A few days before I destroyed my life, I was a league and a half away from camp with Hermia and Apollonia. The woods enclosed us. I was entrusted to lead, clearing our path through the undergrowth, which was still damp and lush from rains the night before.
Apollonia adjusted the sling of arrows on her back. We had not been assigned to a hunt, and Artemis was known to bring harsh punishment against girls who killed without need. Hermia had at first passed the time asking me questions about these woods, what plants grew here and what animals ate them, but that had tapered off. I hoped at some point they might enlighten me on what we were doing, but I was walking a ways in front of them, and they spoke in tones I couldn’t hear.
Finally Hermia spoke to me. “Polyphonte, how far was your old house from here?”
I paused. “About a league,” I said, and hoped I sounded normal.
Apollonia gasped. For a moment fear struck me that my parents were there, having heard my footsteps carried in through their window. But when I whipped my head around I saw no one but the two.
Apollonia’s knuckles were white around Hermia’s bicep. “Did you hear that?” she asked, her eyes scanning the trees. “There!” Her other hand shot out in front of her, fingers twitching clumsily.
I peered around but saw nothing. From the look on her face, Hermia saw the same. She hugged Apollonia to her chest. “You’re safe,” she murmured. “There’s nothing there.”
While she soothed Apollonia, I turned back to the trees. I heard something, too. A twig snapped, but I couldn’t tell if it had been under my own foot. The woods of my childhood stood before me, indifferent to my presence. Was there truly nothing there?
Behind me, Apollonia cleared her throat. She stood on her own now, though her hand stayed on Hermia’s arm. “Let’s go,” she declared. “We need to be at camp before the hunting party gets back.”
Without another word, the two of them turned back the way we’d come. They no longer needed my lead, so they didn’t notice when I lingered behind. I never did tell them what I saw that day. First, it was fur, a brown shadow between the trees; then I saw two eyes, small and dark and looking straight into mine; lastly, I felt breath, a hot exhale that brushed my lips before it dissolved into air.
…
That night I snuck out of dinner. It was rude, especially on our first night at new hunting grounds, but I knew no one would notice. A strange feeling had overtaken me. As I stared at my plate of steak, all I could taste was the bear’s breath on my lips.
The sounds of girls talking and campfires crackling faded away. I walked with my plate to the edge of the woods, behind the armory where I was hidden. I kneeled to the dirt. My heart pulsed and my chest tightened in a way I had not, at that time in my life, felt before.
My plate on the ground before me, I bowed my head down until my teeth pierced steak. I used my hands to pin the meat down so I could tear it from the bone. Its juices splattered down my chin. The berries and greens I could pick up using only my mouth, and I shivered each time my tongue met the cool porcelain. Soon my shirt and spit were stained a brownish red and my heart was throbbing in my gut.
I stood. As I looked at the clean plate at my feet, I realized with horror that I was grunting out loud. Instantly I clamped my mouth shut and looked around to make sure I was still alone. When I returned my plate, I kept my eyes trained on the ground.
Lots of girls were still talking and laughing around their campfires, and a few older Huntresses milled about Artemis’s tent, discussing duties of privileged rank. I was on my way to go tell Hermia and Apollonia about the bear. Or, at least, I think I was — in that moment, he was still my secret, and when I reached their tent I paused and considered for the first time what it would mean for me to share him.
If I hadn’t paused then, I might have lived and died a Huntress. I might have continued returning to those woods every year to hunt and eat and walk down the same gentle slope I climbed as a child. But there I stood, hesitating, as Hermia and Apollonia’s voices drifted softly from their tent into the dark.
“I mean, it attacked me for no reason,” Apollonia was saying. “We don’t need an extra burden when we’re already putting our lives on the line.”
Hermia hummed. “Maybe you’re right. The whole point of this is to keep us safe. It’s just that there just aren’t any other Huntresses who know the area so well.”
Apollonia snorted. “Other Huntresses.”
“Oh, don’t start.”
