Chapter XXXII #3
Apollonia’s expression changes, and I see something new in her—a weariness. “Will you ever get tired of it?”
“Tired of what?” I ask cautiously.
“Of killing men.” She sits up in bed. “I’ve been here only a few months, and I’ve already lost count of how many have come to the island.”
I think of the way my heart pounds in my chest when I turn a man to stone. I can’t lie to Apollonia outright, so I tell her a half-truth and hope she believes it.
“I’m…not sure.” I put a hand on her cheek, but she frowns and moves it.
“I don’t think this is good for you, Meddy,” she says. “Every time you kill, a little less of you comes back. One day, it’s going to destroy you altogether.”
The words cut. I sit up and hug my knees to my chest. “This island is my home, Apollonia,” I murmur. “It’s all my sisters and I have left. I have to help protect it.”
Apollonia’s eyes flash. “Is that what you want or what your sisters want?”
I find I can’t answer that question. I realize I’ve never thought about it. Excluding my time in Athens, my sisters and I have always shared the same wants. The idea of having a different one from them seems strange.
“We could leave,” she goes on. “We could take one of the abandoned boats, and we could go somewhere else, somewhere we could live in peace.”
“We will,” I tell her placatingly, still not meeting her gaze.
“When?”
“Someday.”
A frown pulls at Apollonia’s mouth, and I know that vague promise isn’t enough.
It has been months since I was last truly afraid of anything, but the look on her face now terrifies me.
I don’t see anger in her downcast eyes; I see something far worse: resignation.
She is beginning to give up on me. She takes my hand in hers and squeezes.
“I think I’ll go on that walk anyway.” She gives me a chaste kiss on my cheek before rising from the bed and wrapping herself with a fleece. She’s out the door before I have time to reply, and then I’m left alone.
—
That night, more men come to the island.
It is only a small ship with a small crew, the kind of quick and easy work I normally don’t mind, but tonight I am distracted.
Every few minutes, I look from the beach back up toward the palace, at the single golden light flickering from my bedchamber window.
I know Apollonia is up there, likely watching from the sill.
Every time men come to our island, I tell her to stay away from the windows.
I tell her it is for her safety, but that’s just another half-truth.
In reality, I don’t want her to see this other side of me, the side that isn’t gentle.
Sometimes, when I’m turning a man to stone, I imagine I feel her eyes on my back.
I hear the echo of her words from this morning.
Every time you kill, a little less of you comes back.
Is that what you want or what your sisters want?
The question digs into my conscience like a splinter. An uneasiness prickles inside me like a spider.
“Meddy, are you all right?”
I look up and find both Stheno and Euryale staring at me. I’ve always thought my sisters were magnificent, but in this moonlight, against the rippling reflection of the ocean waves, they are as breathtaking as our mother once was. In another life, they could be fierce warrior queens. I nod.
“I’m all right,” I say half-heartedly. “Just thinking.”
Stheno nods, satisfied, but Euryale gives her a reproachful look. Her expression is soft when she looks back at me.
“Sit with us awhile,” she says, gesturing to a place in the sand.
I hesitate, then sit down. Stheno and Euryale take places on either side of me, and for a moment, the three of us are content to sit just like that, our knees pulled up to our chests, watching the tide roll in.
“Can I ask you two something?” My voice is barely audible above the crashing waves.
“Of course,” says Euryale, “anything.”
I consider how best to pose my question. Finally, I say, “Have you ever thought about what we might do? When this is over?”
“What do you mean?” Stheno’s brow furrows, like she doesn’t understand. “When what’s over?”
“This.” I gesture around us at the beach, the broken ship, the stone corpses strewn across the shore. “Surely we can’t keep killing men forever.”
Stheno scoffs. “I see no reason why not.”
Euryale is gentler. “I suppose I’ve never thought about what we might do after.” She turns to me. “Did something bring this on?”
Apollonia’s name sits on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to say it aloud. It’s true, her prompting is what provoked this conversation, but I know that it’s deeper than that, that this is a question that has lived in the back of my mind since my first kill.
I shake my head. “I turned eighteen a few months ago,” I say to both of them. “I’m getting older. I suppose, sometimes, I just wonder if there’s going to be any bigger purpose to my life, or if this is it.” I look between them. “Does that make any sense?”
Euryale’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Stheno and I are immortal, Medusa. We’ve never had to give much thought to things like time, or our life’s purpose. We’ll likely stay here on this island for the rest of time, and we’ll be none the sadder for it.”
The words drop like a stone in my chest.
“So, you’d never want to leave?” I ask slowly. “You’d never want to see anything else?”
Stheno tips her head back. “I have all that I need on this island,” she says, stretching her legs out in the sand. “I have my sisters, and I have my freedom. That is enough for me.”
It’s not enough for me. But I don’t say that aloud.
—
I make sure to scrape the sand from my body and lather myself in rose water before I step into my bedchamber. I pad across the room softly to avoid waking Apollonia, but she stirs as soon as I burrow into bed, and she takes my hand in hers.
“Tomorrow, I want you to start packing your things,” I murmur into her ear.
She turns to me, eyes still closed, voice slurred with sleep. “Why?”
I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling. “Because we are leaving.”