I watch myself on the surveillance feed, rounding the corner of the hallway that leads to the accommodations. Then I’m opening Theseus’s door. Once we’re in his room, it’s high-quality video, reminding me that the rooms are designed as stages, always ready for action. The video that Icarus has made doesn’t show Theseus kneeling on the floor; it doesn’t show the bleak look in his eyes. That must not be the look they’re going for.
Instead, Theseus runs his fingers through his hair and I say, “I need to talk to you.”
“We’ll go to commercial here,” Icarus says.
When the video resumes, Theseus and I are sitting together on the bed. We are not touching, but when Theseus says, “Why are you here?” and I look at his mouth, the tension between us is palpable. When he touches my hand, leaning in toward me, the camera is on him, not me, and his soulful look is basically designed to make young girls swoon. Icarus has taken out everything I told Theseus. There’s nothing about my suspicions of him. Nothing about his conversation with Daddy. Nothing about my secrets.
Instead, Icarus has one shot of me looking lovestruck, and then he jumps right to Theseus saying, “I trust you…”
Then Theseus asks for my help, and next we are kissing.
I look away from the kissing, not wanting to watch myself. “The kissing happened first,” I say. “He kissed me and then he asked for my help.”
“If you look at it honestly, Ariadne, it’s more that you kissed him,” Icarus says.
“I didn’t!”
“Would you like to rewind it and watch again?”
“No. No I wouldn’t.”
“We moved the order because it’s better this way. It makes more sense.”
Back on the video, there is no mention of the earthquake, just me saying, “I have to go,” and walking away.
The camera stays on my back as Theseus whispers, “You are going to help me. I know it.”
I can see that the viewers of the world will be mad at me for not telling him I’m going to help him. How could I let someone that cute die?
“What have you storyboarded next?” I ask, my voice dull.
“We’ll show you and Theseus’s reaction to whatever number he draws,” Icarus says.
“And then?” I ask, dread building in me.
“You aren’t going to like it,” he says.
“Seriously, Icarus? You’re just now figuring this out? I don’t like any of this. In fact, I hate it. I want my mask back.”
“Well, that isn’t happening,” Icarus says. “This is your own fault, Ariadne. Nobody made you go down there to see him. Nobody made this happen but you.”
“Stop saying that. What are you planning, Icarus? Tell me!” I shout, banging my fist down on the table of snacks.
“Calm down, calm down, sister,” he says. “Let me show you.”
He takes out a drawing pad where he has storyboarded the second half of his very special episode.
A girl in very high heels is walking across a crowded dance floor. “Who is that supposed to be?”
“You,” he says.
“I don’t have shoes like that, Icarus. I can’t walk in those.”
“Your footwear is the least of our worries, Ariadne,” he says. He flips the pages of the drawing pad, and I walk across the crowded dance floor, looking for someone, and then I find Theseus.
Icarus points at the picture of Theseus and me together. “This is where you’ll tell him that you want to talk to him alone.”
He flips the page, showing Theseus and me walking down the long hallways of the palace. At least he has me carrying my shoes.
Then we are in a strange crooked room together, sitting on a chaise longue.
“Where is that?” I ask.
“A new room that your mother made,” Icarus says. “This is where you are going to tell Theseus that you will help him in the maze. That you will help him kill the Minotaur.”
The blood drains from my face.
This is an impossible situation.
I can’t even explain the things that Theseus makes me feel. Like I’m bound to him by an invisible rope. Like I’ve been asleep my whole life, and I finally woke up. Like I am on fire.
But then there is the Minotaur in the maze, alone. If I don’t protect him, no one will.
“I can’t help him, Icarus.”
“No one wants you to actually help him. You’re only going to tell him that you will.”
“I’m going to lie to him?”
Icarus looks at me, incredulous. “Yes, you’re going to be lying. This is about ratings. The people will believe that Theseus has a chance in the maze, which will make it way better when he is finally defeated.”
