by Rae Else
So, Yia Yia had recognised the name Circe, but not from amongst the names on the Carras family tree. Helen, Yia Yia’s ward, had spoken the name too. The last phrase, “the water from which we come,” resounded through El’s thoughts. Could it be that this mysterious woman could shed light on the origins of arete?
El frowned, puzzled by something. ‘Can’t Helen tell you more about who Circe is? You said the things in this book are things she’s said about her. Surely you can find out more from Helen alone?’
Yia Yia set the book down and then settled back. ‘You saw the Waseem empousa, Rosa, yes?’
El nodded.
‘Did she say anything?’
El shook her head. ‘She growled and snarled when Talus dripped blood on the floor.’
‘Precisely,’ Yia Yia said. ‘Helen is no different to Rosa.’
El recalled the empousa’s snapping teeth as she sought to get at the human blood: something purely animalistic.
‘But she was being drained,’ El said. ‘She was like that because she was half-starved.’
‘Yes.’
El frowned. ‘What … you starve Helen too?’
‘Yes. I limit her intake of human blood in order to keep her under control. I give her just enough to sustain her. A litre of blood a day maintains a healthy level of physical well-being. Helen is not malnourished: you are right that the Waseem are taking too much of Rosa’s blood.’ She paused. ‘But all of the empousa are given only a limited amount of sustenance.’
El experienced a surge of disgust. The sorry sight of Rosa played on El’s mind: chained in that cell by restraints made impervious with her own blood.
‘You starve them to keep them imprisoned?’
Yia Yia raised her eyebrows. ‘You think us cruel? It is our duty to do just that. It takes about a body’s worth of blood – twelve pints – for an empousa to become lucid. Once they do, both their full strength and elemental power return, and it is tenfold that of any arete. This is the truth passed down to every head of line about the empousa in our care. This is what all the accounts in The Book of Helen warn us about. All of them are from millennia ago when the arete keeping her were less stringent in their guardianship. These are, in fact, recordings of accidents, where Helen has consumed too much human blood and become lucid, powerful … dangerous.’
El stared in amazement. These vampires, that were such an important part of the arete world, were prisoners. She thought of how the empousa blood was used to sustain the lives of the heads of line and to maintain the important veiling of Olympias and private territories such as Carras Island. All this was accomplished by taking the blood of these imprisoned beings.
As she sat processing everything, Yia Yia got up and went to the bookcase. She came back with another small, red book and took out a vial of blood from her lace purse. She poured a drop onto the first page of the book, before pressing a catch on the long snake-shaped ring on her finger, which now produced a blade from the end like a tongue. Slicing her forefinger, she smeared a droplet onto the paper.
‘This is an old edition of my mother’s,’ Yia Yia explained. ‘I would have you hear the first account we have of Helen’s story about the gorgon.’
El stared. ‘There’s an account about the gorgon? About serpents coming from Perseus and the gorgon?’
‘That is the most widely quoted story by all of the empousa, the most common recording from their blood-fuelled words. All of them have spoken of “the terrible gorgon”, “the gorgon of the flashing eyes”, “the gorgon who petrifies any who look upon her”.’
Black ink swirled along the yellowing page as Yia Yia took her seat again, reading from the book.
‘“Dated seven-hundred BC, the inscription states that the human consort, belonging to one of the serpents in the family, found her way to Helen’s chamber. Driven by curiosity of where her serpent lover disappeared to for long stretches of time, she stole the key to the door to investigate in the dead of night. Helen had drained the human before the serpent discovered them. Her blood fuelled this moment of luminescence.”’
El grimaced and wondered how many other grizzly explanations were amongst these accounts. Yia Yia passed the book to El.
Helen raises herself from the corpse and gazes at me as I enter her chamber. The light of recollection is bright in her eyes. I have only read of this, never seen her in this aspect.
‘You fool,’ Helen says. ‘You bind me but these chains will not protect you from the gorgon.’
