Ghost Queen in the House of Love

2. Onia

6. Why be a half-finished poem in some forgotten poet's story, when one can be an odyssey in and of herself, part magic, part villain, part Goddess, part lover.

-Nikita Gill, "Circe"

The snakes around my neck bother me again. Two glittering serpent heads with scales that glimmer silver-gold and eyes that shine sapphire. With the rest of the necklace inside my skin, they protrude above my collarbone and ache.

For the second time this week, blood and pus dribbles on my pillow, collecting in yellow-brown stains. As if the snakes leaked venom. And Cadmus, my husband, sweeping his burnished curls to the side, complains.

"This is disgusting," he says as my handmaiden, Kora, waits at the door, hands clasped over her moon-blue stola. "We must find someone who can remedy this." She has been with me for six years, one of the few to have stayed.

Hair splayed on the pillow, crusted with the open wounds, I say to him. "Yes, my king." If he thinks this inconveniences him, I wonder what he must think of my discomfort. If he thinks of it at all.

When I touch the skin around the protruding serpent heads, I grimace. Swollen and tender. In the body-length washroom mirror, I stare at the skin, red and bruised. Kora undresses me and applies a greasy unguent where it hurts. My skin is soured goat milk with golden ripples dipping in and out, from one shoulder to the other. The snake eyes gleam, burning topazes.

A chiton or stola won't do.

Kora helps me into the curved tub in the center of the golden room, where silver laurels cling to marble pillars. The tub is formed in such a way that the place where I set my head rises far above the rim on the other side.

I'm careful not to lean too much into the porcelain. "I need something like a shawl, to fasten around this." I hover my thumb where the snakes are irritating my skin. After my uneasy sleep, I say, "A chlamys."

The handmaiden bows her head, her auburn hair arranged in a long braid. "Yes, of course. But that is a man's cloak, my lady."

"An epiblema," I say. "Hm. That's it."

After I wash my face with olive oil and honey, Kora helps me out of the bath and dries me. She sprays my body with rose perfume; Aphrodite's blood and Eros' kiss gave the rose its intoxicating aroma. As I sit to the side on a white stool by the vanity, she threads marjoram perfume in my hair, the color of cornsilk with some of the strands silver, and presses palm oil to my chest. She draws my hair into a spiral atop my head, cages it in pins of ivory and bone, and covers it in a net of pearls.

And soon, I stand to be dressed in a silver chiton with a long swath of cloth swooping down; it is dappled with golden lilies and roses. The crown on my head, shaped like a wreath of myrtle leaves, is heavier than usual.

My skin, wan, is pocked red on my cheeks from the warmth of the room. Once, it was a deep olive. But my face is unlined and stopped changing when I entered my twenties. Kora lines my eye with kohl and dusts the lids with gold.

Court is uneventful, petitions over land or the rightful ownership of swine and goats, and the early afternoon feast begins. The dining room, lined with laurel-topped pillars, is a highly arched room with dancing nymphs and dragons and battles epigraphed on the ceiling. Besides the gods' chairs above everyone, all the seating is made of silver. I'm thankful for the cushions.

The air smells thick with marjoram and mint. And, of course, the eight-course meal, more restrained than usual. A boar's head, fish pies, boiled ducks and hares, roasted chickens, and honeyed barley cakes, all seasoned with thyme, rosemary, and olive oil.