A Terrible Beauty by TASHA ALEXANDER Read Free Book Online

expression that the guilt he had felt at having married his best friend’s widow, even after a decent interval, had resurfaced. Not that he regretted our marriage, just that he wished, as did I, that our love had not been born from loss. I decided to follow Jeremy’s advice and did not mention to my husband that I thought I had seen Philip. Why cause the dear man any unnecessary pain?
    *   *   *
    We passed several more pleasant days in Athens before setting off for Delphi. We took the train to Corinth and then a steamer to Itéa, where we hired a dragoman and horses, the means of transit upon which one must rely when traveling in the interior of the country. As we were all excellent horsemen—and -women—this proved no obstacle. We did not require the dragoman’s services as a translator, but welcomed his guidance as to route and would rely on him to find us suitable accommodations in the nearby village when we reached Delphi.
    The site was fewer than nine miles from Itéa, and our chosen route took us away from the carriage road and onto a narrower path that had been traveled since antiquity. At least I chose to believe it had; I cannot be entirely confident in the accuracy of my claim, and apologize to the reader for the enthusiasm that consumes me when traveling in Greece. While there, I like to believe I am always following in the footsteps of the ancients and imagine that the path under my boots might previously have been trod by Agamemnon or Pericles or one of the great ancient playwrights. Sometimes one must give in to romanticism.
    As the path grew steeper, our pace slowed. Eventually we approached the ruins of the ancient Temple of Apollo, from whence the Delphic Oracle had made her prophecies. Craggy Mount Parnassus rose up behind it, its rough surface and dramatic angles giving it the appearance of only just having been thrust from the fiery core of the earth. Leaving the horses with our dragoman, we walked along the road taken by ancient supplicants, passing the ruins of various city treasuries, and winding up the side of the mountain to the temple, where a scant six of its original fifteen Doric columns remained. Only one still reached its original height.
    We paced the floor of the structure, wondering where, exactly, the inner sanctum of the oracle had been—only she, the Pythia, was allowed into the adyton, where she would enter into a trance before speaking Apollo’s words. After thorough exploration of the area—I remain convinced the adyton was beneath the main level of the temple—we continued on to visit the theatre and the stadion, both used during the Pythian Games, held every four years to honor Apollo, who, when four days old, had gone to Delphi and slayed Python, the beast who had wreaked havoc on the surrounding environs for years and tormented Apollo’s mother, Leto. While Colin and Margaret ran the length of the stadion’s track, he graciously letting her cross the ancient marble finish line first, Jeremy and I stood in the stands on the side nearer to the edge of the mountain, looking at the expansive view before us.
    â€œYou can see why the ancients believed this was the center of the world, can’t you?” I asked. In the valley below, olive groves shimmered silver all the way to the sea visible in the far-off distance. Violet-blue mountains rose, rolling above them, not nearly so jagged as Mount Parnassus. “Standing here, it feels impossible to believe there is anywhere more important.”
    â€œIt is stunning,” Jeremy said. “But I must say, Em, I’m awfully glad you weren’t in charge of planning my ill-fated engagement party. You’d have brought us here and it would have been the simplest thing ever for Amity to fling me to my death. She wouldn’t have had to try to shoot me.”
    â€œYou don’t think Apollo would have protected you?”
    He shrugged and lit a cigarette.