Medusa’s chest grew tight and she struggled to breathe. What happened? The question rattled around her head. What had happened? Nothing within her control. Nothing she could go back and change. Thousands of minuscule ripples had formed on the sea of her life and become a great wave that crashed onto her shore, decimating everything she knew and loved.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I have been cursed, and that curse has killed them. I have killed them.’
A stifled cry met her ears. Even the cicadas outside had diminished their chorus, plunging her deeper into the darkness. With a forced hardening of her heart, she pulled her hand away from Euryale’s. To leave her sisters like this, orphaned and alone, would be monstrous. Still, she would rather that they remembered her as the monster who killed their parents and deserted them, than if she cursed them both too.
‘I must go,’ she whispered.
‘No!’ The hand grabbed her wrist through the curtain, the strength and action catching Medusa by surprise. The serpents writhed up in response.
‘I am sorry,’ Medusa said again, attempting to wrench her hand out from her sister’s grasp. ‘I am sorry. I will send for our uncle. He will look after you.’ The heat of the night rose around her. With her sister’s grip still firm, her own hands shook as she prised the slender fingers up from her wrist one by one. ‘I am sorry. I am sorry,’ she repeated as short, sharp fingers dug against her bones.
Stheno’s weeping had grown more audible. Staggering breaths wheezed and hissed, scraping the air like fingernails on stone. Each sob was another dagger in Medusa’s soul.
‘Please. I must go. I must go. You are not safe here with me.’ Finally freeing herself from Euryale’s grasp, Medusa’s eyes went again to the blade. Stretching down to the ground, she lifted it from the floor once more.
‘Whatever happened, you are not to blame. I heard what you told our mother and father,’ Euryale spoke slowly, clearly. Considered. ‘I heard every word. This is not on you. This is Athena’s doing. She should have offered you sanctuary. Defended your honour. I pray that she be cursed for all eternity for what she has done to this family.’
‘No,’ Medusa dropped the knife which stuck in the earth and stood tall at her feet. ‘Please, Euryale —’
‘She was meant to protect you. That was her job. That was why Father sent you there.’
Her voice was full of malice now. The same burning anger that Medusa herself had felt. She understood it. But she could not allow it. Her mind whirred and reeled, the world spinning beneath her feet. Still, Euryale continued her raving. ‘You went to her for protection. You served at her temple and prayed at her altar and, now, she has stolen our whole family —’
‘Please,’ Medusa was on her knees, eyes closed grappling through the curtain to take hold of her sister. Fishing blindly around, she caught her ankles. ‘The Goddess will hear you. She will hear what you are saying.’
‘Good. I want her to. I want her to hear what she has done to us. She deserves to see the pain her selfishness has inflicted. What evil, unjustified —’
The scream that stopped Euryale’s tirade was sharper than any Medusa had ever heard. It severed the night and sent the nesting birds flying and flapping into the sky.
‘Stheno!’ Medusa cried. Unable to think, Medusa pushed the curtain aside. Her baby sister lay writhing on the ground, clutching at her scalp as she wailed. A moment later and Euryale too was lying, screaming on the ground.
‘No, please, no!’ It was too late. The Goddess, as Medusa had learned, was always listening.
Chapter 12
The years had passed slowly. Slower perhaps for the burden of her company; now sisters in name only. Those first months had been the most treacherous. Fleeing the mainland, hidden under cloaks and shrouded by darkness, stealing what was needed, abandoning what wasn’t. There had been death, both accidental and necessary. A captain, on that first day all those years ago who refused them passage on his ship; Medusa had not considered any other options. She had simply lifted her gaze to the captain and informed an officer behind him that he was now the captain.
Later, on the same boat, an inebriated young man fancying the chance of a late-night encounter stumbled into the wrong cabin. Medusa had placed herself in the line of fate again. Better that the tally of lives lost to her rose than she risked what remained of her sisters’ humanity. After all, nothing could burden her more than the death of her parents.
For the first months, boarding one ship and then another, Stheno remained swallowed mostly in silence. The only sound she offered was her soft weeping, which grew louder at night and diminished as the sun began its ascent. Her younger sister’s body changed beyond the simple addition of snakes. Her spine began to curve, shoulder blades distending out at ungainly angles, causing pain when she moved and walked. Medusa stayed by her side every moment of the journey, offering words of scant comfort while Euryale continued to cast bitter tirades to the sky.
‘She will pay. She will pay for this.’ She constantly muttered through the night, an acerbic lullaby for those she slept with. The same disfigurations afflicted Euryale as Stheno; her spine curved as if an immense extra weight were pressing down on her back, although she showed no evidence of her pain. Not outwardly. It was one more thing to cast at the Goddess in anger. ‘She will pay for what she has done to us. I will see to it, one way or another. I will make her pay for everything she has done.’ One night, when Stheno was stricken with a fever, Euryale’s wrath bubbled out into the storm.
‘I will find a way. I will climb Olympus myself and bring a dagger to her
