Coils

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “All right, up and over,” Arachne said as they reached the wall. “We’ve got a snake to catch.”

  When the first guard cried out from somewhere on the grounds, Medusa thought they must be back in Medea’s illusion; it was only right to be spotted just as they were leaving. But Arachne was quick with her webs, and the guards were still running toward them along the wall as Medusa reached the top with June and Arachne. Everyone would be over long before they were caught.

  Arachne leaned over the wall, ready to cast a web for Agamemnon and Pandora, when a harpy barreled out of the shade fog and knocked into her, sending her tumbling over the other side. Medusa ran for her, but more harpies dove from the fog, their rank wings open to slow their descent, all of them crying out in alarm.

  Medusa grabbed June and threw her flat. The harpies skimmed over the wall, and Medusa’s power flowed over her, but the harpies flew too fast to lock gazes. The guards slowed and covered their eyes, still advancing. Maybe someone had warned them she might be coming.

  June wriggled out from under her and ran for the edge. “Arachne’s dangling, but she’s alive!”

  “We have bigger problems.” The guards held shields and spears. Maybe they planned to stab wildly until they hit something, or maybe they were going to herd them along the wall until the harpies could pick them off.

  June waved her arms. “Here, here! Come and get me!”

  “June, get down!” Medusa said.

  Two of the harpies wheeled for June; she ran toward the guards, dropping at the last moment. The harpies shrieked, and one managed to launch herself to the side, but the other slammed into the guards. The tangle of them fell in a heap, crying out in pain.

  Medusa barked a laugh as June ran back, but there was no time to crow. She looked for Arachne, but someone slammed into her back, all wet feathers and bloody breath. Claws dug into her side, and she tried to turn, her power roiling within her, but the harpy’s face turned away, and Medusa tried to dislodge the claws tangled in her T-shirt.

  “Get off her, asshole!” June said, and the harpy wrenched backward but didn’t let go. The three of them teetered toward the edge.

  “The wall, the wall!” the harpy cried. “I cannot carry us—”

  They plunged over the side, and the harpy shrieked, spreading her wings. Medusa twisted, wrapping her arms around the harpy with June clinging to the harpy’s back. The wind rushed around them, and the harpy beat her wings, but they were too heavy. Maybe if June landed on top she could survive. Medusa squeezed her eyes shut, but that wouldn’t stop the end from coming. She wondered if Cressida would eventually figure out how sorry she was.

  A sound like a twanging rubber band echoed off the wall, followed by another and another. They slowed, caught in Arachne’s webs, though these seemed more elastic than usual. They slowed more, the webs pinging and popping like bungee cords.

  And if these webs truly acted like rubber bands, they were all three about to go shooting up into the sky.

  Medusa yanked the harpy’s head around. “Sorry about this.” She turned the creature to stone, and the extra weight snapped the webs like paper. The ground rushed up from only a few feet away, and the air left her in a whoosh as the statue bounced off her side.

  Agamemnon hauled her to her feet, cutting the webs.

  “How did you get out here?” Medusa asked.

  He gestured to a neat hole in the wall, as if someone had tunneled through the bricks. Pandora was helping steady June.

  “Right,” Medusa said. “She can open anything.”

  “We’re not out of danger yet.” When the harpies dove at them, Agamemnon faced them with a practiced stance, and they pulled away to avoid him. “Let’s go.”

  They hurried through the streets, the well-heeled residents of the Terrace staying out of their way and screaming in fear as if Medusa and company were a pack of hooligans. Word spread, and soon guards were coming out of the woodwork, the harpies still crying out and tracking them from the sky.

  Medusa could see the manhole that led to the river, but more guards streamed from the outer wall, probably so happy to finally be useful that they weren’t going to let anyone escape.

  “Mom!” Medusa cried. “Everyone, help me call!”

  “For our mothers?” June asked.

  “They know what I mean. On the count of three,” Medusa said. “One, two, three, Mom!”

