The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Five

I feel my blood run cold. Ostracism is not common, but it happens. It may be used in our towns as punishment, or to restore justice, or for protection. To end a blood-feud, for example, a town may make the sons of feuding families ostraka , outcasts. It is like a death, in a way: the families mourn for their ostraka , for they know they will never see those faces again. Towns may practice it, too, if a member of the community has badly offended the gods.

“They wouldn’t do that,” I say, my voice unsteady now. The truth is, I have no idea what our town would or wouldn’t do. I saw how quickly their minds changed about me today, in the space of a few moments at the temple.

“Dimitra,” I say. “I must find a way to appease the goddess.”

Because there’s no doubt in my mind which god had a hand in the events of today. The words of the priestess are seared into my mind. So this is the face they say is more beautiful than the goddess herself. Sikyon has boasted of me, boasted much too highly. I remember Hector reporting what his family had said. More beautiful than Aphrodite . They were just stupid words, but they can’t be unsaid now. And though I never spoke them, it seems I’m the one being held responsible.

I’m the one who will have to appease her.

But Dimitra looks at me as though she’s unsure whether to laugh or cry.

“You think you have the ear of the gods? What are you going to do to change Aphrodite’s mind, little mortal girl?”

I ignore her, pacing back and forth. There must be something.

Humility.

Humiliation .

“My hair,” I say slowly. My sister stares.

“Dimitra—will you shave it for me?”

She blinks. For a moment her shell cracks; I swear I see her eyes moisten.

“Your hair? Psyche…”

I know what she’s thinking. In our culture, a woman’s hair is her great pride. To lose it is a tragedy. Of all the things people praise me for, even above my face or figure, it’s my hair. Like a cornfield , Father says. Like spun gold , Kiria Demou used to say, when we paid courtesy visits to their mansion by the Agora.

Women’s heads are shaved only as a great punishment. A man may shave his wife’s head, for example, if she is caught bedding another. The time it’ll take to grow my hair back from bald as a chick to past my shoulders, will cement in everybody’s minds that I am an outsider, unmarriageable, unlucky.

But I can’t worry about that now.

“Come, Dimitra, get the shears.”

*

I admit it: the shearing hurts more than I thought it would. Not physically, of course. But as Dimitra hacks through it, haphazardly as a sheep-shearer, and it falls in rough hanks around my feet, it’s as though I’m saying goodbye to my childhood. The summer Dimitra took me to the river for the first time, when my hair floated around me in the water, my face upturned to the sun. It’s the hair that Father braided when I was a child, and which Dimitra taught me to pin up once I was a child no longer. The hair that I am told looks so much like my mother’s.

When Dimitra hands me the large bronze mirror to see her handiwork, I’m speechless. Who is this waif? My eyes look too large for my face, all hollowed out. The tufts of hair that remain here and there make me look ill, the victim of some disease. I barely recognize my own face.

And yet, there is a strange, bitter euphoria to it all. I’ve lost years in a matter of moments and for the first time I have an inkling of how oddly freeing it can be, to get rid of something you have loved. It’s a hot, bright sort of grief that makes me feel almost powerful.

“Now the razor,” I say, because bald means bald , not just shorn.

“Psyche…” Dimitra hesitates again, and I love her for it. But she does what I ask.

When she’s done I run my hand back and forth along my scalp, watching the little flecks of hair come free like dust, falling softly, tiny gold snippets cascading to the floor. Dimitra stands with the shears still in her hand, as though afraid of her own handiwork.

“It’s all right,” I say. “It’s what I asked for. Here, give me a scarf.”

She takes the one from around her shoulders and hands it over, and I knot it under my chin. We both start at the sound of footsteps on stone, and when the door opens, we stand there like fearful children., watching Father’s expression turn from heaviness to shock. His eyes roam over the floor and the hanks of hair that lie there. Kirios Demou is behind him—I had thought he would have taken his leave by now, but instead he steps closer, his eyes narrowing, curious.

“Gods’ teeth,” Father says quietly. “What is this?”

I feel Dimitra’s hot breath beside me.

“ Kori mou, ” he turns to me. “My child…show me your head.”

When I unknot the scarf and let it fall, my father clamps his hand across his mouth. Behind his hand I hear the slow exhale of breath. Even Kirios Demou makes a startled noise. I must look truly wretched.

“Daughter…what have you done?” Father turns to Dimitra. “What have you done to your sister?”

“I asked her to do it,” I say quickly. Father has always been quicker to blame Dimitra than to blame me, though I hate to admit it.

“The town says the goddess is displeased with me; they think me vain. But now they will see I am not vain. Aphrodite herself will see it. I will go to the temple and show her.”

