I turn to look at her, my foreboding growing. “What are we talking about?”
She’s still talking to the face in the mirror, patting her own hair. “I’ve seen the video of you with our young prince—he is a specimen, isn’t he?”
“What, exactly, are you helping me with?” I ask carefully.
Her triumph is terrifying. “Becoming a star, of course. Daddy says the ratings are on a scale we haven’t seen in years. Won’t your sisters be jealous?”
“I don’t want to be a star.”
She lets out a low laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. Every girl wants her time in the spotlight.”
My panic is rising, and I can hear it in my voice. “I don’t want that. I promise I don’t.”
My mother stands silent for a long moment, looking at me. “You might as well decide that you do, darling, because I am telling you now, you do not have any choice…”
“Why not?” I say, and my voice is frantic.
My mother turns toward the mirror, and her own face. She touches her cheek. Her voice sounds far away and dreamy.
“Because the gods demand it.”
She stares into her own face, like she’s curious about what she might find in there.
“When the gods demand something, you must do it.”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer but looks at me, taking me in.
“Aegeus’s son has come to Crete,” she says. “He has volunteered, against his father’s wishes, to fight my Minotaur. Not only that, Eros has struck him with an arrow, making him fall in love, or perhaps lust, with one of my daughters—”
“He didn’t…,” I interrupt. “He hasn’t … He was pretending…”
She laughs at me. “You are a child. I can see the mark of Eros on him, as bright as a brand. It is on you, too, for that matter.”
She touches my face gently, and I can see a strange hunger in her eyes. It terrifies me.
“This is being planned by the gods, Ariadne. For my revenge. Now the king of Athens will have to suffer the loss of his son, and the Athenian people will lose the boy who should have been their king. They will suffer as I have suffered and you will draw out their suffering, so I can savor it. What better gift could you offer your mother? What better gift for the brother you lost? Because when the people see this mark upon you, they will believe the ridiculous idea that you could ever possibly help him slay the Minotaur. It’s a perfect circle of vengeance. You will play your part. As I have.”
I stare at her face in the mirror, and I shiver in the cold, pulling the towel tighter around me.
“Now for you.” She puts her hands on either side of my face, looking at me with a knowing smirk. I don’t like this look. “You tell me you don’t want this, and yet, the stink of Eros covers you. I can see it, even now. You are a different girl today than you were yesterday. You will be yet another one tomorrow. Trust in Eros, darling. He may make life difficult, challenging, painful at times, but there is always pleasure there.”
She wraps her arm around me. “Now, let’s get you ready for your debut. It’s time to prepare you for tonight.”
I see that light in her eyes. She is planning a makeover.
“No, no, I’m not doing it,” I say.
For years, I have successfully resisted my mother’s attempts to groom me to her specifications. Despite her comments about everything from the thickness of my ankles to the length of my nose, I have managed to keep her at bay. I have stayed true to myself.
“You aren’t in charge of my prep,” I say, tightening my towel around myself. She hasn’t been for years.
“I am now. After your little trip to the accommodations last night, the mask is coming off. You’re mine.”
“I’m calling Daddy,” I say, finding my phone on the bathroom counter.
She puts her hands on her hips. “Call him. See what he says.”
She looks supremely confident, but I’m not worried. As long as he picks up, Daddy will take my side in this. He always does. He has since I was thirteen.
“What’s up, buttercup?” he says, picking up on the first ring. “You’ve got five seconds.”
Five seconds. Gods. “Daddy, Mother is trying to make me over. Would you tell her to leave me alone? I can get ready on my own.”
“Let her do her thing, sweetheart,” he says. “It’ll make her happy. I’ll see you tonight before you go on. Don’t call again.”
He hangs up.
I hold the phone loosely in my hand, looking at her. She’s triumphant. She knew what he would say before I called. Why would Daddy let her do this? I want to fight, to kick and scream and pitch a fit like a little baby. Like I did when I was thirteen, the first time she tried this. That time, I had Daddy to back me up.
