by Jean Roberta
“Get up,” I said.
“Why?”
“So you can run.”
Surely she wasn’t weary of life, not yet, but she began to lift her jaw, to offer her throat. Cats are faster than deer. I would catch her, and as young as she was, she felt it: this is who we were, this is what we did. It was the old way.
“Run. I won’t kill you. Not this year.”
Silence. “But next?”
Predator and prey. We were the last. I said nothing. And she was gone, running, running.
The stars shone bright but the moon was setting and more cloud was on its way, ordinary northwest cloud. The night was warming, the silence already thinning, traffic starting up again at the edges. By tomorrow the snow would melt, the cameras would work. But tonight it was still a white world where Deer Woman ran toward daybreak, and I had someone to hunger for.
•
Real
Monsters
B R Sanders
Now, while it’s true that Charybdis and I eat passing sailors for fun, it’s also true that no one’s ever thought to ask us why we do it. Partly we do it because we are hungry. I’m always hungry: I have, like, ten heads. There’s the six of them up front on snake’s necks, and then there’s the dogs’ heads down below (all of those heads have very pretty faces, though, according to Chary). Partly it’s because there’s really not all that much to do here on either side of the Strait of Messina. We get bored. You would get bored, too, if you were stuck here. Bored and hungry, and then a ship full of brawny men slides by and what else are we supposed to do? What would you do? You would let your six strong, prehensile snake’s necks dart forward, let your jaws full of three rows of sharks’ teeth bite into those mens’ arms or chests or legs, and swoop them off their ship and into your belly. If you had as many heads configured the way my many heads are that’s what you’d do. Don’t lie to yourself.
You know what else is true? Divine beings are gossips, down to the last. The humans who try to sail past me and Charybdis don’t care all that much how we got here or why we do what we do. They’re used to unimaginable things. They’re used to enduring senseless things at the hands of creatures larger and smarter and more vicious than themselves. But the gods—the gods sometimes come to the bluffs and point first at me and my ten heads, and then down into the whirlpool prison Chary’s trapped in, and they gossip. Rumors are born and thrive on those bluffs. Rumors find their way back to Olympus where I doubt anyone really remembers what’s true and what isn’t anymore. Depending on who you ask, I was born monstrous. I don’t think so—I don’t even think I’m monstrous now, even with my serpentine faces and canine fore-parts. I wouldn’t say I was ever monstrous, but the stories spread around Olympus tell a different story.
•
Here’s the thing you need to know about Olympus: the ones who have the power get to make the rules, but they don’t have to follow the rules they set down for the rest of us. Zeus is the biggest of the big shots; surely you already know that. Zeus can do and does do whatever he wants. Zeus turned himself into an eagle and plucked Ganymede off a mountainside. Zeus whisked the poor kid away from his friends and family (who all thought he was dead, by the way) to serve as his “cup-bearer”. Whatever. We’ve all seen the way Zeus ogles Ganymede at the divine feasts. We’ve all seen the way Zeus watches and licks his lips at the way that poor boy’s terrified arms shake as he decants wine into mighty Zeus’ waiting cup. We’ve all seen the shadows of healing bruises on Ganymede’s thighs—thighs that never age, thighs that will always be frozen in the perfection of youth from the moment the eagle version of Zeus swept him away from everything he knew. There’s a pretense, but it’s thin, and everyone knows what Zeus is up to with Ganymede, and no one seems to care. Even if you do care (and, I, personally do because Ganymede’s a nice kid who didn’t deserve this shit just because he’s handsome) what can you do? Zeus is God of the Sky. He’s Law and Justice Incarnate. What He Says Goes.
Definitely the Olympian men are in charge of things, but it’s not too terribly different with the goddesses. All I’m saying is Artemis is a huntress, sure, but she’s not nearly so straight as those arrows she’s always firing off. But she’s well connected—Mighty Zeus is her daddy. She’s got all those lovely hunting attendants, each one nubile and girlish and all flashing eyelashes, but still to keep her place up on the mountain Artemis has to play the virgin.
