Athena's Child (The Grecian Women Trilogy)

by Hannah M. Lynn

Perhaps all monsters are born. Then again, perhaps it is just a way of hiding the darkness we all carry within us. A darkness we force ourselves to keep hidden from the world for we can barely imagine what terrible misdoings would occur if we were to let that darkness grow. Because the truth that we all know is this. Darkness grows.

These are not men. They are snakes, serpents trying to find the freshest eggs. And when they do find them, they crack them open, devour their insides, and leave nothing more than hollow shells.

These were not battles of blood, it is true, but they are battles. Battles that I have fought and won.’

Men didn’t need gods, Medusa mused, they just needed somebody, anybody, to guide them in their lives.

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.

It is not women who require lover after lover, then make promises of love which they recant when darker hair and deeper eyes are cast in our direction. Time and time again, we are called out as the emotional ones, the irrational ones.

Women use words and reason where men use fists and force. So why are we always second? Why is that my goddess? Why are we always second?’

When faced with a monster, who ever looked to see beyond the teeth and talons?

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.’

The arrogance of men did not allow them to take orders from a woman. Even one that was two thousand years old and capable of ending their lives. And end their lives she did, every time. She tried not to.

‘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.’

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.