I sigh. ‘For what it’s worth, neither am I.’
‘I told you.’ She jabs a finger at me, its tip still black. Fighting that wraith has left its marks on her, and I’m not sure all marks can heal. ‘I told you we couldn’t trust these witches! Yet you suddenly saw fit to grovel; make us drink that horrid stew of theirs. It’s lucky we’re not poisoned. If these rocks grow legs and start attacking us, like the trees of Birnam Wood attacked my castle, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
I shake my head. Half of the time I don’t understand a lick of what this woman says. ‘At least we found the cave,’ I point out. Its entrance, right past our makeshift camp, looks even bigger in daylight, its gaping maw promising cool, blessed darkness. ‘We could retreat there tonight if we need shelter. Maybe there’s even fresh water to drink, if we’re lucky. And we can use these heavy cloaks as bedding.’
‘Those are all excellent suggestions,’ a mellifluous voice says from inside the cave. ‘There’s only one slight problem.’
An echo –problem, problem, problem– distorts the voice, but I still find it familiar.
A trilling laughter follows Clotho as she steps out of the cave.
11. Anassa
One of the witches steps out of the cave, cackling like a hyena who has spotted prey.
Part of me wants to turn around and run; part of me wants to gouge her eyes out. Neither part is helpful – especially with Claret gaping at the witch’s wart-infested face as if she’s gazing at the Lord’s eternal glory. Is this a glamour spell? Is she bewitching lesser minds, hiding the true hideousness of her appearance? And where are her sisters?
‘Your thoughts are very loud, Lady Macbeth. And very rude.’ The witch addresses me, using my name, and I am forced to gape at her as well. Suddenly, her wicked visage melts like candle wax, revealing a breathtaking countenance of youth – like night’s first shimmering star gracing the sunset sky. Her hair is luscious, dark brown and spilling to her waist in thick ringlets, her crown adorned with hyacinths and yarrow. And when she smiles at me, my knees go weak.
It’s possible Claret was right. Kneeling makes sense, when one is faced with radiance.
‘There, that’s better,’ the goddess croons. ‘Now sit down, both of you. We have much to discuss, and time is of the essence.’
Claret immediately obeys – and so do I. The goddess sits across from us, at the exact same spot she sat the nightbefore, only now there’s empty air to her left and right. Are her sisters also secretly divine? Have I been tricked before, to see them as disgusting hags?
The thought feels sacrilegious.
‘Sublime Spinner,’ Claret starts, ‘why did you bring us here? What is all this?’
The starry goddess smiles. ‘Look at you, Klytemnestra, daughter of Leda, mother of your killer. Look how much you’ve transformed already, and how much more you’ll transform still … So filled with thunder is your heart that it can blind you to your power – or it can guide you. How fares that knife of yours? Still sharp? Make sure to keep it by your side, always.’
Klytemnestra – no, she’s Claret to the bone, even if she doesn’t look like it at present – blanches. She grabs her knife hesitantly, nodding once as if her neck is stiff.
I push through my newfound urge to please this goddess, to be pliant. We need more answers, not half-sibyllic warnings and instructions. I take a deep breath, amping up my courage to address her. ‘Will there be danger, then? Is that why Claret needs to keep that knife close?’Not to slice my throat, like she keeps trying to do?I don’t say that last part out loud.
‘Danger, yes, always,’ the goddess says. ‘Danger and doom and death, but also victory. It might be hard to tell the four apart, from where you stand. An ant caught on a thread cannot discern the loom’s grander design – yet it can change the pattern with its presence.’
At these words, a wind rises, whipping at my hair, blocking out my sight. Everything fades to a familiar black, as if my inner world, the darkness that I’ve always felt coating my heart, has leaked outside. I don’t feel sinister or frightenedin it; I just feel … myself. A self who bristles at being called an ant, who knows I can be more, oh so much more, if only I embrace my nature fully. A voice whispers in this sudden darkness, the voice of countless ravens cawing in a chorus.Thunder met and thrice a threat, yours is the path of claret.Ah, I remember now, the little senseless rhyme the witches chanted in the woods back home. I can almost feel the birds’ beaks pecking at my spine, as if they mean to wake me up, hold me higher, help me soar. Then, as abruptly as they came, the ravens leave, the blackness dissipates, and I am back. At the cliffside beach, with Claret, and with that witch-turned-goddess who now smirks at me, satisfied. My head is spinning, but something tells me I must keep what I experienced a secret. Mine alone. Claret, for one, appears oblivious.
‘You’re calling us ants, Spinner,’ she says now, gaze locked on her knife. ‘I’m not suicidal enough to disagree. Yet let me point out, with respect, that you seem to have gone to considerable trouble to make our paths converge, to bring these two mereantstogether.’
‘Have you ever seen an ant nest, little thunderous one? When they work together, there is no ground they can’t erode, no structure safe from collapsing. And so, in this allegory I can see neither of you appreciates, there is no danger that the two of youtogethercannot face.’ She gives us a look as if we’re her most promising pupils and we can surely glean what she’s not telling us. Unfortunately, we do. As far as lessons go, this one is quite repetitive.
I didn’t even need this last reminder of ravens, to guess as much.
‘The holding of our hands … But why, O wise Spinner? Why did you make it so?’ Claret asks, before I can.Annoyance, incredulity and something else, some deep upset, lace her voice.
‘Call me Clotho, for now. It’s easier, and you two are experts in renaming things. What’s in a name, after all, but an intention to uncover one’s true essence?’
Claret and I steal a sideways glance at one another. Her gaze doesn’t cut, not exactly, but it feels damning. Laden with implications. She renamed me ‘Queen’; I renamed her ‘Blood’.
Clotho smiles. ‘I’m not scolding you. Bringing you together may have been my finest work yet – certainly the most rebellious. But why I did it shouldn’t matter. It’s done. You can still undo it, in due time, return to your separate worlds, your separate stories. Not quite yet,’ she interrupts me as I’m about to sayyes, let us do that. ‘Neither of you is ready at the moment. There is still more of you to cook, to coax, to bind, to burn. More than you can conceive.’
Her words contain a certain truth that’s hard to argue with, given the raven vision I just had. Claret bows her head – in acceptance or defeat, it’s hard to tell. ‘What happens now?’ she asks, her voice a low brewing storm. ‘Will you leave us at this beach until we’re … ready?’
‘Would that I could.’ Clotho’s face darkens. ‘Unfortunately, there are limits to what I can protect you from. TowhomI can protect you from. If you stay here, you will be found. The door is open still; they can smell an errant story worlds away.’ Her gaze turns upward, to the sky.
My heart starts beating faster, remembering where we fell from. ‘Who will find us?’
