Dark of the Moon

by Barrett, Tracy

  "All of it?" I managed to whisper. The huge bronze head moved up and then down. I lifted the cup, and before I could change my mind, I swallowed its contents. I handed the cup to the Minos and watched him as I waited to die.

  He removed the lid from the largest of the twelve jars lined up inside the door and reached inside it. He appeared to be moving as unhurriedly as the sun moves across the sky. When his hand came out of the jar, it was holding a long snake, whose tail slashed the air like a bullwhip, but so slowly that I felt I could dance around it.

  I tried to speak but made only a raspy grunt, and the big horns swung in my direction. I thought the head gave a little shake, as though my uncle were telling me to be still. I watched the serpent as it moved sluggishly. Was the creature in a holy trance, or had the Minos drugged it?

  After a time that seemed interminably long yet infinitesimally short, the Minos's voice said, again in the beautiful language of prayer, "It is time for She-Who-Is-Goddess to be born and to let Goddess enter her." Still holding the snake in his right hand, he grasped my wrist in his left, and before I knew what he was going to do, he had scraped the tips of the serpent's fangs along my flesh.

  I squinted; even the light that came through the cracks around the door was now—When? A moment later? The next day? One hundred years later?—unbearably brilliant. Then heat traveled from my heart through my body and out my fingers and toes, tingling and burning.

  The Minos was speaking, but I had no interest in his words. I stretched out my fingers. My left wrist felt tight, and I saw that it was swollen and pink and that my hand looked like it belonged to a fat baby.

  The Minos lifted off his mask and gazed at me, his grizzled hair sticking to his head with sweat. To my mute astonishment, I saw tears spilling out of his eyelids. Then he did a very strange and unexpected thing. He bowed, so low that I thought his forehead was going to knock into his knees, and said in the ancient language, "My lady Karia."

  Then I understood. Ariadne was gone; She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess would be dead until my own daughter, born at some future Birth of the Sun, became a woman. Now I understood my mother's loneliness. I was alone, even though I would always be surrounded by people, because unlike me, they were all fated to die, while I would live forever and one day would look down on them from the sky.

  The Minos slumped a bit, exhausted. I understood that now that his duty was done, now that he had summoned Goddess, he had turned back into the old, familiar Minos. He would laugh and talk and eat and drink and play with babies and flirt with girls for the length of the Festival. And then, afterward, he would move to his cottage with Orthia and with someone else—who was it? I racked my brain trying to remember if he had another wife who was going to share his retirement with him. Then I gave up. It was not important.

  What was important was this: My mother was with me. I could not see her, but I felt her presence as strongly as if I were lying on her lap, as I had when I was a baby, or as if we were sitting companionably together knotting wool into intricate patterns for a particularly difficult healing, or as if I were standing behind her, massaging her head to drive away a pain.

  And not only my mother, but her mother and all our Mothers since time was time were suddenly with me, invisible but present nonetheless. I turned to the Minos to ask him where they had come from, but he was no longer there—at least, not to my eyes. Instead, I saw the moon, full and white and bright. It didn't occur to me to question why She was there, in that small, window less room, and especially how I could see Her now, during Her dark phase. Nor did I wonder when She hovered over the edge of the sea, making a brilliant white path that stretched toward me. She dipped her edge into the water.

  And now I saw my mother. She looked as she had when I was a child, her shining black hair untouched by gray, her grave eyes, and only a hint of a smile. Behind her was one I knew to be She-Who-I s-Goddess who was her mother, although I had never seen my grandmother while she was alive. She was shorter than my mother and had a laughing countenance and thick hair like mine that escaped from its fastening. Her own mother was behind her, a woman with a withered arm and a gentle face. On and on they stretched in a line, and they didn't speak, but all looked at me with an expression that I couldn't read. Compassion? Pity? Fear?

