Timeless Tales Magazine: Perseus & Medusa

PERSEUS & MEDUSA

Timeless Tales 4

Editor Tahlia Merrill Kirk

www.timelesstalesmagazine.com timelesstalesmagazine@gmail.com

Design and Layout Geoffrey Bunting

004 Getting a Head in Life Derek Paterson 0 1 2 Love in the Time of Athena Elaine Pascale 0 2 2 Mighty Winter Adam Barron 0 3 2 Monument to the Argive King Michael Mina 0 4 2 Secret Shrouds & Golden Burdens Caroline Yu 0 5 2 Long Live the Personal Revolution Molly Thynes 0 6 2 Good Eatin’ Jan Eldredge 0 7 2 More Wings than the Wind Knows Carina Bissett 0 8 2 Diva Dan Mickelthwaite 0 9 2 Experiment Ed Cooke

Fiction

Words by

Getting a Head in Life

Derek Paterson

About the story

Perseus was the badass rock star of his era, enjoying wild adventures that usually ended with screaming and a surge in business for the local undertakers. I wanted to bring him down a couple of notches, cast him as someone a little more human, who gets annoyed when people keep calling him at bad moments. Everyone knows the Medusa sketch by heart, so I wanted that to change too; shifting the perspective so Perseus perceives her as the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, and will have regrets over killing her, tickled me more and drove me to write the story the same morning I saw the theme.

D A E H A G N I GET T

DEREK PAT TERSON

Suddenly his Brazen War Horns ringtone wasn’t so cool any more. Perseus quickly fumbled in his tunic pocket until he found his phone, shutting off the trumpet music. The screen said, ATHENA. Dammit, again? Had she no one else to call?

Only for a moment did his hand hover over Reject. One did not refuse calls from the goddess if one wished to keep on her good side. He thumbed Accept instead.

“Can you keep it down?” he whispered. “I’m like, nearly there.” Up ahead, in the dark depths of their cave, the three Ugly Sisters slept on. Bad enough that his winged sandals kept buzzing like a swarm of angry bees, without his phone making enough noise to wake the dead.

“Perz, darling, I forgot to tell you,” Athena said breathlessly, “you can’t look at them.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you notice the statues?”

Come to think of it, he had passed several pretty realistic-looking statues on the way in. Whoever’d made them possessed some mad sculpting skillz, for sure. They’d captured their subjects’ expressions beautifully—eyes and mouths wide open in total surprise. He wondered if they were for sale. He could put one in the hallway to greet house guests. Then again, shipping it back to Seriphus would probably cost the earth and he bet the arms would snap off in transit. They always did that. Mom would just shout at him again for cluttering up the house with more rubbish. Trying to convince her they were trophies of his epic adventures was useless.

“Sure, I saw the statues. What about them?”

“That’s what will happen to you if you look at the Gorgons.”

What the heck was a Gorgons? Oh, she meant the Ugly Sisters.

“Sorry, say that again?”

“If you look at the Gorgons, you’ll become a statue.”

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“Have you been drinking?”

“Perseus, you have to liiiiisten to me. It’s their thing. It’s what they do. They’re so ugly they turn you to stone. I am not making this up. Use your shield like a mirror. Only look at their reflections. Don’t look directly at them.”

Something in her voice told him she might not be kidding.

He turned his shield around. Damn, it was covered in layers of dust. Why hadn’t she warned him before now?

“Here, use this,” a voice said. He accepted the silk scarf from a slim, bejewelled hand.

“Perseus?” Athena was still on the phone, that jealous note in her voice again. “Is someone there with you?”

“Sorry, let me call you back.” He hung up, slipping the phone into his tunic pocket. Without looking at who stood at his shoulder, he used the scarf to wipe his shield clean.

Much better. He glanced at himself in the bright copper surface and liked what he saw. Handsome would have been an understatement—small wonder Athena was always chasing after him. He brushed a curly lock of hair off his forehead, then thought better of it and returned it to its former position. Sweet. He tilted his shield so he could see who was there with him.

Gods above and below, he’d never seen such a hot babe before in his life. Her face was so far beyond beautiful that words didn’t exist to describe its-how it totally... the incredible way it....

