CHAPTER ONE
If I told you that I’d killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? They why, the how, what happened next? Or would you run from me, this mottled mirror, this body of unusual flesh? I know you. I know you won’t leave, but let me start with this instead: a girl, on the edge, a cliff, her strange hair blowing backwards in the wind. A boy, down below, on his boat. Let them spill themselves out to each other, their story older than time itself. Let them reveal themselves until they reveal too much.
Let me start on my rocky island.
We’d been there four years, my older sisters and me, an eternal banishment we’d chosen for ourselves. And in almost all things, the place suited my needs perfectly, being deserted, beautiful, inhospitable. But forever is a long time and there were days when I thought I might go mad – that in fact, I already had.
Yes, we’d escaped, yes, we’d survived – but ours was a half-life, hiding in caves and shadows. My dog, Argentus, my sisters, and me: my name sometimes whispered on the breeze.
Medusa, Medusa, Medusa – in repetition and decisions made, my life, my truths, my quieter days, the thoughts that formed, had fallen all away. And what was left? These jagged outcrops, an arrogant girl justly punished, a tale of snakes. Outrageous reality: I’d never known a change that wasn’t monstrous. And here was another truth: I was lonely and I was angry, and rage and loneliness can end up tasting the same.
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