A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Cover

A couple of weeks ago, the wondrous Erik Mohr did several cover mock-ups for me—all of which made their way to me for comment. One was utterly, immediately right; another was absolutely lovely. The resounding first choice was nixed, utterly and immediately, because it wasn’t Young Adult enough. For those of you who might not understand what that means, take a look at this blog entry. What you’ll see is photo-realistic bodies and body parts, plus a whole lot of indigos and turquoises.

So: no to Erik’s fresco cover, which I adored. On to the purely lovely choice, which was a landscape: a mountain-with-lightning-bolt, a meadow, a winding stream (see previous post). “Huzzah!” Chizine and I exclaimed, both aloud and on Facebook. “This is it!”

Except that it wasn’t, because this cover was, according to yet more YA experts, “too static.” We needed a figure, and tauter font arrangement. I, who had just thrown the cover online, felt both chagrined and panicked. After about three minutes, I fastened on the only thing of which I was certain: the figure had to be my Minotaur. (In fact, I was certain of another thing: Erik.)

A week later, here the Minotaur is, in front of the mountain-with-lightning-bolt. He’s a figure, all right. His body parts are teenage boy and bull; he has verdigris on his head (and I LOVE this: it evokes the ancient agelessness of Knossos); he’s crouched, half-shifted, in an attitude that would be all coiled aggression if it weren’t for his slightly lowered muzzle. He’s my Asterion, and I’m so glad that those experts led us to him.

Asterion was standing before the double-axe pillar. He was naked and glistening with oil; he looked like a golden creature that had just pulled itself out of the sea. A priestess was kneeling before him, holding up a lamp. He lifted his hands. Chara bit her lower lip; she always did, at this point in the rite, because the first time she had seen it she had gasped, and the queen had glanced over at her. He passed his hands slowly through the shuddering tip of the flame. He did not flinch. Just this one pass was enough: he fell forward onto his hands and knees and changed, swiftly and silently, as the priestesses poured libations on the stone around him. He stamped his hoofs and his heavy head swung back and forth on his neck…