On the Island of Fire - Four Tales of Santorini

by Linda Talbot

  The Harpies Move Home

  Ello and Ocy, two black Harpies, preen their salty feathers in the Cretan sea cave. They have the bodies and bad-tempered heads of women with the drooping wings of birds. Their claws cling to the jagged rock.

  “Move over!” squawks Ello, which is short for Aellopus.

  “Move over yourself!” snaps Ocy, which is short for Ocypete.

  This is how Harpies carry on. They are never happy, because they are neither woman nor bird. While squatting in the cave, waiting for fish to pounce on, they are thinking of people, eating and sleeping in houses with a roof and four walls. But they have only a ragged nest within the rock, built of brittle twigs and soggy moss. When they venture out, the sea spray flies in their faces and the wild north wind whistles through their long, lank hair.

  They have been ordered by the God Zeus to torment blind King Phineas, who lives in eastern Thrace. Zeus is jealous because the king has the gift of seeing into the future.

  But when the Harpies are at court, wishing until then, they were like the women in their fine white robes, they have the urge to squawk, scratch and flap like birds.

  “I’m sick of fish!” grumbles Ello.

  “I’m sick of seagulls!” moans Ocy, unable to leave the cave until the gulls have had their fill.

  “We’re misfits!” they sigh together.

  A clap of thunder echoes outside; a sign from Zeus for them to fly to King Phineas, where they are expected to steal his evening meal. Yet, until now, before they have a chance to eat, the king’s wife whisks it away, telling him it was taken by the Harpies. But THEY have to scavenge in the dustbin.

  The Harpies swoop like flapping black blankets from their cave, over the islands of Santorini, Paros and Mykonos, into the fading day, wobbling on their ugly wings and squawking a hideous Harpy song that makes the sailors wince. Seagulls hiss and try to peck them. The wind snatches at their streaming hair and whistles through their claws.

  The coast of Thrace lies dimly below, like a frayed hem around the skirt of the land. And in a wide valley stands the palace of King Phineas.

  Inside, the king grows gaunt with hunger. The silver dishes of vegetables, meat and fruit, are laid before him. His hungry court surrounds him, waiting for him to take the first mouthful.

  “Now!” shrieks Ocy.

  “Let’s go!” cries Ello. Every window is locked against them, but Harpies can pass miraculously through walls, windows and roofs.

  In seconds Ello and Ocy have entered the palace and wheel round the table with cries that make the king’s blood run cold. His bones show through his white skin, his sightless eyes are sunk in his thin face, his hands hang as crookedly as the Harpies’ claws.

  But, as they are about to swoop on the food, ten servants, ordered by the queen, scurry into the hall and sweep up the silver plates. Brandishing knives, forks and spoons, they shoo the Harpies away. Hungrily, they flap and flounce, then screech out of the window and round the scraps by the kitchen, where they squabble over the remains of yesterday’s supper.

  The sun shines in Thira - Santorini’s cliff top town - and on the tourists tucking into lunch. The tables are covered with olives, chicken and cheese. Ocy and Ello circle hungrily. They have arrived in the twenty first century.

  “Look at all that food!” cries Ello. Clumsily, she dives at a piece of lamb garnished with lemon.

  “Gor blimey!” exclaims a red-faced man in a white shirt, who had been eating it.

  “Mon Dieu!” screams a woman at the next table, as Ocy seizes the cheese out of her salad. A wine bottle topples from the table, covering her crisp blue dress in bright red spots.

  “Mein Gott!” a little boy at another table starts to cry, as one of Ello’s brittle black wings brushes his cheek.

  “What ARE they?” tourists screech as harshly as the Harpies.

  “They’re BUGABOOS!” says a man with ginger hair and a sun-blistered face.

  “They’re BOGGARTS!” insists a woman with a spotted handkerchief which matches hers.

  “They must have escaped from a zoo,” suggests an old man with spectacles glinting in the sun. “I remember once in the Ojimoto jungle being cornered by a creature just like....”

  At that moment Ello pecks his nose. “OUCH!” he utters and says no more.

  Scraps of meat, fruit and cheese are scattered on the ground and on the tourists, who have now got up and are flapping their arms as fast as the Harpies flap their wings. There is such a hullabuloo, they do not hear the sudden wind that sweeps over the Caldera, flinging cups, plates and bottles far and wide.

  Zetes and Calais, the winged sons of Boreas, the north wind, have arrived. They lift up Ello and Ocy under their scraggy tail feathers and tip them over the cliff. Toppling and squawking, they tumble through the clear blue sky. They drop the remains of their meal in the sea, where it is gobbled by gulls.

  Zetes and Calais huff, puff and flurry around the Harpies, making their eyes stream and spreading their untidy tails like fluttering fans.

  They are buffeted over the Peloponnese to islands in the Ionian Sea, where the wind turns and boats change course. Zetes and Calais die with a whimper and the Harpies drop like black boulders into the trees. Helplessly entangled, they screech and struggle and leaves fly from the trees in clouds. With a FLUP they fall through the branches to the ground. Dizzily, they flounder to the beach.

  There, fishermen spread and mend their nets. They blink at the great black birds stumbling on crooked claws through the shingle.

  “This makes a change from fish!” they cry and spread a huge net wide. The Harpies blunder into it, their sharp claws catch in the mesh, their feathers fly, their windswept hair is tangled in thick knots.

  “We can’t eat these. They must be all gristle!” grumbles one fisherman.

  “They’ve torn our nets!” cries another.

  “Let’s take them to the zoo,” suggests a third. He runs to start the engine of his truck. The other fishermen drag the Harpies, by now too tired to protest, up the beach, and heave them into the back of the truck. Off they bump to the zoo.

  The wizened zoo keeper frowns. “What ARE they? They look prehistoric!” he complains. Ello and Ocy angrily ruffle what is left of their feathers.

  “But I suppose they will be a curiosity,” continues the zoo keeper. Objecting, and thinking they would rather be back in their cave on Crete, they are bundled into an enclosure. In the centre a big oak tree spreads its branches, so at least they can stand in the shade.

  One of the Harpies – who ends up being stared at in a zoo

  “This isn’t so bad,” says Ocy. Ello pecks huffily at the grassy ground. “Perhaps not. I wonder what became of King Phineas.”

  They are fed twice a day on fat fish and only stared at occasionally, because people are appalled at their ugliness. So they pout, preen and squabble, as they did in their Cretan cave. But they agree that living in the present is preferable to the past.

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  Thank you for reading this book - which I hope you have enjoyed.

  If you would like to read my other work, please return to your favourite ebook retailer. For a complete list of my work with a short summary of each, click this link to my blog https://lindajtalbot.wordpress.com. There are also sample extracts from many of these works. You are welcome to subscribe or add a comment.

  ~~~~~~

  Author's Note

  Linda Talbot writes fantasy for adults and children. She now lives in Crete and as a journalist in London she specialised in reviewing art, books and theatre, contributing a chapter to a book about Conroy Maddox, the British Surrealist and writing about art for Topos, the German landscape magazine. She has published "Fantasy Book of Food", rhymes, recipes and stories for children; "Five Rides by a River", about life, past and present around the River Waveney in Suffolk; short stories for the British Fantasy Society, and stories and poetry for magazines.

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