Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (easy books to read TXT) 📗

that only her eyes showed. She considered slumping or stooping — her height was as distinctive as her red hair — but decided against it. Stooping was unnatural to her and might draw the guards’ attention.

Outside the gates, there were graves on either side of the road. The tombs were crowded at odd angles, some marked with ceramic jars, others with marble posts that shone cream-color in the setting sun. Melisto’s grave was unmarked, but Thratta found it easily. She had come there for the funeral and again three days after, to tend the grave.

The grave would not remain unmarked. Arkadios had ordered a marble slab from one of the finest craftsmen in Athens. He had spared no expense at his daughter’s funeral, and he paid no heed to those who whispered that her death was a punishment from Zeus. Lysandra had beaten her breast and torn her hair, but she shirked her maternal duty: she could not, or would not, prepare Melisto’s body for burial. It fell to Thratta to bathe the dead child and rub her skin with oil. Thratta had dressed Melisto in her white shroud, packing the cloth with sprigs of ivy and oregano.

She hadn’t wept. It was a point of pride for Thratta to shed no tears, and her hands did not tremble as she touched the patterned scars. She felt as if someone had struck her heart with a fist. She had lost a second child. She told herself that Melisto had not been hers to lose. She had not been fool enough to love her master’s child. But she had been forced to tend Melisto, to dodge her questions and try to drum some manners into her. She had come to respect the little girl’s toughness and to value her affection.

Now Melisto was dead. She would ask no more questions and carry no more water. She would never marry or bear children. With that thought came another: it was the restless dead who could be bound to serve the living.

Now Thratta knelt down and unpacked the jars from the basket, sniffing each one to learn what was inside. Mouthing a prayer, she poured the contents on the grave. First milk and honey, then wine, then water. Grasping the knife, she slid back her veil and sawed a lock of hair from her head. She scattered the hair over the puddle of liquid offerings.

Last of all, she removed the lead tablet from the basket. It was palm-sized, but heavy and cold against her skin. The scratches on the surface were faint, and the darkening air made them hard to read — Thratta could not read in any case — but she ran her fingers over them. She had told a scribe in the marketplace what to write and paid him with a coin she’d stolen from her master. She hoped the scribe hadn’t cheated her. It seemed to her that she’d spoken more words than the ones he wrote down.

She licked her lips, remembering the spell. “Hekate, torchbearer, mistress of the dead. And Hermes, Guide of Souls. I bring you milk and honey and water and wine. Find the child Melisto, daughter of Arkadios. Bind her to do my will. Bring her here to serve me.”

The words sounded flat. Perhaps she ought to have sung them. She closed her eyes. “I call you, Melisto, daughter of Arkadios. By Hekate the torchbearer, mistress of the dead, and Hermes, Guide of Souls. And Bendis, goddess of the moon and the hunt; gracious Bendis, remember how I worshipped you when I was a child. Remember the sacrifices my father gave you: the goats, the heifers. Find the girl Melisto and bring her here. Bind her to serve me and set my son free.”

She scraped aside a little of the loose earth, making a hollow for the curse tablet. She spoke the spell a third time, crooning as she covered the lead. “Search for my son. Search for him and find a way to set him free.”

There were no more steps to the ritual. Thratta opened her eyes, put the jars back in the basket, and got up. Now she must make her way to Piraeus, a journey of seven miles, and from there, if the gods favored her, to Thrace. Down in the harbor city, she would find a ship. All she needed was a ship captain who would take her money and ask no questions. There were many Thracians who worked in Piraeus, not all of them slaves. She might find someone who knew her kinfolk. Once she reached her own people, she could prove her rank. She had the tattoos on her arms, the marks of her clan.

She wondered whether Arkadios would hire a slave-catcher to pursue her. If she were recaptured, she would be beaten, perhaps branded and starved. She was gambling on the hope that Arkadios might not have the stomach for revenge. He was deep in grief; he would remember that Melisto had loved her. And she had been careful not to steal too much money. A man of Arkadios’s fortune might not even notice the loss.

She looked her last on Melisto’s grave, picturing the child who lay under the earth. She felt a pang. She remembered the day Melisto broke her arm. She thought of all the times she’d stood by, powerless, as Lysandra vented her spite against her daughter. Thratta picked up her basket and turned to go.

She had not taken three steps when a gust of cold air whirled around her, yanking the veil from between her fingers. Thratta’s skin prickled. Against her will she turned to face the thing behind her.

The girl Melisto stood atop the newly dug grave. She was no longer dressed in her burial shroud, but in the yellow tunic of a Little Bear. The glowing tint of her dress seemed to light up the dusk. Thratta could see every detail of the child’s face. She had always heard that the shades of the dead