But Medusa was different. She asked for the stories over and over again, correcting Euryale if she changed any detail. She pestered both sisters to be allowed to see people whenever she could. She loved seeing children, just as she loved it when their horned sheep produced lambs. And as she had grown older, her love for mortals only increased. ‘They don’t even have wings,’ Sthenno said, one morning when Medusa was pleading for the three of them to go and see the new temple, which had been built a little way along the coast. The Gorgons could see it from the top of their own rocky heights, though it was on a loftier promontory. ‘I wonder how they got the columns up so high.’
‘We could ask them if we went to look,’ Medusa said. ‘Please.’
‘Not today,’ Sthenno said. ‘There are things I need to do today.’
‘But—’
‘Another day,’ Euryale said. The sheep needed milking and she had a feeling one of them was sickening with something. She had penned the little creature away from the others, on the far side of the shore.
‘I could go on my own,’ Medusa said.
Her sisters looked at one another. She could go on her own. She was of an age when humans did things alone, Euryale realized. And although it took a physical effort to remember, she was no longer a baby.
‘How many summers have you been here?’ Sthenno asked, suspicious.
‘I remember thirteen,’ said Medusa. ‘How many do you remember?’ she asked Euryale.
‘Three more,’ Euryale said, after a moment of counting. She thought of her flock of sheep growing through the years, the first lambs, the first deaths. She remembered Medusa being there each time: crawling, then standing, then walking unsteadily, then running. ‘Yes.’ She nodded at her sceptical sister. ‘She has been with us for sixteen summers.’
‘If I was mortal, my parents would let me go and see a temple,’ Medusa said, turning from one sister to the other. ‘Please. I think they’re starting another one, I’m sure I saw them marking out the space. I want to see.’
*
Medusa wasn’t afraid to be travelling alone. She was often on her own in the caves where they lived, or on the rocks around their patch of the shore. She was never far from her sisters, and she enjoyed the brief sense of solitude she felt when she left them behind. She unfurled her wings and flew the short distance to the temple precincts. Now she was close to it, she was even more dazzled by the ingenuity and grandeur. Vast sturdy columns were topped by a brightly painted frieze, and Medusa wondered how mortals standing at their base would ever be able to see the story of the war between Gods and Titans – a story her sisters had told her many times – without craning their necks. The whole edifice seemed to have been designed to be admired by someone who could fly. She fluttered up to look more closely at the painted figures, which ran all the way around the outside edge of the roof: the blues, reds and yellows each catching her eye in turn. She followed the story around, panel by panel: the Titans rising up against Zeus, the Olympian gods banding together to subdue them. When she landed back on the ground, she wondered where the mortals were: she could see none. She wanted to look inside the temple, but Sthenno had taught her to be careful of scaring humans who were apt to scream and run away if they saw a Gorgon. Perhaps they had already seen her approaching the temple and hidden. Still, she stood behind a column and pushed open one wooden door, just a little, hoping not to alarm anyone. She peered inside, her eyes accustomed to the darkness of her cave. She saw a pair of bright unblinking eyes staring right at her and she gasped before realizing they belonged to a statue.
She smiled as she pushed the door further, and stepped inside. The statue was so impressive: no wonder it had made her jump. The goddess sat proudly on her grand chair, her skin glowing white, her helmet, spear and shield painted gold. Her eyes were remarkable: Medusa didn’t know what could have made them such a piercing blue. She had never seen such a thing and yet she knew it was a perfect likeness, and that the goddess had just such eyes herself. She crept a little closer, admired the drapery of the statue’s dress, reached out to touch it, but pulled her hand back when she heard a noise behind her.
‘Don’t stop on my account. I must say, it’s rather a good likeness of my niece.’
Medusa turned to see who was speaking. A tall, well-muscled man was standing in the shadows of the colonnade by the door she had just used. He must have been waiting to follow her in, she thought, when he could simply have spoken to her outside. He had long black hair, curling down past his neck. His eyes were dark green and cold.
‘Your niece?’ she said. ‘Is that who it is?’
‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘That is Athene. Can’t you tell from the helmet and the spear?’
‘I didn’t know she had those,’ Medusa said. ‘My sisters don’t always mention what people are wearing when they tell the stories.’
He laughed, but she could tell the laughter was false. It did not sound like Sthenno laughing, when she caught herself doing something ridiculous, or like Euryale when she was entertained by the antics of their sheep. It sounded like – Medusa searched for the words to define something unfamiliar – like the laughter of someone who wanted to be thought amused, though they were not.
‘Why are you pretending to laugh?’ she asked.
The man stopped laughing immediately. ‘I wasn’t laughing at your sisters,’ he said.
‘You weren’t laughing at all,’ Medusa replied.
‘I was thinking how funny it is,’ he continued as though she had not spoken, ‘that you are the daughter of a sea god and a sea goddess, and yet you only know your immortal kin through stories.’
Medusa did not know what to say to this, since the man was lying to her, and she had no idea why. She found herself wishing suddenly that Euryale had left her sheep for a while and come with her. Or that the priestess of the mighty goddess Athene were present. Or that the tall man wasn’t so close to the door.
‘How do you think I should know them?’ she said. She moved to the side of the statue and the man moved silently in the same direction, so the distance between them was lessened.
‘I think your sisters should have taken you to Mount Olympus to meet your ethereal family,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps they could have brought you to my kingdom instead. My borders lap up against your shore, after all.’
‘Are you my father?’ she asked. And this time his laughter was real, but again it sounded wrong. She realized it was because it was tinged with contempt. ‘No, child. Phorcys is a very minor god, compared to his king.’
‘Poseidon,’ she said. ‘Don’t you usually have a trident?’
‘Do I need one?’ he asked. ‘I thought your sisters didn’t mention what the gods wear and carry.’
She stared at him, wondering why he didn’t like her sisters.
‘I don’t know what you use it for,’ she said.
‘Attacking Titans,’ he replied. ‘You saw me on the frieze outside.’
‘That’s why you don’t have it, then? Because the Titans were overthrown.’
‘Exactly. So now I only carry it because I am used to it,’ he said. ‘But sometimes it gets in the way.’