Coils

by Barbara Ann Wright

  She reached instead for the home of the gods. If the time hadn’t been right for a full deus ex machina before, it was now. She willed them to police their own, and their essences responded to her call, surrounding Hecate, though they were still arguing: some saying they should let Hecate go, while others said she should be sentenced to join them where they’d fled.

  “No!” Hecate screamed. “I can bring magic back. I can bring you back to life!”

  They wanted to rejoice, but Athena, Demeter, and Hermes added their doubts. If she could do that, why had she never done it? What would the crown of the Underworld give her that she didn’t have?

  The gods looked into Hecate’s mind, towing Cressida along with them. They wanted to see if there was any hope, and with the belief of the Underworld holding her still, they could manage.

  They found nothing but lies, all lies, just like most things in the Underworld.

  Hecate snarled. “Curse you all, listen to me! I don’t know what the crown can do for us until I have it. It’s worth a try!”

  But inside her head, the gods discovered that she didn’t really believe it was possible. And belief was everything here.

  The anger of the gods burned like a white hot flame. Even Hades joined their cries of outrage, and killing his wife had been his idea. Hecate tried to use her belief to stay where she was, but she wasn’t trapped like Persephone. She knew she could be moved; she just didn’t want to go. Cressida felt her force of will clawing to stay put, but all the minds of the Underworld were against her now. Someone took Cressida’s hand. Medusa. Her eyes were closed as if she was using every ounce of will. Her sisters stood behind her, and they marshalled the belief of the shades.

  Slowly, the fog descended around Hecate until she was lost to view, and Cressida felt her shift to the place of the gods, a place they could never leave. She cried out one final time before she disappeared forever.

  The power of the gods began to withdraw, but Cressida said, “Wait.” She looked to Medusa, who opened her eyes, their gazes locking.

  Medusa’s head tilted, and her smile was soft and sweet, a little sad. “You did it.”

  “No one deserves to suffer forever.”

  Medusa frowned as if she didn’t understand. Her gaze shifted to Persephone, but Cressida wasn’t thinking of anyone but Medusa. Her belief in Cressida was so bright, Cressida could almost see it in the air.

  Cressida tapped into the power of the gods and stretched it across the whole of the Underworld, through the shade fog, separating the shades into the people they used to be, the people they could be again. When she touched Stheno and Euryale, she flooded them with belief, with the certainty that their family could be happy if it were whole.

  The shade fog glowed as it mingled with the artificial sunlight of the Elysian Fields. Shades dropped from it like rain, turning solid as their feet touched the ground, and they became men, women, and children, mostly human with a few other species mixed in. They ran to and fro, hugging each other, calling out for those they’d lost, and their cries spread through the Underworld for loved ones to come and find them, whole generations of the forgotten reunited.

  “Medusa!” someone called.

  Medusa stiffened, and Cressida glanced past her to see her sisters returned to their human forms, peering around, clasping their arms around each other and hugging their mother.

  “Stheno?” Medusa whispered, but she didn’t turn. “Euryale?”

  “They’re right there,” Cressida said.

  Medusa shook her head wildly. Tears trickled down her cheeks, and she shuddered as if holding back sobs. “I can’t look. They’re not real.”

  “Go on,” Cressida said.

  “I…can’t. They’ll disappear or…” Her breath shuddered in and out as she met Cressida’s gaze. “You couldn’t have done this! Why did you do this? No one ever does anything just because they’re nice!”

  Cressida kissed her cheek. “Moron. Go hug them already.”

  With a sob, Medusa whirled around as her sisters reached for her. They fumbled their way into one another’s arms, weeping.

  “Stop crying!” Stheno said. “If you don’t stop, I can’t stop!”

  “I can cry if I want!” Medusa said.

  “I hate crying in front of people.”

  “It’s a moment. Just enjoy it!”

  Euryale shook them both gently. “Both of you shut up.” She pulled them closer, arms across their shoulders, a move that seemed as if it could easily turn into a headlock. “Mom! Mom! Come on!”