  They shouted as one, and the street began to tremble. Some of the guards wobbled and fell. Others kept running. Medusa kept her power bottled, not wanting to turn innocent bystanders, but the others readied their weapons. Pandora even had her hands up as if she might open another hole to somewhere else. The rumbling continued, but Aix didn’t appear, and Medusa thought the street might be too strong. Just her rotten luck. As hope plummeted, Aix’s head burst upward in a shower of cobblestones right below the Terrace wall. It leaned, bits of it collapsing into the hole as Aix steamed upward, mouth open in a roar that rattled every window.

  Passersby dropped and curled into balls like pill bugs. Several guards abandoned their weapons and ran without ever turning to see what was behind them while still others shrieked and froze in fear. Some took a few steps toward Aix, but she rushed forward, lightning fast, moving like a scythe and flattening anyone in her path. Several guards tumbled into the gaping hole, crying out as they splashed into the river.

  Aix streaked for Medusa, purring loudly. Medusa hugged her snout and kissed her between the eyes. “Well done, Mom!”

  Medusa climbed aboard and kept June with her while everyone else tied on as best they could. Before the guards could regroup, Aix slid down into the river again.

  The floating guards shouted at them, but instead of the expected, “Hey you,” or “Get back here,” one called, “How did I get down here?”

  Another said, “Who are you?”

  “I was hoping you knew,” the first one said.

  Medusa swallowed hard. “June, keep out of the water.”

  June put her hands on Medusa’s shoulders. As they rode, she muttered happy things like, “Marvelous,” and “fantastic” before saying, “I don’t know how I’m ever going to be happy at home after this.”

  Medusa grinned and had to remind herself again that she didn’t know this woman; she couldn’t trust June, a woman who’d be a lot harder to trick than Cressida. The thought didn’t do anything to ease the guilt. Gods, she hoped Cressida was all right. If not, she vowed to help June get revenge, but her inner voice suggested that after revenge was done, she could still convince June to help Stheno and Euryale. Cressida might want that.

  Then she cursed herself for a conniver and thought of anything else.

  *

  Cressida tried to imagine how a hero of legend might walk. She tried to recall everything she’d seen Agamemnon do. He’d never been in the Elysian Fields, but he had a big ego, so she supposed she could do worse, pompous role-model-wise.

  She strode, a wide-legged walk, one hand swinging freely, the other resting on the pommel of the harpe. The whispers of Cronos were further from her mind now, as if he was having a hard time hearing the sword from all the way in Tartarus. She wondered if he’d ever really woken up past what they’d seen or if he was still stuck in the ice, mind searching for his lost property.

  It didn’t give her much hope for her fighting skills, if it came to that. She could fake it, she supposed, but better to not get in that situation at all. She tried to keep a confident air as she wandered, searching for the dryad.

  There were nymphs everywhere, mostly clustered around the entrance; the Flowers gang was on high alert. When they looked at her, she gave them a bright smile, seeking to project the image Adonis had put in her head: a returning hero who wants to tell everyone about his heroic deeds from every life he’s ever lived, and who doesn’t care how boring he might be. And if he ran out of the “time he killed the Whatever of Wherever,” he would happily regale everyone with the “time he loosened the really stuck lid,” or t
he “time he slowed way down so some baby ducks could cross the road.”

  She hoped her smile conveyed the right mix of hope, ego, and immunity to the boredom of others. When several nymphs wouldn’t meet her eyes and several more ran as she veered toward them, she thought she must be doing something right. She headed for a dense grove of oaks and saw a lone, bark-skinned figure standing in the shadows, her dark tones blending with her surroundings.

  A cluster of nymphs stood nearby, whispering and casting dark looks toward the gate. The dryad looked to Cressida with eyes so blue they glowed like sapphires under a bright light. Her gaze flicked to the nymphs, then she looked down at her fingernails, expression screaming, “Play it cool.”

  Cressida strode up to the dryad and shouted, “You’ll never guess at all the completely heroic things I’ve done!”

