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Chapter XLII - Fear Keeps You Alive

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The first person Athena thought of who could help, was her mother.

She bounded, in cat form, across the long field leading up to her house. The evening sun drenched the land in hues of blood.

Before crossing over the final rolling hill, she transformed into a human once more, then wrapped the clothing she had left in the tall strands of grass around her body. Skidding down the hill, out of breath, Athena shrieked: "Ma! Ma!"

Isolde, not two seconds later, tore open the back door, her face twisted in fear. "Athena," she cried, "what's the matter?"

Athena sprinted up the back porch steps and embraced her mother, tears streaming down her face. "Oh, Ma, I've been so, so awful! I let this happen! I shouldn't have let it go on for so long!" The girl buried her head in her mother's apron.

Children crowded around Isolde, watching as their older sister came apart.

"Shoo! Off to bed with the lot of ya!"

They did as their mother told them.

"What happened, Athena? Come inside and tell me."

Suddenly, Athena's eyes shot up and searched around the pale white house. "Is Pa home?" she asked.

"No, he's at work. Why?" Isolde led her daughter into the house.

"He can't know a single word of this—what I'm about to tell you," Athena said, sniffling.

Isolde lifted one of her sleek brunette brows.

"I should've told you both the truth, but I didn't." Athena wiped a tear away, her watery blue eyes glistening in the soft evening glow from the sunset and firelight from the hearth. Her cheeks were blistered red, and she choked and sobbed with each word. "M-Ma, I've been so awful, so, so awful. I've been the worst daughter there possibly could ever have been in the history of daughters," she cried out loud. "This secret only tore you and Pa more apart—our family more apart, and that's the last thing I ever wanted. And now it's just— It's just—"

Isolde wrapped an arm around her daughter and motioned for her to lie down on the settee. Athena lifted her skirts and plopped down.

"Why do you think you've been awful, Athena? I don't understand," her mother said, coolly.

"You'll understand once I tell you—"

"I already know that you work for Sir Claudius."

Athena's head shot up, and her pupils shrank; the blisters healed and suddenly her face turned as white as the walls of the house.

"You're not the only one keeping secrets around here," Isolde said, sighing. "I'm guilty of it, too. I've been an awful Ma." She petted her daughter's soft curly hair.

Athena stared off into the distance, shivering. Her pupils dilated and undilated, in and out of focus.

"I should've told you earlier that I knew, I knew all along."

"When did you find out?"

"When you left the book Sir Claudius wrote you in the living room, I picked it up and read it. I went and visited him the next morning actually—"

"No!" Athena flung herself over, turning away from her mother. "He would've told me! I don't believe you! He would never keep a secret like that away from me!"

"Athena, my daughter, you must listen to me."

"I don't believe you."

"I told Sir Claudius to keep it a secret, or I wouldn't let you keep going there. He was only complying with my wishes."

Athena stood up and began pacing the floor. She gripped her skirts, bit her cheek, and furled and unfurled her brows. "No! No! No!" The girl put her hands over her eyes. "I don't believe it," she wailed, her voice becoming weaker as she crumbled to the floor.

"I'm sorry, Athena. I shouldn't have done it," Isolde said, joining her daughter on the floor. "I was only trying to protect you. I tried to—intimidate him enough so that he wouldn't lay a finger on you. It's not his fault, Athena. It's me own."

"He would never hurt me, Ma. Never."

Isolde looked down at her tired, aching feet, and then back to her daughter. "I know that now."

"I just… I just can't believe that he…" Athena bit her cheek again and tears poured out of her eyes. "He lied. He said he'd always tell me the truth, and…" She sobbed again.

"Oh, Athena, I know, I know." Isolde threw her arms around her daughter and drew her in close. "Men can be… oh, they can be foul creatures."

"You would know better than anyone," Athena said, giggling softly, embracing her mother.

Isolde smiled, and for the first time in years, something shifted within her; the lifting of her lips and cheeks made tears fall out of her eyes. "I would, wouldn't I?" she choked on her tears and laughed.

"I know you were just trying to protect me, Ma. Thank you," Athena said. "I love you, Ma."

"I love you too, my Athena."

"Can you forgive me? For keeping secrets?" Isolde asked, wiping tears away.

"Of course, Ma. Only if you forgive me for doing the same."

Isolde clasped her hands around her daughter's heart-shaped face, which wasn't chubby anymore, but rather defined and womanlike. She brushed away a tear. "Of course."

The two women embraced for a few more moments, sometimes laughing, sometimes erupting into a fit of sobs, but doing it together.

Until Athena jolted up, looking her mother in the eye.

"Ma!" she shrieked. "What are we doing? We've got to go!"

"Go? Go where?" Isolde's head spun as Athena shot up, grabbed her things, and headed for the door.

"We must be on our way to Beochaoineadh Castle! We've got to go! Now!" Athena's eyes were intense and fierce.

Isolde looked back in the hallway where her sleeping children lay in their own individual bedrooms.

"Come on, Ma!"

The older woman looked back and forth, but ultimately, she walked forward, out the backdoor, keeping her eyes locked on the bedroom hallway as she did so.

~❦︎~

Dusk fell around the earth. The rocks beneath the women's feet rumbled as they stepped. Isolde went for the grand front doors, but Athena pulled her around to the side of the castle.

