Lia spent the next day in a hazy-headed daze. She sat at her loom from midmorning to evening, embroidering a white-winged horse onto her tapestry’s dark evening sky. The work was absorbing, a perfect distraction from her thoughts, thoughts that troubled her nearly as much as her feelings and more than her memories.
Every stitch required her complete concentration. She was painting a Pegasus with needle and thread, no easy task. Between each stitch, however, she had time to think, to feel, to remember.
August. She couldn’t even hear his name echoing in her mind without needing to stop and catch her breath. Something had happened last night that she hadn’t expected, hadn’t asked for, hadn’t realized she wanted so much until August had given it to her.
When she’d come to in August’s bed, she hadn’t felt the usual high she’d come to expect as a standard side effect from drinking from the Rose Kylix. She’d glanced around and seen his bedroom and begun to cry.
August had pulled her into his arms and held her against his chest.
“Why are you crying?” he’d asked. She had liked the way he’d asked her, as if he simply wanted to know why she cried, not because he wanted her to stop.
“I want to go back,” she’d said. And then said, “With you.”
She fell asleep only after he’d promised her he’d take her back as often as she wanted.
Perhaps that was why Lia had spent her waking hours at her loom, weaving herself again into a myth by day, the way August wove her into myths by night.
A good thing she’d left the Rose Kylix at August’s flat by his bed. If she’d had it with her, the temptation to drink from it would be nearly overwhelming. She would drink and dream her way back to Pan’s Island. She would sit at the feet of Pan and listen to his piping, perhaps dance in the woods among the trees and the flowers. But it wouldn’t be the same, of course, without August there.
Since coming home last night—this morning, really—she’d felt like a veil had gone up between her and the real world. She and August on one side of the veil, everyone else on the other. Including her parents. Her brothers. Her friends. David, too. It scared her how much she wanted to stay behind that veil with August. Or...if she was honest with herself...it scared her how much she wanted to stay with August behind that veil.
Lia had just put the final stitch into the left wing of the Pegasus when she heard a soft knock on her sitting room door.
“Come in.” She lifted her head from her embroidery and realized it was evening already. Where had the day gone?
Lia wasn’t surprised to see her mother standing in the doorway. But the outfit...that did catch her off guard. Her mother, usually dressed to the eights if not the nines, was wearing black yoga bottoms and a white T-shirt.
“What are you doing, Mum? Why are you dressed like that? Did you lose a bet?”
She had concerns this was a bizarre sex thing involving her father, but she was too curious not to ask.
“I thought if I put on exercise clothes I might accidentally do some exercise.”
“Exercise? What happened? You aren’t dying, are you?”
“I stepped on the scale.” Mum patted Lia on her cheek. “Word of advice—stay young as long as possible, then immediately get old. Skip right over being middle-aged. It’s hell on the metabolism.”
“Don’t be melodramatic, Mum. You’re beautiful and you know it. Men throw themselves at you all the time.”
She snorted a laugh. “They throw themselves at your father’s bank account and hit me on the way there.” Lia didn’t believe that for one second but she didn’t say anything. “So...are we seeing our Greek god tonight?”
“We are,” Lia said. “But if you’re here to interrogate me about him, you know where the door is.”
“Oh, fine. I’ll keep my questions to myself. Although... I do like him for you.”
“I like him for me, too,” she confessed. She smiled as she stretched her back. Her mother came and stood behind her sewing stool and rested her chin on Lia’s shoulder. She peered at Lia’s tapestry.
“My daughter is very talented,” Mum said. “Sometimes I wonder how you’re mine. I can’t sew on a button.”
Lia rolled her eyes but not unkindly.
“You could if you practiced,” she said, and then realized she sounded exactly like someone she knew—her own mother. Her mum ignored that comment and started nosing through the books on her side table.
“What’s all this?” she asked. “Planning a new tapestry?”