“Have you ever actually seen her kill anything?” Apollonia said. “You know half the new Huntresses we get are just killing time until they’re ready to be wives. I guarantee you, once Polyphonte grows up a little more, she’ll be skipping back home like this was summer camp.”
At the sound of my name my gut twisted in humiliation. For a moment I heard nothing from Hermia or Apollonia, and I feared they could sense me listening.
But then Apollonia sighed. “Sorry. You know how I get. I just hate watching all these girls who don’t care go on hunts while I get to guard the fucking stables.”
Hermia’s voice was calm and practiced. “Artemis will realize your strength once we kill that bear. She’ll see there’s more to you than your injury.”
Outside their tent, my blood ran cold. I understood why Hermia and Apollina spoke in whispers around me. The bear was not my secret; he was theirs, and now I was the only thing between him and being a bloody pelt at Artemis’ feet.
I wanted to storm into their tent and kick them. I wanted to pull their hair and knock them to the ground. But instead I crept as quietly as I could toward the front flap of their tent. Through it I could see both girls’ laps, as well as all of Hermia’s torso up to her mouth. They sat up facing each other, and Apollonia’s legs were slung around Hermia’s hips.
Hermia held Apollonia’s right hand in her own, massaging the palm. In the moonlight, my eyes could just barely trace the pale line of a scar running from between Apollonia’s thumb and pointer finger down to her wrist. The hand twitched weakly in Hermia’s grasp.
Hermia guided the hand up. Slowly, she opened her mouth and ran her tongue along the seam of Apollonia’s scar. A very faint sigh came from where Apollonia sat. I watched, my heart pounding so loud I was sure they would hear, as Hermia dragged her tongue all the way up Apollonia’s pointer finger and sucked the tip into her mouth. Then she leaned forward, and I could no longer see either girl.
I stayed in front of their tent for some time. I knew they’d say nothing more, but still I listened. Muffled sounds of giggling and blankets shifting around melted into the night. Eventually the other older girls returned to their tents nearby and I knew I looked strange standing there, my face on fire and my hands balled into fists. So I walked to my tent in a daze.
I didn’t sleep that night. Beneath my rage and my fear, I couldn’t ignore the strange feeling bubbling up in my chest. As I thought about Apollonia’s scar, I felt my heart quicken and squeeze, and when I was sure the other girls in my tent were fast asleep, I brought my hand up to my mouth. Slowly, I licked my palm. My saliva cooled in the night air. I licked it again, and this time my tongue found the soft folds between my thumb and pointer finger and worked through them until the skin was slick with spit. Taking the fleshy part of my thumb between my teeth, I bit down. All I could think about was if his mouth was as warm and wet as mine.
…
I waited three days to catch Hermia and Apollonia sneaking off into the woods. They chose a warm day when no hunt or scouting mission was ordered to slink behind the armory and disappear. I grabbed weapons of my own and followed.
Being back in those woods for a second time felt even more familiar. As I followed Hermia and Apollina’s tracks, my eyes caught on white mushroom caps peeking up from the soil, small and bright like pearls, and I remembered times as a child that I had ventured this far up the slope to pick mushrooms with my mother.
Happy memories of my mother were rare for me then, as they still are. Mostly what I remember are the curses she hurled after me on the day I ran away, I who dared to think I could escape men forever. As I watched the tracks, human and deer and squirrel and snake intertwined, I wondered if Aphrodite ever heard my mother’s pleas for her to punish me.
The leaves beside me rustled. Before I could think I was reaching for my bow. Breathing hard down the shaft of the arrow, I braced myself for whatever curse was finally ready for me, whatever punishment I had unknowingly returned to face.
Instead, I found a pair of familiar eyes on mine. The bear stood half-hidden behind an oak tree perhaps fifteen paces away from me. For a moment we were both perfectly still. Time stretched out in silence, a gap in the forest’s neverending noise of life.
