by Lori Devoti
“Mel! What? Who?” Zery stood a few feet away, a sword held in a halfway position, like she was lowering or raising it, I couldn’t tell which.
“Zery?” Relief hit me. A laugh exploded from my constricted chest. My hands dropped and brushed the body before me, reminded me Zery might be safe, but someone else wasn’t.
Zery raised her sword higher, crossed the few paces between us. “Step back, Mel.”
When I didn’t move, she pointed the blade at my throat.
I lifted my hands and edged my body backward.
“Who is it?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I thought it was you-was afraid-”
She shook her head in return, her hair moving around her face as she did. “Don’t say anything and don’t move. Whatever you do, don’t move.” Her voice was shaking. There was a slight tremble in the blade as well.
Behind me the doors creaked open. Bubbe and Mother. I could feel them, smell the scents of my home drifting out and mixing with the night air. It should have been comforting, but it wasn’t.
Couldn’t be.
My best friend was holding a sword to my throat, and she meant to use it.
“Put it down.” Mother, her voice strong, missing the deference she’d normally show a queen, was back to the voice she’d used on Zery when we were little and got caught messing with Mother’s weights. Rolling them across the room. Staging races.
Bubbe ignored them both, moved forward to place her hand on the woman’s shoulder and carefully roll her onto her back.
Pisto, her face peaceful, lacking the hate I’d seen sketched there the last time she’d looked at me.
My breath caught and my gaze shot to Zery. The sword moved up and down, as if she’d forgotten she held it. Mother jerked me backward, behind her.
The action seemed to knock Zery out of her trance. Her arm stiffened. She took a step forward.
“Why?”
Mother stood between us, and despite my efforts I couldn’t get around her. “She didn’t do it.”
“I saw her, and she laughed. She sat over Pisto and laughed.”
“From relief. I thought it was you.” I darted far to the right, out of Mother’s reach, made it past her to a spot not far from where Bubbe murmured over Pisto’s body. With my grandmother and Pisto between us, I stared at my old friend, willed her to believe me. “I didn’t care for Pisto, but I didn’t kill her.”
“Like you didn’t kill the other girls? How did you get their totems? Alcippe said you brought them to camp; I didn’t believe her. I convinced myself she’d made a mistake, that her dislike of you was coloring her perceptions. But it was you, wasn’t it? You killed them and now Pisto. Tell me why.” Her sword arm was stiff, her stance stiff too, rigid with anger.
“There is no why. I didn’t kill them, any of them.” I took a breath, prayed she’d believe what I was going to tell her. “I found them, like this, on my front porch.”
“On your front porch?” She shook her head. “I know you. You can do better than that.”
I held out my hands. “I can’t. It’s the truth. I don’t know why, but the killer brought them to me-woke me with a rock tossed at my window. I came down and they were here. The first one…when I realized she was an Amazon…I didn’t know what to do, had no idea who to trust.” I rubbed a hand over my forehead. “What would you expect me to do? What kind of greeting would I have received if I’d shown up at the safe camp with a dead Amazon teen in my truck? I convinced myself I had no choice, took her totem, released her spirit, then left her somewhere I knew she’d be found, so the police would be called in.”
Zery looked away, at the brick wall of my shop. I was sure she wasn’t even seeing the dusty red bricks and cracked mortar, that her mind was spinning as out of control as mine.
“The second…well, I realized the tribe might not even know. I had to do something to alert you. So, I brought the totems.”
“So, you brought the totems,” she repeated, like some kind of automaton.
“But the dead girls, they’ve been visiting me. They came tonight. I knew something had happened. I just didn’t know what.” I looked down at Pisto then, the full reality that she was dead setting in.
Bubbe brushed hair off the dead warrior’s face, started to fold her hands like I’d done with the others, then with her fingers posed above Pisto’s right breast, Bubbe paused and looked up at me.
I pressed my hands together in front of my lips, in a praying posture. “Like the others,” I murmured.
