by Molly Ringle
The slender river flowed through the forest. Galateia and Akis sat mostly concealed on the downward slope of the bank between path and stream, the riverside trees and shrubs screening them all around. Hekate just barely glimpsed Galateia, a smudge of red gown and pale leg among the leaves. Akis was invisible in his brown cloak until he moved, then Hekate spotted his hand for a moment, rising as if to caress Galateia’s face, and heard his voice in a low chuckle and words she couldn’t make out.
Hekate knew Akis well by now. He was a temple acolyte, gentle and intelligent, and loyal to the anti-Thanatos cause. He and his mother had grown up in the cluster of houses belonging to the temple. He made Hekate proud every time she visited and spoke to him. But she had never told him who his soul had been in a past life. He was young yet, and such information was too weighty for his shoulders.
Hekate didn’t know Galateia nearly as well. The girl’s parents kept her close to the house most of the time, and they weren’t temple worshippers. In fact, Hekate had seen Galateia’s father at Thanatos gatherings, shouting support for hate-spewing street preachers. Perhaps Galateia disagreed with her parents—or, Hekate thought with a chill, maybe she agreed with them, and was working to entrap a supporter of the immortals. Was that possible? Could Persephone’s soul be capable of such despicable loyalties, under the right—or rather, the wrong—influences?
She tiptoed back to the path and waited there, leaning against a tree and twisting a ring around her finger in consternation. Eventually she sensed the two souls stirring and parting. Galateia moved upstream and away. Not long after, Akis walked toward Hekate, his feet snapping twigs unconcernedly.
He came out onto the path a few paces away, a dreamy smile on his face, his shoulder-length hair mussed up, bay wreath in his hand. He ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging a dead leaf or two, and fitted the wreath back onto his head.
He finally noticed Hekate, with a start. “My Lady.” He bobbed, then stopped. She had asked the temple folk over and over not to bow to her as if she were the Great Goddess, and merely to address her as a friend.
“Hello, Akis.” She smiled.
He approached. His face glowed with a distinctive lover’s flush. He was an ordinary-looking boy most days, but with that glow he became beautiful. “Are you going to the temple?” he asked. “I’m headed back that way now.”
“Yes, soon.” She looked up the path. “Do you know Galateia, then?”
The question sucked the flush out of his cheeks. He glanced all around, then appealed to her with scared dark eyes. “You saw her? Please don’t tell anyone. It’s dangerous. For her.”
“I haven’t, don’t worry. What’s the trouble? Her family’s in Thanatos?”
Akis nodded. He bowed his head, eyebrows furrowing, trouble chasing love across his mobile young face like alternating clouds and sunshine. “That and they’ve planned for her to marry at the end of summer.”
“Oh dear. To whom?”
“The son of someone else in the cult. He’s younger than her by a couple of years, and he’s horrible, one of those violent and stupid boys, but she’s supposed to be grateful because he’s ‘willing to have her.’” He nearly spat the last words, with the concentrated bitterness only a youth could manage.
“So we have a few months. But is she involved in the cult herself?”
“She doesn’t agree with them, but she pretends to, around her parents. I’ve talked with her about the other realm. Told her I’ve learned about it—seen you perform magic—and that it’s all good, or at least nothing like those idiots say. She believes me. But what can she do? Even if she fled to the temple, that’s too close. They’d find out where she was and use it as an excuse to attack us. Everyone at the temple could get killed, and it would all be because of me!”
Hekate set her hand on his bare arm, backing up the soothing gesture with a subtle dose of magic. “Calm down. Nothing’s happened yet. Listen, if she does want to be free of them, I’ll help her. But you must bring her to me so we can talk. I doubt I can just walk up to her parents’ door and ask for a chat.” Hekate was easily the best known immortal in the area, recognized throughout this village and all the neighboring ones.
A meek smile crept onto his face. “No, you probably shouldn’t.”
“Then arrange for her to meet me. All right?”
