“To punish the maiden for desecrating the temple, Athena turned Medusa’s long black hair to long black snakes. She became a Gorgon. Her face retained its beauty, but those who looked upon it were turned to stone. Such was the justice of Athena, who punished the victim, not the perpetrator.”
He pushed the clay face a little closer to Maryam and waited until her eyes fixed upon its snaky tresses. “I’ve always wondered if that’s why Athena placed the Gorgon head upon her aegis. Not, as some would say, to protect herself with its stony gaze—but to remind herself of her own cruelty.”
Maryam placed her clay-covered hands over her eyes. Theo made no move to comfort her. It took a very long time, a very long silence, but finally the tears ran through her fingertips. The dried clay dissolved to liquid blood.
Only then did he lean forward. “I’ve seen the Gorgon head. It still adorns your aegis—an aegis stolen by Saturn, but returned now to your father’s hands. Zeus wants to give it back to you.”
Maryam lifted her head, her eyes flashing with fierce greed. Theo couldn’t help the grin that pulled at his mouth. “There you are,” he said. “I was beginning to think you’d never come out.”
“Medusa …” Athena began. “I remember every tear she shed as Poseidon tore her apart. She cried even harder when I made her a monster … I don’t want to remember.” Her voice suddenly grew fierce. “I don’t want to remember any of it. Do not make me.” She wiped angrily at her face, smearing the red clay across her cheeks. “I do only good now. I try to …” Her voice faded away, and the slightly sleepy smile returned. “I try to do the Lord’s work.”
Sister Maryam reached once more for the clay.
Chapter 37
WISE VIRGIN
“Athena’s not what I expected.” Theo reached under his glasses to rub his eyes like a man wishing to unsee the last few hours.
“That’s an understatement.” Selene had been crouched beneath Maryam’s windowsill the whole time, listening to him fail to convince her half sister to join them. She’d nearly stood up a dozen times and started hollering in frustration. When he finally gave up, she’d circled around the building to meet him at their appointed rendezvous point further into the woods.
“I thought at first she was just pretending to be a nun up there.” Theo gestured to the church residences behind the trees. “But I’m not so sure. It’s like the good Sister Maryam really believes she’s married to Christ now.”
“Don’t believe her shtick,” Selene said dismissively. “Remember, this whole place is her scheme.”
“Maybe,” he admitted. “I saw a glimpse of the real Athena, but she didn’t seem to have complete control. She was like some woman on a made-for-TV movie in the seventies, a schizophrenic bouncing from pious nun to wrathful goddess and back for the sake of the Emmy voters. I don’t understand. If Sister Maryam is keeping herself powerful through a connection to Mary, just like Saturn fed off the Host’s devotion to their warped Christian trinity—then why did she look so … daffy? You’d think with all the billions of Christians in the world, she’d be living like a queen, not a nun.”
“I told you once that if I’d tried something similar—embraced the Christians’ love for their Virgin as just another aspect of worship for me—I would’ve had to take on Mary’s characteristics, too.”
Theo snorted. “I believe you said you’d be ‘weak and mild and impregnated by a shaft of heavenly light.’ You think that’s what happened to your sister?”
“Yes. Saturn gets to be God the Father: vengeful, powerful, scheming. The Virgin Mary has to be humble and helpless. That’s why her powers could barely heal you—and I doubt they’re what can save our father.”
“She’s been bit by her own snakes, so to speak.”
“Exactly. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find the antidote. Even if she can’t cure him through her ‘miracles,’ our other interpretation of the prophecy still stands: Her spear can defeat our greatest enemy. This pallid version of Athena’s useless, but if we can get her back to the sister I remember—the Goddess of Justified War, the One Who Musters the People—we might have a chance.”
“What do you have in mind? She didn’t care that I was a Makarites. And I showed her the Gorgon, tried to appeal to her conscience, and that didn’t do anything.”
“Reminding her of her self-loathing won’t be enough. We need to speak to her strengths.”