  Aix hovered over them, purring, and Cressida could feel their joy shining brighter than the sun in the Elysian Fields, brighter even than the gentle warmth floating from the Isles of the Blessed.

  Now there was only one thing left to do. As she strode toward Persephone, everyone she met asked if she was sure. Adonis and Agamemnon, Pandora, Arachne, and Narcissus. She felt Medusa’s gaze. She could almost hear what her parents and June would say. She could leave the Underworld now. She’d done enough. The gates were down. The shades were people again. Hecate was gone. All that was left was poor lonely Persephone, but Cressida didn’t owe her anything. They weren’t friends. If she left, maybe Persephone would tear herself apart at the seams, and everything would slowly fade again, back to the way it was, and everyone in the Underworld could return to their static states and find whatever comfort they could wherever they could.

  And she would go back to being a grad student and wonder what might have been.

  She knelt at Persephone’s side and wondered how hard this would be, what grand words she’d have to use, what rituals she’d have to perform.

  “Can I see the ambrosia?” she asked.

  Narcissus pressed it into her hands without a word, and she knew he was anxious for Persephone to be gone.

  “Go on, then,” she said to Persephone, “go and find your mom. I’ll take your place.” She dipped a finger into the bag and licked it. Warm honey coated her tongue before an alcohol-like burn tore down her throat. She tried not to cough, but it came out in huge, undignified gasps. She hope they left that part out of the official story.

  Adonis grimaced. “You’re not supposed to have it straight,” he whispered.

  She kept coughing, wishing someone had mentioned that.

  With a sigh and a smile, Persephone faded like the afterimage of a really bright light. She’d been holding on for so long. One little push was all she’d been waiting for. As her presence withdrew, taking Cressida’s three helper gods with it, a tingle built around Cressida’s forehead, but she didn’t have to lift a hand to know she’d just been crowned dread queen of the Underworld.

  Still sputtering and coughing, she turned to face the assembled masses, some of whom were staring at her expectantly. Most were ignoring her as they sought out loved ones and friends. A few were fighting, and she supposed that was to be expected.

  Medusa took a step toward her. “Cressida, are you all right?”

  Truthfully, she didn’t feel that much different. “Party at the palace?”

  Epilogue

  Medusa had long ago given up on, “Sometimes, things just work out.” She hadn’t really believed it when she was alive, either when she was ruling cities and terrifying the populace or when she was retired. It seemed even less true after she’d been murdered and not at all true when she’d known she’d be spending eternity dead.

  Now though, she had her sisters and her mother. She’d visited the Elysian Fields a few times and the Isles of the Blessed once. She’d punched the hero Jason right in the face, never mind that she was no longer on good terms with Medea, who’d been keeping a low profile without her mother’s power to back her up.

  It was a good time, and it looked to be a good eternity, but for one thing.

  “Go and talk to her,” Stheno said.

  Medusa stared out her apartment windows at an Underworld still celebrating its freedom. Fireworks occasionally boomed in a sky that now looked distinctly sunnier. “I
’ve tried! She keeps putting me off. First she was touring the Underworld, and then speaking with her aunt via the hierophant, and then she was doing every other goddamn thing. She doesn’t want to see me.”

  “So, park yourself outside of the palace until she lets you in,” Euryale said as she packed boxes in the kitchen. They were moving into one of the warehouses so Aix could live with them. “Serenade her under her window. You have to pull out all the stops.”

  Medusa rested her chin in one hand. “She says she needs time.”

  Stheno folded a sweater and packed it away. “Time and effort. If you just sit around waiting, she’ll think you don’t care.”

  “What do you know?”

  They kept pestering, saying she needed to send gifts and notes and songs she’d written with her own tuneless hands. They talked about poetry and sacrifice and deeds done in Cressida’s name. But this wasn’t a foot put wrong or a word out of place; there was broken trust between them. Was there enough chocolate in the whole of the Underworld to mend such a gap?

