Aeon Thirteen

by Aeon Authors

  In every fairy tale, the hero is told not to step off the path, and he must do it, or the tale can’t continue. Why should mine be any different?

  I had plenty of time to think as I trudged up the path, and I thought about what I’d seen on my way in; or more to the point, who I’d seen. Tantalus. Sisyphus. The promise of relief was fleeting.

  The gods are liars.

  Orpheus may have been impulsive. It’s hard to tell from the stories. I was not. I took hundreds of steps, maybe thousands, while I thought about it. The gods lie when they promise good things to humans, but when they offer punishment, they always tell the truth. I had no guarantees that Jon was behind me or that the road would ever end. But I knew that if I turned around to look, he would be gone. That was a guarantee from the gods.

  Carefully not turning my head, I edged over to the right side of the path and knelt, feeling outwards. There was nothing, just the cool, stale underground air. Lying on the path to feel down the full length of my arm, I could still find nothing. It gave me vertigo, and I had to sit in the middle of the path for awhile before I could summon the courage to feel the left side.

  My hand hit water less then six inches below the left side of the path.

  The choice seemed clear to me. I could swim in the ocean, but who knew what was off the other side of the cliff. I would swim, and if I swam until I drowned, it would be no worse than walking the same path endlessly, and it might be better.

  Hades told me not to look back. He didn’t tell me not to turn back. I screwed my eyes shut tight and turned, reaching out my arms. Something stumbled into me—a live body, a man’s body, a familiar body. Jon. But just as I was letting out a sob of relief, he wiggled and shifted in my arms, and it wasn’t Jon any more. He felt more solid, cooler…scaled. I was holding onto a giant serpent.

  I stifled a scream and almost let my eyes fly open, almost dropped him. But I have heard the songs and read the stories: I know the ballad of Tam Lin, and I could hold my love close until he turned into my own true love again. He tried to strangle me as a snake. He snarled hot carnivorous feline breath into my face and raked me with tiger claws. He beat me with swan wings. I held him, confident in my love.

  Last he turned into a burning brand, and it was the hardest of all, fighting the urge to drop the fire. But I knew I was doing the right thing; I knew I would get my love back.

  He didn’t turn into a man again. I held him, feeling my flesh crack, and he didn’t turn. I knew that it would kill me soon if I didn’t do something about it. Holding tight to the burning brand, I jumped into the sea.

  It smoldered, stopped burning. The water assaulted my burns. Still the thing did not turn into my Jon, or into any man at all. I fought it. I think it was dying again. I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t even know what it was any more. It burned and did not burn; it gouged me and twisted and stayed perfectly still. The ocean slapped my head. I swallowed salt water more than once. My left ear was full of salt water, and a tide tugged at my legs.

  Kelly had warned me about riptides. I couldn’t hang on to the fizzling thing that had been my love, not if I was going to make it back to shore alive.

  I didn’t look back. I found my way around that one. But I had to let go. Sobbing, I unclasped my hands and kicked backwards. There was a silence on the water. I looked up, treading frantically, and saw the half moon.

  It could be that the tide was going out, that it would carry me far out to sea, that I would die. But I didn’t have the energy left to fight it, and it could just as easily happen that the tide was coming in. I kept myself afloat as best I could. I kicked fitfully, enough to stay above water. I was floating away from the setting moon. I had a chance to make it home. I kicked harder. After an hour or an eternity, I could see the cliffs of the coast, the outlines of evergreens in the moonlight. The tide that washed me onto the rocks bruised me neck to heels, but also saved my life.

  I clung to the rock hollows that would soon be tidepools. I let the tide wash out, and I clung to the shore. No beachcombers came for me. It was a professor and her husband who saw me with my nose an inch away from a purple starfish, who exclaimed in horror at my cuts and bruises, who took me home to their beach cottage, where the professor helped me clean all my wounds but one, and the husband made coffee. They asked where I was staying. They asked who had done this to me.

