Great Goddesses Read online

And this is what happens when he denies you your wishes and you do not know how to punish him in any other way.

  You poison every other woman he ever touches.

  You demolish all his children with them.

  You make him bleed.

  You make him bleed.

  You make him bleed . . .

  Hymn for Hera

  She finds it difficult to cry.

  Rage suppresses her tears.

  She has shed her girlhood,

  traded her emotions for power.

  It is easier to be hated

  than to face not being loved.

  Easier to be angry

  than accept sadness.

  But we all have to let

  the sorrow out somehow.

  So she takes the souls

  of the clouds and ties

  them to her own.

  Every time Zeus

  and she fight, the clouds,

  like her heartache, overflow.

  Zeus may have been the God

  of lightning and of thunder.

  But it was Hera

  who invented the rain.

  Hera, After

  How do you explain leaving

  to someone who was never there at all?

  Years later, they will ask her what drove her to finally do it. And she will say it was the empty house, or the loneliness that had wedged itself so firmly between them, or how cold the onyx floors of Olympus felt without the bare feet of Gods constantly walking over them.

  She will lie, of course. For all her changes, she still believed she was Goddess enough not to owe anyone the truth about her life.

  Still, the truth does exist. It lies sitting inside a drawer at her mahogany desk, and whenever a storm brews

  outside she remembers.

  Inside the drawer is a thunderbolt. Ancient. Fatal. Sheathed in an azure box crafted by Hephaestus for her jewellery once, now filled with a thundercloud to keep the electric nature of this element alive. She is unafraid as she lifts it out of the box and holds it like a harmless little toy, although once, she used to be terrified of it. Her husband had convinced everyone that he was the only one capable and powerful enough to control these, and for millennia she believed him. They all did. Now, wiser and more evolved to the reasons why lies are told and how much he lied, and with this in her possession, she pictures his face when she would not tolerate the way he treated her and their marriage any more.

  She remembers that day. Zeus, drunk, the other Gods and Goddesses all gone, lost in his loneliness, deluded by his own grandeur, staggering, as she watched him in disgust. His pride and his pathological need for the unquestioning devotion from everyone around him made him incapable of understanding that their children, their family chose to adapt to the new millennia and leave. She had tried explaining this to him, even through her own grief. Children leave. People leave. It is what they do. Enjoy them while they are with you, but do not fall apart when they are not. He, however, would not listen. Forever bull-headed about his convictions, it had led him to drink till he no longer even remotely resembled the all-powerful Sky-God he once was.

  Around her, the implications of this were visible in the once unbreakable marble. He had begun using the pillars of their home for target practice, had forgotten that without the other Gods and their powers, Olympus became closer to mortal buildings that crumble and fall than to its mighty immortality.

  Or maybe he remembered. And he just didn’t care.

  Both seemed equally likely.

  When he reached for this thunderbolt, she took his arm to stop him.

  But his impulses were what made him, and he had never been one to be stopped from anything he desired.

  So he did the unforgivable. His mighty arm flung her off him, tossing her across the corridor into a pillar that then proceeded to fall apart.

  For a second, all was still. And then, as her eyes looked upon him, narrowed, blazing, the tremors began to hit. The first one knocked him off his feet. The second took the already crumbling pillars, the third every inch of the onyx floors, cracked and broke and fell apart until there was nothing left, other than her.

  It took her a few moments to realise that her right hand had managed to take the thunderbolt he had meant to reach for. Gods do not divorce, and by a cruel twist of fate, she was the Goddess of marriage too.

  So, instead, she took this, his last thunderbolt and left him there, somewhere in the rubble. She took nothing with her, just her dignity and a heart that needed to atone.

  Somewhere in the destruction of her home, she had found the truth. She had been punishing victim after victim of her husband when she should have been looking to free them all and herself too.

  When you are immortal, she supposed, there was always time to atone.

  And now, sitting at her desk, she silently puts the thunderbolt back in its box just as her door opens. ‘Miss Hera?’ asks a little voice. ‘They’ve brought the new girls here to meet you.’

  Hera smiles at the young woman at the door. ‘Thank you, Io.’

  As she rises from her chair and walks out the door, she takes a second to straighten the sign on the front. The one that reads:

  Hera O.

  Director and Founder

  The Sisterhood to Aid Women Suffering Abuse.

  Who says change is an impossible thing

  after a certain age, when all of life

  is nothing but the act of changing to grow?

  Zeus, After

  ‘I hope you are loved in the way you deserve.’

  Depending on who you are, and what you have done,

  those words could be the kindest wish or the worst curse.

  He didn’t know what people expected of him. Back in the day, he could do anything he wanted and no one and nothing could hold him back. He was a God-King! Didn’t these small, ridiculous mortals understand?

