Psyche’s hand fell back to her side. I longed to take it in my own, but I could not move. I was afraid that she would vanish if I touched her, that this hard-won moment would be revealedas nothing more than an illusion. That I would drive Psyche away again and be alone forever.
Psyche looked away, colour rising to her cheeks. ‘I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon,’ she said. ‘I—’ She looked up for the first time, taking in her surroundings. ‘Where am I?’ she asked.
‘We are at Eleusis, in the house of Demeter,’ I said. ‘Psyche, you’re a goddess now,’ I added gently. It sounded absurd, as if I had saidPsyche, you’re a shoe now.
Psyche nodded, swallowing hard. ‘I see,’ she replied, her voice shaking. She looked down at herself, turning over her hands. Her skin glowed as though she had ingested a star, and her beauty was slightly sharper, but otherwise she was unchanged. And yet a goddess nonetheless.
She looked up at me. ‘I suppose that’s why my feet don’t hurt anymore.’
A bark of laughter escaped me. A little smile crept across Psyche’s face, and I began to allow myself to hope that she didn’t despise me after all.
‘Did you have a part in this?’ Psyche asked.
‘I did,’ I replied, wondering if she would lash out at me for making such a decision on her behalf.
‘Will I have to go live on Mount Olympus, now that I am a god?’ Psyche asked.
My heart drummed, but I kept my voice calm. ‘You may live on Olympus if you so desire,’ I told her. ‘But in truth … I hoped you’d come to live with me again.’
I realized I was trembling. An ancient god, shaking like a leaf. It would be comical if it was not so agonizing. Longing threatened to burst from me, but I held it tightly in check.
Psyche’s face fell, and my heart dropped with it. ‘Eros,’ she said slowly. ‘The house is a ruin. It fell to dust when you vanished.’
‘I know,’ I replied. ‘Gaia will make another. She seems fond of you, in her own way.’ I paused, waiting for her to accept my offer or refuse it.
Silence stretched between us. I tried to memorize every line of Psyche’s face in case I never saw it again.
‘I’m sorry I broke my word,’ Psyche said suddenly. ‘Bringing the lamp into the room, seeing you face-to-face. It was faithless and dishonest, but I had to know. When I learned I was pregnant, I had to know who my child’s father was. But why did you lie to me about who you really were?’ she continued, caught between anger and agony. ‘Why the falsehood about being some little god of the seaside cliffs? And why not tell me about the true nature of the curse?’
Regret needled me. I asked myself these same questions through the many long days and nights of my captivity. ‘At first, I thought you wouldn’t believe me, and that in your scepticism, you might do something foolish and endanger yourself. Later, I feared that if you knew who I was, you would … leave me.’ This thought still preoccupied me, but I tried to obscure the depths of my turmoil.
‘You can see how well that worked out,’ I added dryly.
A laugh escaped Psyche. I drank in the sight of her, shorn head and luminous brown eyes, her stubborn chin and her swanlike neck. All assured for eternity. For the first time I felt the beauty of immortality, that it might ensure the continued existence of someone I loved.
‘I am sorry too,’ I said. ‘That I lied, and that I left you alone.’
Psyche reached out a hand to touch me, running her fingers lightly over the contours of my face. That was how she had known me in the darkness, and that was how she truly recognized me now. I leaned into her touch, the hands of a princess roughened by a lifetime of fighting.
‘It really is you,’ she whispered, and I heard a joy in her voice that mirrored my own. ‘But Cupid – Eros … Aphrodite spoke of a curse. A love curse,’ she said, her words tumbling over one another. ‘Is it true? What if you don’t really love me, and it’s just the effects of the curse? And if you don’t really love me, if it’s just the curse making you think you’re in love, what does that mean about how I feel? Did I—’
I took her in my arms and stopped her words with a kiss.
I had longed for this more than food or drink or even freedom when I hung in Aphrodite’s clutches. Psyche kissed me back fervently, and I sensed I had my answer about where she would come to live. There were more discussions to be had, but at least we had made a start.
‘Psyche,’ I whispered, leaning my forehead against hers. ‘The curse disintegrated after you brought the lamp into the room. It is gone, and I am still here.’
The Greeks have three words for love, and that night we knew them all.
43
Psyche
A hero may be immortalized in song for a thousand years, but the greatness of a lover is a quieter thing. The most famous lovers are often unhappy, as Helen and Paris discovered to their grief.
Truly great lovers rarely make their way into the public eye. They are too busy with one another.
In time, our child was born. I was grateful for my divinity then, since it protected me from the worst of the pain and ensured my child’s life. Against all tradition Eros insisted on being present for the birth, holding my hand through the worst of it.
