Phoebe

It was the day before her thirteenth birthday.

She’d been playing on Mount Parnassus,

chasing a silver stag, when she stumbled

over a boy, lying golden the sun.

He was sleeping, and her nephew lost no time

in reflecting his own honeyed arrow

from the boy’s curls through the maid’s eye

and she couldn’t look away.

She reached out to touch his shoulder

with the lightness of a butterfly,

but he started awake, dagger ready.

She was silhouetted against the sun,

hair teased by branches into a halo,

young arms polished to a shining bronze.

They had no need for introductions.

They had no need for words.

They simply sat on the grass, gazing,

each one stunned by undiscovered wealth

unsure how to spend the time

hesitant to break the spell.

He handed her a violet to set in her blond hair

and she allowed him to trace her gently curving fingers.

He whispered in her ear

and she breathed in the earthiness of his body.

But her brother, careening through the heavens,

saw her sitting in the meadow

laughing with a mortal

and was displeased.

He summoned a boar to race across the glade,

knowing she could not remain seated before such a prize.

The pig knew his business and rushed headlong

into their tranquility.

She was on her feet in an instant, quiver ready, hands steady.

She watched the boar re-enter the woods,

then glanced down to grin at the boy,

before leaping into the shade.

The boy came too, only four steps behind.

She ran hard and fast and long,

sending arrows ahead of her when she found a clearing.

She followed that porcine bundle of wrath

with a bugle call of delight,

forgetting the one who, stumbling, followed.

Weaving through trees,

jumping over fallen trunks,

skirting boulders and skipping streams,

the three wound their way round the mountain.

The boar switched course,

zigzagged back through a dry river bed;

she stayed on track, but the boy

had lost sight of her, straining to hear

the crashing animal or crystalline laugh.

She gained speed and drew closer,

negotiating the paths she knew to trap the boar

into a rocky dead-end.

The boar, however, guided from on high,

slipped the noose and sprinted left

from whence they’d come.

She planted her feet

and drew her bow,

golden arrow pressed against her cheek,

arms tauter than the string they stretched.

She focused, aimed and with one final breath,

released.

The boar was almost out of sight,

but she knew her arrow was true

and she watched with anticipation for its final destination.

But lo! through the underbrush,

drawn by the sound of the boar,

a breathless boy crashes,

searching for the girl.

She could do nothing.

The arrow could not turn back,

not even a goddess could make it slow.

It found its home just below his left shoulder,

through the back, and lodged in his breastbone.

She, truer than her arrow, flew to catch him before he fell,

and his thick warm blood flowed through her fingers,

stained her white dress red,

Splashed onto the flower that still clung to her hair,

and seeped into the earth,

summoning her uncle from below.

Too cold does ambrosia course through immortal veins,

not stopping, though the world has stopped,

never drained, though joy has gone.

The last flashes of her brother’s chariot

streamed horizontal through the temple pillar trees

calming all the world, so it might mark his sister’s screams.

The next morning, Olympus was in an uproar of celebration,

though Hera was in a funk,

but no one could find the birthday girl.

At last, Iris found her walking in the heavens,

placing the body of a man upon the black velvet breast of night,

so that he might shine forever, a warrior constellation.

Iris led her back to the mountain,

wrapping her in rainbows

and cleansing her with dew.

No one could understand her solemnity,

but even Aphrodite stopped laughing when she arrived.

Her father spread his arms to embrace her

but she could not come.

He asked her sorrow,

but she could not speak.

Finally, he concluded that whatever was ill

could be solved with a marriage,

and he sat her down to review all eligible bachelors.

He’d made it as far as Pan,

when she, distraught, burst into furious tears

and threw herself at his feet.

She clung to his knees and begged him to stop,

Begged him to promise never to marry her to anyone.

She pleaded for a life of chastity,

like the one chosen by her cousin and aunt.

He, stunned and unhappy, asked her to reconsider—

Grey-eyed Athena could never have managed a household

and Hestia already managed everyone else’s—

his darling, adventurous daughter should have the joy of marriage.

She pressed her cheek against his thigh

and shook her head—No,

there would never be another.

“Please, father, grant that I may have a silver moon

to ride at night, that I might gaze upon the stars;

grant me fifty nymphs who will accompany every hunt,

protecting me from meadows;

grant me fifty hounds, whose baying will drown out

the rasping grief of a breaking heart.”

Two tears splashed against her father’s toes,

and he nodded his bearded brow.

She would never be forced to stop her play

never forced to trade her horn for a spindle.

And she left his hall, a day older,

a lifetime older,

ready to exchange her cheerful gold

for virginal silver.

Ready to take her throne as a helper of women

as a huntress and healer.