March 2026

What Gods Created by Bailey Peters

I’m sure you’ve forgotten about me by now.

I thought about it this morning, and I wondered if you simply enjoyed torturing mortals less fortunate than you, or if there were reasons behind your actions. Something more than your hunger for flesh—if there was logic behind your ruining of me.

I speak with Athena frequently. She makes an effort to answer me despite my reservations since your desecration. I believe it is to convince me that she has blessed me. Strike me down if you must—it would be a blessing to see the gates of Hades—but she still does not know she has cursed me.

For you to understand what you took from me, you must understand more than my visage. You never saw past that, even after all this time. Now you have no choice but to listen.

My mother was a priestess of Athena, and her mother before her, and her mother before her. Naturally, my two sisters and I grew up to be loyal acolytes of the goddess. When my mother left the city to spread Athena’s teachings, we would sleep at the feet of the goddess’s altar in the Parthenon, her temple in Athens. In the mornings, we all swore we felt her hands over us in the night, shielding us. Athena’s temples were trusted far more than our neighbor’s homes.

Much of my childhood is forgotten, besides my time in temples. There was not much outside of these times regardless, but a few memories refuse to leave me. Before consciousness reached us, my sisters and I knew the loom intimately and wove more textiles and tapestries than our age. One time I complimented my sisters’ skill, and one of the priestesses lectured me for an hour. It was the same one my mother would often give me, about Arachne. We were never allowed to forget the woman-turned-spider. It reminded us that the gods were as benevolent as they were wrathful, something I know now more than ever.

There was much expected of us by Athena, as the priestesses put it. The goddess’s biggest expectation of us was complete and utter purity. My family was a long line of adopted women, orphans left to the temple to be raised as the goddess wished. To meet a boy’s gaze at our age was to turn our backs on Athena, so the priestesses made sure to clear us from the space in the Parthenon that any male of age occupied. We kept our heads down in the streets, lest we crossed one of these men’s paths.

Other than duties to the temple, I remember one trip to the beach, with water shining so radiantly it looked as though it were meant for me. Now I know that is not the case. This is the one recollection of my childhood that I wish would vanish every night. Beaches no longer evoke such a carefree response in me, not that I can see any now.

My sisters were announced as priestesses before me, and though they were nothing but pure in Helios’ rays, they were quick to laugh at my slow progression into womanhood. For other girls, womanhood meant marrying and bearing children for their husbands. For those to be priestesses of Athena, it meant officially joining the temple. I had not yet bled at twelve, and my mother feared that I had hysteria. I saw the priestesses more than my own sisters in those early years. The priestesses prayed with me every day to our goddess, asking for her help to heal my body and mend my failing mind. It was at fourteen when my sisters started invoking Athena’s name in our home for my sake.

When I turned fifteen, the priestesses started to bring goats as we prayed. Once a week, the marble flooring of Athena’s temple was stained the color of carmine, and the strong smell of copper would only be completely washed out by the time the next sacrifice arrived. We started offering grains and dinners to the goddess, pouring wine over the feet of her statue. My mother tried to reassure me that my lack of blood would keep men at bay, but soon she started scarcely buying food, and other than sacrifices and necessities she kept coin stashes close. She would not say it, but I knew she was preparing for my death.

The night I realized it, I ran through the dark and over Athens’ flagstone streets into the temple. I sobbed at the statue’s feet and begged for womanhood to reach me, to not let hysteria take me away from my mothers and sisters, nor her temple. I slept there that night, like I had done when my age still possessed single digits. When I woke, my clothes had been stained with the color of goat’s blood, and the temple shouted my name for a month straight, announcing me as an official priestess of Athena.

Athena gave me more than my wish for blood. My smell grew potent, and hair covered my body within months. My figure matured just as my sisters’ had years ago, and I felt myself liberated from the confines of childhood, when my body was my own. My mother pointed out my hair as well, an extra gift from Athena. It grew thick and long, dark indoors and growing lighter as the days became longer. The priestesses said my hair’s beauty was Athena’s reward for my patience.

The new stage of my life was equal parts liberating and suffocating with the expectations of a priestess. I was asked to make tapestries that depicted my crying and bleeding at the feet of Athena. The idea of Athens seeing me in that light made my stomach ache as if I was bleeding all over again, but I did what was asked of me. The new crowds had me making more and more for the temples, and my images of Athena’s battles and history covered the walls. I made one tapestry of a spider and titled it ‘Arachne’. That one was not allowed to be hung.

Men were no longer banished from my presence, and the sight of them was, at first, as though I were a sailor cautiously watching a choir of sirens. Celibacy was a requirement of Athena’s, and we were no longer protected by the priestesses’ warnings of men. They believed they had given us enough lessons on the temptations of men and of Athena’s consequences that it was now our turn to regulate ourselves. My mother reminded me of my gifts, saying men would prey upon me, if any priestess, because of my blessings and hair.

