On this occasion, she chose to rebuke me about the incident with Typhon, a hideous monster I had cursed to love her. ‘He hunted me for a month,’ she hissed, the silver bell sound of her voice ragged with fury. ‘The ugliest creature I’ve ever seen, as tall as a mountain with scales like a flounder, and he wouldn’t stop hounding me. He had me holed up in a cave in the hills while his feet shook the earth. “Aphrodite, where are you, my beloved?” I don’t know what I would have done if he had grabbed me with those crusty claws of his. I had to turn myself into a fish to escape. Such humiliation, all for your silly little jest.’
When Aphrodite was gone, my flayed nerves waited in agony for her return. I could not relax into sleep knowing that I might be so rudely startled out of it. Worse, I found myself desperate for the sound of another living voice. Even Aphrodite’s presence was better than the nothingness of being alone. Even the steady drip of her bile was better than silence.
Or at least, that was what I thought, until the day she told me about Psyche.
It may have been morning, or it may have been the darkest night. Time did not exist in this little room lit only by the glowing rectangle of the door’s outline. My head was lolling to my chest when a sharp voice like a poison-coated spear shocked me awake.
‘Do you miss your human wife?’ Aphrodite asked. ‘That little Psyche. I went looking for her after the curse split you apart, you know. I thought I might make her an offer, to take her as my handmaiden until she delivers my grandchild.’
‘No,’ was all I could manage, in a frog-like croak. I wanted to spit in Aphrodite’s face, but my tongue was a dry leaf in my mouth. She knew how to plunge the knife in and twist, torturing me with what I could not change.
‘At first all I saw was devastation,’ Aphrodite continued, her voice lapping at the shell of my ear. ‘That rock house of yours crumbled to ruins when the curse took you, and now nothing remains. I saw your little wife weeping, and then I saw her take matters into her own hands.’
Satisfaction twisted Aphrodite’s voice, and I knew that she was smiling. ‘She hung herself from the cliffs, a sheet tied around her neck. I suppose your deceit was too much to bear, the poor girl. Psyche is dead.’
I thought I was familiar with pain. The flaming sear of hot oil, the dull agony of joints pulled out of place, the howl of the curse. But this was a supernova of agony that eclipsed them all.
‘You lie!’ I surged against the chains, and a roar escaped my parched throat. I might not be able to break the forged metal, but perhaps in my rage I could fragment the rock they held me to. I heard the swish of Aphrodite’s feet as she backed hastily away from me, not expecting such a reaction.
‘Whether I lie or speak the truth, it does not matter,’ Aphrodite replied, maintaining her composure. ‘You will never see Psyche again.’
All around me was darkness. In my delirium, I embraced it.
I did not know whether I stood or swam or floated, which way was up or which down. I was adrift in inky blackness,velvet as a blanket. Details slid away from my desiccated mind like sand through an hourglass. I fell into the depths of my longing like a luckless labourer into the shafts of a salt mine. My mind had always been so quick to fix itself upon the changing world, but now, without Psyche, there was nothing.
I recalled the madness of Gaia: empty-eyed, staring, void of thought or feeling. How would I know if I went mad, if there was no one around to tell me?
Then again, perhaps madness was preferable to a world where Psyche was dead and our child gone before it had taken its first breath.
Nothingness, endless nothingness as I spun across the void. I withered with pain and hunger like a carcass under the desert sun.
When I could bear it no longer, I closed my eyes so that the nothingness was truly complete. In this darkness there were dreams and memories: flashes of images, appearing and disappearing like lightning on the underbelly of clouds. A stuttering of light and colour, before oblivion reigned once more.
I saw a house carved into a cliff, all of a piece with the mountain, its windows open to the sky. I could smell the scent of roses and the salt from the sea. I saw an eagle, silhouetted against the bright disk of the sun, gathering its wings close to its body and dropping like a spear.
I saw the face of a girl, haloed by black curls, staring at me in shock by the light of a lamp.
My heart broke upon itself like a crashing wave, throwing up a glittering swarm of needle-sharp diamonds that embedded themselves in my chest like arrowpoints. The sight of the girl pulled at fishhooks in my soul, and I plunged deeper into the realm of dreams, seeking her once more.
I passed through gardens and castles and the ruins of burnedcities, the dreams of a thousand gods and mortals. At last I found the girl, walking in a meadow scattered with wildflowers of blue and gold, cutting like an scythe through the grass. The wind whipped the shapeless garment she wore and blew the curls around her face. She paused to wipe the pearls of sweat from her brow; her delicate jaw was set in a fierce line.
This was not the Psyche of my rose-tinged memories, a mere image too perfect to be real. No, this was a living woman; I was seeing inside her dream. Sometimes minds attuned to each other can touch in sleep. Desire, after all, always finds its target. A mortal may walk in the dreams of a god, and vice versa. I knew this was one of those rare dreams, a gift of Oneiros that showed me the workings of another sleeping mind. This one was Psyche’s.
I almost laughed with delight. Psyche was alive! Alive and spending her nights dreaming of her goals. Now I saw Aphrodite’s lie for what it was. Of course Psyche would not have taken her own life. She would never admit defeat so easily.
I tried to call out to Psyche, but the dream shivered around me, shattering like a broken mirror. I found myself back in my body, imprisoned in the depths of Olympus.
A laugh began in the pit of my stomach and rang against the walls. I had found a way, however limited and imperfect, to escape Aphrodite’s clutches and see through her lies. Psyche was alive, and I held on to the memory of her face like a star. Somehow, I would find her again, if only in the world of dreams.
But my laughter faded as I realized the task before me. Even dreaming took effort now, strength I did not have. I wondered how long it would be until my divine powers went dormant and I entered an eternity of dreamless sleep, staring sightlessly into the dark.
26
Psyche
Several days later, the city of Tiryns came into view, and I gasped aloud in relief. The familiar sight soothed my heart. From my vantage among the mountains, the city looked like a fresco painted in miniature. I recognized those proud walls, the rounded roof of the royal palace. Everything else in my life had changed, but the city of Tiryns remained the same. My heart pounding, I began to run.
At last, I was among familiar forests and fields. Here was the clearing where I had sat with Atalanta on that first day of training. There was the high rock where Zephyrus had spirited me away to my new life with Eros. I was home at last, and soon I found myself running down the hills that dipped towards the plain.
