Thera

Thera

On the morning of the day that Thera erupted, I was trawling the hills, pestering sheep and hitting at the tops of seasquills which dared flail in the wind. My brother Damen was somewhere below, helping clear up a landslide which had covered part of the barley fields to the south. It was the second landslide in as many days. In my little haven of wildflowers, I was oblivious to the dry yellow grasses all around me and the animals which refused to graze.

When all the birds took flight an hour later, drawing a shadow over the yellow and purple slopes, I shaded my eyes and grinned.

The birds flew to Kriti, Mother said, and she wondered if we should do the same. She was in the courtyard with all her women, a frown marring her face as she held a letter. That same week, Mother had written one herself, sealed it and given it to Damen who ran it to the dock. Along the path, people had left flowers and sun carvings to curry Apollo’s favour. The boat left for Delphi at mid-morning and I remember its white masts swarming with gulls as it receded into the east.

The sun was bright all day and we thanked him.

I wandered over to Mother and slouched at her side, regarding the letter she held with little interest. Her arm came around me, the other fumbling with the letter’s seal. She unrolled the paper, her face set as stone. I watched her eyes as they flickered over the message. When she was done, she lowered the paper to her lap with a sigh. There was a smile on her face. Closing her eyes, she kissed my head over and over. Then she looked up at Damen.

‘We stay,’ she said.

Word spread quickly. The young ones made plans to dance naked in the water. Men would weave seaweed necklaces for their loves. Children would be permitted to remain awake far past sunset. It should’ve been a night for celebration.

By midday, the island began smoking from its centre. People swarmed my mother like seagulls that mast, fearful and mistrustful. It pained her but in the end, she acquiesced and sent for five boats.

‘Are we going?’ Damen asked Mother.

She stared at him stonily and Damen lowered his eyes.

‘Do you have no faith?’ she asked.

‘I do,’ he said quietly. ‘But we can’t stop the others.’

A few families left the island. We lost fishers and masons and potters. Mother believed it was that sacrilege which enraged Poseidon and caused him to take up his trident. I believe Mother was a fool.

The smoke caused me to cough, so Mother sent me and Jace inside. I pulled the shutters to and set Jace down for a nap. It was unseasonably warm that day and Jace was grizzly. He fell asleep straight away and I fought to keep my coughs from waking him.

I must have dozed off too for when I next woke, it was to the ground shaking and a shower of dust falling onto my head from the ceiling. I could hear screaming and my mother’s voice. As she opened the door, the far end of the room collapsed in on itself, blinding me with a deluge of rubble and dust. When it settled, Damen began hauling clay tiles away from the part of the room where Jace slept. I think they found him but I wasn’t allowed to see.

The dock when we got there was thronged with people. Many turned and glared at Mother though they still stood aside to let her through. On the sea were fleeing ships, their wood creaking with the overburden of humans, their furniture and their animals. Before we reached the platform where Mother would address her people, she turned and pushed me into the arms of Damen.

‘Take her,’ she bit out, lips trembling with the effort of keeping from crying. Clasped in her right hand was Jace’s shell necklace. ‘Get her on the boat. Let Poseidon grant you mercy, my darlings.’

Before I could utter a word, Damen grabbed my hand and pulled me away.

Our private moorage was tucked away in a slip between two cliffs. I saw the boat bobbing on the current. Damen seemed surprised that it was still there at all.

‘Get in, Iliana,’ he said. ‘Quick.’

I settled on the far bench. My hands were shaking and I didn’t know where to put them. A horrible, panicky feeling crawled up my body. I watched Damen unmoor the boat and seat himself.

He said, ‘I need you to help me row, okay?’

I nodded because that was what he expected. Damen thrust me a paddle and appointed me a side.

‘Row, now. Help me push out the alcove.’

I rowed messily, struggling to match my movements to Damen’s. Soon though, we were rounding the island, on the sea towards the cluster of ships fleeing east.

‘Where are we going?’ I cried. A wind had risen up; it tried to take my words.

‘To Kriti.’

‘Mother?’ Damen ignored me. I asked again, ‘What about Mother?’

About an hour into the journey and I was sobbing from the pain in my arms.

‘Damen,’ I wept. ‘I can’t. I can’t.’

‘You must. We must.’ Damen glanced behind us. ‘The mountain is gathering strength, can’t you feel it?’

I nodded. I could, I could. I gripped my paddle again and kept going.