When they saw me flee from the temple to avoid men on the way home, my sisters advised that I watched them on the street. They said it was not temptation that fueled my gaze, but instead curiosity and education. I watched women at first in markets, going about their day and laughing to each other as they bought bundles of fish. I would see mothers with their grown sons and saw more kindness of these men than stories of warriors let me expect. The ones with older women always offered to carry their things and sometimes paid for the items. Men with women were usually quiet and polite, and with other men they were loud and boisterous, though I did not mind their laughter. They never seemed to be alone for long, as men had this innate way of acting as if they’ve known each other all their lives when they met just moments ago.

The only man I saw ever stay alone for long was you. You stood out to me, not because of your physique nor your clothing, nor your features. It was because you stood in the market, buying nothing and avoided men who attempted to speak with you. Our eyes met once, only for a moment, before my head instinctively turned away. Even so, I could not help but be proud of myself for meeting your gaze at all.

As the days went by, I forgot your face. My eyes followed other men as they continued in the market long after your appearance. I did, to my dismay, find some of these men attractive, but my sisters reassured me that this was normal. Our attraction was a test of Athena’s.

Your face never came to mind of the men I found captivating.

The sight of men frightened me less, and conversations with them in the temple became commonplace at seventeen. My sisters and I were not perfect however, and we would often whisper of warriors and their carved calves. We told each other that getting any temptation out verbally was better than slipping to the whims of these men.

You found me again at eighteen. It was common for newcomers to enter Athena’s largest temple frequently, and you were no different. Do you remember it as clearly as I do? Could you not smell the sea mist that clung to your skin, nor see the sand that you tracked in? It was only a second; I smiled and greeted you, then turned away like you were no one special. I imagine it was longer for you, that you stared until I walked from your sight, and you waited for me to recognize you. I did not.

Perhaps you did not even stop staring then. Perhaps you followed, and I failed to notice. I can almost imagine the smell of the sea following me the rest of the day, but I know it is a figment of my imagination. You were the siren I feared years ago, but I was the reason my guard was lowered.

You were handsome and young and all the things I had been warned about, and I knew that. Yet, I did not speak to my sisters about you, though they giggled as they attempted to recall your name. Perhaps you were listening, then. I do not know the extent of your reach, and I do not wish to. Living in ignorance of what your power could be is a mercy.

I remember your face after I rejected you. You dared to point out how I stared at your exposed neck and calloused hands, and in a hasty reaction I told you to cover up. It was natural for men to be mostly bare, and I wasn’t sure where the words came from. All I knew was your furious gaze. Was shame from my words what pushed you over the edge, or would you have waited for me to be alone in the temple regardless? Would you have ravaged me in every outcome? Would you have taken of my body—my most prized of possessions—no matter what I said?

I believe we both know the answer.

Athena saw it, of course she did. You had long left me, tired and shattered on the floor of the Parthenon. At first, I cared little for the light filling the room, only hoping that you had come back to finish me with your trident and I was seeing my final sunrise before Thanatos came for me. But then I was being spoken to by a voice soft as linens and strong as a Spartan.

She sat at the feet of her own statue, all seven feet of her glowing, radiant body holding me as though I were the fiercest of broken warriors. Despite what you had done hours before, my mind stuck on Athena petting my hair, on the pulse of her skin and the ichor below. All I could think, despite our most unholy of connections, was that I was finally seeing my goddess—I made it. The woman who had given me my womanhood and my long hair was touching me, and I wanted to kiss at her feet and proclaim she’d saved me not just then, but all my life, even as I bled.

Instead, I begged. I cried against her armor, and I pleaded that she forgive me for my broken celibacy. She brushed my hair from my face and wiped my tears, telling me that she had already forgiven me. That she would make sure it never happened again.

Your actions followed me throughout the temple. I could no longer greet guests, instead shutting down when men walked in and freezing in the foyer. The only way the priestesses could bring me back was to take me to Athena’s statue, and even then, reality leaked back into my vision slowly. My sisters supported me but were cautious as well. They did not attempt to integrate me back with men, instead starting to host nights for only women to visit the temple so I could walk about with those most devoted to Athena, and there was not a chance of another violation.

Something in me remembered my fear as a child, however. How I would run and hide from men, and how I felt victorious with every glance I could manage their way. You tore me apart, but I was determined to be the one to build myself anew for once.

I told myself that it was Athena giving me strength to sit in the market again, even if it took months of practice to not run from the sound of a man’s voice. For a while, feet shuffling through the market became my target. I would watch the small feet of women, then women and men’s standing close, and eventually willed myself to look at only men’s. The way they walked interested me, strong and confident, but not in the way I had once assumed. Like they were attempting to prove something with each step.

