by Anthology
The next night, with the envoys of kings at his side, he couldn’t help but hear the words of his wife as she conversed with one of the ambassadors two seats away. “I would never dare!” she laughed—flirtatiously, he thought.
“It is not as scary as it is made out to be,” grinned the man. He toyed with the grapes on his plate, as if giving his hands something to do while his attention was diverted by a beautiful woman. “In fact, it was over quite quickly.”
“I have always wondered about the oracle.” Pasiphaë’s voice lowered, and Minos couldn’t hear what was said next.
“Yes, I know. I saw them as I came in,” replied the ambassador.
That very night, Minos commanded his ships be readied for sailing in the morning. If that man could find answers at Delphi’s oracle, so could he. He was a king, after all. And the gods bent special favor upon his kind.
***
When he returned, Minos brought shiploads of new people with him, crowds of architects and slaves. They set to work immediately. The oracle had told him to build a maze underneath his palace, a massive cage for the two unnatural godspawn creatures. Once that was done, he was to leave them trapped in the center.
Work proceeded quickly. He was unsurprised to see Pasiphaë when she eventually came to visit him, her face as pale as cheese.
“You can’t mean to do this. They are children.”
“They are monsters,” he told her coldly. “I should have done this long before.”
She pleaded, she begged for their lives. He relented enough that a small chute was built in the center of the palace, so food and drink could be dropped down for those below. “This is your responsibility,” he told her. “I will have no one help you in this task. You must prepare the food with your own hands and bring it to them. If you fail in that, I will have rocks thrown down instead, and the entrance sealed.”
The queen bowed her head. “Thank you for your generosity, King Midos.” She could not quite contain the bitterness in her tone.
“Be careful, wife,” he told her. “Lest I force their adulterous mother to join them. Then there would be no one left to feed you.”
Pasiphaë bowed her head lower. This time, she did not trust her voice to speak. At her apparent humility, he let her take leave of his presence.
***
When her children were blindfolded, twenty strong men had to restrain Asterion as he used every bit of his bull’s strength to try and escape. Agaphya, docile as always, meekly allowed her head to be covered with a sack and followed the hands that guided her. Pasiphaë wept as her children were led into the labyrinth, but made no move to stop the soldiers who took them. She knew King Midos’s eyes were on her. She knew, but did not care, except to fervently remind herself that her children would die without her. She needed to stay strong of heart.
Each day before the sun rose, Pasiphaë trekked down to the marketplace and purchased the freshest foodstuffs she could find. Then back to the palace kitchens, where she would spend hours chopping and stirring, creating simple but nutritious fare. She would tie the meals up in a cloth and lower them on a string through the palace chute. When she felt the tug on the other end, she counted a double handful of numbers, and then brought the string back up, with only the cloth at the end of it, now emptied of viands.
After a year passed, King Midos summoned her again. “There is a delegation from Athens,” he told her. “They have spoken to the oracle.”
“What now?” she asked warily.
“Plague,” he replied. “The oracle told them to sacrifice a boy and girl to the creatures underneath our city.”
“Sacrifice? Creatures? They are no more violent than I am! They are children, still, and you have imprisoned them. What have they ever done to you?”
Midos loomed over her. “They were born,” he said. “That is enough.” There was nothing she could argue against that. He continued, “You must lead the sacrifices to the center of the maze.”
“How am I to do that? I have never been inside the labyrinth. I don’t know my way to the center.”
For the first time, Midos smiled. It was not a friendly expression. “You will learn.”
***
In the end, her handmaiden came up with the answer. “String,” the woman said. “Tie a piece to the entrance to guide you back through any wrong turnings.”
It worked like a charm. Although the boy and girl from Athens were frightened after many hours traveling through the labyrinth, and upon finally seeing the two creatures who awaited them, Pasiphaë managed to reassure them. “These two will not hurt you,” she told the sacrifices. “They are my children.”