“Since when do you advocate persuasion through such benevolent means?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “Aren’t you the one who usually beats people up instead? Or have you already forgotten the story you just told me about the mob attacking Paul the Apostle?”
“I’m more flexible than you think. And I can learn from my mistakes.”
Theo lifted a skeptical brow, his eyes the color of marsh grass, bright green in the light of the setting sun. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t actually think she could change. “Then you talk to her next,” he challenged.
Selene scowled. She and Athena had never gotten along, despite the virginity they shared. Selene had chosen chastity because of her complete disinterest in motherhood, a desire to run wild, to hunt. Maidenhood had given her the freedom to pursue those desires unencumbered. But for Athena, virginity had a moral dimension. She believed herself the embodiment of everything pure and just in the world, a strangely priggish argument among Greeks who generally saw sex as a pleasure, not a sin. But Athena had thought herself better than all men, mortal and immortal alike. Better, in fact, than just about everyone.
“You know I’m no good at talking,” Selene protested. “How about we just kidnap her and let Scooter figure out how to convince her to help. He’s the one with the silver tongue … although yours isn’t bad either.” She immediately realized how that sounded; a sudden memory of Theo in her bed in New York, his cheek resting on her thigh, sent a flood of heat to her face—and elsewhere.
Theo gave her a lopsided grin. “Why, thank you.”
I guess the humiliation’s worth it for the smile, she decided. She’d missed his dimple. Despite the danger facing them, she found it surprisingly easy to slip back into their old banter. Maybe there’s hope for us after all, she couldn’t help thinking.
“Come on, Selene, let my silver tongue convince you to talk to your sister.”
She nodded grimly and walked back through the twilit woods. She gestured for Theo to stay put and peeked through the window of Maryam’s room. The nun lay fast asleep on a small, hard pallet on the floor.
Selene hoisted herself through the small window, nearly knocking over a framed painting of the Virgin Mary sitting on the sill. Clay figurines stood like ranks of soldiers on their tray. She reached for a wooden chair, then thought better of it and settled herself cross-legged on the ground beside the pallet instead.
“Sister,” she said softly.
Maryam’s eyes flew open. She squinted at Selene, a look of alarm passing across her face. Then her eyes widened in recognition. Just as quickly, her expression dissolved into gentle curiosity.
You can’t fool me, Selene thought. You know exactly who I am. Otherwise you’d be screaming for help right now.
Maryam sat up. She’d taken off her black outer habit and wore only a simple, sack-like sleeping shift. The pure white of it glowed in the dim light, making her look more saintly than ever. A large wooden crucifix hung around her neck.
“What can I do for you, daughter?” Maryam asked gently.
Selene nearly choked at the condescension but forced herself to smile back. “Oh no, call me sister, Sister.”
“You have also taken holy orders?” Maryam asked, her voice just a hair too innocent.
“Something like that.” Selene nodded toward the figurines. “Nice statues. They remind me of someone I knew once.”
“Oh?”
“Metis. Her name means ‘Wisdom,’ in case you’ve forgotten,” Selene added lightly.
Maryam’s jaw tensed.
“She was lovely like this.
” Selene picked up a statue. This was not a recollection of her own, for she hadn’t witnessed it herself, but rather a story retold by gods and man alike—paired with just a little educated guesswork. “A Titan goddess with bright gray eyes and features as strong as a man’s but as beautiful as a sea nymph’s.” She turned the statue so the last rays of light played over the sharp nose and jutting jaw. “So beautiful, in fact, that Zeus loved her in the dawn of the world. But he received a prophecy that if Metis bore him a son, the child would steal his throne—just as he himself had deposed Kronos, and Kronos had overthrown Ouranos.
“Zeus could take no such chances, so after he lay with her, he swallowed Metis whole. Nine months later, a headache drove him to such distraction that he asked the Smith to open his skull with a hammer to relieve the pain. And when his skull cracked open, a goddess emerged, full-grown and dressed in gleaming armor. If she’d been a man, Zeus would have killed her to prevent his own overthrow. But she was a woman—imperious and fierce, but a woman nonetheless—so he had nothing to fear. He embraced his daughter and gave her a seat upon Olympus, where she could defend both gods and men with her shining spear.”
