by Alicia Fabel
“Welcome to our home,” greeted a second nymph. Vera had not even noticed her until she shifted away from the cave wall.
Vera did a double-take at the wrinkles lining the nymph’s face and her stooped shoulders. Old nymphs weren’t a thing. Every single one of them was in the prime of their life and gorgeous.
“You are sure no one followed you, Airlea?” the old nymph asked the younger one.
“I know how to cover my trail. I’m not a sapling.”
“I didn’t say—”
“I’m sorry,” Vera cut. “I’m not sure why you brought me here, but I need to help my friend.”
“Addamas. Yes, we know,” acknowledged Airlea.
“This cave is the entrance to hundreds of secret tunnels,” revealed the elder nymph. “They reach throughout the entirety of this mountain. We can get you in without anyone knowing and out again.”
“Oh. That’s helpful.” Vera was impressed and also confused, to be honest. “Why are you helping me?”
“For Addamas,” replied Airlea. “He’s always been kind to our people.”
Well, that made sense. “So, do you have a map? Or should I just take the first left and then a right?” Vera prompted.
“Addamas is not where you can get to him,” said the elder nymph to Vera’s consternation. “He’s facing the Aegis’s punishers at the moment.”
“Then, I need to get to him now.”
“That’s not possible,” the old woman said calmly. “One whistle and you’d happily chain yourself up beside him. You have to wait until he’s moved to a cell.”
“What if they kill him first?” asked Vera.
“The Aegis promised Idan that he would not.”
“How do you know what he promised Addamas’s father?”
“I listen,” said the old nymph. “The mansion’s walls are not as thick as the Aegis believes.”
“And your tunnels are on the other side of those walls, I take it.”
The nymph offered a sly smile. “One can learn a lot by wandering my tunnels.”
Vera bit her lip then decided to go for it. “How long have you been wandering these caves, exactly?”
“Nearly a hundred years,” answered the nymph.
“I didn’t know nymphs lived that long.”
“Oh, we live longer than that.” The old nymph nodded at the younger. “Airlea is my elder sister.”
“Really?” Vera wondered how to go about asking why Airlea looked like her great-granddaughter then.
“Yes, Delia is the baby of the family,” Airlea confirmed. “And the most rebellious—she was spoiled as a child.”
“And somewhere above, in that satyr pit, is likely our mother and grandmother,” said Delia
“Likely? You don’t know?”
“They forgot about us when we were only babies,” explained Airlea. “We never knew them.”
“They just kept living here and abandoned you?” Who does that?
“They don’t have a choice about where they live,” said Delia. “We are all bound to the fountain and not able to leave this mountain.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Most people do not.” Delia looked older by the minute. “None of the nymphs above remember, that’s for sure.”
“It seems like that’s something they should want to remember.”
“It is not their fault,” said Airlea defensively. “You would rather them die?”
Well, that escalated quickly. “Whoa, I wasn’t saying that at all.”
“I’m pretty sure our strange friend here doesn’t know how our kind works.” Delia laid a soothing hand on Airlea’s arm. “We are immortal in a way, did you know that?”
Vera shook her head. She wondered if Addamas knew.
“We age, but when we are injured—”
“Which happens much too easily with that pack of man-whores living on our mountain now,” piped in Airlea.
“Yes,” Delia said solemnly. “But to be fair, they do not realize our history any more than our own people. The satyrs who took over our mountain died with the truth after making sure no one else remembered. Most of us nymphs were there when it happened, though.”
“Then why don’t you remember?” Did the satyrs do something to them?
“I’m getting there,” assured Delia, but she spoke slowly and deliberately. “We are immortal. We age, but when we are injured beyond our ability to heal, we revert into ourselves. It is a defense mechanism. We shift into our most base form until we’ve healed from everything that afflicts us, including the effects of aging. Even our minds are renewed. We emerge in our most perfect and unmarked state.”
“So your memories are wiped out?”
“Completely. Our ability to function and understand the world remains, but the rest is gone. I think it is a way for the trauma of our lives to be taken from us. This way we are healthy in both mind and body.”
“So as far as the nymphs and satyrs above are concerned, your people have always lived together on this mountain,” Vera concluded.
“But, this is our mountain,” said Airlea. “Those satyrs do not belong here.”
“That may be, but our people need them,” said Delia.
“For what?” Vera couldn’t think of any good reasons.
“Satyrs protect us from gorgons. They can redirect those beings with their whistle. Otherwise, the gorgons would have destroyed us centuries ago.”
“I thought you were immortal.” Vera was confused again. “Wait, what’s a gorgon?”
“A gorgon, you know…turns victims to statues,” said Airlea.
Vera’s heart thumped in her chest. “Do they have snakes for hair by chance?”
Airlea laughed. “I guess their matted locks do look like snakes, but no. The only snake is them.”
Vera wondered if the nymph meant that literally or figuratively, but Delia continued to answer the rest of Vera’s question. “We’re immortal only if we revert into our healing forms before we die. In that form, though, we are rather defenseless.”
“How do you know that you are sisters if no one remembers anything?” Vera asked.