New creases formed on my grandmother’s face. I could tell she was disturbed. I wanted to ask her what she thought it meant, why anyone would mutilate the girls so, but as the question formed in my mind, Zery sprang back to life. She paced forward, her sword extended.
“You have to come with me, back to camp.”
I glanced at the shop where my daughter and Dana slept.
Dana. Pisto.
I swallowed. The young hearth-keeper had just lost the last of her immediate family. Pregnant and the end of her line-except for the baby boy the Amazons wanted her to give up.
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving.”
“We’re not giving you any choice.” As if solidifying from mist, Alcippe stepped out of the shadows.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Making sure a killer doesn’t escape.” She swept the long skirt of her dress out of her way and stalked forward.
Seeing her now brought forth every suspicion I’d ever had. I started to move too, toward her. “That’s a good idea. Why don’t you tell us what you know about the killings?”
“Me?” She laughed. “It’s over, Mel. Your hatred has gone too far.”
“Mine or yours? Both girls broke the rules, didn’t they? Snuck up to Madison without your permission. Did they like what they saw here? Were they questioning the need to stay hidden? Is that why you killed them, to preserve the precious Amazon way of life?”
Her hands disappeared into the sleeves of her kaftan.
I took another step, barely noticing that Bubbe had stood, that the staff she’d held earlier was back in her hand. “You tattooed them all too, didn’t you? Is that why you took their givnomai, taking back what you gave them, denying them their right to be Amazons by killing them, then stealing their personal power?”
“What?” She and Zery said the word at once.
Zery began to walk toward Pisto, her gaze locked on her lieutenant’s T-shirt-covered breast.
Alcippe pulled her hands from her sleeves, shoved them up into the air. Grass that had been flattened under my bare feet seconds early shot upward until skinny green tendrils curled around my thighs, pulled on me.
I cursed and clawed at the weeds, managed to jerk one leg free just to have it captured again as soon as I set my foot back onto the earth. Past trying to hide any of my skills, I pulled in a breath and exhaled.
A gale erupted from my lungs. Fed by my emotions, it knocked into the high priestess. Her kaftan molded to her body. Her hair whipped free of the braid she’d contained it with, snapped like something alive into its full length behind her. She stumbled, and her face…her expression, the shock that I was doing this to her…it was worth the wait.
Her magic forgotten, nothing but weeds to be trampled under my feet, I stalked forward, inhaling as I went, spinning my arms with each step. I was going to do what I should have done ten years ago-would have if I’d had the skill. I was going to blow her so far and so deep across the earth, there’d be a trench from here to the Gulf of Mexico.
I was strong, powerful, and unstoppable. I held the breath, felt it in my lungs. Then as I opened my lips to set it free, I saw Bubbe move, saw her staff swing toward me.
There was no time to do anything except watch as the hard polished end of my grandmother’s staff collided with my forehead.
My knees collapsed and the world around me faded…the power in the breath I’d held fading along with my consciousness.
<
br /> I woke in the cold and the dark. Something about the space seemed familiar, but it took a few minutes to realize I’d been locked in my own basement-in the boiler room with my dirty laundry and Harmony’s outgrown toys. The front of my head pounded. I touched my fingers to the pain and quickly found the reason-a ping-pong-ball-sized lump.
Who knew Bubbe packed such a wallop?
But at least she’d hit me and not responded with magic. My head probably wouldn’t have survived that.
I allowed myself another few seconds to become accustomed to the knowledge that my five-hundred-year-old grandmother had KO’d me with a staff, then I tried to stand. My head tilted left and right, like some demented bobblehead-doll, my stomach, though, surely empty…I’d lost all track of time…clenched…I made it as far as my knees before giving up, at least somewhat.
On all fours, I crept to the door, then, my head still down, reached up and twisted the knob. As I’d guessed-locked. I fell back onto my belly and lay there with my nose pressed against the one-inch crack under the door.
