The Garden of Statues

by Ella-Pearl

Men have always been a means to an end for me. Every time one wanders onto my island, stumbles into my garden, armour clanging and scraping, still not heavier than the weight of their pride, I am reminded of this. We dance our dance, an unbroken routine. They come, they seek to conquer, then they see. I have frozen the expression of horror onto the faces of hundreds of men, like sculptors have captured the curves of hundreds of women. Every man is a new art piece to accompany the vines.

The dance today starts with a misstep. It is not a man sneaking around my rhododendrons. It is a woman. Her limbs are long but lack grace, every move is cautious. She is not cocky like those men before her. Her dark hair is braided tightly, showing a face painted on olive skin that reminds me of a word long lost to me. A word that belonged to my life before.

Beautiful.

I watch her from behind the stone of the latest man to join my collection. Assessing. My snakes quiet, retracting their tongues and hisses.

Surely no one would send this woman after me. I have made decorations of the strongest men of all the kingdoms, and this woman can barely make it past my flowers.

Just as I consider retreating to my cave, like I did in the early days when I feared hurting the men that wanted to hurt me, the woman trips over a tree stump. I watch as she flails, gets caught in the long grass, grips at the air like she can see something I cannot, an imaginary hand to help her up that never does. Eventually she settles, deciding to stay where she is. The grass sways around her, staining her white chiton with patches of green and brown. Her breath hitches and tears follow, those long limbs stretched out as she succumbs to her defeat at the hands of my garden.

I am conflicted.

I want to inspect further, ask the woman what bad fate landed her here but, I’m not sure that I want what my presence will add to this scene. Her tears are soft and though they are sad, they are sweet in the way they only are when cried by a woman like that. A woman like I used to be. A beautiful woman. My presence will ruin that. Turn the soft sadness to a sharp fear.

I creep closer, using the statues to cover me. The woman takes a deep breath, this seems to calm her. When her eyes open, I am surprised. They are a milky white, like the gods stopped crafting her eyes mid-way, forgot to paint her irises. It has been a long time since I have seen someone’s eyes. I only catch glimpses of them widening with panic before they solidify to stone. Still, I do not remember them to be like this.

I watch her for a little while longer and part of me hopes she might catch my eyes. She would be the most beautiful of my statues. I would place her with the brightest flowers. The part of me that is reminiscent of who I used to be - a woman like that - intervenes. It reminds me that what is beautiful about this woman is that she is free.

I pluck up the nerve to speak, to ignore my longing for her to stay laying in my grass forever.

‘You need to leave here.’

The woman shoots upwards, her neck twists in this direction and the next, trying to locate the source of the sound.

‘Hello?’ She speaks and I never thought I’d hear a voice softer than Athena’s.

‘There are dangers here, it isn’t safe for you. You must leave.’ I do not sound nearly as powerful as I am, like hearing a lion meow as if it were a kitten.

I lean out from my cover to check if she is heeding my warning.

‘Where are you?’ She turns to face me and I instinctively lower my eyes from her for fear of getting my wish, having her entangled in that long grass forever.

I expect her to be scrambling up when I look back, screaming and running, diving into the ocean, begging Poseidon to save her like others have. They do not know Poseidon does not watch over the oceans surrounding my island anymore. The woman is doing nothing in the way of panicking, however. She sits just as she was before, staring forward in my direction with those white eyes.

‘Please, forgive me if I am trespassing, I’m unsure of where I am. My name is Gaia, I come from Athens.’

She rests on her knees. I start to perceive her stare as blank as her reaction to me is yet to come. Still, I avoid eye contact.

‘You are a long way from home,’ I point out.

‘I fear that you are right,’ she sighs, ‘would you help me, please?’

‘Help you? What help do you seek?’

‘I cannot seek,’ she speaks, pointing to her eyes. ‘I’m blind. I am fine getting around places I know, but I am lost.’

‘Do you wish to return to Athens?’ I ask like I have a solution, like the gods could ever favour me enough to be anything other than a danger to this woman.

‘No,’ she answers with a small voice.

‘Then where?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then you are more than lost.’

‘I cannot return home.’ 

There is a pain in her voice that is familiar to me, that urges me to extend all I can in the way of help.

‘You can stay here, for the time being, until you figure it out.’

‘What of the dangers?’ She comes to her feet again and takes a step in the direction of my voice.

‘I will protect you from them.’

My promise is ironic, but true.

Though still turned from her to avoid eye contact, I can make out her movements as she parts the long grass to come closer.

‘What is your name?’ she asks. ‘What is this place?’

‘It is my garden. I am Clio.’

The lie is small, white, necessary.

‘Well, Clio, thank you. I am glad it’s your garden I am lost in.’

It has been a long time since someone has felt safe around me. It disarms me, lulls me into a false sense of security, lets me indulge in a world where I am Clio, no one else. I no longer look away from her, I allow my eyes to wander up the long grass to the stains on her robes, to areas of exposed skin on her limbs. In a moment of weakness, I look past her freckled shoulders and long neck to see her face once again.

It is as if Aphrodite carved Gaia’s face herself, as if Khloris pressed pink dahlias into her lips to give them colour, as if Astraeus plucked the brightest stars for her eyes, white with faint rings of blue, the impression of an iris that makes them glow.

It is too late when I realise my mistake. I wail, bringing my hands to my eyes to hide from what I have done.

‘What’s wrong?’ the softest voice I have ever heard asks.