  I wanted to ask them why they were there, but as one they turned from me and started dancing in a line. The Goddess farthest from me, whose features I couldn't make out, took a step toward the moon. At first I thought she was dancing in the water, and then I realized that she was on the water. She trod the silver path that the moon made, moving straight toward the white disk. The next woman followed close behind, and the next and the next, until they stretched far away, looking like a line of ants, purposeful in their parade, bending and straightening, twirling and prancing.

  My mother glanced over her shoulder at me. I took an eager step toward her, but she held up her hand, her face serious.

  "No." Her voice was as I remembered it from my girlhood, lighter than in her later years. "No, Ariadne, my darling, my dearest, you are not to come."

  "I am not to come now?"

  "You are not to come," she repeated, and then she was far away, dancing along that bright road, and in an instant she was swallowed by the last shining sliver as the moon sank below the horizon, leaving the world, and especially me, in darkness.

  Someone was saying the same words over and over. I didn't want to listen. I wanted to follow my mother. Was I never to go with her?Was I not meant to join her and our mothers and live eternally in the moon? Or was it that I was not yet ready and could not go now but would at some later time?

  The voice was insistent, and reluctantly I made myself listen. "You must meet your people, my lady Karia," the Minos was saying patiently. "You must show yourself to them." I turned obediently toward the door, but he stopped me. "You have forgotten something." I wrenched my thoughts and remembered the rehearsals, and the white Goddess ball.

  There came to me a sickening feeling that made Goddess retreat a bit and Ariadne try to reveal herself. Ariadne had something to tell the Minos, but Goddess wouldn't let her. Goddess was too strong; She was ancient and powerful, and She was not only my mother but all our Mothers since time was time. Goddess choked off the speech in my throat, Goddess turned my feet; Goddess opened the richly carved wooden chest and pulled out the sham ball.

  The Minos gave an exclamation, but I couldn't tell what the sound meant—surprise or dismay or something else. No matter. The ball was heavy, far heavier than it had been before, and it lay cold and inert in my hands. Some ancient memory told me that it should feel alive and should glow. It had always glowed like moonlight during the ceremony, ever since I had first become Goddess, back when Knossos was no more than a collection of huts by the river Theren, with the Goddess stone that had fallen from the sky in their midst. But now it felt dead.

  I could do nothing about it. I turned left and paced the thirteen steps that took me to the Goddess stone. It gleamed white under its draping of red garments. I knelt and held the ball of yarn up to it. I counted to thirteen in my head and then stood and nodded to the Minos. He hesitated a long moment before he bowed and pushed the door open.

  My eyes clamped shut against the brilliant light, and my arm felt like it would break with the weight of the ball I held out in front of me. The cheering that reached my ears was sweet, and I was tempted to look, but even a crack in my lids was painful. Behind me, the Minos shouted, "Goddess walks among you!" I doubted that anyone heard his words over their own noise.

  Far, far inside me, I was still Ariadne. I wondered what to do next; I worried that I did not know how to find my husband. Something in me even felt hungry when the smells of roasted meat and hot bread reached my nostrils. But mostly, Ariadne was gone. Dead, as the Minos had said? Or merely hiding? Almost all of me was Goddess, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I half opened them.

  I looked out over my people and felt a rush of love. They were so imperfect, and different o
ne from the other, yet so similar. They were beautiful, even the old ones deformed with stiffening bones and the tall, young ones whose faces bore the angry red marks of youth. My eyes passed over tiny Phaedra, who was cradled in her wet nurse's arms, and she was no more or less dear to Me than any of the others. They were all My children, and they were all beautiful.

  Yet at the same time, they were hideous, because every one of them was dying. As I gazed at them, I saw rotting corpses, even the babies, even the rosy maidens and the youths hanging over them. I found this neither frightening nor disgusting; instead, I felt renewed love, as well as pity for their fate. None of them would be alive for more than a few years, while I would look down on their children and their children's children forever from the night sky, except when I descended and lived among them for a few precious days.

  I had been Goddess since time was time, and I would be Goddess forever.