No, he couldn’t go on. The words didn’t exist.

“H-hi,” he said.

“Hellooooo.” Her voice was like sweet honey. “Do I know you?” She chuckled before he could answer, a wonderful throaty sound that sent a shudder down his spine, in a good way. “No, I think I would have remembered you. Such a pretty face.” Her fingers squeezed his biceps. “And such haaard muscles. You must work out a lot. Do you have a name?”

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“P-P-Perseus.” Man, he was such a tool. But she was so beautiful, she made him nervous. Ugly Sisters? Clearly an ironic name coined by some putz who thought he was being clever.

She leaned closer and whispered into his ear, “You don’t need to be shy with me, Perseus. Just relax. Be yourself.

Put down your shield and kiss me.”

He wanted to, so very badly. He wanted to cover those full lips with his own, he wanted to encircle her body with his arms and pull her close to him. Everything about this perfect woman banged his drums. Gods, but her tongue was in his ear, hot and wet. His knees turned to jelly. Yes, he should put down his shield and give himself to her at once, totally and forever....

Brazen War Horns snapped him out of the spell. His hand found his shortsword. He closed his eyes tight, spun round, and cut in one fluid motion. Something thumped and bounced on the ground. “Son of a—!” Another, heavier, thump at his feet. He chanced opening one eye. The woman’s head lay on the floor. The scarf, which he’d let go of to draw his sword, had thankfully fallen over it, concealing her features. Her curvaceous body lay at his feet. He felt completely miserable, knowing he would regret this moment for the rest of his life.

He answered his still-ringing phone. “Hey.” “Hey nuttin’. You better still have my sandals, punk.” It was Mercury, menace dripping from every word. “You got till tomorrow. You don’t bring them back, I swear will track you down and I will cut you. You hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear—” Mercury hung up before Perseus could finish. Rude. He’d better get moving. He picked up the head using the scarf and dropped it into his magic sack. The hair felt funny through the scarf, kinda thick and wriggly. Gross. Hadn’t these people heard of hair products?

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He heard the other two Ugly Sisters moving around in their lair. Mercury’s call had woken them. If they were even half as good-looking as their sister, he would be in deep trouble. Screw it, one head would have to be enough. He retreated to the cave mouth and emerged onto the beach.

A winged horse stood looking at him. Perseus gaped.

“Whassup?” the horse said. “Need a ride?”

Perseus pointed to his winged sandals. “Nope, I got these.”

“Cool. See you around.”

The horse nodded and flew away. Could this day get any crazier?

Perseus got his sandals started before the Ugly Sisters emerged from their cave. The high-pitched angry bee noise hurt his ears. Damn, he should have taken the horse up on its offer. Too late now. The sandals lifted him into the air towards home. He’d show the King his trophy and hopefully the old bugger would marry Mom and take her away to live in his palace. He couldn’t wait till she moved out. No more moaning about his not cleaning his room, or playing his lute too loud, or partying too late with his bros, or his not finding the right girl and settling down. Yeah, right!

Like that was going to happen anytime soon.

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Fiction Getting a Head in Life

About The Author

Derek Paterson lives in Scotland, an ancient land of mountains, forests, glens, and rain. He’s been writing Sci-Fi and Fantasy since original Trek inspired his first fanfic, thankfully lost in the mists of time. He’s had a few short stories published and is currently working on a veritable plethora of novels, which he hopes to finish before the Sun goes nova. He also makes webcomics which may end up adapted into prose someday, at least that’s the plan anyway. He can be found at: derekpaterson.net mywebcomics.org

Fiction

Words by

Love in the Time of Athena

Elaine Pascale

About the story

I have always been interested in investigating the “lives” of minor characters in stories. Thus, when I saw the theme “Perseus and Medusa,” I became interested in the other Gorgon sisters. Who were they and what was their relationship like? I imagined that they were famous, like the Kardashians, and, similarly, were full of drama. I imagined jealousy between them (ironically, the immortal sisters jealous of the mortal one) and sibling rivalry. I then imagined the sibling rivalry spinning out of control.

love in the time of athena — elaine pascale

“She ruined you,” the voices hissed.

