Goddess of Yesterday

by Caroline B. Cooney

  ran to warn the queen. Clattering down stone steps, racing across courtyards, throwing open one door after another, to the women's wing I sped. I flung myself toward the barred wooden door of her bedroom, to beat my fists against it until she came.

  But the door was open and in her fragrant well-lit room, Helen admired herself in a silver mirror.

  “O queen! They have broken their guestfriendship,” I cried. “The Trojans come armed with Aeneas as their general. You must protect yourself. Paris is your enemy, not your friend. In your husband's stead, you must call out your soldiers. I have seen what pirates can do. You must—”

  “Paris is not my enemy.”

  “He is, O queen. I know you do not trust me. I beg you to trust me now. For the sake of your children. For your own dear sake. The Trojans have come for Amyklai.”

  “No,” said Helen, angling the mirror and smiling at what she saw. “The Trojans have come for me.”

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  I WAS SIX YEARS OLD when King Nicander came to the island of my birth, demanding tribute and a hostage.

  I did not know what a hostage was, nor tribute.

  The king was taller than Father. His oiled beard jutted from his chin like a spear point. His arms were hard and tanned, his eyes twinkling. I liked him right away. “So you are Alexandra,” said Nicander.

  I corrected a king. “Not Alexandra. Anaxandra.”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. “Anaxandra, you are coming for a sail with me. You will be companion to my daughter, Callisto.”

  A sail? I was so excited I hardly bothered to kiss my parents goodbye. My brothers got to go to sea and have adventure, but I always had to stay home with Mother. And I had never met a princess. Callisto means “the fairest,” just the right name for a princess, the way Anaxandra was just the right name for me. Mother packed some clothes and my fleeces and put my doll in a box, which I hugged to my chest. I had never owned a box, and Mother kept jewelry in this one. It was heavy, which meant she had left some jewels in it. I would have a guest-gift for the princess.

  An officer sat me on his shoulders and off we went. I never looked back at my brothers, standing in a row, silent and envious, and I never waved to my parents.

  Our village was perched a thousand feet above the sea. The path to the harbor tilted steeply. I clung to the officer's neck so I wouldn't fall off. “What's your name?” I asked.

  He peeled my fingers from his throat so he could breathe. “Lykos.”

  This means “wolf,” which made me think of my puppy. I had named her Seaweed, because when she romped in the water, she came out hung with green fronds. I almost told Lykos we had to go back and get Seaweed, but I remembered that I would be home by bedtime to tell Seaweed all about it.

  The sailor carrying my clothes and fleece said to Lykos, “Why didn't the king take sons for hostages? A little girl isn't going to make Chrysaor double his tribute.”

  Chrysaor was my father's name; it had the word for gold in it. My mother's name was Iris, which means “rainbow.”

  The king caught up to us. He tugged on my long curls and told me I had hair as red as King Menelaus. I had never heard of King Menelaus.

  “A girl as hostage?” said Lykos to the king. “Chrysaor needs his sons to pirate with him,” said the king of Siphnos, “but his daughter he loves. He'll obey me for her sake.”

  The donkey path was slippery with pebbles and sand. The men struggled for balance and swore at my father for not chiseling steps into the stone.

  Steps would make it too easy for pirates. Father knew because he was one. He loved to tell about the towns he had sacked and burned. We had many slave women he had brought back. The men he couldn't keep, because they knew how to use weapons and were too dangerous.

  All around the island the sea sparkled. We wound down the bare bones of cliffs to the harbor, where there were so many ships, I could not assign a finger to all of them.

  I used up ten fingers counting ships, tucked my elbow into my side to keep the first ten safe, used my fingers over again, and had to tuck in my other elbow. All together there were ten ships, ten ships, and eight more ships, long and slim with black hulls and red sails. Each sail was stitched with a white octopus, its long legs tied in knots.

  “You have enough ships to take Troy, don't you?” I said to the king. My father sailed past Troy every year. He admired Troy but hated her more.

  “Troy,” repeated Nicander, and he and his men looked east, where Troy lies, far far away.

  Troy is built on a citadel above a strange rough river that runs uphill into a second sea. Beyond the second sea are endless supplies of slaves and grain, gold and amber. The river is the Hellespont and only with a very strong wind can a ship go up it. If there is no wind, a ship waits in the harbor of Troy. On the return voyage, when the ship's hold is full, Troy takes her share. She is the richest city on earth.

  “No,” said Nicander. “I could not take Troy.”

  We waded out to the ships. Seaweed and I played here. The stones were flat and good for skipping. “Is Callisto on the ship,” I asked the king, “or is she at your house?”

  “Callisto is at my house,” said the king, “although my house is called a palace. She isn't very well, Anaxandra. She can't run and jump the way you can. You will sit quietly with her and spin.”

  What kind of adventure would that be?

  A man as hairy as a goat leaned over the edge of the king's ship to lift me on board. He laughed at the idea of a girl hostage when there were boys to take, and he tossed me high into the air. My father threw me around all the time and I loved it. But when the goat-haired man caught me, I saw he had expected me to be afraid. “I am never afraid,” I said severely. “I can do anything. I can swim underwater and my brothers can't do that. I can even swim into Father's caves.”

