Free A Memory of Wind by Rachel Swirsky, Sam Weber Page A

shout to Menelaus that he had no right to ask you to sacrifice your daughter’s life when he would not even sacrifice the pleasure of a faithless harlot who fled his marital bed. You did not laugh at Calchas and tell him to demand something else.
    You clutched the staff of office, and you swallowed the wine.
    I lost so much. Words. Memories. Perceptions. Only now, in this liminality that might as well be death (if indeed it isn’t) have I begun recovering myself.
    All by your hand, father. All by your will. You and the goddess have dispersed me, but I will not let you forget.
    * * *
    Next I knew, mother’s hands were on me, firm and insistent. She held her face near mine, her brows drawn with concern.
    She and her slaves had found me hunched beside a mural that showed children playing in a courtyard, my hands extended toward the smallest figure which, in my insensibility, I’d mistaken for Orestes. The slaves eyed me strangely and made signs to ward off madness.
    “It must have been a dream,” I offered to excuse the strangeness which lay slickly on my skin.
    “We’ll consult a priest,” said Clytemnestra. She put her hand on my elbow. “Can you stand? I have news.”
    I took a ginger step. My foot fell smoothly on the floor I could no longer feel.
    “Good,” said mother. “You’ll need your health.” She stroked my cheek, and looked at me with odd sentimentality, her gaze lingering over the planes of my face as if she were trying to paint me in her memory.
    “What is it?” I asked.
    “I’m sorry. I just wanted to look at you.” She withdrew her fingers. “Your father has summoned us to Aulis. Achilles wants you as his wife!”
    The word wife I knew, but Aulis? Achilles?
    “Who?” I asked.
    “Achilles!” Clytemnestra repeated. “We’ll leave for Aulis this afternoon.”
    I looked into the familiar depths of mother’s eyes. Her pupils were dark as unlit water, but her irises were gone. They weren’t colored; they weren’t white. They were nothing.
    Green
, I remembered briefly,
mother’s eyes are like new green leaves
. But when I tried to chase the thought, I could no longer remember what
green
might be.
    “Where are we going?” I asked.
    “You’re going to be married, my heart,” said mother. “Everything changes all at once, doesn’t it? One day your daughter’s a girl, and the next she’s a woman. One day your family is all together, and the next there’s a war, and everyone’s leaving. But that’s how life is. There’s stasis and then there’s change, and then before you even know what the next stasis is, it’s gone, and all you can do is try to remember it. You’ll understand what I mean. You’re so young. Then again, you’re going to be a wife. So you’re not that young, are you?”
    “Who is Achilles?” I repeated.
    But mother had already released my hands and begun to pace the room. She was split between high spirits and fretting about the upcoming preparations, with no part of her left for me. She gave orders to her attending slaves. Pack this. Take those. Prepare. Clean. Polish. The slaves chattered like a flock of birds, preening under her attention.
    I was not quite forgotten; a lone young girl had been assigned to prepare me for the journey. She approached, her hands filled with wedding adornments. “You’re going to marry a hero,” she said. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
    I felt a gentle tugging at my scalp. She began braiding something into my hair. I reached up to feel what. She paused for a moment, and let me take one of the decorations.
    I held the red and white thing in my palm. It was delicately put together, with soft, curved rows arrayed around a dark center. A sweet, crushed scent filled the air.
    “This smells,” I said.
    “It smells
good
,” said the slave, taking the thing gently from my hand. I closed my eyes and searched for the name of the sweet scent as she wound red and white into my bridal wreath.
    * * *
    Once, when I was still a child with a shaved scalp and a ponytail, you came at night to the room