The voices were always there, their reptilian cadence unavoidable. They were not made-up voices. They were not imaginary friends. Sthenno and Euryale could not escape the voices because they were connected to their heads.

There is something to be said for multiple slithering ids, writhing with the weight of a dozen demi-demons, tempting a Gorgon by cooing her darkest thoughts. The snakes were like Sirens and they made the sisters want to bash their brains out with sharp rocks.

The snakes’ red eyes lit the night, making sleep elusive.

Their warm bodies added a cumbersome burden to the days, forcing the former maidens into abject inertia. The captive Gorgons were defenseless to the heft of their slinky bodies and the gravitas of their suggestions.

“She needs to be punished,” the snakes commanded, and Sthenno could not help but agree.

It had not always been this way. The girls had been beautiful, famous, and desirable. Their faces had appeared on vases and plates and parchment. Everyone had wanted to gaze at them and they adored being the object of gazes.

Too soon they would find that infatuated regards were a thing of the past. “She cut you off from the world, from all that you love,” the snakes reminded them. “She is the betrayer.”

“The curse?” Euryale mouthed. Sthenno nodded. “If something were to happen to her, would the curse be lifted?”

The snakes sighed happily, as if tasting ambrosia in the air, “Let’s find out, shall we?” ***

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Many moons before, the gods had blessed the girls with love and adoration. The sisters had fans and those fans craved viewing the three of them together. The people desired glimpses of the beautiful faces and special attributes that made the Gorgons seem better than everyone else. Euryale had a speaking voice that would shame any Siren. Sthenno had a magical left eye that could show her the past and predict the future. Medusa had an extremely enviable, voluptuous figure.

The girls had been promised to Athena. Their public personas were of purity and they worked hard to maintain that reputation. Sthenno, Euryale, and Medusa spent as much time at the temple as they did sleeping, bathing, and eating combined. At the temple, they performed their duties, practicing to become priestesses. According to law, they cleaned at night, draped in cloth no more beguiling than the rags used to clean the stone and bronze. They sacrificed their time and many days of their youth, and they sacrificed the very purist as tributes to the Goddess.

No one sacrificed more than Medusa, the mortal one.

No one sought to fill her limited days with delight more than the sole ephemeral Gorgon. At night, Medusa would sneak out, her long rows of braids trailing behind her in the moonlight. Sthenno would pretend not to notice.

“Because we are immortal, we have all of eternity to salvage what she might do to our reputation,” Euryale would whisper, her voice like soft notes plucked on a lyre. “Because she is mortal, we can outrun the damage she does.”

Euryale had been right, up to a point. But she had not foreseen Medusa becoming involved with the Minotaur.

She had not forecast that Medusa would bring the muscled

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and musty bull-man back to their home and flaunt him in their faces. Euryale had not predicted that Sthenno’s knack for sibling rivalry would lead her directly into the arms of Nessus, the Centaur. Even Sthenno’s oracular eye had not predicted that her game would backfire and she would fall in love.

Love in the time of Athena meant secrecy and fear, yet it was worth the risk. Sthenno had the warmth of her centaur, which was better than thousands of adoring fans.

She had the lingering nibbled kisses from his bearded face to see her through her chores. She could confide in him when she wanted to complain about Medusa and his very existence lessened her need for competition. A complex maze, rivaling the one in Crete, metaphorically stood between Sthenno and Medusa, yet she held no ill will for her mortal sister. Sthenno would love Medusa as long as love loomed large in her heart.

Then Medusa had to go and cross the line with Poseidon.

“He forced himself on me!” Medusa had cried and Sthenno felt the need to protect her. Sthenno had believed Medusa, had wanted to believe in her fidelity to the extent of nearly ignoring her illuminating eye. But the eye won out. It showed a seductive Medusa, clinging to the sea rocks, weathering waves and ocean spray, for the opportunity to be with a god.

Crying rape, lying about rape, was a sin. Medusa, cursed with a short life, had always been the most concerned with damage control. The gods did not look very kindly upon lying.

Athena was even less sympathetic toward broken vows.