The first eruption came only minutes after. The boom was deafening. I turned around, watching the smoke rise and rise and rise. Within seconds, it had blotted out the sun.

‘Gods have mercy,’ Damen whispered.

I heard a whistle to my right. Wrenching my eyes away from the mountain, I saw a large boat barreling down on us. It was teeming with people, fifty people at least rowing. I don’t know how the waves were still holding it.

‘Let us take you,’ a man called. I looked to Damen who paused then nodded. He lifted me up. A man pulled me aboard and then reached back for Damen.

‘You’d have never made it in that thing,’ the man said.

I settled myself between the other children, who’d been herded to the middle of the boat. The boat moved far faster than ours. Looking up at the darkening sky, I wasn’t sure it was fast enough.

‘Mother,’ I whispered again.

Ash began floating past in eddies. A young child next to me lifted her hand to catch it.

‘Damen,’ I said. ‘Why are the gods so angry?’

The boat continued to churn up the sea. I lost track of time. I hadn’t looked away from the mountain once but when someone shouted that they could see Kriti, I whipped my head around with the others. The land mass, usually white, was grey and faded on that hellish day. A woman next to me sobbed. ‘Oh, thank the gods. Thank you,’ she said.

People jumped out of the boat before it could be moored, desperate to reach higher lands. To escape the tides, when they came.

‘Ready, Illy?’ Damen asked, before pushing me into the sea. I rose in the water, gasping, choking on seawater and ash. The smoke had followed us.

We scrambled up the hills with the others, eyes set on the palace at the top. Its blood red pillars loomed high through the trees, a beacon for our fleeing band.

I thought I might die before I reached the top. Damen pushed me. I scraped my knees, cut my palms. My heart was beating, too fast, too hard.

We ran into the palace courtyard. There were people lighting candles in the ever darkening day. They ushered us into a hall and barred the door.

Another boom, distant, rang out. Women screamed, men ran to the windows. Damen took my hand and pulled me there too.

It was night, though it was only day. We couldn’t see the mountain, our home. It had been engulfed in smoke; horrible, purple threads of lightening forking through it.

‘Zeus, too,’ I whispered.

Damen pulled me away. He tucked me into a corner and told me to rest. I closed my eyes, hoping Mother would come to me in a dream.

When I next awoke, it was to hushed voices all around me. A wave had hit, destroying part of the palace to the east. The labyrinth lay gaping; the Minotaur had escaped. Fear skittered through me. The Minotaur ate children. I curled into myself, wishing Mother was there.

As I lay there, I thought I could hear it. Hear its loud snuffling, its cloven feet on the cobbles outside, its horns scraping at the door. All the adults had fallen quiet.

The next morning, I couldn’t tell if it was all a dream or not. All I knew was that Mother hadn’t appeared.

They let us outside. The day was bright. It seemed mocking that the sky could be so blue. Ash dusted the ground but it was only paltry. We walked to Knossos’s border, to the edge of the hills. Cyclopes worked there, lugging stone and repairing the palace. At the feet of one, was the body of a bull.

It seemed impossible. I looked across the sea to Thera. Everything seemed impossible.

Next to me, Damen came to his knees and sobbed.

I curled a hand around his head, gripping onto his hair; an anchor. Mother was gone now, so was Jace. My people had no Mother. They glared at me and Damen, now that the immediacy had passed. If only Mother had sent them away, if only we hadn’t angered the gods.

We went back inside, to throw ourselves on the mercy of King Minos, as his home was to be ours now. The Kritians weren’t very kind. They saw me and the other children and joked how it would be us taken down into the labyrinth, and not their children for once. The perfect solution, washed up upon their shores. I wanted to scream at them. Haven’t you seen the bull’s body? Haven’t you?

Damen told me to pay no mind. In seven years’ time, in the wake of the next reaping, I would be too old to be picked anyway. I didn’t take comfort in this, thinking of all of Thera’s younglings. I had to close my eyes and bring up the vision of the dead Minotaur again. It was in closing my eyes in that moment that I felt my first stab of anger towards Mother.

Why Mother, I would think, for years to come. Why Mother, did you not save them?

~

Kriti – Crete

Thera – Modern day Santorini (eruption placed at approximately 1646 BC)

Minotaur – Mythical bull creature in Greek mythology

King Minos – King of Crete, son of Zeus, who sent 14 boys and girls every nine years to the labyrinth to be eaten by the Minotaur

Labyrinth – where the Minotaur was allegedly kept beneath the Palace of Knossos