QUEEN ANNE'S LACE

On her thirteenth birthday, Kores looked out of the dining room window, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. She had blonde wavy hair, like the ripples left on a white sand beach when the tide pulls out to sea.

Kores lived with her mother, Demi, in a luxurious home in a London suburb where the autumn sun painted highlights on the roses in the garden and shadowed the undersides of the trees on the threshold of Epping Forest.

Demi clicked her fingers next to Kores’ ear, snapping her out of her reverie.

‘There you go, daydreaming again. It’s nearly lunchtime, I need you to pick roses for the table,’ Demi said, hurrying back into the kitchen.

Kores grimaced as her mum clattered dishes in the sink. It was always the same on September twenty-first. She didn’t know why, but every year, her mum tensed up when the family came over for lunch. Kores plucked the skirt of her new silk dress. Lunch would be uncomfortable if the adults followed their usual pattern. Uncle Harry would sit in brooding silence, drinking wine for most of the meal, and then look for an argument. Kores could tell when he was about to bait his wife, Era, because his pupils darkened and enlarged to fill his eyes.

‘Have you put on a few pounds, Era?’ he’d say. ‘Your sister’s body looks the same as when she was 18.’

Aunt Era’s cheeks would flush. ‘Demi put on weight after Kores was born,’ she’d say.

Kores’ mum would give Era a sidelong look, but that wouldn’t stop Harry, in fact, he would goad the sisters on, his mouth in an ironic little twist. On her last birthday, the jibes had gone on until Grandad Zenon told them to stop bickering and eat their food. Lunch ended with everyone feeling awkward except for Harry, who’d gone on to play the childish game Kores hated; pinching her on the cheeks and chest until she squirmed away.

Kores looked out of the window again to check if there were any roses left on the bushes closest to the house, but there was no such luck this late in the year. She would have to walk down the hill to the bottom of the garden and pick the roses from the bushes next to the oak tree. She could see the top of the tree from where she was, but the rose bushes were hidden behind the hill.

She went into the kitchen and gave her mum a quick hug on the way out of the door, then walked down the steps set into the hill until she reached the end of the garden, disturbing a cloud of dust-like gnats on the way. A voice inside her whispered look out but she pushed it away; she wasn’t going to let dark thoughts spoil this beautiful moment. She tilted her face up to the sun, picking flowers as she sang ‘I’m uh-ah teen-age-e-r.’ The last flower to pick was a rose from the bush next to the oak tree, just a step away from the forest. The unbearable tenderness of white rose petals slid against her fingertips.

And then someone grabbed her wrist with the strength of a handcuff. The flowers scattered to the ground, and she cried out as she was dragged into the shadows under the oak tree’s branches. She fell and hit the ground, a thick root jabbing her hip, making her gasp in shock as she lay on her stomach, fingers scrabbling and dirt squeezing painfully under the quick of her fingernails.

The man rolled her onto her back. In the dim light, Uncle Harry’s eyes glittered like a wolf with a trapped rabbit. What was he doing here, playing one of his nasty games?

‘Get off me, I don’t like this game!’ she said, trying to stand up.

Harry straddled her hips, pinning her to the ground. ‘My realm is cold,’ he said. ‘Feel my hands.’ He pulled up her dress and clamped his freezing hands over her mouth, grunting as he lay on top of her, crushing her ribs against her lungs until she choked, and her nostrils flared for more air.

‘You’re so alive,’ he said.

Far above her, the tree branches windmilled at dizzying angles, then disappeared as he pushed down on her right cheek, forcing her left cheek against the ground. She inhaled bits of soil, her eyes rolling up in her head at the intense mushroom smell.

She struggled. He gripped her shoulders and arms, immobilising her as his hips slammed over and over against hers. Pain pierced deep between her splayed thighs as he penetrated her, shredding the veils lining her core, his thrusting hips shuddering, then slowing and stopping after one final push.

Kores’ dry eyes burned from the dirt. ‘I’ll tell!’ she said, her voice breaking.

Harry stood up, then swayed, and put his hand on his forehead. Branded into his arm was a dark red scorpion, the symbol of Hades. He wiped tears from his cheeks. ‘Without you, only death exists,’ he said, his breath catching. ‘I’m sorry.’

Then he was gone.

Sitting up, Kores brushed the dirt off her legs, smearing the blood on her thighs. She crouched, then stood up, covering the muddy stains on her legs with her dirty white dress. Her hair was full of soil, and she winced as she combed the matted strands with her fingertips as best as she could. Stepping into the sunlight, she sleepwalked up the hill to the kitchen door, a high-pitched tone in her head grating like a mechanical whine. She didn’t know whether it took a minute or an hour to reach safety because time didn’t make sense anymore. Stepping over the mat on the kitchen doorstep, she tracked dirty footprints on the floor and halted behind her mother.

