The whisper stops.
Perhaps I frightened her. The voice sounded feminine, fragile. Like a little bird chirping for the spring, while winter claims its softly feathered life. Hungry for some companionship that’s not Shepherd or a screeching portent of shadows, I push deeper into the rows of roses.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ I add. Not unless it serves me in some way.
Thorny branches catch my skin, inscribing welts and scratches, but I don’t mind. I welcome this pain, this proof that I can bleed and bend and change. ThatMacbethmanuscript is incomplete; it captures just the start of my life’s story –as ’tis thought– not all of it. Every unsanctioned drop of blood upon these alabaster petals serves as proof. I matter. I am here.
And so is she.
24. Claret
‘Stay very calm, and this will all unfold favourably. No one has to get hurt.’ The voice comes from the skeleton, its jaw opening obscenely, forming the shapes of words that should have no tongue to hold them. Yet it speaks, and takes a step closer, bowl sloshing. Its bloody contents stain her long, elegant fingers with red drops.
… Elegant fingers?
I blink and I no longer see a skeleton – only a woman with a face whose every ounce of skin is as familiar as my own, a face I haven’t gazed upon for more than ten years, even before this Moirai-sanctioned madness started. ‘Sister?’ I whisper.
Helene smiles and, for a second, I get a glimpse of gleaming skull behind her smile, of yellow bone and empty sockets under sky-coloured orbs. It fades fast, making me wonder if perhaps I hit my head earlier, when Shepherd attacked me. If I’m imagining it all.
My estranged sister and my murdered husband, both holding me prisoner.
I look back to the mask-wearing Agamemnon, who has retreated to the side of the room, its shadowy form half-melting in the wall. If this is indeed my husband’s ghost. It carries nothing of his pompousness, besides the gold.
Agamemnon never met a battle he would willingly retreat from.
Helene coughs softly, as if urging me to focus on her. ‘You woke up earlier than expected. I see you had enough time to make a mess. Ever since we were children you’ve been the wild one …’ Her gaze drifts to the discarded basin on the floor, its waters spilled in my attempt to make space to escape. She frowns. Perfect lips purse in a rose-coloured pout, and she looks so much like the sister of my childhood in that moment, that I’m grateful for my bondage and my burden. If I wasn’t tied to this infernal chair I’d probably collapse into a chaos of confusion on the floor – or try to hug her. And I’d be playing right into Shepherd’s hands.
Because the same way this shadow’s not my husband, this haughty cypress cannot be my sister. So tall and thin and pale, her skin more similar to Anassa’s than mine, her eyes an almost Trojan blue. Her nose is smaller, smooth and upturned. She looks like what a recollection of my sister would look like, after her tale had been spun across hundreds of mouths, becoming more elongated and exotic with each telling; a statue that has lost its colour to the ages, an empty peplos floating in the wind. Even her wheat-blonde hair is lighter, tamed, barely a curl in sight. Our mother would probably shake her head with dismay.
But if I played the part of doting wife for ten long years, waiting for Agamemnon to return, I can endure this farce for now, with both of them, until an opportunity arises. Until my knife can find a throat to slice, a spine to sever.
‘Where are we, sister?’ I say, my eyes all big and round, just like when we were little and I was trying to convince Helene that the latest mischief we were caught in wasn’tmy idea. That I was a helpless, guileless girl and she should take responsibility for both of us – Helene was the pretty one, after all. All through our lives, her beauty was her greatest saving grace … and her greatest downfall. ‘Nothing makes sense besides your face,’ I add, which seems to please her.
‘Don’t you worry now,’ she says, urging me to backtrack with my chair in tow, until I’m once more at the centre of the room. I manage, my eyes straying to the mask-wearing wraith only once. It hasn’t moved. ‘If we work fast we can still salvage your hair before the pigment dries,’ Helene adds.
‘Salvage … my hair?’ Of all the things that need salvation … I stare at the bowl she holds again, this time letting my nose take the reins. An earthy, nutty smell. Not blood – I’ve learned to tell that smell apart by now – but liquid pigment, bonded with walnut oil.
I lean back carefully, until my chair touches the floor once more. The sound causes the wraith to turn my way, facing me with those empty golden eyes. But it does not speak, or approach. I lick my lips, trying to string madness into syllables, play along in a game I can’t discern. ‘Ah, sister. I see. Are you dyeing my hair? This is not my usual hue.’
I mean to hide the challenge in my voice. My sister, my real sister, would know I’ve had my chestnut locks dyed an ochre yellow since we were babes, when our mother asked our nursemaids to do something that would make us look alike, so that we both could stand out.
Both Leda’s special, godlike girls.
This husk of Helene tuts, urging me to stay still. ‘The Goddess picked this hue for you. She said it fits you better;that it depicts your fiery personality.’ Her smile is thin, restrained, showing teeth too pearly white to fit the skull I’ve glimpsed before. Her hands shake as she dips them in the pigment bowl, fingertips stained red as if she’s plucked them from a fresh-slain heart.
I squint, and her fingers look skeletal once more, all skin gone, all semblance of humanity dispensed with. I don’t know which version of my sister is more real – or more upsetting.
What I do know is that my Helene never was god-fearing. So there can only be one goddess capable of scaring her like that, having her do her bidding.Shepherd.I can still feel Shepherd’s leopard tail clutching my foot, her hands burning down on mine. If she’s decided I should have a new hair colour, so be it. I’ll wear this bloody hue with glee; this reminder that I’m still Anassa’s Claret, that Shepherd’s preconceived notions of my character will only serve to strengthen me. ‘Thank you, sister,’ I say, trying not to look too closely at her red-stained hands.
‘Of course! We take care of our own here, you’ll see. This isn’t like Mycenae, Troy or Sparta. It’s … so much better.’ She glances at Agamemnon’s gold-framed shadow, who retreats further into the wall – then she proceeds to take my coils and dip them into the remaining liquid. ‘We’re all united under Seshat’s brilliant light, thriving under her guidance.’
‘Seshat? I thought the Goddess’s name was Shepherd.’
‘Oh, but that’s only her title, you silly swan. She is our Shepherd; she makes sure we’re safe and … sane, until it’s time to be released into a new story. Until our door unlocks.’
Another glance at the wraith. This time the movementmakes her skin flicker, skin and hair giving way to spondyls, then reappearing.
I’m grateful to be shackled to this chair. I have so many questions, and my patience thins with every second; I would have wrung her neck ten times by now, skin or no skin, wraith or no wraith. I’d show her who’s the silly swan.
