Athena's Child (The Grecian Women Trilogy)

by Hannah M. Lynn

This story, in many ways, would be easier if the darkness had been born in her that way. But it was not. She was not. Medusa grew from monsters, but she was not born of them.

‘Intelligence means shrewdness, cunning,’ Thales countered her. ‘He is double my age and then some. What interest could a man of that age find in a thirteen-year-old girl?’ His wife’s silence provided all the answers he feared.

For when, during the blessing, the young woman’s eyes had looked at Medusa, they conveyed only fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the known, but not yet experienced. Fear, possibly of the experiences so far. It was not an unusual response, Medusa knew. Most women looked fearful on the wedding night, and those who didn’t generally showed no emotion at all.

Women hold knives more often in the day than men ever do, yet it is not women who stab their husbands to death when they fear adultery. Women gather in clusters with friendships stronger than steel, yet it is not women who beat their husbands to the ground in gangs when a hint of wrong-doing echoes in the air.

Women use words and reason where men use fists and force. So why are we always second?

At these times, Medusa knew too well that no matter how many words Euryale spat at the sky, it was not Athena she blamed for their transformation. Medusa was the one who had sealed their fate.

‘I have come for the head of Medusa, the Gorgon,’ he said. ‘The Gorgon?’ Medusa replied. This word was new to her. Gorgos, the terrible. A knot of anger and grief twisted inside her. What a leap, from a priestess to a gorgon.

When she returned to her cave, her sisters were curled up. Their feathered wings swept around their bodies, blankets for their broken souls.

From the first second that she held her daughter to her breast, smelling her sweet scent, her world had been transformed. All her thoughts were consumed with concern from the child, and her chest burned so fiercely that she laughed at her own audacity to have considered that she had some understanding of love before. This love, this bond, this fire that raged within her, refused to be extinguished, despite whatever prophecies were laid before them.

‘She is not a child any longer. She is a woman and soon men will come calling. And when they do, the Oracle’s prophecy will come true.’ ‘It is a wonder the Oracle did not prophesy that you die at my hand, Acrisius, for soon I feel it is likely to happen.’

Fate had sealed her into her chamber, but it was she who chose how she responded. Time would pass whether she wept or sang. And so, Danae chose temperance and hope. Laughter at the shapes of the clouds, joy in the songs that reached her ears. Her father may have planned to steal years of her life, but she could choose in what humour she accepted them.

All the times she had spoken to him while he was cocooned inside of her, all the words of love she had whispered unendingly in the silence of the night, it was only now she realised, just as her mother before her, they had meant nothing. Her life had meant nothing until now. This was love.

‘You wish me to question those who never questioned me. Or you. Trust does not require answers, Perseus. Trust requires acceptance.’

Medusa forced down the caustic sting of bile as it bit in her throat. ‘Perhaps he has sent us many,’ Stheno replied. Father. They had taken to using the term for the God of the Sea as a source of mockery – Poseidon’s rape of Medusa somehow a source of comfort to them; maybe that she had at least suffered one indignity they had not.

Thoughts of her siblings led to thoughts of her parents, which slowed her work even more. They would have been in the underworld for millennia now, their names forgotten by every living person on earth. Assuming they had had a burial, of course. It was a thought that tormented her often. Another act in which she had failed.

‘You think a man would dare desecrate the temple of a god in such a manner? To defile anything sacred to one of the gods? Would one of your men?’ This time, he knew there was no need to answer. No man in his right mind would ever consider such a thing. ‘A god?’ He whispered. ‘Yes.’ The single word expelled in a bloom of air. ‘Yes. It was a god, who forced himself upon me in such a manner that would make your innocent eyes look away in terror. It was a god who bloodied my body and broke my will. And it was another god, a goddess, who tore apart everything I had left. Your uncle and your sister took everything I had.’

‘Gods do not pay the price for their wrongdoings, Perseus. Mortals do. The gods, like the rich of the world, push their agendas onto those whose voices are not loud enough to speak for themselves. The women. The weak. The unwanted. And no one shouts for those who need it the most. Why would they? To shout for another is to risk losing something yourself. And man cannot see beyond the depth of his own reflection.’

Once, people came to me for help, for advice. Now, they come to make me a murderer time and time again.’

Moments had passed, and he realised that he had not yet replied to the Priestess. And yet, when his mouth opened, he could offer nothing more than an apology. ‘I am sorry,’ he said.

Whether half-god or not, many men, stronger, fitter, and better trained than him had fallen prey to the Gorgon’s gaze. But he was not here to end a Gorgon’s life, he realised with a sadness he could never have predicted. He was here to bring peace to a priestess.

those of terror and death, but rather of reverence and gratitude. The Priestess who continued to sacrifice even after death. The woman who offered herself to Perseus to save his mother from a tyrant king.

They did not listen as he told them of their exchange, but rather they refilled his cup and shouted over him with cheers and adulations. He realised then, alone in a crowded room, that to fulfil his promise to Medusa was to deny his loyalty to Athena, his sister, who had done all in her power to make him a hero. Telling Medusa’s story would make monsters of all the men that had gone before him and failed. And what of himself? Would the world respect his mercy as easily as they accepted his might and bravery? So, Perseus stayed silent. That night and every night that followed. Years passed, and Perseus went on to become one of Greece’s greatest heroes, held in such high esteem for his feats. Meanwhile, Medusa’s truth was lost, and all that remained was the story of monsters and heroes, though the world would never truly know which was which.