“Airlea knows because I told her. I know because I have never reverted,” explained Delia. “I retain all the memories of my life, including that of the sister who raised me until the day she did not come home again. She was attacked by the old Aegis, a couple of generations ago. He was a boy when his kind invaded, and he wanted to be sure he was the last to remember.”
“But they missed you,” Vera pointed out.
“They did not notice me, because I was just a child. I tried to leave the mountain, but could not. While I hid, I found this cave.”
“The fact that Delia has been so careful to not be seen or get injured this long is unheard of,” said Airlea with an obvious fondness for her old little-sister. “But she will have to revert soon, or she will die of old age.”
“I was going to revert weeks ago. Airlea knows the truth now and can teach it to me again. But I stuck around to see what trouble Addamas had brought to the mountain.” Delia eyed Vera. “I’m still trying to figure it out.”
Vera squirmed under the dual appraisals. “So, you need the satyrs for protection. I get that. But why do you put up with all their crap?”
“No one would believe the truth if we told them. The satyrs were taught that the nymphs came to them for refuge, not the other way around. As far as they are concerned, this was their mountain first. And their fountain too. We are nothing more than parasites, who owe them, and in a way, we do. For keeping the gorgons away, even if that’s not why they came here.”
“Why did they come here?”
“The Mountains keep them safe. Satyrs are the favorite food source of cyclops.”
Vera cut a face. “They eat satyrs?”
“Roasted, stewed, and satyr jerky.” Airlea grinned happily at the thought.
Vera’s stomach knotted. “That’s disgusting.”
“The satyrs are trapped on
this mountain just like we are because cyclops can smell them and track them.”
“The satyrs can’t whistle them away?”
“Cyclops are tone deaf,” Airlea chortled. “But they are also clumsy and half blind, so they cannot navigate the mountains and come for dinner.”
“You plan to keep living like this, knowing that the satyrs invaded your home?”
“For now it’s an arrangement that keeps us all alive,” said Delia.
“Yeah, alive and miserable. What kind of life is that?”
“When life gets too hard to bear, a nymph can revert. Only my sister and I have to stay alive so that we can keep the truth from disappearing.”
“No wonder nymphs are so young and happy,” Vera murmured. “Even though satyrs are jerkwads.”
“The new Aegis does not allow them to treat us the way his father and grandfather did.” Airlea shrugged. “I don’t remember the old king, but I know to be glad that he’s gone.”
Vera still thought it was abhorrent, but they seemed willing to continue this cycle. “What happens if the next king is not so benevolent?” The word was bitter on Vera’s tongue. That’s not how she’d describe the temperamental Aegis, who always had a smiling nymph on each arm.
“Then perhaps, when that day comes, we’ll ally with the cyclops. And hope they can keep the gorgons at bay for us.”
“The gorgons eat nymphs?”
“Oh no.” Delia shook her head. “They desire the water from our fountain. It gives them beauty, but the effects are short-lived. Once they find a fountain, they drain it. Since it is the life force of the nymphs on this mountain, we would all die if that happened.”
“The satyrs don’t know this?”
“They believe the fountain is sacred to their people, but have no idea why.” Delia’s face crinkled with a grin. “We make sure it is not a place they want to visit often.”
“Are there more nymphs out there somewhere?” Vera asked.
“From what I’ve overheard, we are the last. And we will only live for as long as the satyr stink masks our existence here.”
“A stink that draws the cyclops,” reminded Vera.
“Luckily, cyclops don’t seem to smell nymphs. If we hold still, we’re invisible to them.”
Vera yawned. The adrenaline from the night was wearing thin.
“Why don’t you sleep,” suggested Airlea. “We will keep an eye on Addamas and let you know when it is time to get him out.”
As much as Vera felt like she should be doing something other than sleeping, she was exhausted. “Will the fountain make anyone more beautiful?” she asked for no particular reason except curiosity. The nymphs exchanged wary glances.
“It will,” said Delia slowly. “But anyone who drinks that water will find they are always fighting their thirst. Do you know what it is like to always be thirsty and never be able to satisfy the thirst?”
“That sounds horrible.” Vera thought about her thirst for magic. About the urge she’d once had to suck the power from all the witches around. That feeling still lingered in the background of her void, but it was not insistent like it used to be. With each magic she awakened inside herself, it lessened a little more. She would not want that feeling back again, no matter how young and beautiful their fountain water would make her.
Airlea handed Vera a blanket.
“I guess it’s a good thing Addamas peed in it instead of drinking it,” Vera mused.
Both nymphs choked a bit. “He did what?”
Vera flinched. Maybe she shouldn’t have told them about that. But then they started laughing. And they laughed until tears fell down their cheeks. “We’ve been peeing in that fountain for years.”
“Why?”
“With the old king dead and no one who remembers why the law says none are to drink or speak of the fountain, I wanted to make certain assurances. The whole cavern reeks of piss. No one goes near it, but they still guard it like treasure. Even though they have no idea why except that it is special.”
Vera spread the blanket out on the cave floor and curled up with a smile. The nymphs were turning out to be nothing like she’d thought. Her eyes fell closed, and she wondered why there weren’t and nymph men. But she was too tired to voice the question. She’d ask it when she woke up.
