Mythology

Mythology Monday: Medea

/ kaitlinbevis / 2 Comments

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*Spoiler warnings for anyone who has not read Aphrodite. This is a unedited draft of one of the first chapters of Love and War. It will change before the final version comes out. Enjoy!*

They wanted to call it hope. I stared at the line I’d written as I bunched up the fluffy, white pillow beneath me, trying find a comfortable position on my bed that didn’t make writing impossible. Scratching out the line, I frowned, mulling over where to begin.

This isn’t a story, I wrote. And I’m not going to tell it like one, even if I did get a fairy tale ending. It’s a memory. One I never wanted to revisit, only now I have to.

Sometimes I get paranoid. Letting out a long breath, I glanced behind me toward the bathroom where the empty box loomed. I think the worst things. But only because I’ve forgotten how lucky I am that he saved me. I’m better off, no matter what he’s done.

Slipping off the bed, I walked across the cool tile of the bedroom floor and closed the aged, wooden door to the bathroom so I could no longer see the box. Then I returned to my journal.

I should have known. He never stopped pestering me about my decision. Maybe if I’d paid attention, I’d have noticed missing pills or poked holes or something. But I would notice something like that, wouldn’t I? Gods, I’m crazy. Completely crazy. There was nothing to notice.

But…

Gritting my teeth, I wrote, No. I’m not focusing on that right now. I need to look back. Back to that awful day when they found out I was a match for Absyrtus’s bone marrow. The ice cream, toys, and constant cajoling. My guilt. I was scared. The procedure sounded painful. But I didn’t want my (step) brother to die, so I agreed.

And yeah, the surgery hurt, but they loved me for it. Everyone was so happy. So hopeful, so damn proud of me and back then that mattered. Mom took the whole week off work. I still remember how happy I was snuggling in bed with her while cartoons played on the screen. How special I felt. And then he got better. Not just a little better, but a full on, complete cure by the next blood draw. Even his scars were gone. That’s when they realized how special I really was.

I swallowed hard, flipping on to my back to stare up at the palm leaf blades of the ceiling fan making their lazy circle. “Just write it, Medea.” Drawing in a deep breath, I shifted so I could return pen to page.

That’s when Mom got greedy.

My phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen and saw a set of coordinates with the number of passengers. Two more than Jason left with, always a good sign. Closing my journal, I slid my pen through the little elastic loop and set the leather bound book on the bed beside me.

“Okay.” I pushed myself to a sitting position, crossing my legs. The beige duvet crinkled beneath me. Drawing in a deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused.

Boats were hard. The first couple times I tried relocating an entire boat, I fried the engines. But Jason was nothing if not persistent, and money was no object when charm was involved. We could replace whatever we broke.

The tricky part was not accidentally breaking the people I dragged along. I’d never done that. Keeping everyone intact seemed mostly instinctual. But the worry nagged at the back of my mind that one day, I’d ‘port someone to me and they’d pop up looking like a misshapen blob of flesh with limbs sticking out in all the wrong places and upside down faces.

My stomach lurched. Wow, I needed to not think that visual ever again. Particularly not now. Drawing in a deep breath, I forced my mind to clear, visualizing the boat and the little golden people on board. I couldn’t see them, not really. But I could sense them, and that was almost the same. Two unfamiliar…not shapes, more like impressions, were on board the boat.

Nails biting into the palms of my hand, I drew them to me. Well, not to me. A boat crashing through the wood plank walls of my bedroom wall would be problematic on a lot of levels. Fortunately, the shield stopped anything from actually ‘porting onto the island. The boat would arrive just far enough away to avoid slamming into the invisible barrier before Jason could signal Glauce to take the shield down.

Hot washes of agony sang through my nervous system as I yanked the vessel to the edge of the shield. Oh gods. Gasping, I lurched off the bed and into the bathroom just in time to heave my guts into the toilet. Pregnancy or teleportation? Ugh.

Jason kept saying using our powers was like strengthening a muscle. But he was wrong. Maybe my accuracy was improving with practice, but my body wasn’t any happier tolerating the strain of using that much power no matter how much I practiced.

My gaze landed on the trashcan filled with nearly a dozen pregnancy tests mocking me with their lines of blue, pink, yeses, and pregnants. My stomach lurched again.

Spent, I pulled my dark hair into a ponytail and carefully gathered all of the evidence into a plastic bag. I couldn’t risk the tests or empty box being in the house. Jason couldn’t find out. On a whim, I grabbed my journal, locked the door of my cabin and hurried down the street. I’d swing by the hospital while Jason oriented the newbies to the island. He’d be busy the rest of the day. As long as I put in an appearance at dinner, he’d never know anything was amiss.

I circled behind the hospital and tossed the bag into the medical waste bin, ignoring the twinge of guilt for the improper sorting. Trash collection on the island was a complicated affair. It didn’t take much to screw up completely and send us drowning in garbage.

A flurry of voices from around the building disrupted my thoughts.

“Get the doors!” Jason called.

Rushing to the front of the hospital, I grabbed one of the doors just as Otrera grabbed the other. She nodded at me over the stretcher that was being wheeled in.

I gasped when I saw the girl on the stretcher. Her face was a mass of bruising and swelling, her dress crusted in blood. The sheer violence of her wounds twisted my stomach.

“What happened?” I asked Otrera, rushing into the hospital on her heels.

“Tantalus went off the rails,” she panted, rushing through the lobby. “You know that call Jason got from Tantalus last night about the gods taking our place and using glamours?” She met my eyes, and I nodded, though I hadn’t heard about that call at all. “He thought she was one of them.”

“…presenting with broken ribs, lacerations, and internal bleeding,” a person in scrubs yelled as they whisked the girl down the hall.

An unfamiliar demigod, his face an identical mass of swollen bruises, tried to follow the stretcher, but the nurse pushed him back before hurrying through the set of swinging doors.

“…can’t go back there,” Jason’s calm voice reasoned. “You’re injured. We need to—”

“I’m not leaving her!” the demigod protested in perfect Greek.

Jason couldn’t have understood what the demigod said, but he moved in front of the swinging doors, speaking in calm and soothing tones. “She’s going into surgery, there’s nothing you can do for her right now. Let’s get you taken care of, and—”

He moved to get past Jason, but Jason could be an effective wall when he had to be.