***
It started when Galateia was gathering wood in the forest on a spring day. She stayed near the path, and people and pack animals passed sometimes, going between villages. She paid them no mind, lost in thought. As usual, she was thinking about her dreadful future husband, whom she had once seen torturing a cat with his vicious friends. She was hoping for some miracle of deliverance from that match. In addition, her thoughts were threaded through with the poignantly appealing image of that boy from the temple, the one who had gazed at her in passing a few days ago. If only she could have been matched up with a boy like that instead.
“Is it firewood you’re after?” someone asked.
She turned, arms full of sticks, and found the very same brown-cloaked boy standing there. Her tongue seemed stuck. She nodded.
He held out a handful of dried reeds, the sort that grew beside the river. “Take some of these too. They catch fast. Excellent kindling.” His voice was as gentle as his demeanor, already deepened into adult tones.
“Thank you.” She took the reeds.
No one else was around. It probably wasn’t proper to talk to him unchaperoned. But he seemed harmless, and his eyes were even lovelier than she remembered from that glimpse a few days ago. Tree-filtered sunlight lit up specks of gold in the dark brown. “You’re from the temple?” she asked before he could turn away. Nothing wrong with a few pleasantries, she reasoned.
He nodded. “I was born there, have always lived there.”
“What’s that like?”
“Can be strange. But good. Not as bad as you’ve probably heard.”
She piled the sticks and reeds into the small cart she’d wheeled along. “I’ve heard crazy things. They couldn’t all be true.”
“Some are and some aren’t.” He glanced down the path, then smiled at her. “Can I help you with the firewood? I’m supposed to scrub pots when I get back. My least favorite job. I’d rather put it off a while.”
She consented with more pleasure than she should have felt.
By the end of that day’s wood-gathering and conversation, she was dazzled. She mentioned her regular task of gathering water each morning and evening at a certain spot along the river. When he “happened” to be walking by that spot the next morning, she began sensing he was dazzled too.
They were in love before the moon had completed a full cycle. They contrived to meet every day somewhere in the concealment of the forest. Mostly they held each other and talked, conjuring dreams of a future where they could spend all their time like this, where Thanatos wouldn’t try to keep them apart or destroy Akis’ noble immortal patrons.
But they shared kisses too, and playful tangles and increasingly breathless touches. He told her she was beautiful; he even loved her freckles. His hair smelled like bay leaves. His body fitted so perfectly against hers. Every day it was harder to tear herself away. They both knew better than to get her with child, but they began to understand how so many couples had fallen into that situation. Galateia loved him for his wisdom, kindness, and grace; and lusted for his body in the basest fashion. And Akis professed in a thousand ways that he felt the same for her.
Although she believed everything he said about the temple and the immortals—or because she believed it—the prospect of meeting the goddess Hekate in person frightened her. She agreed to it because Akis assured her she’d be safe, and indeed this might be their only way to get Galateia out of her arranged marriage. Still, she trembled as he led her to the tall, black-haired woman at their meeting spot in the forest.
She had seen Hekate from a distance before, and always thought she looked otherworldly. This was the first time
Galateia had gotten up close to her, and now the woman seemed even more so. The dark blue of Hekate’s ankle-length robe was a deeper and more vibrant hue than Galateia had ever seen an indigo dye achieve, and the garment’s folds fell slim and long, different from the shorter, fuller style everyone in Sicily wore. Gold, bronze, and jewels shimmered on her body: a ring, a bracelet, a line of stones on her belt, a cuff high up on her ear, a bauble dangling from one of the small braids in her hair. Other than the few braids, that black hair was a careless mass that looked windblown. She was paler than average, as if she seldom spent any time in the sun, and her skin, face, and posture were perfection, unnerving beauty.
But when Hekate took Galateia’s hand, spoke her name in greeting, and smiled, Galateia felt relaxation flow through her. Was it the calm intelligence of those dark gray eyes?
“So tell me about your family’s involvement in Thanatos, and what you think of it all,” Hekate said, with both hands folded around Galateia’s.