“Shit.” Not my favorite curse, but it fit my mood.
A staff rapped into the floor on the other side of the door. “She’s awake,” a female voice I didn’t recognize announced.
“I’ll get Alcippe,” replied another.
“No. I put her here. I’ll talk to her.”
The voice of my conqueror, all five hundred years of her.
The guards, at least I assumed they were guards and not my own personal servants waiting for me to awaken so they could serve me lemonade and cookies here in the luxury of my boiler room, must have agreed to her demand because the next thing I knew the door had whacked me firmly in the side of the head.
With a groan I rolled over, giving Bubbe ample space to squeeze into the room-or at least as much space as I was willing to give at that moment.
The door snapped closed behind her, and she peered down at me. “How are you feeling?”
From this angle she was upside-down, and I couldn’t tell for sure if she was smiling or frowning. I knew which I was doing. “Peachy,” I replied. “You could have killed me.”
“I could have, but you were a difficult labor. My daughter wouldn’t appreciate it if I dispatched her efforts so easily.”
I humphed and rolled again, making it back to a sit. “So, what’s happening?”
She slipped a glass of cloudy liquid into my hand, then walked to the nearest pile of laundry and began rooting through it. “Harmony is at school. She was not happy you left on your trip without telling her.”
“My trip?” If I’d been able, I would have stood. Instead, I choked down a gulp of whatever she’d put in the glass and grimaced as I swallowed the nasty brew.
“Trip. You have to stay here-” She jerked Harmony’s favorite pink jeans from under a stack of sweats and towels, then sniffed them. With a grimace she dropped them back onto the stack. “And she will make do.”
“What about Dana?”
Bubbe sighed. “She has been told.”
“But…where is she?” My head was beginning to clear, the pounding to lighten to a rap.
“Here. I won’t let Alcippe take her against her will. I won’t let them take her baby.” She dropped her attention back to the laundry. She was leaving something unsaid. A “but” or something seemed to hang in the air.
Her fingers tightened back around the jeans. “Zery has taken Pisto to the safe camp. Her funeral will take place there. Cleo and I will take Dana and bring her back home.”
“And what about me? What about Alcippe? You know she has more reason to have done this than I do.”
“Alcippe has no reason to have killed Pisto.”
But I did. Bubbe didn’t say that, didn’t have to.
She took a breath and kept talking. “Alcippe doesn’t live in Madison, didn’t find the bodies and keep them from the tribe. Alcippe didn’t bring men into our midst.”
Alcippe was damn near perfect whereas I was a complete and total fuckup. But I wasn’t a killer. “I can’t stay in here,” I said. “The killer”-Alcippe-“is still out there. Dana is still at risk. Harmony could be at risk.”
“You will stay here.” She started to move toward the door, the jeans gathered in her hands.
I managed to stand. Wobbly, but on my feet, I put a hand next to hers on the denim. “I have to do something. The givnomai. The killer is taking them for a reason. I know Pisto’s was missing too. I could see it on your face. If I tell you what hers was, will you bring me the totem? It and her telios?”
“You’ll call on Artemis?”
It was what she wanted more than anything-me to admit my connection to the goddess, to work on my priestess skills in the open. She’d seen what I could do when I attacked Alcippe, guessed that I’d unwound her serpent ward, but I’d yet to openly admit any of it, to say I would at least try to follow her path.
“I’ve done it before. I told you about the girls.”
“But you didn’t put all your trust in the goddess. She would never have guided you to make the choices that got you here.”
I licked my lips. “My power has grown.”
She smiled, but not with the joy or pride I expected, more like you smile at a child who tells you her favorite color is red or that the sun felt warm on her face-like she wanted to pat me on the head. “But you don’t believe, haven’t trusted. If I bring you the tools, will you try?”
I had no idea what she was asking of me. I’d always believed. I’d grown up believing. As for trust…I didn’t trust anyone, hadn’t for a long time. Still, I agreed.
