by Emma Brignall
I used to be beautiful. Everyone told me so, including my sisters; we were all gorgeous. When people saw me they stopped and stared and couldn’t look away. I had crystalline skin, deep red hair to match my lips, olive eyes that captured my followers and led them on, luscious hair—
I keep forgetting I’m not beautiful anymore.
There were men who pursued me for my beauty. They made pathetic attempts at wooing, strove to find earthly gifts that would enchant me, chased me around and around before I disappeared before their eyes. But men aren’t the problem: gods are. And a certain Poseidon seemed to agree with those men.
Stories have a funny way of telling only one side. And it doesn’t matter if you’re the main character unless you also get to tell it. Today I’m not telling the story of the girl whose beauty was an offense to the goddesses, who defiled the temple of Athena, who rightfully received her punishment. The girl who now preys on the men who would have idolized her. No, I’m telling the story of a girl who was frolicking around with her friends one day and showed her face for too long.
The afternoon was hot. We had just enjoyed a picnic on the hill nearby, a rich spread of meats and cakes and pastries. The midday sun beat us down to a trickle of water that poured out into a pond, sheltered by dangling fronds and bushes packed with berries. We plucked some of the tender fruits, then undressed and bathed in the cool water. As we talked and laughed, uncoiling our hair into the gentle ripples, I kept thinking there was someone watching us, but every time I turned my head I could see only a bird taking off in flight, or a bunny shepherding its young, and one inquisitive fish that kept nuzzling my leg.
When the heat began to ease, we wrapped up and braided each other’s hair before departing. I remember my friend twisted a delicate frond into my hair, an extra touch of prettiness. When we reached the hill, we all went our separate ways, but after only a few minutes I realized I had forgotten to take some berries for my sisters, so I retraced my steps to the clearing with the pond. This time, someone was waiting.
“You have beautiful eyes.”
I stood there, more wary than when I had been approached with this statement before. An image of the friendly fish flashed through my mind for a moment, but then I refocused on the man before me. He was shirtless, with a broad chest and muscular arms, and he bore a particular grace so that he appeared to be lounging even while standing up. His eyes stared ravenously.
“What is your name?”
I gave my best attempt at ignorance. I bent over the nearest bush and began placing the sweet berries in my basket, ears pricked for any signs of movement. I nearly jumped when I felt his hand on my arm.
“Why are you picking berries, all alone?”
Perhaps a curt comment would put him off, I thought. “I’m bringing these to my sisters,” I said, standing up straight again. “I think I’ve gathered enough, now, I’ll be on my way.”
“Don’t rush home so soon. I’ve come late to the party.” His grip tightened, his fingers rubbing against my skin.
“Two doesn’t make for much of a party,” I replied, now straining to listen for anything other than the pleasant twitter of birds. After a few moments I realized even that had died away.
“Two seems like just the right number.” As he took another step forward, I yanked my arm out of his grasp and fled.
Trees rushed past me, the forest erupted again in a swarm of bird calls and tangled roots pecking at my ankles, brambles claiming one, then both, of my sandals, thorns reaching out of bushes to snag my delicate silks and drying hair. I could hear his footsteps behind me, bouncing slightly as if in enjoyment, and I realized that he was indeed enjoying this, that this was a game for him, and I was the prey or the prize, or both. I cried out to the gods, pleading for some rescue, but their ears had deafened, or they dared not cross this brother of theirs, so intent on his catch. I stumbled and felt fingers at my neck, then rebounded and gained an extra spurt of speed at the sight approaching me.
The city center rose up, stalls and tables packed with goods, animals trotting alongside customers or tied up with their vendors. The smell of cooking food wafted past my nose, but I stared beyond its source to the towering structure of gleaming gold flanked by two statues of women, each with an owl perched on her shoulder. The temple of Athena loomed ever closer, shining with magnificence and hope.
I sprinted all the way up the steps, flung open the doors, words all jumbled on my tongue, but hoping they would crystallize in prayers as I collapsed at the feet of her great statue. Before I could get my lips around anything of substance, though, another pair of footsteps thundered in and seconds later my shoulder was shoved to the side, my back pressing against the marble floor. I stared up, my vision consumed by the head of the goddess far above me, my mouth still working its way around fervent prayers, my voice shaking and throat closing before a large figure blocked out the sight. My voice died out and after a few moments so did the echoes of my feeble cries. My fists were useless, my beauty more an eyesore from this angle, something I had never considered. The gods watched on.
***
Statues line the garden. Blank stares peer out of hollowed faces, cold stone unflinching and uninquisitive. I don’t like statues; they never gave me anything I asked for. The only thing I like is the quiet.
Their faces are a reminder. I look into them and I see the goddess who did not respond to my prayers but to my suffering, and who promised me more. This curse is my own doing. These statues are my revenge.
Revenge, though, would imply that I bear something against them, which I do not. At first I did not understand my weapon. When I awoke after the curse had taken hold, I felt a different heaviness about my head, a hissing at my ears, and I ran to the water to search for my reflection. But along the way, a young girl carrying a basket of fruit saw me and stopped in her tracks. Too suddenly. I think most people assume my victims are all valiant men caught on their way to glory, but it was this pretty girl who first met an early end. She froze and did not move again.
I went over and tried to help her from whatever shock had taken over, but her static limbs carried no explanation; her parted lips and sky-turned eyebrows could only indicate death by startlement. I was ready to run for assistance when four young men, fresh from a hunt, came around a hill on horseback. As they drew nearer, one of them started pointing and so I waved my hands in response, calling them over, but a few feet away all four men and their horses had hit an eerie pause. Two of the horses had hooves in midair; one was tossing its mane. The men looked horrified, jaws pushed apart, eyes stretched wide. And all of them were staring at me.