Galateia spoke truthfully, relating how her parents had become more spiteful lately in their invective against the “foul” immortals and their worshippers. How she frequently heard hints of violent plans that might become reality if some incident ever tipped the conflict too far. How they told her she was ugly and therefore should be grateful to be betrothed to a despicable twelve-year-old boy, and how the nuptials would take place at the autumn equinox. “I can’t see any way out of it,” Galateia finished, her voice catching in despair.
Hekate’s eyes now looked more human than before, full of sympathy. She released Galateia’s hand, and her lips thinned as she thought for a moment. “What if,” Hekate said, “I came and claimed you for the temple? Insisted divine inspiration had led me to you, and that—no, that would only anger them.”
Akis was already shaking his head in dissent before she reached the conclusion herself. “Stealing people’s daughters, that’s how they’d put it. It’d be an act of war in their eyes, even if she told them she wanted to come.”
“And—not to treat you as a commodity, my dear,” Hekate said to Galateia, “but could we buy her, do you think? Riches are easy for me to come by.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Galateia shivered at the thought. “They’d be terribly offended. Just offering could make things so much worse.”
“Well.” Hekate regarded Akis, and then Galateia. “We have other temples. In other lands. If you’re both willing to…” Hekate sighed, as if giving up the idea. “Leave the only island you’ve ever known. I suppose that’s not a wondrous plan either.”
But Galateia glanced in hope at Akis, and he returned the glance. “Still,” he said, “if we ran away, wouldn’t they come after us?”
Hekate’s tight smile became a touch otherworldly again. “Not if they thought you were both dead.”
Galateia stepped back. “No. That’s too much. We can’t…I can’t grieve everyone like that.” She looked helplessly at Akis. “Nor can you.”
“We’d tell my mother the truth.” Akis looked at Hekate. “Wouldn’t we?”
Hekate shrugged, seeming to allow that, but Galateia pulled back another step. “I’m sorry. I don’t see how…just, can’t we wait a little, see if we can think of something else?”
“Of course,” Hekate said. “I’ll keep thinking on it.”
Akis looked downcast, but he walked Galateia back through the forest after they said goodbye to Hekate. The lovers held each other for several long breaths before parting. “We’ll find a way,” he said, and kissed her.
“Galateia!” a furious voice shouted.
She whirled around. Her father stood on the path, just visible through the trees. He was glaring at them—at Akis, in his brown cloak and bay wreath. Her father began stomping forward through the underbrush.
Galateia looked at Akis in terror. “Run.”
“But I won’t leave you to—”
“He won’t kill me—he’ll kill you! Run!”
Akis’ chest rose and fell fast. “I’ll get Hekate,” he said, and took off at a sprint.
Galateia’s father lurched after him, but he was middle-aged and stiff-muscled, and couldn’t catch a swift fourteen-year-old boy. Besides, Galateia clutched his arm and hung onto it, weighing him down, as she pleaded, “Don’t, Father! We’re innocent. Please.”
He swung around and struck Galateia in the side of the head so hard she staggered and almost fell. Through the ringing in her ears she heard him shout after Akis, “We’ll be coming to the temple in revenge, you scum!”
Then he hauled Galateia around, her skin pinching under his grip. “And you, slut. Home. Now.”
Chapter Forty-One
Akis bolted down the forest path, his heart galloping to keep up. “Hekate!” he shouted over and over with the few shreds of breath left to him. But she was gone—likely slipped back into the other realm.
He reached the temple, still didn’t find her there, and in desperation seized the sleeves of his mother and one of the priests instead. “There’s a girl, I’m friends with her, her father saw me embracing her, they’re in Thanatos, I’m worried they’re going to beat her or kill her, or—”
“Show us where,” the priest said. Righteous anger lit up his eyes.
Akis ended up leading a group of five temple folk to the gate of Galateia’s house, some armed with thick staffs but no other weapons. The priest rapped upon the gate.
Galateia’s father stalked out. “What could you filth want?” His gaze fell upon Akis. “You dare show your face here?”
