Chapter XXXIV
XXXIV
That night, Apollonia prepares dinner early.
The smell of it—fish on a bed of boiled legumes and rice—is enough to make my mouth water.
As a child, I grew up with cooks who prepared luxuriant feasts for us every night.
When I moved to the temple, my meals were leaner, more practical.
But only with Apollonia can I taste the love cooked into the meals we share.
It’s just one more way she takes care of me, one more easy percussion in the rhythm we’ve found together.
It makes what I’m about to do even harder.
“I’ll have to go into the market again tomorrow,” she says cheerfully. “I’ve used the last of the eggs.”
From my place at our little table, I make a noncommittal sound and continue whittling away at the tiny creature I’ve been carving. I haven’t decided what it is yet.
“I’ll check on Ephemia while I’m there, ask how her daughter’s doing,” Apollonia goes on. “When I went to them earlier, she told me the girl’s going to be married.”
“That’s nice.”
Apollonia stops what she’s doing and looks at me properly. “My love, are you all right?”
“Hm?” I glance up from the wood carving. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Apollonia’s brows furrow, but her words are soft. “Because I know you,” she says gently. “I know that you’ve tried so hard to adjust since we came here, and I know that what the women in the market said today about that priest profoundly bothered you.”
At the mere mention of the priest, I tense, but she crosses the room and places her hands over my fist, gently prying apart each finger until my palm is open again.
“I want you to know that I’m proud of you,” she says. “You’ve worked so hard and come so far. I always knew this was within you. I never doubted it.”
Her words are sharp like an arrow’s tip. I work to keep still as the guilt inside me twists. All my life, I’ve wanted someone to see the good in me. Now Apollonia does, and I don’t deserve it.
She looks up, as though remembering something, and returns to the stove.
My pulse quickens as she turns her back.
This is my chance. I slip my hand into the folds of my peplos until I find the tiny sack of powder.
The herbalist I spoke to earlier promised me that concentrated Melissa leaf powder was a powerful but natural sedative, capable only of causing its consumers to fall into a deep slumber.
That doesn’t make what I’m about to do any easier.
Apollonia’s back is still turned, and I eye the goblet of wine a few inches from my hand. I move quickly, tossing the powder into the cup just before Apollonia turns around again.
She stops, then beams. “Dinner’s ready.”
She presents the cooked fish and legumes, and I do my best to mirror her smile, but I can no longer focus on the meal, eager as I am for Apollonia to drink her wine. When we near the end of the meal and she still hasn’t taken a sip, I grow desperate.
“We should have a toast,” I declare.
Apollonia’s brows rise in surprise. “A toast?”
“To our new life here,” I say quickly. “To Cyrene.”
Apollonia throws me a strange look. “Meddy, are you sure you’re all right?”
I try to project contentedness as I take her hand. “I’m all right,” I say confidently. “I’ve never been better.”
Apollonia still doesn’t seem convinced. “And you’re sure there’s nothing on your mind?” she asks. “Nothing you want to tell me?”
I look directly into her eyes. “No,” I say lightly. “Nothing.”
She returns my gaze before picking up the goblet, and for a moment, I think I catch something like disappointment in her face. Then she raises the goblet to me and downs its contents in one gulp.
The muscles in my body relax as she drags an arm across her mouth. “Will you come to bed?” she asks softly.
I take her hand and squeeze it. “Of course.”
—
We do not make love that night.
The Melissa leaf is effective: Within a few minutes of getting into bed, Apollonia is asleep, her breaths long and deep.
According to the herbalist, she will enjoy a long night of peaceful, dreamless slumber, and in the morning, she will feel nothing.
I know she will not wake up anytime soon once she’s taken it, but I still lie beside her for several minutes before easing myself carefully out of bed.
I tuck the snakes into my head wrap and prepare the rest of my supplies.
This will be the last one, I promise myself.
I take one more look at Apollonia. She would not approve of what I’m about to do, but I pray that, one day, she’ll be able to understand.
I pray that, one day, she’ll be able to forgive me.
The sun has long set by the time I reach the beach leading to the Temple of Athena.
A part of me knows I should feel guilty for deceiving Apollonia, and indeed, I think of her briefly as I walk along. But the truth is that with each step, I also feel more like myself, like I’m slipping back into my natural skin.
—
Cyrene’s Temple of Athena is paltry in comparison to Athens’s, but its basic structure is the same. I’ve prepared for the possibility of other priests and priestesses as I pad through the small building’s rooms, but I find they are all empty. Good. This will make my work easier.
When the women at the well told me about the priest, I pictured a monstrous lecher, so I’m taken aback by the frail old man I find in the courtyard sweeping up sand. He looks up at me and smiles. I take a deep breath, then utter the words I’ve practiced.
“I’ve come to ask for a blessing.”
The priest’s statue is heavier than I anticipated.
He was a small man, but turned to stone, his body is cumbersome and ungainly as I drag him clumsily down the rocky beach and to the shoreline.
Dawn has broken across the sky by the time I reach the shore.
The tide that was coming in on my way to the temple has since receded, and I suck my teeth.
I’ll have to push the priest’s body farther out to ensure it sinks.
For the first time, I’m touched by a flutter of nervousness.
It took longer than I’d planned to get him down here.
I’m running out of time. I continue dragging his body toward the water and exhale in relief as, at last, I feel the ocean waves around my knees. I shouldn’t have to go much farther.
The sun is rising now. I know in the back of my mind that I will need to clean up and get home.
Apollonia won’t stay asleep for much longer.
The less she knows, the better it will be for both of us.