  Chapter 37

  CHOOSE YOUR attendants." The Minos and I were back in the Goddess chamber. He indicated the largest jar, which rattled on the floor as the snakes that he had tipped into it struggled with one another.

  He lit a small torch, and the room felt even stuffier. I reached for it, but he shook his head. "They'll flee if you approach with fire. Choose." I almost asked how, and then I realized: I would know. I was sure of it. I closed my eyes with relief; maybe this meant that I would know Velchanos as well.

  The Minos removed the lid, and I stood over the mass of dark, writhing serpents. My two hands shot out together—they acted without my will—and each grasped a snake square behind the head. I stood with my arms stretched out in front of me, a wriggling snake in each hand. They knew their fate; I could feel this in the way they arched and flailed, trying to escape. Too late, sisters, I thought as I turned toward the door. You have been chosen as I have been chosen. I stepped outside a second time. The people cried out and fell to their knees, weeping with joy and terror.

  I gazed on them until they quieted. "Choose me!" some men were saying wordlessly, and "Choose my son!" some women were telling me, their thoughts as clear as actual words. Others hoped that I would pass over them, over their brothers and sons and lovers and fathers and husbands. It made no difference. It was not I, but Velchanos, who would choose; it was up to Velchanos to reveal himself—or not. I was amused but not irritated at their error, any more than I would be irritated at a child who stubbornly tried to catch a moonbeam, refusing to see that her hand would pass through it, no matter how many times she failed.

  My gaze swept through them as they stared up at me, high on the top step. Ariadne inside me asked, "What are we looking for?" but Goddess inside me told her to hush, that We would know.

  And We did. Near the cooking pots, someone stood a bit apart from the others. I stared in his direction, and some people in the crowd craned their necks and turned around. I knew who the solitary figure was, and the recognition made my heart lurch.

  I climbed down the steps, half floating and half about to trip over my heavy skirt. Both my hands clutched the snakes. As soon as I stepped down from the portico, I lost sight of the figure, but I knew that I was walking directly to it as surely as one of Daidalos's lodestones turned toward the north. In the days when I had been free to wander outdoors, I used to love to watch fields of grass divide and bend under the force of the god who made the wind blow through them. I remembered that now, as people moved silently out of my way.

  He was standing in front of the fire tended by Kylissa, priestess and birth sister of my mother. She held a long wooden spoon in one hand and cradled her little grandson in the other arm. She took a step backwards, away from me. I hardly noticed her, for I had my eyes fixed on the other figure.

  I knew who it was. I had known even before I took my first step down from the portico. Something had drawn me to him, and I searched myself. How would I know if the force pulling me to him was the divine love of Velchanos for Goddess, or if it was Ariadne's love for Theseus? I had felt something when he kissed me. Was that love?

  I needed time, and I needed someone to ask. I had neither.

  The Minos was suddenly at my side. I didn't know if he had moved quickly or if time had changed its pace yet again. I was glad to see him, because a part of me was aware that my hands were cramping. I gave him the now-limp snakes. Soon, they would be in pieces in a stew, along with the others, who still lay coiled in their pots.

  I looked up at Theseus's bearded face, which was staring at me in confusion. Velchanos had been testing me; he wanted to see if I would make the same mistake that my mother had made. I smiled and thought, I've passed your test. It's not one or the other: Do I love Theseus? or: is this Velchanos? It's both. You'll see, my lord; I'll do what is necessary.

  I took the sash from my attendant and wrapped it around his waist, drawing him close to me. I felt his breath on my face and his warmth on my chest. "Welcome back, my lord," I said, and smiled up at my lord Velchanos, who had returned to me as surely as a dove returns to its cote, in the person of the Athenian prince Theseus.

  THESEUS

  Chapter 38

  I NEVER REALLY believed that Ariadne would choose me. Athens is subject to Krete, so she wouldn't have anything to gain politically by marrying me, even if my father were to recognize me as his heir. This appears doubtful as long as Medea's son is alive. Prokris insists that the choice has nothing to do with politics, though, and that Ariadne's mother chose a simple blacksmith last year.