The longer I watched those in the market, the worse I became. I could accept the presence of men again, even if I only watched heels and ankles, but the gift Athena had given me was withering. My hair started to stiffen and matted together in segments, repelling wooden combs and rapidly deteriorating. When I could no longer get my fingers through the locks, I told the priestesses that my reason for veils was to prove to Athena that I was not using her gift to betray celibacy again.

There was an unseen boundary around me that none dare to cross. In the markets people parted for me, refusing to look my way. I could not blame them. My own eyes dragged across the exposed skin of their feet, never rising to their faces. When I sat and watched as always, people rerouted around me, taking longer walks to avoid my once invisible presence. People knew who I was now, and they did not want to take on my sin as their own.

I knew he was a foreigner. His sandals did not give him away, nor was it what I could make of his tunic, it was that he approached me at all. I did not know where my voice came from, but I told him to leave me. He asked if I was alright, and I repeated myself. He asked the question again. Now, I believe he was trying to be a savior, perhaps picturing himself my protector from whoever had harmed me.

But he could not even be his own protector.

Many imagine when I look at them, their feet would solidify first, grounding them and letting dread settle in before their brain was formed solid. It actually starts in the eyes. I get to watch as they have just enough time to widen, just enough time to feel the shock I feel and the pounding in their head before their eyes turn to twin stones. It then spreads out across their face, and for the few seconds they have left, they scream at their sudden blindness. Their lips are made into stone, frozen agape and still screaming even as their tongue becomes rock in their mouth. Their vocal cords go soon after, but the scream feels like an eternity.

Fear racked me at the transformation before myself. My fear of men was forgotten all at once, and I stood to see what monster had reached this man. It was only then that I saw a young woman, her basket of olives dropped to her feet and her trembling finger pointed at me. That was all it took—one person pointing in my direction, no words needed. I was an easy target; the once great priestess who overstepped with Athena’s gifts. I was someone they could justify their hate for. And they weren’t wrong, exactly. I had turned the man to stone, but I hadn’t known. All I felt was our eyes connecting and heard his scream through frozen lips.

The run from Athens was a blur. My legs worked harder than they ever had before, and all along the run I could feel my hair brushing the sweat off my neck and hear hissing behind my ears.

My sisters found me before Athena did, holed up in a cave and smashing my hissing and scaly hair with rocks. They held me while I pressed my eyes shut, telling them to leave, that they would be next. They only became confused but pet my living hair through my veil and pressed kisses to my tearstained cheeks. They would not listen, would not take my warnings and said they would be fine if I opened my eyes.

I was foolish enough to believe them.

I was again a broken woman when Athena appeared in the cave. I held the statues of my sisters, their loving faces now stretched in that same permanent scream. I damned the goddess as she stood before me, no longer caring of her approval and forgetting her wrath. She did not interrupt me, standing tall as I cried of her betrayal. My nails scraped at the stone, and I didn’t stop even as my fingertips peeled and bloody lines were left at her feet.

She didn’t look at me as she spoke, her voice level while I squalled in front of her, as if she were being firm with a petulant child. She told me I was too far gone to save, despite her best efforts to grant me blessings, claiming I would no longer be burdened with priesthood, but that I had served her well, and despite my words and cursing I deserved one more gift.

My sisters shed their solid skin like a sculptor carving marble. They emerged from their stone cocoons with pale eyes and fork-tongued hair, the same as my own. Athena’s last curse was to bring my sisters down with me, with punishments that were not their own.

She spread my suffering thinking it was mercy. Part of me knows she did not mean harm; how is a goddess supposed to know what a being so below her needs? She was a divine being attempting to satisfy an ungrateful spider.

We have tried our best to stay away from travelers, but you know how that has progressed. Men couldn’t control themselves when whispers about heretics in the mountains with snakes for hair and an affinity with turning Athenians to stone with their gaze started to spread. There are less tapestries to my name than the number speeches of glory I have heard. I ask the men why they do not spend their energy on helping those in their towns, no doubt suffering from the afflictions of men that I have felt. They stay silent and charge at me, and as I watch them turn to stone, I know they did not answer because they do not care about protection, they simply want their name chanted through the ages for having done anything in their lives other than being born a man. Now my only company is my sisters and the statues reminding me that I am hated for what was done to me.

Did you enjoy hearing of my suffering? I hope not. To me it has been years since your violation. For you it may have been a mere blink, and you have already done the same to hundreds of other women. Why would I be different? I think that is what hurts the most; not that I am an identical corpse in your long wake of corpses, but that I am nothing in your mind. I have never purposely turned someone to stone, but if I could reach you, I would crawl from this cave and face you standing.

But no. Here I must remain. The last time I heard from Athena, a lover of Hermes was approaching to attempt taking my head next. Perseus, she called him. Perhaps I will greet his sword with my eyes closed and my arms spread. Probably not, though. I am a warrior, I always have been. It is my greatest curse by far.