“Don’t hurt Galateia,” Akis said, trembling—more in fury than in fear, though in fear too.
“We were told your daughter was in danger,” the priest said.
“I know what kind of danger he poses for her. You’re not the law around here. Get out.”
“It isn’t like that!” Akis protested. “We’ve never—I wouldn’t—”
“We’re trying to keep an innocent girl safe,” Akis’ mother told the man. “We’re her friends. We assure you he’s done nothing wrong, nor has she, so if you could just let us see she’s all right—”
Just then Galateia peeked out from a window in the front of the house, and Akis drew in a sharp breath. Her eye and cheekbone were puffy with bruises, her hand shaking as she clasped the shutter.
“What have you done to her?” Akis demanded.
“She isn’t yours,” her father said. “And you’ll never see her again.” He glared at each of the temple delegation. “You can all be sure the insult you’ve paid my family is going to be avenged many times over. Now get out before I start taking that revenge now.”
Akis lunged forward, ready to tear the hinges off the gate and pummel the man until he could get past and rescue Galateia. But her father grabbed a pitchfork, and Akis’ mother and friends hauled Akis out of the way and back onto the safety of the road. He fought them the whole way back to the temple, a white heat of heartbreak ripping him in half.
“The Lady Hekate will help you when she returns,” his mother reminded him. “You know she will. Calm yourself, son.” An ironic note of humor entered her voice. “And tell me what in the world you’ve been up to with this girl.”
At their house in the temple grounds, he did tell her, including Hekate’s idea of spiriting them out of the country altogether. “But I don’t want to leave you if I don’t have to,” he added wretchedly.
“I don’t want you to get killed,” she returned. “Much better to have you happily married in another country, if that’s our only option.”
They had just begun to cook dinner, a miserable semblance of a normal evening, when the cries started up.
“Fire!”
Akis and his mother raced out. The temple’s stables were going up in a billow of smoke. As Akis watched, three more flaming arrows arched overhead and landed among the gardens, roofs, and fields of the community. New screams arose.
His mother ran with others to free the trapped livestock in the stables, and to fetch water. Aki
s sprinted to the road dividing the temple houses from the rest of the village, and skidded to a stop. A small army milled there, some twenty men and women in sackcloth masks, armed with bows, spears, and torches.
Akis stood rooted to the ground in horror. Exactly as he’d feared, it was happening: the temple was being attacked, because of him.
Before he could decide whether to fight back, to rush to the aid of his friends, or to run to Galateia’s house, a hand clutched his arm. He looked up to find Hekate, holding onto him but glaring at the enemy.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she told him.
Then she let go of him and twisted one hand upward. The clouds thickened overhead, darkening the sky. Rain began pouring down. Another gesture from her, and the sound of splintering wood crackled from the army—spears and bows breaking in half in the hands of the startled attackers.
“What do you folk think you’re doing?” a man’s voice called.
Akis and Hekate turned to see the prince approaching with a score of armed men. He was one of the sons of the island’s king, and was appointed to keep the peace in this region. Even if he wasn’t a temple worshipper exactly, Akis had seen him at some of the year’s larger festivals, and knew him to be fair to everyone, temple folk included.
“We can leave this in his hands,” Hekate said, sounding relieved. “Come, let’s get Galateia before her father returns home.”
She wrapped her arms around Akis and yanked him into the spirit realm—or at least that’s what it must have been. He had only a moment to gawk around at the wilderness in amazement, then she tugged him again and they ran, through the growing darkness, across meadows and through a forest. Akis followed Hekate, who seemed to know her way. At some seemingly arbitrary spot, she stopped and pulled him back into the living world.
They were right outside Galateia’s house, in the back garden, near the stone fence.
“I’ll fetch her,” Hekate said. “Wait here.” She walked toward the house. Her dark blue robes vanished in the shadows.
Akis waited motionless beneath an old olive tree that grew beside the stone fence, though he longed to run to the house and throw his arms around his love. He’d die beside her if he had to, but they couldn’t keep them apart, he couldn’t take it…
