Darkness Becomes Her

Seventeen

AFTER SEVERAL LONG MINUTES, SEBASTIAN TAPPED THE PESTLE against the rim of the mortar bowl, sending a minuscule shower of bone powder back into the bowl. “Hold out your hand.”

My nostrils flared. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My gaze locked onto Sebastian’s, his gray eyes deep and unreadable. A tick flexed his jaw. Just one, but I saw it. Then he reached out, grabbed my hand, and dumped the contents into my palm.

“It freaked me out too,” he said quietly. “But I’d do it again, if I needed to. It’s just bone. Dust. No taste at all. It’s like inhaling a pulverized rock.”

“Pulverized rock,” I repeated. Pulverized rock. I can handle that. I’m strong. Can handle anything. Yes, anything.

I trained my mind on the small quarter-size amount of powder in my cupped palm. Pulverized rock. I brought it closer, heart pounding against my rib cage, leaned down, and then inhaled.

It swept through my nasal passages and hit the back of my throat, grainy and. . like rock, as Sebastian said. It gagged me. Too dry against an already arid throat. I couldn’t swallow. It clumped together. My stomach gave a sickening wave, wanting to vomit, sending the signal to my throat just as my vision swam and a tingling sensation surged through my body, snaking under my skin like lightning.

The tomb tilted, rolling over like a carnival fun house.

The side of my face hit the floor. No, not the floor. Sebastian’s hand, which softened my landing and then gently slid out from under my cheek.

My eyes were fixed, my view on the long glow of the candle, which sat on the floor, Sebastian’s knee in one corner and the shadowed bone boxes in the darkness beyond.

I was frozen, completely paralyzed, but my mind kept rolling, kept circling slowly on the fun ride. My eyelids grew heavier and lower, finally able to close in a burst of white.

Bright flashes.

Bits of color. Glaring colors. Shimmering whites and vibrant blues.

The sun’s reflection blinking and beaming off the sea, beaming off smooth marble.

Broken voices.

Snapshots of a Greek temple, jutting up from the rocks by the sea. Beautiful, this place. So beautiful.

Inside those perfect columns, white hair flies out, waving like a flag in the breeze.

My chest tightens. Fear flows through my system, propelled by the realization of what is happening. That it feels as though it’s happening to me. The horror as the woman with the white hair jerks away from the large hand holding her arm. She loses her balance and trips as she flees inside the temple. She’s too scared to feel the pain of her fall on the hard, unforgiving mosaic tiles. She turns, scooting back on her bottom, desperate, as the large figure looms above her.

She knows.

He wants her, and there is no way to stop this.

His hand reaches down and slowly pulls the hem of her dress up over her thighs. There is nothing she can do, nothing at all as the figure above her speaks soothing, foreign words adorned with power, the kind of power that tells her to keep her eyes down and not look into his face. That would surely mean death.

My fists clench, my entire body goes rigid and numb.

A slow, furious scream builds in the deepest part of me, born of rage, injustice, and fear. It tears from my throat, ringing with desperation and denial.

From some small, dark place in my mind where I can still reason, I know what is happening to the woman. But I refuse to experience those emotions, so I brace myself against it, against the power of Alice Cromley’s clairvoyant bones, and fight hard, closing my mind to the emotions even as I see the flashes of the woman’s rape in my mind.

And then it’s over.

The woman on the floor curls up and weeps, her silvery hair spilling out in an arc on the colorful mosaic floor, her white gown bloodstained along the curve of her bottom, her body trembling.

My anger becomes hotter, taking on the anguish of the scene in my mind. My throat closes, and my eyes and cheeks are wet.

Another bright flash consumes the image.

A voice. A voice so familiar that it sends chills up my spine.

Athena.

I know the voice, though not the words. Those are like his. Foreign, but not hidden in false comfort. The images bounce quickly. And the words are brutal, condemning, and righteous. Disbelief slides into me like honey as I feel the woman’s shock and a deep sense of foreboding. The goddess is blaming her for the rape in the temple, for defiling Athena’s sacred place.

The woman pushes herself to her feet, sore, confused, heartbroken to be forsaken by the goddess she has worshipped and loved since childhood.

I see through the woman’s eyes. Athena’s feet and the bottom of her robe. Never her face. Not permitted to look upon the face of the gods. And then the curse begins. The words issuing from Athena’s mouth are no more understood than before, but there is no mistaking this moment. This is the moment that the air charges and snaps with primeval energy, where it curls around the woman, rustling her gown and lifting her hair. This is where her eyes, her beauty, her hair are her downfall, where a vengeful and unjust goddess takes out her petty jealousies on an innocent, peaceful woman.

First raped and now blamed.

