Penelope tilted her head at me then, her clever eyes quietly assessing.
“Must divine power only manifest in women as beauty?”
I adored it when she asked me questions like this. It felt like she was gently prodding my brain, opening doors in my head I did not even know existed.
And Penelope askeda lotof questions.
Nobody, in all my life, had ever shown such an interest in me as she did. Penelope had a way of listening that made you feel like the most fascinating being to have ever existed. She would sit utterly motionless, yet her mind was never still; you could see it turning behind her eyes, examining each word I offered her as if it were a special artifact, slipping it carefully between all the other pieces of information she had collected. Penelope hoarded knowledge, I came to realize, and she had an incredible ability to remember everything.
“Knowledge is the only currency we women can afford,” sheexplained once.
It was one of the first things I loved about Penelope: her hunger to know more. Perhaps I also loved that she made me feel like my words were worth listening to, worth remembering.
“What do you like about me?” I asked her one night when we were lying in our beds, our words painting life into the shapeless dark.
As usual, Penelope took her time considering my question.
“I have always felt as if I were looking at the world from a distance,” she said eventually. “But it does not feel like that when I am with you.”
***
“I have something for you,” Penelope told me one morning.
We were lying on the cold stone floor of her chamber, our hands splayed over our stomachs. Though summer was fading away all too quickly, the days remained warm, the air choked with a lazy, clammy heat.
“What is it?” I propped myself up on my elbow, watching as Penelope got to her feet and padded across her room.
When she returned, something was draped between her hands, sky-blue swathes of fabric shimmering in the light.
“Your gown!” I sat up, grinning. “You finished it!”
Penelope held it out to me. “Here.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“It’s for you.”
“For me? But…it took you all summer to make that.”
“I know.”
“Are…are you sure?”
She laughed. “Of course I’m sure.”
“Don’t you want it?”
“I made it foryou, Melantho.” Penelope stepped closer. “Go on. Put it on.”
I eagerly tugged off my old, ugly tunic and tossed it aside. Penelopethen helped me into the gown. It was more material than I was used to, rippling down to my ankles and gathered at my shoulder with a pin Penelope fastened for me.
“There,” she said, stepping back. “What do you think?”
“I think…” I hesitated, trying to find the perfect words through the strange lump in my throat. “I think it’s the best thing in the whole entire world.”
I began twirling then, letting the gown swoosh around me in a wave of brilliant blue, so soft and light and beautiful. Penelope’s laughter twined with mine as I took her hands, spinning her with me, letting the world melt away into a dizzy blur.
“Thank you!” I cried out again and again as we spun.
