by Joey W. Hill
As she puzzled over that, his shoulder quivered. She realized he’d emitted a sleepy chuckle.
“I’ll explain bowling later.”
Chapter Sixteen
JP was told the next day, quite haughtily, that the ancient Greeks knew what bowling was. During her recuperation, they set up an alley on hard-packed beach sand and played a modified form with bowling balls and pins created from scrounged materials, grass, mud and rock.
A week after her fall, she’d taken her first tentative flights and could handle flights of short distances. The relief JP experienced when he saw she was going to fully recover her ability to fly was indescribable. They’d spent the past few days setting a comfortable domestic schedule, checking the garden sites, milking goats, making cheese. Trading skill sets so they could work together on building or crafting more things to make living on the island even easier.
He told her stories, she sang him songs, and promised to dance for him on the full moon night. She tried on her dress, allowing him to help her guide the straps of the halter-style top over her wings and work the garment down over her lissome body so her claws wouldn’t snag the thin fabric. The fit was good, and he treasured her female delight with it, though he noticed she preferred to look down at her body in the dress or note his reaction to it, rather than viewing her full reflection in a body of water like the pool.
It was easy to imagine this could be their life for an indeterminate length of time, and he didn’t see any signs she was discontent with the idea. He still had his concerns that, once she was used to having company again, she’d long for her world to broaden. However, while her wing was healing and they had no other identifiable options, he set aside that worry.
Yet he hadn’t forgotten that day where she’d picked up the knife. The survival instinct embedded in him deep as blood and bone was what had brought him out of a sound sleep. When he’d first looked into her face, it had taken all he had to remain impassive. He’d had no doubt she was a breath or two from plunging that knife into him. Her crimson eyes had been unrecognizable, caught in a feral haze, her lips stretched back and teeth bared. Whatever thoughts had been going through her head, she’d been firmly caught in their net.
Was the darkness from something she’d revealed, or something yet hidden? The shape of it seemed almost like an enemy attacking her from within. He wondered if she knew what the face of that enemy truly was. It was a wound as grievous and distressing to her as one to her physical body, and he knew about that, for sure. Yet what she’d missed in her self-castigation was that she’d chosen to try and hurt herself instead of him.
He’d set her wing with so little knowledge and a lot of luck, and she was flying again. Could he help her heal an even deeper injury, one to her soul? She thought it was part of the spell, but he wasn’t so sure. Not exactly. The spell had drawn not only from Ukrit’s magic but from what was inside her. He had to believe the parts from inside her had to be somewhat under her control, if she found the right way to address them.
He mulled on that for those few days. The truth that started to face him was one he couldn’t deny. One that opened ugly things inside of him, but that would do neither of them any good if he heeded them, rather than doing what he’d promised. To serve her.
To love her.
“We’re doing something different today,” he said that morning.
“What is that?” she asked.
“I’ll explain when it’s time.”
She attempted to coax the answer out of him with a few more leading questions, but he wouldn’t be budged. After breakfast, he took her hand and led her out into her garden. Along the winding path through the arbor, into the garden of posed people.
He’d left what he wanted here yesterday when she’d been napping, so he had both hands available to hold her, and was using one to pull her along, the other to nudge her at waist and hip when she dragged her feet.
She’d been pensive this morning, that weird moodiness and melancholy that descended on her at unexpected times. It had further fueled his belief this was the way to go on this, but her balking now had him entertaining some doubts. Well, he’d figure it out.
“What are we doing?”
“Tell you when we get there.”
She’d said she hadn’t kept all those she’d turned to stone, but there were still so many here. They moved through people standing, sitting, running footraces, chatting, eating. She’d re-created scenes from her life before she came here, he was sure. Except for the one. When they reached his intended destination, he saw her realize what had changed.
While she’d been down at the falls yesterday, taking a thorough bath, he’d hacked down the cage thicket she’d put around Ukrit. This would be a great place for a circle of those orange and red flowers or other landscape features she’d so artfully planted around the others. Enough of the sea breeze reached them here they’d nod against the green background, be a useful meditative or napping focus if he put one of those rock benches in the center.
Just one thing had to be removed for that to happen. Her nemesis, frozen on his knees in the middle of the currently barren patch of ground. A crude but sturdy sledgehammer JP had fashioned of wood and stone rested against Ukrit’s shoulder.
Medusa looked up at JP. “Let him go, my lady,” he said. “Fly free of one another. You owe him that. You owe yourself that.”
“I don’t understand.” Her shoulders had stiffened at the idea she owed Ukrit anything, but JP faced her, blocking the statue as he placed his hands on her shoulders. “You discovered a strength within yourself that can never be taken away. You fear the darkness it brings forth in you, but you ignore what else comes with it. You are a one-woman army, fueled by nothing but your own determination that no one will take anything from you not freely given. I believe the darkness you carry within you can be released and something else can take its place, something no less fierce.”