Now that I’ve set the scene for you, let me tell you about me. I’ve always been Scylla. I’ve never thought I was monstrous, but then again how many monsters know themselves for what they are? Maybe the Olympians were right. I don’t know. I don’t see how they could be, but I don’t know. Anyway, I’ve always been Scylla and depending on who you ask I’ve always been monstrous. When Hera Changed me, she said she wasn’t turning me into a monster but rather revealing the monster I was inside.
The only time I made it to Olympus was for my court date (and you know how that went). I was provincial. You probably know I’m one of the Phorcydes—one of the monstrous offspring of Ceto and Phorcys. Ceto, my mama, is a sea-witch. The Olympians loved her when they needed help and hated her when they didn’t. You know all about my sister, Medusa, whose crime was she wasn’t pretty enough and didn’t care much about being pretty. And the triplets (you’d know them as the gray Stygian Witches) took after Mama and steeped themselves in magic the Olympians frown upon. We lived in the sea, deep in the dark belly of the sea, as far away from Olympia and its rarefied air as we could get. We had our own little watery pocket to live in and grow in. Mama and Papa didn’t care what we looked like or what we wanted to learn. They just cared that we were happy. So I didn’t know until I left home that what I was—what I still am—makes me a monster in the eyes of those upstairs hypocrites.
I got an internship with a river god when I was old enough to leave home. I wanted to see the sunlight. I wanted to see the kinds of soft, warm light that come from above instead of the cold blue lights of the creatures in the deep sea. Mama and Papa let me go. They told me to be safe and to be careful, and I said I would. The problem was that I didn’t know what was safe and what wasn’t. I didn’t know how to be careful. Anyway, my internship is how I ended up over by the Strait of Messina. Charybdis was already there—she was a nereid, but not one of those fancy ones. She was a hard worker. She hauled the tide in and pushed it out day after day, flushing the water through the small passage of the Strait and drawing it back in again when the time was right. The river god gave me a stream to take care of where the salt water and fresh water mingled, and I had a good view of Chary while she worked from my stream. I’d watch her pushing and pulling the water of the sea while I plucked out human detritus from my stream bed. I watched her relax between the tides while I meticulously and strategically placed the rocks in the stream for maximized water flow and ideal aesthetics.
Let me tell you about Charybdis: she has hair made of kelp—thick red-brown bands of kelp that she wrapped around and around her head when she worked but which she wore loose and long between shifts. She has the skin of a seal, that slick dark gray-brown skin, smooth and shining. The work she did was hard; tide-work is physically intense, physically demanding. You have to be strong to do it. Especially your arms and back—she pushed and pulled those countless gallons of water with her bunched, hard muscles, muscles rippling beneath her sealskin. And she worked year-round; pulled tides in high summer and pushed them out again in the bleakest depths of winter. Like a seal she had a layer of fat all over, a resilient and enticing roundness to her. There’s something compelling about watching someone do exactly the work to which they’re suited. There’s something seductive about seeing someone precisely in their element. She was there day in and day out, her and the tides she mastered, and I watched her perfect body perform its exacting work from the same bluff the rumor-mongers judge us these days. It’s like those devoured sailors all over again: if you had been in my position, what would you have done? Would you have been able t
o somehow not fall for her?
One day the river god came by to inspect my stream work. I passed inspection. Afterward, while he sat in my stream and we shared a meal, I asked him about the brown-skinned kelp-haired woman down below. “Oh, that’s Charybdis,” he said.
“What’s her story?” I asked.
He shrugged. “She’s salt water. I’m fresh water.”
“I’m salt water,” I said.
“No,” he said, “you’re brackish. That’s why I gave you this brackish stream to tend. A little of both, not quite either.”
“So you don’t know her?”
“She keeps to herself.” The river god eyed me. “Keep to your stream, Scylla. Leave Charybdis to the tides.”
“Why?”
“There are rumors. She’s not really the sort an impressionable young girl like yourself should hang around with. Your stream looks good. I’ll come by again next week.” He dusted off his hands and melded with the stream’s water, melting and diffusing into it, letting it sweep him back to his home in the main river.
