The Sacrifice by Kaitlin Swanton

the sacrifice

By: Kaitlin Swanton

They had warned me for weeks not to venture down to Ceto’s cave.

They said that if I came out alive, I would not be the same. Undead. Monster. She-beast.

I spat on the earth and said that it was we who would not be the same. Soon, we would be dead. I enunciated dead so it was two syllables, not one.

And so, I ventured down there anyway. Now I see them screaming on our village grounds; my cold eyes leer into the distance at the smell of the enemy steaming from downwind pirate ships while I hunch over the hills above them all.

The enemy is here. And I should have listened to the warnings.

They are both my mothers and my sisters.

Women who live alone in a small village by the shore, isolated. They raised me on the island Sarpedon. Built me from infanthood, gave me education, survival skills, and religious idolatry. We are a pious people.

I am Arete, born on Cisthene in Aeolis. My father was a fisherman and my birth mother died from infection after labor. I was named so by her in the hopes that a name meaning virtue would bring lucky days about for my father, with nets full of fresh haul to sell at the market.

I do not remember much from those days. I do remember why I ran away, though. I had been six when I heard my father make arrangements for my marriage to the woodcutter’s son. My hair was as fire and my eyes were as water, with a face speckled by freckles and rose cheeks. I was bound to fetch a suitor with a good bride price as I aged and so an arrangement was made. The money was sorely needed--the fish came and went and the debts rose higher. It was inevitable, my father said.

Inside, I screamed. I feared the day a man would touch my body and do to me what had been done to my mother, and so at six years of age I stole my father’s only boat and sailed to nowhere. I preferred death than marriage, for death would be kindlier.

That was when I crashed upon the shores of Sarpedon three days later after a storm and I was found by my sisters, my mothers. They took me, raised me, taught me, loved me. Never once was I promised to a man twice my age. I thought of my old life less and came to belong to the new one I was given. I never once thought of my father.

My sisters were a religious group that worshipped the land of Sarpedon and its waters in respect of sea deities Ceto and Phorcys. It had been Ceto’s powers, her blessings that enchanted the island to be a safe place for groups of women to live. Never once did my sisters fear the wars of men because the island kept the ways of men afar. We were hidden as a pearl buried in a stretch of coral reefs.

And so that is why when the spotters found man’s ships sailing towards the horizon, I went to Ceto’s cave.

We were secluded but not stupid. For many moons before, nymphs that stopped at our island to rest gave witness to new stories: up north, a pirate invasion swept from coast to coast, increasing ever south. Villages were burned, looted for silvers and oils, the houses were stripped for wood and the goats taken. The pirates took young men for slaves and for the young women — well, don’t we all know what happens to the young women in these stories?

“I am going to make an offering to goddess Ceto,” I said to my sister Melite, who was more like my mother for she had raised me. Her years numbered thirty.

“An offering would be wise,” she agreed.

“I will need supplies to go to her cave and the dagger of Phorcys for the offering.” I said.

At this, her face froze. “Arete, you do not mean--I cannot allow it! Yes child, make an offering, but I will not permit your leave to the cave to make yourself a sacrifice!”

I frowned with defiance. This reaction was the same one I heard from other sisters weeks earlier when the attacks began to come closer, except theirs came with assertions of what I might become. Undead. Monster. She-beast.

“The pirates are coming, they are but a few days away on the horizon; if only I could offer sacrifice, like in the stories you told--”

“You do not know half of the stories, child,” she blistered with rage, then softened. “You may pray, that is all.”

I bowed my head in respect as she left, catching fear in her eyes. She knew just as I what a group of pirate men meant for our peaceful island, the violence that would ensue. Indeed, we had archers and fighters, but up against fleets of men with enslaved soldiers? Our chances of survival numbered zero. Our only chance laid in the hopes of a sacrifice, a human offering, at the altar buried deep in the ancient waterfall cave. In stories long ago of our island, women who offered their bodies to goddess Ceto were transformed, made strong and fierce enough to defend the community from all trespassers. We would need that sacrifice again, and I would be the cost a hundredfold over if it meant the protection of my sisters.

