Outside came the shrill squawks of the sea birds. The streaming patter of rain unremitting on the island. Normally, rain stemmed the flow of heroes, but these boats must have already sailed too far to contemplate turning back.
‘They grow weaker and weaker,’ Stheno prodded where the man’s legs would have been, now hidden in a skirt of stone. ‘Pathetic excuses for men.’
‘This one made it through the garden at least.’ Euryale cupped her hand around his cheek, tilting her head as she surveyed it.
‘Only because we allowed it.’ Stretching out her finger, Stheno carved a line in the stone with her nail where his heart used to be. The sound resonated off the walls around them. ‘When will they ever send us an actual hero? One that challenges us. Perhaps even manages to slit your throat.’
‘Mine? I think you would find it would be yours they would go for first. Even a bad predator can spot the weakling in the pack.’
‘Oh, how you wish, sister.’
Shrieks and wails erupted as the two Gorgon sisters grappled one another. Claws and fangs and scales flashed in the dim light of the cave. Each strike clattered louder and louder, shaking the small stones and gravel on the ground. The man was forgotten. In the struggle, his figure was struck on the torso with the flap of a wing. It wobbled, tipped, then fell and shattered around them.
‘Enough!’
The sisters shrank back into the shadows, forked tongues probing the air towards Medusa. Over the years, she had grown impervious to their hate. It was deserved. Had she fled the house like she knew she should have after her parents’ death, they would simply have been orphans. A hard life, yes, but a life. With a mortal span. A mortal end. Millennia had passed, yet the scars of her actions had still not faded.
‘Outside with you! I need peace.’ In this cave, if nowhere else, she had her dominion. Even so, her words were met by a chorus of hissing. ‘Did you not hear me? I said outside.’
She bared her own fangs, locking her gaze on Euryale’s red eyes. In the silence, eddies of dust swirled around her. Outside, the drumming of the rain intensified. Medusa willed her snakes to stay silent, for to hiss and attack would only rile her sister more.
When Euryale finally spoke to Stheno, it was as if Medusa were not even present. ‘Come, let us see what the day has brought,’ she said. ‘Perhaps Father has sent us a lost ship.’ Her eyes glinted. Medusa forced down the caustic sting of bile as it bit in her throat.
‘Perhaps he has sent us many,’ Stheno replied.
Father. They had taken to using the term for the God of the Sea as a source of mockery – Poseidon’s rape of Medusa somehow a source of comfort to them; maybe that she had at least suffered one indignity they had not. Over the years, their mockery, like their compassion, had faded and, now, when they spoke this name, it was in earnest. They praised him for what he brought them. For the heroes he guided to their shores for their entertainment. Try as she might, Medusa had no choice but to despise them for it.
With bitching words, the sisters fled outside, scraping their talons on the walls of the cave as they went. The sound of beating wings came as both a blessing and a curse. Often, they would disappear for days on end, sometimes weeks, months. One time, they were gone almost a full year, and when they returned, they spoke as if they had not even noticed her absence among them. After all, what was a year for those who have lived for millennia? Summers, winters, seasons were like the passing of a day.
She could have wished them away for eternity had it not been for the consequences that befell her in their absence.
Medusa did not mind being ostracised the way she once had. The company of her serpents, though wordless and writhing, was a greater comfort than her sisters could ever be now. But she missed them when they were gone. For without the two-winged Gorgons, it fell to Medusa to deal with the heroes.
For years, she tried to reason with them. To plead with the men who came armed with swords and daggers to end her life.
‘Please, go back. Go back now.’ She would hide in the shadows and call from a distance. ‘You can save yourself. Please go back.’
Often, they laughed. The arrogance of men did not allow them to take orders from a woman. Even one that was two thousand years old and capable of ending their lives. And end their lives she did, every time. She tried not to. For years she stood with her eyes closed, hoping that one would be swift enough to beat the jaws of her serpents before they sprang from their coils and pierced their fangs into her skin. Sometimes they struck the men too, but normally their fangs were aimed solely at their mistress. Neck, shoulders, the small patch of soft flesh that still remained behind her ears; they knew the exact position that would force her eyes to spring open on reflex. Every time, their ploy had worked, and every time, whoever her gaze landed upon was condemned to an eternity of stone. She tried with blindfolds, fashioned from the scraps of material that had snared on rocks as men retreated but, again, the serpents refused to allow it, tearing the cloth with their teeth until only fibres remained.
She would have tried death from the sea, like her sisters, but she knew that Poseidon would never grant her such a luxury. A fall from the cliffs, she suspected, would be saved by some miracle of the gods. She was, as she had always been, at their mercy.
So now, when her sisters left, she