Cautiously, I remerge to the reality behind my palms to find Gaia stood just as she was before.

My heart has not slowed; it thuds hard, threatening to shatter my ribs. I look at her eyes again, and I fear that my time has come. I fear that a god, or a king, or anyone who has heard the story of the monster in the cave has sent someone with a natural immunity to my only power. To make sure I die here just as I lived here.

Alone.

But Gaia does not seize her moment. She does not lunge at me with a hidden weapon. She stands expectantly, worry painted on her features.

‘What happened, Clio?’ Her tone is more pressing this time. ‘Are you alright?’

I step closer. ‘Were you born like this? Blind?’

She nods.

My panic settles, my theories of violence melt. Maybe Gaia was sent here… but not to harm me. Maybe Gaia is the only person I’ll never be able to harm.

The days with Gaia pass like the clouds above. We float through them, effortless, her presence here is seamless. The grass grows longer and the sun beams brighter; summer has rolled around quickly and I believe it is for the same reason I rise early every morning - to see Gaia.

We spend our days weeding plants and watering flowers, bathing in as much sun as Apollo will provide us. We spend our evenings swapping stories. She tells me of her mother, who loved telling stories of the Gods and heroes. She tells me of her father’s disappointment. How he tried time and time again to marry her off but failed. She tells me though she cannot see, she believes I must be beautiful. I do not tell her she is wrong.

I do tell her of stories I wish were true. Of a woman named Clio who grew tired of the world, so she found a garden and planned to spend the rest of her days tending to it.

I do not tell her of snakes and scales and stones. I do not tell her of Athena’s temple and a God whose lust was stronger than my cries for help.

I do not tell her of how she is woven into the fabric of my dreams. I do not tell her of how I think my soul is made from the same matter as hers. I do not tell her of how I can barely call my heart my own because it is so full of her.

‘Are you a sculptor?’ She asks as her fingers graze one of my stone men.

‘Of sorts,’ I shrug.

She does not know that what she is stood in is not a garden at all, it is a grave yard. A collection of lives I have taken. I wish I could I tell her that I hate what I have done, that I feel remorse. The truth is I do not. I want them to die when they come here. A long time ago, I cried enough tears to water the vines that grow around their corpses, when I still felt like a priestess, before I understood what it meant to be a gorgon. Before I understood what would happen to me if I had let them live.

I am not sorry for the men who will exist as nothing but their last moment for eternity. They will be remembered as unlucky heroes, brave, dauntless. I will always be known as the creature that killed them. The hideous woman with writhing reptiles and no virtue. Maybe that is why I have taken so much joy in pretending to be Clio. Why I am so desperate for Gaia to believe me. When I tell her my hair is smooth and not scaled, that my eyes are sapphire and not slit like a snake’s, I believe it. I get to exist as who I was, not who I am.

As Gaia waters the roots of the lavender we planted, I come to consider if I can truly be Clio. A woman who does no harm. Who wants to do no harm. I theorise that maybe if Gaia cannot see the horrors I have committed, in this new life we have created, the horrors may not exist. She does not see the peonies I forgot to water wither. She does not see the terror trapped on the faces of my statues. She does not see the cracked skin covering my body, the darting tongues when my snakes hiss.

‘What will the moon look like tonight?’ She asks, bringing the lavender to her nose to sniff.

I look to the sky, darkening as we speak ‘I believe it will be full.’

‘That will be my sixth full moon here,’ She muses.

It may be the first time she has thought about it, but I count every second. I bite my tongue until it bleeds fearing the day she might wish to move on, the day she might tire of Clio and her garden. 

‘Do you wish to stay for another?’ My question veils the answer I truly want.

Do you want to stay with me?

‘I wish to stay for them all.’ Her words push the air from my lungs and tears from my eyes.

She comes to my side. ‘Have I upset you?’

‘No.’ I wipe my cheeks. ‘Gaia, there has been no time more valuable than the time I have spent with you.’

She brushes her fingers across my cheek, collecting my tears. ‘I feel the same.’

‘But you have not been spending your time with me.’ I shake my head and urge her off of me. ‘You have spent it with a lie. I love you, but you cannot possibly love me when you do not know who I truly am.’

‘I know who you are,’ Gaia insists.

‘You don’t.’

‘But I do, Medusa.’

The world quiets as she says my name. A name that has always sounded like a curse, a threat, sounds like a love song on her lips.

‘My father sent me here to die at your hands. I caused him nothing but shame. A woman who refused to marry a man, refused to be pliant enough to be desirable in the first place. He’d had enough. He never understood that one must be able to behold you to die by you. I cannot behold the sight of anything,’ she explains, eyes like freshwater pearls trained on me. ‘I have heard the stories about you; when I came here, I figured it must be you. As time went on, I became sure. Your snakes hum and rattle, your garden is full of statues. I know that you are not a sculptor. I know these men we dance amongst came to kill you. I know that you have killed them. I know it is you, Medusa, and I love you.’

We say nothing further. There are no words more powerful than the ones we have already uttered. Love. We have grown it in this garden together and with it, I am not Clio nor Medusa, nor priestess nor gorgon. I am hers. She is mine.

We float to my cave, the buzz of love carrying us. Sleep comes easily, peacefully, but my awakening comes harsh, sharp. I am faced with myself, yellow eyes and viridian scales reflected back to me on gilded metal. I don’t see the man’s hand attached to the shield until it is too late, until the sword cuts through muscle and fibre and life and love.

Men have always been a means to an end for me.