Because Perseus wouldn’t look at me, his balance wasn’t good. Nevertheless, he was strong, and he tugged back hard, slicing the sword out of my grasp. He swung it sideways, his free arm still over his eyes, and brought it round towards my neck.
I don’t know what possessed me to do what I did next. I ducked and came back hard, elbowing Perseus’s blade out of the way. Echo, of all my snakes, was the one to lash out and nip him on the shoulder. With a cry, Perseus saw his shining sword fly from his hand, and he turned, his face bared to mine, girl to boy: eye to eye. He looked up towards my snakes, his expression all amazement.
‘Medusa,’ he whispered.
And then the strangest thing of all happened. As Perseus stared at me, his jaw dropped open like a trap door, his eyes frozen in petrified astonishment. His mouth turned into an O, and his skin went pale as if the gods had made a straw for his veins and sucked.
‘Perseus!’ I screamed. ‘Perseus, what’s happening?’
Too late for him to tell me: my name would be the last word he uttered. He was disappearing before my eyes, his own irises turning milky grey. His pupils vanished, his flesh turned stony, his arms stiff.
We were standing so close that I could hear the symphony of his skin cracking to stone, and I swear I heard a far-off scream that might have been his mother’s. I held him, I shook him, I touched him everywhere, trying to bring life back to his limbs, but there was nothing. His feet were like effigies beneath his body, now a tomb, Perseus as his own lapidary image. And then I remembered Athena’s warning: Woe betide any man fool enough to look upon you now.
I touched the hardened nub of Perseus’s elbow, his fists of frozen fingers. Orado howled at his side as I stared in horror. My friend, my dream, a boy; dead and gone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Some people think that we’re born with our destiny mapped in our blood. But mapped by whom? By the gods? By fate, a mysterious mix of birth and starlight? We were all planned out, we just didn’t know it. We tread a fully formed path, and those who stray from it will crash and die. Then there are others who believe we’re born blank. Clean as spring water, we become the creators of our own hurricanes.
I think it’s both. I had a map, I had a star, but I also made some hurricanes. I’m telling you this because I need you to understand what happened when Perseus turned up on my island. I made a choice, but also that choice was beyond me, waiting for its making.
I knew that Perseus and I couldn’t stay either side of that arch forever. I think part of me knew it from the moment I saw him down on his boat. Stheno knew it. Even before he discovered who I was, Perseus knew it too. We both knew that time would have its way with us. But such perspicacity will not save you from the surprise when it actually does.
Did I kick that shield so he would see me, and never mind the consequence? Or did I do it to push his swinging sword away? The poets are divided. But still: I asked Perseus, again and again, not to come into the cave. I begged him to leave. And did he listen? No.
Who knows what would have happened if he’d obeyed me. If he’d sailed off, maybe he’d have found some real monsters to kill, to make his own myth – as I have here, my story finally made mine. Perseus the Brave, Perseus the King: it sounds familiar. Maybe he would have saved a maiden and married her? Maybe, in another universe, that’s exactly what he did.
Not in my universe, however. In my universe, I left him on the edge of a cliff. I have to tell you something else too: I saw my face in that shield of his, and I looked good.
Perseus swung at me for a story, and it wasn’t the one I’ve told you here. You should be careful who tells your story. For so long, I had no choice but to listen to the noise. But I knew my time would come. I knew that one day I’d be able to tell you this.
Some days, I still can’t believe how I watched Perseus’s soft flesh harden to permanent rock, and left it to be weathered by the wind and rain, bleached by the sun and stained by the gulls for eternity. It seems like something that happened to a different person. Since then, I’ve come so far. He taught me, without realising.
After he turned to stone, I carried him out of the cave to inspect him in brighter light, and left him lying sideways in the grass, seeing as he was no longer a threat. Orado was still howling, licking the stone of Perseus’s foot. My sisters, landing nearby, couldn’t believe their eyes. I explained what had happened. Euryale was too fascinated by Perseus’s metamorphosis to even be angry with me that I’d kept such a dangerous secret.
‘And … he just looked at you and turned to stone?’ she said.
‘Exactly that.’
She beamed. ‘You’re a powerful woman, Medusa. I’m in awe of you.’ She looked over at Perseus’s statue. ‘We’ll have to break him up,’ she said, her hands on her hips, her wings half open, pacing round Perseus’s inert form. ‘We have to bury the evidence.’
‘We can’t do that,’ I said. ‘We have to honour his body.’
Euryale scoffed, but I was adamant. ‘We have to honour what happened here, Euryale. We have to honour what I am. I’m not scared of Athena any more. She’s shown me what I am, and I’m still here.’
Orado snuffled at the statue, as if the clue to his master’s stasis was buried in the grass. He reached his front paws on to Perseus’s kneecaps, barking with all his might for a resurrection. ‘I’m sorry, Orado,’ I said. The dog looked at me, the dark, wet beads of his eyes not comprehending where his master had gone, and nor could I tell him.
‘Don’t apologise,’ said Euryale. ‘You were defending yourself. But who’s going to believe that, with you looking like you do, and him being the son of Zeus?’
‘Perseus came here of his own accord, Medusa,’ said Stheno. ‘You talked with him. You shared your time with him and listened to him. You told him your name and he told you that you were a monster.’
‘But he believed me, Stheno.’
‘He did: but when you warned him to keep away, he didn’t listen. You had no idea Athena had given you this power. I believe that the gods, however fickle, will see all that.’
‘Well,’ said Euryale, exhaling heavily. ‘Only time will tell.’
This power.
You’re a powerful woman, Medusa.
My sisters’ words ran through my head. I’d been scared of other people’s power my whole life, never mind my own. I gazed down at Perseus’s face – those carved cheekbones, sharp as a cuttlefish, the smooth jaw, the frozen furrow between his brows, the round O of his mouth. Maybe if I kissed it, I could bring him back to life? I knelt down and placed my mouth on his: warm lips on cold stone. Nothing. This wasn’t a fairytale. I wondered if I even wanted him to be resurrected. Orado was licking the hard planes of Perseus’s shins and calves with the tenderness of a mother cat to her half-drowned kitten.
‘Medusa,’ said Stheno. ‘You need to say goodbye.’
I walked around the cliff top, yanking up bunches of love-in-a-mist, forget-me-nots, seagrass and wild roses. My sisters pulled him to his feet, set him upright, looking out to sea. As best I could, I twined the stems into a wreath, and when it was finished, I placed it on Perseus’s head as if it were a crown. The wind dropped, and the gulls fell quieter in their mewling. Above us, the sun beat upon our heads like the eye of a god, seeking to light the cracks inside us.