The temple witnessed an act of violence far worse than any swift sacrifice. Athena grabbed Medusa by her

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enviable braids and threw her to the ground. The sisters were forced to share the wrath of the goddess. Euryale’s voice was transformed into an ear-splitting shriek and Sthenno’s prophetic eye darkened. The following day, the Gorgons’ bruised and sore bodies told tales of assault.

The wounds would heal, but an extra violation had taken place that would impair them for all time. Euryale and Sthenno awoke with serpent crowns sealed to their scalps. Medusa, also plagued with snakes, remained in a permanent sleep.

Euryale moaned and her voice was nearly deafening.

Sthenno shushed her, keeping a raised finger out of reach of the snakes. All the while, Medusa slept on, blissfully unaware of their state.

Sthenno’s scalp was crawling, slithering, coiling and recoiling. Inside her head, she was screaming. Outside, the snakes had begun talking. “She ruined you,” they repeated—a mantra meant to incite hatred.

Sthenno would not hate until she knew the true condition of her love. She needed to find him. She needed to see if Nessus would still have her.

She found herself running, but she could not outrun the snakes. Their unreasonable weight was much less of a burden than their words. “He will reject you,” they warned.

“And it is all her fault.”

Rejection would have been easier to bear than what transpired when Nessus laid eyes on his lover.

Being newly cursed, the Gorgons had not been warned about the result of their gazes. Nessus dropped to his knees, quivering in pain. Being part equine, he did not immediately turn to stone.

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She stood over him. “Do you love me?” she gasped, praying to any god available for confirmation. His body twitched and his eyes rolled back in his head, but he did not answer. He also did not die.

Being a merciful Gorgon, Sthenno snatched the satchel her lover had dropped. She pierced his heart with a poison arrow, breaking his heart so it now matched her own. *** “The weight,” Euryale mouthed to Sthenno and rolled her eyes in the direction of the toiling scales that wound and entangled on top of her head. She mouthed her words, not to keep secrets from the snakes—they were reptilian mind-readers—but because her voice was so destructive.

For Sthenno, the weight was nothing in comparison to her murderous rage.

“There is a way,” the snakes whispered to Sthenno, “A king seeks a challenge for a young man. He wants it to be deadly and dangerous. We will convince him that Medusa is awake. We will convince him to force this Perseus to return with her head.”

While she knew that Euryale would be devastated at the death of their sister, Sthenno felt no emotion at all.

The snakes were as smart as they were silky. They helped Sthenno convince Euryale that she would have no blood on her hands. “She deserves it,” they hissed, “So focused on her fame, her figure, her lovers. And she sleeps through the worst days of your life! You can get rid of her, end it all, simply by doing nothing—” Euryale cut them off and addressed Sthenno, as if they were the only two within hearing distance. “We always knew we would have to live without her…at some point.”

Sthenno, made of stone, readily agreed. “It’s just sooner than we expected. That is all.” ***

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The days crept as they always do when your days have no end, until the snakes began excitedly announcing that Perseus was near.

Sthenno crept to Euryale’s side and stroked her cheek.

“Here,” she handed her a drink. They would both sleep soundly. They would be unable to hear Perseus’ approach.

They would be unable to help their mortal sister. Their consciences, if not their scalps, would be free of snakes.

They would rebuild their status. They had forever to salvage their reputations.

Sthenno drank her concoction and slept as if dead. When she and Euryale awoke, Medusa was gone.

And the snakes fell silent.

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Fiction Love in the Time of Athena

About The Author

Elaine Pascale had been writing her entire life.

She lives on Cape Cod with her husband, son and daughter. Her writing has been published in several magazines and anthologies. She is the author of Blood Lights (Sirens Call Publications), and If Nothing Else, Eve, We’ve Enjoyed the Fruit (Withersin Press). For more information, please visit elainepascale.com

Fiction

Words by

Mighty Winter

Adam Barron

About the story

At first, this story was written in the third person as a standard narrative but I eventually scrapped that idea - I felt the first person worked better to convey the theme of unease in a foreign land for this particular setting. I also wanted the setting to go beyond the boundaries of Greek mythology; the first draft

MORE TIMELESS TALES STORIES

BY ADAM:

Ruthless Issue 5 Baba Yaga

of this story had more elements of Scandinavian folklore but for the final draft I decided to keep it vague with some elements remaining so as to avoid a “mash-up” feel. The title Mighty Winter refers to Fimbulvetr: the years-long winter that precedes Ragnarök,

Adam Bar-

It has been a great many years, but I still remember well our doomed journey into the frozen realms and the repercussions of our failure to remove the giant-king from his cold throne.

