This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(90)

I smile. It’s so uncomplicated. No mournful eyes reproaching me in silence like when I’m with Hephaestus. Nothing tortured or doomed, no sense of rushing headlong into disaster like there was with Ares. “Thank you.” I’m feigning a little shyness, though the quickening of my pulse and the way my breath hitches in my chest when he looks at me isn’t false.

“Will you sit a while with me?” he asks.

The soft, wild grass is inviting, and we sit by the stream, the forest air vibrant with the scent of moss-covered rocks and ferns. The tree branches that encircle us seem to droop, weary and defeated, but our eyes are bright and our tongues stumble over the words that pour out like a torrent, so eager are we to learn everything that we can about the other. I keep my story simple: a nymph who loves the land, devoted to the service of Aphrodite, tending flowers and mixing perfumes. A quiet, romantic existence. It doesn’t feel like a lie. Gods can take so many shapes: why can’t this one be mine, just for a spell?

He talks about his cruel father, the mother who died when he was an infant and the stepmother who in time began to look at the handsome boy in her home with covetous eyes. How he’d sought the solitude of the woods and the fierce pleasure of the hunt that kept him longer and longer away from the cold shadows of his home.

My heart stirs with sympathy, with admiration and longing. I’m caught up in the dream I’ve woven for myself, as if this glade is our retreat from a world that’s left us both bruised and disillusioned. The afternoon sun slants through the pine needles, low in the sky.

“You must go,” Adonis says at last. “Before it gets dark.”

I glance up at the gathering violet dusk. “So should you,” I say. When the moon rises, full and bright, Artemis will be wandering. A dark forest is no place for a man when she’s prowling and restless, the lethal protectress of her nymphs.

“But you’ll come here again?” he asks.

“I will.”

He stands and reaches out his hand to me. I take it, and he pulls me up. We’re face to face, and the warmth of his palm pressed to mine radiates through my body, a powerful tingle that runs from head to toe.

The breeze sighs through the branches, lonely and wistful. Adonis is tentative, not quite daring to close the slight distance between us.

So I do it. It’s the smallest movement but it feels like a dizzying leap. Our lips crush together; I can taste salt and heat, and I can feel his heart beating against mine, the blood rushing in his human veins. Even as he wraps his arms around me in a tight embrace, I think how fragile and transient a mortal body is. I touch his face like it’s a precious treasure, like he could crumble to dust if I don’t take care.

I was the first to lean in, now I’m the first to pull back. The only sound is our breath, ragged and fervent in the fading light. “Go safely,” I tell him, pushing my hands gently against his chest. I’m urging him away, but I linger there a fraction too long.

“Tomorrow?” he asks, and I nod in eager agreement.

He stoops to pick up the bow and quiver of arrows that lie on the grass, and I’m glad he has a weapon to defend himself on his journey home. It’s nothing to Artemis, but if he encounters a bear, a mountain lion or a hungry wolf, at least he’s not unarmed.

“Shall I accompany you?” he says. “To wherever you’re going? To make sure you get back.”

“No,” I say. “Remember, I’m protected by my goddess.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says again.

“Go.” I soften my command with laughter, but I’m serious, and with reluctance, he starts to walk out of the glade. He looks back at me before he slips between the trees, their branches reaching out to brush the side of his face and his arm and his hair before he disappears.

I’m giddy, the blood hectic in my cheeks as I turn my face up to the sky, trying to cool myself back to something calmer. I relax my hold on the illusion I’ve created, letting my real self emerge once more. I stand taller in the clearing, my dress sweeping the earth and my hair tumbling loose down my back.

So it’s as Aphrodite that I leave the forests, undisguised and unmistakable. And, when I glance back, I know Artemis is in no doubt that it’s me defying her orders. That she had no right to issue them in the first place doesn’t appear to cross her mind. She’s framed by two cypress trees, a dog at her feet and a spear in her hand, the perfect image of a huntress. She glares at me, her face hard with resentment.

I can’t resist a casual wave, my smile bright and insincere as I leave.



* * *



—

I walk my sanctuary paths under the pomegranate and apple trees, and I listen. I listen to the priestess in my temple, her daily rituals and routines unspooling in her mind as she tends to my statue. I listen to the worshippers gathering outside, offerings in their hands, their minds full of dreams and prayers, wishes and hopes. Young lovers, busy wives, graying widows; all of them wistful or eager with longing.

There’s a new energy in the air, a hopeful optimism renewed once more.

I round the corner and see Iris and Auge, kissing beside an apple tree. An exultant breath hisses from my chest. It’s working. I hang back on the path and wait. In the distance behind them, the wide sea sparkles and the wind breathes.

Auge slips out of the embrace and walks away, turning back to wave, her face luminous. Iris watches her go, then turns and sees me.