I ventured by nightfall when the sun could no longer make bright my absence. The ships were growing larger on the horizon by then. The stars dangled in the sky, just low enough to touch the laughter of my sisters snug in their cots. I took with me a lambskin pack of olive oil, honey, and wine and snuck into our sacred building which housed Phorcys’ obsidian dagger on a golden stand. I grabbed it nimbly and went on my way west to Ceto’s cave.

The path to the waterfall cave cut through forests alive with animals and a rocky hillside that looked over the whole island. The moon hovered above, imposing as the eye of a prophet. Coyote barks and bat screeches bathed the darkness. My feet carried me swiftly, for I could only think of those ships edging further to our beaches, crashing on the sandy shores, my sisters staring in horror . . .

An hour had passed by the time I stood on the end of the forest, which opened to a steep cliffside with glittering seawater below. The moon bloomed low, a white narcissus bulb flanked by the smaller anemone of stars, drifting into the mirror of the sea. Black dots shifted in front of the moon — the pirate ships coming closer.

My eyes flicked to the water where crags jetted from the island. A brilliant stream ran down the cliffside’s edge, a spectacular waterfall roaring into the sea. Ceto’s cave laid somewhere behind those falls. In our lore, Ceto’s devotees leapt to the sea into the sacred cave where an altar awaited their sacrifice. It was supposed to be a legendary place; it was said Ceto birthed three children of Phorcys there that would protect the island forever. I did not know who the three children were or what became of them.

I dove from the cliffside, about several tree-lengths high, with the lambskin pack tied securely to my back and the dagger in hand. Saltwater filled my mouth and I swam through the sea, cutting the water with the strokes of my arms. The roaring of the waterfall grew louder the closer I swam to the falls and I imagined the ships did, too. I dove under the falls, briefly hammered by the pounding water, and rose to find myself in a hollow, winding sea cave which glowed faintly from the light of the moon. Darkness painted the skinny cavern in varying shades of black and stalagmites hung from the ceiling. I could not touch the seafloor and continued to swim on, the dagger flailing strangely in my hand as I wound through the tunnel.

Several hours passed as I swam deeper into the tunnel and clung to the slick walls when I tired. The light of the moon disappeared, leaving a black landscape in its place. Occasional blue-green orbs bobbed in the water, perhaps algae or sea creatures. Since I could not trust my eyes to carry me forward, I had to trust in faith. Faith that the legends were true, that our lore was more history than mythology. That there actually was an altar at the end of the cave instead of an abrupt ending.

The floor began to rise and gradually I found footing to wade onward through the tunnel. After more time, the water dropped to my ankles and I came to a dark room where moonlight fell through the exact center of the ceiling in a hole to the sky. Stalagmites framed the room as regal columns to a temple. The air felt murky and clear, ancient yet new. This was Ceto’s cave.

I knew what I had to do when I saw an obsidian glass bowl at the center of the cave. It stood on an altar, shining silver from the moon.

I removed my soaked lambskin pack and took the bottles of olive oil, honey, and wine from them. I carried the dagger of Phorcys, sleek from the kisses of the cavern water.

“Goddess Ceto, daughter of Pontus and Gaia, most ancient mother, protector of Sarpedon, please accept my offerings, my humble goddess,” I spoke in the ancient tongue and let the bottles’ contents drip into the bowl. The sweetest smells swirled in the air as the honey dripped like silk gold, the red wine dripped as blood, and the oil dripped as ichor into the bowl. I took the dagger and it shined in the moonlight, its blade ever sharp and perfect. I sliced the dagger into my palm and let my blood seep into the bowl, mixing with the food offerings. I imagined the taste would be sweet to a god. The pain was nothing, for I had more to do.