The woman screams as the very air itself enters her body, an air alive with Athena’s words of power. It invades her skin, her organs, and her bones. It reshapes and brings forth ugliness and poison. The searing pain rips from her throat in a guttural, primal scream that makes me stop breathing. I feel this pain. But I know it is nothing like the real thing. She bends at the waist, and her stomach empties its contents onto the mosaic tiles. Pain has taken her vision. She no longer sees, only feels. Her scalp burns, breaking open in jerks and tears. She reaches up to grab her blistering head, but her hands are bitten by something. Painful bites. Over and over and over again until she is consumed by merciful blackness.

Breathe, I tell myself. My heartbeat pounds like a frenzied ritual drum, echoing inside me. Trapped.

Another flash takes me from the white temple to a dark cave. A shadowed place. A place where candlelight flickers on the walls, and the screams and pants of the same woman echo through the hollow place.

So much agony.

And then the cries of a newborn child as it is carried through the darkness by its mother, a new mother racked with the pain of childbirth. Heart pumping. Limbs so weak, but her will so strong. To save this child. To get this child away. Away. She weeps hot tears and her heart breaks with each step, with each step closer to abandoning her child.

But it’s the only way.

She’s been hiding for many months, and soon they will find her. And when they do, they will have no mercy on this child. This child born of woman and god.

I moan, my own voice reaching beyond the images to my ears as the child is laid at the doorstep of a small stone farmhouse.

And then the woman flees. Heart racing. Body weak and bleeding from childbirth, the warm liquid running down her thighs as fast as the tears roll down her face. She’s done. This act of saving her child has broken her more than anything that Athena or the god ever did.

She returns to the cave, to the small nook where her child, a daughter, first breathed life, and she digs her hands into the earth to cover the afterbirth, to hide any evidence that a child has been born. And then she lies down like the monster she is to wait for the hunter.

This time she won’t hide, won’t run or fight. This time she will let him take her head as the others have tried to do. She is tired, too damaged to go on.

She doesn’t know how many nights and days she lay there on the cold, rocky ground of the cave, but she knows immediately when another invades her space. She lifts her head and shivers as the monster in her wakes. Her hands feel for the small candle and flint, and she lights the wick.

Shadows lick and writhe on the walls, revealing a man in battle gear creeping closer. His hand flexes around the hilt of a short sword. His other hand lifts a round shield as he approaches the candlelight.

The shadows on the wall meet.

She bows to the sound of hissing in her ears, a sound she hates more than anything. A sound that will soon be silenced.

He swings.

The sharp sting on the back of her neck pulls a gasp from her lips, but then relief flows through her. She is finally free. Free of the curse, free of being a monster. She welcomes her death with the comforting memories of her child nestled in her arms.

“Ari!” The back of my head rolled from side to side on the hard floor. Hands gripped both shoulders hard. “Ari! Goddamn it, breathe!”

Sebastian’s voice. Sebastian’s hands. Breathe. Why? I was fine. Everything was fine. Sleepy and fine. I settled back into the numbing, warm blackness that I found so comforting.

Until a fist slammed into my chest.

Fuck!

My eyes flew open. I sat up, mouth open, eyes wide but unseeing. My lungs burned. The pain over my heart, brutal. My mouth gaped like a fish out of water. Suffocating. My vision sharpened and with it came the realization that I needed to inhale, to breathe.

Jesus Christ, I needed to breathe!

My body lurched as my brain finally fired the correct signal, and I was able to suck in a long, desperate draught of air. My heart pistoned so hard, one breath was not enough, not nearly enough.

Sebastian sat back and wiped a hand over his forehead, his eyes filling with relief as he grabbed my hand.

After a long while, he said, “You stopped breathing. You were so still and quiet. The whole time. You didn’t even blink.”

A series of shudders went through me. I bit back tears and swallowed. “I didn’t?” I gasped. Because I sure as hell remembered screaming and crying and moaning.

And I sure as hell remembered my past. No, not my past. My ancestor’s cruel, heartbreaking past. My chest ballooned with the lingering despair I’d experienced as my ancestor. My head fell into my hands.

“You saw.”

I glanced up at Sebastian, hands falling limp into my lap. “Yeah,” I answered, voice ragged and small. “I saw.” He waited. And I couldn’t make the words come. “Do you mind if we get out of here?”

He eyed me for a long moment, and I saw worry and fear in his look, but that was all, just a brief glimpse before his head dipped and he began packing the contents of our ritual into his bag.

After shoving the heavy lid over the unnatural corpse of Alice Cromley, we left the tomb.

Long streaks of purple and orange leaked across the dark sky from the east, revealing the cemetery in all its creepy, broken glory. The high iron fence rose like battlefield spikes, keeping in the undefeated tombs, the ruins, and the mossy, exposed bones.

Still weak and numb, I made my way carefully down the two broken steps, my eyes coming to rest on the backs of the others. Odd. I thought they’d be facing me, waiting, curious to know what had happened.

Four in a line. Shoulder to shoulder. No one moved.

“Guys?” I said slowly, the hairs on my arms rising.

“Shh!” Henri’s head moved slightly, the only indication that the sound had come from him.

I exchanged a quick, confused glance with Sebastian before stepping closer to see what had grabbed their attention.