“Now we’ll get you ready for the spotlight,” my mother says. “Won’t it be fun?”
No. It won’t be fun, but I don’t say it. What would be the point?
“First the waxing!” she calls, like she’s hosting a slumber party and it’s time for pedicures. She pulls me out of the bathroom.
Standing in the middle of my bedroom is Mathilde, the ancient crone who oversees every aspect of my mother’s beauty rituals, forbidding and silent in her black dress. She has my mother’s makeup case, as big as a suitcase.
This never happens. Mother and Mathilde never pay attention to what I am wearing or doing, other than to complain about it. Even though Acalle and Xenodice have their own hair and makeup people, they can expect a long visit before any big event.
Why should they bother with me?
I have the mask, so there is no need for makeup. I wear the long chiton. On a normal Sunday, when I’m leading the cows down, I wear jeans and a T-shirt. With the cameras off, there’s no reason to dress up.
Mathilde stirs a pot of hot wax. I remember when this happened to Acalle. She has a lot of hair. She’s famous for it. What everyone doesn’t know is that her lustrous locks are accompanied by black hair on her arms and legs, even a downy fuzz on her upper lip. Her first waxing was a major project. She had barely turned twelve when Mother first came for her, and I heard her screams from my room.
When it was over, she was smooth, hairless—like she came from another species. She never was the same after that.
Mother holds me down on top of the white sheet that Mathilde has spread over my bed.
“Let’s look nice for the cameras!” Mother says cheerfully.
“The cameras aren’t going to be looking there!” I shriek as Mathilde drips hot wax on a particularly sensitive area.
“I wouldn’t bet on that, darling,” Mother says, holding me while Mathilde pushes down on the cloth.
What does she think I’m going to be doing? In a flash, I have an image of my sisters and their lovers, artfully lit and posed, in videos that get millions of views, that show everything, while showing nothing. Okay, not nothing. They show a lot.
“No,” I say, and I am saying no to her implication, and no to Mathilde ripping the cloth off, and no to the cameras, no to everything.
Mathilde keeps methodically ripping the cloth off my skin.
I scream, but they don’t stop.
Until finally, it’s over.
My mother slaps my behind, the charm from her bracelet hitting my skin. “That’s the last of it, darling; you’re smooth as a dolphin now.”
She’s right. There’s not a hair left on my body. I look like a statue. Hairless and smooth. Like my sisters.
“Now, let’s get you dressed,” Mother says.
In a daze, I look at the back of my closet door, where my chiton usually hangs. The gauzy white dress on the hanger doesn’t look like a bedsheet. I can tell it’s going to be too low and exposed even without trying it on. And the back? The back is open, with two cords pretending to hold it up.
It’s barely a dress. Hades, it’s barely a bathing suit.
“I can’t wear that,” I say, keeping my voice calm. “There’s nowhere to put my thread.”
My m
other pulls out a small silver handbag. “We’ve thought of that.”
Mother and Mathilde are not taking no for an answer. After presenting me with some truly embarrassing underwear, they manhandle me into the dress, double-sided taping and tightening. After the fluffing and draping, they get to work on my makeup.
It’s not that I’ve never put makeup on before—I did grow up in this family—but I’ve never had my makeup done by Mathilde. She barely speaks, other than brusque orders—open my eyes, close my eyes, don’t fidget. Meanwhile, Mother picks colors and palettes and directs the whole business. Eyelashes are glued to my lids, and foundation is spread over my face.
When she lines the inside of my bottom eyelid and my tears well up, my mother’s voice is harsh. “No tears,” she says. “You’ll ruin everything.”
As Mathilde starts packing up the makeup, my mother blow-dries my hair.
“Such a nice color,” she says when she finishes, letting it fall from her hands. “Thank the gods, because there’s hardly time to dye it.”
With a firm hand, she ties my hair back in a chignon, away from my face. “So you can’t hide behind it,” she says. I didn’t know she’d noticed.