The Athenian delegation, satisfied when she came back by herself, went on their way. Pasiphaë sent even more food down the chutes to care for the extra mouths. A year later, the Athenians returned.
“Plague? The oracle?” she guessed when Midos summoned her.
“Yes,” he said without preamble. She led the two new children to the center of the maze and spent many hours of each day after that preparing food for the prisoners in the labyrinth. A year later, the ships returned.
This time, Midos declared that he would celebrate their arrival with a feast. The oracle had told the Athenians that this third time would permanently end the plague that had troubled them. Pasiphaë sat next to the ambassador, the young son of the Athenian king, and spoke with him throughout the long night. Afterwards, she took to her bed, exhausted from the celebrations. Tomorrow, she would lead the last of the children into the maze.
But the next morning, she was feverish and crying out at the pain. Midos, arriving to summon her to the maze, looked down at his wife and saw the telltale boils rising to the surface of her skin. Pasiphaë was insensible, unaware that he was even standing over her. “Tend to her,” he told her handmaiden. “And send the ambassador to me.”
The young man came immediately. Theseus, Midos recalled. “The queen has fallen to Athen’s plague,” he said. The young man appeared startled.
“But the oracle said…”
“Only one thing can cure her. An end to this dreadful disease. Bring the final sacrifices to the center of the maze. Do not come back until you have done so.”
“But I do not know the way. Only the queen knows.”
“Do not trouble me with useless details. Ask her, if you are so inclined.”
With a sinking feeling, the prince knocked at the entrance to her rooms. The handmaiden allowed him into the queen’s chambers, but Pasiphaë was tossing back and forth and couldn’t answer his questions.
“I know a way,” said a soft voice behind him. He turned to see the queen’s handmaiden, a woman a little older than Pasiphaë. “String,” she explained to him.
As he went into the labyrinth, Theseus took the children with one hand and held the string with the other. Although he made many wrong turnings through the twisting corridors of the stone maze, hours later, he made the final turning and saw a sea of light.
Or so it seemed, after such a long time in the darkness. At the center of the enormous cavern at the labyrinth’s end, a small fire was burning. Four children sat around its perimeter, black with smoke and filth. They cowered back at his sudden appearance, at the rage on his face when he saw them. Here were all the sacrifices demanded by the oracle. No wonder Athens had continued to suffer plague, if all these sacrifices still lived. It was the deepest betrayal of the gods.
Suddenly, he heard a sound to his left and looked over to see two monstrous creatures approaching him. One thundered towards him like a galloping horse, and he dropped the string he was holding and reached for his sword.
When he emerged from the entrance to the labyrinth hours later, having followed the string back to its source, the soldiers at the entrance gaped at him. Theseus wiped a bloody hand across his face, but it didn’t improve his appearance. One of the men at the entrance tentatively asked, “Were you successful?”
Theseus looked down at his bloody hands. “Yes,” he said
shortly. “They are all dead.”
The man’s eyes widened. “All, your Highness?”
“I have made answer to the gods’ demands for sacrifice.”
“Bad news, then, your Highness,” said the other soldier. “The city mourns. The queen died while you were below. I am truly sorry. You must not have been in time.”
Theseus smiled grimly. “The gods have spoken through me,” he said. “And I was successful. I got there just in the nick of time.”
The Heart of Yuki-onna(Short story)
by Alison McBain
Originally published by World Weaver Press.
Before father's eyes stopped on her, she knew. Before he had told them that there were too many mouths to feed in winter, before her mother had fallen to the ground weeping, she knew.
"Yuki-onna," he said.
She lowered her head and nodded. Over the sound of her mother's weeping, she stood up and walked to the door. But before she opened it, she paused and half-turned back to face her family. She did not look up into the granite face of the man who had given her life—and now wanted to take it away. Instead, her eyes focused on the ground.
"Will it hurt?" she asked softly.
Her mother wailed. Her father's face, glimpsed out of the corner of her eye, seemed frozen into a mask that had no meaning. No one answered her quiet question.
