Entranced, she reached up and, as though offering her its fruit, the tree lowered a branch to meet her fingers.
She plucked one, perfect, golden apple and took a bite.
9
The Heart of a Tree
Danae woke in agony. It felt as though her body had been crushed under a quarry of rocks.
She was in the yard, and the midday sun loomed high above the hut. She tried to move her arms and couldn’t. It took her a moment to realize that they were tied around a post in the goat pen. There was a smell in the air that did not belong. Something sweet she recognized but could not place.
She had no idea how she’d got there. She could recall flashes of a strange dream, a tree with golden fruit. Her mouth tasted bitter. She had the distinct feeling she was forgetting something. She could feel the imprint of it in her bones. Why could she not remember?
She cast around and saw a bowl of water beside her. She lunged for it, suddenly gripped by a raging thirst. She cursed as she bashed the bowl with her forehead and water slopped onto the ground.
“Ma,” she rasped. But her mother did not come. “Ma?”
Still no answer.
She leaned over and dragged the bowl toward her with her teeth. Then she dunked her face into it, lapping like a dog. Her skull felt like a trampled egg. Why in Tartarus was she tied up?
Water dripping down her chin, she shouted, “Ma!”
This time, the hut door creaked open. Her mother lingered in the doorway, one hand on the frame, the other clutching the handle of a carving knife.
“Ma?”
Her mother took a step into the yard. The sweet smell intensified. Eleni wouldn’t meet Danae’s gaze. As she approached, she touched her forehead, tracing the all-seeing eye of the Twelve onto her skin. The knife trembled in her other hand.
“You’re scaring me.”
Her mother took a deep breath and lifted her gaze.
The look in her eyes chilled Danae to her core. Eleni was terrified. She was looking at Danae as though she wasn’t her daughter, but something monstrous.
“Don’t move.” Her mother’s hand tightened on the handle of the blade.
“I don’t understand...” Danae tugged at her bindings.
Tears tumbled down Eleni’s cheeks, and she turned away as though it caused her physical pain to look at her daughter.
Danae scoured the yard, and her eyes fell on the table, visible through the hut door. She suddenly realized what the smell was. Embalming oils.
A pair of mottled feet lay on the wood, protruding from a white winding cloth.
With earth-shattering clarity, everything came back to her.
“Alea,” she whimpered.
“Don’t say her name, kakodaimon,” her mother hissed.
Danae tore her gaze from her sister’s body. “What?”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve this.” Eleni’s mouth stretched into a soundless howl, snot-muddled tears dripping from her chin.
Danae’s pain-addled mind tried to fit the pieces together. It was as though she’d somehow stepped into a nightmare world that looked just like her own. Perhaps she’d died and gone to Tartarus, and this was her own personal torment.
“Ma...it’s me.” She could barely get the words out.