  The king was still waist-deep in the water, his men cupping hands to give him a leg up. “Can you now?” said the king. “And what caves are those, Anaxandra?”

  “Where Father keeps the real treasure,” I said.

  It took Nicander's men all afternoon to get my father's treasure out of the caves and loaded into the ships. How they laughed, congratulating Nicander on his wisdom—taking a silly girl as hostage instead of an intelligent boy: a girl who had just sold out her own father.

  The king's ship was hollow inside, the deck planks removed to reveal the hold. In went piles of spears and beewaisted shields, ingots of bronze and a silver sword pommel, a gold mask and ivory combs.

  I sat on a coil of rope. It was damp and salty, the color and texture of an old woman's hair. Waves lapped against the ship like dogs drinking from a puddle. What would Father say to me when I got back tonight?

  At last, Lykos bellowed, “Deck the ships!” The slamming of timber was heard on all sides as the cargo was covered by the deck beams. The masts were lifted and placed in their supports and the anchor stones raised.

  Nicander flung wine into the sea. “Earth Shaker!” he shouted to the god. “Give us a safe return home!”

  The wooden ships groaned and creaked. Bright banners slapped in the win
d. There was no need for rowing with the wind so fine and the men relaxed on their benches.

  I had not known that when you sailed away from your island, it got smaller. I had not known it would vanish. I kept my eyes fastened to the place where my island had been.

  The sun was going down. The sea turned molten gold and the sky purple.

  “It's bedtime,” I said to the king. “I can't play with Callisto after all. We have to sail back home now.”

  “You're not going home, Anaxandra,” said the king. “Not tonight or any night. Siphnos will be your home.”

  I stared at him. How could anything be home except home?

  “Not that you're much of a hostage now,” he added. “A hostage is useful only if its father wants it back. I doubt if your father ever wants to see you again.”

  I? My father's favorite? “Your name, Anaxandra,” said Lykos cheerfully, “will never be spoken in your house again.”

  I could not go home. My parents and my brothers would not want me. It was so shocking that I could not cry.

  A few hours later I learned why I had my fleece—so I could sleep on the sand of an unknown island, having eaten cold hummus from a bowl. I had not known that you could be made to fall asleep without your mother to tuck you in.

  On the second day, the wind failed us and the crew rowed. We passed many islands. From a distance, each looked like my own, but as we drew close, the island always turned out to be larger and greener.

  When nobody was looking, I opened my box. There lay my best doll on a bed of Mother's gold necklaces, and next to her lay my stone Medusa idol. Medusa is always shown with her scream pouring out of her mouth and the snakes of her hair writhing. Medusa has the power to look upon an enemy and turn him to stone, so she is very powerful to have at your bedside. Of course I had never met an enemy. My father and mother protected me.

  And now I had failed them.

  On the third day, the king took me on his lap. “I have a great debt to the Lord God Apollo,” said the king, “and with your treasure, I will go to Apollo's temple at Delphi and pay what I owe.”

  Apollo was an immense god, too big for our little island. “I hope the Lord Apollo refuses the treasures,” I said to the king. “They aren't yours.”

  “They are now,” said Nicander, grinning. “We have caves on Siphnos, too, Anaxandra, but yours are natural and ours are dug in order to mine gold. Every year, we make an egg of solid gold, as large as a man's fist, and offer it to the gods at Delphi.”

  My father had been to Delphi. The priestess there was the Mouth of God and could answer all questions. I imagined my father's gift sitting next to the great gold eggs of Siphnos. The egg is very blessed, being a perfect container of future life.

  “One year,” said the king, “I thought Apollo had enough gold, so I sent him an egg of lead wrapped in gold leaf.”

  I was shocked. He looked the same as any other man, but he had purposely cheated a god. I said silently to my own goddess, When we land, even though they may not know you on their island, I will honor you. You shall have real gold, not lead. I will keep the doll and the Medusa and you will have Mother's necklaces. I don't want to give Callisto a guest-gift after all.

  “Apollo took his revenge,” said the king. “First, he sent plague.”

  I had never seen plague. Mother said it lived best in cities. She had been born in a city and never once went back after she married Father. I thought about never going home.

  “Then Apollo sent rust to infect the crops. We were hungry that winter. And then my baby son died—the fourth of my sons to die.”

  Four dead sons? I held my mind very flat so no thoughts could fly off and be heard by such a god. Plague and dead babies! I prayed to my goddess to keep me safe on an island where such a god ruled.

  “Then,” said Nicander, “Apollo flooded my gold mine with seawater.”

  I thought this was rather clever of Apollo. He would just keep the gold to start with and Nicander could never cheat him again.

  “The oracle at Delphi said if I brought all the gold on Siphnos, it would end the god's anger. But though I brought all the gold, my fifth son died. Then the oracle told me to bring more gold.” He stared out over the waves. The sea was empty. Not a dolphin, not a gull, not a ripple. The name of his island is Siphnos—“empty.”

