| 饜剫 | 饜剨 | 饜剦 |
| 饜剬 | 饜剣 | 饜剤 |
| 饜剭 | 饜剮 | 饜剰 |
As long as I remember, I knew I was adopted. It never was a big deal for me. The official story I heard was that my biological parents died in a war inflicted by Father and he, out of guilt, took me to the palace. I’ll probably never learn the truth. In public, my adoptive parents did not treat me better or worse than the rest of my siblings. Well, Father didn’t show much affection toward either of his daughters. No doubt Mother loved all her children but, as she spent most of her time in the Women’s Wing, she developed much closer connection with us girls. And since it was only me who accompanied Mother to the Facility, our bond grew stronger.
Mother never told me what I should do. She explained what I can do and what could be the consequences of that. I would not go so far as to say that there were no secrets between us. I can’t read Mother’s mind. She is very good at keeping her and others’ secrets. But I have many reasons to believe she has been most open with me. And I strived to return the openness.
As soon as I realised that my and Aster’s relationship is much bigger than that of brother and sister, I shared the news with Mother. She responded, darling, I knew it, but thanks for telling me.
Her reaction didn’t mean she didn’t care. Quite the opposite.
One day she told me, Aster grew up without a father. I suppose you don’t want that for your child. So you two may want to talk through between yourselves whether it’s a good idea to start a family while Aster is in the Maze.
While Aster is in the Maze.
She said it almost casually, as if my lover’s freedom was simply a matter of time.
Then I realised that Mother was not hoping for a miracle to happen but actively searching the ways to achieve this objective. And counting on my help.
As the Fates had it, the Athenian ship brought us the solution. The High Priestess, who at the time combined that post with her position as Head of Intelligence, was in cahoots from the start. To keep the status quo, you have to be open to change, she said. The stranger came to our land to change the status quo. Let’s put him in charge of the status quo.
The show must go on. One Monster in the Maze is quite enough for the purposes of the Programme.
And she was right.
I am writing this as Aster and I are basking in the autumn sun on the desolate beach. He’s dozing off as I caress his African hair. After a stint on the continent, we moved again and now live in a fishing village on a small island far away from both Athens and our homeland. The people are friendly but not nosy; that suits us. Here we are known as The Foreigners and happy to be accepted as such. I keep in touch with Mother. She sends us letters every moon — mind you, separate ones for me and Aster. We read them aloud to each other and laugh. Recently she asked me, do you still play with your toy boy? A bit rich of her, considering.
It’s true that sometimes I still act as an elder sister to Aster. In the past six years, I taught him to swim, to sail and to ride horses. So what? In his turn, he explained a lot of things to me, most of them hardly practical. Like probability theory. But he’s also shown me how to cook — which is great, because I always hated it. I wonder who he learned cooking from. Right now, he is into Italian cuisine and teaches me some simple dishes. He says, it’s the future.
Speaking of which: we don’t plan to have children yet. Aster spends a lot of time fishing, sometimes he’s away for several days. What he earns from selling his catch is enough for the two of us, but only just. For my part, I tried my luck giving private classes and discovered, to my consternation, that there’s no great demand for skills I can teach. There are no cities on this island. Maybe we’ll have to move once again. Wherever we go, it has to be next to the sea.
I used to write a diary in Knossos. Not anymore. Here papyrus is scarce and expensive. Whatever we can get hold of, we use for writing letters. I scribble these notes on a scroll of washed papyrus that I bought at a flea market, still on the continent.
Conversely, the current resident of the Maze has taken to writing, I’m told. When he’s in a mood, he reads selected scrolls to Mother. He calls his work “memoirs”; according to Mother, it’s more like speculative fiction. She encourages him to publish it, under the stylus name of his choice and edited by herself. We’ll see. I, for one, would like to read it when it’s out. I even sent Mother my own suggestion for that name: Asteroid. Don’t you dare, she wrote back.
If our roles were reversed, I would reply with the same words. That Athenian and Aster have got absolutely nothing in common, apart from both being men.
Why did I talk to him that night anyway? The High Priestess advised us just before dinner that there was enough intelligence gathered to confirm the identity of the spy. Yet I felt he deserved the benefit of doubt… until we talked. I saw it in his eyes. He stared at me as if saying, don’t worry, Princess, I’ll be back and I’ll take you. So I cut our conversation short and gave him the skein. By the way, it was Mother’s idea to make his route in the Maze as predictable as possible. In general, to replace his plan with ours. Him following the instructions confirmed what we already knew.
What amazes me is that he bought into our plan hook, thread and sinker. He didn’t even bother to leave any wall marks after him, which was an obvious thing to do. Not that bright for a spy. Mother says, all these years he kept whingeing how I — that’s me — betrayed his trust. Some people got a nerve.
Earlier this year, the High Priestess ruled out that the Athenian will ever be released, good behaviour notwithstanding. All evidence points to him being a serial killer and vigilante, also wanted by the authorities in Athens. So he’ll stay where he is. At least in the Maze he’s got a new identity... and the rest of his life. The Fourth Exercise is going ahead as planned.
It’s funny how you try to get away from it all only to start bumping into people from the past. We met Dead while travelling in Italy. He told us the Island was getting too uncomfortable for him, without going into details. I strongly suspect it was Mother again who organised his escape, however Dead insisted that he had nobody to thank but himself. His latest contrivance supposedly allows one to whizz from the Island to the mainland in a matter of hours. In time, he said, it will revolutionise travel, but for now it’s too expensive to enter mass production. Aster nodded enthusiastically; I thought the old chap was losing his marbles.
In other news, Mother’s long-time dream has come true: she has opened the School of Pharmacy which boasts world-famous lecturers and where she herself teaches twice a week. There were rumours that the Chair of Toxicology was offered to a certain Medea. Mother didn’t confirm or deny that. She maintains that the selection process is still ongoing and strictly confidential. For now they occupy the old Facility but tarting next academic year they’ll move to the purpose-built premises on the waterfront. I’m so happy for her.
Isn’t it strange that these days I think about Mother much more than when I lived in the palace? No, it’s only natural. Back then I was thinking about Aster most of the time. Now I don’t have to.
I never ask about Father, and she never volunteers any information about him. In this, Mother and I didn’t change: we continue blocking him from our minds. I heard from the other sources that he might suffer early-onset dementia. I’m determined not to care.
In her last letter Mother said, Ari, you made your own choice. You could have chosen any free man you wanted. But Aster, he didn’t know any better, or any worse. His only choice has been you. There’s no reason why one should stay with another forever. Now that he is free, he might fall in love with another woman. And you may discover that you don’t want to live with him any more. It’s fine by me. If I were faithful to my husband, there wouldn’t be Aster.
I still did not read this one to him. Should I?
I think I should. There’s also this part that clearly is for the two of us:
I am fed up with you lot addressing me as “Mother” as if there were no other purpose in my life. Stop it. From now on, call me Pasi.