I was brazen in those days. I loved my king and country and was not afraid to show it. I cannot say if our quest’s outcome would have changed had I showed a bit more restraint in those alien northern lands, but in these dark times, I do like to imagine the lighter days and warmer nights that could have been. With a well-meaning, if insatiable, sense of adventure did I lead my men on the quest to investigate rumors of dragon-worship in a foreign land – what could be more heroic?

Over twenty men dead, lost to the sea as Lords Zeus and Poseidon raged around our vessel, or to the sword and other perils of our journey. I remember each and every one of their names, but the tale of the three who reached the ends of the earth alongside me remains most fresh in my mind.

While old Solon was no doubt the wisest of us all, he was consumed by curiosity and resolved to see what he made of this so-called giant-king and his ice dragon god.

Alec, ever loyal, was wise in his own right, but lived to follow a leader to whatever end. This time, that leader was me and to the end he did indeed follow me.

Kyros was the voice of reason amongst those of our party to reach the frozen realms. True, he spoke out brashly against trading our gear and remaining provisions for thick furs to protect our bodies in that harsh clime (and to this day, I look back with longing for my polished shield, and in discontent upon fish pastes and cold, tough meats). He was also strong in his conviction that we walked a path of fated men and, for that, deserved to be remembered with honor. Even as we approached the gates of the giant-king’s great keep, our destination, fiery Kyros grumbled and held

24 Timeless Tales 4

his arms crossed. Whether his great hurt at the loss of young Leon, whom Lord Poseidon had seen fit to claim, was still fresh, made no matter. He alone spoke the truth and we were fools, all of us, to disregard him.

Under the rule of their king, the people of the frozen realms shivered and starved. Yet there was no rebellion or even hint of unrest. They were a placid people who seemed to know no more than what veiled cruelties their lord meted out. We could not understand a word of this folk’s harsh tongue, but it was clear that they lived only to beg and worship at their king’s gates.

We, however, were granted prompt entry. Solon postulated that our access must have been a product of our foreign status. This king, like us, was curious.

In the yards beyond the gates stood perhaps the most disturbing sight yet: innumerable men and women sculpted from glittering blue ice. Many were weathered and appeared to be of questionable craftsmanship. Where a statue of marble would describe its subject in exquisite detail, these pieces were rough-hewn with white, pitted mounds all throughout. Those whose faces could be discerned were depicted in what appeared to be eternal complacency.

The so-called giant-king was no giant at all. He was lavishly adorned with rings, bangles, and brocade, but was only a man (and a fat, aging one at that). When he welcomed us into his great hall, he feasted us on a variety of rich meats and puddings, which we quickly devoured. The idolatry, perversions, and grisly ritual sacrifices that, in our homeland, populated tavern tales of dragon worship, were nowhere to be found.

After a time, the king clapped his hands and, as if answering a summons, three women appeared. They came gliding into the hall, each with an impossibly smooth gait, one trailing another and bearing queer, content smiles, as if

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they were welcoming dear friends. They were of similar height and lithe build. Each woman’s skin was a creamy white that was almost blue and appeared smooth as glass and cold to the touch. They wore wisps of light clothing and sheer gloves decorated with brass threading—out of place considering the climate, Kyros commented to me, though even his steely eyes wandered. Glittering serpents wound through their hair and hung below their shoulders, gazing at us all with ruby and onyx eyes. The king spoke some words and seemed to introduce them each with a gesture: Seithna, Yral, and Meiduthe.

Each of us was captivated by these women – clearly the king’s wives or servants, for they were too unlike him to be daughters. Even steadfast Kyros struggled to hide a glint of desire behind his grim façade. Though he never acted upon it, he appeared drawn to Yral, who was built lean with sharp facial planes and short-cropped hair of jet. In a way, she reminded me of Leon, who had been lost at sea.

