Vermillion, Scarlet, Merlot.

The Garden of Statues

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 forged from 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 meld 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.