‘Did you find any roses, sweetheart?’ Demi said as she chopped vegetables.

‘I’m sorry, Mummy. I got your clean floor dirty,’ Kores said in a dull voice.

Demi turned around and scanned Kores’ face and body with a concerned look. ‘What happened to your hair? Your dress is filthy,’ she said.

Kores’ mouth trembled. ‘I was under the oak tree. Harry wrestled me,’ she said, touching her pubis. ‘It hurt. Why didn’t you come?’

When her mother’s eyes met Kores’, they were filled with tears. ‘I didn’t hear anything; the oak tree is too far away. I’m sorry, I would have come if I’d known,’ Demi said, putting her arm gently around Kores’ waist. ‘Let’s clean you up, sweetheart.’

In the upstairs bathroom, Demi scrubbed the dry blood from Kores’ thighs with a washcloth. She threw Kores’ ruined dress and underwear in the bathroom bin, then picked up a hairbrush and brushed her daughter’s hair with soft strokes.

‘There, your hair is beautiful again,’ Demi said. ‘Put on a different dress. Lunch is in a few minutes. Be strong for Mummy.’

‘There was a mark on Harry’s arm,’ Kores said.

Demi avoided her eyes. ‘Soon, I’ll tell you about our real family. He’ll pay for this. Mummy will fix it,’ she said.

Kores went into her bedroom and put on fresh clothes. Now that the blood was gone from her thighs, the only sign of Harry’s attack on her was a cramp deep between her hips like the first day of her period. She took a painkiller, then went downstairs and sat at the dining room table; the background noises of her mother chopping and plating salad were muffled.

Grey clouds shrouded the afternoon sun and the room darkened. Kores strained to remember why Harry had been crying, peering through her blurred memories to see what she’d done wrong. Her stomach muscles ached as a wave of nausea ran through her, but she pushed down on the tremors and sat up straight, hands folded in her lap. Be strong, her mother had said.

At 1 pm, the doorbell jangled. From the dining room, Kores could see Demi walking out of the kitchen door towards the front entrance, wiping her hands on her apron, and forcing a smile as she opened the door for Era and Harry. Demi turned her face away from Era’s greeting kisses and waved them towards the dining room table.

‘Sit, please. I’m ready to serve. Papa will be late, so we’ll get started,’ Demi said.

Era sat next to Kores, unfolding a newspaper to show her a photograph of Harry and Grandad Zenon on the front page. The headline said: “Prisons, Justice Ministers, Approve Longer Incarcerations”.

‘Did you see your uncle and grandad in the news?’ Aunt Era said. ‘It’s about time something was done about the crime in this country.’

Kores didn’t reply.

‘Why so quiet today? Happy Birthday, darling,’ Era said, fussing with the newspaper.

Harry sat in the chair opposite Kores; from underneath his thick, arched eyebrows, he shot her a hungry look mingled with guilt. Picking up his wine glass, he toasted her.

‘You’re a young woman now,’ he said with an ironic little twist to his mouth.

Kores swallowed the acid rising in her throat.

‘Is everyone ready for some lunch?’ Demi said.

Kores caught the slight crack in her mother’s voice, and she shifted in her chair as Demi served Harry a salad with red and green peppers topped with white filigree-like flowers.

‘What are they?’ Harry said, pointing to the flowers.

‘Queen Anne’s Lace. I just picked them,’ Demi said. ‘They’re good for digestion.’

‘Never heard of them. You’re the botanist,’ Harry said. He picked up his fork and shovelled a handful of salad into his mouth.

The stems of the flowers he was eating were a blotchy purple, not smooth and green like the ones on Kores’ plate, the ones she would choose for pressing when foraging with her mother. Once, she’d picked hemlock, the deadly twin plant to Queen Anne’s Lace, and Demi had knocked it out of her hand with a warning it was poisonous. Couldn’t her mother see Harry was eating it now?

Harry devoured more flowers.

A sharp intake of breath stuck in Kores’ throat, and she lowered her gaze when Demi looked at her with raised eyebrows; be quiet.

The fork clattered onto the table as Harry dropped it with a grunt of pain. He tried to stand up, but toppled sideways instead, hitting his head on the corner of the table before falling on the floor with a crash. Era ran to his side.

Demi pulled Era away. ‘Don’t touch him,’ she said.