  “To raise that, I have been visiting every chieftain who owes me allegiance. Your father, Anaxandra, is a famous sacker of cities. In song, he is compared to the crafty Odysseus and the great Achilles. Yet your lovely mother had only jewels and clothing for herself, and your father's cache of arms was hardly enough for two ships.” He grinned at the frothy waves and the rising tips of many oars. “You solved the mystery, little Anaxandra.”

  On the fourth day we reached Siphnos. It was an island as bare and bony as my own. We climbed a path so steep it bled stones. A cliff reached over us like rock fingers, hoping for an earthquake and the chance to drop on our heads.

  But at the top, the land relaxed. Fields of barley were green and gold, and grapevines grew in rows as even as weaving. There were flocks of sheep so large that Nicander taught me a new number: thousand. We walked for a whole hour to reach the walls of Siphnos town. The people had painted the stones white, so the walls glared in the sun. We went in through a gate twice as tall as the king, and the walls around the gate curved, and I was amazed, for I had thought walls must be straight.

  What had looked like an unbroken wall from the outside was houses on the inside, every family's house fastened to the next family's house. These formed an open square bigger than my father's entire town. In the center of the square sat a massive chunk of green marble with a hollow bowl chiseled into its center and a spout at the edge. Around the altar were the treasures wrenched from Nicander's chieftains. I had to admire a king of such force. Strength comes from the gods, and in the end, Apollo desired Nicander to be strong.

  Great crowds of people filled the square to embrace their returning men and honor their king. Women pounded the bottoms of copper kettles while old men stood in stiff salute. Girls brought flowers and boys brought lambs. And then the king disappeared through another gate, Lykos went to greet his own family, and I stood alone, too short to be seen, too small to be remembered.

  I clung to my box. Finally I followed in the king's footsteps and found myself in another courtyard. All the way around were ground-floor porches and all the way above were porches in the air. Boxes of flowers hung off railings and pots of flowers stood in corners.

  In the center of this second courtyard was the most beautiful and horrifying thing I had ever seen. A child had been turned to stone. He stood in water that splashed out of his hands, and around his feet tiny fish swam and lilies bloomed.

  I could not breathe.

  What had he done, that Medusa turned him to stone? Was this one of Nicander's dead sons?

  The boy was about my age. Even his eyes had been turned to stone—blue agate that glittered in the sun.

  O my goddess, I prayed, have pity on this little boy.

  “God's knees,” said the king's voice. “I forgot Chrysaor's daughter.” Nicander strode over. The frozen child watched us both. The king was surrounded by rich townsmen whose clothing was embroidered and pleated and whose beards and hair were oiled and braided. “This is the child who gave me the treasure,” said Nicander, and they all laughed.

  I did not know how they could laugh when the dead son of their king was frozen beside them. “What happened to your little boy?” I asked.

  The king looked around, puzzled.

  “The boy now stone,” I said.

  There was a moment of silence and again came men's laughter. The king picked me up and held me straddling his hip. “The boy in the fountain was never a real boy, Anaxandra. He was carved by a mason. He is called a statue.”

  I did not believe that. The boy had been caught midstep and his bare toes curled. His limbs were smooth and round, as if his mother had just bathed him, and his hair was th
ick and dense.

  And perhaps it was his mother who now joined us, a woman as beautiful as her stone son, with intricately braided black hair and earrings that hung to her shoulders.

  “Lady Petra,” said the men, turning their faces to the ground to honor her.

  She was laughing. “The little girl has never encountered a statue before?”

  “Anaxandra comes from a primitive island, my dear,” said the king. He set me down and put my hand in the queen's. “She will take considerable instruction. Her value as a hostage is gone, but she will be fit company for Callisto.”

  The queen and I went up a ladder, which the queen called stairs, to an air porch, which she called a balcony. Their house was indeed a palace. There were six rooms on each floor. We passed through a sleeping room for the queen alone. If five of my babies had died, I would not want to share a room with my husband either.

  We entered a bathing room, its smooth cold floor painted with dolphins and blue waves. Slaves stood me in a low tub and scrubbed me, and when I was clean, the queen massaged perfumed oil all over me. “The skin of a peasant is dry and flaky,” she told me. “The skin of a young lady should gleam like sunlight on water.”

  I had not known this rule.

  It turned out there were many rules I had not known. When the queen oiled my feet, she was appalled to find my soles as tough as oxhide. I never wore sandals. I could run over hot sand and sharp rocks without flinching. “You will wear slippers or shoes at all times, Anaxandra. A young lady has soft feet.”

  She toweled my hair so hard I bounced, and as she combed out the snarls I looked up to see a pale thin girl sitting on a high stool, staring down at me. “Hello, Anaxandra,” she said softly. “I am Callisto. I think you are fortunate to have such tough feet. You can use your feet and I cannot use mine.”

  “What happened to your feet?”

  She drew up her gown. Her legs were sticks and her feet were not flat on the bottom. I did not see how she could put weight on them. Then I realized that she couldn't.

  “I almost never go out. Father says you will have a score of stories to tell me about your island,” she said eagerly.