Great Goddesses Read online

  She had never wanted to leave the forest. She had been forced to. When people had stopped paying tribute, she found herself, for the first time, powerless against chainsaws, against men who once she could have turned into stags to be hunted by their own hunting dogs. It made her helpless.

  And Artemis was never one to deal with helplessness well. If the fates tried to ignore her, tried to make the world forget her, she would carve her name into them to force them to remember; she swore this.

  Once, after a kiss too heady, Apollo told a man with eyes the colour of laurels his real name. He regretted the words even before they passed his lips. Trust is far more alien to his kind than it is to Gods.

  ‘Apollo?’ the youth drawls in amusement. ‘Like the comic books?’

  He looks at the beauty he had found so fascinating an hour ago, suddenly being replaced by something else, so young and impossibly fleeting. ‘Like the God.’

  ‘Oh.’ Clearly thinking this was a game, he touches his lips. ‘I’ve always wanted to kiss a God.’

  Apollo is quiet. He feels old and tired and his immortality may just crush him. He removes the hand from his lips and says, ‘Perhaps another time.’

  Within a minute, the confused man is outside on a cool summer’s night, the moon gleaming to show him his way home. The Sun God watches him from his window a while, his eyes slowly turning the forecast of his future like a warm stone in his hand.

  It doesn’t end well.

  But it doesn’t end yet. The next day, Apollo finds the man again. This time he brings him home and this time, he asks him to stay.

  There are a few Olympian things left about her. Her agelessness for one. Her impatience is another. She does not suffer fools gladly, less so if they are men. She still carries the air of someone completely untouchable, even though her family’s rule long gave way to the newer Gods. The ones who made no mistakes and were pious on a level none of them could have achieved. Not even Hestia, and she was the most pure of them all.

  She has found a new way to gain tributes. The nymphs understand this evolution from the forest too. They prowl, silent as cats, cities at night, alleyways, looking for runaway teenagers. Artemis likens each runaway they welcome to Iphigenia, the princess whose father tried to sacrifice her. Leaving behind parents who have betrayed them the material, the maternal and the paternal, each one’s eyes telling the kind of story that such young eyes should not hold.

  She does not have the power to heal as Apollo does, but she does have the capacity to turn them into something that heals itself.

  Warrior. Hold your monsters close. Turn them into your magic.

  She misses Apollo fiercely but will never tell him that.

  Sometimes she thinks of her family.

  Sometimes she even wishes them well.

  His children are thriving.

  Asclepius flourishes in every hospital he has ever been to; he sees him often when he stops trying to heal people. Not that his healing powers are ever the same as they used to be, but it wouldn’t matter even if they were. Modern medication is quick, almost as quick as the Gods themselves.

  Pamphile’s silks flood souks, markets, the homes of kings and the houses of socialites. Who knew when she wove her first ever silken thread, such would be the fate of the fabric.

  Aristaeus teaches farmers how to care for their cattle, coax honey from bees, grow the finest grass that feeds the strongest goats. They call him whenever they are in trouble and he appears, sleeves rolled up, ready to get his hands dirty and work hard alongside them. They respect him.

  It is almost as good as prayer.

  Sometimes, he finds the mouth to the underworld hidden in the city. It is never in the same place twice.

  Sometimes, it’s a basement door no one looks at twice. Other times, it’s the phone box covered in graffiti.

  Occasionally, he uses it. Goes to find Orpheus wandering happy and free with Eurydice. Of all his children, Orpheus has always had the most understanding of natures and accepting of hearts.

  Once, they walked together in the Elysian fields and Orpheus asked his father about his mortal lover. ‘Are you happy?’

  And Apollo smiled, his face lighting up in a way that would tell anyone watching of his infinite heritage. ‘For the first time, yes. Yes, I truly am.’

  Artemis once catches three men in an alley trying to overpower a young girl. Her fists clench and she spares no mercy in her swift, harsh punishments.

  The girl sobs, thanking her profusely. And this is when Artemis recognises her purpose for the first time away from the forest.

  After that, neither Artemis nor her nymphs stay in one city long. Just as all the forests once belonged to her, she has adopted cities too. Cities, like forests, can be sanctuaries. Cities, like forests, can also be a good place to find monsters.

  They’ve adapted too. They wear human skin now. Hide better in plain sight. Know how to smile and laugh, disguise their true intentions. But the Olympian in her sees through it all.

  The hunt has changed.

  The prey is different.

  But Artemis’s arrows strike

  true all the same.

  Athena and Artemis’s Contemporary Manifesto

  Come, sisters, let us tell you all the secret

  they do not want you to know.

  Every woman is both match and spark,

  a light for each other from the dark.

