Eleni had just dipped a wooden spoon into the mixture when Danae heard the creak of the gate. She dived through the doorway and skidded into the yard.
Her father was running up the path, he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Behind him were her brothers. Alea was draped over their arms, her auburn curls cascading toward the dusty earth.
Her father caught Danae as she hurtled toward her siblings.
“Is she alive?”
“She is.” Her father held her back. “But we need to get her inside.”
“Alea!” Eleni rushed toward her brothers as they entered the yard and ushered them into the hut, cradling her sister’s lolling head. The boys gently laid Alea on the pallet where the sisters slept. She was pale as marble.
Her mother raised Alea’s eyelids. She did not respond.
“Where was she?” asked Eleni.
Her father sank into a chair. “One of the priestesses found her this morning at the feet of Demeter’s statue.”
Her mother drew in a sharp breath. She knelt by the pallet and took Alea’s hand in hers. “The goddess has returned her to us. She was pleased with the sacrifice and gave us our Alea back.”
Danae didn’t know how to feel. “When will she wake?”
Her father shook his head. “I don’t know, Danie.”
She caught her brothers sharing a look. Unease prickled her stomach, and she stared at Santos until his eyes met hers. She twitched her head and stepped out into the yard. A moment later he followed her.
“What are they not saying?”
He shifted his large feet in the dirt.
“Santos.”
“Pa told us not to say anything to you.”
Danae punched his arm. “Tell me. I’m her sister, I have a right to know.”
“All right.”Santos rubbed his bicep and glanced toward the hut. “Alea’s been drugged.”
Her frown deepened. “Why would...” The words turned to ash on her tongue at the sight of Santos’s eyes, awash with grief and fury.
Odell emerged from the hut looking as though he had aged a decade in the last three days, Calix following behind him. “Your mother needs some time alone with your sister.”
Before he could grab her, Danae darted around him.
She entered the hut to find her mother peering between her sister’s legs. Eleni looked up, her face stricken, and a stony weight settled in Danae’s chest.
There was an unspoken need to keep busy the next day. Calix and Santos had gone back to their families, her father had risen before dawn to fish and so Danae and her mother were left alone in the hut with the still sleeping Alea.
Eleni kept vigil by her sister’s side, endlessly mopping Alea’s brow with a damp cloth, Danae loitering behind her.
Her mother loosed a sharp sigh. “Make yourself useful—go to the riverbank and collect a bushel of Sideritis. The herb might help revive her—remember it’s the one with the little yellow flowers.”
Eager to help, Danae grabbed a hessian bag from its peg by the door, but before she’d stepped into the yard, her mother cried out. She turned to see Eleni bent over the pallet, arms wrapped around her sister.
Alea was awake.
Danae rushed forward and threw herself in a heap on top of them. They stayed entangled until Alea rasped, “I can’t breathe.”
“Fetch her some water, Danae,” her mother shouted.