“Won’t it occur to everyone that Daddy will stop me, since it’s on TV?”
“Willing suspension of disbelief is an amazing thing, Ariadne.”
“I can’t,” I say.
I’m so angry. But that’s not enough. Sad? That, too. I could have guessed what they were going to do. He told me they were going to. My mother told me. I guess I didn’t really believe them.
“This isn’t me,” I say. “I’m not doing this.”
His voice is placating, but dead serious. “Oh yes. You are. Look, Ariadne, I’m sorry, but this is happening.”
A loud knock sounds on the greenroom door. It swings open, and Daddy walks in, followed by his bodyguards and the priests with their doves in a cage.
“Daddy!” I cry, letting myself be wrapped in one of his big hugs.
“Sweetheart,” Daddy says, patting me twice, then pushing me away. “Don’t rumple the suit.”
I have a sinking feeling in my stomach.
He looks me up and down and whistles. “Your mother did her magic, I see. You look beautiful.”
He isn’t going to help me.
Then he looks at Icarus. “Beat it, kid. I need to have some words with my girl.”
Icarus nearly trips over his feet getting out the door.
* * *
Daddy looks at the taller of his bodyguards. “Mix me a drink, would you? Make it a stiff one.”
The other bodyguard stays by the door.
Any room where Daddy might be coming is stocked with a locked bar cabinet, his favorite gin and vermouth, a jar of olives, and a martini shaker. Cold glasses. New ice on the hour.
“One for my girl, too,” Daddy says, “now that I think about it.”
This is a first.
“Sit,” he says, pointing at the sofa. I lower myself down carefully, pulling my dress down over my thighs. Daddy takes the spot beside me and watches his bodyguard mix our drinks. When I get mine, it’s so full I have to hold it carefully to not have any splash out.
“To new beginnings,” Daddy says, clinking my glass.
He watches me take a small sip. I splutter, it burns.
Daddy pats my knee, then takes a long pull from his own glass. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, you’ll get used to it.”
I hope not.
“Let me ask you something,” he says. “Why did you go see that Athenian in his room?”
His voice is calm, conversational.
“I went to see Theseus because I thought he was lying.” It feels so long ago now. “I thought he was planning something. That he might hurt the Minotaur…”
“Hmm,” Daddy says, taking a sip from his drink. “That’s not what your mother thinks.”
“No,” I say, and my voice breaks a little, and I’m stumbling, because I’m not used to justifying myself. “Mother thinks I went down there because of Theseus. But that’s not it…”
“Is this that thing you were asking me about yesterday when we were leaving the stadium?” he says, and there is an edge to his voice. He’s mad at me.
I nod.
“What did I say?” he asks, leaning closer.
“Not to worry about it,” I whisper.
“So you went to see that boy anyway?”
“Daddy,” I say, looking at him, searching for some sign th
at he is listening to me. “I thought if Theseus was up to something, I should find out what it was. I was only trying to help—”
He holds his hand up, stopping my explanation. “What do you think this is, Ariadne? A game?”
His voice has none of its normal soft tone. It is hard, cold. His disapproval radiates off him.
His bodyguard is making another martini. The ice clinks in the shaker, the only sound in the silence of the room.
My eyes are on the floor. He’s never looked at me like this. I think of the times I’ve stood by when Daddy has looked at my sisters in exactly this way. The many times that their selfishness had dishonored the gods. With shame, I remember my own righteous feeling, that I was the one the gods were smiling at, because I was doing what they wanted, what Daddy wanted, with no separation between the two things.
“You’re being selfish, Ariadne. Six months ago, when Aegeus had an heir show up, out of nowhere, killing monsters left and right, a regular fricking hero, I prayed to the gods.” He stands up and starts pacing, like he can’t bear to be next to me anymore. “I prayed that they would do something about it. How is my vengeance complete if Aegeus has a son?” He stands in front of me, while I look at my shoes.
