by Rae Else
Eventually, she summoned the courage to ask, ‘Where is everyone?’
‘In Nomia. They were gathered there for the games that were to be held this afternoon when you all returned, but it’s worked out well. They can stay there while we have privacy with our guest.’
El blinked, startled by the fact that there would have been games held this afternoon. If it hadn’t been for this mysterious woman turning up, El would be sitting in the theatre now, blind, but listening to the roar of the fight and applause around her.
She looked out again, missing the freedom of the sea. The memory of Yia Yia’s cold anger in the arena was still fresh in her mind and she hardly dared to look at the woman opposite her, who ate and sipped at her meal nonchalantly. Eventually she ate some of the lentil salad and found herself sipping the cool, white wine to calm her frayed nerves.
By late afternoon, Yia Yia was sitting on the sofa beside the unconscious woman, deep in thought. El was relieved that Yia Yia had fallen into a reverie, as she’d spent most of the time since lunch criticising her. Everything El did seemed wrong. When walking on the terrace, Yia Yia told her to stop pacing and to sit down. Then when she’d sat on the terrace, dangling her feet in the pool, Yia Yia snapped at her for being lethargic and ordered her to use the pool properly.
El now sat mutely on one of the loungers, in the shade as if sheltering from the fierce sun, afraid to move a muscle lest she disturb the snake.
Yia Yia’s voice startled her. ‘The donation bag is almost empty. I must retrieve more blood.’
She disappeared further inside the house. A few minutes later, the distant hum of a speedboat engine sounded and ebbed away. Yia Yia had left the island. El wondered where she was going. Like the Waseem, was it possible that Yia Yia had her own empousa?
As the realisation that she was gone settled on El, she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d felt suffocated by her presence this afternoon.
She stepped over to the edge of the patio and wished again that she was back out at sea. She wanted to get away, needed to stretch her legs. Yia Yia had gone for the time being and hadn’t given her any direct orders. She glanced at the woman on the couch and thought about staying to keep an eye on her, but she wouldn’t know what to do if there were complications.
She strode through the courtyard and down the steps to the shore. The expansive horizon seemed like a reflection of the scale of feeling trapped in her: relief, anger, frustration, pain. It all wanted to get out. She started running, suddenly going full pelt. It wasn’t until she was out of breath that she stopped.
She’d come to a section of cliffs that were sharp and angled, their character more truthful to the reality that was Carras Island. She stared up at them, longing for something … for a better place … a better world. One that wasn’t polluted by the sickness of ambition. She thought of her grandma and how she’d run from all this. She thought about her grandma killing her sister, Maria, and about Eirene fighting her relatives in the arena. El wondered how many other family members had been cast by the wayside over the centuries so that the Carrases could come out on top.
She looked around her: white rocks and shore. It seemed as if the whole island was constructed from the bones of Carras ancestors. A couple of trees had found precarious homes midway up the cliff, their roots protruding through the thin soil.
El pulled out her lighter. As she flicked it on, her angry gaze shot to the flame. At first the moisture in the air suppressed it, but she strained and pushed the fire into streams. Her heart hammered. She drew on the coiled energy she felt within her and focused on the lapping fire and the sunshine raining down. This heat, she threw at the cliffs as if to break them apart. The anger seethed through her body, manifesting in blue and white ripples that roared over the rocks. Trees, shrubs, moss, driftwood; all were consumed in an angry furnace.
Finally, she let the flames die, her brow moist with sweat from the inferno and the sun beating down. She watched the blaze crackling over the cliff face, licking its way along: blue turning to yellow and orange as the temperature dissipated. Only then did she register the cold tingle on her cheek. She looked northwards along the shore. Luke was there. He stood stock-still. She wiped her forehead on her arm and gave a self-conscious wave. Her heart was still pumping hard. She must look like a maniac. Great, what would he think of her?
He bolted towards her and crushed her in an embrace. ‘I didn’t know if she’d hurt you. Talus said she hadn’t but…’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, looking up at him.