  I didn’t know what to tell them. I said I didn’t remember. They didn’t believe me, but I was a tourist. There wasn’t much they could do but wrap me in a spare bathrobe and pour coffee into me. They took me back to Kelly’s place. I turned on NPR and found out it had been days since I’d left. There were frantic messages on the machine from my parents, Kelly, other friends.

  I put fresh water in the kettle, but before I could put it on the stove, I sank to the floor and cried and cried and cried. It felt like hours later when I got up, but the Rachmaninoff concerto on the radio couldn’t have lasted that long. I made tea. I called my mother. I felt every muscle as I moved. I was conscious of being in a body, of being a body.

  Even when I got chilled, it was so much warmer up here.

  I didn’t itch to sketch anything. I didn’t miss my paints. I felt like myself again, but too much like myself, as though I had filled up to the corners and had no room left for anything. I went out with friends, smiled faintly on cue and traded anecdotes when my friends started to look worried around the edges. I spent a long weekend with my parents making blueberry jam and talking about things entirely unrelated to Jon or my future. I did the least I could do. It was also the most I could do.

  Eventually, it was time to work on the illustrations for the next book in the series. I assured them I could behave like a professional. I assured them that my private life did not have to affect my work.

  I got stuck on the very first page.

  I had forgotten it, but Midas’s golden touch was a gift from Dionysus. I had to show Midas talking to the god, and I could not do it. The rest of the scene was fleshed out—Silenus the tutor, Midas’s garden, Midas himself—but I left a huge blank where Dionysus was supposed to be.

  It was maddening.

  Finally, frustrated by my lack of progress, I went to the library and read what happened to Orpheus. He was ripped apart by the Maenads. They tore him limb from limb. Typical. Maybe not drawing Dionysus was a good idea after all. On my way out of the library, I heard a male voice say, “Excuse me.” I turned.

  It was one of the librarians, bearded and stocky and bespectacled. He smiled at me diffidently. “You’re the illustrator, right? You did that talk last spring.”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I said.

  “The kids loved that. My son is still talking about it.”

  I glanced down at his left hand involuntarily. No ring. That didn’t mean anything these days.

  “He really took to heart what you said about pictures telling stories. He’s been sending his mom pictures about his day now. I think it’s really good for their relationship.”

  “How old is your son?” I asked.

  “He’s four.”

  I smiled. “That’s a good age. Three-year-olds get distracted, and five-year-olds think they already know how the story goes.”

  He laughed. “I used to think I knew how the story went, too.” He ambled back to the reference desk. I watched him go.

  My Dionysus could be Persephone’s brother, dark and glinting. I face him down now as I finish the details. I’m not afraid of him any more. My way isn’t Orpheus’s way. It isn’t Janet’s way, either. I can live with that. I’m not sure I could have lived with anything else.

  The librarian’s name is Alec, and his son is Noah. He has kind hands, and when he gets exasperated with Noah, he chews on his lower lip and repeats, “Okay, look, buddy. No, now, buddy, look.”

  He will not tear me limb from limb.

  With or without him, I think I can finish the long road back.

  (for Andrew and Leah)

  Misery Loves

  Cra
ig D. B. Patton

  “Fantasy stories are meant to surprise us—both those who write them and those who read them. Some take us to richly detailed alternate worlds. Others speak directly to the strangeness and mystery that lurks around the edges and just beneath the surface of everyday life. All have the freedom to be outlandish for the sake of exploring some facet of the human condition. This story surprised me first by ambushing me, the first lines popping into my head from wherever they had been before. I had an immediate image of what Misery looked and sounded like. The fun, and the surprise, came from going along with her as she sought help from her unusual neighbors. I hope you enjoy tagging along with Misery as much as I did.”

  MISERY DIDN’T LOVE COMPANY. She despised it. People bustling up to her crooked, rotted door? Crowding into her gloomy, dust-filled living room and perching on the torn sofa cushions? Inquiring whether the rusted kettle was on and whether she might have anything besides that dreadfully stale Earl Grey?