  And Cressida didn’t need Medusa’s help with anything. She could do whatever she liked with her powers. Medusa didn’t have anything to offer her.

  When her sisters kept badgering her, she left and tried to tell herself she was picking random directions and wandering aimlessly, but as they always did, her steps took her through the open gates of the Terrace and all the way to the palace. She found Agamemnon on guard duty, captain of the guard, really, and he blocked her way as he had before.

  “She’s busy,” he said.

  Medusa sighed. “Or that’s what she told you if I came around?”

  He had the grace to duck his head and clear his throat as she started to turn away. “But someone else has been waiting for you.” He nodded down the wall. She frowned but started that direction, and he grabbed her arm. “But if she tells you to go, you go.”

  “Okay,” she muttered, not having any idea who he was talking about. She went in the indicated direction and found Arachne leaning against the wall.

  “Finally!” Arachne said. “I thought you’d given up!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Up and over, like before.” She winked. “We’ve got it all figured out. You surprise her, say something witty, she falls into your arms, and neither of you moon around anymore!”

  “Who’s we?” She paused. “She’s been mooning over me?”

  Arachne rolled her eyes. “By we, I mean all us hopeless romantics.” She winked again before her face went serious. “But if she tells you to go, you go.”

  “Yeah, I heard that from Agamemnon. I’m guessing you’re talking about Cressida?”

  “Who else?”

  Medusa sighed and supposed it was worth a shot. “She’s going to tell me to go from the start.”

  “Not if you talk fast enough.”

  Great. Arachne slung them up and over the wall, telling her to meet Pandora near the entrance to the garden, and Medusa did so.

  “Wait right here,” Pandora said, “and remember—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I go if she tells me to go.”

  Pandora blinked. “I was going to say, remember to believe in yourself.” After a shrug, she ran into the palace.

  Cressida emerged a few moments later and stuttered to a halt when she saw Medusa. She was dressed in a different T-shirt and jeans, and now the crown of the Underworld circled her brow. For Persephone it had appeared as glowing embers, but on Cressida it was a silver circlet with one shining ruby in the center. “Pandora said it was an emergency.”

  “It is,” Medusa said quickly. “Well, it kind of is.” Her heart was hammering, and she was amazed a human could make her feel this way after so long, like the younger one in the relationship with less experience to draw on. “I…wanted to see you.”

  Cressida smiled kindly, but it had a removed, talking-to-the-peasants air. “I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.”

  “Right.”

  “So?”

  “Ah.” And even though she knew she had to talk quickly, all the words left her. What could she offer the queen of the Underworld, who had all the famous figures of Greek history and myth awaiting her every call? She blurted the first thing that came to mind: “I was wondering if you wanted a ride on my giant snake sometime.”

  Cressida’s mouth twitched as if she was trying to keep that kindly smile in place, but then her lips wobbled, and she sputtered a laugh before getting herself under control. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  Medusa grinned. “Not anymore. Now it’s just you.”

  Cressida’s head tilted. “You want me to forgive you.”

  “No,” Medusa said, and she was surprised to find she meant it. “I don’t deserve forgiveness. What I’d like to do is start over, if you want. I’ll prove myself so that one day, the good memories will outweigh the bad.”

  Cressida shoulders sagged, and she looked across the ground as if weighing her options. “Are you offering to quest for my favor?”

  Medusa grinned. “If that’s what you want.”

  “Well, that and the giant snake rides.”

  Medusa laughed softly and stepped forward, daring to take Cressida’s hands. “I will be whatever you want me to be. And if you need someone to watch me, then have someone watch me. I will take every test you require.”

  “I have lots of helpers.”

  “Are any of them falling in love with you?”

  Cressida breathed deeply, and her eyes drilled into Medusa’s. “I don’t think so, and I don’t miss any of them like I miss you.” Medusa moved forward to kiss her, but Cressida pressed a finger between their lips. “Trust has to be rebuilt, proven, you said so yourself.”