  No, of course they didn’t. He paced his office then paused and looked down. Forty storeys up, everything down there looked like an ant colony. It wasn’t Olympus, but it was as close as he could get to it, and he wasn’t ready to let go just because some women had complained he was a rapist. Rapist, what did that word even mean? They should all feel fortunate, they got a chance to be in the presence of a God.

  His fists clenched when he involuntarily remembered what his wife had once half threatened, half warned him. ‘There will come a day when you will be powerless and will be held accountable. You are too reckless to be loved but you crave love all the same.’

  But Gods are never powerless, or so he believed. Now he knew better; Gods are never powerless, not until they are stripped of those who believe and worship them. After millennia of power, this is what had happened to them. The rest had chosen to leave and to adapt. He had been the last to do so. When his wife had finally disappeared, leaving their home in rubble, he had been forced to leave too.

  ‘You will learn the meaning of regret well.’

  His charms had aided him, of course. Anyone who could smoothly talk their way into anything and commanded a presence was welcome in this strange culture of ‘economy rules all’ that mortals had created. He had flourished and risen through the business world.

  Things on earth had changed. Women were . . . different. People actually called the seduction women did not want a different word and to act on that impulse was a crime.

  It didn’t stop him, though. It never had. He had learned quickly how to silence them, how to do what he saw other powerful people do, buy his way out through muscle, through blackmail, through ultimate betrayal.

  ‘It will be someone you believe to be weak and defenseless who will bring you to your knees.’

  His comeuppance came in the form of a small, quiet girl at a bar. Something about her spoke fire to him. She said no,
once, twice, a hundred times. It did not stop him. But this one, she would not go away. Everything he threw at her, she fought back – no blackmail, no threats, no non-disclosure agreements worked. She took to the internet and told her story over and over again till the world heard. And then the others began to come out of the shadows.

  Every woman he had ever wronged.

  ‘Even God-Kings have to answer for their sins.’

  ‘Sir.’ A knock on his door from his secretary. ‘Sir, the police are here and they want to speak to you. I don’t think I can hold them back much longer. They have a warrant.’

  ‘You will be at the mercy of the same beings you once made human from clay.’

  When he did not answer, the knocking grew more incessant and he could hear more voices, murmuring, loud. Though they are muffled, he knows what they are saying.

  His head dropped for a second and he tried to think of someone to pray to. Coming up hollow, he sighed, in frustration. Then composed himself, straightened his suit, pulled himself up to his height.

  ‘When it happens, I hope you face your downfall with the dignity of a king.’

  She was right. She had always been right. At last, he took a deep breath and cleared his throat.

  ‘Let them in.’

  Athena Rises

  Her heart wears wisdom skin

  and wit-warmed splendour,

  the echoes of a war cry holding

  its four chambers together.

  A manifestation of wisdom

  and her mother’s ambitions,

  grey eyes like flashing steel

  bringing her father to contrition.

  She rises over Olympus

  on a night of victory dancing,

  she rises like the blood moon

  in a sky of a thousand stars bursting.

  A Place to Find Purpose

  To craft purpose from birth is no easy task.

  Not even if you are Goddess destined

  and Olympus given. Not when

  you are eyed with suspicion

  and every God has a bet

  to catch you mid misstep,

  because it unnerves them

  how you are both wisdom and woman.

  The problem, of course,

  is being too unusual and too clever.

  It draws Hera’s ire and Zeus’s favour.

  You prefer books to people.

  You are quiet. Always in contemplation,

  more powerful in your solitude, but where

  do you find silence on this mountain

  brimming with gossiping, raucous immortals?

  That’s why you did it, didn’t you, Athena?

  When you couldn’t find a place of solitude,

  you built it, the first ever library –

  the library of Alexandria.

  Athena’s Tale

  Razor-sharp lips rise

  in a twisted little smile.

  ‘Go on.’ Her hand tightens

  on her sword. ‘Challenge me.’

  The insides of a God are very different from the insides of a man. Where man has a heart, lungs, other organs that facilitate his existence, the insides of a God are no different from the insides of a universe. Gleaming stars conspire. Galaxies burst and die. No one sees any of this happen, however. Not unless you have been devoured by a God, doomed to float across this pseudo-universe forever.

  Her birth, her true birth was lonely. As her cries filled up the darkness and comets escaped, her mother busily swaddled her in a blanket she had stitched from stardust. Her mother’s arms are strong, capable and absolutely no-nonsense.

  She is a babe for the span of minutes and then her limbs grow longer, as this is the way of all the Gods: no one gets to stay a child for long. Metis’s recovery is quick too, immortality and her Titanide blood ensure that. This is also why she did not die when Zeus swallowed her, although she is still unsure if that was a kindness or . . . Not one to waste any time, Metis takes her daughter’s chin. ‘Listen to me, girl.’

  The girl, startled, new to existence and still wide-eyed can just about manage a nod.

