Free Snakehead by Ann Halam

once or twice, but not someone we trusted. Pali had got word to this officer. The man had agreed to meet him at the cemetery, at sunset, with important news about Kore. Pali had gone to the meeting place. Anthe had stayed in hiding, and hadn’t heard a sound. She’d waited and waited, but he hadn’t come back. So she’d gone looking.
    “I found him farther up. I tried to stop the bleeding. I got him this far, then he collapsed, and I couldn’t rouse him. He’s lost a lot of blood. I didn’t dare leave him, Perseus. I didn’t know what to do.”
    “You shouldn’t have gone up there alone!”
    “What should I have done? Left Pali to die?”
    They shouldn’t have been here at all. But Pali was a grown man; he had a right to make his own decisions. So did Anthe.
    “You didn’t see any soldiers?”
    “I’ve seen nobody. No one comes this way; the High Place swells use the road. But I don’t think he got away from them, Perseus. I think they left him for us to find. They s-s-sent for him, and then roughed him up as a warning.”
    “Maybe. Let’s see what he can tell us, when—”
When we get him home
, I was about to say. The words didn’t come. The earth heaved and shook under our feet. The darkness around us shuddered, and cried out. Something ran past me, sobbing
oooh, oooh
, like a brokenhearted child. Almost-human faces flickered; there were horns and hooves, limbs like supple branches, hair like rustling leaves. All the spirits of the island were awake and crying, running for shelter. Anthe wailed and grabbed me.
    “What is it?” I yelled. “What’s the matter with you all? What’s
happening?”
    Andromeda had wrapped herself in a long, dark shawl, but the disguise only made her conspicuous. It was midsummer; she should have covered herself in flowers if she wanted to go unseen on the streets of Seatown. The other girls, and even grown women, were in flimsyone-shouldered dresses, some with the skirts kilted up for wild dancing. But she reached the Enclosure without being stopped or questioned.
    She was glad that the refugees had gone, though they had not known her. She’d been very ashamed the day they’d had to get out of here, and she’d had to talk to them. When you start to lie, you think it’ll be one lie, severing you from your past,
no, I’m not that person
, and then you’ll be free to be someone else. But it doesn’t work like that.
    At the gates she asked for Holy Mother. After a long wait the old lady in gray who had ordered Papa Dicty around appeared and waved the gatekeeper nun away with her stick. “Why couldn’t you come and find me, young lady? What are you, a princess, that you think I have to come traipsing out to greet you?”
    “I’ve broken a vow, Mother. I wish to rededicate myself.
    May I enter?”
    The holy woman sniffed, turned her back and stumped away. Andromeda realized she was supposed to follow. “Well, well, a dedication. D’you wish to bathe?”
    “N-n-no. I wish to make sacrifice.”
    Holy Mother could be heard muttering crossly, “Hmph, one of those.”
    “What’s the name of the divinity?”
    Andromeda told her the name, which was Melqart.
    “Doesn’t mean a thing to me. But these newfangled Supernaturals are all the same, from one end of theMiddle Sea to another. What’s ‘Melqart’ supposed to rule?”
    Death, she thought, but she didn’t say it.
    “He is the God of Making. Of Taming Horses, of the Ocean, and …”
    “Speak up!”
    “Earthquakes.”
    “That sounds like the Achaean called Poseidon. You speak Greek, don’t you? You should call him Poseidon if you meet him here. We don’t worship those upstarts, but as you’re a foreigner, I
suppose
I can make an exception.” Holy Mother looked suspiciously at the small bundle in Andromeda’s hands. “Nothing alive, I hope? I won’t have animals killed in here, it’s revolting.”
    She tried to shake her head, and couldn’t.
    Holy Mother shrugged; she asked no more questions. They