Medusa by Nataly Gruender

Author:Nataly Gruender [GRUENDER, NATALY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2024-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

A simple, sweet dawn

MANY ROADS LED SOUTH. I skirted alongside a few of them on the days I woke before the sun rose, traveling in the half-light of dawn when no mortals were around. Most of the time, I picked my way through forests and across mountainsides, the snakes acting as the inner compass that steered me toward the lower western edge of the mainland.

We did not talk much, the snakes and I, partly because there was no need to use words to convey the directions they gave me, and partly because they knew everything that I thought, anyway.

I did not put a blindfold back on. The scrap of fabric I had torn from my old dress and used to cover my eyes before I had met Dionysus was lost, dropped or forgotten someplace on Mount Parnassus. After so long without wearing one, the thought of concealing the rest of the world from myself seemed utterly foolish. Who had I been trying to protect with that strip of linen? Neither I, nor the mortals I had come across, had been protected by it, in the end.

After a few days of walking, leaving Parnassus far behind me, I came to the edge of the sparse forest I had been navigating through all morning and found myself on a sheer cliffside that dropped into the ocean. The sudden, overwhelming smell of salt water, unfiltered by the scent of the pine trees and decaying forest litter, shocked me into a standstill. It was brine and seaweed and hot sand, and I could feel it, thick and cloying, clinging to the inside of my throat.

I had not smelled the ocean since I had fled Athens, when I had been sick on that windy beach outside of the city because the smell of the salt water had reminded me so viciously of Poseidon’s hands on my neck, on my thighs. The streams and rivers I had come across in the forests were freshwater runoff from the mountains, and they often smelled of wet stones and mud. Pressing the back of my hand under my nose, I backed away from the cliffside and caught myself against a tree. I turned my face into the trunk and leaned my forehead against the rough bark to feel the rough edges press indents into my skin.

Even though they had not yet existed when Poseidon had assaulted me on the temple floor, the snakes were squirming with discomfort as they remembered that night along with me. Their reaction was visceral. It made me wonder if they were upset at my suffering, or did they not want to confront the event that had led to their creation?

The sound of waves crashing against the rocky base of the cliff seemed to echo the rushing panic that was slowly consuming me. I coughed, trying to get the taste of salt water out of my mouth. The snakes flicked their tongues, and the scent of the ocean grew sharper, but when I gagged and pleaded, silently, for them to stop, they did.

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