I still coveted the hidden secret of my mother’s dreams, even though the memory of that long-ago night repelled me. That was what I wanted; not a wedding, not a husband or children. And then it struck me. Apollo had the gift of prophecy; he might yet choose to bestow it on his most devoted followers. The service of Apollo was a noble calling. It would be a convenient route for an inconvenient daughter.
I made it known to Hecabe and Priam the very next day. They made no objection to my choice. The mighty sun-god’s glorious, golden light made our city shimmer, for the city of Troy was as beloved by Apollo as he was by us. But it was not his radiance or his healing powers, or even the melodious music of his lyre, that I longed for when I burned the incense at his statue’s feet, or slit the throat of the sacrificial animals that bled in his honour. When I made my oath to become his priestess, I did not fear that terrible divine privilege of seeing what was to come. As a priestess, I would have no children of my own, no baby that I might be forced to consign to a desolate mountainside, so I was not afraid of what he might show me. If I was gifted by him to see the kind of things that my mother saw – perhaps even more than her – then I might not hang my head and mumble; my voice would be, at last, clear and brave. If I could speak the will of the gods and see the very fabric of fate, I could command attention and respect. With all of my heart, that was what I wanted. To be something other than myself; to speak in someone else’s words instead of my own.
I was dutiful, I was devoted. I knew that Apollo would see me, his dedicated servant, at his temple every day, and I trusted I would be rewarded for my piety.
The day that it happened began like any other. I had no inkling of what was to come. I walked on the shore before dawn, and then I came to the temple as I always did. I sang at his altar and hung flowers about the neck of the statue in its centre, my head clouded by the fragranced oils burning in dishes and the rich aroma of the wine I poured to him. The silent peace of the dim interior was a sanctuary for me, a place of respite. The place I belonged more than anywhere else in Troy.
Light trickled through the soft smoke, melting into it like liquid, streams of gold that suffused the shadows, brightening the air wherever it touched. I couldn’t see where it was coming from. I paused, my hand hovering above the petals I was about to sprinkle. And, as I looked around, I felt something stir: a breeze in the empty room, whispering over the nape of my neck.
The golden light steadily intensified, coalescing around a burning glow in the centre of the room, so bright that I couldn’t see anything else. Panic began rising in my chest and I put up my hand to shield my eyes, stepping back, groping for the doorway that should have been somewhere behind me.
And then, out of the light, he stepped forward. My hands dropped, hanging useless at my sides. There was nothing but his presence – his true, real presence – suffocating, overwhelming, dizzying in its intensity. It was impossible that he was truly there, but he was. Apollo, an Olympian god made flesh, beautiful and terrifying at once.
The burning light dissipated and there was only him, standing before me. The air was as fresh as a summer meadow, as warm as sunshine. ‘Cassandra,’ he said, and his voice was like the soft plucking of mellow strings, humming with poetry; nothing like a human voice.
I’d imagined that he would come to me in a dream, that he’d send me a message to interpret, something vague and cryptic. I had never thought he would come like this. I couldn’t find my voice to speak. But then, why would I need to? He could see into my soul. He knew what I longed for; I’d prayed to his statue a hundred times.
He stepped closer. I was fixed in the centre of his gaze, held fast as he moved, sinuous and snake-like, towards me. I shrank back, afraid that his touch would sear my skin, that he would turn my bones to ashes with the brush of his fingertips. He smiled. And then he seized my face between his hands and pressed his immortal lips to mine.
A chaos of images and a roar of indistinguishable sounds tumbled through my head, too fast, too loud to make sense. I couldn’t stand, only his hands held me upright, but then he released his grip on me, and I staggered away, falling against the wall.
‘You have it. My gift to you.’
The stone was solid against my back; I clung to it, nauseated by the dizzying rush inside my mind. Faces, distorted and unrecognisable, pleading and grimacing, begging for answers, for knowledge. Radiant flashes flickering over them: a baby squinting in the sunlight; oars splashing in moonlit waters; flames leaping into the sky. I felt that my skull would shatter, that it would rain down in fragments. He had breathed it into me; a gift I was sure I would not survive. Prophecy, the prize my mother had warned me never to ask for.