  Horrid. All of it.

  Misery wanted only solitude in the shadowy confines of her sagging house so that she could focus wholly and deeply on just how alone she was. Observe the spiders building fantastic webs in her unused shower. Meditate on the mottled shades of light coming through the dingy, cracked windows.

  But life has a way of pushing us out of our shells, like a parent nudging a child into a roomful of barely known relatives. In Misery’s case, life (in the form of a massive thunderstorm) caused the roof to cave in one night.

  She rather liked it at first. Investigating what had made such a loud, rending noise, she stood in her attic looking up through the jagged hole that had formerly been a third of the ceiling. Snapped beams were jutting skyward like broken ribs. Moss-covered shingles were flapping in the wind. Rain was soaking the jumbled piles of boxes that contained memories she did not care to remember. Bits of wood and shingle were everywhere. It was spectacularly awful. Added a whole new dimension of dreariness, really. She wondered why she had not thought to do it herself long ago.

  Her opinion changed in the morning. Sunlight was pouring through the hole. Bright, warm, unconditionally pleasant sunlight. It made the attic unbearable. She slammed the door shut and was appalled to see that light was streaming out from under and around the door. It was leaking into her house, brightening everything in its path.

  Utterly unacceptable. The roof had to be fixed. Immediately.

  This posed a question: Who knew how to fix a roof? She considered a few options. Not Humor, who had no sensible qualities or talents whatsoever. Not Joy, who was always so self-absorbed in her own sheer life-is-wonderfulness and whose mere smile made Misery cringe. Not Anger, who was more likely to further damage the roof. No, as she thought about it, Misery realized that the answer was not an obvious one. She was unaccustomed to thinking about the positive qualities of others. She needed to speak with someone who could help her. Someone with a different perspective and clear opinions. She would go and see Honesty.

  “You look awful, my dear,” said Honesty.

  Misery snorted, swept a clump of tangled hair the color of sewage out of her eyes, and waited. “Are you going to invite me in?” she asked, when Honesty did not.

  “Of course. Of course. Sorry,” said Honesty, stepping back with a swish of snow-white skirt and motioning Misery in with a perfectly-proportioned arm. “I was trying to decide what your skin color reminds me of. The belly of a flounder I think, though that has perhaps a bit more yellow, a warmer hue.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Misery.

  “Of course not, my dear. You really should get out more often.”

  Misery took off her cloak and held it out to Honesty, who stared at it and wrinkled her nose.

  “Are those…live moths? Or is it part of the pattern?”

  Misery shook the cloak, startling several moths into flight.

  “I see,” said Honesty. “You know, you could bring that to Kindness to mend. She’s quite good at that sort of thing.”

  “I like it the way it is.”

  Honesty’s hands fluttered like doves. “Of course you do. Silly of me to even suggest it. Let’s sit down, shall we?”

  They sat in Honesty’s immaculate, uncluttered living room. She poured two cups of Darjeeling from her crystal-clear glass tea pot and handed one to Misery. “Now, what brings you to my door? You’ve never visited anyone but the twins before, to my knowledge, though none of us can fathom why you go there.”

  Misery sipped the tea and scowled. It had sugar. “I like Pain and Suffering. They understand me.”

  “I would think Loneliness would as well, but you don’t visit him,” Honesty said.

  Misery did not care to explain why. “I need help,” she said instead. “The storm last night damaged my roof. I need it fixed.”

  “You poor dear,” Honesty said. “But why come to me? I don’t have much talent for that sort of thing.”

  “I want your opinion on who I should ask.”

  “Ah!” Honesty said. “Well. Not Humor, obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  Honesty sat in silence for a few moments. “Generosity could do it, but…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, she might not restrict herself to fixing your roof. She works quickly and you could wind up with an entirely new roof, your windows replaced, a fresh coat of paint on the walls—”

  Misery shuddered. “I don’t want any of that.”