Harry’s eyes started as he retched and choked. He writhed around, trying to escape his human death by using his powers to shapeshift into a giant scorpion with scaled, red claws scratching at the floor.

Kores’ shoulders tensed as her mother’s expression became more determined. Demi grew taller, stronger, pinning the scorpion to the floor by the tail with one hand and reaching the other hand towards the ceiling, invoking the pantheon’s ancient magic.

‘Thanatos,’ Demi said in a strong, clear voice.

The scorpion’s shiny carapace cracked open and Harry’s human form emerged from it, his body arched into rigor mortis, eyes staring, jaw stretched open in a silent scream.

Era’s legs gave way and she slumped onto a chair. ‘What have you done?’ she said to Demi.

‘He took Kores,’ Demi said.

‘You’re lying,’ Era said through gritted teeth.

Demi swept a glass off the table, and it shattered on the floor.

‘Mum’s not lying,’ Kores said.

The doorbell jangled again. Kores ran to the front door and opened it for Grandad Zenon. He would know what to do.

Zenon took in Kores’ distraught expression, and then he put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her along as he strode into the dining room, broken glass crackling beneath their shoes. He stopped next to Harry’s prone body.

‘Who did this?’ Zenon said, his bass voice vibrating through the room.

‘Demi did it, Papa, she was jealous of me and Harry,’ Era said.

‘Papa, he violated Kores,’ Demi said.

‘Only I decide capital punishments,’ Zenon said in a thunderous voice, towering over Demi and staring into her eyes with menacing force.

‘Papa, please—’ Demi said, sweat beading on her upper lip.

Zenon kneeled next to Harry’s body and lifted him easily, cradling him close to his barrel chest. ‘Bios, psyche, zoe,’ he said, his sonorous voice invoking the power of all the gods.

Harry’s eyes flicked open.

Demi grabbed Kores’ arm and pulled her towards the kitchen door. ‘Hide in the forest, I’ll find you,’ her mother said, the whites of her eyes showing.

‘Mum—’

‘Go. Now!’

Kores sprinted out the kitchen door, down the steps and into the forest where she hid behind a pile of dead tree trunks until nightfall. Eyes and ears straining, shivering at every sound, she waited for Harry to capture her, but hours went by, and nobody appeared.

Around her, the tree branches susurrated in the breeze. As it grew cooler and darker, she withdrew further into the forest where the thickly clustered trees protected her from the worst of the chill. She gathered dried leaves, piled them into a mound, and huddled under its warmth. As the stars blinked through the forest canopy, the wind dropped, the branches settled into place, and the birds stopped calling. Lulled by the natural silence, she drifted off to a place somewhere between waking and sleeping.

Deep in the night, the fine hairs on her spine crawled and she opened her eyes. A screech owl was watching her from a nearby tree, its eyes luminous in the moonlight. It trilled a haunting call, then flew down and landed next to her.

‘I am Bree,’ the owl said.

Kores rubbed her eyes. When she opened them, Bree was still there.

‘Trust me,’ the owl said.

‘Who sent you?’ Kores said.

‘Your mother, the Goddess Demeter,’ Bree replied.

‘This is a dream,’ Kores said.

The owl ruffled his wings. ‘Breet. All of life is a dream.’

Kores moved her left leg and gasped. ‘My muscles hurt,’ she said.

Bree trilled and flew away, returning a short while later with blackberries in his talons. ‘Eat,’ he said.

Kores touched the berries. They were real. She put a handful in her mouth and bit down. Tart juice spurted from the fruit, wetting her parched throat. Bree pecked at the ground, dropped a few hazelnuts by her feet, then flew away. Kores waited for him to fly back but he didn’t, and the forest returned to its unexpectant silence. She shrugged and cracked open the hazelnuts, too tired to care anymore. After eating the nuts, she fell asleep to the creaking of the trees.

In her dream, she was underground in a warren of dry, cool rooms carved from stone and laid out one after the other with each room separated by a black veil. She walked through the rooms towards a cliff’s edge, then stood at the edge of an infinite pit. From the centre of the shadows, like the moon appearing from behind storm clouds, a gigantic marble statue of Virgin Athena emerged from the gloom. In profile, the statue’s high forehead flowed into a carved straight nose, full lips, a generous curved chin, and an elegant neck. Her stony breasts arched into a dress draping down to her marble feet.

‘You may ask me three questions,’ the statue said, her lips unmoving.

‘Where are we?’ Kores asked.

‘The underworld,’ the statue replied.

‘Where is the underworld?’

‘The world of shadows is everywhere,’ Virgin Athena answered.

‘Where are you buried?’ Kores said.

‘Under the sacred forest.’

