Four days before the youths would meet Asterion, the pain slipped from my body like water from a tipped pitcher. But there was something new, something of which I could make no sense. I began, involuntarily, to mimic Asterion. First, just in small movements, a twitch of the lip, a shuffle of the foot, a sigh or cough. Asterion still did not notice anything awry. At first I could distract him after copying some inconsequential motion by doing something immediately after, such as moving a piece of furniture or asking him about the weather.

Whatever had been in my mind had disappeared, leaving no trace.

Three days before the sacrifice, I began shadowing him completely. This he could not help but notice. I had no control over my body. I lost the power of speech and could not explain to him that I was possessed by some inexplicable and unseen force. I could not even express with my face my consternation and confusion. Whatever Asterion’s face did, mine did. Identical clouds of astonishment, irritation, and then vexation crossed our visages. I could not fight it physically, and my spirit shortly thereafter followed. Though I was relieved to be rid of the torment of the previous days, this joining with Asterion was uncanny, disquieting beyond compare.

Then two days before the cleansing, my body no longer shadowed Asterion, but, how can I say it, it foreshadowed him. Whatever he was about to do, I did first. If he was going to lie down on the cool floor, I did it first. If he was going to stretch and yawn, I stretched and yawned first. Though our house, it is true, did not follow all the laws of logic, this was of a completely different flavor than Asterion appearing in different rooms of the labyrinth. All those Asterions were also the real, one Asterion. Yet each moved and thought with an individual will, as if the one Asterion was as dense as a hundred people, but without being heavier, without being burdened. They all fit somehow within, simultaneously, in Asterion.

Yes, Asterion had always referred to me affectionately as the other Asterion, but this was taking it too far.

One day passed with me performing every action of Asterion’s in advance. What could I do but surrender? Inside, I began to weep for the loss of my freedom, however limited it might have seemed. What began to take the place of my will was a seed of an unexpected feeling. While I had always had affection and regard for my ward, I would not have said what I felt toward him was what was growing within me. Surely, I thought, this was love. His whole being became something like music to me. Never farther from him than an arm’s length, but never closer, I began to sense that I was fulfilling some new purpose. Once he accepted the new reality, Asterion himself seemed happier than ever. He seemed translucent, and once, when he turned in the late afternoon light, I thought that I could even see through him to the space beyond, for just a moment. A space that seemed to lose all its edges. Perhaps I was becoming Asterion’s soul.