“Maybe,” Lia said, though that wasn’t true. But she was hardly going to tell her mother she’d been thinking about other erotic adventures she wanted to go on with August.
“Poseidon and Aethra,” her mother said, looking at the page Lia had left open on her sewing table. “I know Poseidon, but who was Aethra?”
“The mother of Theseus,” Lia said.
“Ah, you know better than that,” her mother said. “Who was she? Not who did she give birth to or who did she marry. Believe it or not, I’d had my own life and adventures before I met your father and you were born. Some that would turn your hair white.”
“I actually do believe that, Mum. You have adventures now that turn my hair white. This is a wig.”
“It’s flattering.” Her mother tugged a curl of Lia’s hair. “Who was Aethra?”
Of course Mum wasn’t going to let it go.
“She was...a mystery,” Lia said. “She’s known for having had sex with her husband and a god in the same night and being impregnated, somehow, by both of them. That’s the story I was reading.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. I assume Poseidon was the god? Who was the husband?”
“A king named Aegeus. He came to visit her father, King Pittheus. Aethra’s fiancé had just been exiled from the country for murder. Pittheus must have wanted to foist her off on someone else, fast. He got King Aegeus pissed on undiluted wine and sent him to his daughter’s bedroom to shag and sleep.”
“Parenting was very different in those days,” her mother said.
“Mum, you gave me a vibrator for my eighteenth birthday.”
“There wasn’t a drunk king attached to it.”
“Anyway...” Lia continued. “King Aegeus and Aethra slept together. Maybe they hit it off so well because they both had names starting with Ae. Whatever it was, they shagged and fell asleep after. They were sound asleep in bed when the goddess Athena appeared and woke Aethra. She said Aethra needed to hie herself over to the Temple of Sphaeria. Why? Athena didn’t specify. But Aethra went, presumably after cleaning the royal sperm off her legs.”
“A wet flannel works best,” her mother said. Lia ignored that comment.
“She went to the temple and offered a sacrifice to, well...somebody. Athena, most likely. And while she was there, Poseidon appeared, all wet and naked and in the mood. They shagged in the temple. Or he raped her. Several versions of the myth say it was rape, but in those same versions, she’s the one who’s telling everyone that her son was fathered by Poseidon. I don’t know how to reconcile a woman bragging about her son being the child of her rapist.”
“Do you think it was rape?”
“Possible,” Lia said. “On one hand, he was a god and she was mortal. That’s a big power imbalance. Hard to imagine she could properly consent to an immortal. On the other hand...if you had the chance to shag a god, wouldn’t you take it? Don’t answer that, Mum. Rhetorical question.”
“Oh, I definitely would,” her mother said. “I’d start with Thor.”
The good countess clearly needed a refresher course on rhetoric.
“Look at that. Could you resist that?” her mother asked. She’d turned to a page in the book, a full-color photograph of Bernini’s most famous sculpture, The Rape of Proserpina. Bernini had lavished all his talent and attention onto the body of Pluto—Hades to the Greeks. He was massive, naked and impossibly strong. Proserpina—Persephone to the Greeks—squirmed in his grasp but in vain. No woman—goddess or mortal—could escape such a being. Utterly male but more than male. Human but more than human. Merciless in his beauty. Savage in his lusts.
“No.” Lia stared at the god and the poor girl helpless in his grasp. “I wouldn’t even try.”
“Poseidon and Hades were brothers,” her mother said. “If Poseidon looked anything like that, Aethra probably volunteered for the job of having his child.”
“You know the maddest thing?” Lia asked. “There’s no artwork depicting the encounter—Aethra and Poseidon in the temple. Theseus is one of the most famous Greek mythological heroes and, according to his mother, he had two fathers—one a king and one a god. But no artwork at all? Not a single famous painting or kylix or amphora or anything that depicts Aethra and Poseidon in the temple? So strange.”
She tossed the book and it landed neatly on the love seat.
Mum smiled and sat down next to the book.