“We can take him to the operating theater,” I suggested, approaching from behind the demigod. “You can’t cross that line,” I motioned to the red line in front of the doorway in front of him. “But there’s a room upstairs where you can see where they’re prepping her.”

The demigod whirled on me and I jerked back. His face clouded in confusion when he saw me, a pretty common response since I’d come to the island. What are you? The quick once over seemed to demand. You’re not one of us.

And I wasn’t a demigod. Not exactly.

“You could watch,” I prodded, intentionally misinterpreting his look of incomprehension, switching to Greek. “You’ll be able to see her the entire time.” Probably not proper protocol, but I had a way of making people bend the rules.

“That’s a great idea,” Jason said at the same time, moving between me and the angry looking demigod. “You’ll be able to see her the whole time,” he explained, echoing me in English, “And we can get someone to patch you up.” He flagged down a passing nurse to charm her into making it happen.

I stared at Jason for a moment, mind flashing back to that trashcan full of pregnancy tests. Did you do this to me on purpose or am I just being paranoid? “Patched up?” I asked instead, eyes dropping to the hand the demigod kept pushed to his side. “What—”

 

The demigod moved his arm and I drew in a sharp breath when I saw the long, shallow gash on his side. “Yeah, that’s probably going to need some stitches.”

Mollified, the demigod let me lead him to the windowed room, looking over the operating room. “Are you a doctor?” he asked when I pressed some gauze over his cut.

“I’m seventeen.” I laughed. “I’m lucky they trust me with band aids.”

Jason paused in the doorway, flanked by a doctor and nurse. “Medea,” he called from the doorway. “Let’s give them some space to work, yeah?”

“I’ll be back soon,” I promised. “And don’t worry. She’s in good hands.”

He nodded, eyes never leaving the girl lying on the table below.

The second Jason and I stepped out of the operating theater, I turned to Jason and forced myself to focus on the crisis at hand. “What happened?”

Jason leaned against the wall, hands resting on the wooden railing. “Tantalus thought she was one of them in disguise. Last night, he called ranting and raving about how the gods are using glamours to replace us and send us down to the Underworld to infiltrate our camp. He said some new goddess threw him in Tartarus and Ares was walking around wearing his face.”

Tartarus? Yeah, sure. “Tartarus has cell reception?”

“I know, right.” Jason snorted, but couldn’t quite manage to laugh. There was nothing funny about this. He glanced down at the floor, squinting against the harsh light that bounced off the tile. “He was not forthcoming on how he supposedly got out of the Underworld, much less back onto a moving ship.”

“He couldn’t have.” Tantalus was the only other demigod who could teleport. But his ability was granted by Zeus and had weird limitations, like he couldn’t be touching land or water and he couldn’t bring anyone with him. “Landing on a moving target, that’s…impossible. He’s got to be lying.”

“I know,” Jason agreed. “He clearly snapped. I told him to evacuate the other demigods on the ship, scrap the mission, and not to do anything until I got to the meeting place.” He said, referring to an otherwise empty island we met all the newbies at before ‘porting here. He glanced at me in mute appeal. “I couldn’t risk him losing it out there and bringing the whole Pantheon down on our heads.”

“You made the right call,” I assured him.

“Except that he didn’t listen.” Jason gripped the wooden railing so tight his knuckles went white. “Our people are still on that boat and all I’ve managed to piece together from Adonis is that Tantalus thought he and Elise were gods in glamours and nearly killed them both.”

I tilted my head. “He told you that?”

“In bits and pieces, I’d like a more complete picture, but…” Jason let out a frustrated sigh. “Getting that much out of him wasn’t easy.”

Language barriers tended to have that effect. I’d taught Jason a little Greek, but he was by no means fluent. “I’ll talk to him,” I promised, glancing back at the door to the operating theater.

“Thanks.” Relief was evident in Jason’s voice. “I don’t think I’m Adonis’s favorite person right now. Find out anything you can. At this point, I don’t even know if I can trust Tantalus’s report that there was a goddess on the ship. Narcissus and the others will be back in a few days. Hopefully we’ll get a full report from them, but in the meantime…”

“We have to assume the worst.” Crossing the hall to lean on the wall next to Jason, I laid my head on his shoulder. “You need to tell everyone else what happened. We’re not in any shape to face the Pantheon right now, but if Tantalus set them off, we might not have the luxury of waiting anymore. They need to know, Jason.”

“I know.” He sounded overwhelmed.

“Where is Tantalus now?”

Jason squeezed my shoulder. “Hell if I know.”

 “Do you want me to summon him?” I winced at the thought. Summoning the boat took a lot out of me. “Find out for sure? I’ll need some time to recover, but—”

Jason shook his head. “Not yet. The last thing we need is for Adonis,” he jutted his finger toward the door we’d just walked out of, “to see Tantalus and completely lose it. Do you know how damaging this could be to our cause?” He clenched his fists. “We’re not supposed to get hurt by each other. I hate to ask…but if you healed her then—”

“Absolutely not.” I shook my head, ignoring the guilt blooming in my chest. “Never again.”

“Okay,” Jason said.

I couldn’t suppress my sigh of relief even though I knew he was never going to strap me down and take my blood. “Tantalus is insane, not stupid.” I reached down and laced my fingers through Jason’s to give him a reassuring squeeze. “He’ll hole up somewhere like he always does and howl at the moon for a while. He’s not going to come back here anytime soon or near any of the demigods. He went against your orders.” I eyed Jason. “Didn’t he?”

“Of course he did!” Jason pulled away from me in shock. “Do you honestly think I’d condone that?” He pointed toward the operating room. “I told Tantalus not to do anything until I got there and evaluated the situation. So what the hell was he thinking? Can you imagine if he’d been right? If he’d done that to an actual goddess?”

Shivering, I stared down at the shadows we cast on the floor. “We’d be dead by dawn.”

“Ah, it’s not as bad as all that.” He shot me a sideways grin and recaptured my hand. “I’ll need you to summon Tantalus eventually, but let’s talk to Narcissus and the others first. Hopefully Elise will wake up by the time they get back and we can find out a bit more about what set Tantalus off. In the meantime, I’ve got to call a conference. Can you wait with them?” He motioned to the operating room and gave me an apologetic look. “I know you hate hospitals.”