“Look at me, Ariadne,” he says.
I look up, and Daddy looms over me, his finger in my face, his breathing heavy. “Then look what happened. The kid showed up here, and he volunteered to fight against my Minotaur. In my maze, and there’s not a thing Aegeus can do about it. And now you … You … My daughter … The only sensible one of my children, I thought, before today … You start making trouble? Interfering? Worrying? Making kissy-faces with an Athenian in my palace?”
He’s so angry. I’ve never had him this angry at me before. He never shouts at me like this. He always listens to what I have to say. With my sisters, it’s a different story, but he’s always been different with me.
“Daddy, I didn’t mean—”
“Hades take you! You are my child. You are interfering with things you don’t understand.”
He takes a deep breath, bringing himself back under control. His face shifts from anger to disappointment.
“This is my fault,” he says, shaking his head. “I have always involved you in decision making. I have let you fight above your weight class. I forget that you are still a child. I forget that you are a girl.”
I’m thinking, No, no, no. No, I’m not a child. I’m not a girl. No, this isn’t your fault. No to everything.
He sits back down beside me heavily, and his bodyguard takes his glass from his hands, then gives him a new one.
Daddy’s face is tired and sad, but full of compassion for me. He puts his arm around me again. “Drink up, baby girl, and listen to your old man,” he says.
Obediently, I take another sip of the drink, and my head spins.
“You are a good girl, but I have given you too much freedom. This is the gods’ way of telling me that. Icarus told you about the storyline he has planned? I have to teach you obedience. The gods require it.”
I look at my shoes. These ridiculous high-heeled platform shoes that my mother chose. My painted toes. The very special episode. I nod at Daddy. “Yes, Icarus told me.”
“It is your penance,” Daddy says. “You tried to interfere with the gods’ plans, and this is the penance they demand.”
The priests in the corner say, “Praise the gods.”
The last time I had to do penance, I was thirteen.
I had stopped taking the cows down to the maze for sacrifice. It wasn’t a decision. More like, I woke up one morning and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t suffer through their bellowing fear one more time. I refused. For three weeks I held out. Mother threatened me. Daddy wouldn’t let me leave my room. They wouldn’t let me go down to comfort my brother. The Minotaur would not take the cows from anyone else. For three weeks, the buildings rumbled under our feet as the Minotaur’s rage—and hunger—grew.
After a month, the Minotaur finally caused a big earthquake, magnitude seven. In the old city, a thousand people died. Because I didn’t do my job.
People died, and it was my fault. The Minotaur suffered, and it was my fault. The gods knew that I was a selfish girl who cared more about herself than her brother and her people.
I paid my penance to Poseidon—god of the sea, god of earthquakes, god of horses, our patron god. The god who sent the white bull.
There is a concrete block with an iron ring in it placed on a sacred beach at the low-tide line. It is where they tie the horses that are sacrificed to Poseidon. The ones that are swallowed by the waves. They bound my leg to the ring with a long length of chain, and we waited.
From the boardwalk, my parents watched to make sure the penance was correctly observed. To make sure that no one took it easy on me because I was young, or because I was their daughter. Only through suffering could I be cleaned of my fault.
I thought I would drown many times that day, when the water held me down, and I struggled to get to the surface. Each time, I would barely grab a breath before the next wave smashed me under. By the time the tide receded, I was so weak I could not stand. I lay there, shivering in the sand until the waves hit the low-tide mark, and the priestess came and unchained me. If the chain had been a little shorter, I would have drowned.
I look up at Daddy. “Daddy, penance? For this? I wasn’t interfering. I didn’t mean to kiss Theseus, it happened—”
I stop myself, seeing his face.
“Are you questioning my judgment?” Daddy asks.
“No, Daddy, no, I’m not.”
He holds up his hand. “Priests, let us see if the gods agree. Let’s do an augury.”