He kissed her forehead. Then his gaze wound to the burning cliff, which was still crackling away. ‘Remind me never to piss you off.’
She flushed. ‘I didn’t expect to see you. Yia Yia said everyone was staying at Nomia until things with our mystery guest are wrapped up.’
Luke nodded, glancing back. ‘Talus mentioned that the house … and you, I guess, were out of bounds.’
She smiled and leaned into him. ‘Technically, you haven’t gone to the house.’
Luke grinned but glanced northwards again. ‘I wasn’t going to come this far but then I heard your fire.’
Crap. El could imagine Talus striding along the shore any minute and coming to break up their party. She wondered where they could go, determined not to be split up.
‘I’ve got an idea.’ Luke tugged her towards the black stained cliff and sputtering fires. ‘Trust you to signpost our whereabouts.’ He eyed the sea and propelled a blanket of water towards them, dousing the fire.
He pulled her into an opening in the cliff. They were showered by droplets of seawater as they ducked through. Luke lowered himself into a hole and El heard a splash.
‘Okay, you can come down,’ he called.
She slipped into the water. El surveyed the gloomy passageway while bobbing in the seawater. Great. Was she going to have to dive again?
‘Wait here.’ Luke ducked under, disappearing for a few minutes. He emerged. ‘It’s not far.’
She looked at him in confusion, but the water was already taking them downwards. Luke was propelling it down into the darkness.
‘A little light?’ he said.
El flicked her lighter and allowed a fiery orb to form above them, illuminating the slick passageway as the water proceeded to dissipate. The tunnel of rock curved to the right and they followed it, Luke continuing to move the water in a wall ahead of them while the burning sphere lit the way. Finally, the slippery tunnel started to climb upwards and they emerged in a cave.
Luke swung the curtain of water back into the passageway and it converged into its natural trough once more.
He found some driftwood and set it into a pile on a flat rock in the cavern. ‘Right, picture your Yia Yia.’
She giggled and let the flames engulf the sticks. They both settled beside the fire. She listened to the silence; they were deep enough within the cliff that they couldn’t even hear the roll of the waves. Luke was warming his bare feet. El removed her boots and stretched her legs out the other side of the fire.
‘How’s Theon?’ she asked.
‘Medicated at least. What’s happening at the house?’
‘Yia Yia brought the woman back from the boat. She set her up on a drip of empousa blood. It’s almost gone and there’s been no change yet. Yia Yia left the island to get more.’
She experienced an urge to tell him about the empousa she’d seen in the Waseem Villa, but Talus had told her not to. This was sensitive information. She wouldn’t endanger Luke by blurting out things she’d been forbidden to.
He pulled her into his chest and she took comfort in his closeness. The rest of the tension she felt melted away.
‘I’m just glad you’re okay,’ he said. ‘The thought of her hurting you…’ His eyebrows creased together.
She closed her eyes, sensing his brow relax through the heightened senses she possessed. She knew her grandma had lived blind perfectly capably. She knew she could have too if Yia Yia had followed through on her thre
at.
‘If I were blind, would you still like me?’ She kept her eyes shut, afraid to see Luke’s expression. But she detected the gentle smile on his face as surely as if she were looking at him.
‘I would miss looking into your eyes, El,’ he said. His fingertips brushed her eyelids. ‘They’re beautiful – the colour of the sea but with the feel of the sun. Even if I couldn’t though, of course I’d love you.’
Her eyes shot open and her heart quickened.
He smiled awkwardly. ‘I just wanted to say it … with everything that’s going on. I love you.’
El swallowed the lump in her throat.
He looked bashful. ‘It’s okay, I get it, it was too soon.’
‘No,’ El said, shaking her head. ‘I mean, I love you too, but I’m afraid of what that means.’
He smiled. ‘It means I’m the luckiest guy ever.’
