4.6 In Achaea

In which Atropos reaches the end

Atropos swam as a fish and flew as a bird.

Sometimes Zeus spoke to her. She sheltered as a gnat on a cow’s tail, and the wind blew her, knocking her into its muddy hair. She rose as a flycatcher on the wind as the moon set, and was harassed by bats, angry at her trespass. She burrowed into soil as a worm, but felt the blade of a spade slice past her head, and lift her up, throwing her back into the field again. Even as a fish she felt pursued, constantly keeping clear of reaching tentacles and snapping teeth.  The threat was never annihilation, just relentless pursuit.

‘I will never let you escape,’ Zeus purred at the hole in the wall in which she was hiding as a mouse.

‘You will see reason in the end,’ hissed the lizard in the grass to the grasshopper.

‘Where are the shears?’ shouted the waters, slapping against the stone jetty where the dragonfly rested.

‘Where have you hidden them?’ roared the rocks in the waterfall at the head of the cliffs where the falcon hid, exhausted. To be a bird was now the only shape she could manage: she was always too tired for the others.