Then I took a step forward. When the bear didn’t startle, I took another step, and another. As he came closer into view I took in how big he was. On all fours he was nearly as tall as me, and dense fur covered a body that was thick and wide.
I stopped when I stood just over an arm’s reach away from him. We were so close that I could see the beads of moisture on his snout. I was considering my next step when an unfamiliar sound broke through the forest.
THWACK!
I turned in alarm. I heard another THWACK, this one followed by the sound of a tree branch crashing to the ground, and in the distance: “It’s gotta be scared now.”
I recognized Apollonia’s voice. Turning back toward the bear, I hissed, “Get away!”
His small brown eyes stayed on me. Slowly, he lowered his shoulders to the ground.
“No, no!” Another THWACK, this one closer. “Leave now!”
The bear huffed as though impatient.
“I think I heard it!” came Hermia’s voice. My legs tensed to run. But when the bear bowed his head, I finally understood what he wanted me to do.
I stepped forward and slung my legs over his back. He rose to his feet just in time for the next THWACK and took off. He was more agile than I’d expected for a creature his size, expertly weaving over gnarled roots and under branches. Afraid to fall, I hugged his shoulders tightly, and I felt his huge slabs of muscle moving against my body.
Familiar sights of the forest blurred behind us. When he finally slowed to a stop, we were in an area I didn’t recognize, where the trees gave way to pebbly mountainside. A small cave was tucked into the slope. He lowered himself, and I descended from his back.
I watched him walk away from me and lay down just past the entrance to the cave. His snout rested on his folded paws, and his sides rose and fell as he caught his breath. From the shadows of the cave, his eyes found mine, and I realized — a little embarrassed — that I still wore my bow and arrows slung across my back.
I dropped them to the ground and walked toward him. He watched me approach and sit beside him in the shade, the stone dusty and cool on my thighs. For a while we regarded each other in silence. Eventually he closed his eyes, and after some time I thought he was asleep.
Slowly and quietly I laid my head on his shoulder. His fur smelled earthy and warm. When he didn’t move, I let my hands cautiously caress him, exploring his immense back and stomach, feeling his heart pulse in his chest, my fingers disappearing in his fur.
He shifted and then I was on my side, my front pressed into his chest, my face buried in his neck. When I looked up at him I saw that his eyes were open again and he was looking at me. A soft grunt rumbled out from his chest. He dipped his snout down until it was level with my face and opened his mouth, which fit easily around the side of my head.
I lay there, frozen between his front legs, as his teeth pressed into my jaw. His breath was hot and wet. Then, gently, he licked my cheek. I groaned into his fur. He licked me again, almost hesitantly, and we pressed against each other, my skin burning and my heart throbbing between my legs. Then I was on all fours, pulling my skirt up and trying desperately to get underneath his weight. It was all I could do to hold what I could of his paws in my hands as he entered me.
It would be easy to say that this was the moment when everything was finally ruined. Perhaps that’s right; it was from this that the rest became inevitable. It was inevitable that Hermia and Apollonia found us laying together, me naked and cool in my sweat, having mistaken my cries of pleasure for terror. It was inevitable that they drew their bows and arrows, their arms shaking in fear and disgust. It was inevitable that Artemis denied me forgiveness, though I begged and sobbed just the same.
But when I was with him, there was no Fate. Inside that cave, I had no parents and I was not a Huntress. There were no gods above us because he followed no gods. He followed only desire, and I did the same; and though I knew Fate waited just outside his cave, I believed she could not reach me.
The thing I never expected was how he looked at me. This, truly, was the moment when all doors closed around me, when I became the grotesque thing I am today. I’ve tried hard to forget that look, but I see it again every time I let myself wander too close to the shade of a wood by the roadside. I see it in the eyes of every insect, every wildflower, every bird in the trees, and every worm in the dirt. I see it now: the bear, snarling at Hermia and Apollonia, turned and snarled at me, too. There was no recognition in his eyes. There was only fear, and I remembered that I was not of his kind.