My mother spins my chair, so I’m facing myself in the mirror. I blink. I can barely believe it’s me. Everything about me is emphasized, enlarged, highlighted. Mother stands behind me. Her face is so beautiful, radiant. Mine is beautiful, too. But strange to me, not like my own. I look like my sisters.
“Tonight is the night the world will finally see your face,” my mother says. “Then they will see you, seeing Theseus’s face. If all goes well, we’ll break the Internet.” My mother smiles at me. A real, genuine one. Not something I’m used to. “We’re so proud of you,” she says. “I was starting to wonder if it would ever happen to you. Your first time.”
My first time?
My eyes get wide in the mirror. “No,” I say, “it’s not what you think. Theseus and I … We’re not. I’m not doing this. Daddy won’t make me.”
She rests her hand on the top of my head.
“Oh, darling. Eros has touched you. Daddy and I won’t be making you do anything. I’ve seen the footage of you with him in the accommodations. You’ll do whatever Eros wants you to. Daddy and I couldn’t keep you out of Theseus’s bed if we tried.”
“I won’t do it.” My voice is firm. I don’t want her to be confused. Even though the thought of Theseus makes me ache. I’m not letting this happen.
“Of course you will, and you’ll love it. Nobody refuses the gods.”
Her face gets a faraway, dreamy look. “For years, I wasn’t sure if it would ever happen to me—not that I didn’t love your father, I did and do—but ecstasy? I wasn’t sure if the gods would ever grant me that.”
It hits me like a lightning bolt. She’s talking about the pasture. About the wooden cow.
“The bull?” I say, my voice louder than I’d intended.
The familiar tight, cruel expression falls across her face. Then she laughs. “You disapprove? I ask you, Ariadne, how could I have been wrong when the gods made it so?”
NINE
I normally make the trip from the palace to the stadium by myself (if you don’t count my bodyguards) in my own SUV, playing games on my phone.
Not tonight. Tonight, my mother is managing transportation.
It’s an hour and a half before showtime, and she leads me through the lobby, the few people who aren’t down at the stadium yet looking at us curiously. From beyond the massive doors, there is a buzz of noise. Voices. The clicking of cameras. The whoomp, whoomp, whoomp of a helicopter’s rotors. A scrum.
When the golden doors slide open, I see my mother’s shining black SUV pulled up in the valet lane. The doors of the car are open and waiting, like we’re doing a getaway from a bank robbery.
Then my bodyguards whip off their suit coats and hold them up, blocking anyone from seeing me. As they push me toward the SUV, I see nothing but the flashes of cameras held high in the air trying to get a shot of me over the top of the curtain of menswear. I make an undignified leap into the car and then settle back into the seat. How do my sisters make this look easy?
Once we’re in the car, the driver peels out, nearly sideswiping one of the photographers, who was pressing his camera to my window, trying to get a shot of me.
I look at my mother in shock. “What happened? Why were they here?”
“To see you, darling. I tipped them off, of course,” she says, looking at herself in a small mirror as she applies her lipstick.
“Why?” I ask.
She shrugs. “We have to get the buzz going. So that when you and Theseus get down to business, the whole world will be watching.”
“I’m not doing what you think I’m doing,” I say.
“Maybe so, darling, but I’m pretty sure they got a picture of your ta-tas when you were getting into the car, so I suspect you’re going to be doing a lot of things that you aren’t used to tonight.”
I look down and see that the leap into the car has made my dress precariously low. I pull it up.
The SUV drives through the stadium gate, where a golf cart and a driver are waiting. My mother comes with me in the golf cart, which doesn’t really seem necessary, and we drive to the greenroom in the bowels of the building, where Icarus is waiting for us. My mother hands me off to him, like I’m a baton in a relay race. Like I’m a six-year-old girl again. Like she’s afraid I might bolt.
Which I have considered.
She gives me a quick air kiss, taking one last look at me. “I’m so proud of you, darling.” Then she’s back in the golf cart, riding away toward her spot in the VIP box with my sisters.