I flushed. He’d rescued me months ago, and I was still having a hard time getting used to such thoughtfulness. “I’ll be fine.” Feeling guilty for doubting him, I drew him to me and planted a kiss on his lips. “You take care of yourself.”

He grinned, the stress on his face melting away. “You, too.”

 

 

After betraying her father, killing her brother, helping the Argonauts survive and complete their quest, killing Pelias so Jason could rule, restoring Jason’s father’s vitality, and bearing Jason two to six children, Medea’s husband decided to marry a younger, richer, better woman named Creusa, sometimes called Glauce, the daughter of the king of Corinth, Creon.

Medea was pissed. She confronted Jason, who blamed the whole thing on Aphrodite making Medea fall in love with him in the first place. Which, is actually true mythologically speaking, but it was true back when she was useful to him, too. Jason apparently didn’t harbor any ill will toward Medea. He was willing to set her up in a  little house with the kids and send her money periodically. But he basically claimed their marriage didn’t count.

Medea got her revenge. She gave the younger bride a cursed wedding dress as a gift that stuck to her body and burned her to death when she put it on. (Seriously, why hasn’t Medea been featured on Supernatural?) Creon tried to save his daughter and ended up burning to death as well.

Then Medea either accidentally killed her children, the people of Corinth killed her children as revenge, or she gave a long monologue and intentionally killed her children depending on the source. One son, Thessalus survived and became a king.

Afterward, she fled to Athens in a chariot of dragons sent from her grandpa, Helios. On her way, she encountered Hercules and healed him for the murder of Iphutus. Herc gave her a place to stay in Thebes, but she was eventually kicked out by the citizens.

She continued to Athens where she got married to a guy named Aegeus. They had a son named Medus and for a minute things looked like they would go to the happily ever after realm, but then Medea remembered she was a Greek myth and thus could not have a happy ending. Aegeus’ son long lost son Theseus (yeah, that one) showed up. Medea, nervous about her son’s inheritance, insisted he was a fraud and convinced her husband to poison him. At the last second, Aegeus recognized the sword in Theseus’s hand and knocked the cup of poison away from him.

Medea fled home to Colchis and discovered that her father had been deposed by her uncle Perses. She killed her uncle and gave the Kingdom back to dad, settling her debt with him once and for all. She lived out her life in her home and eventually died of old age. Jason died alone and unhappy when the stern of the Argo fell on him, crushing him to death.

Medea is always looked at as a villain in Greek mythology, and don’t get me wrong, killing children is bad. But Hercules killed his wife and children, too, and he’s looked at as a hero. Women in Greek mythology aren’t one dimensional, but society works really hard to paint them that way. Persephone is always the victim, Medea always the murdering mother, Hera, the jealous, insane lady, Aphrodite the divine whore. It’s why I’m rewriting the myths. These women had depth, it’s obvious from their stories, but over time it’s been stripped away from them.

I hope you enjoy my take on Medea as a character in my upcoming novel, Love and War.

Molly Ringle Presents Poseidon and Ares

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Molly Ringle is back, promoting the third book in her trilogy, Immortal’s Spring! Check it out on amazon now! 

Thanks for having me back, Kaitlin!

Probably the coolest thing for me about reading Kaitlin’s series (and Rick Riordan’s, and others based on myth) is finding the common cores that we’ve each kept inside each of these famous characters, even if we’ve fleshed them out in different directions. This week on that subject: Poseidon and Ares.

As god of the sea, Poseidon has dominion over marine life, waves, and tides, but can also cause storms and earthquakes (because the sea “holds” the earth, is how one interpretation explains it). Also, surprisingly for a sea god, he created horses and has a special affinity with them.

For the ancient Greeks, surrounded by the Mediterranean on nearly all sides, the sea was of gigantic importance, both in good ways and bad. It gave them plentiful food, immense beauty, and a route to far-off countries. But it also sank ships and drowned people, destroyed cities with tsunamis, and provided a way for invaders to sail right in and start attacking. All things considered, it’s easy to see why Poseidon (or indeed, any god) was viewed as someone both beneficent and dangerous.

The gods in my series (Persephone’s Orchard, Underworld’s Daughter, and Immortal’s Spring) are more human-scale than in the myths. My Poseidon, we learn in Immortal’s Spring, does wield a fair amount of water magic—he can topple enemy boats with waves, and swim pretty much endlessly—but he can’t cause earthquakes or storms, nor can he breathe underwater. Still, he realizes his abilities would make him an asset in sea wars, and knows the ambitious Zeus would pressure him into using his powers for that end, so he keeps his magic hidden from most. One of the only people who knows about it shares the powers herself: Amphitrite, who will eventually become his wife.

The Poseidon in my series is better behaved and more sympathetic on the whole than his counterpart in Kaitlin’s series, but we flipped sides when it came to Ares. He’s basically one of the villains in my series—the arrogant, bloodthirsty god of war who has a tendency to make terrible decisions, usually involving violence. Plenty of myths show him in this light too, so it made him handy when I needed an immortal to do facepalm-worthy things. In Kaitlin’s series he’s appealingly gentle-hearted under his mandated god-of-war duties, and I came to like him quite soon, which was a fun surprise.

But something Kaitlin, the myths, and I agree upon is that if there’s anything that softens Ares’ heart (and therefore might soften him in our eyes), it’s his love for Aphrodite. It’s a strange but rather beautiful pairing: the goddess of love and the god of war, who have in mythology an ongoing passionate relationship. What does that say about humanity, do you think? Or about love, or about war?

Perhaps we can take heart that in mythology, Aphrodite and Ares produce a daughter: Harmonia, the goddess of harmony. So if the dangerous passions of love and war can be brought together to produce the spirit of harmony, maybe there is hope for us all. That said, Harmonia in her own marriage, along with her descendants, did not enjoy entirely peaceful lives…but that’s a myth for another day.

Mythology Monday: The Argonauts Returned Home

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**Spoiler warning for anyone who has not read Aphrodite. Also, very rough draft from Love and War**

“SURPRISE!” A wave of voices burst from a sea of golden people crammed into the tiny space.