A gasp lodged in my throat.

No.

Snakes. At least thirty of them. All on the edge of the swamp, where water met ground. Bobbing in the water. Gathered. Drawn there. Eyes on the tomb. On me. Looking at me.

I stumbled back, falling against the steps. Pain lanced though my back and elbow as they cracked against marble. One look was all it took, one brief look that would be burned into my brain forever. And fear, the likes of which I’d never known before, swept me up and propelled me back. Scrambling, falling hard to my knees, my hands scraping across the jagged edges of a broken stone as I continued, turning and running.

Run.

My heart and lungs grew strained with the force of terror pushing the blood through my system, making me tingly and unsteady even as I darted around tombs and leaped over ruins, slowing only when the gate that led to freedom rose up before me.

I paused in front of the overgrown gate, my chest heaving, my arms going limp at my sides, the backpack slipping out of my hand and falling to the ground. Tears flowed down my cheeks and neck as I struggled to breathe and process what I’d just witnessed.

A nightmare. A horrible fucking nightmare.

The quick footsteps of the others approaching made me swipe hastily at the tears.

Crank was the first to reach me. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“You’re afraid of snakes.” Dub arrived next, sitting on a stone.

Sebastian tossed his backpack at Dub’s feet and joined him on the stone, drawing one leg up, his voice even and quiet. “Never seen them do that before.”

A small, ironic laugh stopped short of my mouth, turning into a harsh sound in my throat. Yeah. Neither had I. I placed my hands on my hips, wanting to toss my head back and scream, but instead I stayed silent, staring at the sky as it transitioned from dawn to day.

My body convulsed with a violent quake. I rubbed my face hard, trying to rub out the vision in my mind, and the horrifying realization that the snakes had come to see me. To pay homage to their queen. Medusa. Gorgon. The one who carried the curse of my family and would one day become a monster. A hideous creature so reviled one look would turn a person to stone. Stone as hard as the one Dub and Sebastian sat on.

That was my legacy. That was what awaited me.

And it was fucked up enough to scare even a goddess. It figured. I laughed.

“So?” Henri said, winded, having finally made it to the gate. “What’d you see in the tomb?”

“Nothing.” My voice was laced with horror and grief.

Violet came strolling up, Pascal under her arm once again. I couldn’t look at those reptilian eyes, so I turned back, coming face-to-face with Henri’s frown and Crank’s incredulous look.

“We just came all the way out here with you and you’re not going to tell us?”

“I didn’t ask you to come, Crank.” I winced, knowing I sounded like a first-rate asshole. “I’m sorry, it’s just. . I can’t. .” How could I tell them? How could I tell them and watch their faces turn into shock and disgust?

“You never would’ve figured this out without our help,” Henri pointed out. “We deserve to know what you’re up against. If Athena goes on the warpath, it affects us all.”

“It doesn’t if I’m not here.”

Crank’s eyes widened in disbelief, and her hands curled into two small fists. “So, what are you saying? You’re going to leave us?”

I tossed my hands up, staring hard at a point beyond Crank’s shoulder. I didn’t know what the hell I was saying anymore. Just that I couldn’t tell them what I was, what I would become. I couldn’t watch them run away, turn their backs on me — the biggest misfit of them all, forsaken even by those in New 2. And if that happened, then where was I supposed to go? Where the hell would anyone accept me?

No, this secret would go with me to the grave if it had to. Whether it meant hurting my friends or not, no matter if it meant leaving New 2 and never looking back.

A squawk interrupted my thoughts, reverberating through the thin morning air.

A raven landed on the peak of a nearby tomb, its wings fluttering for a moment before folding behind its back.

“Ari,” Sebastian said, “whatever it is, you can tell us.”

The raven cawed again, the sound echoing Sebastian’s last two words. Tell us! Tell us! Almost as though it laughed at me. God, I was losing it.

But then, the others were staring strangely at the bird too.

I wasn’t the only one who heard.

Tell us! Tell us!

Dread swept beneath my skin as the raven transformed into a black-clad woman perched on her haunches on the peak of the tomb, her hands curling over the edge, fingernails long and vicious, a wicked grin on her lips. “Yes, tell us, Ari. Tell us what you have seen.”

Athena.

Dead flowers and flashing emerald beads threaded through her tangled, upswept hair.

A hard swallow went down my throat, followed by a tightening of every muscle I possessed. All the emotions of my vision boiled over, as fresh and furious as they’d been a few moments ago. “You should know, you petty piece of shit.”

I blinked, surprised by the venom and the words that came out of my mouth. But I knew where they came from. From seeing Medusa, and the horror she had gone through. And for what? For being beautiful? For being raped by some ass-wipe of a god in Athena’s perfect temple?

Fuck Athena.

Athena’s eyes narrowed to fine points. She cocked her head. But the rise in her chest as she breathed told me that the words had cut. Good.

“Well, then,” the goddess said, her perfect lips twitching, “if you won’t tell them, perhaps I should.”