  The dryad froze before smiling hesitantly, her teeth bright where they weren’t covered in moss. “Um, really?”

  The nymphs ceased muttering and stared.

  “Yes!” Cressida said. “In the life I just finished, I held open myriad doors for people I didn’t even know! I once unclogged the toilet of a neighbor! Even though I was very busy running my Fortune 500 Company that was featured in many top magazines”—she winked—“I once gave change to a homeless man! I braked for turtles! Would you like to hear about various monsters I might have slain in my former life?”

  The nymphs were edging away, but at the mention of a former life, they ran. The dryad craned her neck and peered over Cressida’s shoulder. “Okay, they’re gone. Nice speech.”

  “Thanks. You got the stuff?” And now she really was in a bad movie.

  “Ready to go.” The dryad pulled a sack from a hole in a tree trunk. “Any idea when things are going to cool down? It’s not easy being a woodland creature that’s not part of the Flowers gang.”

  “You’ll have to talk to your regulars about that. I’m more concerned about how I’m going to get out of here.”

  “Just keep going from one group to the other with your loud hero routine, make your way toward the gate, and when you’re close enough, run. You have someone waiting on the other side to help you, right?”

  Well, they’d probably help by shouting, “Throw me the ambrosia,” but they’d have to pull her fat out of the fire first. “Sure.”

  The dryad hooked the ambrosia bag onto Cressida’s backpack. She imagined it looked rather silly, a bag on top of a bag, but the nymphs wouldn’t see it past the glamor. Cressida ambled back toward the gate, still putting on the air of someone desperately seeking eye contact so she could regale them with stories about that one time she’d found a small child crying in a grocery store and had done the right thing by finding the first woman who wasn’t fast enough to get away and thrusting the child upon her.

  She supposed heroes did actual heroic things, too. There must have been people in the Elysian Fields who’d saved others, who’d fought against invaders and whatnot. Maybe they were hiding, too, and the only people you could find if you went looking were blowhards who couldn’t stop talking about themselves or the various children of the sea and forest who were doomed to listen to them.

  She could see the bridge now, the nymphs clustered around it still. Her sense of impending danger wanted to avoid their eyes and slink or sidle, hands in pockets; it was hard to maintain the thought that to remain unobtrusive, she had to be as obtrusive as possible.

  When a nymph not only met her eyes but approached her with a fond smile, Cressida fought the urge to wince or let her face freeze into a rictus of a grin rather than a smile. She put on what she hoped was a pleased look and not a desperate one.

  “Hello,” the nymph said. She bore a striking resemblance to the one Cressida had seen before, but they all had traits in common: perfect mouths and bright, intelligent eyes. They differed slightly in hair color, but she did recall that all nymphs were supposed to be sisters or something. Then again, none of the ancient myths featured much genetic drift.

  “Hello, fair nymph,” Cressida said, wondering what her glamor voice sounded like. “Have I told you about the time I slew a bat that got caught in my greenhouse? Not nearly as exciting as some of the things we got up to in the old days, but well worth a listen!”

  Instead of fleeing, the nymph brightened. “How very interesting. Tell me more.”

  It’s a test. “Um, yes.” She told June’s story about killing a bat with a hockey stick, adding a few embellishments that would have made June proud. Through it all, the nymph retained a look of curious fascination, but there was something else about her eyes, a certain glazed look that even her wide-eyed stare couldn’t disguise, as if she was practiced in listening while tuning the speaker out. She even nodded at the right places and muttered things like, “How exciting!” and “That must have been a surprise!” but they sounded like autopilot.

  As Cressida hoped, the nymph said, “Well, I better not keep you,” at the end of the story and fled.

  Cressida tried to look disappointed as she said good-bye, then she turned quickly and felt a jostling thump. She froze, her heart hammering. She turned slowly, but she knew what had happened. She’d hit the nymph with her backpack, invisible to everyone who didn’t already know it was there. The nymph squinted at the air around Cressida’s back, her brow furrowed.

