The feather I leave untouched for now, fearing the many ways its softness could unmake me.
The following day, or however time is measured in this palace of perpetual light, Helene walks me through the motions, letting me wear my cloak as promised. Both my key and knife are back in my possession, yet I know using them won’t do me any good.
We visit the pool and bathe again, next to more skeletons that giggle and gossip and pin their curls into elaborate designs. They all seem drawn to my cloak, to its vivid colour, but Helene distracts them or discourages them from touching it. I notice how they listen to her.
I try not to notice the gleaming bones, the empty sockets underneath, the rows of ribs emerging in the water as the girls swim.
And thankfully, this time, Shepherd does not show up.
I force myself to surrender to my circumstances. I even let the women pin my hair up, croon about its lovely claret colour, congratulating me on how pretty it looks, how wise our Goddess was in her decision to bestow this changeupon me. I hear the desperation underneath their words, and I remember Shepherd’s warning vision, and I don’t stab them.
I just nod, and allow Helene to shepherd me around, from the bathing chamber to the dining hall where food and drinks are overflowing, passing through a gymnasium.
Two men emerge from the sparring room to the right, filled with blunt-edged weapons. Their torsos well oiled and their muscles well defined, they slow down to greet us. Their eyes trace the contour of our bodies, from head to toe. I trace the contour of their spines, so easily accessible underneath their cloud of flesh, their slimy pretence of humanity.
‘Smile, dear sister,’ Helene implores me between gritted teeth.
I think about grabbing those spines with one hand, my knife with the other.
Instead, I carve a toothy grin across my lips that makes them hastily retreat.
‘Not like that,’ Helene whispers after the men leave.
‘Like what?’ I ask, my face a mask of innocence. ‘You told me to smile, I smiled.’
‘Not like you’re planning to exsanguinate us all.’ Huffing, Helene takes me to the dining hall, insisting that we eat and drink. I swallow the fresh shock at the sight, and silently thank her for not subjecting me to this ordeal the previous day. I wouldn’t have been able to withstand it.
This must be what Tantalos felt like. I’m sitting on a long bench, in front of a table piled so high with food and drinks that I can hear the wood grain groan, straining under this weight … yet all I see or smell is ash. A rowof skeletons, naked teeth clucking, bare knuckles clutching spoons and knives, devouring ashes. Black, billowing smoke rises from some platters, bringing to mind the shadow furies, as they call them. Yet people willingly partake, even Helene, filling their plates with this tenebrous terror.
‘Aren’t you hungry, sister?’ she scolds me from across the table.
My mind flashes to my last meal: that stew the Moirai stirred for us, on the beach that stretched forever. It can’t have been more than a week ago – yet like that beach, time has unspooled, its past threads drifting further from me despite all my efforts to keep up. By all accounts, I should be ravenous.
By all accounts, I should be dead.
And what’s the old adage about consuming food in Hades’ kingdom? Maybe the rules are not that different here. Maybe that’s how Shepherd binds them all to her, keeping them in a state of in-between. Maybe I’ll also turn skeletal if I eat this. Yet what is there to fight for, now that both my escape and Anassa have been taken from me? I allow Helene to serve me, thank her, and dip my hand into my plate, scooping the smallest bite.
‘It helps if you don’t look at it so closely,’ she whispers, reminding me once more that she sees more than I give her credit for. That if she can do this, so can I.
I nod. Closing my eyes, I bring the ashy slop into my mouth. It tastes as foul as I expected; like licking the insides of a bowl of offerings, when all the flesh has burned to high heavens leaving only char behind. I force myself to swallow.
When I open my eyes, the skeletons wear once moretheir mirage of flesh; the ash dons the mirage of food. Yet the taste of death still lingers, and with it lingers my distrust.
I’m trying to find the strength to take another bite when a blond man approaches. Tall – and built like the cyclopean walls of my old palace. What is it with these blond, blue-eyed giants everywhere? Does Shepherd force them all to dye their manes, to wash away the earthy browns of their eyes? Does she stretch them in Procrustes’ bed?
This isn’t how the humans in my world looked, of that I’m certain.
The fair-haired oaf sits on the table with such wild abandon, my plate rattles. ‘I hear you’re our new arrival. I’ve come to introduce myself. I’m Hercules; you may have heard of me.’ One hairy calf lands on the bench, close enough to nudge my thigh.
It would be so easy, in that moment, to slice my knife across it; sever tendon or bone. But my sister sees me from across the table. My murderous intent must have been obvious in my movements, because she gives the smallest shake of her head.No slicing. Fine.
‘Hercules …’ I say, dragging out the word, familiar and yet foreign. Everyone back home knew of Herakles, son of Zeus and Alkmene, famed for his brutish strength and cunning mind. A wild boar, they called him. A lion dressed in man’s skin. Agamemnon salivated at the thought of being as renowned as him one day. Yet this imperious idiot courting me now rather resembles a rhinoceros; bulky but meek, too preoccupied with mud baths to attack first.
‘No,’ I conclude. ‘I haven’t heard of you.’
This cuts him deeper than my knife could ever manage. Aconite eyes narrow, blond eyebrows knit closer. Hetightens his fist, presumably to woo me with his bulging muscles. I’ve met wet rugs that held my interest for longer. Bored by this display of manliness, I allow my eyes to wander – until I catch a mask of gold, its silent stare accusing me. The Agamemnon-wraith unspools from the wall behind the table, shadows unfurling, crackling with menace. The wheezing sound is back, too, but very few people seem to notice, to react.
Strangely, my blond companion does, his eyes going from me to the wall. ‘That’s new,’ he chuckles, grabbing a bone from a platter, supposedly wrapped in meat and fat. He chews loudly, mouth open, considering. ‘This shadow fury yours?’