Kyros likely saw it as well. While he clearly found it hard to look away from her body, he could not bear to look her in the eyes.

Young Alec, however, was not so strong. He locked eyes with Seithna, who had silver snakes slithering through hair red as flame. I had taken her to be the eldest—her face, beautiful as it was, seemed the most severe. I touched Alec’s shoulder in gentle warning and he broke away before our host took notice. His lady, however, carried on, watching Alec as he awkwardly filled his plate, trying not to stare back.

I noticed then that Meiduthe, whom I had taken to be the youngest – the most crystal-skinned and delicate in the face of the three – was watching me. I thought at first that she had taken a black humor in my attempt to stymie the connection between Alec and Seithna. I broke her gaze, but soon returned it once her expression made her thoughts as clear as if she had indeed spoken in our own tongue.

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And so, while old Solon worked to establish a communication bridge with the king, two of his three women shared pleasant, if silent, conversations with Alec and I. Kyros, to his credit, did his best to ignore an undeterred Yral.

Though they could not understand one another, the king found a rapport with Solon that men often find with scholars. Solon did attempt to secure us passage home during their sessions but was met only with more and more generous helpings of food.

“The king misunderstands,” he said. “I need more time with him,” I do not recall exactly how much time passed, but it was enough for even Kyros to tactfully put aside his disdain for our quest and our hosts.

None of our party appreciated the king’s hospitality more than Alec and I, although we had a scoundrel’s way of showing it. We stole time with the king’s eldest and youngest ladies whenever we could; hidden glances at the table and smiles when we chanced to pass in those chilly halls. Each night following our meals, the women ushered each of us to our own cozy, fur-furnished room warmed by a great hearth. They tucked us into our beds and slipped away, leaving us to our dreams.

It went on until the morning Alec turned up missing.

Kyros immediately returned to his baleful demeanor when Alec did not arrive for breakfast, but flame-haired Seithna slipped in smiling as if nothing was amiss. He grumbled to Solon, but never to me.

“Alec has disrespected our host, carrying on with that woman,” Solon said, brushing off the concerns and giving me an accusing eye. “He’s taken his leave as any shamed man of honor would do.” The explanation seemed reasonable to me. I even felt a pang of guilt. Kyros, however, bound forever to his brother-in-arms, continued to sour, scowling and begrudgingly forcing down the bare minimum of meals.

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The night came and Kyros came to me in my chambers to demand that I come to my senses. He insisted that the king, or even Seithna herself, had slain Alec and that it was up to me, as the leader of our party, to avenge him. I resisted at first, but Kyros made a strong case and we ultimately formulated a plan. Kyros would slay the giant-king and his women, but I would slay Meiduthe myself as penance for standing idle when Alec went to his sure death.

I went quietly to Meiduthe’s chambers that very night, as she slept, and drew my blade to cut her throat. I hesitated. Her neck was as smooth and white as fresh cream and I thought then, overwhelmingly, of kissing her. Instead of my weapon, I moved to place my lips upon her neck. Her body heaved with a sudden intake of breath. She rose and, with a smile, embraced me. My blade fell to the floor at her touch and I found that I had been correct from the start: her skin was cold. Her breath was cold. She was cold.

A shriek pierced the silence from somewhere within the hall and all the warmth left Meiduthe’s expression. I thought of Kyros. He had carried out his task and would soon be coming to see if I had carried out my own. Then the door burst open and Seithna entered, her face twisted in a rage I had not seen before. I was so surprised that I did not notice that she carried Kyros’ head. She barked “Yral” and other words in the harsh tongue we had never bothered to learn and strode toward me, inexorable. The silver serpents in her hair trembled.

Meiduthe whispered something in my ear in the same language, only it sounded sweet and almost sad. I felt her coolness surround me as if she had wrapped me in her wisp of a gown. She held me close against her body, her icy hands on either side of my head. When Seithna reached me, she swiped at me. At first I thought she must have missed because I felt nothing. The explosion of ice shards from below my neck and my utter inability to fight back proved

28 Timeless Tales 4

me wrong. Horror swept over me as Meiduthe bore me away. I watched frenzied Seithna shatter my frozen remains.