The priests in the corner jump to attention, and the doves in the cage coo nervously.
“No, Daddy,” I say. I hate the auguries. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll do it.”
“Oh no,” Daddy says. “We must follow the rules—if the king’s judgment is questioned, we must refer the matter to the gods.”
“All honor to the gods,” the priests intone in unison, beginning the recitation that will lead up to the augury. I stand without even deciding to, because I have been through the words and ritual so many times that it is inscribed into my body. The priests’ words are a blur to me, because my attention is on the cage of doves. There are three in there, and they cluster at the back of the cage when the priest reaches in for one of them.
He gets one, and he holds it, tight in his fist, while the other priest closes the cage. My own heart is beating as fast as that small, frightened bird. Everything I do, it seems, leads to the death of innocents.
The priests stand at the small altar at the back of the room. Another fixture of any place Daddy might be coming.
The bird’s cooing is silenced by the knife the priest keeps at his belt, and red blood stains the white feathers. The dove’s small body rests on the granite top of the altar.
Quickly and expertly, the priest opens its chest cavity and pulls out the viscera. The liver and intestines, where the gods’ messages to us are written. While one priest spreads out the bloody organs, the other consults a small book he has taken from his pocket, then announces what it means.
His voice is deep and resonant. “I see the signs of first love, and death. Putting on a false face. A child’s obedience to the father.”
“The gods have spoken,” the two priests intone together.
“Amen,” Daddy says.
I whisper “amen” too, because it’s what you say, and because my fate is sealed, and to honor that small bird, now an unrecognizable pile of bloody flesh and feathers on the altar, left behind for the silent cleaning women who will come in after we leave. Amen for the two other doves, safe in their cage for now. Amen for me.
I still want to argue. I want to fight. How can I fight against the gods?
“I need for you to tell me that you will obey,” Daddy says. “You will obey the gods.”
“Yes, Daddy,” I say, choking it
out. “I’ll do what you say. I’ll do what they want.”
He gives my arm a squeeze. He points at my drink, his voice gentle. “Finish it.”
I down the alcohol, feeling the burning reaching down to my heart.
“Now, promise that you will betray me,” he says. “It won’t be too hard for you.”
“What? I would never betray you,” I say.
Daddy starts laughing. He laughs so hard tears run down his cheeks. “Of course you are going to betray me. You’re turning into a woman and that’s what women do. They fall for pieces of crap and betray their fathers. It’s the way of the world. However, for today, I merely need for you to pretend.”
He gestures to my outfit, my hair, the whole awful thing. “Your mother and Icarus must have given you the general idea. Go up for the drawing and look pretty for the cameras. Go to the godawful dance party your mother has planned, look pretty for the cameras. Dance with the idiot. Go wherever Icarus has you set up and tell Theseus that you will help him. Be convincing. Make the best very special episode in the history of Crete.”
“Daddy,” I say. “I can’t lie like that. I can’t promise to do this.”
“Don’t interrupt me.” His voice is steel. “You can. You will. The gods demand it. The gods want this to happen. That’s why they’ve put the mark of Eros on you. Anyone can see it. Theseus wants your help in the maze. You pretend to help him. For the time that he’s alive, you can plot and scheme with him in front of the cameras. If the gods are truly favoring me, he’ll draw number fourteen tonight, and we’ll get to stretch it out over two full weeks. We’ll put it on The Labyrinth Contest, and Aegeus will have to watch it, like everyone else. His hopes will be raised. My vengeance will be even sweeter when Aegeus thinks there’s some way out for his son. Don’t forget, the gods want me to succeed. Everything we have in Crete is because of the gods. When they ask us to do things, we do them. And they reward us.”
“But, Daddy—” I say.
“No pouting, baby. It’ll make your face ugly for the cameras.”
Then he stands up, and he and the priests and the bodyguards leave. With him goes my last chance of escape.
Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters Page 12