The statue turned her head towards Kores, staring at her with blank marble eyes. ‘For you, Hades will come,’ Virgin Athena said.

‘Why? What have I done?’ Kores said.

‘It is forbidden to ask more than three questions,’ the statue said.

Behind Kores, the rooms folded in on themselves one by one like coffin lids closing with a final clack. Before the last room could take her into the depths of Hades’ underworld, she stepped into the void and woke up. The rest of her night was spent in fitful sleep.

In the morning, a pile of blackberries and hazelnuts lay next to her leaf bed. As she ate the food, Bree perched on a branch, trilling.

‘Not talking today?’ Kores said. She laughed, her laughter rising in pitch and intensity until she was hunched over her knees, sobbing.

Bree flew down, perched on her shoulder, and pecked her ear. ‘Breet. Follow me,’ he said, flying further into the forest.

‘Where are you going?’ Kores said. She scrambled to her feet and wiped her tears away as she ran to keep up with Bree, dodging shrubs and jumping over branches scattered along the pathway. They travelled a long distance into the forest before reaching a lean-to hut. Inside it, Kores found a knife and a blanket that would do until her mother came and took her home. Sharpening the knife on a stone, she tied it to her belt with ivy. If Harry found her, she’d have a weapon. She practiced drawing the knife from her belt and stabbing at the air.

Later, Kores foraged for food, remembering the weekly walks into the forest with her mum. Why hadn’t she come to find her yet? Driven by hunger, engrossed in hunting for food under the darkening sky, Kores ventured down a path few people knew about, easily spotting mushrooms in the light of the full moon.

And then a woman’s wild laughter rang through the forest. Kores dropped to the ground, then crept towards the source of the sound. In a clearing a few feet away from Kores’ hiding place behind a tree, crystals and candles had been set in front of a fertility statue with an erect penis and protruding breasts. Near the statue, a naked man lay on top of the woman who was laughing. In the throes of their passion, the man gripped the woman’s wrists and pinned her arms over her head.

Kores’ vision blurred as she remembered Harry grabbing her wrist. The man in the clearing grew amorphous, no longer a man, but a shapeless, burgeoning lump of flesh. Scaly patches of shiny red carapace appeared on his body as he became an apparition of a scorpion with its tail arched between the woman’s legs.

A blister of anger and betrayal burst inside Kores. Spotting the pagan worshipper’s jacket, she crept forward and pulled it behind the tree. Her heart pounded as she clutched the jacket, shuffled back on all fours, then ran to the lean-to hut. She put on the jacket and looked in the pockets, finding a comb. She combed her hair repeatedly, stroking downwards and sideways until the strands of hair were smooth and untangled, until her scalp burned, until her fury subsided, until she forgot about Harry’s grip on her wrist, and fell asleep.

Once more, Kores dreamed she stood at the edge of the infinite pit in front of the giant buried statue of Virgin Athena.

‘Ask me three questions,’ the statue said.

‘Why are you buried under the forest?’ Kores said.

‘To consecrate the land and summon the gods.’

‘Which gods?’

‘Demeter, Hades, Hera and Zeus,’ came the reply.

The figures of Demi, Harry, Era, and Zenon shimmered into view, a mirage around the statue’s head.

‘Why do the gods walk amongst us?’ Kores said.

‘Humans are born of gods. As children of the gods, they desire the gods’ powers. But humans don’t know the gods consume their children,’ Virgin Athena said.

In front of her, Harry flew directly at Kores. Behind her, the row of rooms clacked and folded in on themselves. Heart racing, Kores jumped into the void, waking up before she could fall further into the shadows.

On the seventh day, Kores followed Bree to a pond in the heart of the forest. An ancient cypress tree stood on the water’s edge, its feathery leaves beckoning as they moved slightly in the wind. Bree flew up to a branch and perched on it, half hidden in the foliage.

After eating mushrooms and drinking from the pond, Kores sat at the water’s edge and lay back against the tree, her calloused hands cupping her belly where it had swollen when Hades had buried his seed. Waves of lassitude pulled her into the inexorable tide of the shadow world. As she closed her eyes, the tree bowed its branches to brush her skin, moving closer to her, then engulfing her until its leaves were her veins, its light was her breath, and its sap was her blood.

Then she was gone.

Sarah Fenwick is half-Greek-Cypriot and half-English, and her multicultural background inspires her speculative fiction and magical realism writing with mythological themes. Her most asked question is: what would happen if? In 2023, Sarah published her debut fiction book 'Phos, The Light Walker' on Amazon. She is currently working on the second book in her trilogy: 'Soul Tracker'.