Despite a resistance deep inside me, I wanted to tell Perseus everything. I felt the risk in my blood, but maybe I was worrying too much? As long as he didn’t see my snakes, surely it would be all right to tell him about my family?
‘My parents are from Oceanus,’ I said, my voice cracking with nerves. ‘Hard on the edge of Night.’
‘The edge of Night? Sounds amazing.’
‘It is.’
‘Then why have you ended up here?’
Oh, gods! How was I supposed to reply to that? His endless questions unleashed images through my mind. There was my little boat on the water, with a dark mass moving beneath. Next, a furious goddess, a flash of light, then a birth of snakes, my sisters struck with horror …
‘Please, sit. Eat,’ I said, my voice wobbling as I pushed the memories down. ‘I know that you’re hungry.’
The physical hunger inside Perseus overrode his thirst for knowledge. I heard him sit down by the fishes, unfolding the leaves in which I’d grilled them, and the aroma of herbs and fresh flesh was almost irresistible. To my dismay my snakes began unfurling with pleasure – for the fish or the boy I had no idea. Was this what attraction felt like – this loss of control?
‘You haven’t poisoned these fish, have you?’ he said.
‘Of course I haven’t. Why would I do that?’
‘Just checking,’ he said, and I could hear the grin in his voice. I heard him start to eat. ‘Oh, gods,’ he said, chomping. ‘Delicious. Thank you. Lucky me, washing up here. But there’s two fish – why not join me? I promise I don’t bite.’
Something else might, I thought, giving a warning tap to Artemis, a thin yellow snake with a particular predilection for grilled fish. Artemis was shimmying around, and so was my will, weakening to a sliver. All I wanted was to go out there and look at Perseus, just to take him in.
‘So what’s your name?’ said Perseus, between mouthfuls. I was silent. ‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘I told you mine. And my mother always says it’s rude to take hospitality from a person without knowing their name.’
I crept out of my cave, a little nearer to the arch, listening to him eating my fish. No closer, no closer, I told myself. ‘I’m Me—’ I stopped. Who was I? Who could I be to this boy, that he wouldn’t want to run a mile? Something in my blood told me to keep my name to myself. I plucked another out of the air and pinned it to myself like a painful brooch. ‘My name is Merina,’ I said.
‘Merina,’ he repeated. ‘Unusual.’
I wasn’t going to tell Perseus my name. I wasn’t ready for that. And I wasn’t going to let him see me. I was just going to sit on the other side of this entrance rock and pretend that boys like him washed up on my desert island all the time.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘So, Merina,’ said Perseus. I’ll admit how I shivered with pleasure at the sound of my new name. With a new name came possibilities, another chance at life. ‘Tell me about the edge of Night. I want to hear about it. I’m so far from home myself.’
‘On your mission?’
Perseus made a little grunting noise. ‘Something like that.’
I didn’t see the harm in describing my childhood home to him. My sisters never talked about it any more, probably because they were worried it would make me sadder than I already was. And even if they were just words, it felt comforting to go back.
‘There was … so much water where I grew up,’ I said, trying to find a beginning, trying to remember living on the edge of Night. ‘Just one gulp of air and you were breathing sea salt. A place of streams and rivers and seas; water everywhere. Waves and waves of it, on towards the edge of Night.’
As I recalled the place of my birth, I could feel myself coming alive.
‘Did you sail a lot?’ asked Perseus.
‘All the time. I miss it. I’d love to get back in a boat one day.’
‘Well, I’ve got a boat. We could go for a sail round the coves.’
‘I – It’s … complicated.’
‘Complicated? I thought you were a sailor.’
‘I am,’ I said, more defensive than I meant to be. ‘Anyway, as I was saying: the edge of Night. Most people there wouldn’t bob far from the shore, with their nets and spears for fish, watching the pass of an occasional ship, its sails bellied by the spice-filled wind. But not me.’
‘You talk like a poet,’ said Perseus. ‘A sailor poet.’
‘So let me tell you about the water,’ I replied, my heart swelling. ‘How it was wicked when it wanted to be. How it used to rise and fall, white and indigo on the heads of dolphins, and on those little mermaids who swam out with Poseidon—’
I stopped, my skin cold, my voice caught choking, my heart snapped shut. I hadn’t uttered that sea-god’s name out loud for four years, and in my very first conversation with a stranger, he’d caught me unawares. I felt the tears in my eyes, the bile in my throat, the quickening of my pulse, my palms damp, a sweaty dizziness threatening to bring me to my knees. Poseidon. His gliding bulk and fury. His power.
I closed my eyes. Come on, Medusa, I told myself. You’re stronger than that. My snakes gathered round me in a halo of support, but I didn’t feel strong.
‘Merina?’ said Perseus. ‘Are you all right back there?’
I felt the clash of my two selves, new and old, burdened and carefree, hideous and beautiful. How was it possible to be all these things at once? I drew Argentus to my side and took a deep breath. ‘Yes, yes,’ I lied. ‘All fine.’
As my pulse slowed back to normal, and I followed the undulating rhythms of my serpents, I registered a new sensation; a tingling, glittering thread of light from the base of my stomach, spiralling upwards into my throat. Could it be possible that Perseus … cared?
‘The sun was shy on the edge of Night,’ I continued. ‘Here, it’s like a burning punishment. Back then we were on moonland, starland, the patterns of our destiny spattering the sky. Perseus, have you ever seen true moonlight?’
‘I can’t honestly say.’
‘Then you haven’t. It holds a different brightness. When the crescent blooms to a coin, no lantern is ever needed, no fire in the hearth. The sand on the shore is a pewter ribbon. And up on the cliffs, hares live like silver trinkets, for the grass is smooth enough to line a jewel box. The air is cool. The sky fades bruise-blue to deep black shelter. And always the breeze, a hush for the troubled heart. A secret place. I remember it.’
Perseus was silent for a moment. ‘I’d love to see it,’ he said. ‘And you were born there too?’
‘Yes, not far from the cliffs and hares. My dad’s a sea-god, and my mother a sea-goddess. They returned to the water, but my two older sisters – who live here with me – they stayed on land. They looked after me. Always.’
‘So … you’re immortal?’
‘No, no. Nothing immortal about me! But my sisters are.’
I heard Perseus shift his position on the ground. ‘Can you imagine what that must feel like – to know you’ll live forever?’ he said. ‘Can you imagine being that different?’
I touched my snakes as they slumbered in peace. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’ I thanked some benign star that my serpents had not decided to writhe and hiss. I thought that maybe it was being near Perseus that calmed them, that they might see him as a friend.
‘I’m like you,’ Perseus said.
I laughed. ‘How are you like me?’
‘I was born containing the secret of my end. I’m mortal too.’
‘Your life to come’s a sum for which you do not know the answer,’ I said.
‘And nor should I, nor you,’ he replied. ‘For that is the right of every baby born, and man and woman after.’
His intelligence wreathed me like incense; our conversation was effortless. I inhaled it in deep and desperate gratitude. I closed my eyes and imagined Perseus reaching out to touch my face. When was the last time someone had spoken to me like this? Too long, too long. Maybe never.