No longer sure I wanted to approach, I moved a self-conscious hand to smooth down my hair. Except my hand did not find luscious strands of auburn, silky to the touch. It pressed down upon something scaly, or somethings scaly, and several of them wrapped around my fingers in return.
I was the one to freeze then, for a few breaths, before I yanked my hand out of my hair, feeling the corresponding tug against my scalp, and sprinted to the water. The lake was perfectly clear and unburdened by ripples so I could see each snake peeking over the side of my head. If only the sight of such disfigurement could turn my limbs to stone, but I was not granted such luck.
At first, I tried to hide. I did not return home, fearful for my family. But soon a search party came calling, and just as fast their voices died out and their features turned to stone. Enough episodes happened for word to circle round about the demon living up in a cave, and then the story of how she got to such a state. The same men who had wished to court me before now came flaunting swords and battle cries, ignoring my pleas to stay away, only to restore the dreadful silence when they insisted on coming closer. I have never been touched against my will again; I have not been touched at all. I suppose I should be grateful.
People believe I despise them. If I was truly angry, I would go into the open and allow everyone to endure a share of my pain. If I was truly shameful, I would have manifested my own demise. But I do neither; I am simply here. Isolated, for others’ safety and my own. I don’t have the energy to hide myself completely; if someone wants to find me, let him. I see no point in trying to rearrange fate.
I do not call them innocent either. They are victims, yes, but so was I. I was not deemed innocent; I was cursed, so they are not innocent for selecting a path and finding their own curse at the end. Cursed for believing in right, cursed for suffering wrong. I am finished with right and wrong; I do not see where they reside in this world. There is blame, of course, torrents of it, but there is no justice attached. Whoever clings to justice grips a failed concept, the detritus from an experiment we have cleansed ourselves of. And so, when men enter my mountain lair, we cycle through the same encounter:
I hear him approach.
I am Medusa. My hair is made of serpents and my gaze turns mortals to stone. Turn back now and you will face no peril. Enter, and whether you mean harm or good, you will find only suffering in your quest.
So far I have kept my back turned, to allow him to escape with a forgiven mistake. I wait three seconds to give him contemplation, but I do not give another warning: one is always enough. And then I turn around.
I find that he is charging at me, or sometimes sneaking up, sword drawn, perhaps a medallion from the girl he loves or his heroic father beating against his chest, intent upon his victim, face set in hard lines that slacken as he takes in the sight he was still unprepared for, lines that fall back into place and form a chiseled face of smooth angles and solid fear. I move his body aside to join the ranks, and I wait for the next to come.
So it goes.
***
They come at different times. I have little to spend my time with, so I am always prepared. I have a crow who flies around the base of my mountain, ready to warn me when a visitor calls. If they come during the day, I am awake and stationed. If it is night, my bird arouses me. Besides, usually some of us are awake, scenting the air for intruders.
Tonight I go to sleep at my regular time after conducting a sweep of the area, feeling nothing but a faint sense of boredom. No one has come for a week now, and though I do not seek out victims, their arrival is the only interruption in this mundaneness. I stroke a couple snakes idly, feeling them coil and uncoil, like tendrils of thought escaping from my skull. Then I lie down and allow sleep to overtake me.
***
Something nudges my left ear. I shift in sleep, trying to maintain my relaxed state, even as I hear hisses breaking out around me. I had not been warned, so I expected the snakes were fixated on a mouse that had crept in or some other poor creature. My eyes were still shut when I heard footsteps. My breath stuck in my throat, ears suddenly pricked against the tiny breaths tickling them. Who would it take to bypass my guard? Curiosity lifted the hairs on my neck, and I knew it would only take one look to see who had come calling, and to ensure they would never leave. My eyelid twitched. I tilted my head a touch sideways, eyelashes on the verge of revealing my intruder and his quick demise. I opened them a fraction of an inch and something shiny was pointed right at them, falling with a metallic whoosh—
Slash—
Thud.
***
The inside of a sack. That’s what I see when my eyes fly open, just too late to do any damage, to save myself. My voice is gone, severed somewhere back with my throat, but I can hear and I can see, little good though it does me. I can feel the sack drumming along, can hear the pants of the man holding it. He is not gentle with this broken head of mine.
***
I fade in and out. Perhaps it is of my own volition that I spare myself of some of the horrors; I try to stay out of my head, but there is nowhere else for me to go. We visit Perseus’s foes and I destroy them for him; he finds Andromeda, he settles his debts, he avenges his mother. Hundreds turn to stone and I learn to hate the sight of eyes. He is called valiant; I am called gruesome, hideous, monster. I grow weary of the sound, almost wish I deserved the terms more. But this is puppet play.
And then when all his conquests are over, I meet my deliverance. I meet my sovereign. The seats of Olympus are high, the clouds are endless. Athena is eternally regal and fearless. Her lip curls when she sees me, and while I do not wish to turn her to stone, I do long to give her a taste of fear for once. I can feel my consciousness losing grip, my inability to act for myself causing my strife to mount higher and higher, and I wish I could scream or bend someone to my will for once; no one ever really suffers; stone must be numbing and painless and over so quickly.
She is rewarding Perseus. I dangle from his hand, feel myself coming nearer and nearer to the goddess’s cold, unsympathetic eyes. They stare boldly into my skull. Athena beckons and I shift my gaze to her hand, where a plaque of metal is gripped firmly. Aegis, her shield. I struggle to suppress my imagination, which is exercising itself more than I believed possible after years of dullness. I tell it to quiet; it fails to obey. I hate the sight of this shield, yet I cannot look away, not even when I am so close my nose is nearly brushing against it. My imagination is still ignoring my orders. I know the way this story ends.
The world hates you when you’re beautiful. It hates you even more when you’re not.