Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (phonics books txt) 📕

to tell you about that. Now, while the boy sleeps,

is as good a time as any.

You remember Thratta, don’t you?

She was called Meda when she was a girl.

I like to think of her as Meda. Last time you saw her

she cast her spell, binding

the girl she kept from loving

to the boy she loved.

Then she hightailed it to the harbor,

with a fistful of stolen money. As god of thieves,

who am I to judge? She had a plan:

board a ship to the Black Sea,

bribe the captain,

home to Thrace and freedom!

Unlucky Meda!

A storm blew up and the ship went down;

she was bound for a watery grave.

I was on call; I am Hermes

who succors the dying. High on Olympus

I tied on my sandals, adjusted my cloak;

Downward I plunged with my wand in my hand,

dodging the lightning:

Thunderbolt, sea spittle, silvery froth on the wine-dark sea.

There she was: waterlogged, gulping down salt water, drowning.

I caught up her hand — and I yelped:

Yeeeowwww!

Gripping her hand was electric, like grabbing a stingray!

All of the wrongs she had suffered —

tingling, crawling under my skin!

What kind of life had she led,

this ill-fated Thracian woman?

Kidnapped, enslaved and dishonored,

robbed of her five-year-old son? . . .

I knew my mission: to usher her down to the House of Hades.

Show her the way

and gentle her pain

with the touch of my golden rod —

But I’d had a shock.

And I had an idea.

And I’m not a predictable god.

So —

Deftly I parted her fingers. Then fused them:

tendon and knuckle,

tissue and bone;

Magicked and molded the pliable flesh,

like a pastry cook rolling out dough.

Fastened my palm to her face —

strong as an octopus sucker;

Dragged her jaw forward, creating the beak —

multiplying the teeth.

Stabbed with my thumbnail the crown of her head —

air sac! and blowhole!

and echolocation . . . !

All of this time she was watching me

glassy-eyed

fearless and wonderstruck.

Memory was drifting away from her:

anger

and anguish

and loss.

Next: underwater. I sleeked my hands over her muscular sides

(O gloss of obsidian!)

Fashioned her innards: adjustable rib cage,

a three-chambered stomach,

collapsible lungs.

I sculpted her belly —

it shone like an opal,

taut as a tooth, and pale as a cloud,

gray/pink/iridescent —

Magnificent craftsmanship!

Even Hephaistos

that gloomy perfectionist,

Even Praxiteles

would have been proud!

Next was her back —

the storm was receding.

I ran my hand over her salt-crusted skin,

shifted the vertebrae,

fashioned a flap out of cartilage,

sculpted it

— not like a sickle, but more like a sail —

triangle, signal and fin.

After the fin, the peduncle; tapered and powerful,

flattened her feet and spread them out wide

w i d e

like the sticks of a fan,

bone into cartilage: fleshier

flashier

O, what a fluke!

Flicking her tail, she rose to the surface, seeking the sunlight.

Bowing and bobbing her head, an additional curve

in the infinite sea.

Whistling and hooting, she went on her way:

a free thing, seeking her playmates.

That’s how she left me:

arching and frolicking,

thankless!

finding her place in the pod;

No one but me would have thought of it —

I am a genius as well as a god!

1. PHOIBE

The only one I liked was the donkey.

She was the only one

I didn’t have to respect. They called her Grau,

which is what you call a slave woman

who’s too old to call girl.

Grau means hag.

She wasn’t such a hag. That first night in the shed,

I heard her shifting and snorting. Once she brayed

and I almost jumped out of my skin. Once she pissed:

a sound like rain.

The whole shed stank. Old urine

half-rotted manure

and moldy straw.

A little before dawn, I thought I’d better get up

before the master woke me

with a kick, maybe.

I went to the donkey’s head and spoke to her.

Her ears swiveled; she was listening.

I untied her halter

and led her out into the dawn.

I’d feared the worst.

I feared she might be old or broken-down

and it would be my job

to flog the last years of work out of her.

She wasn’t such a hag. She had supple knees,

clean bones. She was dark gray,

but the fur around her eyes was pale,

and the inner corner of her eyes was black

as if she’d been weeping black tears.

Her eyes were clear and patient.

She had sores all over her back —

mats of fur and dried clay.

Her feet weren’t clean. There’s a smell

when a horse’s hooves are sickly.

If Georgios lifted a hoof and caught a whiff of that smell,

it meant a good beating for someone

and I can’t say I blame him.

You don’t get that smell from a day’s neglect,

but from filth underfoot all the time.

A horse is only as good as his hooves.

Even a donkey is worth something.

I plucked her grass from the courtyard

and she nuzzled my hands.

I plaited clean straw and rubbed her down,

loosening those mats.

She was smart. Right away,

she knew I wasn’t going to hurt her.

I told her I was in charge of her now,

and I was going to keep her clean

and get a good hard floor under her feet at night.

Her clownish ears

flicked back and forth

catching every word I spoke.

There was a shovel leaning against the shed,

so I got started on her stall.

I was at work

when my master came out in the courtyard.

He stopped in mid-stride

and turned to look at me. It was light by then

and he’s an ugly man.

I heard the words come out of my mouth

before I could stop them.

“Her stall’s too wet. A donkey’s feet are like sponges.

She’s got to have better footing.

A donkey is only as good as its hooves.”

He frowned. “Pyrrhos — ”

he was silent for a moment, thinking —

“You sound like you’re accusing me.

You’re quick to speak up for yourself. I don’t like that.

You have something to say, you watch me;

wait till I’m ready to listen.

You don’t speak up any time it suits you.

You wait until I speak to you. Do you understand?”

I stared at the ground.

When he said Pyrrhos

I forgot that was me.

“Go on, then.”

He walked away from me

and started talking to Kranaos

about the kiln.

Which is something that you can talk about for hours,

but I didn’t know that, the first day.

I didn’t know how pots were made.

I couldn’t imagine all the things I was going to learn,

or the backbreaking work ahead. That first morning,

when we were about to sit down to eat,

I heard Zosima whisper, “Don’t be too hard on