Medusa

Excerpt from my upcoming short story collection, THE REIGN OF HER.

ONCE A BEAUTIFUL, DEVOTED PRIESTESS OF ATHENA.

TRANSFORMED INTO A GORGON,

WHOSE GAZE COULD TURN THE LIVING TO STONE.

 __

I felt her long before I saw her.

She came to me with her palm stretched outward. She was crying.

She looked exactly how I imagined, and so I thought it must be a dream. I closed my eyes and prayed that it was; the weight of his hands over my wrists, the smell of salt and seafoam dripping from his body, the way his buckle scratched against the marble floor every time he moved.

I prayed it was not real, but then my face felt hot, and I opened my eyes to find her standing in front of me, an aura of warm light crowned over her head.

He stopped moving, like a stone in my stomach.

She said nothing.

She was crying, that I hadn’t imagined.

She raised a hand.

I remember how I wept from the pain that perched itself between my thighs, and how I laughed with relief as his world started to shrink away.

But no.

His world stayed the same. The god that held mountains against my lips did not move, he did not wither like a wilting flower in a cyclone.

Instead, my skin began to rot.

I remember the way my heart twisted inside of me, like a hand had wrenched itself inside and torn my ribs apart.

I remember the smell. Venom.

My hair started to slither. My tongue tore itself in two. My vision blurred, and jolted, pupils popping. My teeth ached, and they felt sharp.

I could taste blood oozing from my mouth, the colour of my father’s heart. My skin felt hard, and my bones shed tears until there was nothing left of them, but ash and blood and rot and pain.

I tried to scream. I tried to shout her name.

“ATHENA!”

But she did not hear.

She turned her back. On me.

I held out my hand, but she did not come.

__

I have known monsters my whole life. They come in different forms, and different names, but the one thing they always hold is a place in the dark, because darkness is made for monsters and darkness is where monsters are made.

They have their scales, and I have my own; a suit of armour in the shape of a thousand serpent scales.

I did not understand at the time, but what she gave me that day was a weapon of my own. A gift. Turning me into a pile of ugly, slithering tears, knowing I could never please any man ever again, and saying with a smile on my black lips: “good.”

No.

The smell I remember from that day was not venom. It was power, and it was mine.