Having consumed a body’s worth of blood, Helen has the strength to crush me, but her words hold me captive. As fate would have it, the human woman was small and slight, so Helen doesn’t have sufficient strength to break her chains, impregnated with her own blood. There is no water in the chamber for her to summon to do her bidding either. I haven’t read a similar account before and I’m ardent in my desire to hear more.
I inch into the chamber and ask, ‘What is the gorgon?’
Her beautiful lips curl menacingly around her fangs. ‘My beloved daughter, one of the dutiful, one who knows her own worth and feeds on the blood of men as we were always meant to. She is formidable: a nest of snakes for hair and eyes that will turn any who look upon her to stone.’
I remember reading a story like this, written down by men. Much of the truths of arete history have found their way into their annals so I recall its details. ‘I know of whom you speak – many a hero was felled by her. But then, did not brave Perseus behead her?’
She hisses. My words penetrate and her expression is marred. ‘Brave! He was a mere mortal. He killed her and took her power, spawning your filthy race!’
She strains at her chain and I back out, locking the door behind me.
El stared ahead, digesting the passage. This direct account from Helen: serpents were descended from Perseus, the hero of legend that had taken the gorgon’s power. And … Helen had called the gorgon “daughter”.
‘This isn’t in A Brief History of Serpents,’ El said.
‘No. Just over a century ago the heads of line, including myself, allowed for that volume to be published. There have been similar histories in the past which is how the serpent origin story has been passed down through generations. We have been careful with the accounts we publish though. All of the tales of the gorgon are littered with resentment – at us – their captors. We chose to only summarise the accounts, detailing that serpents originated from Perseus’ bloodline and the gorgon’s power.’
A chill ran down El’s spine.
Yia Yia smiled. ‘I believe you are deeply involved with these things.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘None of what has happened is a coincidence. I believe that you were meant to hear this, as you were meant to wake this mysterious woman.’
Goosebumps rose along El’s arms as she remembered the thrall she’d come under at the sight of the statue; the way she’d unintentionally raised her hand to touch the woman’s face. No, it wasn’t coincidence that had drawn her there. Unlike Yia Yia, whose eyes glimmered excitedly, El was once again regretting her actions.
‘There is also the matter of your reaction to her touch,’ Yia Yia continued.
Dread crept over El as she thought about the burning sensation across her palm.
‘I know from countless conversations with those wielding the full power that the sensation of heat is associated with it.’
El’s heart quickened as she remembered Yia Yia quizzing her the first night she was here, whether she had experienced any heat or light when she’d tried to use the full power.
El shook her head. ‘But I don’t have that power. I didn’t experience any of those symptoms when I tried to use it … and I’m not next in line to have it…’ The words tumbled out as her fear grew.
‘Indeed,’ said Yia Yia. ‘Perhaps it is nothing to do with the full power, but there is something between you and our guest, and I am looking forward to discovering what it is. Think of the understanding that she might award us. Of the past. Of our beginnings. Th
ings that until now,’ she nodded at the red book in El’s lap, ‘have only been gleaned from the garbled accounts of the empousa.’
El stared down at the book. She felt cold beneath Yia Yia’s interest and realised now why she hadn’t been wounded in the theatre. Talus hadn’t answered her on the boat about the burning sensation but he’d been quick to dangle it in front of Yia Yia to get her attention: he’d known the significance of it.
‘Needless to say,’ Yia Yia said, watching El, ‘it would be unwise to repeat any of this to anyone. I have shared it with you because there is no doubt now, that you will be a valuable member of this family.’
El’s heart quickened and Yia Yia smiled.
‘No one but my successor should know these things.’ Yia Yia laughed softly, probably at the pallor of El’s face. ‘Oh, I’m not quite ready to hand over the reins to you yet, my dear. You are the most promising arete of my line since your grandmother. I have high hopes for you. Recent events have convinced me that you are the successor that I have been waiting for.’
El swallowed the lump that rose in her throat. ‘Thank you,’ she said, shakily.
