Doctor Alana Bloom strides purposefully through the halls of the FBI headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. She is blissfully unaware that the faint scratches on the floor beneath her feet were made just hours before by a killer's heels, and the thought that she is about to come face to face with the killer herself does not worry her.
Alana has had her fair share of dangerous patients, but she has always retained her poise and confidence, both of which radiate from her as she walks, turning the heads of many of the male employees who pass her as well as several of the female ones. She is dressed in a crisp, patterned skirt and deep crimson sweater, a uniform completed by her near-constant expression of gentle severity and her practiced smile, the trademark of a psychiatrist.
"Doctor Bloom, glad you could make it on such short notice," Jack Crawford says, grinning his gap-toothed smile as Alana reaches the door to the interrogation room. He politely hands her a number of files, which Alana skims over before tucking them under her arm. Will Graham stands a few feet behind Jack, looking like he is somewhere else entirely. He declines to greet her, and Alana is both thankful and a trifle disappointed. "She's all yours," Jack says, gesturing to the door. He and Will slip silently into the observation room, and Alana takes a deep breath before softening her expression and opening the door.
Once inside, the familiar sight of plain, blue-gray walls greets her, as well as the sheen of a wide mirror, on the other side of which she knows Jack and Will are watching the room with steady eyes. In the middle of the room there is a smooth steel table and two chairs. A young, dark-haired woman sits on the other side of the table, staring at her knees. She looks up when she hears the creak of the door, and Alana decides that her face is rather plain, but the kind of plain that can become astonishingly beautiful with the proper care and presentation.
"Would you like something to drink?" Alana asks, settling into her seat. The woman shakes her head wordlessly. Okay, Alana thinks to herself, laying the files down on the table. "Detective Tracy Hicks," she says, "you moved to Ravensworth, Virginia, about a year ago, is that right?"
The woman nods, then, when Alana continues looking pointedly at her, she whispers, "Yes."
"And before that you lived in… Hyde County, North Carolina?"
"Yes."
"Why did you move?"
"My… My sister got a job here."
"You live with your sister, Dinah Hicks, correct?
"Yes."
Alana selects a cream-colored file and opens it, deftly spreading its contents across the tabletop.
"Now," she says, settling her elbows on the table. "Where were you the night of November fifteenth?"
"I want you to interview the sister," Jack says to Will, "find out if she knows anything. If you leave now, you can get there before dark."
Will thinks to himself that he will also be missing his appointment with Doctor Lecter, just as he has missed last week's. The thought concerns him more than usual, but he decides that the case is more important. He nods to Jack before leaving, but the special agent's eyes never leave the two women visible behind the one-way mirror.
"I was getting dinner at a restaurant," Tracy Hicks is saying as she twiddles her thumbs beneath the table. Alana glances at her file.
"At the Corsica Restaurant in Quantico?" She asks amiably. Jack thinks to himself that Doctor Bloom is in possession of a truly magnificent voice. Pleasantly husky, it makes a person want to trust her, a truly excellent attribute for someone in her profession.
Tracy nods. She is being extraordinarily obedient, Jack thinks, for someone who just a few hours earlier sprinted halfway across the building in thirty seconds flat. A dark purple bruise is forming on her chin, the only visible reminder of her encounter with Will Graham.
"And at what time did you encounter Martin Bishop?"
"I guess it was about an hour after I got there, so about nine o' clock."
"Late dinner," Alana observes. Tracy doesn't respond. "Did he tell you that he was married?" Bloom continues.
"I saw the ring on his finger, if that's what you're asking," Tracy replies. "He took it off once I noticed it."
"And this didn't bother you?"
"It wasn't like I was going home with him."
Alana looks at Tracy with a critical eye before she picks up a file and begins to leaf through it.
"Three months ago," she says, "You purchased twelve green-fletched yew arrows from the Telstar Sporting Goods store in Raleigh, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"One of these arrows was used to kill Martin Bishop on the night of November fifteenth," Alana says, punctuating the statement by removing a photograph and sliding it across the table. Tracy gives it a cursory glance before looking away. Jack sees her Adam's apple bob in her throat as she swallows.
