Stone Blind(38)

But she missed the sight of fish darting around her feet as she stood in glittering water. She wanted to see the graceful birds in flight, not just hear them as they squabbled. She wanted to squint into the sun and witness the growing and changing of the seasons. She yearned for the bright pink of cyclamen petals instead of the dark, twisting red that was all she could see behind the bindings.

When the pain in her skull surged like a storm, she would press the heels of her hands into the sockets to try and calm them.

‘What’s it like?’ asked Euryale. Neither she nor Sthenno had any real understanding of pain. Gorgons weren’t capable of it, she didn’t think. She had heard that some gods – some of the Olympian ones – could feel injuries, at least briefly. But Gorgons had leathery hides, fearsome faces, long sharp teeth. Who would dare to attack one, and what damage could they do?

‘I don’t know what to compare it to,’ Medusa said. ‘It’s like the feeling of fire under my skin, except there’s no fire.’

‘I see,’ said Euryale, who did not see, because she could put out a fire with her bare hands and feel nothing at all.

‘Would it help if we took off these cloths,’ Sthenno asked, ‘and checked how your eyes look? We might be able to do something to help with the pain.’

Euryale nodded her agreement, and then felt foolish. ‘I agree,’ she said.

Medusa looked at her sisters through the darkness and imagined their faces. Sthenno’s brow drawn in worry, her mouth slightly ajar, her shoulders raised ready to embrace and protect. Euryale looking away because she didn’t want Medusa to feel outnumbered. Her guilty expression because she had forgotten and nodded. Medusa had felt the agreement between her sisters and wished she could explain to Euryale that she could hear their nods and gestures somehow, even if she couldn’t see them. But she didn’t want to make her sister still more self-conscious. And she could feel the tautness in Euryale because she wanted to fight something but could not attack those responsible for her sister’s injuries.

How she would love to see them again, even if it was just once more.

Sthenno reached out her clawed hand and patted her sister’s arm and Medusa knew they were both waiting for her to reply. She thought for a moment, but she could not take the risk.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I think that would be the wrong thing to do.’





Gaia


Gaia, on whom the god’s semen had fallen when Athene tossed it aside, was faced with a choice. She thought of her lost children, of all the giants the Olympians had slain, one after another. She thought of how she had gathered their broken bodies to herself when the battle was over, how she had held them, how she had wept rivers and lakes. If mortals were to stumble across the battlefield, they would find the ground scorched by lightning blasts. But no matter how hard they searched, they would not find the bodies of her children. Gaia had opened the earth to swallow their bones and keep them safe in death, as she had failed to do in life. She had examined every inch of them, knowing which god had damaged which child from the marks left on them.

She wanted to be able to avenge them, but she knew it was not in her nature to punish and destroy. She was the earth, she was meant to give life and sustain it. And yet. She thought again of the bodies of her sons – burned by thunderbolts, pierced by arrows – and she wanted to smash every tree on every mountain, to block every stream, to blight every crop.

But she knew this would only punish the mortals who loved her, and who had feared and revered her offspring. Would it do anything to injure the vicious gods who had done her such incalculable harm? It would not. Perhaps a temple or two would slide into the sea but they all had so many temples, so much greed.

And then here was the little scrap of wool, thrown from the goddess’s hand to the earth. His seed, visible to all. Her touch, visible to Gaia alone. She thought of Athene running away from the blacksmith, her face distorted with contempt. Gaia saw the shame in the goddess as she skulked in her temples, the fury as she surveyed the sea and thought of not one, but now two cruel insults from her uncle Poseidon. The helplessness as she realized that there was not yet any way she could punish him for his encouragement of Hephaestus. And in her memory, she also saw the glowing joy that had suffused the goddess as she peeled the skin from Gaia’s beautiful son.

She watched Hephaestus at his forge each day, wondering why Athene never came to collect her new weapons. She saw him pick them up, removing a speck of dust from the shield, checking again that the balance of the spear was perfect. She saw him try to distract himself by making, and she watched him fail.

And then Gaia – who could not destroy but only nurture – knew exactly what she would do to take her revenge.





Panopeia


Do you remember where you are? At the place where Ethiopia meets Oceanos: the furthest land and the furthest sea. Past the Graiai and the Gorgons, all of whom you know better now. These daughters of the sea are drawn to it and repelled by it at once. The blind Graiai say they fear for their safety on their grim grey island. And yet, no one forced them to take up residence there: they found it and made it their home. And Sthenno and Euryale wanted to stay on the coast, so their parents could reach them if they ever chose to (they have never chosen to). How much time must pass before you accept that no sea god is coming? Although, of course, Phorcys did make one brief visit to their little patch of the shore, when he gave them their strange mortal sister. Did they stay by the water in case he decided to bring another?