Ares’s hand steadied me when I jerked back in surprise. “I swore I wouldn’t spoil the surprise,” he murmured in apology.

“Look at her face,” Medea beamed. “She had no idea.”

“Uh, this is…Wow!” I glanced around the room, speechless. A tacky banner hung over the floor to ceiling windows on the back wall proclaimed “Welcome Home Elise!” “Thank you.”

Jason walked to the front of the crowd, a broad smile on his face. “We figured you deserved a hero’s welcome. This is Otrera,” he beckoned to a slim, golden girl. “And Glauce,” he motioned another girl forward.

“So nice to finally meet you,” Glauce gushed, shaking my hand.

“Hi,” Otrera said with an awkward smile.

A lanky boy whose golden features were the only thing going for him shouldered his way up to the front of the crowd. “I’m Deucalion.”

“Nestor,” another interrupted.

“Idas!”

The names just kept coming in an overwhelming cacophony of noise until one smooth voice interjected with a “We’ve met.”

“Narcissus.” My heart stuttered in my chest, skin going cold despite the pleasant temperature of the room. He ran Adonis’s modeling agency, but not Elise’s. The demigod, apparently one of the leaders of DAMNED, had been on the cruise, we’d even had dinner together.

“I’m glad to see you two here.” He clasped Ares’s hand in a firm shake.

“Glad to see you,” a familiar voice echoed from behind him. Narcissus’s assistant was never far from him.

“Where were you?” Ares demanded. “We tried to find—”

“Tantalus teleported me to the island. He was convinced there were gods on board trying to take my place using glamours.” Narcissus shrugged, batting a balloon away from his face. “I never saw hide nor hair of anyone other than the redhead, and she was in no shape to do any harm. But better safe than sorry.”

“So you just left us behind?” I crossed my arms.

Suddenly the party guests became very interested in the snack table set up on the other side of the room.

Narcissus had the grace to look ashamed. “I assumed he’d get you two next.”

“Well, you weren’t wrong.” I forced a smile to my face.

“I had no idea he would hurt you,” Narcissus said softly. “I am sorry about that.” He glanced around as if hoping someone would come to his rescue. “Enjoy your party.”

~@~

When the Argonauts returned home, there was a huge celebration, but Jason’s father, Aeson, was too old to come out and see his son, much less dance and drink the night away. So Jason asked Medea a favor. Could she take some years off his life and give them to his father?

Touched, Medea agreed, but at no cost to Jason’s life force. She withdrew the blood from Aeson’s body, added some herbs, then returned the blood back to his veins. (How?! You may ask. I have absolutely no idea. But holy cow!) The old man became energized and youthful again. Elias’s (the evil uncle that sent Jason on the quest to begin with) daughters saw this miracle and wanted the same service for their father, and might have gotten it, had not Pelias been a two-faced liar that refused to give Jason the throne. Instead, Pelias drove Jason and Medea into exile.

The two settled in Corinth and had two children. Medea, remembering the girl’s interest reached out to them and offered to teach them the secret of restoring vitality out of the “goodness of her heart.” All they had to do was chop their father into pieces then boil them in a caldron of water and herbs. She even demonstrated by turning an old goat into a lamb. Elated, the girls ran home and chopped their father into bits. But the herbs Medea gave them had no magic so Pelias did not come back to life.

Pelius’s son became King and eventually Jason and son attacked, took over the Kingdom, and they all lived happily ever after.

Not! Remember, this is a Greek myth. Tragedy ahead. Tune in next week, for Medea.

Mythology Monday: A Wedding and a Sandbar

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He stayed with me while I cried. He let me cry. Not once did he tell me to shut up, or stop over reacting. There was no trying to pretend like nothing was wrong or making me feel stupid or emotional or anything else. The man just sat beside me, offered me his shoulder, and wrapped an arm around me until I finished.

No one had ever done that for me before. Not that I could remember. It was the most I’d connected with another human being for over a decade. I fell in love with him right then. Amazing how powerful something as simple as touch and sympathy can be.

I cried until I was exhausted. And then, only once he was sure my tears were spent, absolutely sure I was on somewhat stable ground, he told me how much trouble we were in.

Turns out my mom had an army.

~@~

Next on their journey, the Argonauts stopped at a place called Drepane, which was ruled by a virtuous king named Alcinous. You may recognize his name from The Odyssey (the happy home where Odysseus tells the stories of his wanderings). Unfortunately, the Colchian fleet (the army from the kingdom where Jason took the fleece, and Medea, and killed the king’s son) arrived shortly after and demanded the return of their princess. Alcinous mediated between the two sides, and in an offhand comment informed his wife, Arete, that if Medea was still a virgin/unmarried, he would return her to her people.

You know, cause women are property and stuff.

Arete wanted Medea to be able to make her own choice, so she told the Jason and Medea what she’d learned from her husband. Medea and Jason married right away…and consummated their marriage on the Golden Fleece (possibly the best f-you in all of mythology).

Thrilled with the marriage, the Argonauts set off for home and were immediately driven off course by another gust of wind. Their ship was beached on a huge sandbank (the Syrtes) near Libya. In true, over dramatic manly fashion, the Argonauts all resigned themselves to death and part ways to die heroic, individual, lonely deaths. Medea hangs out with her maids on the beach and talked about how much it sucked that after all they’ve been through, they’re beached.

Meanwhile, Jason was visited by three nymphs who gave him step by step instructions to get out of his mess. All they had to do was carry the boat across the desert.

Twelve days later, and two Argonauts short (Mopsus to a snake bite and Canthus to a Shepherd fight) they arrived at Lake Triton and the Hesperides garden where they just missed Hercules. Triton Lake opened up into the sea so the Argonauts made their way toward home. Again. Only this time, they made it. But more on that next week.

Molly Ringle’s Take on Adonis

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Today I’m pleased to present a very special guest blog from one of my favorite mythology re-writers, Molly Ringle. If you haven’t checked out the Crysomelia Series yet, you’re missing out. But don’t worry, you can fix it. The first book is only .99 cents today on kindle, so if you were ever going to start the series, now is a great time.

Molly is here today to talk about a character featured in each of our books. Adonis. So without further ado, let me turn things over to her.