“Suppression,” her mother said as she drew her legs under her into a position that could have been called almost-yoga. “It’s the most dangerous form of flattery. When a story like that gets ignored by male artists, that always means they’re afraid of it for one reason or another.”
Lia turned on her stool and gave her mother her full attention.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Ever heard of a book called Mathilda by Mary Shelley?”
“No,” Lia said. “I only know of Frankenstein.”
“The reason you’ve never heard of it is because it’s the story of a teenage girl whose life is destroyed when her father falls in love with her. Mary Shelley’s father was a book publisher. He read her new manuscript, was horrified by the implications of it—guilty conscience, probably—and confiscated it. He wouldn’t allow it to be published, and it wasn’t—for over a hundred years. If a story is suppressed or obscured, it’s because somewhere along the way it scared the shit out of a man. And that story of Aethra sounds like a prime candidate for suppression by men. On one hand,” her mother said, holding up her right hand, “you have a woman who’s trying to tell anyone who would listen that the father of her son was the god Poseidon. On the other hand, you have a mortal man humiliated that his young bride left their marriage bed on their wedding night to have sex with someone else. Who benefits by calling it rape?”
“The husband,” Lia said. “If she had sex with Poseidon willingly, then he’s a cuckold. If she was raped, well...you can’t sue a god for adultery.”
“More important,” her mother said, folding her hands into her lap, “King Aegeus would have been humiliated to have his wife telling the world she’d left him sleeping in bed to go have sex with someone else. If he called it rape, he saved face. And the best evidence that nobody buys the rape story is the lack of artwork about it. The old masters loved painting rapes. Walk through any art gallery of Renaissance paintings and it’s a history of rape on the walls. They adored subjects where women were being hunted, chased, kidnapped, raped. The artists wanted to enshrine male power over women. They chose what myths they thought were worthy—the rape of the Sabine women, Apollo and Daphne, Medusa—”
“Hades and Persephone,” Lia said. “Leda being raped by Zeus in the form of a swan. Europa. Helen of Troy.” Lia had seen dozens of paintings of those subjects.
“The old male masters would never choose to preserve the story of a wife who got to have more fun than her husband. Not only that, she isn’t punished for it. She’s not turned into a tree or some reeds or a cow. In fact, she’s rewarded for her adultery by giving birth to the most famous hero in Greek mythology.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Lia said. “You’re probably right.”
“You should weave it,” her mother said. “As talented as you are, you don’t need an original source to work from. You can do it all by yourself. And Aethra and all the badly behaved wives in history will thank you.”
Lia felt a surge of love for her mother. Sometimes she forgot how nice it was to talk to her about art, life, love, nonsense. She had a much different perspective than her father, who cared more about the value of an artwork than the substance of it.
“I’m going to tell Daddy you said all that.”
“Do it,” Mum said, laughing. “He loves me because I’m so badly behaved, not in spite of it. As a good husband should. Or a wicked whore of a husband like mine.”
“Mother.”
“Sorry.”
“You are not.”
“Not really. Your father might be a handsome whore but he’s also the love of my life, the father of my children, my best friend and, well, all the clichés. But I can pretend he’s a normal saintly husband for your sake if you like.”
“It’s all right,” Lia said. “I don’t want you to pretend.”
“You don’t mind having two wicked parents?”
“I’m getting used to it.”
“Good, because we aren’t changing anytime soon,” her mother said. She got up and kissed Lia on her cheek. “Better two parents who can’t keep their hands off each other after twenty-two years instead of two parents who can’t stand each other, right?”
“Much better,” Lia said. “As long as you keep your hands off each other in my general vicinity.” She waved her hand in a circle to indicate the general vicinity of the entire house.
“No promises.” Her mother kissed her cheek again and then started to leave. Lia wanted to stop her and ask her something. She wanted to ask if it really was possible to fall in love in a week. She wanted to ask who was supposed to say stupid stuff like “I think I’m in love with you” first in a relationship. She even wanted to ask if it was all right to fall in love with someone you never went on a real date with but had fantastic sex with...or was that just infatuation?