She frowned, but nodded. “They will bring you food soon. You’ll find what you need on the tray.”
Chapter Twenty-one
I spent the next hour or so jumping at every sound outside the closed door. I’d considered trying to blast my way out, but couldn’t think of how that would help. Right now at least, the other Amazons didn’t see me as a threat and thought I was locked down.
I’d wait for Bubbe to get me the totems and see where the ritual took me, see what Pisto’s givnomai told me. My stomach had just started to growl and my patience to wane when I heard voices outside-my guards chatting with someone. Based on the smells making their way past the locked door and stench of Mother’s workout gear, I cleverly deduced it was someone bearing a tasty meal.
I stood up to greet her.
Holding a tray covered with a blue cloth and flanked by two scowling warriors, stood Dana. The smile on my face vanished.
Dana. It made sense a hearth-keeper would be sent to deliver my meal, but Dana…I hadn’t expected her. The Amazons claimed I’d killed her sister. Did she believe them?
She entered with her eyes downcast. Behind her the guards moved shoulder to shoulder, forming an Amazon door. I understood why they wouldn’t want to leave me alone with her-not believing what they did. It hurt, though. I’d come to care about Dana. I identified with her desire to keep her son, but also saw her as the young girl she was…not all that much older than Harmony.
The thought that she might hate me sent my appetite fleeing.
She scuttled in, her gaze never rising from the tray.
“Dana-”
One of the warriors made some grunting noise, cutting me off. I shot a glare at the pushy giant.
When I looked back, Dana hadn’t moved. She was staring around the small space, apparently looking for some flat surface on which to leave the tray. I stepped forward, shoving a pile of dishrags off the washer and onto the floor.
Still not looking at me, she slid the tray onto the dented metal top and turned to leave.
“I’m sorry about Pisto,” I murmured.
She stopped, and ran her palms down the sides of her jeans.
I wasn’t going to say anything else. She deserved her sorrow, didn’t need me proclaiming my innocence and getting in the way of what she was going through.
Her shoulders began to shake. A sob escaped her lips.
I looked at th
e warriors, stupidly expecting one of them to step in and help her out of the room. The terra-cotta warriors of Shi Huangdi showed more empathy.
Risking a kick to the head-if they managed to show life-I moved closer to the distraught hearth-keeper, but kept myself from touching her. Just yesterday I would, without question, have pulled her into my arms for a hug, had in fact, but today…I just stood there, let her know she wasn’t alone.
She pulled in another breath, and whispered, “What happened? They’re saying…”
She asked. I had to answer-was burning to answer. “I didn’t hurt her. I didn’t hurt any of them. I wouldn’t do that. You know that?”
She licked her lips, raised her eyes enough to glance at the warriors who showed some signs of life by shifting from one foot to another.
A loud sniff, then she turned and fell against my chest. I staggered to keep from falling.
“I didn’t believe them. I told Alcippe you didn’t do it-couldn’t. Just because you and Pisto fought. She and I fought, but I’d never…I’d do anything…” Her hand found its way to her stomach.
I placed mine over hers. “It isn’t your fault-don’t even think like that. You can’t afford it. He”-I patted her hand against her abdomen-“can’t afford it.”
She nodded, the up and down motion of her head tight against my shoulder, pulling at my shirt. “I know.” She let out another snuffling breath, then pulled back. Her eyes were red and swollen and her nose was running.
I searched around for a cloth to wipe her face, but came up with nothing I thought would meet her more particular needs. Finally I jerked out the tail of my shirt and stretched it toward her.
She laughed, just a light twitter of sound, but I relaxed a little. She was going to be okay. It had to be tough, losing her sister, but she’d get through it.
“Can I stay here?” she asked, after retrieving a roll of paper from the toilet positioned between the wall and laundry sink.
“Here?” I motioned to the dingy space filled with smelly laundry.
