‘I am aware that I am a strange choice for your escort into the land of the dead,’ Medusa continued. ‘Normally Hermes would serve as your psychopomp and escort you into the Underworld, but it seems you’ve offended his dear Aphrodite. So the queen sent me instead.’ She looked at me with her lip slightly curled, as though I was a latrine she had been ordered to empty. ‘I cannot say why Persephone taskedmewith fetching my murderer’s granddaughter, but here we are.’
‘Perseus wasn’t a murderer,’ I replied hotly. Even with my own corpse at my feet, I would not let such an insult stand. ‘He was a hero.’
Medusa was unimpressed. ‘Then why did he kill me when I was alone and pregnant in my own home?’
I was too startled to reply. This was not the story that my father had told me in the hero’s room so long ago. ‘You were a monster,’ I said, which seemed a strange thing to point out to the monster herself.
Medusa scoffed. ‘I was a nymph by birth, I’ll have you know. I was only transformed into a gorgon as punishment for someone else’s crime. Monstrous things have been done to me. Was it any surprise that I became a monster myself?’
I stared at her undulating mane. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
She sighed heavily. ‘When I was young, I used to bring offerings to Athena’s temple every morning at sunrise. One day Poseidon found me there alone and raped me.’
Medusa’s eyes were cold. She looked out over the mist-decked road of cypresses. The pain of this story had faded for her, leaving only bitterness, but for me it came as a shock.
‘Athena came upon me later that morning,’ she continued. ‘I had long been her worshipper and had asked her for manythings, but on that day I had only one request, whispered through cracked lips. “Let this never happen again.”
‘Athena nodded. We both knew that Poseidon wasn’t done with me yet. He liked to toy with his conquests, and I was too minor a goddess to oppose him. So Athena gave me a gift: the ability to turn mortals and gods to stone with a look. Poseidon left me alone after that. Though I soon discovered I was pregnant, I was safe. At least until mortal men seeking fame began to hunt me. Legends of a gorgon stirred would-be heroes into action. Perseus was only the last in an endless procession.’
I blinked in confusion. My grandfather Perseus was heralded as a protector, a guardian of the people. The portrait Medusa painted did not align with the stories my father or the blind poet had told me. ‘But heroes protect their people—’ I began.
‘What were those men protecting their people from? A tired old goddess who only wanted to raise her sons in peace? I would have left these so-called heroes alone if they had granted me the same privilege.’ Medusa added, voice dripping contempt. ‘And if heroes look to protect their people, why don’t they feed the hungry or warm the shivering? Hunger and cold are more common than gorgons, and far more deadly. No, “hero” is a title granted to the one with the most impressive kills to his name. I don’t see how a hero differs from a pig farmer. Both are butchers.’
I had no rebuttal. I loved my grandfather Perseus – or what I thought I had known of him – but I could not shy away from the truth I heard in Medusa’s words.
Finally, I said, ‘The Oracle of Delphi prophesied that I would become a hero. But when I met the Titan Prometheus, he told me that I would not be remembered as a great hero but a great lover.’
‘Good,’ Medusa replied. She looked at me appraisingly, asthough I might actually be worthy of her attention after all. Her hair writhed and flicked the air with its tongues. ‘Maybe there is something worthwhile in Perseus’s line after all. Better to be a lover than a dealer of death. Now come, you’ve wasted enough of my time already.’
The gorgon began to stride down the long road lined with cypresses. I trailed after her, even as I glanced over my shoulder at the forlorn shape of my mortal body. Understanding washed over me: I was dead, truly dead.
‘But now I’ll never be anything,’ I whispered, shifting my eyes down to my ghostly feet. I could see the packed earth of the road through them, an unnerving sight. ‘Lover or hero or even just a living woman. Do you know, I only got married a few days ago. It was an odd match, and the circumstances were odder still, but I think we might have come to truly care about each other. We never even got to consummate the marriage.’ Medusa’s honesty had quickened my own, and sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my mind.
The gorgon halted and stared at me in naked astonishment. ‘Here I stand at the boundaries of the Underworld with my murderer’s granddaughter,’ she said, ‘And she talks aboutconsummating her marriage?’
Laughter bubbled up from Medusa, and she threw back her head in a wild cackle. Once she had calmed herself, she added, ‘You’re bold, granddaughter of Perseus, and frank as well. If what you say is true, then you have my condolences. Lying with someone you love is one of life’s great delights.’
Now it was my turn to be astonished.
‘Don’t forget that I was a nymph before I was a gorgon,’ Medusa said, and I was startled to see her wink.
Before I could formulate a reply, a tremor passed through my body and the landscape rippled like a reflection in a troubledpool. Far away, the dark shapes of the hills and the towers of the white palace vanished into nothingness. As I watched, the long road and its cypresses began to roll up like a scroll, trees disappearing into the folds.
Medusa clicked her tongue. ‘It seems as though your soul isn’t ready to be separated from your body. I’d imagine that husband of yours has something to do with it, now that he’s realized his mistake sending you here empty-handed. No matter. Eventually you’ll come back here, and when you do, I will be waiting for the answer to my question.’ She met my eyes and for the first time I noticed their colour – brown like my father’s, brown like my own.
‘What is it that makes a true hero?’ Medusa finished.
The Underworld vanished, collapsing in on itself until nothing remained. The last things I saw were the glowing eyes of Medusa, like torches in the dark.
Eros
I paced uneasily across the rocky ground as the sun slid through the sky, still in my lion’s shape. Next to me, the rope uncoiled with the smoothness of water as it tracked Psyche’s pace in the Underworld.
I had been restless since the moment she made her descent, turning over my makeshift plan for gaps and flaws. Lethe water as a solution to the curse wasn’t foolproof, but it was the best of my limited options. And Psyche—
I froze, one paw suspended above the earth. I had been dogged by a sense of something forgotten ever since we departed theseaside house, nibbling mouselike at the back of my mind. Now I remembered: a gift for the dead, a token for the Underworld to ensure her safe passage back.
Suddenly the sinuously uncoiling rope went still. The fur on the nape of my neck lifted. Nothing could stop Psyche once she set her mind to a task.