  In any case, at first I'm not really sure that she has chosen me. She looks odd—pale, and with staring eyes—when she comes out to stand on the top step of the palace portico for the second time. She's followed by the Minos. He no longer wears the mask, but the bull's hide is still draped over his red robes.

  The two stand there until I wonder if Ariadne's arms, stretched in front of her for so long, are tired. She's clutching something, but I can't see what. She hardly moves; maybe a little back and forth of her head, but that could be fatigue. I hear that she hasn't eaten for three days, and the smell of the lambs and kids simmering in their pots of milk and the roasting pig's and bull's meat are enough to drive my stomach to rumbling like a volcano.

  She stands there for a long, long time. Nobody seems surprised, although they do appear tense. A muscle works in the jaw of the woman next to me, who occasionally dips her spoon into the pot at her side to stir its savory contents. In fact, the only motions I see are those necessary for cooking.

  Even the babies are quiet. The little children have stopped their games and their noise and have joined their elders in staring at the small figure of Ariadne, who wears a huge skirt and not much else and is perched on the top step as though she's about to take wing.

  Her head has stopped moving. I turn to see what she's staring at, and just as I realize it's me, she takes one tottering step forward, then a step down, and another step, and another, and then she's making her way through the crowd, coming as directly to me as an arrow. Her arms stick out in front of her, and now I see that she is clutching two writhing snakes. From the whiteness of her knuckles, she must be holding them so tightly that the squirms are their death throes.

  The Minos is close at Ariadne's heels. She doesn't seem to notice him but walks steadily until she's standing in front of me, looking up with eyes so black that I see tiny copies of myself reflected in them. She stands without moving for so long that I wonder if I should do something. I'm about to stammer a greeting when she hands the limp snakes to the Minos, who in turn passes them to one of his acolytes.

  The woman next to me puts down her spoon and hands her baby to someone. She comes to stand near Ariadne. The old woman named Damia hobbles up, leaning on the shoulder of a little boy, who winces as she digs her claws into him. Damia takes her place in front of the woman who had been holding the spoon. A girl who looks very much like Ariadne joins them, and then another old woman, and a comfortable-looking chubby matron with streaks of gray in her hair, and more and more until, soon, a dozen women and girl
s are ranged behind Ariadne in two lines, with the oldest at their heads.

  Damia unties a sash that is knotted behind Ariadne's head. Ariadne takes it without looking away from my face. She reaches forward and wraps it around my waist, retaining hold of both ends so that we are brought face to face. One of her arms is puffy and red. "Welcome back, my lord," she says. I stammer something about being glad to be there, like a polite child at a party.

  The Minos turns to the crowd and shouts, "Velchanos recognizes his bride!" and they all erupt into cheers. It seems like something dead has leaped to its feet in front of my eyes. The very air seems alive as men embrace, children squeal and jump up and down, and women turn to each other with shining faces to exclaim their joy.

  In the middle of this whirling chaos, Ariadne and I stand with our eyes fixed on each other. This is what Prokris has planned; this is what we've worked for. This is why I kissed Ariadne—although, I must admit, that part of Prokris's plan was not unpleasant. But I know that I have deceived the girl, and I'm desperately uncomfortable as she gazes at me with her bright eyes.

  The Minos is carrying the huge bronze bull's head. Before I'm aware what he's about, he lifts it with an effort and places it on my shoulders. I'm not prepared for its weight or for the way its edges, padded though they are, press into my flesh. But I understand that this must be an important moment, and I stand as tall as I can. I wish I could see more than the tiny field of vision afforded to me through the small holes in the bull's neck, because the noise is deafening. If the crowd was wild before, it is twice as enthusiastic now. Conch shells blast, women shriek, and men bellow.

  Adding to my discomfort is that I don't know what to do next. The Minos holds out his hands to us. Ariadne takes one and motions at me to take the other. I comply, and the priest leads us to a long table. Finally, blessedly, he removes the bull's head from my shoulders and motions to us to take our places.