Meanwhile, Icarus is giving me a full up-and-down. “You look amazing, a-maz-ing. I told you that you would.”
“Shut up,” I say, walking into the room, where a spread of snacks, a widescreen, and a big comfortable sofa are waiting for me.
Icarus shifts to business. “We need to talk about the plan for tonight.”
“I’m assuming I’ll be doing the same thing I always do. Handing out cards, guiding competitors. Only this time, in double-sided tape.”
“Not quite,” he says. “Watch.”
He points at the widescreen mounted on the wall. It’s a live feed of the pre-drawing show. The sound is muted, but I don’t need the sound on to know what they are saying. It’s a tradition, like the rest of The Labyrinth Contest. An hour-long wrap-up of everything that has happened up to now. You could watch it this year or the first year and nothing would change but the faces of the Athenians who will die.
Of course, this year is different. Theseus volunteered. My stomach twists as I see the image of Theseus walking out onto the field from yesterday. Icarus turns the sound on.
Daedalus’s practiced announcer voice comes through the speakers. “Tonight, we have something new in the history of The Labyrinth Contest.”
Theseus’s face is back on the screen, but this time, he’s looking at me. It’s video from last night, in the accommodations. The video is taken from over my shoulder, so you have my view of Theseus’s face. Full of desire.
I have a rush of my own feelings, answering, an echo of last night. Can it really have even happened? How can we have both been so naked, even though we were fully clothed?
Then Theseus’s voice, full of secrets, over a black screen. “Ariadne, I know you don’t want me to die.”
“Betrayal,” Daedalus intones. “Forbidden love. An untold story. All will be revealed tonight. After the drawing, we have a very special episode—The Princess, Unmasked.”
At the cut to commercial, Icarus mutes the widescreen.
I’m speechless for a full ten seconds, opening and closing my mouth like a fish on land. Finally, I croak out, “You’re making me into a very special episode, Icarus? No, no.”
“It’s going to be epic,” he says. Like this is a normal show. Like he is telling me about a new plotline with my sisters and Spartan identic
al twin brothers and mistaken identities. Like this isn’t me we’re talking about. I don’t do this.
Not anymore.
“Watch this,” he says, linking his phone into the widescreen.
“Do I have to?” I say.
“Yes, you do,” he says. “You’ve got to see what we’re doing. The first half is everything that has happened before—watch.”
The title sequence and theme music for The Labyrinth Contest plays, the same as every year, except VERY SPECIAL EPISODE is written in curving script over the show’s logo. Then, after the fade to black, we see something different from every other year. Instead of opening with the stadium and the drawing, the video shows the Parthenos, the Athenians’ ship, sailing, with a hero shot of Theseus standing at the bow.
Then Daedalus speaks: “When the competitors came from Athens this year, little did we know that young love would awaken.”
I make a gagging noise.
“Shut up, Ariadne,” Icarus says. “Watch. You need to see what you have to do.”
“Their connection was obvious to any who were watching. Attraction at first sight.”
The video cuts to the scene of Theseus and me together in the hallway outside Daddy’s office. Theseus trying to talk with me. “You’re the Paradox that I want to watch.”
“Oh gods, it’s so cheesy,” I say.
“Yeah, that’s totally what you were thinking at the time,” Icarus says, his tone dry.
When the camera cuts to me, I’m blushing, but I don’t look like I think he’s cheesy.
“I’m not a Paradox,” I say, there in the hallway.
“Yes, you are,” he says, “you most definitely are…”
“We’ll go to commercial here,” Icarus says, “and then, when we get back, we’ll have this…”
Icarus has put together a truly embarrassing sequence, a solid minute of me walking the hallways of the palace looking mopey, with a heartbreaking pop song in the background, interposed with film of Theseus staring into his fireplace.
“Icarus!” I say. “A music video, really?”
“Listen,” he says, irritated.
Daedalus’s voice is a near-whisper. “Who would have guessed that attraction would be enough to draw the most private of princesses down to see Theseus in the wee hours of the night?”
Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters Page 11