Even though it was not my transgression , I don’t add. I hope Aphrodite can’t see deep into my soul. She might notice that I blame the townspeople for all this far more than I blame myself.

Father closes his eyes. I can’t tell whether he’s upset, angry, or relieved. Then he opens them.

“Come here, child,” he says, and I cross the room, feeling the hanks of fresh-cut hair under my feet. They are soft, softer than corn silk. Father draws me to him and runs a hand over my scalp. I feel the bones in my head as I have never felt them before, so close to the skin under the touch of his hand, the inside of me feels almost visible. It is as though everything I once was is burning away. The mask is gone. Maybe soon I will begin to know who I really am, without this thing the world calls beauty.

“Your eyes,” he says. “They are so large, now.” He pauses, identifying a spot on the top of my skull where Dimitra must have nicked me with the blade. “Here, you’re bleeding.”

“It will heal,” I say, and take up the scarf once more. “I’m going to the temple, before it’s dusk.”

Father stares at me a little longer, and then slowly, turns to Kirios Demou.

“My daughter is brave. But I have a better thought. We will return with her to the temple tomorrow—the Council can accompany us. Don’t you think, Kirios Demou? Then they can see in person how deep, how sincere is my daughter’s humility. They will see that any…” he hesitates. “Any divine offense, is no longer.”

He says nothing of my future in Sikyon: how my denuded head means any remaining suitors will disappear too. But of course he knows it, he’s known it from the moment he entered the room.

Kirios Demou runs his eyes over me again. It is a cold look.

“I will tell the Council,” he says finally, and Father breathes a sigh of relief. He escorts Kirios Demou to the door, with one last look in my direction.

“Dimitra,” he calls then. “Sweep up the hair.”

And Dimitra grabs a broom from where it hangs on the wall, and scowls as she tosses it my way.

*

In the morning there is a freshness to the air, a smell of almond blossom on the breeze. They perfume brides with that scent, but no one will perfume me with that now.

The king himself has joined us; his carriage was waiting when we reached the council building. I don’t know whether to view that as a good sign or a bad one. I suppose it confirms Dimitra’s words: this is a serious matter. Father hoped yesterday to sweep it under the carpet, to attribute what happened at the temple to hysteria and weather, but if anything, today shows us just how much wishful thinking that was.

The weather is the same as yesterday’s, the views as we climb toward the summit and the temple are the same, but all I can think is how different it is—no crowds, no cheering, no wine and songs. Now the people of Sikyon are holed up in their homes, passing gossip back and forth.

Gossip about me.

I saw the people on the streets as we set out this morning. They did not know who I was at first, not under the scarf, which only old women wear—but then they caught sight of Father and Dimitra, and they knew. That was when their eyes widened and they plucked at their neighbors’ sleeves to whisper.

If we’d had relatives in another city, perhaps Father could have sent me there—but we don’t. Father’s people have been Sikyonian for generations, and my mother, from Atlantis, was an orphan. We’re at the mercy of Sikyon and its king.

“Don’t dawdle, child,” says one of the councilmen, rousing me from my daydream.

The priests have had no word we were coming. Only one of them is out raking the olive trees, catching their fruit in a bucket. The rest must all be indoors, out of the heat, attending to their holy duties. The young priestess looks surprised when she sees us, but instead of picking up her bucket and hurrying indoors, she pauses only a little while before resuming her work.

“Kneel, kori mou ,” Father whispers, and I do. One of the councilmen makes his way toward the priestess and speaks in a low tone with her, while she looks from one to another of our group and nods. Then she goes inside the temple, and reappears flanked by more of her kind. The High Priestess is with them, her blind eyes turning my way as if by instinct.

“So you wish to address the goddess?” she says, drawing near me. “Then speak, child.” Her voice is scratchy, rasping in the deep summer air. I kneel, looking around at the councilmen and the king, unsure how to proceed. Will they kneel, too?

But instead they step backwards, leaving me alone in the center of a semi-circle. Is it my imagination, or is the air already a little cooler; are there clouds in the sky that weren’t there before?

I look at the old priestess again, and summon my voice.

“Glorious Aphrodite,” I say. It’s not the goddess’s ears I’m worried about reaching—if she’s listening, she won’t need me to shout. It is said the gods can hear a fieldmouse scurry in the grass. But the councilmen need to hear the sound of repentance in my voice, if all this is to work.

“Glorious Aphrodite,” I repeat. “To you, none can compare. I come to humble myself before you. In the shadow of the gods, we are nothing. Now see before you my bare head, shaven of its former adornment, as I seek to atone for any vanity, any offense caused.” I loosen the knot of the scarf and lift the night-cap underneath. But something doesn’t feel right.

Hair, long flowing locks of it, tumbles down my back.