She felt sickened. She certainly wouldn’t be telling anyone any of these things. Yia Yia had shown how much she prized obedience in the example she’d made of Theon.
Dan had once said: knowledge is power. That’s exactly what Yia Yia was doing, using knowledge against her. She’d isolated her with it. She was Yia Yia’s sole confidant. It was as if they were alone on this island: these secrets would successfully prevent El from having complete intimacy with anyone else while binding her ever closer to Yia Yia. Was this knowledge going to condemn El to the life that she feared? A life at Yia Yia’s side, where she was forced to become a weapon?
- Chapter Twenty-Three -
Awakening
El passed the next day in a fraught state of anxiety. Yia Yia had ordered her to remain at the house with the unconscious woman. She could barely sit still knowing that, on the other side of the island, Eirene was competing. No doubt Luke and the others would be in the audience, watching the games. She didn’t know if it would be better to be watching the tournament or not, but she was on edge all day.
About midday, the blood bag was almost depleted again and El was about to send word to Yia Yia when Talus showed up.
‘Yia Yia’s just gone to get more blood,’ Talus informed her.
El didn’t know how much about the empousa Talus knew. She wanted to rip into him about keeping things from her. He’d concealed the significance of the woman’s touch burning her. But she knew if she started arguing, she’d soon be letting things slip that Yia Yia had warned her not to discuss with anyone. Not even Talus. The thought saddened her as she realised how much comfort she’d gleaned from Talus’ presence lately: his steadying influence calmed her.
‘How’s Eirene doing?’ El asked instead.
‘She dislocated a shoulder in her match with Laius, and then in the second one she passed out in the whirlpool that Stefan brought up from the sea.’
El cringed.
‘She’s fighting a ladon next: Per.’
She grimaced, thinking of the cliffs that would be torn apart and used against Eirene. ‘How do you see that going?’
‘At the moment, she should get through it.’
El let out a sigh of relief. ‘When will Yia Yia be back?’ She wondered if she might be able to sneak off to the other side of the island for a while.
‘I don’t know.’
She frowned. ‘You’re a graeae who sees the future. How can you not know?’
‘Yia Yia uses graeae blood to disappear when she wants to.’
El realised that that must be how Yia Yia kept the location of Helen secret.
She frowned in puzzlement. ‘But that would create a bond between her and the graeae whose blood she’s using.’
‘Not if she uses the blood of a weak graeae. Some graeae, despite coming from a water line, are very inaccurate in their foresight.’
‘Like Uncle Al,’ El murmured. Talus gave her a quizzical look and she explained. ‘Luke’s uncle – he’s not even able to make accurate wagers on the races.’
‘Exactly, but even the weakest have their value.’
Talus remained with El throughout the afternoon, phasing out of time and back into the present to inform her that Eirene had survived the games. For the rest of the afternoon, El did some meditation and Tai Chi practice, whilst Talus kept an eye on the unconscious woman.
During her practice, Talus declared that he noticed a slip in El’s concentration. She was astounded at his lack of empathy. She complained that she had a hundred and one things on her mind that were making her unfocused. But Talus claimed it was due to all the black tea she was drinking, announcing it was affecting her Chi. He recommended a chai tea with a green tea base instead. When Claus brought them some, it was bitter, with cloves and other spices, and El didn’t much like it. She drank it to make her graeae guru shut up, who left late in the afternoon.
It wasn’t until night fell that Yia Yia returned, replenishing the bag of empousa blood once more. She soon went to get some sleep but El stayed up, as she had last night, reading The Book of Helen. Her tiredness was far more likely the reason for her lack of focus, but El found it hard to put the book down. She was captivated by the flashes of history it contained. Despite the horrifying way each of the accounts inevitably started, with blood and death, she had been glued to it since Yia Yia had given it to her.
As the night drew on, her sleepy eyes finally lapsed from the book to the inert woman. She was startled by the obvious changes: her cheeks weren’t the hollows that they had been for the last few days and her hair was turning a more luxurious brown. El crept over and detected a rose tint to her previously pale skin.