He paused. The pleasant buzz of insects, the chirp of birdsong, the heat of the sun on his shoulders, the blessed fucking quiet of this place…even if people tried to come get them every few weeks, it was still more peaceful than any other place he’d been in years. He didn’t want to leave here. He didn’t want her to leave here.
Because here he was her only choice. And that wasn’t love. He shoved down the ugly spike of fear, loss and anger that summoned, and focused on her. Because he did love her.
“You remember that story you told me the other day, of the girl whose fiancé attempted to force himself upon her? You championed her innocence. There are stories that Athena eventually put an image of your face on her shield to dishearten her enemies.”
Shock coursed over her features. “That cannot be true. Someone made that up.”
“Someone made up a lot of stories about you. When there’s a common thread through them, there’s usually a grain of truth at the root.”
“If I am on anyone’s shield, it is because I am a weapon, a fearsome monster to her enemies.”
“Maybe. Or maybe because She respected the hell out of what you made of yourself and she wanted to say to her opponents, you can’t defeat this symbol.” He gave her a hard squeeze. “You can try to turn it into something ugly, but guess what? She’ll take what you think is ugly and make it something strong and beautiful, something a Goddess will carry as a symbol of pride on her shield.”
“I helped just the one girl. There are no others like that who have been here. I can help no one like that.” She stared at him, but he could see the wheels turning under the stress he was causing her.
“No. Not here.” As he held her gaze steadily, she took a step back.
“I can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
She shot him an incredulous look. “Look at me.”
“I am. There are ways to help you blend. Or stand squarely in the light exactly as you are, even if others believe it’s a costume or body modifications. Such things exist in my world.”
“You promised to keep
me safe.” She sounded plaintive, and he had to steel his resolve against the anguish he heard in the words.
“I did,” he said evenly. “And I will. If you wish to stay here for the remainder of our lives, it is what I will do as well. But if you wish to see more of the world, I am telling you that is possible. There will be risk, but certainly no more than you’ve experienced staying here. The only difference will be a new playing field. And maybe a chance to live your life without always having to fight for it.”
Going to the statue, he picked up the sledgehammer. “But first things first. You have to make sure the reasons you are staying here are the right ones. We don’t have to talk any more about it, until you’re ready. But I think you should take this step, my lady. Let him go.”
He brought the sledgehammer to her and moved behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders again as her nerveless fingers closed on it. “You can think of what he took from you. How he hurt you. How he made you afraid and helpless. Those are the thoughts that drag you down, imprison you to that darkness. But you can also think of how you survived him. How you’ve reached out to me and are exploring how a man can love you, the way love is supposed to be. Whether or not you one day agree that you belong to me, you are no man’s slave, my lady. And definitely not the slave of a man you turned to stone, punishing him for his crimes.”
John Pierce withdrew. Surprised, Medusa twisted around to see him striding away, back up the garden path. He wasn’t staying, which told her this decision was hers. She could put aside the hammer and abandon this nonsense. Why should she do this?
Why had he chosen to bring all this up today? Everything was going so well. She’d put away any dreams of ever leaving here long ago, and she resented him resurrecting them, making her think about impossible things.
Yet there’d been a weight to his words, as if they’d been a struggle for him to say. He hadn’t wanted to have this conversation. She wondered why he had, why he couldn’t let them both simply be.
He said Athena carried her image on Her shield. The idea unsettled things at her core. She told herself it was a foolish tale, but he’d told her such symbolism, of her as a protector of the innocent, wasn’t an isolated incident. It was a view of herself she’d never had. Had she?
She did remember, as hollow as taking Kev’s life had left her, she’d returned again and again to how she’d felt when she’d made sure he couldn’t hurt Glykeria. And liked the feeling, wanting more of it. Wanting to make sure no one else was made to feel the way the young woman had felt.
Her gaze returned to Ukrit’s frozen face. His eyes seemed to stare back at her. She remembered their feral excitement, the moisture at the corners of his sensual lips, as if he were a wolf salivating over his kill. Whenever she looked at this statue, she didn’t feel the way that thinking of Glykeria made her feel. He took her back to that place, to that moment. To a woman she was no longer, but a portion of it still resided in her, connected to that frightening darkness, to all the rage. Was JP right, that she could learn how to control it, turn it to something else, something that hurt far less?
She remembered Klotho bending over her as Medusa curled on the flagstones, bleeding and weeping. Berenike had left, leaving Klotho to handle her instructions. Instead, Klotho had stroked her hair, murmuring to her about the spell craft she could do. “It will transform you into something he will not want,” she said. “But it will also weave itself into who you are. What you will see forever after when you look in a mirror will be a mix of those things.”
There was a bird bath Medusa had made from a clay basin and she moved to it now. She rarely looked at an image of herself, because all she saw was the monster. But today she looked with different eyes.
A delicate face, the face she’d been born with. Eyes so red even the water’s reflection captured a hint of their color. Rose petal eyes, John called them. He’d told her it was a coveted and romantic flower in his world. Her rose petal eyes had turned her enemies to stone, but they turned everyone to stone, so she had to turn her face from the world or destroy it. All except John Pierce, and his special, magical eye coverings.