The conversation with my boss only left me more curious about her. He wouldn’t be back for a whole week! It took two days for me to screw up the courage to go down and introduce myself. I arranged the rocks in the stream and picked out the odds and ends that drifted in from the human towns. I rummaged through my things and unearthed a pot of honey. I watched Charybdis deal with the tides, and when she finished, I made my way down the rocky ledges. She lay in a pool of sunlight on a ledge of rock worn smooth by the tides she pulled in and out. Her kelp-hair was loose and draped elegantly over the edge of the rock. She lay on her back, naked, her powerful arms tucked up under her head. She was humming to herself some melody that used the rhythmic crash of the waves as her tempo. She didn’t notice me until I was right up on her. I cleared my throat. She peered at me from the corner of her eye. “You got a message from Triton?” she asked. Her voice was husky and sharp.
“Me? No.”
Charybdis propped herself up on her elbows. She looked me over. “You smell salty.”
I pointed up to the bluffs. “I work the brackish stream. That one up there.” The words came out stilted and tight. I gripped the small pot of honey so hard my knuckles hurt. It was surreal being face to face with her. Up close she had a raw, stunning power. I’d seen and studied the outline of her form, but I hadn’t been able to make out the details of her face from way up there. She had high, sharp cheekbones and a strong, square jaw. Her eyes were black—seal-like—and fringed with thick, dark lashes. Her eyes were soft, the softest thing about her. Up close her sealskin shone in the light. Her lips and her nipples both were a darker brown than her skin and tinged with mulberry red. When she spoke I saw the flash of bright white teeth.
Charybdis sat up and cocked her head to the side. “You’re not from the rivers, though. You smell of deep salt. You’ve got ocean skin—blue-green, fish-scaled ocean skin. Bet you’ve even got gills, huh?”
I smiled. I let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I’m from the depths.”
“What’s an ocean girl like you working a piddly brackish stream up there for?”
“I wanted to see the sun.”
“Is it everything you hoped for?”
And I looked right at her. And I grinned wide. And I said this right to her: “I’ve enjoyed the view.” The moment held for a hot second. Chary raised her eyebrows. The corner of her mouth hitched up. And then I lost my nerve. I thrust the pot of honey towards her. “Here. All that work must leave you hungry.”
She took it and turned it over in her hands. “What is it?”
“Honey.”
She laughed. “You managed to get a sweet tooth down in the depths, ocean girl?”
But I was already backing away. “Just thought you might be hungry.” I climbed back up the bluffs, cursing myself for not being a smoother, more intriguing creature than I was. Sometimes in the days that followed Charybdis would stretch after her tide work. Sometimes she’d shield her eyes with her hand and peer up towards the bluffs, like she was looking for my brackish stream. But it was nearly two more weeks before I managed to gather up the gumption to go see her again. In my weekly inspection, the river god had told me to root my stones deeper in the stream bed: it was turning autumn, and the south wind was getting restless. I used that piece of knowledge as an excuse to seek Chary out a second time. I didn’t have any more honey to bring her. Since I was going down empty-handed there was no need to brave the rocky bluffs—they scratched off some of my scales, and all that time spent in the open air dried me out. I ran full speed and leapt off the bluff, falling down down down into the buoyant saltiness of the pure ocean. I stayed down for a long while, sinking down to the floor as the wicked, willful waves smashed themselves on the rocks above. I flexed my gills. I took my time, and when I’d drowned my nervousness in the familiarity of the ocean, I swam to Charybdis’ rock. I broke the surface. She startled. She laughed and drew her kelp hair from her face. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “The ocean girl from the stream.”
“Hi, Charybdis.”
“Hi…uh, I don’t remember your name. Did you even tell me your name?”
“I don’t think I did. I’m Scylla.”
“Hi, Scylla. You bring me more honey?”
I shook my head. “That was the last of it. I didn’t mean to scare you. If I had more honey, I would have brought it.” I was babbling, and I knew it. I dropped beneath the surface and let the salt seep into me. I felt more centered when I popped back up again. “The river god—my boss, the river god—he mentioned something. You probably know already, but I thought I’d fill you in in case you don’t. He said Notus, the south wind, gets restless this time of year—”
“And when Notus gets bored he loses his shit and causes storms. I know. I’ve been pulling tides here at the Strait for a few years now,” she said. “Thanks for letting me know, though. I wish you’d been here the first autumn I did tide-work. I didn’t know about Notus and his tantrums then and I really could have used the heads up.” She leaned forward and smiled at me; rows of white teeth against full mulberry lips. “Hey, you look good in the ocean. You shouldn’t be up there in a brackish stream. The salt brings out the shine in your scales.” She reached out and ran a finger down my shoulder. “I love scales. I always wished I had scales.”