  When you see them harassing your kind,

  this is what you must do.

  Join together and descend on them

  the way wolves and vultures do.

  If they ask you why you did it,

  tell them the Goddesses permitted you to.

  There is strength in numbers,

  this is how armies are made.

  And to protect yourself from this world

  your friendship in each other is your only aid.

  We will help you pry the justice you need

  from their cold, cruel fingers, one by one.

  We have seen enough of you killed

  at the hands of the most brutal of men and Gods

  now, our will be done.

  Poseidon, God of the Sea

  Do not trust the water.

  The way it opens, so welcoming,

  on a sunny day when the breeze

  is all salt water and sweetness.

  Waves sweeping gently up

  the beach, smoothing the sand,

  you would almost forget

  what shipwrecks look like.

  As if Poseidon was ever known

  for his sweet-tempered generosity.

  As if whole fleets don’t lie on the

  sea floor, a testament to his fury.

  Myths about the Water Dispelled

  1.

  Poseidon’s name means Master of Waters,

  but the water already had masters

  long before Olympian arrogance

  declared itself the only true Godhood.

  They were the Oceanids –

  three thousand Goddesses

  who nurtured coral reefs,

  planted seaweed on the ocean floor,

  helped oysters keep their pearls.

  Cultivating life is long deemed woman’s work

  within the ocean; every fish and mammal

  and plant we admire is Oceanid-born.

  2.

  The water we praise for our existence,

  the water that is not full of salt,

  but touches our lips, quenches every thirst

  is the blessing of Tethys, Titan Goddess

  of all fresh water, mother to six thousand Gods.

  (If you wonder why Tethys

  is rarely mentioned

  it is because we take

  our f
resh waters for granted

  and not as an entirely finite source.)

  3.

  Sailors often pray to Sea Gods, but

  it is the Goddesses by whom they are heard.

  For Amphitrite had tamed the waters

  before Poseidon even knew his first word.

  Brizo guides sailors and fishermen to safety

  through the storms and their dreams alone.

  And Doris is the mother of all the bounty

  any sailor, or pirate, or diver ever takes home.

  Poseidon to Zeus

  What good is it to own the oceans

  when they are only second best to the sky.

  What good is it to have invented horses,

  when they run at thunder, and at lightning they cry.

  It seems there is nothing I do that you will not

  outshine just to say you can do it better.

  Often, my Godhood feels like a façade next to yours,

  like an immaculate treasure chest hidden under wreckage

  inside a sea no one will ever discover.

  Was it not enough for you that you have

  already won what matters most when

  our mother chose to save you instead of me.

  Perhaps this is why the ocean is the only place for me.

  It too knows how to eat whole islands with its jealousy.

  Amphitrite Chides Poseidon

  Goddess, Monsteress, Titan Queen,

  you didn’t discriminate in your misdeeds

  so they in turn have become your legacy.

  Remember how they transformed to run from you.

  Demeter became a mare. Scylla became the Cliffs.

  Medusa ran to her temple. Asteria turned into an island.

  Is this, then, what it means to be a Sea-God?

  A forever drowning of every innocence

  to quench your ravenous thirst?

  Amphitrite

  I am brine.

  I am capacity to calcify

  all things holy.

  I never saw myself as any less

  than the water I knew how to

  command with my sisters.

  Mortals and Gods know me now

  by pity. ‘Do you know where your

  husband goes?’

  I smile and say, ‘Always.’

  How else do you live with a Kraken

  unless you train it to trust you with its life?

  I let him think he has more influence

  because I know how to live with a blade

  and teach it not to make me bleed.

  Even Goddesses know the difference

  between the patience of a calm sea

  and the harrowing wreckage of a storm.

  This does not mean he has won.

  If he had, I would be broken still.

  Instead, I nurture my sharks,

  I protect my islands, I build a kingdom

  on foundations stronger than his. They never told you

  what Delphin King of Dolphins, said to me

  so I would agree to marry Poseidon, did they?

  ‘You have ruled the seas for so long,

  you know them better than him.

  One day his reign will end, and it will

  be you who rules in his stead

  all of the seas and all of the oceans.’

  Modern-day Sea God(s)

  There are two kinds of people:

  The ones who merely destroy

  and the ones who rebuild

  and restore and recreate,

  even if it means watching it fall

  to pieces just to start again.

  He is a sovereign sick of his kingdom. And while most rulers often start hating their crowns, his sickness feels like a bird that is revolted by the sky, a fish tired of the salt water that sustains it.

  It is unnatural. It is against the order of everything Olympian ordained, what he has become so used to. But he is tired of mortals who once quaked at the idea of him now tossing their waste into the sea without remorse, for his powers are no longer what they used to be. He has lost count of the poachers’ boats he has turned over, the turtles he has freed from nets and plastic.