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Hi everyone! I’m Molly Ringle, a fan of Kaitlin Bevis’ and a writer of my own trilogy of Greek-myth-based novels, which starts with Persephone’s Orchard. This week we’re exchanging guest posts on one of the characters we’ve both featured fondly: Adonis.

People usually know what it means to be called “an Adonis:” namely, the person in question is a beautiful, desirable male. Such figures are much adored by legions of women; in the modern world they’re often celebrities known for their good looks. (I ran a search on “Adonis” on Pinterest just now, and got several photos of Harry Styles, among others.)

In mythology, Adonis was a youth so beautiful that even the goddess of love herself, Aphrodite, could not resist him. The pair became legendary lovers, but their relationship was plagued by complications and tragedies, as is typical in Greek mythology. At one point—sources usually say it was in Adonis’ infancy—Aphrodite, already charmed with him, sent him to the Underworld for safe keeping in Persephone’s care. But Persephone became entranced with Adonis as well, and refused to give him back. Zeus had to settle the case: Adonis was to spend four months of every year henceforth with Persephone, four with Aphrodite, and four in whatever way he chose. (People usually say he chose to be with Aphrodite for those.)

That arrangement is curiously like Persephone’s own: part of the year in the Underworld, part of the year in the upper world. Adonis’ ties to the land of the dead end up manifesting in another way too. In mythology, he dies young, usually said to be killed by a boar sent by a jealous rival. Ares, god of war and intimately involved with Aphrodite himself, is often named as the culprit. The heartbroken Aphrodite brings Adonis to new life, in a sense, by transforming his blood into the red anemone flower. And some versions of the myth claim that, like Persephone, Adonis still gets to spend half the year above ground with his lover, even after his death.

Thus he belongs to the class of resurrection deities, or dying-and-rising gods, a group in world religions that also includes figures such as Osiris, Attis, Dionysos, and Jesus. In Ancient Greece there were cults and festivals dedicated to Adonis, in which celebrants (most often women) lamented the yearly death of the lovely young man, and honored the new life that would arise from his sacrifice—a representation, most say, of the cycle of agriculture, in which plants must fall at harvest time but will sprout again in spring.

MY VERSION

In my series, we first meet Adonis briefly in Persephone’s Orchard as a handsome young mortal, a favorite of Aphrodite’s. In the second book, Underworld’s Daughter, we get a closer look at his unhappy childhood, and his disappointment at remaining mortal while his beloved entertains so many enviably immortal men and refuses to be fully faithful to Adonis. After an emotional breakup with her, Adonis ill-advisedly picks a fight with Ares, and takes a lethal knife wound to the belly. Hermes and Aphrodite rush him to the Underworld, hoping for some miracle from Persephone or Hekate, which they get…and that’s where my version really starts to diverge from tradition.

The Underworld magic makes Adonis immortal, but he is still estranged from Aphrodite (who leaves after making sure his life is saved), so he decides to roam the Mediterranean a while and take on a new identity to go with his new immortality. Hearing legends about a dying-and-rising god called Dionysos (who doesn’t truly exist in my version; he’s just a myth), and finding Dionysos’ legends similar to his own story, Adonis drops his old name and takes on that one. Henceforth he will be Dionysos, god of wine, revels, madness, and death-and-resurrection festivals.

Nowhere in mythology does anyone claim that Adonis and Dionysos are one and the same, by the way. I am aware of this. But it struck me that they shared many similarities, and not just because they’re both resurrection deities. Both are also fairly peaceable and non-warlike compared to most of the male gods (although look out for their followers, who might rip you apart). Both have cults that are primarily made up of women. Apparently the rites were often similar in both types of cults, too. So, in my self-appointed task of writing crazy fan-fiction about Greek mythology, I decided I could make a case for this unusual move.

Then, more remarkable still, in reading Kaitlin’s latest installments of the Daughters of Zeus series, I discovered she’s made a similar transformation with Adonis! She wraps his identity up with that of another god too (SPOILERS!)—Eros, in her case; which makes sense, given Eros also has a close link to Aphrodite in the myths, and Adonis surely inspires passion in the world just about as much as Eros does. Kaitlin and I had no idea we were both writing the same type of plot detail for this character (though plenty of our other details differ), which makes it especially interesting: is there something inherent about the archetype of Adonis that suggests transformation? His death-and-resurrection-ness? His being passionately worshipped yet wrapped in mystery? His blend of good fortune and victimhood?

Probably all of that. Adonis may be known these days as merely a pretty face, but like all the Greek gods, he represents so much more than that, and it turns out Kaitlin and I, along with a lot of other people, can come up with quite a bit to say about him. If our new retellings give people a fresh and interesting way to think about the myths, then they were worth writing!

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Molly Ringle became fascinated with the colorful weirdness of the Greek myths when she was a kid, and after writing several other novels of love and the paranormal, she finally wrote the Persephone-and-Hades story that had been evolving in her head all those years. It turned into a three-book series, much to her own surprise. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and sons, and she honestly loves the rainy climate there.

Mythology Monday: The Argonauts Encounter Sirens

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I’ve always hated the ocean. Otrera and the others can just sit out there, on the ocean’s edge for hours sunbathing, and to them, the sound of the surf crashing to the sand is something relaxing. To me it’s downright ominous. Like the water is drawing closer and closer as the tide swallows the sand. The water doesn’t look beautiful to me. It looks mysterious. Anything could be lurking below the surface, and I could never shake the feeling that I didn’t belong there. Or that something else might take offense at my intrusion. I always thought it was a silly fear, my own personal phobia, until I saw the monsters waiting beneath the waves.

I shuddered at the memory of Ren, the first female demigoddess anywhere near my age that I’d met. Blood in the water as she screamed. Slick, grey shapes closing in on her from beneath the waves. She’d never been all that stable, but none of us expected her to jump overboard. The bitter memory clashed with the happy atmosphere of the dining hall, morphing the din of conversation and laughter from the nearby tables into something menacing.

Ren was just a first generation demigoddess and she had no control of her powers. None. Jason told me they found her after her charm drove her step-father to shoot her mother then blow his own head off for making Ren cry. She mostly stayed below decks until that horrible night when she jumped.

“We’re monsters, all,” she’d sobbed before stepping off the edge of the boat.

