16

During the first day of flying, I regretted everything that had happened in Sparta. I plagued myself by asking endlessly, What if?

But over the next two days, I imagined my reunion with my parents, Hector, and Maera. I invented a story to explain what had befallen me and told it to Eurus. He called me a dreadful liar and said I should just be silent.

I couldn’t do that! I added detail and pictured myself in the straits I described: an adder biting me while I prayed to Apollo, pain, delirium, finally awakening on the bank of the Scamander River near Mount Ida, finding my way home, walking only at night for fear of lions. When I tried again, I’d convinced myself so well that my voice broke.

Eurus wiped his eyes with his tunic. “That will do.”

He was so sympathetic.

We reached Troy midmorning, fourteen days after we’d left. Eurus put me down at the west gate, and I rushed through the alleys on this side of the city, scraping by carts and donkeys and people, meaning to spare my parents more moments of grief.

Maera met me in the plaza outside the palace. I rubbed her all over while she licked my face and wagged her whole back half.

Indoors, I raced along the colonnade, foreseeing that Mother, Father, my brothers, and Father’s councilors would be in the living room. I just couldn’t tell if Helenus, my twin and fellow seer, would be there too.

On the threshold, I signaled Maera to wait. Then I hesitated myself. Father must have been praying recently because I smelled his incense. Clear light slanted in from the sky above the courtyard. Everyone stood and sipped honey water from pink and blue clay cups. Servants held pitchers in case anyone wanted a refill. Deep male voices thrummed in my chest. Home. Precious.

Mother and Father stood apart, each listening to several councilors, their expressions cordial. Why didn’t they seem sad?

Mother’s belly was enormous. My baby brother Polydorus would come soon. When he was just ten, he was fated to die in the massacre inside Troy.

There was Helenus, standing near Hector and watching Deiphobus.

A councilor saw me, and it was as if a giant hand stirred the room. People turned toward me, then away, and then toward my parents.

“Father? Mother?” I ran toward them.

For an instant, Mother looked relieved, but then her face reddened.

I stopped short. Was she angry at me?

Father’s lips tightened to a straight line. He was angry! He turned his back to me. My stomach hurt, as if someone had punched me.

Mother signaled a servant, who took my elbow and guided me up to the women’s quarters. Whining, Maera came with us. I began to weep.

Voices and weaving hummed from above, as usual, but when we came into view, sound ceased, as if a god had snuffed it out. Through my tears, I saw that my loom was no longer near Mother’s. I stumbled past the women to my bed and threw myself down on my stomach, sobbing. Maera jumped up and licked my neck.

Did Mother and Father hate me? Had they stopped being proud of me?

When I finally sat up, I saw my cousins crowded in the entryway to our nook.

Melo looked curious, Aminta pitying, and Kynthia amused.

“Leave me alone!”

Melo and Aminta left.

Kynthia shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “Your brother said the shepherds would get sick of you.”

“What shepherds?”

She grinned. “Sly, girl. That’s what I’d ask.”

“What did Helenus say?” It couldn’t have been any other brother.

She was eager to tell me. At first, everyone believed that some disaster had befallen me on my way to or back from the sacred grove. Father assembled a force to find me, but Helenus met them as they left the city. He said he’d seen me frolicking with a dozen or more shepherds and shepherdesses in the fields between Troy and Mount Ida and predicted that I’d come home eventually.

They believed that I’d do that—make them fear for me without a good reason?

I refused to cry again until I was alone.

Kynthia said, “I’m enjoying your disgrace, Cassandra.”

Clever Maera barked at her.

“Go away.”

This time she did.

But I didn’t cry again. I sat, stony-faced, furious as well as miserable, furious over my parents’ lack of trust.

Looking ahead a few years, I saw myself at my loom during the war. There would be extra space between it and the looms on either side. The chatter would swirl around me and not include me. But my head would be high and my face calm.

I decided to become that serene creature now.

I fetched my comb from my chest and attacked my matted hair. Maera went to sleep on my bed.

After a few minutes, Mother came in and took over, working gently at the knots. “Of all my children, I thought you the least likely to worry me and your father.”

“There were no shepherds.” How could they think there were? “I’d never forget your goodness to me, and Father’s. Let me tell you what really happened.” Please!

“Helenus saw you. Why would he lie?”

Because he wanted me to fail in whatever I might be planning. “You see how he is with Deiphobus.”

“He had no reason to make up a tale, and you do.” She kissed my cheek. “Your lot will be hard. Parents don’t want a flighty wife for their sons. They’ve withdrawn their offers.”

Good. I wouldn’t have a husband and children to grieve for.

We were silent after that. When she left, my hair was free of tangles and held in a bun by a silver grasshopper pin, one of hers.

A few minutes later, I went to my loom and picked up my weaving. After a while, I asked Melo her opinion about the green I planned for the bottom, to go with my pale yellow cloth. She always had something to say about color.

But she just blushed. Was she embarrassed to speak to me? Did she worry people would think ill of her if she did?

“I don’t know,” she said at last.

Kynthia giggled.

Conversation was subdued throughout the women’s quarters, as if they were all required to show their disapproval of me. By noon, I was trembling with rage at being misunderstood. I asked Mother if I could visit the sacred grove, expecting her to say no and thinking I’d leave anyway.

But she said yes. “You may go wherever you usually do.”

My eyes smarted. “Come with me! Then you’ll see.”

Eurus would love a visit from another worshipper. He might be able to convince her of the danger of Paris and Helen. This was a wonderful idea!

“Dear, I can barely waddle ten steps. Just don’t spend another night away.”

I tried for second best. “I can take my cousins. They’ll tell you where I go.”

“Go alone. I won’t let you tempt anyone into mischief.”