She kissed him but as their lips parted she said, ‘It’s just … Yia Yia will never let me go. You must see that. Now with this mysterious woman, I seem to be even more wrapped up in all of this.’ She frowned. ‘I shouldn’t have brought her back. What if I’ve done the wrong thing? Yia Yia’s so interested in her. And I’m starting to realise that nothing good ever comes from capturing that snake’s attention.’
Luke took hold of her hands. ‘Listen to me. You are so much more than what you’ve come from: you’re not like Yia Yia, you’re not even like your grandma. You brought that woman out from the Waseem Villa because you’re compassionate. Not to mention you’re strong-willed and one hell of a pyromaniac.’ He grinned. ‘And whatever happens, don’t lose sight of yourself. You’re good. Never let your family scare you into being less than the remarkable arete you are.’
She flushed but met his gaze. Somehow he’d seen through to her deepest fears. He understood her. She was afraid that she was destined to become a weapon.
She didn’t think more about it but found his lips instead. She could feel the warmth of his body beneath his damp T-shirt. The saltiness of the sea clung to him enhancing his musky scent. As her hands wound through his hair, she traced the scar on his head. His hair still hadn’t grown back there. The rest of it was so sun-kissed: more blond than strawberry now.
As their kisses deepened, she looked down, wanting to see more. It didn’t take her long to pull his T-shirt off. As they caressed one another with their eyes and hands, their kisses grew rougher, their breathing quickening. Soon, they’d thrown off their clothes. El luxuriated in the feel of Luke’s cool gaze along her body. Then it was his hands stroking her, obliterating all thought so that there was only him. El felt like they’d been swallowed up in a vortex. How could their being wrapped in one another evoke this feeling?
‘How far do you want to go?’ he asked, his voice low.
El felt the desire in his body, in his breathing and in the sound of his blood pounding to the surface, her own body mirroring his.
She bit her lip. ‘I’d love to do more but I didn’t exactly come prepared.’
He smiled and reached over to his cargo shorts, pulling out a wrapper from the pocket. ‘The bathroom on the boat was well-stocked. We don’t need to though. We can wait.’
There was an instinctual need coursing through El. She wanted to go with it. It was amazing this rush of feeling. She didn’t want to overthink it, just wanted to stay here where she was meant to be … with him.
It was painful at first but then, as the pleasure built, El was lost again in a whirl of feeling. As it intensified, she had a wonderful sense that she didn’t know where she ended and Luke began. It was his cool, green eyes boring into her that caused her to come apart beneath him. She felt herself unraveling around him and her warm eyes pulled him over the edge to join her.
When their hearts had stilled to a gentle rhythm, they lay by the fire nestling into one another. She felt like she could stay here forever, the crackle of the fire the only accompaniment to their relaxed breaths.
‘I just want the summit to be over,’ she said.
‘I know.’ He stroked her hair.
‘I want to go away with you.’
‘Where?’
‘Anywhere. Just you and me, so we can do more of this.’ She grinned.
‘Sounds like heaven.’
She wanted this feeling to last forever, this wonderfulness of kissing and lying next to him. She was amazed, realising that all the worries she’d felt seemed to have fallen away. But she could already feel them at the edges of her consciousness, straying back into her mind.
Grudgingly they dressed and left the cavern. On the beach Luke’s lingering kisses made her want to return to the cave. She was sure the stupid grin on her face made her thoughts clear. With pleasure she noticed that a similar smile kept appearing on Luke’s.
When El trekked back up to the house, she went to her room and had a long soak in the bathtub. She came downstairs in a bathrobe and found Yia Yia back, replenishing the donation bag.
‘There you are, my dear.’ Yia Yia smiled. ‘Are you sure you’re not a hydra? You seem to have a penchant for water.’
El froze. Did she know she’d been with Luke? Then she realised she must be talking about her damp hair and long bath. She sat down on the sofa thinking of how much she’d grown to love the scent of the salty air. She equated it with Luke. It had become a part of his scent over the last few days. There really was nothing like falling in love with a hydra to cure one’s phobia of the water.
