Chapter Fourteen

Someone had seen what had happened at the pool. A pair of greedy eyes from the sky. Maybe some passing mortal had recognized me. Or perhaps my brother had stayed around long enough after delivering his arrow. Gossip ran through hills and across oceans. None of them painted me in a good light, calling me a fool to resist a nymph’s charms. How I’d taken a lonely path, the animals and herbs of the woods my only companionship. These tales liked to paint the shape of my body, one of a twisted nature, that I, a misguided creature, had forced something foul and stained upon the world. They’d spared few details. My painted eyes. The harsh line of my jaw, made starker still by a slender neck that sat on delicate shoulders. How my rounded chest drew a curve across my body that no dress could hide. And beneath, a bulge in the fabric, clear and unmistakable.

Their talk didn’t interest me. I paid it no mind. I pitied their children though. How they would grow up in a house that only approved of two things. You could either grow into a strapping oak tree, or a gilded lily. Those who defied themselves into unsightly thistles, however, were to be weeded out. And thus, the natural order would stay upheld. Once, on my travels along the Aegean, I spent the night in a small town by the coast. I had overheard whispers of my name, and when night descended, a boy, no older than twelve, stood just outside my tent.

“Sorry to disturb you,” he whispered urgently.

“It is alright,” I said. “Tell me, what brings you out here, to talk to me?”

“Is it true what they say about you?”

“And what would that be?”

“Well, that you’re…” he murmured.

I blew out a low huff of laughter. “I understand, you mean people hesitate to call me ‘he’ or ‘she’?”

He nodded.

I folded my hands together. “In truth, I don’t really mind what they call me, as long as they can find it within themselves to look me in the eye. Calling me either or neither appeals to me, then you may use the term ‘they’ when you talk about me. But something I do insist on, is that I get to decide those terms.”

He kept his gaze steady on mine, a boulder lifted off his shoulders.