"Trust me, Ma."

They trudged through tall stalks of grass, two sleek figures encased in near-night. Athena climbed up the castle's side until reaching a small hole without a stone. She reached in and tugged at the rock underneath it, but her nerves and trembling took her strength away from her. She couldn't move it. Isolde came to her side and helped shift rocks out of the way, until, bit by bit, an opening big enough for both of them formed.

Isolde stepped forward, but Athena caught her hand. "Ma," she said, "how much do you know about Sir Claudius?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did he tell you, or the púcaí tell you that… he's a—"

"Dragon? Yes."

Color returned to her face. "Good, good." Her shaking subsided, but as she looked forward and saw the heaping mass of black lying on the stone-cold floor within the dungeon, the convulsions returned. "Oh, Ma!" she said, "I can't. I can't." She wept, reaching out for her mother. "I'm afraid to see him this way, Ma."

"What way?" Isolde asked, wrinkles stretching across her brow.

But then, a rustle. From the corner of the dungeon. The rush and whoosh of wings spreading, tail unfurling, scales crackling. The sound of the stone turning once more into scales and flesh.

Athena's eyes lifted; she sprinted toward her loved one, her shoes clacking along the stone floor.

"Claudius! My Claudius!" she called, lifting his chin.

His eyes, once closed, now opened again, and focused in on her. Smoke from his nostrils reached her face and heated her up.

"Claudius," she whispered, in tears. The girl looked to his tail and noticed the silvery stone had receded slightly, but it was not entirely gone.

What could have possibly happened? the girl wondered, astonished at the sudden revitalization of her love.

A hand landed on Athena's shoulder; she jolted.

"It's only me, Athena," Isolde said.

The girl calmed again.

Sir Claudius blinked at Athena, and then—

The dragon stood up, lifting himself off of all four limbs, making echoes in the dungeons as his claws padded onto the stone ground. His big blue eyes landed on Isolde, then went to Athena, before going back to Isolde again.

"Claudius, Claudius…" Athena shushed him, reaching out to one of his forelimbs. "She's here to help, Claudius." Athena's lips were plump and ripe again, and so were her cheeks. Blood ran through her veins once more.

The dragon re-folded his wings, watching Isolde with every move she made. Suddenly, his eyelids fell downward, and there was a pain—guilt in his eyes. If he were a puppy, he probably would have whined. He knew that the truth had been told; Athena knew.

The girl gave him a reassuring smile. "It's alright, Claudius. I know. I know that you…" Her stomach turned over onto itself. "I know you were only trying to—" she sighed. "Ma told me about when you met each other. And I—" her brows furrowed. "I forgive you."

Claudius's shoulders dropped, and his eyes softened. He placed his large head upon the ground at Athena's feet.

Athena smiled. "It's alright, Claudius." She looked down at his tail, which had somehow—

"No!"

She ran to it, and reached out, touching the silver that was now fusing itself into his scales, making his flesh rot like a horrid disease.

"I don't understand…" Athena fell to the floor, crying.

"I think I do," Isolde said.

Athena turned, facing her mother, eyes wide.

Claudius huffed shallow breaths.

"Sir Claudius can only be safe when someone is afraid of him, yes?" Isolde said, looking down at his silvery tail.

Athena's eyes broke open—the floodgates had been set free.

"Yes! Yes, that's it! You're afraid of him and so it must be y—"

"No, Athena. You are."

~❦︎~

Isolde tapped her foot against the stone floor, making dull thud sounds that echoed throughout the chambers.

"I wonder what's taking that tea so long," she said.

Claudius humphed and turned over onto his side. His tail had turned back silver again.

"Poor Athena." Isolde rubbed her temples. "I don't know what I'll do, Sir Claudius. When she started panicking, I- I just didn't know what to do." The woman got up off of the floor and commenced pacing. "I only hope that she doesn't blame herself for your condition."

Claudius groaned and a puff of smoke came out of his nostrils.

"I know, I know. She shouldn't think like that, but… my Athena is just that way." Isolde smiled, looking off into the distance. "When it's someone or something she truly cares about, she'll fight as hard as she can to protect them." Dusting off her dress, Isolde laughed, but with a slight pain in her eyes. "You know, on the way here, Sir Claudius, she asked me to begin praying to the púcaí. Pleading with them to somehow heal you. I tried to explain to her it might not end up the way she had intended, for the púcaí work in mysterious ways. We can't always have what we want."

The dragon grumbled, nodding his head, as if to say, "Well, isn't that the truth!"

Isolde sat down on the floor again, sighing and balling and unballing her fists. "I only wish that— that there were some way to break this curse, enchantment—oh, whatever it is! I know you don't want to terrorize people, nor light forest fires. But, something other than that… something that might could be arranged by my daughter and I." Her eyes flitted about the dungeon, before falling to the floor. "I don't know why I'm becoming so engaged in all of this. Perhaps because it's my daughter I'm worried about. She cares about you more than anyone else, I'm afraid. I think that's why she became so upset with herself when she realized she was the one who was afraid of you—afraid of… your current state." Closing her eyes, she said, "I hate that she blames herself for your issue."

Claudius froze stiff. He had his head and body turned away from the woman while he winced, and his face and body curled and drew up, like a snake before it sheds its skin.

"Oh, where is that tea?"