Chapter 3
Maya swirled a spoon through her porridge. Grown cold a long time ago, it was little more than a lumpy gray mess. She watched as the lumps fell off her spoon and into the bowl, plopping and leaving behind miniature craters. A soggy moon in a bowl.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Her mother, Thisbe, sat across from her, attentive and cautious. Not long ago by human standards, Maya had been offered up as a sacrifice to Hera. Somehow, things went terribly wrong and now Thisbe faced a daughter only a few years younger than she. A daughter who had seen and done things she never even dreamed of.
“I’d feel more comfortable with that statue out of the house.” Maya didn’t need to say which one. It was well known in their household that the girl didn’t approve of their patron goddess.
“Our Beloved Mother, Hera has always watched over this house. I’m not about to change now because you are no longer favored by her.”
“You don’t understand,” Maya said, dropping her spoon into her bowl and meeting her mother’s stare. “Hera is not anyone’s beloved mother and absolutely no one is in her favor.”
Thisbe drew in a sharp breath. “You best be prepared to atone for your insolence, young lady. How can you say such things when Hera has blessed this family in so many ways? She gives us shelter and food. Your life alone should have been forfeited to her by our society’s rules, yet she saw fit to spare it. And this is how you repay her kindness? With blasphemy and disrespect?”
“She gives to no one. Hera is a taker, not a benefactor. My life was taken from me in other ways. I may still have breath in my body, but my soul has long since departed.” The slap came suddenly, stinging Maya’s cheek.
“I will not have such talk at my table. Since you don’t seem to be hungry anyway, I will have Cook clear your dish. You are dismissed. I suggest, very strongly, that you make your way to the temple and stay there for a while.” Maya rubbed her cheek and held her mother’s gaze, even as her porridge was taken away.
“Thank you, Cook. That will be all.”
“Yes, thank you, Zephir,” Maya added without looking at the old man. A smirk tugged up the corner of her mouth when her mother flinched. Thisbe didn’t approve of the servants being addressed by their real names any more than Maya approved of Hera.
“I wish you would stop doing that. They’ll start getting ideas and dreams above their station,” Thisbe hissed when Cook had returned to his kitchen.
“We all have wishes, Mother. For some, dreams are all they have.” Without a further word, Maya stood and left.
“What are we going to do about that child?” Thisbe asked her husband as he entered the dining area.
“There’s not much we can do any more. In case you hadn’t noticed, the gods didn’t return a child to us. Maya’s a full-grown woman.”
“She’s a child who puts on grown-up airs. She thinks because she was chosen by Hera she is better than the rest of us. She wasn’t chosen, she was rejected. Hera didn’t want the unworthy wretch. Why else would she come home to us and speak so ill of our Beloved goddess?”
“I don’t know what happened to Maya while she was gone, but we can’t deny the fact she’s changed.”
“I deny nothing of the sort. In the two weeks she was adrift on the sea, she changed. She’s become arrogant and disobedient. She thinks she runs our household. Then she runs off, disappearing for months with no explanation. Everyone in town thought Poseidon decided to claim her for his own after all. He should have. Save us all a lot of trouble and grief.”
“You don’t mean that. You were beside yourself with worry both times she was gone,” Filemon said, sitting across from his wife in the seat recently vacated by Maya.
“I’m her mother. It’s my job to worry about her. It doesn’t mean I can’t wish I didn’t. Why should someone so ungrateful take so much of my energy and tears? What right does she have, causing me to have trouble sleeping and eating?”
“She is our daughter. We share the same sorrows and worries for her, but you insist on taking more of the burden than you should. We both need to let her go and find her own way.” Filemon put his hand over Thisbe’s, gently stroking the back of it with his thumb.
“How can we? She brings disgrace on our house. Every word she utters and action she takes is against Hera. For now, a blind eye has been turned in our direction. How long will She allow it to go on before punishment is brought down upon us?”
“Worry less. If Hera is the loving mother you believe her to be, she will forgive the girl. Have faith.” He brought his wife’s hands up to his lips, kissing them.
“I hope you’re right, my love. Otherwise, she will doom us all.”
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