  And Medusa agreed, but she couldn’t say it again, not with Cressida standing so close. “Well, I’m happy to prove that I’m still a good kisser.”

  *

  Cressida smiled and let her gaze linger on Medusa’s lips. “Maybe just a little one. A promise of the future?” She dropped her hand.

  Medusa moved so swiftly, Cressida nearly drew back, but Medusa grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close in a rush that left her breathless. That was okay; there wasn’t really time to breathe as Medusa claimed her lips.

  Cressida couldn’t help leaning in and opening her mouth, matching Medusa’s passion with her own, their lips pressing together so hard, she felt a few teeth. Cressida’s hands wandered without telling her until she grabbed Medusa’s ass as Medusa had once grabbed hers and was rewarded with a moan that made her knees weak.

  She wanted to make a joke about how this wasn’t exactly a little kiss, but her pent up desire had rolled a sheet over the rest of her brain, putting it to sleep. All she could think at that moment was that there were too many clothes between them.

  Cressida stumbled to the side, taking Medusa with her into the bushes. They rolled on the grass, and Cressida tried to tug Medusa’s shirt upward, but it got caught on a stray branch.

  “Here, here,” Medusa said, trying to pull it off.

  Cressida concentrated, and the clothes between them vanished, as did the harpy who took that moment to call, “Get a room!”

  Medusa laughed, but Cressida couldn’t focus on anything but Medusa’s skin. She tongued the line of Medusa’s collarbone and the hollow between her breasts. Medusa’s hands tangled in her hair, skating over the crown of the Underworld, but she couldn’t take that off, ever. As Medusa brought Cressida’s head up and kissed her, it seemed she didn’t mind.

  After their hair snagged in the bushes several times, and a rogue twig poked Medusa in the eye, Cressida took the harpy’s advice and moved them into the palace, into the enormous bedroom she’d taken as her own. To her credit, Medusa didn’t gawk as much as Cressida would have in her place. In fact, it wasn’t long before Medusa had their lovemaking as well in hand as she seemed to have everything else. Her natural confidence always allowed her to adapt, it seemed, a trait Cressida would have envied if she’d had time to think beyond the
pleasure cascading through her or the supple sweetness of Medusa’s body. It wasn’t long before Cressida was pulling at the sheets and moaning at the things Medusa could do with her fingers or tongue, all the clever places she found to kiss or stroke. She made all of Cressida’s former lovers seem like the dead ones. Cressida might have felt a little embarrassed by her own efforts if she wasn’t so lost in acres of pleasure.

  “Enough,” Cressida finally said. “I can’t take it anymore. I love it, but I…just…can’t.”

  “We stopped touching each other two minutes ago,” Medusa said from beside her.

  “Oh.” The aftershocks were still fading. She was happy to see that Medusa looked a bit satisfied, too, though she didn’t know if Medusa was as overcome with the urge to turn into a puddle. Why had she kept this fabulous woman away for so long?

  The lies. Right. The calculating part of her wondered if she should get really angry again just so Medusa would have to make it up to her like this. Or maybe she was always so passionate. If Cressida let her stay, maybe they could have this sort of sex all the time.

  I’ll die. But what a way to go.

  And now that the rest of her brain could function, it couldn’t get off the past. Passion had carried her through—she paused, trying to count the orgasms and failing. Passion had carried her through a really, really good time, but there had to be more than passion between them if they were going to have a relationship.

  To Hades with relationships. Think of the sex, woman!

  “You’re frowning,” Medusa said. “Is it because of me?”

  “If you’re so good at reading people, how did you not know how shitty it was to lie to me?”

  Medusa sighed. “I’ll explain myself again if you want. I’ll apologize forever. If you want to yell at me, I can take it, but I won’t argue with you, Cressida. I know what I did was wrong.”