  “You should ask Love,” Honesty said.

  “Love?” It was not the answer Misery wanted. Love lived in an elaborate estate with no wall around it and no locks on the doors. She had heard that there were always a dozen or more visitors there, for Love enjoyed nothing more than sharing himself and his opulence with others. Misery had seen him only once, at a distance. Low on food, she had gone dumpster diving. When she came out from the alley her eyes were drawn to a cluster of figures on the hillside above the town. Love was standing there, face bathed in crimson light, watching the sunset with one arm around Happiness and the other around Contentment. Ask Love? He was like some distant, mythical god. Too oblivious to the painful realities of life. Too…strange.

  Honesty smiled. “You wanted my opinion, dear. You have it. If you want your problem solved, ask him.”

  So it was that Misery found herself standing at the open, gilded gates of Love’s estate. It was midday and she wore the hood of her cloak up and clutched an opened, black umbrella in an effort to ward off the sun. Misery gaped at the pearl white sand of the driveway, the vibrant green lawns, the overflowing beds of roses with far too many blooms and far too few thorns, and the enormous fountain with statues of swans jetting water skyward. It was painfully beautiful. Hurt just to look at, really, which restored her enough to press on.

  After a short hike, she reached the soaring portico, which was larger than her own house. Free of the more direct sunlight, she lowered her umbrella but kept the hood of her cloak up. Misery rang the doorbell. A cascade of tones, bells and songbirds in the higher registers accompanied by wood blocks and whale song in the lower, resounded from inside.

  “The door’s always open,” a voice like a perfectly tuned cello said behind her.

  Misery turned around.

  Love was as tall and otherworldly as she had feared. The top three buttons of his sky-blue shirt were open, revealing the considerable muscles of his chest. His arms were like pistons. His legs like tree trunks. The blonde waves of his hair were swept back, descending to his shoulders. Love’s blue eyes twinkled as he offered Misery a gentle smile.

  “I assumed you were inside,” Misery said, simply to say something while she attempted to locate her wits.

  “It’s too nice a day to be indoors, Misery.”

  “Hmm,” she said, wondering exactly how daft Love would turn out to be.

  “Shall we go for a walk?” Love asked. “You’ve never been here before.”

  Misery shook her head. “It’s too bright out here.”

  “Inside th
en.” He opened the door for her, motioning her in with a sweep of his other arm. “Please.”

  The entry hall had a rose marble floor. Twin grand staircases with golden handrails swept up to either side, tracing the outline of a heart as they ascended to a balcony above. A huge crystal chandelier glittered overhead in the sunlight streaming through vaulted skylights. Everywhere she looked, Misery was confronted by extravagant beauty. She began to think that a walk on the grounds might be preferable.

  “I think I know just the place for us to sit,” Love said. “Follow me, please.”

  He led her in silence through a labyrinth of halls to a shadowy staircase at the rear of the house. “Just down here,” he said, offering her another of his endless supply of smiles.

  The staircase descended two flights to a heavy oak door reinforced with iron strips. He opened it, flipped a light switch, and they walked in.

  Misery blinked.

  “My wine cellar,” Love said.

  She resisted the urge to snap at him about how obvious that was. Before them, a walkway led into the infinite distance. On either side, racks of wine rose fifteen feet to the ceiling, the tops of the bottles peeking out shyly at their visitors in the dim light.

  “Here,” Love said, pulling two wooden chairs up next to an upended barrel. “Is this all right? We could try behind the racks if you want it darker. There may even be some cobwebs back there.”

  Misery stared at him, still feeling like she did not have her feet quite under her. “This will be fine.” She sat in the chair he offered her.

  “Now,” said Love, once he had settled in the chair opposite her. “Can I get you anything? Plenty of wine, obviously.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Misery thought she detected a trace of disappointment in his eyes. “I am.”

  “Very well.” He settled back. “So, then. To whom or what do I owe thanks for your visit today?”

  “To Honesty and to last night’s storm,” Misery said.