  ‘When you leave here, you are going to be the wisest and the most powerful of all the Gods. Your name is Athena. And you will make sure they remember you the way they will choose not to remember me. Understand?’

  If you guard yourself well, no one will ever do to you what was done to me.

  The girl’s flashing eyes may be new to the world. But she understands the gravity of this sort of promise well. Something intrinsic inside us all does, when we make a contract like this with our parents. Her eyes harden in that second, agate stones that look too old for her face. ‘Yes, Mother.’

  There is a reason why the word ‘meticulous’ comes from her mother’s name. Metis has, in the course of her pregnancy, carefully turned Zeus’s insides into a map.

  Here was where the precious metals could be mined, this was where she could find spools of stardust to turn into robes. She turns the blood of planets into cloth; there is no end to what the Titanide can do. All the while Athena follows, watches, learns. This is all part of her education. Her mother shows her how to make the best of terrible situations, how to customise wisdom into a weapon.

  She is less mother, more teacher. Revenge has consumed every part of her that once held deep, soft love. Zeus hadn’t just devoured her, he had also demolished every single part of her that once knew how to love anything. All that was left for Athena was Metis’s skills as a teacher, and like her agate stone eyes, the child in her began to develop sharper edges.

  ‘Do not,’ warns Metis as she watches her daughter develop the fine, pointed look of a spear, ‘fall prey to hubris. It will be the downfall of your father and it will be the downfall of your legacy too if you are not careful.’

  Athena nods. She doesn’t yet know it is the only promise she will not keep to her mother.

  Hubris is a lethal infection and it brings us dangerously close to mortals when we fall prey to it.

  Athena is born with a war cry on her lips, and her mother’s promise in her heart. Fully clothed in robes made from the blood of planets, a helmet and a shield of steel that comes from the hearts of stars themselves, she looks like the blood moon at solstice. So astonishing is her birth that Zeus forgets his head had to be split wide open for it. She is his favourite before she even opens her mouth. He spins a tale about how she is motherless. How she is his daughter alone, how he alone created her.

  She is wise enough to know how to say nothing when he does this.

  She sees a flash of her mother in her father’s eyes sometimes. A warning.

  Of all the Gods, your father is the one you must trust least, but remember to always be his favourite.

  She falls in love with architecture, her fascination around the building and sustaining of these metropolises. Cities by the sea are her favourite to collect. Her mind is full of secrets and she needs to occupy herself, after all.

  One of her many secrets is that she is the only God who knows that time is not linear. It is an illusion Kronos has put on the universe to punish them all for rejecting him. Her mother shows her how to see through it. Those who have the gift of prophecy – Apollo, Prometheus – simply know how to pierce through the illusion. Athena does too. She just keeps it to herself.

  If you push at the veil it falls apart. Knowledge is power, knowledge is everything.

  Poseidon grows envious. She is encroaching on his territories. She ignores him.

  It is dangerous to challenge an old God this way, but the metal to her spear is as sharp as her mind, and she is unafraid of him.

  Your name is Athena, daughter of Metis. Never forget that.

  They spar, the way Gods spar, with a mortal audience to cheer and clap the miraculous things they can do. Poseidon creates the bluest
of saltwater springs, soft and serene to add to the mystique of the city, but does little else except add a bit of beauty. But Athena, who understood the way cities survive, knows how to facilitate its economy. She rests on her knees and plants a single seed into the soft earth. An eruption, a breaking, the earth shudders, and from seedling sprouts the sprig and then the trunk of a fast-growing olive tree. The fruit was vast and bountiful, and it was the only one which could live long and well in an arid land. The oil from the olives can be used to warm the houses that are chilled by the winds of the sea by night.

  Practicality, another gift from her mother.

  They name the city Athens after her. Poseidon is enraged, and the sea blackens and stirs into the most chaotic of all his storms. He threatens to destroy the city, and tells Athena there is restitution to be paid for dishonouring an older God this way.

  Athena bears him no mind.

  She has never been afraid of anyone. Not when she is already at checkmate when they have just moved the first pawn. This is what her mother has taught her.

  But the umbrages of old Gods against the new are as timeless as Chaos herself.

  Her only mistake. And her costliest one.

  Poseidon will choose another time, another day, another way to dishonour her in return. She is just too proud to think him harmful . . . yet. Too taken in by her own victory. Too quick to underestimate those who do not match her wits.

  Be careful of hubris. For it is the undoing of all the Gods.

  Athena, After

  The old Gods

  may be ash and bone now,

  but in us they rise anew.

  Did you think Athena would just disappear

  when there are so many little girls

  she has yet to help become warriors too?

  She, the marrow of invention,

  a story wrapped in the ribcage

  of every hero who has mastered the art of war.

  She, who rewards wisdom and bravery;

  when my daughter asks how to fight monsters