He came for her at twilight. He came with a purpose. Still dripping from the ocean, his bare feet slapped the tiles of the temple, leaving wet footprints shaped like flippers.

He came because he wanted her. He’d seen her on the shore, washing clothes in the ocean. And it didn’t matter that she was a servant of Athena. It didn’t matter that she was wed to her work. And it didn’t matter that she didn’t want him. Poseidon wanted her.

And Poseidon always got what he wanted.

He came for her and he took her—right there in the temple. Right there on the tile, her sisters scattering like geese. Barnacles and coral sprawled around his biceps and calves and cut her, cut her clothes and her skin, leaving her with long deep gouges and staining her white robes red.

But she didn’t feel them.

She didn’t feel it when Athena returned, angry, not at him, but at her for letting him.

Letting him. Athena’s words, not hers.

She didn’t feel it when Athena screamed, cursing her beauty. She didn’t feel her hair, the long curling locks writhing until they rose around her face, shifting from dark strands to dark snakes that hissed and twisted against her neck and scalp. Never settling. Constantly moving.

Her friend, whom she’d known since she was six, found her bleeding on the floor of the temple and pulled her to her feet. Her friend flinched at the snakes but turned her over, pulling her to her feet, turning her face to hers with a gentle hand.

She didn’t feel it when, in the midst of her friend asking what and how, in the midst of speaking her name, her sweet friend, her best friend, had frozen, eyes locked on hers.

She didn’t feel it when her friend’s face turned gray, her features hardening to stone, beginning with her head and traveling downwards, her body eclipsed, until she was nothing but a silent statue.

Her friend, now just another stoney tribute in Athena’s temple, was the last person to say her name. Her old name. Her dead name.

She supposed it was only fitting. She wasn’t that girl anymore. And she wasn’t a woman either. She was something else.

Medusa, they called her.

Medusssssaaa, they hissed.

Monster, Madwoman, Mayhem, they called her.

She felt their hatred, but she didn’t care. Their hatred didn’t matter. She felt her power and lack of. Her power to turn all her enemies to stone, and her powerlessness to have anyone close to her ever again. She couldn’t keep them safe. Not from herself. Powerful, and completely without power. This was her miracle. This was her curse.

But the worst of it was the birds.

Big, beautiful, birds of prey. The hunters.

They were drawn to the snakes. They couldn’t help themselves.

A quick meal, they thought. An easy meal. They came at her, their giant wings outstretched, their talons reaching. Merlins and vultures. Golden hawks and snowy owls. They came, and when their eyes met hers, they stayed, dropping out of the sky like falling boulders from a cliff. They decorated her home like gargoyles, and roosted silently, their flight forever suspended.

Even though they came for her, her deepest wish was to reverse the curse so that they could fly again. So that they could hunt again.

But until then, she would do the hunting. And the waiting.

Hunting and waiting for the day that he would emerge from the ocean once more, his feet slapping wetly against the smooth stone of her home.

On that day, she would come for him. She would hunt him. And he would be her last statue, her last prey. The last to say her name. And the last to fall silent.