Selene passed the statue to Maryam and looked her sister hard in the eye. “At least, that’s the story I know. But I always wondered, what happened to Metis? When Hephaestus split open Zeus’s skull, why didn’t Wisdom come out, too? Surely, Athena, the Goddess of Justified War, would have thought her own mother worth fighting for.”
Maryam’s hands clenched, turning the statue in her fist into undifferentiated clay. “Mother made me the armor,” she said finally. She looked down at the lump in her hands and slowly released it back onto the ground, as if afraid of what she might do if she held it any longer. “She made the armor inside my father.” She frowned and repeated, “Father … Father.” She shook her head, as if to dislodge the word, then clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. “No, no, this isn’t me. Stop hammering! Stop it!”
Selene leaned forward and clasped Maryam’s clay-stained hands. “Shhh. We don’t want the priests barging in here. It’s okay, Sister. Tell me about the hammering.” Maryam began to shake more violently.
Am I pushing her too far? Selene wondered. If I force her to remember what she’s tried so long to forget, will she crack apart further than she already has? Will Athena disappear forever into the chasm that emerges? But she couldn’t stop now.
“Go on,” she urged again. “What hammering?”
“My mother’s hammer on the anvil, beating bronze into armor.” Maryam’s words rushed out, as if they needed speed to break through the barrier of her mind. “Mother hid the sound beneath Father’s own heartbeat. Bah boom. Bah boom. Our whole world vibrated. Between every heartbeat, every stroke, she whispered to me, her unborn child, ‘Be a Savior. Be a Savior.’”
Tears streaked her face, softening her features rather than swelling them. She looked more like the Virgin Mary than she had before, yet her memories as Athena continued to come. “After nine months of ceaseless work, Mother said it was time for me to leave her behind. She would be trapped forever in the mind of the Sky God, destined to provide him wise counsel whether she willed it or not. And there was nothing, nothing I could do to change that.”
Selene pressed her half sister’s hands harder. “You could do what she asked of you. You still can.”
“I’ve tried—” Maryam whispered, her voice shaking.
“She made you a warrior,” Selene interrupted impatiently. “She clad you in battle armor so you could save people. So you could save your father.”
“The father who swallowed my mother?”
Selene winced. “He’s done many unforgivable things. But he loves you. He loves me. He loves all his children. And now he’s grown so old, so sick. You … you wouldn’t recognize him. He’s dying.”
“I can’t heal him,” Maryam protested. “I can barely heal a mortal, only provide some comfort in their time of need. That’s all the power Mary has.”
“I don’t need Mary! I need Athena. Father says that opening the pit of Tartarus is the only thing that can save him, but he can’t do that without your spear to defend him from the giants that will pour out. Please, Maryam. I know you usually only care about mortals, but aren’t we all little more than mortals now? Father will die just like any old man. He needs you.”
“I like helping people,” Maryam said hesitantly. “I’ve always liked helping them. Odysseus, Heracles, Pers.… Pers …”
“Perseus,” Selene supplied impatiently.
“Yes! That was his name,” she exclaimed. “He was the one who slew Medusa. I gave him my shield, and he used it as a mirror so he wouldn’t be turned to stone.” Her face fell as she looked at the Gorgon sculpture Theo had made. “But when he gave me the Gorgon’s head, I remembered Medusa as the young woman she’d been before I … before I …” Her tears sprang anew.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Selene sighed. “That was at least three thousand years ago. If it even really happened. Trust me, I know how easy it is to succumb to guilt for the things we did in a different age, but you have to move past it. Father is in danger now, and you’re no use to him if you just sit here sniveling. I need you to be strong on the summit of Olympus.”
Maryam shrank under her scrutiny. “I don’t remember how.”
“Well think harder! They called you Giant Killer! Have you forgotten? Where is your helmet with its shining crest?” Selene rose to her feet and loomed over her sister. “Where is your armor? Where is your spear, Athena?”
