“dear, dear, my darling sweet,” he murmurs, wrapped around her possessively in a sun warmed bed with sex warmed sheets. “i cannot bear to live without you,” he tells her, a lock of hair curled around his finger, “so i will grant you immortality. stay with me in my palace forever, won’t you? every day can be like this.”
she adores him— of course she does. nary be there a woman not tempted by the gods! he makes her feel giddy and bright. she is sweet as a honey bee’s labor, as dark and dependable as the earth she loves to work. she is naive when it comes to love, but of course she doesn’t know so.
immortality sounds like the sharpest of thorns, but she would do anything for him. her whole life has taught her she should.
for the first few days, she believes them to be servants. it isn’t until he brings another into her bed that she understands what’s happened. immortality does not bring godly powers, but hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. she doesn’t blame the other women, could never, but nor will she acknowledge them. she gathers what few things she has and leaves.
she is only seventeen, and will now forever be so. she retires to a cottage in the woods, with only nature and its caretakers for company. she grows bitter as a cold season’s night; the bees are asleep, if not dead. no work can be done in the winter of her soul.
months pass. he aquires women like some aquire clothes, and she finds herself disgusted. “he’s married,” a druid whispers, braiding daisies into her hair as a snake rests in her lap, “but only in name. she won’t look at him, either.” the unspoken words are there: she’s right in her anger, and no one thinks any less.
only days later a doe-eyed, soft-cheeked girl shows on her doorstep. “they told me i’d find you here. that you— that you can’t stand it, either.” the girl has the look of new immortality; she can almost smell it, the way a baby smells of milk.
the woman was nineteen, she learns. she’d be eighteen now herself if years still mattered. the woman’s name is mary. the woman asks if she can stay with her for awhile, asks for her name. “eve,” she says, warmth blooming in her chest. “but friends call me honey.”