Her mother would know the answers to all those questions, but Lia couldn’t bring herself to ask them. What if Mum wanted to know why Lia was so unsure of herself with August? The answer was David, of course. Lia kept her mouth shut and hated David Bell a little more. He hadn’t just broken her heart, he’d bruised her relationship with her own mother.
“I should go change,” Mum said. “Don’t forget drinks with David before his show tomorrow night.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Mum. I haven’t forgotten.”
Her mother left and Lia dropped her chin to her chest.
She would be a very happy person the minute David was out of her life forever.
But would he be? Ever?
As long as she stayed silent about what had happened between them, her parents had no reason to not pick up their friendship with David where they’d left off. Her father might even talk David into finishing the mural. He’d be under their roof again. Lia would move out—her parents had a town house in London—but that would mean leaving David alone with her parents here at Wingthorn. She was sick at the thought of her parents being friends with the man who’d crushed her heart under his heel, who’d nearly beaten down her door in fury, who’d hurled horrible insults at her, who’d blackmailed her the second he’d gotten dirt on her.
Or worse, her parents being more than friends with him again.
But what else could she do? Maybe she could quietly hint to her parents she’d heard rumors about David, that he’d screwed over a “friend” of hers? She’d have to figure something out to protect her parents from a blackmailing lying bastard like David Bell.
That would have to wait, though. First things first.
Lia hated to do it, but it was time. Thursday evening. She couldn’t put it off another day.
She found her phone and called David’s number.
“Lady Ophelia,” he said when he answered. No hello. Just his sneering voice sneering out her name and that ludicrous courtesy title of hers. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’ll have your money tomorrow,” she said. “I suppose you’ll want cash?”
“You have the money?”
“Yes.”
“A million pounds?”
“As you demanded.” August had promised it to her. She knew he’d have it. Nice to be able to trust a man again.
“Who’d you sleep with to get a million in cash in five days?”
“A male prostitute,” she said.
“Usually doesn’t work that way,” he said. “Usually you pay the prostitute, not the other way around.”
“I’m just that good.”
“You’ve improved, then.”
“Your manners haven’t.”
“That hurts, Lia.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
He laughed. She hated his laugh, like he’d won the lottery on a stolen ticket.
“Listen, I’ve given the whole thing a lot of thought, and I’ve decided I don’t want the money, kid.”
“You don’t want a million pounds?”
“Nah. I’m no blackmailer.”
Lia didn’t believe him for one second.
“All right,” she said, and waited for the other shoe to drop. He dropped it very quietly.
“I’d rather just tell the papers about you. That’s worth more than a fortune to me. Good night, Ophelia. See you tomorrow.”
He rang off before she could get in a last word.
Lia stared at the phone in her hand.
That utter bastard.
She should have known. She absolutely should have known he would play her like this. He’d probably never even wanted the money from her. He just wanted to make her panic and scramble and beg, borrow and steal the money while he sat back and laughed and laughed.
Lia thought she might faint. Her lungs burned. She was dizzy. She sat down, still clutching her phone. She called August right away, before she could pass out.
He answered after two rings and she told him what David had told her.
“I don’t know what to do,” Lia said, eyes hot with tears. It felt like she had a hand around her throat, choking her. “What do I do? What should I—”
“Lia,” August said, his voice sounding preternaturally calm. “Listen to me. Stop panicking.”
“I can’t. I can’t. If he calls the papers, it’ll be front-page news all over the country, probably the world. My brothers will get tortured at school. My parents will get ostracized. Georgy’s family will never speak to her again. I—”
“I’ll figure something out,” he said. “Sit tight. I’ll get it sorted. And please, don’t panic.”
“What should I do instead?” she demanded. Not panic? Like telling someone jumping off a bridge not to scream.