She called Claus. As soon as he arrived, El ordered, ‘Get Yia Yia.’
A few minutes later, Yia Yia appeared in a long, silk robe, her hair loose about her shoulders.
‘She’s healing. Look,’ El said.
Yia Yia stooped down to examine the changes in the woman’s face. El’s heart quickened as she saw her eyes open with a flutter of her lashes. She lay still, but her caramel eyes focused and landed on El; there was no physical sensation caused by their depths.
Yia Yia called, ‘Claus!’ The nymph hurried in. ‘Bring water.’
Claus fetched a tray holding a pitcher of water and a few glasses. He poured out a glassful and handed it to Yia Yia. She knelt beside the woman, whose eyes now wandered to her.
The woman watched her for a moment before she manoeuvred into a sitting position. She let Yia Yia feed her the water, taking small sips before her hands clasped the glass and drained it.
Once more, the woman finished the water that Yia Yia topped up from the pitcher. She shook her head as Yia Yia made to fill it again. Her eyes were wide and her movements sharp as she examined the IV drip in her arm, the tubes trailing to the bag. She took in the rest of her surroundings.
Yia Yia took charge and knelt by the woman. ‘Do you remember anything?’
‘Yes,’ the woman said hoarsely, her caramel eyes on El.
El blinked in surprise. She didn’t know what she’d expected: perhaps complete incomprehension, perhaps for her to speak in Ancient Greek, but certainly not the intelligent awareness in her expression and tone.
Yia Yia continued, ‘You were … stone.’ The woman looked calm and, after taking a breath, Yia Yia asked, ‘Did you have the full power used on you?’
‘No,’ the woman said, her attention still on El.
‘Then what were you doing there?’ Yia Yia demanded.
‘I was there for thousands of years,’ the woman said, startling Yia Yia into silence. ‘It’s only recently that my consciousness returned to me. I became aware in the stone.’
El felt her skin crawl, remembering the whites of this woman’s eyes appearing, stark against the marble. The idea of her being aware from within the sealed stone was horrible. El wished she
would stop staring at her: her penetrative gaze unnerved her.
‘I’ve been conscious,’ the woman continued, ‘for over a month. Since the death of your mother, El.’
‘How do you know about my mother’s death?’ El said, turning pale.
‘The night your mother, Anna, died, I awoke,’ the mysterious woman answered. ‘Not entirely, but some of the power that I’d been without for thousands of years came back to me. That power came from your mother to me – what you call “the full power”.’
El baulked. The burning sensation when this woman had touched her … Yia Yia was right … it was the full power.
‘The full power was meant to go to you, El,’ the woman continued, ‘and it tried to, in the same way it always has, to transfer to the next generation. Yet it was blocked – by the sheer volume of empousa blood in your system. Without any other in your generation to claim it, for the first time in thousands of years, it came back to its progenitor – me.’
Both El and Yia Yia were confounded.
Yia Yia’s voice quivered, ‘Y-you are Circe? Helen’s mother … the gorgon’s grandmother?’
‘The gorgon was birthed by two empousa – Helen and Seth. Helen was Circe’s child. But Seth was mine. He inherited my ability to bring death with his gaze, as did his daughter, the gorgon. It is this power that has come back and reanimated me.’
Both Yia Yia and El stared in disbelief. The full power was in this woman. Yia Yia had miscalculated: Eirene wasn’t next in line to possess it. In that generation Anna had already had it without knowing. El’s thoughts clamoured, each vying to be heard first. Her grandma never could have saved her as the full power had already transferred to another host … Anna. And to think that El would have had the full power if it hadn’t been for the empousa blood in her system.
For a moment she wished that it hadn’t been blocked: if she’d inherited the full power she’d have been able to save her grandma. Then relief filled her. She was glad that the empousa blood had caused her to reject the full power. She’d never wanted it. Now Yia Yia wouldn’t covet her so much.