She parted her lips. The forked tongue had frightened her at first, and been the feature she’d found most repellent. But she’d learned how her snakes used their tongues as a sensitive and vital sensory organ and, over time, she learned to look at it differently. Hers didn’t have the same useful properties theirs did, but it did have its uses. She flushed, thinking of John’s reaction to it on his cock.
Then there were her snakes. They were so much a part of her, she couldn’t imagine the callous cruelty of the previous version of herself that had hacked one off to see if she could rid herself of them that way. She’d felt Treebark’s pain from his injury just as he’d felt hers. As if he knew how much she’d worried for him, he rode close to her neck these days, often coiled all the way around it like a spiky gray necklace, his head resting on her collarbone.
When she’d finally accepted that they were part of her, their consciousness had fully merged with hers and she’d been able to communicate with them far better. She counted them as her comrades-in-arms as well as family.
She straightened, spreading out her wings. The healing one could fully extend with minimal discomfort now. Her exceptional healing and the wings had been true and obvious gifts of her transformation. They’d enhanced her ability to defend herself and, beyond that, given her a freedom that she’d never have experienced without them.
Closing her eyes, she remembered the first time she’d soared, finally comfortable with her flying skills. How she’d learned to maximize those skills, so she could move through the air the way her snakes did on the ground. Lightning fast, flexible maneuverings. Coils and loops. She smiled a little, thinking of the times she’d practiced over the ocean and toppled into the waves, until she figured out there were some limitations to her wings.
She straightened to her full height, staring down at herself in the basin. At a confident, winged warrior who’d become far more than a victim of someone else’s barbarism. Someone a storyteller thought might be honored on a Goddess’s battle shield.
She pivoted and looked at Ukrit, and saw only a man. When she put him next to John Pierce, he was so reduced in size and power, she couldn’t remember why she’d wanted to keep him frozen here.
Because she wanted to think he was suffering in the stone, because she was still suffering. But she didn’t have to suffer any more. John had made that clear. She could love. She could live.
She could leave.
That thought scared her, but that was because it was the unknown. John Pierce would be with her, wherever she went. He’d said so. If he meant it, she had nothing to fear. Or nothing she feared so much she couldn’t face it, with him at her side. He was her friend.
He was more than that, even though he thought her heart wasn’t fully committed. And he was doing his best not to make her feel trapped by his declared love for her.
He was an honorable man. The exact opposite of this one.
Picking up the sledgehammer again, she walked toward the stone man who had changed the course of her life irrevocably, but who had no power to do that anymore. Her life, her destiny, was hers and the Fates to decide. She could choose to love and trust John, to say “fuck it,” as he said, and risk him hurting her. She was strong enough to do that. She was strong enough to survive anything, because at the end of the day, she had herself. And she knew who she was.
“I am Medusa,” she said. “I believe in protecting the innocent. I believe laughter and love is greater than hate and fear. And while I cannot find it in my heart to forgive you, I do release you.”
She swung the sledgehammer toward his torso. The stone crumbled beneath the blow, leaving a concave wound in Ukrit’s side. She swung again, and the torso buckled, the stone starting to crack.
She had to guard her wing side some, which hampered some of her strikes, but she had time. Sweat trickled down her brow as need overcame disc
omfort and she started putting more emotion into it. Hammer, hammer, hammer. She’d hammer stone into a dust the winds would lift and carry away. The chunks of remaining rock would scatter through the garden, their source forgotten. Especially if she was no longer here.
People would come. It was a beautiful island, and eventually people would settle here. With clean white stone homes, and kitchen gardens, and children laughing, running on the beach. They would build a pathway to the peak and watch the sunsets from there.
She swung and swung and swung. All the possibilities were on the other side of this one task, all the beginnings. All the endings.
She started out of a feverish haze as hands closed over her trembling forearms, a welcome large body pressed against her back. She was bent over, breathing heavily. She was crying, she realized, opening her eyes to see the splashes of the tears on the stones. Her knees quivered, but John didn’t let her buckle there. She wouldn’t yet let go of her tight grip on the sledgehammer, so he lifted it with her, carrying her away and out of the garden.
He took her to the waterfall, placing her on a flat rock by it. Her grip on the weapon loosened then, and he set it aside. Sitting down next to her, shoulder to shoulder, he put his arm around her as she caught her breath.
“Okay?” he said at last.
“Yes.” Her voice was hoarse, making her wonder if she’d been shouting out her thoughts to the sky and the pulverized Ukrit.
John glanced over his shoulder. “I’m going to hide that sledgehammer. If that’s what you can do to a tower of stone, I don’t want it close when I piss you off.”
“Piss…make me angry?”
“Yeah.” He smiled and she traced his lips.
“How would you do that?”
“I’m a man, you’re a woman. It’s what we do.”
“Hmm. I’ve heard this said. When I would draw water at the communal well, the women would be speaking of how their husbands…pissed them off. But there was a fondness to it that told me they wouldn’t beat them to death with a sledgehammer.”