I convince myself he’ll be fine.
But we kept the door open for too long. A red ribbon of silk slithers towards his bed, proof that the chaos from Shepherd’s world is leaking into this one. I have half a mind to crush the snake-like thing with my heel, but reconsider. ‘Harmless bookmarks,’ he had called them, whatever that means. I decide to trust my friend’s judgement.
Maybe he can feed this harmless beastie a new story, in our absence.
I step back, letting Anassa shut Shakespeare’s door. The red curtain falls with a final flourish, then disappears. ‘Goodbye, Will,’ Anassa whispers.
47. Claret
As Shakespeare’s door disappears from sight, I turn around.
I already know what awaits us in this broken realm – or rather, what doesn’t. Shepherd is no longer pinned down by that rod; while we were gone she somehow freed herself, a trail of gold and black leading away from the remnants of that wretched garden.
The flowers on the floor have withered, petals yellow and brittle like papyri, like bone. Anassa sighs when she sees them, sadness mixed with relief in her features. I wish we had more time to reminisce, for her to tell me what this place meant to her.
‘That cat must be on her ninth life by now,’ Ophelia notes, studying the dots of gold and black. ‘I suppose we need to find her, don’t we?’
All of us nod, feeling the same unspoken urgency.
We follow the broad direction of Shepherd’s trail. It leads past that broken staircase, presumably to where my prison used to be. But the chasm in the staircase has become so big now, people are gathered on both sides, unsure how to cross over. ‘You two go first, we’ll find a way,’ Helene tells us.
I agree, not even knowing why, only letting this inner certainty guide me: that I’m the one who must find Shepherd, stop her for good.Now.
‘Is it all right to carry you?’ Anassa asks.
I nod, and black feathers cover everything. I could get used to this, this … weightlessness. Perhaps not everything has to be heavy all the time. But now is not for soft, wishful thinking. Now Anassa lands us on the other side of the chasm, and I turn around to cast one last glance at Helene and Ophelia.
My sister yells something to me, but her voice is lost in the furore of the crowd.
‘What?’ I yell back. ‘I can’t hear you!’
She shakes her head and points to me, to my chest. I don’t understand. And there’s no time to dawdle. Anassa’s already getting weird looks from the crowd, people hounding her to help them cross over after seeing her do that with me. A fight is bound to erupt soon. ‘I’m sorry,’ I yell at Helene. ‘I’ll find you later.’
Something tightens in my stomach, reacting to these words, but there’s no time to untangle this particular unease from all the rest – I have so many, writhing within me constantly like those red snakes.
‘Look!’ Anassa points to more swirls of gold and black, dotting the ground. We follow them away from the ruins of the staircase, carving a path towards the place that held me and Helene, and so many others, captive. The golden dots lead to the ruins of what used to be the dining hall. Sour saliva pools in my mouth as we approach. I don’t want to revisit that revolting place, where I once sat among skeletons, eating slops of ash, being courted by a buffoon, under the gaze of Agamemnon’s jealous ghost.
But even that was better than the room’s current state.
Because when we reach it, that blond buffoon is still here, lying on top of the half-collapsed long table,thrashing, screaming for help. And on top of him, amid ruined plates and food leftovers, sits Shepherd. Woman from the waist up, with a leopard’s spotted belly and strong feet keeping him down. Her tail wraps around his left wrist, paralysing him. I’m flooded with a liquid anger, boiling, about to spill. Buffoon or not, he doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him. What Shepherd’s doing to him. I’ve known the terror, the helplessness he now experiences as his body stops obeying him, as his screams go silent and his limbs go limp.
‘Don’t be afraid, dear Hercules,’ Shepherd hisses, words coming out of teeth entirely too feline. ‘Your sacrifice will save us all.’ Before I have the chance to act, throw something heavy at her, Shepherd’s claws dig into Hercules’s chest, cracking it open like a wishbone.
The sound stops me in my tracks, too terrible to even fathom. It reverberates within me, ribcage shaking, outrage setting the small hairs of my back on edge.
Anassa screams and it’s all I can do to hold her back with one hand, my other hand clutching the bundle of my cloak in my chest. It feels so warm, a pool of pulsing blood.
Shepherd’s snout elongates, entirely leopard now, those fig-coloured lips fading into a big black maw. She digs into that poor man’s chest, long tongue lapping blood from bones, lifting his heart like a prized morsel.
‘Don’t look,’ I instruct Anassa, yet all I can do is look. This death is not on me, I know that much. Why, then, can’t I shake the idea that I could have stopped this, that I was meant to –
Shepherd swallows Hercules’ heart, and her eyes flash gold. The mutilated corpse behind her desiccates faster than I can blink, skin turning grey and smoking. Anassagasps. I can hear the fluttering of birds, the crazy caw of ravens, but I don’t look away from Shepherd. Not when she seems to cough and spit something leathery and flat back into that torn open body. The leathery surface is familiar but my mind is a jumble of images – where have I seen this before?
I get my answer soon enough.
Hercules’ remains contract around that thing, ribs closing, losing their solidity, until the whole butchery of bones and blood bursts into flames. Shepherd steps back, rising on two legs, fully human once more.
And that bonfire of a body burns out, leaving a screaming shadow in its wake. A thing of black mist, crowned with a golden lion’s head. I shiver, the gold reminding me of Agamemnon.
