Stone Blind(62)

‘Yes, thank you,’ snapped Perseus. ‘You make an unarguable point.’

‘I was going to offer you the advice you need to complete your quest,’ said Athene. ‘But perhaps I shan’t bother now.’

‘What advice?’ asked Perseus. He could not raise his hopes again, only to have one of these icy immortals dash them to pieces.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Athene. ‘Now you want to know.’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Perseus.

‘Because before you were all screaming about how you were going to die,’ she said.

There was a pause.

‘Yes, I was doing that,’ Perseus admitted. ‘It was difficult news to hear.’

‘So you’ve changed your mind?’ she asked. ‘And you want help again?’

‘I think I always wanted help,’ he replied. ‘I just thought perhaps you would have mentioned the help, if there was any, at the same time as you mentioned the death-stare.’

‘You’re quite annoying,’ she said.

Hermes looked from the golden and impervious Athene to the red-faced, blotchy Perseus and shook his head. ‘No one would believe you two are related,’ he said.

Athene glared at him. ‘It’s hardly comparable.’

‘I wouldn’t want to presume—’ said Perseus.

‘Good. Don’t,’ she replied.

‘But perhaps you might give me the advice you mentioned?’ he asked.

Athene sighed. ‘Everything about you makes me regret we’re helping you. But since we promised Zeus, this is the advice. The Gorgon can only kill you if you meet her gaze. A reflection wouldn’t be enough. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ Perseus said. ‘So I should behead her from behind a mirror?’

‘Perhaps a shield?’ said Hermes.

‘Right,’ Perseus said.

‘And the mortal Gorgon sleeps,’ Athene added.

‘Unlike the immortal ones?’ Perseus asked. ‘The ones that can also kill me?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m not sure how this helps me,’ he said.

‘She closes her eyes when she sleeps,’ Athene explained.

‘Oh, I see!’ Perseus finally looked less miserable. ‘So I just have to wait till she’s asleep and then behead her? While her sisters are distracted?’

‘Using only Hades’s cap of invisibility and my winged sandals,’ Hermes replied. ‘And the curved sword you have from Zeus himself. And advice from the goddess of wisdom.’

‘I suppose it’s a start,’ said Perseus.





Medusa


Medusa saw her cave much as she always had. She could feel every part of the smooth rock as she traced her fingertips around the walls. She could hear every corner and crevice as the creatures that inhabited its darkness moved across its sandy, stony floor. The touch and the sounds created pictures in front of the bindings on her eyes and, as she tried to recover from the curse, she moved with almost the same confidence she’d had before. And even though she had made her own eyes blind, she had acquired many more.

The snakes were patient at first, because they knew no other life. But they longed for heat and light. The cave bored them and they wouldn’t pretend otherwise. They belonged to Medusa and she belonged to them, and they sighed and seethed until she accepted that she could not hide away from the light they craved.

And then the snakes relaxed because they had the light she needed. It was not – they had realized – in Medusa’s nature to hide away. However protective the Gorgons were of one another, she could never have sustained herself by hiding in the cave. Sthenno wanted to welcome Medusa back outside, but Euryale shook her head. Medusa needed to find her way back to life step by step. She had lost so much so quickly – her body, her hair, her sight – that she could repair herself only slowly.

But she did. The snakes were her eyes now, and although she was less sure-footed outside the cave, she had little fear of falling or injuring herself: she had wings, after all. And the mass of snakes could look in every direction at once. It took time for Euryale to stop shadowing her sister as Medusa felt her way around the shore, but gradually she did. The sheep took fright at Medusa’s changed appearance, but they too grew used to the metamorphosis. This Gorgon now resembled the others more closely, and the sheep knew that Gorgons were no threat to them.

The sisters settled into a new life that was closer to the old life than any of them had imagined could be possible. Medusa saw all she needed to see and it was enough.

‘We are one and we are many,’ said Sthenno, as she pulled hot puffy bread from atop the charred wood and gave it to her sister. Medusa’s snakes would not approach the fire at all, and anyway, cooking for her sister was Sthenno’s passion. Euryale nodded, and Medusa raised her head towards the light of the evening sun.

‘Are we still one?’ she asked. ‘Even after everything?’

‘We will always be one,’ said Sthenno. ‘One family of Gorgons.’

‘But I’ve changed so much,’ said Medusa. Sthenno could hear the frown that the bindings covered.

‘You’ve changed every day,’ said Euryale thickly. She liked the taste of warm bread even if she didn’t need it. ‘Since you were a baby.’