“Goddess Ceto,” I sank to my knees in ecstasy, tears flowing from my eyes as I thought of her powers and of my sisters. The pirate ships were close, and my sisters would be taken by the men and —

“Humble mother, make me something powerful. If not in this life, another,” I looked through the hole to the sky, watching the moon swell to a silvery jewel, perhaps a teardrop from the gods above.

“Let me protect my sisters as those before me once did. Please accept my sacrifice,” I said, and I took Phorcys’ dagger and raised it before me. It glimmered in the moonlight, a glowing black tooth. And then I plunged the dagger into my heart, cutting the organ in half, and sank to the ground as the moon faded to black.

“ T h e ambrosia!” a voice yelled. Clanging and sounds of struggle filled the air. I could not open my eyes, and I remember my head felt like an aching fire, deep in my scalp. There was a hissing sound filling my ears and an explosion of scents filled my nose. The world seemed to tip over on itself, the sky trading places with the earth.

Suddenly, a sharp stone was removed from my chest and I cried in agony as a cold liquid filled its place. A gaping hole had been punched through my body.

“Stupid girl,” a voice muttered, and I sank to unconsciousness.

Two days later I awoke, and when I did the world was different. I had been taken back to the recovery room in the village. Everything oozed with flavor. I could taste scents from all around me, gathering the flavors in my mouth and hair. I could hear birds caw from forests far from us, the thrumming of the sea waves.

The sound of ships coming from the beaches.

“You have no idea what you have done,” I heard Melite’s voice above me. “You are a monster now.”

That was when I opened my eyes, and I saw her face over mine. Her agate eyes pored over me and the aging creases of her face stood out in perfect contour.

And then she screamed and fell away from me, gasping for air. Her body turned gray and stiff and screams from my sisters erupted around me.

“Tie her eyes! She is Medusa!” one screamed and a cloth was placed around my head. Where hair would be, something thick as ropes twisted and wrangled, and suddenly the hissing in my ears made sense, the smells and tastes from all around me: my hair was alive with snakes, more than a dozen.

The snakes chomped and bit at my sisters and they screamed once more as they sank fangs to their faces. Stop! I commanded them with my thoughts, and they ceased.

One of the elder sisters stepped closer to me, horror and anger in her eyes. She flinched from my vision and I pulled the cloth over my eyes. “You have killed her,” she said to me. “Killed Melite, stupid girl. You are now the Medusa, she-beast. We do not want you here. Go to Styx where you belong, worst and third child of Ceto.”

That was when I ran in grief from my village, slinking away into the hills above. It had all been for nothing.

Now I stand above them all, watching from the hills as the pirates come from the shores to the village houses. I can see the hate in their eyes. Smell the blood in their arteries, the pheromones of their skin.

They said they did not want me. That I should go to Styx. Begone.

And now I watch as the men set fire to my village. As they chase the women. As my sisters flail helplessly with chained hands.

I walk down from my place on the hills, the snakes hissing in anticipation. I soothe them with my voice, telling my story so they know my history. I know what they are thinking. They want blood. To feed. To bite. They smell the scent of mortal men in the air and they want to taste.

The screams are getting louder. The men are tearing the clothing from the women now. Happy. Excited. Aroused. I can smell their hormones in the wind, their bodily reactions to their thrill. Their hearts are pumping faster. I can see their faces, musty with sweat, grime, and soot. I can count the veins in their throats and the snakes chitter with delight, venom dripping from their open mouths.

I walk with closed eyes to the center of the burning village as gasps fill the air around me. I can smell the shock, the fear, the astonishment. I drink it in and come alive with the perfume of terror. It is such a delicious smell, an elixir burning life into my lungs. The scent of sweat and skin and male pheromones drift closer to me, hovering by my face. The men surround me, watching — I can see it in my snakes’ eyes even if mine are closed. I can imagine their confusion and horror, and oh how it electrifies me! The snakes dance on my head and hiss with rage. Perhaps they can have blood before the bodies go cold.

The men tremble closer, axes and swords and torches raised.

And that is when I open my eyes.