Page 37 of This Divine Revelry

The flames are doused, instead a sudden chill, and Dionysus’s hands are warm against mine but I am so very cold.

Theseus’s breath at my ear. The soft exhalation of the words: ‘The world needs to see you dance.’

And I am stepping, my body spinning, but somewhere deeper I am falling, hurtling with every twirl. I keep moving, my breath held, waiting for the crash to come.

At another, I join the afternoon’s hunt. And though I’d set snares and traps during my weeks alone on this island, there is a certain rage to it now, stalking through the forests with other members of the thiasus. I remember thinking Artemis might find me in these woods, but if she is the ordered hunt, this is a frenzy. This is every thought of my father and Theseus and my brother’s body and my sister’s betrayal and it is a plunging knife, a shot arrow and blood caught beneath my nails. It is a space to let what is contained run free. To become wild.

To think of Theseus, and wonder what other violence my vengeance might yield.

‘New girl! Try this!’ Dionysus gleefully declares before pushing a cup of wine into my hand. Shrugging, I bring it to my lips. It is lighter than our usual wine, golden, and there’s an earthiness to it, a grounded flavour that feels warm and inviting.

‘Oh,’ I say, glancing from the cup to Dionysus. ‘Please tell me you didn’t put something weird in this.’

‘Pine resin!’ he cries, taking the cup back and taking a sip. His lips brush right where mine just pressed. ‘Seals the amphorae, stops it spoiling and it’s delicious. The pine cones win again!’ And I make a point not to drink any more of it that night, protesting this pine cone conspiracy that has gone on quite long enough.

I wait for it to hit – that sudden plummet, that swift snatching of any joy I manage to find.

And I realize the expectation alone is enough to fell me: my every move as haunted as the palace of Knossos ever was.

But those shadows have a name, beckoning me onwards – urging me to lay this spectre to rest.

At another, I sit in a circle with Calybe and we race to tie cherry stems with our tongues. At another, Opora and I strip off our chitons and run crashing into the ocean. At another, Myrto and I spin for so long on the dance floor the dizziness doesn’t abate until morning.

A week passes, maybe two. And always, no matter the joy, it simply refuses to settle in my heart.

Charis would love this. And aren’t these the very banquets my mother once hoped to host? And couldn’t Phaedra play her aulos freely here?

Sometimes I cannot believe that I am here at all – that I stirred my father into such fury and fled. Did he take his anger out on my mother? Or Phaedra, even, for not warning him sooner? Who will be there to take the blame when his rage flares? Or will he turn it all on Theseus, chase him across the ocean and kill so many more Athenians than the fourteen I saved?

Theseus …

What am I doing here, convincing myself this life could be mine? Distracting myself with frivolity when what I truly want is so clear and urgent a fire sparking within.

Not peace but pain. An urge to take my hurt and return it tenfold.

I want revenge.

I am my father’s daughter, no matter how far from him I run.

The acknowledgement unfurls softly, hesitant – a thing I do not wish to admit: I am not staying.

I want to wring Theseus’s neck before he can hurt some other girl like he did me, and I want to rip my father’s power from him altogether and I do not want to remain here on this island, no matter how much I wish I did.

I have been removed from their stories, from their legends. But I refuse. I refuse! Make me the disobedient daughter or the wilful slut or write me as a witch if that’s the only sort of woman who centres in stories, but I will be at the tale’s heart once more.

I allow myself one last revelry before I speak to Dionysus. The day begins with Opora diving for oysters while Calybe and I string shells for her latest bracelet – one for every place she visits – and Myrto takes inventory of our supplies. By evening, we are feasting on the spoils of that afternoon’s hunt and Dionysus has evidently pushed the fig agenda as every dish is garnished with the fruit, which frankly seems a bit much when he’s already successfully claimed grapes for himself. If I were truly advising on his strategy, I might suggest diversifying his iconography.

Even when we finish, we gather around campfires, listening to the music and supping on salt-roasted chickpeas and oysters topped with fig seeds.

Apparently the latest consideration is myrrh, dropped into the fires so the smoke around us is tinged with a warm, earthy scent.

Myrrh I will allow him, I decide, in his great quest for symbols.

If I were staying.

And like Dionysus is sensing that I’m not going to, he’s come to join our circle, casting looks my way with every other word.

‘I met an oceanid while diving for these,’ Opora says, gesturing to the oysters. ‘She’d come from the mainland. You know how every decade the Cretans sacrifice people to the monster trapped beneath their palace?’