“Why? Have you seen your skin?”
She laughed. I laughed. “My mother said we always want what we can’t have. Hey, are you hungry? I still have some of your honey left. I’ll split it with you.”
She helped me up onto her rock. She slipped into her living cave, found the half-full pot of honey and brought it back to where I sat. We sat side by side, spooning the honey into our mouths with our fingers until the pot was empty. When it was done, she caught my eye and took my hand. She licked each of my fingers clean with her smooth seal’s tongue. And I was lost to her for good.
•
You can guess what happened after that. Remember, I’m one of the Phorcydes, and until I struck out on my own we kept to ourselves. I didn’t know then what I know now, that wanting Chary was considered monstrous. I didn’t understand at first why she only wanted to touch me, to kiss me and stroke me in the confining privacy of her cave. She mentioned offhand once or twice that she had once known Artemis, that we had to be like Artemis and her attendants. I thought at first it was a game. I didn’t understand the need to be discreet, but Chary did. We weren’t big shots; we had to hide it.
I don’t know what tipped off the river god, but I know he’s the one who sold us out. Maybe I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. I know once or twice he came by for an inspection and I wasn’t there. I know if you know exactly where to look you can sort of see into the mouth of Chary’s cave. Maybe he knew where to look. And maybe he saw us. It doesn’t really matter. Given the state of things, we were going to get caught eventually. And since we weren’t big shots we were going to have examples made of us when we got caught. It was a matt
er of time. I think Chary knew, and I think she didn’t care. And I didn’t know, but I think if I had I wouldn’t have cared much, either.
So, we got caught. The river god tipped off the Olympians, and they planned a sting. Aphrodite caught us in flagrante delicto, as it were, and hauled us up to Olympus for “crimes against the natural order.” A court date was set. Technically we were punished because Eros, that nosy little prat, had not pricked either of us with his arrows. Technically, we were flouting divine law by daring to fall in love on our own terms and without divine intervention. Not that Eros was involved when Zeus stole away Ganymede. Eros’ records were pulled and pored over. I was to be shot by Eros a few years later so that I would fall for some mortal prince, which probably would have led me to be turned into a tree or something. They gave me the choice to renounce my actions and end the relationship so that they could follow through with the plan, but their plan for me was not all that appealing, especially not compared to Chary. Charybdis, having once been a hunting attendant of Artemis’, was supposed to remain forever chaste. Chary later told me that Artemis is a jealous creature, and that when Chary left the hunt Artemis told her she’d never have anyone else again. Artemis was there at the sentencing, by the way, looking haughty and violent.
So, we got caught, and the monstrosity of our relationship got spread all over Olympus. Hera turned me into this many-headed beast and trapped Chary at the bottom of a whirlpool so that all would know us for what we are. I got Changed, you know, because they had such plans for me and that mortal prince that now can never be fulfilled, but Chary just faced banishment.
At the sentencing, Hera called us monsters. Maybe we are monsters. I don’t know, and really, I don’t care, because the big shots messed up. It’s not so bad having these ten hungry heads because Chary is right there, just a bowshot across from me. They gave me these long, sinewy necks, and when I walk to the edge of my perch and stretch I can crane my serpents’ necks over the water and reach down inside Chary’s whirlpool prison. Charybdis holds my multiple monstrous faces with her sealskin hands, and she kisses my rows of sharks’ teeth with her mulberry lips, and we talk. I pluck out the sailors from passing ships, and she draws those ships down into her whirlpool. Chary picks through the wreckage, and sometimes she finds necklaces to drape around my many necks. And sometimes she finds pots of honey she breaks open and shares with me. She lets me lick the honey from her hands with my flicking serpents’ tongues. She says it tickles, and she laughs with her soft black eyes bright and happy. She still likes my scales. She still likes how I smell of the ocean. The joke’s on Hera, because this divine punishment really isn’t so bad at all.