She took nothing with her when she walked outside into the blizzard. She wore her kimono, but no shoes; they would be needed by the younger ones. The first touch of the snow was sharp like glass, even against her hardened soles. The winds blew through her thin kimono as if she wore nothing at all.
Staggering, she put a hand out to the cherry tree to steady herself. It was bare, as all the plants were bare, but her fingers glimpsed a hint of warmth beneath their tips, as if the tree had sympathy for her. With no other destination in mind, she sank down beneath its gentle branches and huddled upon herself.
She didn't know how long it was before the winds faded. "Yuki-onna," she heard from somewhere, and with the voice came warmth and light. She glanced up, but her lashes had frozen together and her hands didn't seem to be working properly as she tried to bat at her eyes to open them. Standing up on numb legs, there seemed to be a burning fire beneath her now. It was not unpleasant, but she longed suddenly to take off her kimono, to bathe in the waters of fire as she bathed in the meadow stream in the summer.
"Yuki-onna," she heard through the distant sounds of the storm. She reached out her hands—to what, she didn't know, as she still could see nothing through the driving snow.
There was pressure now upon her fingers, as if someone had taken them in a firm grasp. She smiled, felt herself falling slowly through the air, as if she had all the time in the world, as if each second had become a century. Her eyes were closed, but she could still see the brilliant light and feel the fires burning, burning through her until she was as light as ash. She could feel herself dissolving.
The next gust of wind picked her up and blew her away.
***
In the morning, the storm was gone, and in its place was an unbroken ocean of white. When Hisao went outside, he knew what he would find.
But he did not find it.
Under the cherry tree, he noticed a round hollow, as if someone had lain there for a long time, but no sign of Yuki-onna. On the trunk of the tree was a perfectly white handprint, as if burned into the bark itself by a strong fire. Farther out, the fields were pristine and empty.
He went inside and told his wife. Like the night before, she fell to caterwauling until he drew back his hand and silenced her. After that, the tears dripped from her face, but she made no sound.
"She can't have gotten far," he told her. "I have better things to do than search for her."
So he did them. He chopped wood, carried in snow to melt for the cookpot. He checked his snares, and was pleased to discover a rabbit in one of them. But the whole time he worked, he felt as if he were missing something. He felt as if someone were watching him, which was absurd. Yuki-onna couldn't have survived the storm. Perhaps he merely felt her dead eyes following him around from the shelter of some convenient nook where he hadn't found her body. Well, he would discover her in the springtime when the snow melted, that was for sure.
That night, Kenshin, the youngest, wouldn't stop fussing. "I want Yuki-onna!" he cried. His older sister had often let him into her warm bed at night and held him when the moaning of the wind scared him, singing lullabies. Without her, he was cold and frightened.
Hisao shouted for Kenshin to be quiet. When he wouldn't stop asking for Yuki-onna, Hisao yelled, "She is holding back the winter for us!"
Finally, the little boy stopped crying. Hisao and his wife went to sleep.
The next morning, Kenshin's bed was empty. When Hisao went tearing outside to look for his son, he found no sign of him. No trace of footprints in the snow, although no new snow had fallen since the night Yuki-onna had left. He found absolutely nothing at all.
"He must be in the house," he roared, storming inside. They looked in the cupboard, lifted up their sleeping mats, but there really weren't many places to hide.
This time, his wife was silent as she cried. But her eyes seemed to stab into him, and he could feel the gazes of his remaining children waiting for his reaction.
"I will…check the snares," he told them. He put on his boots and coat slowly, trying to think. When he stomped out into the snow, his feet left deep imprints, but there was no sign of any other marks. He walked in and out of the woods at the edge of the clearing, poked at the branches above his head, called out Kenshin's name. The echoes of his voice came back to him, but no sign of his younger son.
He returned home at dusk, empty-handed. His wife's eyes cut across him and his children turned away.