I didn’t know our charm worked on anything other than humans. But the dolphins were drawn to her. At first we were delighted by the sight of them, but then they started fighting over her.

Talos had jumped in after her, a rope tied around him, before we spotted the pod. But when the dolphins realized he was trying to take her away from them…

Swallowing hard, I pushed my lunch tray across the slick table before returning to my journal. I’ll never be able to listen to that Orpheus song again. Every time it comes on the radio, I see the blood bubbling along the top of the water and hear her screaming. Her screams were the worst because they compelled action. There weren’t enough of us immune to charm to hold back the guys who kept trying to leap off the boat to save her. I ended up turning on the radio to drown her out.

~@~

After their escape from Colchis and a cleansing by Circe,the Argonauts headed home with much nicer weather on the horizon. They ran into a bit of trouble here and there but nothing that most of them couldn’t handle. Like every other Greek hero, the Argonauts encountered Sirens. Beautiful women whose songs tempted sailors to their watery graves.

According to Greek mythology, there were anywhere from two to five Sirens, sometimes referred to as muses of the water world/lower world. They may have been named the following (depending on your source); Thelxiepeia, Molpe, Himerope, Aglaophonos, Pisinoe, Parthenope, Ligeia, Leucosia, Raidne, and Teles. The Romans claimed they lived on an island called Sirenum Scopuli, but most sources place the sirens on random flowery islands surrounded by cliffs and rocks that were conveniently located en route to the hero’s destination. The sirens were either the gods of a muse (which one changes depending on the myth), deminymph, or Chthon (an earth goddess) and a river god named Achelous, or they were daughters of the primordial deity, Phorcys, god of the hidden deeps of the ocean. They were either gorgeous, gross, or bird women depending on the myth you read.

Once upon a time, the Sirens were playmates to Persephone. When Persephone went missing, Demeter gave the women wings to search high and low for her daughter, but when Demeter learned they’d seen her daughter abducted and did nothing to stop it, they were cursed, lost their feathers, and possibly became cannibals, implying they ate the drowned sailors. Though can they really count as cannibals if they’re eating another species? I’m not sure about that. They also may have lost their feathers after they lost a singing competition against the Muses.

When the Argonauts sailed past the Siren Island, Orpheus played his lyre and played a prettier song loud enough to drown out their singing. Only one of the crew, a guy with great hearing named Butes, heard their song and leapt into the sea. But Aphrodite rescued him so all was well.

The Sirens later died when Odysseus sailed past them, tied to a mast so he couldn’t go to them. He’d instructed the crew to plug their ears with wax so they couldn’t hear the sirens and not to under any circumstances allow him to jump into the ocean. Why didn’t Odysseus plug his ears like Circe suggested? He was curious. Since the Sirens were cursed to live on the island until a man passed by that heard their song yet did not respond to it, they threw themselves into the ocean and drowned when Odysseus passed.

Mythology Monday: Escape from Colchis

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Being here brings back memories, I wrote, returning to my journal, shifting positions in the uncomfortable plastic chair. Not that I was here, of course. But underneath the ocean-themed decor, it smells the same and that’s enough to take me back.

I remember lying in a bed like this for what felt like ever. I don’t think my stepdad knew what was going on. Every time he visited, his eyes would glitter with sympathy and he would say meaningless phrases like “Stay strong, kiddo.”

He was so convinced I was sick that I believed him. At first I thought I’d switched places with my step-brother. That I’d misunderstood what my parents had asked me to do. I was convinced they’d given me his cancer so he could be better and I could die. To be fair, I was, like, six. It made sense to me.

I remember being so angry. Screaming into my pillow and crying myself to sleep wondering what I’d done wrong. Why had they picked him over me? But then I’d try to be so good when Mom visited. Like if I was just sweet enough, loving enough, good enough, she’d switch us back.

I drew in a deep breath, antiseptic smell of the hospital stinging my nose. The incessant beeps coming from the machines attached to Elise made it hard to focus. My step-brother never visited. I think they told him I died. He sure was surprised to see me later, though that might have been the gun to his head.

Then I found out the truth. I thought I’d felt angry before. Betrayed. But that feeling didn’t even begin to touch the way I felt the day I realized they were farming me out for parts and selling me to the highest bidder.

“They wanted to call it ‘Hope.’”

That’s one of the last things my mother ever said to me. I wonder what would “they” have said if they’d known “Hope,” their miracle cure, their golden fleece, was a terrified girl that had to be strapped down to the bed, screaming and crying every time the doctor walked into the room, because she knew what his presence meant. That this time, blood wasn’t enough. “They” needed more.

~@~

When we last left off, Jason completed the trials of Colchis, grabbed Medea, and sailed away. But this wouldn’t be a Greek myth if the story ended there. See, first Medea had to go from betraying her father’s pride and helping Jason win to the completely unrelatable zone of killing her brother, cutting him to pieces, and dropping his body in the ocean to distract her father. Her father stopped to gather the dead bits of his son, allowing Jason and the Argonauts to escape.

Yeah.

To be fair, had the King intended to be fair and give Jason the fleece as promised for completing the tasks, Medea wouldn’t have had to resort to such measures. She knew for a fact Aetees intended to cheat Jason out of the reward, possibly through nefarious means because he told her as much. She considered suicide first, but ultimately, the promise of a life with Jason was, in her mind, worth her brother’s life.

One thing I haven’t dwelled on much in this myth is Medea’s magic. Sure, she helps Jason with some potions, but her magic is actually a lot cooler than just brewing herbs. Doors open for her. She can chat with the moon. Her mythical abilities vary by myth, but she’s not a god or a demigoddess. There’s not a lot of just random spell casters in Greek mythology, so Medea as a character is fascinating.

Anyway, Zeus was not thrilled by the gory murder of Medea’s brother, so he decided to make their return trip hell. He sent storm after storm, delaying their trip and endangering the crew. Depending on the myth, the storms either blew the Argo to Circe’s island, or the boat got so sick of the storms that it *asked* Jason to please take it to be cleansed by Circe.

