?”
Apollonia looks up at me. “You’ve been kind, but I’m covered in sand and grime. I won’t dirty the bed.” She gives me a rueful look. “I may not be an acolyte anymore, but I haven’t forgotten all social graces.”
I shake my head. “You can’t sleep on the floor, I—Here, you can borrow one of my tunics.”
She considers a moment, then accepts it. “Thank you.”
“I’ll leave you, then,” I say. “Good night.”
I’m almost to the door when—“Wait.” Apollonia’s voice is small. “Please, don’t…don’t leave me alone.”
There’s desperation in those words, a vulnerability I recognize because I’ve felt it, too. Even with my sisters here on the island, there is an undeniable loneliness.
Still, I only nod before turning to blow out the chamber’s low candle. In the dark, Apollonia is a silhouette slipping under the bed’s blankets. I wrap my head, then lie beside her.
“Are you afraid of me?” I ask in the dark. “Of the snakes?”
“No.” Apollonia’s answer is instant. “I think they’re rather fierce, actually.”
Something in me warms. Athena intended my curse to be a punishment. She ensured that all who saw me would fear me, regard me only as a monster.
I realize Apollonia doesn’t see me as a monster.
“Do you still go by Meddy?” she asks.
“It was always a pet name,” I answer. “My real name is Medusa.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“Either,” I say. “But the people who love me call me Meddy.”
A small smile touches her face. “Then I will keep calling you Meddy.”
They’re the last words she says before we both fall into sleep.
—
I don’t know what Apollonia and I had expected, the night I told her she could stay with me.
One day became a week, then several weeks, and she never did find another place to sleep, despite our palace’s many rooms. In time, I introduced her to Stheno and Euryale, after a lengthy and emphatic conversation beforehand to make sure they knew she was my friend and not to be harmed.
They agreed to treat Apollonia cordially, even if, I suspect, they thought the two of us a strange pair.
In time, Apollonia and I developed a rhythm all our own.
Each day, I showed her a new piece of the island, and each day she relaxed a little, returning bit by bit to the girl I first met in Athens.
At night, we’d light fires on the beach and sometimes asked those slaves who remained on the island to play music so we could dance until we were sweaty and our feet ached.
There were difficult nights, too. On some, I woke to find Apollonia not in my bed but sitting by the window, staring out into an open sea.
I knew she had nightmares about the things that happened to her in the time after her expulsion from the temple.
On one of those nights, I’d taken her into the gardens and finally shown her Theo’s statue.
Sometimes, both of us lay in bed and simply cried.
We don’t tell each other to stop, or promise that it’ll be all right.
We let each other sit in grief for the lives we had, for the girls we could’ve been, if the world were kinder.
The first time Apollonia and I made love, I was hesitant.
She wasn’t my first, but in some ways, it still felt like she was.
She didn’t rush me, and when her lips finally met mine, I was delighted to find them soft and sweet like nectar.
She was patient as she guided my hand, showed me where to touch her and where to touch myself.
Each time we went further, she’d ask, Is this all right?
Does that feel good? Each time, I’d answer with more enthusiasm.
She crawls up the bed now, curls her body against mine, and gently kisses the place where my neck meets my shoulder.
The lovemaking is good, but in truth, this part is just as good.
In these moments, she’s the one who makes me feel safe.
I have never before known this kind of tenderness, this kind of care.
She walks two fingers down my side in the silence. “It’s a nice morning,” she murmurs. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
A part of me would like nothing more, but I sigh.
“My sisters need me,” I say. “Euryale spotted a ship heading toward the island. She thinks it’ll reach us soon.”