That guilt does it, in the end.
I snap out of my trance, reach the bed in a few brisksteps, and snatch the cloth from Helene’s hands. ‘I can take care of this,’ I bark at her.
Wisely, Helene retreats without a word. She seems relieved.
I lose myself in the work of washing Anassa’s face, cooling her temples, smoothing her brow. The scene is reminiscent of that night, on the black-pebbled beach, when her scar was fresh and our tentative alliance fresher still; the night I first saved her life. Yet now, she’s not passed out or confused. She doesn’t think I’m someone else as I use the cloth gently, lingering just above her lips. Smiling, awake, she lets me take care of her – as if she knows that this is what I need to do. My breath is an inferno as I trace the rosebud of her mouth, reaching her jaw, her long, pale neck that someone dared to circle with their fingers. My hand must be shaking, or the world is, because her hand finds mine, the barest cooling touch of blackened fingers on my wrist. ‘I’m fine,’ she says. The shaking stops.
I nod, tossing the cloth aside.
‘You need to get back.’ Helene’s voice comes from behind me – and though I’ve grown to tolerate her, I’m prepared to pulverize her skeleton.
‘Get back?’ I bark. ‘She only just got here!’
But my sister isn’t talking to Anassa, or to me. Her whole attention is concentrated on Ophelia’s shaking shoulders as gouts of water spill from her mouth. ‘I didn’t even know that you could do that,’ Helene marvels, as the girl who is a pond at heart starts rippling, liquifying. ‘That you could carry someone else with you.’
‘Doubt truth to be a liar,’ Ophelia manages, one last coherent sentence in between her drowning. I don’t know what she means by that. Not that it matters much; the girl is gone again.
To my immense relief, Anassa doesn’t vanish with her.
I turn my gaze back to the bed, where she is only half reclined, her torso up and propped against the wall. ‘I’m fine,’ she repeats. ‘It was a curious way to travel, but one grows quickly accustomed to a certain curiousness. Ophelia did well.’ Green, searching eyes land on Helene. ‘Who is your friend?’ she asks, and I can hear the implication.Can we trust her?
And I’m surprised at how swiftly I respond, how willingly I’m sharing. ‘This is my sister Helene. Twin, if you believe it. Our nursemaids used to joke that I had taken all the space within our mother’s belly, leaving Helene with no choice but to squeeze into a corner, coming out long and lank like a reed.’ Is this a chuckle that comes out of me?
What’s happening? Why do I babble like a nervous hen?
Helene’s hand lands on my shoulder, an anchor. ‘See, I was told a different story,’ she begins. ‘I was told that when Zeus impregnated our mother, a part of his divinity was left dormant in her belly, even after she gave birth to our brothers. That I was drawn to it and lapped it up, leaving none for my sister who had to rely on human fluids to grow. And that this meant I was supposed to guard her; take care of her. I did my best, for a while.’ Helene smiles, turning to Anassa. ‘If you know Klytemnestra, you know she is impossible to rein in.’
This is the most she’s ever spoken about me. In other circumstances, I would cherish it. But now … ‘We need to hide her,’ I tell Helene. ‘Before people – or worse – notice.’
‘People will have already noticed.’ Anassa’s voice is dry. ‘Let’s say my exit, while subtle and quite cunning if I do say so myself, was a memorable one. Much better than the one he wrote me, though certainly still ambiguous …’
‘What are you saying?’ She makes as little sense as Ophelia.
Did Shepherd do something to her mind?
‘Never mind that now.’ Anassa gets up awkwardly, like a fledgling learning to fly. ‘What matters is I have a plan. Look, I can get us out of here!’ She takes out her own key from her cloak, and I can hear Helene’s breath catching.
I don’t want to fight my sister. Not now. I grab my knife inside my cloak, just in case.
‘I used this already once,’ Anassa continues, clueless to the impending danger. ‘It took me to the Bard’s study; it gave me answers. Remember what Clotho told us about using them?’
Helene gasps at the mention of Clotho’s name. I ignore her. ‘She told us that we shouldn’t. Until we are prepared to save an innocent. As if such a thing as innocence exists.’
‘But that’s just the thing. I know exactly who I am supposed to save. And I know where to find her – more or less.’ Anassa’s eyes are filled with such enthusiasm it scares me.
If she knows how to use her key …
‘Did you come all this way to say goodbye, then?’ I spit. ‘You didn’t have to. I got your farewell gifts.’ I point to the petals on the floor.
Her gaze flickers. She hesitates. But then – the most preposterous laughter bubbles out of her. ‘You … you thought the rose and the feather meant goodbye?’ Two long, bird-like arms close around me before I have a chance to get my bearings. Anassa squeezes lightly, yet she might as well have been a boa grinding my bones to dust for all I’m able to resist or breathe. ‘Oh Claret,’ she whispers in my hair, my tense spine stretching at her voice likea cat who has found sunlight. ‘I was just trying to tell you I’m alive. That I’d find my way to you.’ She ends the hug, and I can get air in my lungs again. ‘I like your new hair, by the way,’ she adds. ‘It suits you, both the colour and the style. Now, shall we?’
I haven’t felt more lost in my whole life. ‘Shall we what?’
‘Get out of here, of course. See, this place I need to go is, to quote the Bard, “a bloody cesspool”. I won’t make it ten steps on my own, I don’t think.’ She reaches out a hand.
‘You need my knife,’ I say, as realization hits me.
‘I need your strength, your courage, your fierceness. I need the way you can give people one look and make them cower. And yes, your knife is also very sharp.’ She smiles.
