She arched a perfect eyebrow. “Cat years?”
Panic rapidly spread across my chest. My heart hammered so hard I thought it was going to burst out of my skin. My fingers flew to my pocket to finger the corner of my father’s note. Quoth must’ve sensed my distress because he scrambled to kneel beside my chair and take my hands in his.
“I can’t deal with this,” I said through gritted teeth as starbursts appeared in my vision. “I need answers, and she’s making fun of me.”
“I think she’s been taking lessons from Morrie.” Heathcliff leaned over the desk, steepling his fingers.
Quoth turned his eyes toward Grimalkin. His voice was gentle, but firm. “Please explain to us how all of this came to pass. Start at the beginning, while we ponder.”
“Very well.” Grimalkin crossed her legs, arching back over the desk and tilting her chin toward the ceiling. She indicated her lithe body. “As I have spoken, my name is Critheïs. I am a water nymph, and my territory was the river Meles, which ran by the great city of Smyrna in Asia Minor. I’m reliably informed by a history book Morrie glanced through one day that this land does not exist any longer, and that my river has long since been diverted, broken, and dried up, thus draining away its tremendous power. Even if I could be reunited with Meles, I would never regain my full powers.”
“How did you get separated from the river?” Quoth asked.
“Meles was more than just my land. He was my lover. Of our union was born my son, Homer. From the day I first bathed him in the cool waters of my lover, I knew Homer would be special. I took him to the oracle at Delphi, and he was given a prophecy that one day he would write a story that would echo across millennia. The gods, of course, heard of this prophecy and courted Homer’s favor, for they each wished to be presented in the best possible light in his tale.”
“This is bollocks—” Heathcliff started, but one glare from Grimalkin had him reeling. As a cat, she had mastered the glare.
“Even though he was only a young boy at the time he started writing, my Homer tried to accommodate all the gods’ demands, but their needs were fickle and their loyalties changing. The god Poseidon in particular thought he should be the hero of the story, for the seed of Homer’s father flowed eventually into his waters. The gods in-fighting turned violent, as it always did. They visited all manner of plagues and misfortunes upon the land in order to force Homer’s hand. I knew that if I didn’t act, my beloved son would be torn to pieces by the gods. His story would not be made of words, but of his own blood.
“Homer hid in a cave, but the gods found him. They are ever-watchful – there was nowhere in the world where Homer could hide. And so, to protect Homer from the wrath of the gods, I took him to the edge of Meles and bade him swim in the waters of his birth. As my son waded into the river, I worked a spell, asking Meles to carry him away to safety, to a place where the gods couldn’t reach him so he could write in peace. Meles sent him through time, to the age where the gods no longer existed save on the pages in storybooks. Wherever andwheneverthe waters of Meles flowed, my son would be able to use them to escape from his enemies.
“Homer circled through time, writing his poems and mingling with the great writers from every era. He came first to medieval England, led by a spring through which the waters of Meles flowed. The gods know why, but he found the oppressive cold of your drab country stimulating to his muse, and so here he stayed, building a small shop atop the Meles spring where he might craft stories and remain close to the written word even as his sight dwindled. As he finished chapters, he sent them back to me in bottles he floated down the river. I gave them to scribes to copy and spread throughout the ancient world.”
“But that’s a parad—” I started. Quoth shook his head at me, and I clamped my mouth shut.
Grimalkin gestured to the shop. “Here he stayed in relative bliss, frequently making trips through time in order to collect inspiration from the past and the future until his enemy caught up with him.”
“What enemy?” I demanded.
Grimalkin waved her hand as if that particular revelation was of no importance. “We’ll get to that. You and your mother have caused no end of trouble.”
“What’s Mum got to do with this?”
Grimalkin’s perfect nose twitched with disdain. “Helen. She was his muse. And his downfall.”
I got the feeling that Grimalkin – sorry, Critheïs – thoughtsheshould be his muse.
“My mum has nothing to do with any of this. He was the one who left us.Hebroke her heart—”
I stopped as Quoth’s head turned up to me, his eyes wide. “Helen,” he whispered.
“Yes. That’s her name, But I don’t see—”
“‘Was this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless tower of Ilium’,” Quoth quoted Marlowe in his rich, melodic voice. “Mina, your mother was Helen of Troy.”
“No, she wasn’t. She just inspired the character.” Grimalkin tipped her chin forward. “Isupplied the beauty portion of his imagining.”
Helen of Troy – the woman whose beauty started the Trojan war, the figure depicted countless times in medieval and Renaissance art, the muse Salvador Dali believed his wife Gala physically embodied – was modeled on mymother?
“Heathcliff,” I whispered. “I need a stiff drink. Now.”
“Got you covered.” Heathcliff yanked a drawer open, pulled out a bottle of Scotch, and poured me a tall glass. I accepted it and took a large gulp, barely feeling the burn as the alcohol slid down my throat. All the while, Grimalkin was still going on about my mum.
“—Homer first came to this modern age in his youth, full of idealism and erotic stirrings. He stayed longer than he should, scribbling illegal copies of documents from our time while your mother seduced him with promises of a life together.”
The counterfeiting.Mum had told me last month that my father made knock-off ancient texts to sell to collectors. Little did any of his buyers know they were actually purchasing from Homer the Bard.
“In his love, my son grew careless, desperate to produce more elaborate works in order to give Helen the riches she desired. Together, they contemplated life as parents, as owners of a vast criminal empire and a great fortune, even as the authorities closed in on him. And in his seed, you were given life, with the waters of Meles inside you. You have your father’s powers, Mina, and you also carry his curse.”
