Chapter 3 – Lamia
LAMIA
Istare into the fire, listening to the wood as it crackles. Beside me lie three dead birds, all drained of their blood. It was the best meal I’ve had in a long time. So, for a little while, that clawing hunger within my belly has shrunk from a roar to a whisper.
It’s moments like these that I almost feel human again. Even though it’s been thousands of years since I was turned into this monster.
Instantly, my mind urges me to be pulled back to the beginning, to the days when life was good and I had everything. But I know what will happen if I follow that thread, and I don’t want to sink into that dark place tonight. I just want to look at the fire and not hate myself for a minute.
“Lamia?”
I jerk and turn. The moonlight illuminates the water like a painting, almost surreal in the way it changes this place to something mystical. And from out of the water, a siren emerges. She drags herself onto the sand then shifts, her tail becoming legs and feet.
“Is it safe for me to come closer?” she asks, her voice light and young.
I search within myself. Has my hunger been soothed enough? “Yes,” I say, and realize my voice has grown raspy without use.
Aglaope comes slowly forward, into the light cast from my fire.
The siren has changed so much since the first time I met her.
For one, she has many scars from the attacks by the other sirens.
They’d healed a great deal under my care, but they still mar her once-flawless flesh.
The light blue strands that weave through her hair have brightened as she’s grown stronger, and the dusting of scales across her skin shimmer like diamonds beneath the moonlight.
She sits down carefully near me, on one of the rocks I’ve drawn closer to the fire. In her lap, she holds something bound in leather. I’m intrigued, but I wait.
After a time, she gives a little sigh. “It’s nice to rest.”
“Do the sirens continue to hunt you?”
It takes her a long minute to answer. “Not like before. But still, I never feel safe.”
I nod, because I know what that’s like.
“They recently sank a ship.”
That’s no surprise. The only thing sirens like better than capturing males is sinking ships.
“There were some shifters on board.”
I stiffen. That can’t have gone well.
“I watched from afar. The human men succumbed to their powers pretty quickly, but the shifters fought.”
“And were they defeated?”
Aglaope gets a little fire in her eyes. “I released them when they slept, got them in a canoe, and took them to the closest safe land I could.”
I smile, proud of how much the little half-breed has changed since I first met her.
“I also told them about you,” she says.
My smile falters. “Why?”
She shrugs. “I haven’t met many land shifters. I thought they might know something helpful.”
I’m surprised by her wisdom. In all my thousands of years, I’ve never thought to ask other shifters about myself. Since I was created by a curse, it seems unlikely that we’d have anything in common.
“One of the men was surprisingly helpful. He was a scientist who researched rare and unusual creatures. He gave me a book he thought you might find useful.”
I stare at her. “How’s that possible? I’m the only one of my kind.”
She smiles. “Actually, I don’t think you are.”
Again, I’m left staring. “Hera cursed more people than me?”
She holds up the leather-wrapped item from her lap. “Why don’t we read and see?”
I close my eyes and shift, feeling my snake-half fade and turn into legs. I can’t remain in my human form forever, but it’s always nice to have legs once more. Lifting up the skirt of my torn dress, I sit down softly on the sand beside the fire.
Aglaope wears something that looks like a long shirt, woven from water plants and flowers. She doesn’t have to pull it up as she sinks onto the sand beside me. Then, to my surprise, she hands her package to me.
The leather is wet and cold from the water.
I hold it in my hands for a long minute, just staring at it.
I wouldn’t be foolish enough to actually think it could change anything.
Thousands of years have passed and the only thing I know to be true is that while on the surface things change, underneath it all things remain the same.
But still, it won’t hurt to see what knowledge the book might hold.
Inspecting the item closer beneath the fire light, I see the place it was sealed shut. Opening it, I pull out the book from within, but it’s wrapped in leathers. It takes some time to remove them before I discover another sealed pack. Whoever owned this book certainly wanted it to be kept safe.
When at last I pull out the leather-bound book, I’m surprised.
It’s small but ornated with jewels, and the sides of the pages seem to be dusted with gold.
Slowly opening the book, I turn the fragile pages gently.
The book is filled with pictures of different shifters and information about them, but none of the images catch my eye.
Until I see the one of me.
I freeze, staring down at it in shock. No, it isn’t me. But certainly a creature like me.
“Oh my gosh, he was telling the truth!” Aglaope exclaims. “He said he didn’t like to owe anyone when he gave it to me, so I was worried he might be lying, but there you are! What does it say?”
I move the book so I can see it better in the light, and my finger traces the first words on the page.
“When Poseidon and the Mother of Sharks had children, these shifters were born into existence.
They have the rare ability to shift from a snake-form to a human form after they come of age.
It is during that time, before they have their Protectors, that they are the most dangerous.
They are driven by a need to either have children or change the human children that they have into their own kind.
“It should be noted that all of the children, once killed, are reborn within Kahala, the Cave of Blood.
“In order to be reunited with their children, these creatures must create their chosen Protectors and prove themselves worthy of their kind. Then, and only then, will their children be awakened from the koimao, long slumber.
“I have, in one instance, observed the process of a Queen calling her Protectors. After they had been dead a proper amount of time, she called onto them, ‘Return to me my Protectors, your time has come. Your Queen commands you to awaken and join her in the world of the living.’”
As I say the words, something strange happens. The earth beneath our feet begins to shake. The waves rock, and Aglaope turns her big eyes to me.
“What’s happening?”
My heart hammers. “Just an earthquake. They happen sometimes.”
And then I feel it, a vibration that travels through me and out into the world. It hurts deep in my chest, and an echo of that vibration remains.
“Lamia? Are you okay?”
I close my eyes, trembling.
“Was it the book?”
Taking several deep breaths, I will myself to ignore the way my whole body seems to shake and open my eyes. “It was just an earthquake.”
It has be. What else could it be? Magic?
I almost laugh. Magic is for cruel gods. Not the cursed, like me.
She looks back down at the book. “What does the rest of it say?”
My gaze returns to it, and I try to push away the uncertain feeling that lingers.
“Just what happens if the woman does not have children at the time of her Turning. It says that she feels a drive to reproduce that affects the hormones in her Protectors, encouraging mating until she carries a child.”
The siren looks at me. “So, what do you think?”
What did I think? “I don’t believe any of it could be true. I don’t think there’s a place,” I say as I stare down at the crude map beneath the image of the snake woman, “where there are more of my kind. Where my children—“
I stop, choking back the words. What had it said? That they were reborn?
No. My children had died. I had killed them. And any book that promises otherwise is just a lie.
“I’m tired,” I say.
Aglaope takes the book from my hands and begins to wrap it once more. I lay down in the sand by the fire, feeling pathetic. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to think.
Not about anything.
And certainly not about the night I murdered my husband and children.
But even though I close my eyes, that’s all I can see. It’s a fair price, though. A monster like me should never forget about her crimes. That should be my punishment…to think of the loved ones I murdered forever.