sprung fountain slowed to a dribble and then dried up, leaving a dark stain like old blood upon the floor. “Or maybe I lost it when I twisted off my son’s head. Either way, I belong to the Vine God now.”
“What about your immortal soul?” asked Mab.
“Don’t know.” The maenad tasted the stew from a long wooden spoon, washed it, and continued to stir. “We didn’t know about such things back then. If you ask me, souls are a new invention.”
“Humans have always had souls,” Mab countered. “They can be good or evil, but they can’t be lost, in the sense that you mean. Once a human, always a human, at least at some level. Not like me and the mermaid here.”
“Hey, don’t drag me into this,” objected Morveren, who had removed her headphones. “I might have a soul. My father was a Cornishman named Matthew.” She pouted thoughtfully, her girlish chin tilted upward, a finger twirling her red tresses. “What does a soul do for you, again?”
“It’s the part of a human that allows him to remain who he is. Even if his situation changes, he can always find his way back to his original self,” Mab said. “Unlike us supernatural creatures. If we change, our very natures transform. We have no essential self to fight off external influences.”
A chill ran up my spine. Did Father know this? I thought of the stacks and stacks of naked Italian bodies, lying like corpses in the caverns beneath my sister Logistilla’s house. If I was right, Father intended them for the Aerie Ones, so they would all have bodies like Mab’s and could develop human judgment and feelings, as Mab had. But what would be the point if the Aerie Ones would automatically revert to their old ways the moment they returned to their original airy forms?
Surely, Mab’s seeming humanity, his kindness, his gruff concern, was not just a side effect of his fleshy body?
Thinking of Father reminded me of another of his projects, his translation of Orpheus’s poetry in an attempt to decipher the Eleusinian Mysteries.
I turned to Agave. “You’re a maenad. Were you involved with the death of Orpheus?”
“I was there.”
“Why did the maenads kill him?”
“Why did he have to die?” She picked up the pan and gave her wrist a twist. The sautéing vegetables flew into the air and came down again. “He was a prude. He spoke out against our rites, always preaching temperance and moderation and other hogwash. Besides, he knew secrets the gods did not want men to know.”
“Like how to get reincarnated without losing one’s memories?” I asked.
“Yes, like that.” She gave me a sly, calculating look, and her hair began to rise up like a cat’s.
Mab quickly changed the subject. “These Post-It notes everywhere, what are they for?”
“To remind the master of things he may have forgotten.” Agave turned back to her cooking, her hair flattening.
“A bit of overkill, don’t you think? He’s goofy, I grant you, but his memory problems seem a bit exaggerated. Everyone talks about it, but I’ve seldom seen him actually forget something.”
“That’s because Miranda is here.”
“Huh?” Mab peered at me suspiciously. “How so?”
“Just seeing members of his family reminds our master of all sorts of things. He’s much worse when they’re not around, especially when he gets into one of his morose moods. Sometimes, he can’t remember a thing for days. Not even his name.” Under her breath, she murmured, “He could use a bit of Orpheus’s wisdom, if you asked me. One too many sips out of the Lethe.”
“What was that?” Mab snapped.
“Nothing.” She tossed the vegetables again.
Mab frowned thoughtfully but did not pursue the topic.
The mermaid tilted her head and sighed. “Phisty. He’s so dreamy! I’m so glad he’s home and has his staff back! I missed him!”
“Couldn’t he just have come back to this house and visited you?” Mab asked.
Morveren shook her head. “We don’t live here year