Silenus: Alien Satyr (Ancient Myths and Monsters Book 1) by Ami Wright

Author:Ami Wright [Wright, Ami]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ami Wright
Published: 2023-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

Arria

I feel like an amphora with a cracked base. It’s not obvious on the surface. You wouldn’t even notice the flaw when it’s on the shelf. It’s not until you fill it and carry it with you a while that you see it.

When did that happen?

When did Silenus become so essential in my life that his absence drains the happiness from me?

I think it has been coming on for some time now. It’s a good and bad feeling. I do not think I’ve ever felt this way before. I certainly never felt this way about Gaius. It’s not the same way I feel about my family either. They have always been as much a part of me as a part of my body. It would be completely impossible to function without them.

It doesn’t help that an early winter malaise has spread through the house. It started with Mama. She lay in bed for days, though she’s never idle if she can help it. She insists she’s well now, but I hear the wracking cough she tries to cover. I see the pallor in her skin.

I’m out at the well drawing water—a chore Mama would normally do—when I hear a small cough and look around. Lina tugs at my skirt. “Mama, show me how to get the water.”

I shake my head. “You’re too small yet. You can help your grandmother with the supper.”

She pouts up at me. “I want to help you.”

I’ve held off having the girls do this chore. The truth is, I have horrible visions of them tumbling into the well when I’m not here and being stuck down there. Drowning.

So they are forbidden from opening the lid.

“When you’re older, Lina.”

She opens her mouth to protest further, but her chest heaves with another cough.

I frown. The air has a chill to it. “Are you well? How long have you been coughing for?”

She shrugs. “Don’t remember.”

I sigh, thinking of the empty altar on our little shrine. It’s been too long since I tended the domestic gods, and this is what I get for my laziness. I shake it off. It’s a silly thought. The lares never blessed us with good fortune all the years I tended them faithfully under Gaius’s strict gaze. Why should it be that they punish us now? I do not really believe the gods are keeping such a careful watch on us. If they exist at all.

Still, now is not the time for blasphemous thoughts.

“Let’s go inside and sit by the fire,” I tell Lina. “You can help me shell the beans.”

She follows me back to the house and we make a warm soup with beans and garlic. Little enough of it is eaten though. A portion that would normally only barely feed us has leftovers, and I raise my brows, looking around at my family. “Is anyone still hungry?”

Little Lina is leaning against her sister’s arm, looking worse than before. Mama only shrugs.

My chest tightens. I hate it when they’re sick. I always feel so powerless to do anything about it.

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