  But a day will come when he cannot watch it any more. A day will come when he looks around at what he once calls home and sees only oil spills and pollution. Where even his beloved friend the dolphin is an endangered thing.

  So he puts down his trident inside his coral castle, takes off the sapphire crown and places it on a throne that is slowly being engulfed by seaweed.

  Perhaps for some of us, it is easier to leave the thing that nourishes you than face its ending.

  Triton has his mother’s patience and his father’s eyes. But his sense of duty and honour is his own. He shows this by being the kind of man his mother raised as opposed to the man his father refused to bring up. Poseidon, like Zeus, was plagued by prophecies that all ruling Gods were destined to be defeated by their own sons.

  While Poseidon is possessively guarded of his throne and his power, his mother teaches Triton that water can only be ruled by a multitude of sea divinities together. This was the ancient way of thinking of the thousands of water Goddesses that had painstakingly crafted the sea, long before the new Gods arrived and ordained it differently.

  This is why the news of his father’s disappearance did not surprise him. If you insist on shouldering a burden alone simply out of pride, one of two things will happen: you will either succeed in shouldering that burden but compromise everything else . . . or that burden will kill you. Still, he worries about the effect his father’s leaving may have on his mother and seeks her out. The water was no longer the pure sanctuary it once was, and their powers had long waned.

  He finds her already in the throne room holding court with her sisters and all the other remaining blue-skinned, barnacle-covered, seaweed green-haired sea deities. The mood is electric, hushed whispers as they huddle around Amphitrite. The throne room has not been this luminous with voices in years. When she looks up at Triton, she smiles, and he notices that the scales around her face no longer look ancient or dulled with sadness; instead, their phosphorous is glowing. She is glowing.

  It is only then he understands: she has been expecting this for a long time. Her divinity has risen to take what is rightfully hers.

  His mother has always had a plan, some sleight of hand, some trick to make paths where there were none. His father needed everything to go his way, but she is the master of compromising, creating without giving any of her power away.

  Amphitrite understands persuasion and hard work. She has the patience of a sculptor, chipping away at a block of marble to create the smoothness of the statues we so admire. How often has she cajoled Poseidon into listening to her when he is in a hurricane temper. How frequently has she ruled through his words.

  While he was away on his jaunts, she spent time preparing for the worst. Plan after plan she drew for what could possibly happen to sea and how to rescue the waters. She had centuries of thoughts, what-ifs and contingencies for if they ever came to be. Her blue fingers had worked out with shells and pebbles, wars and even this – even the mortals forgetting to worship the waters and polluting it.

  When it seemed more and more likely that this was the prophecy that was going to come through, she waited for her moment. And now with Poseidon gone, she seized.

  She has watched and learned enough over the years to understand that despite being a Sea Goddess, she is a woman. She is used to Gods and mortal men not listening to her. She is too elemental, too vivid for them to understand.

  But Triton, with his piercing lagoon-blue eyes, his long mane of moon-silver hair and voice like calm ocean waves on a particularly gentle night, both Gods and mortals will be hypnotise
d by.

  And if there is one way to make mortals care about anything, it is by making them invest in a person who cares so much he is happy to bleed for them.

  She has carried the saviour of the ocean in her womb. And helped him become his own prophecy.

  Now, with her son using the last of his powers to work amongst the mortals with every marine group that is trying to protect the ocean, helping to educate more and more people through every kind of media and governance, she sees the amount of poaching boats lessening in the waters. She notices the amount of oil spills being dealt with faster.

  There is still so much work to be done because the oceans and seas are not cleansed yet. But Amphitrite has been waiting for this. Waiting for her husband to leave the oceans so she can prove herself more than a consort – the only one who truly ruled the ocean and ruled it well.

  Hera and Amphitrite have this in common. They both know how to win influence despite everyone saying they will not.

  They both know how to bide their time, play their cards correctly, and when the moment is right draw blood.

  ‘It will take eras to clear what the mortals have done,’ sighs one of her sisters as she releases another dolphin from a plastic bag around its head.

  ‘Olympus was not built in a day either.’ Amphitrite lifts her chin with determination, her mirror-like eyes flashing with all of her ancient sagacity. ‘Let us begin, shall we?’

  Hestia

  Ashen hair, glowing coal.

  Fingertips drawn from gold.

  Goddess of Hearth,

  Goddess of Good Homes,

  she knew that Olympus

  could never be her own.

  She crafted better magic alone

  and when Poseidon and Apollo

  offered their love, she said no.

  It was easier to master the divine flame

  than watch her family destroy

  each other till this once Godly home

  was reduced to nothing but the gold