Mythology Monday: The trials for the Golden Fleece

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Jason’s so understanding sometimes, it’s ridiculous. He’s not even mad about the horrible things I thought about him. Sometimes I wonder if he charms me. I go back, and look over this journal, see how upset I was, how angry. But it goes away when I’m with him. All my reasons, all my paranoia, all my anger  feels like it gets coated, covered up by sappy, happy thoughts.

But I’m immune to charm. Jason made sure of it before he brought me on the island. Not everyone here can control their powers. But what if immunity doesn’t work the way we think it does? What happens if you want to be charmed? If you want to believe someone. Does that give them control? Or would it matter if they had powers or not at that point?

~@~

As the Argonauts approached the island of Colchis, they spotted Zeus’s eagle flying through the air. This eagle was so big that it disturbed the water and caused the ship to rock. The eagle was, incidentally, on its way to eat Prometheus’s liver. Yum.

Jason wanted to negotiate with the King rather than take the fleece by force, but the gods weren’t so sure that would work out for him, so Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite plot to have Eros (Cupid) shoot the king’s daughter with one of his magical arrows. The king’s daughter is Medea. Yes that one. More on Medea on another Monday, but that arrow is why I pity her more than abhor her. The woman had no choices in her life.

The King agreed to give Jason the fleece, but only if he performed three tasks; plowing a field with fire-breathing oxen that he had to yoke himself, sowing the teeth of dragons into a field, and overcoming the sleepless dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece. Jason felt pretty overwhelmed when he heard the list, but to be fair, the King didn’t ask him to do anything he hadn’t done on multiple occasions by the King himself.

Meanwhile, Medea struggled with a crisis of conscience. Do nothing or help Jason and betray her father. She actually considered suicide, but Cupid’s magic is too strong to allow death to be a way out.  When she saw Jason outside of Hecate’s temple, she basically jumps him. After a long night, she swore to help him through each of the trials and in return he swore marriage.

For task 1: Plowing the field with fire breathing bulls that he had to yoke himself, Medea provided an ointment that protected him from the heat of the flames.

Task two, sowing the field with dragon teeth, actually didn’t sound so bad until the teeth sprouted into an army of warriors that Riordan fans will recognize as the Spartoi.

The Spartoi were children of Ares. They were creepy as hell but very stupid. Medea told Jason about Cadmus, the founder of Thebes. Cadmus killed a dragon, and Athena told him to throw the teeth on the ground. When he did, the Spartoi sprang up, but Cadmus was terrified of them, so he threw a stone in their midst. The Spartoi, thinking the stone had been thrown by another warrior, started fighting one another. As per Medea’s advice, Jason tried the same trick and the Spartoi attacked and defeated one another.

For the final task, facing the sleepless dragon, Jason used a sleeping potion Medea gave him.

The tasks were completed, but the king refused to relinquish the golden fleece, so Jason took it, and Medea, and fled the island.

 

Mythology Monday: The Golden Fleece

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“They wanted to call it hope.” I drew in a long breath and dug my fingers into the sand beyond my beach towel and forced myself to think back. Back to when things were actually bad, because I couldn’t afford to lose perspective now. Mom sounded so offended she sounded at the ridiculous name. She just sat there at my bedside chatting like everything was normal while I fought back tears and wondered when the next time I woke up would be.
“Hope is a thing you wish for,” she’d complained. “Something that might work. This is a sure thing.”
I’ll never forget that self-satisfied grin on her face when she told me they were going to call it the golden cure or the golden…I don’t remember, something equally ridiculous. I remember wondering if she’d put more thought into naming this than me.
“We’re gonna be so rich kiddo.” She grabbed my shoulder and gave it an excited squeeze.And gods help me, I leaned into her touch.

A nurse came in then. The redhead. They had names, but I refused to learn them. I hated this nurse the most because she was so damn peppy, but right then, I couldn’t be angry because I was too scared. The cluster surgeries were horrible. There aren’t words to describe the way I felt when I woke up.
I started crying and begging and pleading and grabbing for anyone who got close to me, sure if I just squeezed their hand hard enough they’d take pity on me and stop. Of course, I knew better. But these moments always had a way of reverting me to that six year old who was scared to go under. Mom gave me a warning look and the nurse clucked in disapproval before saying something meaningless about how I’d sleep through the whole thing. She actually used the phrase minimum discomfort.
Minimum discomfort? When I next woke I’d be missing parts. Oh sure, it was all internal stuff you could supposedly live without thanks to dialysis, but I was sick to death of surgeries. All I wanted was to go home. I begged them to stop, knowing that weeks, maybe even months of monitoring loomed before me while the world outside just kept on spinning. It wasn’t fair.
“Count down from ten,” the nurse instructed. Gods, I remember the exact cadence of her voice. I can hear it. This memory is so sharp, so clear that it’s almost like a movie playing out in my head. But I don’t want to write this like a story. I’m trying to capture how I felt. What I thought. Only what happened next didn’t feel real. Maybe it was the meds, I don’t know. The whole thing felt like it happened on a screen somewhere across the room. In that moment, I was there, but I also wasn’t.
Salt stung my cheeks as I began the countdown.“Ten.”
The door burst open.
“Nine.” The word was out of my mouth before I could process the sight of the three strange men and the gun to my doctor’s head.
The one in the middle, Jason of course, not that I knew that at the time, was handsome. Weird of me to notice that given the circumstances, but I blamed the drugs. They all looked a lot like my parents. Their hair, eyes, skin, everything about them practically glittered gold. I didn’t know what that meant then. But I remember glancing at my IV, wondering if maybe the nurse had mixed up my pain meds, I could feel them kicking in, but waking illusions were new, even for me.
“Eight,” I whispered, mind hell bent on following instructions no matter how illogical.
Jason pushed the doctor forward. “Go on, get the rest of it.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” my mother demanded, moving protectively in front of the bed.
I’d love to think she was protecting me, but I knew all she cared about was her product.
“We’re here for the cure,”Jason said, thrusting a white cooler with red insignia on it toward the nurse. When his eyes landed on me, he hesitated.
I stopped counting, sensing my chance. “Cure.” The word fell clumsily from my lips. “Me.”
My mother shushed me, but Jason’s eyes softened in sympathy. “How much does she need?”
The doctor exchanged a wide-eyed look with my mother.
“It’s” I tried again, fingers biting into the fabric of my blanket. “…me. The cure is me.”
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“She’s delirious,” my mother protested. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” she kept babbling, gesturing at the IV drip and demanding the doctor back her up, but the man’s eyes never left mine.
I focused intently on forming the right words with my mouth. “Don’t…let them…cut me open again.”
His eyes widened, then darted to my mother who immediately objected, using her politician voice.
I fought to stay conscious through the screams and gunshots, but the meds were too good at their job. My eyelids flagged. My mother’s body hit the floor with a loud thud, but I couldn’t drag myself out of my stupor long enough to process what that meant consciousness completely slipped away.
I’m better off, I’m better off, I’m better off. If I wrote it enough times maybe it would feel real. I’m better off. I’m better off, I’m better off, I’m better off. I’m better off.

