Around them, cicadas and song thrushes filled the silence until, finally releasing the air she held in her lungs, Aretaphila sighed.
‘This may not be the punishment you believe it to be, Thales. Many are lucky. I was lucky. My kin were lucky. You cannot hold back all our girls because of your sister’s fate.’
‘I do not. Only Medusa.’ Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Thales groaned. ‘Oh, to be burdened with daughters,’ he said. ‘I would have drowned them at birth had I known the torment it would cause me.’
Aretaphila twisted sharply.
‘You would not,’ she said tersely.
Thales laughed sadly. ‘Of course, I would not. I could not have sent her to a riverbed then, any more than I can send her to the wolves now. That is my folly. You say you were lucky in this marriage? A better husband would not be tormented by such trivial a matter.’
Aretaphila rested her hand upon her husband’s arm.
‘This is not a trivial matter, and your concern shows your heart. But they are not all wolves, Thales. They are not all wolves.’
Thales moved towards the road where the wind had already erased the hoof prints in the sand.
‘You are wrong, my love. I wish it were not so, but you are. They lick their lips when they see her. These are not men. They are snakes, serpents trying to find the freshest eggs. And when they do find them, they crack them open, devour their insides, and leave nothing more than hollow shells. I feel it in my bones. In every breath. Every time my eyes fall upon her. Myrtis was a full year older than Medusa, with only half her beauty. My sister’s fate will not become my daughter’s.’
‘Then what, Thales? What would you have us do?’
The journey was long; four days on foot and with little rain to combat the sweltering heat and even less shade to protect them from the searing sun. They travelled alone, the pair of them, and, although money was not scarce, they slept under a blanket of only trees and stars. For the first day, despite her father’s attempts at conversation, Medusa did not speak, for her heart was raw. Broken by the farewell to her sisters.
‘But you will come back soon, won’t you?’ Stheno, the younger of her two siblings, had clung to her legs. ‘Because my cartwheeling will be even better then. You will have to watch me. You will come back and watch me, won’t you?’ Medusa fought back the tears that blurred her sight.
‘You still have me,’ Euryale, the middle child, consoled her younger sister, saving Medusa the discomfort of choking on her words. ‘I will watch your cartwheeling.’
‘But you are not as good as Medusa,’ Stheno protested.
‘No,’ Euryale agreed. ‘But I am still better than you.’ She ruffled Stheno’s hair until laughter broke in the air.
‘Thank you,’ Medusa whispered.
For the entirety of her life, the seven years between Euryale and Medusa had felt like a full generation and more. The childish ways of her sister – squealing at mice, storming off in tantrums – had led Medusa to believe she would be happier with a full village between them. So many times, Medusa recalled, she had cut their exchanges short, bored by the juvenile content, or else stayed, but grown impatient as she considered the more worthwhile ways in which she could have been spending her time. Now, how she longed to have all those moments back. All the minutes that she had cast her sister aside to water plants or help in the kitchen or simply be by herself and away from the loquaciousness of her younger sibling. How much would they amount to? she wondered. All those minutes. A few hours? She knew in an instant that the estimate was too low. A day then perhaps. A week even. A full extra week she could have spent with her sister.
‘You never know.’ Euryale had taken Medusa’s hand and clasped it in her own. ‘Maybe the Goddess will wish for us to come and join you too. Maybe the three of us will be there together in her temple one day.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Or, perhaps, she will think you are too beautiful to stay there and send you back to us with the riches of a king.’
‘I am not sure she would send me back and give me wealth.’
‘We shall see,’ Euryale said, and she embraced her sister.
As Medusa continued to walk beside her father, she tried to recall in her mind every one of those discarded memories. ‘Forgive me, sister,’ she whispered to the wind as she walked. ‘Forgive me.’
Chapter 2
From the outside, the temple appeared empty. The pillars, wider than trunks of oak trees and twice as tall, cast shadows on the marble steps, while the subtle scents of rosemary and honeysuckle eddied in the breeze.
‘I will wait here for you,’ Thales said, planting his bag down on the earth before taking a seat beside it.
‘You will not come in with me?’
‘I cannot my child. No man may enter the temple of Athena. But I will wait for you here to learn your fate’.
Medusa ascended the steps to the temple.
Inside was cavernous. Hundreds of candles lit the walls. Shuddering, Medusa made her way towards them.
‘You do not shake in fear, I hope?’ A voice spoke from within the shadows. A woman’s voice.
Medusa stopped walking. ‘Perhaps just a little.’
The woman’s laughter echoed in the chamber, sonorous and resonant, like the ringing of a crystal glass. ‘Hopefully, we shall soon put that to rest.’
It was as though she created the light. For when she stepped out of the shadows, the shadows themselves disappeared.
‘My Goddess.’ Medusa fell to her knees, the hard clash with the stone stinging her skin. ‘Forgive me.’
Athena shook her head. Her eyes were reminiscent of the polished marble, a glittering grey, contemplative. Hundreds of thousands of thoughts swirled behind them. The pale skin of her bare arms glinted, as did the dagger, sheathed