“The statue of Aphrodite in your room?” he suggested. “Say a prayer to her.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“What...what am I supposed to pray for?”
“Ask her to help you.”
“Why? What good will that do?”
“She won’t listen to me,” August said. “She might listen to you. Will you do it?”
How could she tell him no? She’d do anything for August, and she told him that.
“Thank you,” he said.
“August, I’m scared.”
“I know. But I’ll protect you any way I can.”
“Right,” she said. “He comes at one of us, he comes at all of us.”
August had said that Monday night when she told him she was being blackmailed.
“That’s not why I’m helping you,” he said.
“Then why are you?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you next time I see you. Go pray. Please.”
“I’ll pray as hard as I can.”
Lia hung up and immediately went into her bedroom.
Gogo sat up in his dog bed and gave her a curious worried stare. She wished she could reassure him but couldn’t. Visions of headlines ran through her head. All the horrible jokes. The puns. The salacious details of a peer’s daughter who started an illegal escort agency at age eighteen. Clients would be outed. People would lose marriages, jobs. Her friends would be mortified, humiliated, tossed out of their homes. She didn’t even want to think about how her brothers would fare, away at school. Daddy would never be able to look her in the eyes again. Her mother would want to know why this was happening, and Lia wouldn’t be able to tell her. Lia would have to stand there in silence and let her world crumble around her while David watched and laughed and patted himself on the back.
Nausea overwhelmed her. She wanted to throw up. She needed to throw up. But she wouldn’t. She’d promised August, for some insane reason, that she would say a prayer to Aphrodite. And if she was doing it for August, she would do it right.
Lia gathered the candles. She knew she ought to offer something. Tradition and all that. She found the note from David that still had the lock of hair she’d cut and given him after he’d taken her virginity. According to myth, Artemis and Aphrodite were sisters and rivals. Maybe Aphrodite would appreciate having an offering that belonged to Artemis offered to her instead.
“This is mad,” Lia said to herself as she lit the candles and arrayed them around the statue of Aphrodite. Surely this was just busywork August had given her, something to do to calm her down, to make her feel better or to shut her up for a few minutes so he could figure out how to help her. Even so, she picked up the lock of hair, and as she dipped it in the flame, she prayed her heart out.
“Aphrodite, goddess of love,” Lia began, “please help me.” After that Lia wasn’t sure what else to say. “David used my love for him against me. A man who likes hurting women shouldn’t be allowed to win, right? Um... I’ll shut up now. I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it, anyway. That’s not true. I know exactly why I’m doing this. Because August asked me to. And I’m in love with him. So, please bless August, too, and keep him safe and happy... Amen.”
Lia let the curl of gingerbread-colored hair burn to nothing.
And that was that.
But that wasn’t that. That wasn’t that at all.
A wind kicked up.
A gust of wind that rattled Lia’s ancient windows, rattled and beat against them, beat against them until they finally blew open.
The wind rushed into the room and doused all four candles at once. The photos fell off the mantel. Her phone blew off her nightstand and onto the floor. Her lamp tipped over. Books blew open. Even Gogo looked windblown. He barked, but it wasn’t a scared sound. He barked the way he did when he’d treed a squirrel. A bark of joy. Lia ran to the windows to try to force them to shut and latch, but the wind was too strong, so strong it blew the petals off the roses from the bouquet August had given her. The pink petals swirled around her dark bedroom.
Then it just...stopped.
Just like that.
Over.
The wind died, and Lia was able to get the windows closed.
She set her lamp upright and checked to make sure the candles had really gone out before they burned the whole place down.
When she had everything set to rights, she finally sat down in her grandmother’s armchair. Gogo put his head in her lap and whimpered.
“Yeah, I don’t know what the hell that was, either, boy.” Whatever it was, it was terrifying, and Lia could do nothing but hold Gogo and pet him and comfort herself by comforting him.
About an hour later, her phone rang.