I feel a slight pang of guilt then, not for what I did, but for the lies I know I’ll have to tell.
She asked me to try my best to fit in here, to let go of the rage.
I know she will be disappointed in me, and that truth settles like a weight on my shoulders.
A wave crashes against my back, soaking my dress, and I sigh, exhausted.
I’m still in the water when I feel eyes on me, and for a moment, I wonder, If I keep very still, will whoever’s watching me decide I’m just a rock and move on? But the gaze I feel prickling my back does not relent, so slowly, wearily, I rise, then turn.
The three boys are standing farther down the beach.
My vision is better than it was before I was cursed, and I see them clearly.
Their long, gangly legs and lack of facial hair tell me they teeter on the cusp of manhood without having quite crossed that threshold yet.
I can tell, even at this distance, that they are of privilege and wealth—no common boys would be able to afford their richly dyed tunics, which stand out vividly in the morning light.
Two of them are dark-haired, but my gaze fixes on the one in the center.
He is taller, with a shock of curly golden hair that shines like afternoon sun.
He might have been a beauty, but the look of repulsion on his face twists his features.
I realize now what I must look like to him.
My head wrap is gone, and the snakes writhe wildly about my head. I know what he sees.
He sees a monster.
We stare at each other for what feels like a century.
Self-preservation tells me I should turn him and his friends to stone then and there.
Make it quick and painless, then get back to the work I set out to do.
But something stops me. I could kill the young man in an instant, but I don’t.
He looks nothing like the boy who once came to our island to kill me—the one Stheno ultimately turned to stone—but I still think of him.
In an instant, the moment is over. The boy and his friends turn away from me and pelt in the opposite direction, kicking up sand in their wake.
Reason returns to me, and with it, fear.
They saw me.
There are few men who have seen my true appearance and lived to tell the tale, but now these three boys have.
They are still running down the beach, the bright red of the blond one’s tunic now just a pinprick against the sand.
Dread builds within me. I am fast; perhaps normally I’d be fast enough to catch up, but after carrying the priest’s statue all the way down from the temple, I have little energy left.
As if in confirmation, my leg muscles throb.
My mind begins to spiral. The boys will undoubtedly find the authorities, report that they saw a monster.
Perhaps one of them will tell the king. The king will send warriors to this beach in search of me, and when they do not find me, they will raid the entire city; they will ask its people if they have seen a woman who fits my description.
And those people will tell them about the two widows living above the tavern. They will lead them to Apollonia.
The only thing I can think to do to protect her is run.
I leave the priest’s stone body half obscured in the waves, and my plan solidifies as my steps quicken.
Every part of my body aches in protest, but I ignore the pain as I scour the beach for what I’m looking for.
Plenty of the island’s fishermen store their boats on the shore.
I find the biggest one I can and pull it out into the water.
The waves rise to my waist, and I shiver as a breeze kisses my wet clothes.
I launch into the boat, grit my teeth, and begin to row.
My biceps ache, then grow numb, but I keep rowing.
By the second hour, my wet clothes have all but dried.
Only then do I look back. Cyrene is still visible, but it is only a speck of red brown.
For the first time, my shoulders heave with relief.
Even if by now that golden-haired boy has reached the king, even if the king has already sent soldiers to the beach, they will find little but sand and a statue. Apollonia will be safe.
—
I once read that a person can survive for up to three days without water. By my second day, I am less sure that is true.
The sun is merciless. My lips have cracked from lack of moisture, and the skin on my shoulders has blistered.
I continue to row in a direction that feels like east, like home, but there is no guarantee I’m heading in the right direction, that I am not simply subjecting myself to a slow and agonizing death.
The hallucinations begin that afternoon.
At least, I think they are hallucinations.
I have no other way to explain seeing my mother.
She was always a beautiful goddess, but in her element, in the water, she is truly magnificent.
I think to myself that this is how she must have been before she was my mother.
At last, I meet the great and powerful Ceto.
White barnacles trace a line down her neck like a grotesque necklace; she doesn’t wear clothes. And her hair—the hair she so painstakingly cared for while she was on the island—now frames her face in a dark, wild mane that glitters with droplets of salt water.
I did try. Her mouth doesn’t move as she bobs among the waves, but I hear her voice clearly. You must remember, I did try to keep you safe.
I do not have the strength to answer her; nor do I have the strength to be alarmed when two great finned beasts rise at her summons and charge at me.
They are gray-skinned, muscular, and when one of them turns, I see a mouthful of dagger-sharp teeth.
I feel them underneath my boat, and then it’s moving faster.
It takes me a moment to understand. They are not attacking me: They are carrying me.
You must remember that I tried. I can’t see my mother in the waves now. Her voice is distant. I tried.
My mother’s finned monsters stay with me for the next several hours. Somewhere in that time, my body finally succumbs to the sun and fatigue, and I fall asleep, only to dream of Apollonia, red-eyed, standing on Cyrene’s shoreline screaming my name. I try to answer her, but I can say nothing.
The sky is dark when I open my eyes again.
The finned beasts have left me, but in the distance, I make out a familiar shape.
My island. My home. I gather what little strength I have left as I row as close as I can to its shore.
I didn’t realize its beach has a distinct smell until it fills my lungs again.
With a cry of anguish and relief, I jump from the boat and stumble onto the sand. My body is spent; it will be hours yet before I have the strength to climb the rocky cove and find my sisters. For now, lying here seems good enough. I rest my head and close my eyes.
“I knew you would return,” a low voice says. “Eventually.”
My eyes open and I face Athena.