Page 4 of Mestra

No, no, he said. No. It’s nothing. It’s just fish. Can I take you home?

No, no, I said. No. It’s nothing.

I hurried away and gave the fish to my father. Then I went and washed the blood from my face, and changed my torn dress.

The memory made my stomach burn, and my cheeks too. It felt as though my clothes had been stripped. I did not want to know that man was someone. I wanted him only to be me.

In the city, my father left me on the steps of the temple to Poseidon. Stay here, he said. And watch for girls you can turn into.

The morning air was cool, and my cousin’s blood had always been thin. I used to have to rub her arms after swimming, even in the sun. I rubbed them now, and wished I had my cloak. No women passed. He should have left me at one of the goddesses’ temples, but of course, he had swung around the square to avoid them. Once, in the early days of his misery, I had asked him if he would ever think to ask Demeter for forgiveness. He’d gripped my arm and dragged me close. “I have done nothing that needs forgiveness. Do not speak of it again.”

So I hadn’t. But I still remembered it, how at first it had been a joke, about needing a larger dining hall to host the kings of Persia, but as the days passed he’d begun to press his advisors. I want it, he said. I mean to have it. The advisors whispered amongst themselves, then shook their heads. They had investigated the matter, but there were no trees left to build with. They had all been cut for the last improvements.

Of course there are trees, my father told them, there are plenty down in the grove.

It was not right to call it a grove. A grove was small and sweet. This was a great stand of dark pines, and black poplars, and ancient oaks, sacred to the goddess Demeter. The trees were so thick you could stand below them in a storm and not get wet. My cousin and I had gone in spring a few times, to leave garlands on the branches. But my father had been angry and made us stop. Peasant superstition.

“Girl! Arete!” My father was snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Wake up!”

He’d been calling me. It was my cousin’s name, that’s why I hadn’t noticed. A large man stood beside him, watching me. There were bloodstains on his clothing, and I could smell raw meat. Maybe that was why my father had picked him.

“She’ll breed?” he said.

“Her mother did. Six boys.”

My mother had died bearing only me. But I was my cousin now, or whatever girl would get my father the most money.

The man grunted. “Open your mouth,” he said.

I thought he meant I should greet him. “Good morning,” I said. But he wanted to look at my teeth. He gripped my jaw, and tilted my head, to catch the light. His eyes were very small, and his nose fleshy.

It is strange to say, but I was not afraid. He seemed so dull to me. The man I was was a hundred times better than him, I thought. Except then I remembered that I did not want to be that man anymore.

He gave my father a bag of coins, and led me to his dark house. It was filled with crumbs and flies and the stench of a fouled chamber pot.

“I have to go back and work,” he said. “Clean up while I’m gone.”

He snapped his fingers, and a dog lurched up from the shadows to guard the door. The man smirked at me and left.

The dog was black, with a white stripe down its nose, and sharp upright ears. It made a noise as it watched me, low in its throat. What sort of man would train a dog to keep someone in the house? If I had been myself, I would have been weeping for fear. But I was my cousin, who had always been good with dogs, and after another shiver, I was the butcher himself. The dog stared at me. Well come on, I said, and snapped my fingers just as he had. Move it.

The creature rose and lumbered back to its corner, and I slipped out the door, grinning. My father had said I must not let anyone see me change, so I stepped into the first alley I could find and shook off the butcher’s skin, and became our cook again. My father was seated near the marketplace, sucking on his fingers and smelling of grease. I wished I could ask him what he’d eaten, so I could imagine him enjoying it. But that would only torment him, now that it was gone.

“I got away, just as you said.”

“Good,” he said. “You used the god’s gift well.”

It had been so long since my father had praised me. In the old days, he used to call me over at feasts, and dare some king to list out his ancestors. He’d laugh when I recited them all back perfect. I warned you, he’d say, as they handed over their gold. And I’d stood beside him, feeling like gold myself, cheeks polished and shining.

He sold me next to the youngest son of a minor lord, who paid in silver. The man was gangly, with a wide mouth. All the way back to his house, his fingers gripped at my waist, and he whispered in my ear what he wanted to do to me. Thankfully, he also wanted me washed first, because he was afraid of getting some rustic disease. I followed a servant to the courtyard fountain, waited for him to leave, and then became him. The way out passed the kitchen. I hesitated, then grabbed a few loaves of bread for my father.

My father ate them, and sold me once more as the cook. The next day he sold me twice as the Queen of Mycenae, and twice as the nurse’s daughter. I liked being both of them, one graceful, one filled with buoyant life. I liked being my cousin best of all. I would hold my own hand, and imagine she was really there. The men often pinched at me, and grabbed me beneath my dress, but it was not me they grabbed, I reminded myself. Their slobber and handprints could not stick. When I changed, we were wiped clean.

My father sold me five times in a single day, then six times the next. I was worried he might be recognized as himself, but he never was. The city was large, and sat on the sea; there were always new ships in. Most people went their whole lives without ever meeting their lord. And my father never sold me in the same place twice. He took us from marketplace to marketplace, from tavern to harbor. He was as skilled at bargaining as he had been at hosting kings. This is your chance, at that price she’ll be gone by noon. They never wanted to miss their chance. I thought surely even a large city would eventually run out of men with money to pay for a girl, but it didn’t. Three silver pieces was enough for roasted eggs and a basket of breads and cheese. Ten silver pieces was two huge haunches of beef. It was a feast compared to what we’d had these last months. I watched him eat, pleased with myself.

“Is it good?” I asked.

The crumbs fell over his long cloak. The clothing was too warm for midday, but he had to wear it so he wouldn’t frighten away buyers with how thin he was. Soon he would not need it, I hoped. If we could heap the food high enough, the curse would groan and break beneath its weight.