'I know.' He looked into her eyes, and she saw an echo of his old self.
She recognized the way he blinked his eyes, the way his eyebrows moved.
She started to cry again, and he used a finger to wipe her tears. 'I was going to ask you to kill me. I won't fight.'
There was so much she wanted to ask, so much she wanted to say, but there was no time. His tentative hold could slip at any second, and then they'd be dead.
'Your mother loves you too,' she said.
And she tore him apart.
As promised, he did not put up a fight She let loose, and even she was shocked by the power within her, by the extent of the wildness, by the violence of which she was capable. Like a cartoon character, like a whirlwind, she burrowed into him, through him, rending flesh, breaking bone, slashing organs. She kept moving--kicking, clawing, grabbing, digging--and she was screaming and crying at the same time, the saltiness of his blood mingling with the saltiness of her own tears, and she continued on, unable to stop, tearing apart not Dion but the thing that had stolen Dion, the thing that had taken him from her.
She collapsed, exhausted. Her vocal cords were hurt from screaming, but the tears were still streaming down her blood-soaked face. There was nothing left of Dionysus. There was no head, no hand, no foot, no finger. Nothing even remotely recognizable. There were only bits of bone and flesh, scattered over an amazingly long section of shore. And blood.
A lot of blood.
Kevin stood staring at her, still in the water. There was fear on his face, fear of her, and though she wanted to reassure him that everything was okay, everything was all right, she did not.
She had killed Dion.
She had loved him.
And she had killed him.
Already she felt different. Tired. She wondered what was happening down in the valley. Were the people still drinking, still partying, still celebrating? Or with the god's influence gone, were they shaking their heads and coming to, as if awakening from a bad dream, wondering where they were and what had happened? She looked up. The trees and bushes had not changed back. The ones he had transformed were still in the shapes he had made them.
What had happened to the satyrs and the centaurs and the nymphs?
God, she felt tired. She leaned back, her head resting on soft, cooling flesh.
Kevin walked over, stood next to her. He looked down at her form, but there was nothing sexual in his gaze, only 1 worry. She realized that she did not feel anything sexual ^ either.
Not even when she thought of Dion.
'What's to stop him from coming back?' Kevin asked finally.
'There are no maenads left. Only me.'
'But he's a cyclical god, right? He dies each year and is reborn?'
'He never brought the others back. There's no one to bring him back. He was a god of flesh, and his flesh is no more.'
'That's all then? That's it?'
She nodded tiredly. 'Yeah,' she said. 'I guess it is.'
She lay there for a while, Kevin still standing next to her. She closed her eyes for a few seconds--she thought. But when she opened them, it was dark, it was night. Kevin was still standing above her, watching her with concern.
She sat up, her head thumping.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
She nodded. 'Yeah,' she said, and surprisingly, she did feel better. 'I
guess I am.' She stood, walked slowly over to the edge of the lake, where she stripped off her pants. She looked at Kevin, smiled, then jumped into the cold, refreshing water to wash off the blood.
Both the state and federal government stuck by their radioactive-waste story, sending in hundreds of troops and agents dressed in white contamination suits, quarantining the area and debriefing the residents with an elaborate series of physical tests and psychological examinations that Penelope assumed were supposed to brainwash the muddled, hungover citizens into thinking that what had happened had not happened.
She and Kevin knew better.
They were close after that, nearly inseparable. Kevin's parents survived and he went back to live with them. Since lier mothers were all dead and she was too old to be adopted or become a ward of the state, she had herself declared an emancipated teenager by the court and moved into a small apartment near school. She received an allowance from her mothers'
estate, although the amount of;; the estate and its assets were still being determined by lawyers and accountants and she would probably not inherit what was left of the winery or its proceeds for several years.
Somewhere toward the end of the school year, she and| Kevin officially became a couple. He moved in with her* after graduation, but that did not last the summer, and she;; went off alone to Berkeley in. the fall.
They'd shared a lot, but perhaps they'd shared too much. Seeing each other, they were constantly reminded of what had happened, and j the wounds that should have healed into scars seemed to; be perpetually kept open.
And Dion was always between them.
But if the experience they'd gone through had tornl them apart, it also permanently linked them together Nol one else had gone through what they had and that was a bond that could not be broken. Two years later, after living lives apart, after adjusting to the post-Dionysus world in their own ways, they met again.
Penelope had transferred to UCLA, and Kevin called her up, asking if they could get together.
She agreed.
Two years later, they were married.
A year later, she became pregnant.
Penelope sat in the window seat of what was going to be the baby's room and stared out the glass at the children playing in the street. She'd recently gotten her mothers' money, and they both had good jobs, so the baby would not be a financial hardship. And, she supposed, she was happy. Kevin was a good husband, and she loved him.
But ... But sometimes she wondered what her life would have been like if Dion had lived, if she had married him and was now carrying his baby.
She loved Kevin.
But she'd trade him for Dion in a second.
Why couldn't it have been the other way around?
Downstairs, she heard the front door open, heard Kevin toss the mail onto the hall tree. 'I'm home!' he announced.
'Up here!' she called.
She waited for him, smiled as he entered the room. He hurried across the carpet toward her. 'How are you today?' he asked.
She shrugged. 'Fine.'
He sat down on the window seat next to her, untied his tie. He looked at the box of sesame-cheese crackers and the empty container of yogurt by her feet. 'Cravings again?'
She laughed. 'Yeah.'
He put a hand on her distended stomach. 'Is there anything else I can get you? Pickles and ice cream? Anchovies and orange juice?'
She started to say something, then looked away, shaking her head. 'No.'
'Come on.'
END.
