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Chapter 12205 wordsCompleted

The chapter is a first‑person monologue spoken by a character who identifies herself as Medusa. She describes a growing suspicion, doubt, and jealousy that physically turns the hairs on her head into “filthy snakes,” making her feel foul‑mouthed and fanged. She perceives her bride’s breath as sour and feels “bullet tears” in her eyes. She addresses a “perfect man, Greek God” she loves but fears will betray and leave her, concluding that it would be better if he turned to stone. She then lists a series of vivid, disjointed images—watching a bee, a bird, a ginger cat, and a pig—each accompanied by a random object falling or breaking, emphasizing her chaotic mental state. She looks into a mirror and sees herself as a Gorgon, then imagines a dragon breathing fire from a mountain. The monologue ends with the arrival of the Greek god, described as carrying “a shield for a heart and a sword for a tongue” and accompanied by his girls, while Medusa laments her lost beauty and fragrance.

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Through chapter 12

Little Red-Cap meets a poetic, wine‑drinking wolf at the edge of the woods, follows him into his lair, loses her shoes, kills him with an axe, fills his belly with stones, discovers her grandmother’s bones, and escapes the forest alone with flowers. Three enigmatic queens gather at the palace gates, prophesy a new star and command a scar‑marked chief of staff to launch a ruthless eastward raid against every mother’s son. Mrs Midas recounts a night of chaotic intimacy with a gold‑obsessed lover, their volatile interactions in a domestic setting, and her eventual decision to leave him behind. Mrs Tiresias recounts a surreal tale of a man who returns home transformed into a woman, describing the gender swap, a menstrual curse, and a glamorous encounter with a lover at a glittering ball. Pilate’s Wife recounts watching the Nazarene enter Jerusalem, dreaming of his crucifixion, sending a warning, and later seeing him crowned with thorns and taken to the Place of Skulls; she doubts his divinity while Pilate is depicted washing his hands and believing he is God. Mrs Aesop confronts a pompous suitor, mocks his futile pursuits, and silences him with a brutal fable. Mrs Sisyphus is introduced, delivering a bitter monologue that likens her own loneliness to mythic figures while condemning Sisyphus’s endless toil with the stone. Mrs Faust recounts her marriage to Faust, their affluent nomadic lifestyle, Faust’s moral decline and demonic death, and her inheritance of his vast fortune after making a pact with Mephistopheles. Delilah encounters a scar‑wounded warrior, engages in a violent sexual encounter, then binds him to a door and cuts his hair. Queen Kong, a giant gorilla queen in Manhattan, obsessively pursues a small documentary filmmaker, lives with him for twelve years, then kills and preserves him as a necklace with emerald eyes. Mrs Quasimodo, a new narrator, resides in cathedral grounds, engages in a sexual relationship with a bellringer, and later murders the cathedral’s bells, silencing them forever. Medusa, a jealous narrator, reveals her transformation into a Gorgon with snake‑filled hair, her fear of betrayal by a perfect Greek god lover, and her vivid self‑portrait as a monster confronting his arrival with shield and sword.