~@~

My golden fleece is a bit different than the original myth. The text above is from a new POV character who will be making her appearance in Love and War. It’s a very rough draft, so expect changes.

In the original myth follows shortly after Jason’s encounter with the Amazons.

Being the cautious, observant Greeks they were, when the Argonauts passed an island belonging to Ares, they stopped to make an offering. They *really* didn’t want to offend any gods on this trip.

But then they got attacked by birds. After they defeated the birds they found four survivors of a shipwreck hiding from the birds. The four survivors ended up being the four sons of Phrixus: Argos, Phrontis, Melas, and Cytisorus.

Lets talk about Phrixus.

Phrixus was the son of the king of Boiotia and a cloud goddess. The Queen was not thrilled by her husband’s affair with a goddess nor the twins produced by the union (Phrixus had a sister named Helle), so she secretly roasted all the seeds for Boetotia’s crops before the farmers got a chance to plant them. The local farmers freaked out when the crops didn’t grow and asked a nearby oracle why this was happening to them. That oracle happened to be in the Queens pocket, so the oracle told the farmers their food would grow again after the twins were sacrificed.

Just before the sacrifice, the twins were rescued by a flying or swimming (depending on the myth) ram with golden wool sent by the cloud goddess Nephele (their mother). Unfortunately, Helle fainted and fell off the ram, drowning in the sea, but Phrixus hung on until they reached the island of Colchis, where the King took him in. Phrixus married the king’s daughter, Chalciope.

As a thank you, Phrixus sacrificed the ram that carried him to safety to Zeus and gave the king its Golden Fleece. Aeetes (the King) hung the fleece in a tree in the holy grove of Ares, where it was guarded by a dragon that never slept. Phrixus and his wife had four sons who got shipwrecked and rescued by Jason.

I like my version better.

Mythology Monday: The Island of Lemnos

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*Spoiler Alert: The following scene is from an early draft of Love and War, which comes AFTER the events in Aphrodite*

The Caribbean music grew louder as Ares and I walked to the the dining hall for happy hour the next night.

“I’ll get you a drink!” Ares called over the music.
“Thanks.” I worked to keep a smile on my face. Swimming had not gone any better today, I was wearing a red sundress that looked like it’d been repurposed from a fricken bandana, and it had taken nearly an hour to get my hair to cooperate as opposed to the two seconds it would have taken to cast a glamour. Stupid things to be upset about big picture, but enough to thoroughly ruin my day.
The demigods stood talking and laughing in clusters, and my mind flitted to Persephone’s assertion that the island was too much of a paradise for the residents to question Jason’s decisions.
“Elise,” Medea called, forging her way through the crowd.
“Medea!” I smiled thinking of yesterday afternoon, and brayed at her with a snicker.
Her eyes widened, and she shushed me, crossing the distance between us in a matter of seconds to grab at my hands and whisper, “he’s like right behind you.”
I turned to see Zeetes giving me an odd look. “So?”
Medea dissolved into giggles and yanked me through the crowd and away from him before he could catch on to what we were talking about.
“Wait, wait!” Medea’s eyes caught on something in the crowd. “Glauce!” She called, rising to her tiptoes and waving. “Over here!”
“Hey, Elise,” Nester said as he passed by. “Did you want a drink?”
“I’ve got one on the way,” I said with a smile. I turned down three more drink offers before Otrera and Glauce joined us.
“Oh my god,” Otrera snapped when Idas paused to offer her a drink. “We’re hydrated. Thanks.”

~@~

Okay, so brief recapping. Jason is trying to regain his rightful place as ruler from his evil uncle, Pelias. Pelias gave him an impossible quest to find the Golden Fleece. Jason assembled a very large group of heroes, and they are all getting ready to set off in a boat called the Argo.

Jason tried to elect Hercules as their leader, but Herc wasn’t having it. Hercules insisted Jason lead since it was his quest. Good thing for the Argonauts too, as Herc had a tendency to kill people in fits of insanity when placed in positions of authority. The Argonauts pulled away from shore, sacrificed two bulls to Apollo, then spend the night partying and listening to Orpheus sing songs.

Their first stop was the island of Lemnos, where the Argonauts discover the women, led by Queen Hypsipyle, murdered their husbands and every other man on the island. Why, you may ask? Well, it seems the women hadn’t worshipped Aphrodite enough so she made them stink so bad that their men-folk had no choice but to sleep with their slaves on another island. These women may have smelled bad, but their B.S detector worked just fine, and they murdered the cheating scoundrels in a fit of rage.

They thought the Argonauts were downright pretty, so they brought them on to the island to have lots and lots of sex. Everyone enjoyed themselves and started thinking, hey, maybe we should forget about the stupid fleece and live here.

Everyone except Hercules.

Hercules had this tendency to kill the people he sleeps with in a fit of rage, so he was understandably wary of romantic entanglements. Plus at this point in time he was crushing on his best friend, so sex with women was really not that appealing to him. He convinced the Argonauts to leave the island.

Nine months later, a new race was born on the island of Lemnos: Minyae, or Minyans. Jason swore he’d come back for the Queen, but didn’t and ends up in the 8th circle of hell for his broken vow in Dante’s Inferno.

Interesting note, Hypsipyle spared the life of one man, her father, but when the other women found out, the Queen, now pregnant with Jason’s twins, had to flee, was captured by pirates, and sold into slavery. She ended up playing nanny to King Nemea’s son, and ended up accidentally getting the child killed when the events of the Seven against Thebes unfolded. But more on that in another Mythology Monday.