That night, Hisao slept fitfully. Every hour, he would start awake and go to check on his remaining three children. They had pushed their mats and blankets together and slept curled in a mess of thin, tangled limbs. His one remaining son and two daughters, all with his own coal-black eyes and their mother's rosebud mouth. His children. Near dawn, he finally fell into a deep sleep.
He walked through the woods, but the sunlight was thin and cast the ground in shadow. Snow trickled down from overhead, but the light remained constant and dim. Nothing stirred in the forest except for him—the birds were silent, the small creatures rustled no leaves and did not leap from branch to branch. Everything seemed to be hiding away, and he walked deeper into the forest with a sense of dread.
Far ahead, he glimpsed a shining white light. Sanctuary! He picked up his feet, trying to run as the wind pushed the snow into his face, as the flakes grew thicker and fell faster. He could feel the skin of his cheeks turning cold against the brutal assault of winter.
The shining ahead of him dimmed. "No!" he cried, reaching out. He pushed his legs faster, staggering in the deepening snow. The drifts were up to his ankles, his knees, his thighs. He grabbed at passing tree trunks, and the touch through his gloves raced up his arms like icicles, instantly numbing them. The white light flickered and flickered again, and he noticed that it was topped by a sea of glowing black.
Then the light grew brighter—the creature, turning. He saw that it was a woman in a white kimono, her long black hair blown back by the wind. Her lips were blue as the sky in high summer, and her coal-black eyes burned him like ice. Despite this, her face was familiar, if terrible.
He crouched down before her, bowing his head. "I am sorry, my daughter," he told the apparition.
The ghost made no answer. It reached out one long-fingered hand, the skin as white and final as death. At the last moment, he looked up and saw behind the figure the small forms of his two sons cowering behind her.
Hisao shouted, sitting upright. His wife cried out, waking up and turning to look at him. "What is it?" she demanded.
He shook his head. He didn't know what to tell her. Was it a true dream, or only a nightmare? He threw back the covers
and got to his feet, although the light was still dim. He hadn't been asleep for long, perhaps only moments since the last time he'd checked on the children.
In the small house, it took only a few steps to reach their sleeping mat. He stared down at it, unbelieving.
Two children lay sleeping on the mat, their limbs entwined in sleep. His two remaining girls.
His only other son was gone.
Hisao spent a long time looking down at his sleeping daughters. His wife was sitting up on their mat now, but didn't rise to her feet. From where she was, she could see the two children. She could guess what it meant.
Still, Hisao went to the door and opened it to look out. His boot marks from the two days before were all over the white snow, but there were no other footprints. He gently closed the door, returned for his boots and coat, and went back outside without a word to his family.
His wife never knew what happened to him, for Hisao never returned. When night fell, she found a rabbit on the doorstep, frozen solid as if dipped into a vat of ice. She thawed it, skinned it and cooked it for supper, and she and her daughters ate until their stomachs were round. Every couple of days after that, there would be an offering hung on the door latch—sometimes forest creatures, sometimes cattails or baskets of nuts or piles of daikon or renkon. All the offerings were completely frozen, the nuts delivered in a basket composed of ice that melted when she put it in the stew-pot.
When spring came, the offerings ceased. But their fields sprang forth with a higher yield than they'd ever seen, and they had plenty of food set aside by the time winter returned and with only three mouths to feed. But for the rest of their lives, anytime in the winter that their supplies ran short, they would find food on their doorsteps to tide them over. The widow and her daughters became known for their generosity to others, and the village where they lived prospered. The daughters married well, and their husbands were kind to them and their children.
But, still, they never forgot their sister Yuki-onna or the day she walked out into the snow, never to return. Until the day they died, late at night when the winds moaned, they would swear they heard a voice outside singing lullabies. And once in a while, travelers through the region would stop at the village and speak about a moving light in the snow that guided them to safety in a storm. To them, the light appeared to be a woman and two small boys, glowing with a shine as beautiful and serene as the moon.