Maryam shook her head, looking desperate. She clasped the wooden crucifix around her neck. “I don’t know. I don’t … I don’t remember. I think I lost it.”
“You what? Are you an idiot?”
And that, finally, brought Athena, Goddess of War, of Wisdom, of Crafts, Protectress of Cities and Savior of Men, to her feet.
“The Goddess of Wisdom is no idiot!” she roared.
Her hands clenched into fists as if she fought against raising them—whether to cover her own mouth or to slap her sister, Selene couldn’t be sure. The wood of the crucifix gave an audible crack as it splintered beneath Athena’s white-knuckled grip. The muscles of her arms stood out beneath the loose fabric of her nightdress.
“Good. Now prove it.”
“But I have no spear,” Athena seethed.
Selene refused to give up, not when they’d come so far. “Problem solved, sister. I know just the god to make you a new one.”
Chapter 38
LADY OF CLAMORS
This was not supposed to be so hard, Selene thought as she stalked across the roof of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens with a black-feathered arrow in her hand.
She, Theo, and Maryam had flown in that morning from Turkey, and they were due to bring Flint and Zeus to the base of Mount Olympus that afternoon. Scooter had promised to meet them there for the journey up. “I’ll bring Grandpa—don’t worry,” he’d assured her in a rambling voice mail. “His bullet wounds are all healed, but I’ve been keeping him unconscious with a little mix of morphine and gin. He won’t know what’s going on until he wakes up on the summit, about to be thrown into Tartarus. And with a little cajoling, I’ll get the rest of the family there, too, ready to help. You guys just make sure you’re on time!”
Selene hadn’t thought the timeline would be an issue; she’d blithely assumed that Flint could just remake Maryam’s spear, forgetting that he hadn’t made it in the first place. It was Metis who’d forged the armor for her daughter, and the Smith no longer possessed the supernatural ability to craft divine items from scratch unless they were copies of his original works.
Selene had briefly considered giving up on finding a divine weapon for her sister, thinking perhaps any old spear would do. But when she’d seen her father at the Athens airport, she knew she had to do everything in her power to arm Athena with a true Giant Killer’s spear. Flint had wheeled Zeus off the flight from Rome in a wheelchair. He
was barely conscious, still mumbling about Tartarus, and he hadn’t recognized Selene when she tried to speak to him.
Maryam had placed her hands on their father’s chest; he rested more calmly for a few minutes, but then returned to his delirium. If anything, he seemed worse after her ministrations. Of course, Selene had thought, a Christian saint can’t help a Greek god, not when her kind helped destroy him in the first place. I need the real Athena, armed and armored, to save him.
“Since I can’t remake her weapons, we’ll just have to get the real ones,” Flint had said when she pulled him aside to explain the situation.
“Except she lost them. Don’t tell me they were sitting in Saturn’s armory under the Vatican and we didn’t see them.”
“Just the aegis, which Scooter took with him for safekeeping. But the helmet and spear were buried on the slopes of the Acropolis.”
“How do you know that?”
“I didn’t keep track of most of the divine weapons, but Athena’s were … special. Where do you think I learned to smith? My own mother certainly didn’t teach me.”
The thought of June trying to wield a hammer in her wobbly diadem and matronly wedding dress almost made Selene laugh.
“When I cracked open your father’s skull,” Flint went on, “and saw Athena emerge, I was more impressed by the armor than the woman. I’d never seen craftsmanship so beautiful. I studied it for centuries.”
“So why’d you let it get buried?” Selene asked, annoyed.
“The Gray-Eyed Goddess didn’t give me permission to use it, and you know how she gets.” He glanced down the corridor to where Maryam sat beside Theo and Zeus in the baggage claim area. She certainly didn’t look threatening at the moment: She still wore her black nun’s habit and wimple, although she’d left her shattered wooden crucifix behind and removed her wedding ring. On the flight over from Turkey, she’d stared fixedly out the window as if she’d never flown in an airplane before.
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