  Cressida ran. The nymph called out, and everyone began to turn. Cressida tried to run faster. As before, the same tree reached for her, and just as before, she ducked under its grasping branches. She reached for the harpe, but roots erupted from the ground and tangled around her knees, tripping her. She fought to rise, but they held her tightly.

  “Unhand me!” she tried. “I wish to go…mock those who…were not brave enough to—”

  “Save it.” The nymphs clustered around her, petite women with flowers in their hair or along their garments, but their frowns said they were anything but twee and jolly.

  “A glamor,” one said. “We didn’t expect that.”

  “Whoever’s cutting us out has some powerful resources,” another said.

  “That’s right,” Cressida said. “This ambrosia is for Persephone, so you’d better keep your roots to yourself.”

  The nymphs looked to one another, and the tree stood Cressida upright, though it didn’t let her go.

  They smiled at one another. “Well, who else?” the original nymph said. “It figures that she’d try to go around us.”

  “She’ll think better of it from now on,” a small one said. “Once she sees what we’re going to do to her messenger.”

  Well, that wasn’t good. They should have been trembling in fear, but they sported evil little smiles. They didn’t fear the dread goddess of the Underworld. Why should they? She couldn’t walk among them.

  “Who is we?” Cressida croaked out. “Who’s in charge of the Flowers gang?”

  “Poor, sweet, living girl,” one of the nymphs said, and Cressida thought this might be the one she’d originally spoken to, though she still couldn’t be sure. “You don’t get to know that, but she is more than a match for Persephone.”

  Another goddess then. Cressida fought the urge to swear.

  “Bind her arms,” the nymph said.

  The tree gave up its roots, breaking them off, and the nymphs tied Cressida’s hands in front of her, binding her arms to her body. She didn’t know if they could see the backpack or the sword yet or not, but she wasn’t going to mention either.

  More humans wandered close as the nymphs led her farther into the Elysian Fields. Heroes of legend. Had to be.

  Cressida fell to her knees. “O spare me, children of the flowers! I have committed no wrong against your goddess!”

  They looked at one another, then down at her. “Yes, you did, you stole—”

  “Is it a crime to seek out heroes of legend, to seek someone to be my champion against foul monsters and evil gods?”

  “What the hell are you—”

  “Woe!” Cressida cried. “Is there not a hero who w
ill aid me in my nearly impossible task for which there are great rewards? Is there no one handsome enough to rescue a frail woman who has wandered into the Underworld? Is there no time to maybe sign a few autographs?”

  The heroes looked to each other, and quite a few brows were furrowing, and looks were getting cast back and forth. She saw something start in the eyes of one or two, something that said they hadn’t had a new story to tell in thousands of years.

  A nymph hauled on her arm. “Get up.”

  “Stop, forest children!” someone cried. “Unhand that maiden!”

  Cressida nearly cried out in triumph, not even bothering to correct the maiden part. The less he knew, the better.

  “Stay out of this,” the nymph said.

  “Yes,” Cressida called, “do not risk your safety, hero. I would only ask to be rescued by the bravest of the brave, whose bravery is unsurpassed by any braver heroes in the old tales…of braveness!”

  She was running out of ways to say brave, but the mumbling had grown, and now it was turning into calls of, “Yes, unhand her!” and “How dare you!”

  The nymphs had converged in a circle, facing out, and the roots of the nearby trees cracked like whips around them. “Get back! Do you know who we work for?”

  The heroes cried out various names of darker gods and monsters. One hero pleaded with the nymphs, but others shouted threats and warnings. When the first person in a soldier’s chiton leapt from the fray and tackled a nymph to the ground, the fight was on, fists and roots flying. Cressida lunged to her feet and fled into the trees, arms still bound as she headed for the bridge and the gate.

  An arm stopped her, and she nearly tripped. She skipped back as a handsome young man smiled at her. “Lady, let me loosen your bonds.” He had a knife and slit the roots as easily as if they were paper.

  “Thanks,” she said, shrugging them off. “I’ll be going, then.”