Yia Yia was still watching her as if expecting a reply.
‘I don’t usually like baths,’ El said. ‘But the tub here’s lovely.’
Yia Yia smiled more fully. ‘Oh, you don’t need to be coy with me, my dear. I’m all for these kinds of attachments. Love is a wonderful thing. There is nothing quite like love to bring about a certain … docility.’
El paled. Of course Yia Yia knew where she’d been this afternoon. No doubt she had her graeae spies feeding her information about everything and everyone. She felt sick as she wondered whether Stheno or Talus had reported to her. She tried to remember what Talus had said about what watching time was like for a graeae, that they watched without feeling or opinion. Nevertheless, her skin crawled at the thought of the intrusion. What should have been an intimate moment, belonging to Luke and her alone, was as open to Yia Yia as she chose to make it.
El turned red, a mixture of anger and embarrassment. She got up and stalked to her room, slamming the door.
- Chapter Twenty-Two -
The Book of Helen
Later that evening, Claus knocked on El’s door to inform her that Yia Yia was expecting her company at dinner. She thought about refusing the summons but didn’t want to test Yia Yia’s threat. For the last few hours, Yia Yia’s words had haunted her. She would never let her go. El’s love for Luke could be used against her too. It was exactly the weapon Yia Yia liked to employ to keep those around her malleable. The image of Theon’s ravaged face and Eirene’s distress kept coming back to her.
She threw on her clothes, bracing herself for whatever new torment Yia Yia had concocted. When she arrived, Yia Yia was again seated on the terrace, keeping an eye on the unconscious woman through the open doors. The blood bag was still over half-full. Dinner was an elaborate three-course meal, most of which El could only manage to sample, feeling too unnerved by the woman opposite her. Yia Yia didn’t offer much conversation, merely suggested that El dress up for dinner next time and commenting on the dishes as they ate.
When dinner was finished, Yia Yia rose. ‘Walk with me.’
El followed her deep into the house. They passed the door to the library and Yia Yia opened the next set of double doors. A long, arched gallery stretched out ahead of them. They were in the centre of the building, the space absent of even the last of the summer light. As they walked, lighting came on overhead, illuminating their path.
‘As you can see,’ Yia Yia said, ‘this gallery contains more of our family tree. At the other end of it, you will find the earliest reco
rds. There are a few Circes there.’
Circe: the name that the woman had spoken. El eyed the stone walls of the gallery. The names crawled like insects all the way up to where the roof began to curve.
‘But bearing in mind our woman’s garment, even the Circes at the end of this passage, thirty generations ago and dating back to the tenth century A.D., are still not old enough.’
Yia Yia swept back out of the gallery and pushed open the library door. She sat down on a sofa, El taking the one opposite.
‘I went to get more empousa blood this afternoon,’ Yia Yia said, her eyes held El. ‘From its source.’
El waited, remembering the empousa chained up in the Waseem Villa.
‘As head of the water line, I am charged with the care of an empousa. Her name is Helen. She is my ward.’
El blinked at this tidbit of information thrown her way. Helen. Was that where the tradition to name every firstborn daughter in the Carrases came from?
A more pressing thought occurred to El. ‘Do all the heads of line have an empousa?’
‘Yes. Whilst I was away seeing Helen today,’ Yia Yia continued. ‘I brought back a book. On her island there are many records collected about her, spanning millennia. Papyri and scrolls. We Carrases have come to call these collected accounts: The Book of Helen.
‘I have transcribed the accounts in which Helen mentions Circe into here.’ Yia Yia reached for a leather book before her on the coffee table. ‘Sometimes she says her name, sometimes she calls her “mother”. She calls her “most terrible”, “powerful”, “strong” … and always connects her with water, often pairing her with the epithet, “the water from which we come”. I suspect that the Circe that Helen speaks of, and the one that our woman did, are one and the same.’ Yia Yia paused, her gaze fixed on El. ‘I hope, that when our guest wakes, we might discover much more.’