"We found a similar wound on Richard Booth," Alana continues, sliding a second photograph towards Tracy, who doesn't bother to look this time. "We have a witness who places you at the Old Salem Street Bar on the night of December second, where Richard Booth was last seen." Alana clasps her hands and leans forward on her elbows. "Do you want to tell me what happened on those two nights?"
Tracy continues to look at her hands for another handful of seconds. Then, Jack sees her inhale and sit up straight, looking Alana Bloom in the eyes for the first time.
"If you wouldn't mind," she says evenly, "I would like to talk to a lawyer."
Medusa was once a fair maiden with hair like flax and fine green eyes. A priestess of Athena, she had taken a vow of celibacy, much to the displeasure of her aspiring suitors. The most prominent, Poseidon, the Earth-Shaker, wooed her anyway. At this point, interpretations of the myth become divided.
According to Ovid, Poseidon, on the floor of Athena's temple, rapes Medusa, which, according to Perseus, is a crime befitting the punishment Medusa later receives. When the story is told to children, this violent assault is instead portrayed as a willing marriage. Medusa purposefully violates her vows, and Athena's rage is justified.
No matter the telling, Medusa's punishment remains the same: she is cursed so that her once-beautiful face becomes so hideous that all who look upon it turn to stone, and her golden hair becomes a nest of writhing snakes. This, in the eyes of the Greek hero Perseus, is a fitting punishment for being a victim of rape.
This myth is a sharp contrast to that of Diana (or Artemis) and Actaeon. When Actaeon attempts to force himself on Diana, the goddess punishes him, transforming him into a beast. Why, then, does Athena, another virgin goddess, a goddess of war only when it is waged for just causes, punish a victim? Some say it is due to Athena's unresolved conflicts with her father, Zeus, but what if Medusa's petrifying visage was not a punishment, but a gift?
Athena could not enact vengeance against Poseidon, her uncle, brother of Zeus and god of the mighty oceans. But she could make sure that no other man would ever harm her priestess again. And so she gave her a weapon – a head of serpents to bite and poison the man foolish enough to come near, a face that will turn her enemies to stone. Is it so hard to believe?
Could Tracy Hicks be a Gorgon, in her way? If so, who created her? Who could create such a monster? Who could create the need for such a monster? Where do we look to find Athena and Poseidon? They are there, above you, standing beside Actaeon, Cupid, Bacchus, and Danaus, their arms outstretched above the stage, each flick of a finger pulling a string and moving the puppets below.
Will Graham drives, and, as he drives, he thinks. He recalls talking to Tracy Hicks a mere three-and-a-half weeks earlier. He remembers how she told him, a spot of color reaching her cheeks, that she had no talent for archery, no talent at all. Will is positive now that she was simply bluffing – the wounds found on Martin Bishop and Richard Booth testify that the arrows that made them had been shot with near surgical precision – but he cannot shake the feeling that he is missing something important.
When he finally reaches the Hicks household, it is twilight, and the sky is blue-gray above the dense woods that surround the house. The building itself is quaint, albeit a rather sad example of Colonial Revival architecture. It reminds Will a little of his own house, but the porch here is smaller, the atmosphere less inviting.
Will exits his car and is met with a cold wind. He shivers, wrapping his coat tight around him, and walks up the stairs to the porch. The paint on the columns is chipping, and Will runs a thumb over one before pressing the doorbell. He hears a rustle behind the door, then footsteps, and then the door swings wide to reveal a woman in her forties with wiry dark hair and an accommodating smile.
"Dinah Hicks?" Will asks. The woman's resemblance to Tracy is striking, so the question is a formality.
"That's me. What can I do you for?"
"I'm Will Graham. I'm with the FBI." He flashes the woman his badge.
"Ah, you must work with my sister," the woman says, "Come on inside; it's colder than belly-blue hell out there." She waves Will inside. "I was just about to put the kettle on," she says, closing and locking the door, "is Earl Grey fine with you?"
"Yes, thank you."
The woman bustles off to the kitchen, leaving Will standing in the hall. He begins to remove his coat but hesitates when it is halfway off his shoulders.
He has the peculiar feeling that he has just stepped into a bear trap.
