Alithea

Chapter IV: Mother

When Alithea was a babe, her father took her to the shore and sat her on the sand, where the sea lapped the land. He was younger then, his hair mostly pepper rather than salt, and the wrinkles had not yet crisscrossed his face. Alithea's tiny fists fit around Petros's forefingers, barely. He turned her arms in a swimming motion and Alithea squealed with delight as the waves came to lift her up and set her gently down. She splashed as Petros kissed the back of her head, growing thin whisps of hair.

Mama is out there, Petros whispered as the breeze whipped at their backs. Alithea giggled with glee as her father kept circling her arms and splashing the water. Petros's love had left him and he had a hole in his heart. His child, so small and fragile, could not fill that hole, no matter how much he loved her. Eventually, he knew, he would learn to be without the love of his life, the very one that had accompanied him for a year and nine months. She had her heart stolen she replaced her husband's bed with the fisher's hammock. Petros knew that her husband would want her back and that perhaps he was endangering himself by loving her, but now the reality of her absence ached inside him. This ache particularly burned when the sun would catch his young daughter's eyes, or when she would smile, and she resembled her mother, the one he prayed she would never know if she was to have any hope of a peaceful existence.

Alithea swam wildly, her lungs burning, desperate to make it to the surface, but her body seemed to be made of lead. Her dress was tangling her legs and her shoes seemed cumbersome. And the panic, which she well knew would kill her, was making her heart burst. Her legs then felt the tickle of seaweed that seemingly wrapped themselves around her ankles like snakes. The forest grew around her and she released her final bubble of air just as she began to see a glow...and a warm, smiling face. A figure came from the murkiness with long, flowing hair. Her hand cradled the back of Alithea's head and pressed her forehead against hers.

A nymph? Alithea wished desperately. The nymph blew bubbles in Alithea's face...and suddenly, she wasn't feeling breathless anymore. She sank all the way to the bottom and her feet touched the sand. Now, a feeling of calm filled her body. There was a parting in the kelp, and, despite the water, Alithea could see the nymph clearly. Her skin was pale, but she had bright, lively eyes, like the ocean at dawn. Her impossibly long hair floated around her, seeming to melt into the seaweed.

"Breathe, my child," the nymph said. Instead of her voice sounding garbled, it rang clear, like a clarion call underwater.

Alithea breathed in normally and was surprised to feel she wasn't drowning. The nymph grabbed Alithea's arms and smiled warmly.

"I am sorry to frighten you, my child, but I could not let you go to Delphi without knowing the truth."

Alithea searched the nymph's eyes desperately. "The truth about what?"

She sighed. "Were it up to me, you would have never known. You deserved stability. Your father..."

At this, Alithea grew suspicious and afraid. "My father what?"

The nymph faded like ink in water, only to reappear next to Alithea. "Your father is the rock upon which we anchored ourselves, my child. You are moored, as was I. But my nature is not thus, and he knew so."

"You knew my father?" Alithea asked softly.

"I loved your father," she replied. "And you are the love incarnate."

Alithea's eyes widened. "You are my mother?" she gasped. "And you abandoned me? Us?" Anger rose in her belly despite the fact that it was because of this nymph that Alithea breathed right now.

Nevertheless, the nymph was unperturbed. "The gods cannot live amongst mortals," she said. "It would be to our detriment...and to the detriment of mortals."