Page 3 of Mestra

Wait, I wanted to say. That man isn’t a brute. But already it was done, my old thin wrists and dirty dress.

He tapped a finger on the table. “Try someone else.”

“What do you mean?”

“The strangeness of the power is significant. It’s a message from the god. Turn into someone else. A female. Any female.”

How was I going to do that? I had no idea. But my father was waiting so I thought of our old cook, whom I had known since I was a child. She had a narrow, freckled face and a strong back. She’d fled after my father ate ten dinners in a row and demanded more. It’s the vengeance of the goddess, she’d whispered to the groom. It has to be.

I felt her warm skin roll over me. I felt the apron skirt, tight around my waist, the way she liked it tied. My hands were hers, well-muscled from kneading, spattered with oil.

“Not bad,” my father said. “Do you sound like her?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. But I did.

“Good, good.” His eyes were bright, the way they used to be, before he was sick, when the storerooms were full of gold and silver. He had been the most powerful man in Thessaly, a king descended from gods. He held mighty feasts, and I would sit beside him and watch as lords came from all over to beg alliance and bring tribute, pouring their gifts into our treasury. My father laughed with his advisors, as they counted it all up. We’ll have to expand our dining hall. Next year I will invite the kings of Persia too.

He snapped his fingers. “Mestra. Stop dreaming. Another woman. Young this time.”

I thought of my cousin on my mother’s side, Arete. She was my age, with big grey eyes, and a sweet voice. We’d played together since we were babies. When my father first got sick, she’d tried to persuade me to come stay with them, but I couldn’t leave him alone.

The change was faster, barely a shiver.

“That’s too easy, you already look like her. Someone finer. The most beautiful woman you can think of.”

I thought of the Queen of Mycenae. She and her husband had attended one of those great feasts when I was a child. She’d brought me a gift, a silver cup with vines on it. She wore her hair bound in a gold hoop, and her dress was saffron-colored. To my childish eyes, she had looked like the goddess of dawn.

“Turn around. The likeness is good. And the clothes change too. Take the hoop out of your hair.”

I did, and it vanished in my hands.

He clicked his tongue. “Too bad. But she’s old. Make her your age.”

I tried to imagine it, but no shiver came, and my father frowned. “You’re not trying. Change her hair. Change the dress. Add more jewels.”

But I couldn’t, no matter how I squinted and shivered.

He made a sound of exasperation. “Then try someone else. Someone pretty. One of your friends.”

I didn’t know what friends he was thinking of. It had been two years since I’d seen any girl my age. Even my cousin couldn’t visit me anymore, her parents wouldn’t allow it. The only girl I could think of was my old nurse’s daughter. She’d come a few times to help her mother, when I was small. She’d had a loud laugh, and bright eyes.

“Not bad.” My father came close. “Does it go all the way through?”

“Through what?”

But he’d already taken my arm. He pressed his thumb into the plump flesh, and we watched it spring back. He ran his hand up to my shoulder, then down to my waist. He hadn’t touched me since his affliction began. His fingers seemed longer than they used to, and the knuckles stood out like the joints on spider legs.

He smiled. “It’s good, it will work. Get some sleep, we’ll start at dawn.”

“Start what?”

“Selling you,” he said. “For more, this time.”

The city was not far. When I was little we used to ride there in a golden chariot, but now of course we walked. I went as my cousin. I’d wanted to ask if I could go as the man, so I wouldn’t feel so tired, but my father was already angry with me. We’d been late leaving, because I had not been able to make my cousin plusher, nor her nose less snub, so as to raise her price.

“It is absurd how you persist in this dullness,” he said. “You can change into anyone you can imagine. Stop thinking of only people you know.”

But I couldn’t do it. And the understanding that I was turning into people I knew felt like a sickness in me. It meant I knew the man, and once I knew that, I realized who he was. After Poseidon had gone back to the sea, two fishermen had brought in a boat filled with their catch. They stared at my swollen face and scraped skin, and after a moment one of them came over. He gave me three fish and I had thanked him again and again.