In a heartbeat, the creature bolted for the door, Arius in its clutches. Danae staggered to her feet and raced after it. Half blind in the dark, she ran through the yard, following her nephew’s cries through the swinging gate. She barely heard her sister’s screams as she tore down to the beach. Stones cut her bare feet, but she didn’t slow. As her toes sank into sand, the moon emerged from behind a cloud, illuminating the earth in silver light. She scoured the sand, searching for the shade’s footprints. But there were none.
Frantically she ran back and forth, calling Arius’s name into the night. For a wild moment, she thought she heard the beating of wings. But both sky and land were empty.
Arius was gone.
When her family caught up with Danae on the beach and she told them what had happened, Alea collapsed onto the sand. The cry that tore from her sister cut her to the bone. After that, Alea would not move. Eventually, her parents had to carry her between them. Danae walked behind, like a specter, watching their bodies shake and strain in the moonlight.
Alea wept for days. The sound of her sobs accompanied the silence of their exhaustion. It was a painfully familiar sight, watching her father leave at first light to hunt for Arius. Odell searched the beach, the village and the surrounding land. This time, only Santos accompanied him. No one else was interested in wasting precious time on the bastard of a whore who danced with the Maenads.
Eventually, Alea stopped crying. Somehow that was worse.
Arius’s absence was like dust. Its particles drifted through the air, catching in the throat and scratching the eyes. There was not one corner of the hut, one crumb of bread, one breath of wind it did not smother.
Danae felt as though she were trapped in time, watching the grains of her life trickle past, one by one. At night, the walls edged toward her, and each morning she woke to find the hut smaller. She would lie awake in the darkness, watching the mud bricks out of the corner of her eye, but she could never catch them moving. Sometimes, she thought she could hear them whispering. Even the walls blamed her.
After three days of searching, her father came home.
“I’m sorry, Alea.” Her sister wouldn’t look at him. “We’ve done all we can.”
He picked up a jug of wine and took it into the yard. Danae could see his shoulders shaking with silent sobs through the doorway.
“You were right about the shade.” Her mother sat hunched over the table, staring at the wood grain. “I should have listened.”
Danae had longed to hear those words, but now she wished for all the world that the creature had been a figment of her imagination.
They waited for weeks, hoping in vain for a temple hand to come running to their door, panting that a baby had been left at the feet of Demeter’s statue, just like Alea had been. But as time trudged on, their hope stretched thinner and thinner until it vanished.
No one spoke of what Arius’s disappearance meant. They didn’t need to. Arius had joined the Missing and, unlike his mother, he would not come back.
She walked with purpose, guided by the ever-constant stars. The moonlight threaded silver through her hair, and the sea whispered; it was time to come home. Her feet carried her over dirt, over rocks and over pebbles, until finally, her toes melted into sand. She met the tide like an old friend and fell willingly into its embrace. Her dress billowed around her as she waded deeper and deeper, until the last glinting curl disappeared, and the surface was unbroken once more. The nymphs of the sea rose to greet her and teach her the dance of the deep. She twirled and spun as the ocean washed her clean of pain, until there was nothing left.
The dream lingered, like the smell of charred meat. Danae rolled over to find herself alone on the pallet. She propped herself onto her elbows and looked around the hut. Her sister wasn’t there. She rubbed her face and shrugged off the shiver that scuttled over her skin.
Padding quietly across the floor, she slipped on her sandals and stole outside. After an unfruitful sweep of the yard, she eased open the gate.
There were a few places Alea might go, but she knew where to look first.
She felt oddly calm as she jogged down to the beach. Dawn was creeping over the horizon, and the sea rippled like shards of broken glass in the cold light.
It didn’t take her long to spot the footprints meandering toward the shore. It was unlike Alea to go for an early-morning swim. She followed her sister’s tread. Then her eyes fell on a dark mass floating in the shallows.
Time slowed as she realized it was a body.
She pushed forward, the tide tugging at her legs. The body lay face down, gently rocked by the waves, a crown of seaweed tangled in its drifting curls. Blood thundering in her ears, she grasped it under the arms and dragged it onto the shore. Clear of the sea, she reached forward with shaking hands, earthquakes of panic rumbling through her as she pulled back the salt-soaked strands.
Her world imploded as she stared at the mottled skin and misted eyes of Alea.
She vomited onto the sand. She wanted to turn away, run forever and never stop. But she forced herself to look.
Her beautiful sister. Her best friend. Alea’s spirit had gone to the Underworld and left behind a sea-bloated corpse.
She screamed and fell onto her sister’s body, a tempest of rage and grief flaying her from the inside out. Then she felt a tugging sensation down her arms. She lifted her head and saw glowing threads of light seeping between her fingers. She jerked her hands away, but the shining ribbons continued to fan across Alea’s skin, until they lined the length of her ribs.
There was a crunch and a crack. She shuffled back as Alea’s tunic ripped, the skin beneath splitting, as her sister’s chest opened like the wings of a butterfly.
A green shoot sprang from Alea’s still heart. It twisted up, past the splayed fingers of bone toward the sky. Horrified, Danae lunged forward and desperately tried to smother it, but the tendril would not be stopped. It forced its way between her fingers and grew into a sapling, continuing upward and thickening until its trunk was wider than Alea’s body. Its twisted branches sprouted leaves, and in the space of a few moments, a tree loomed over her. Danae slumped back on her heels, her eyes wide as moons. Then buds opened into blossom and fruit grew, branches bowing with radiant, golden apples. They were brighter than the sun, so luminous they even eclipsed her pain.
Everything physical melted away. It felt as though she was suspended in a vat of liquid light and all that existed was her and the tree.