I knew then that the glittering men and women in the keep’s yards were not merely sculptures.

And so I have returned home, not with my men as a hero, but in Meiduthe’s knapsack as a silent witness to her king’s wintry campaign. It was some number of years before they were finally able to summon the great dragon from the utter waste, but I heard every chant and saw every sacrifice. The dragon brought a mighty winter to my homeland that has lasted a hundred years, maybe a thousand, and I wonder with each one that passes whether my sentence has finally been served.

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Fiction Mighty Winter

About The Author

Adam Barron is mainly a leisure writer and has a strong interest in the sci-fi and fantasy genres.

His real interest in writing began when one of his high school teachers told him that she hoped to one day see him published. In his free time, Adam enjoys quality family time as well as board games and video games. He is originally from the Boston, Massachusetts area but now resides in Canada.

Fiction

Words by

Monument to the Argive King

Michael Mina

About the story

I’ve been very interested in mythologies, especially Greek mythology, since around age 11, and probably have more books about mythology than any other subject. I’ve often wondered what happened to Perseus after he slew Medusa. Some sources said he was eventually killed by his cousin Megapenthes, or by the god Dionysus, but others said he died peacefully after a long, prosperous reign. To me, that confusion meant no one knew what really happened, and this was just another part of his life where someone could

craft more myths. The fact that Medusa had once been beautiful also made me wonder if she had been beautiful all along, with her ugliness being a lie told by the winners (e.g., Athena) who get to write history (or myth in this case). Percy Shelley wrote about Medusa’s grace and beauty as opposed to her horror, which also led me to imagine an untold story.

I completed the first draft of this story about twenty years ago, in pre-web days when research was much more time consuming, but I didn’t do much revising until recently.

Monument to the argive king Michael Mina

Yet it is less the horror than the grace Which turns the gazer’s spirit into stone.

–O n the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci

by Percy Bysshe Shelley “Dearest one,” he whispered as he stood by Andromeda’s tomb, “tonight I will join you.” Leaves rustled gently in the wind. He looked around to see if anyone was watching him, but saw no one.

“Soon, my love.” He wanted to say more, but there was much to do before the afternoon sun sank any lower. He silently prayed that Hermes would conduct his soul to Elysium and that the Erinnyes would punish those who plotted against him and brought him to despair of his life.

The walk back to his palace was short, and uneventful, thanks to the trusted guards strategically placed along the way. Once in the palace, he ignored each of his servants and went directly to his bedchambers, where Thyestes greeted him.

“What have you heard?” He stared into the eyes of his aged chamberlain, who alone among the citizens of Argos had served him faithfully through the years.

“Sire, the Bull Devourer is gaining more followers, especially among the Palace Guard. They whisper against you.”

“Perhaps, but this bull will not be devoured.”

“Shall I make ready for you to retire?”

“Dear Thyestes.” He put his hand upon his chamberlain’s shoulder. “I may be getting old, but it’s still too early for bed. I’ll be walking to the shore unescorted. See to it that I am undisturbed until then.”

“Yes, sire.” Thyestes nodded uncertainly and left.

He wanted to say goodbye, but Thyestes would suspect something, and out of loyalty, he would interfere even if it placed his own life at risk.

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He waited until Thyestes had been gone a few minutes before sliding his bed and exposing the oak door hidden beneath. He stuck his fingers into the space where the door met the floor, and with great effort he lifted the door, cursing his aging body for its weakness.

“Pterseus!” the muffled voice said from within, “I knew you would come.”

“Quiet, someone might hear.”

She never called him by his name, Eurymedon. He always felt uncomfortable when she, of all people, called him Pterseus, “the Destroyer” since he’d earned that title by killing her.

“Curse the gods! Do you know how long it has been since we talked?”

“Too long.” He lifted the leathery kibesis out of the secret compartment and placed it under his left arm. Each time he saw it, it reminded him more and more of an aged wineskin with a head in it.

“I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“What are we doing today?”

“Going to the shore.”

“Good. I do miss the sea.”

He knelt to grab the bronze harpe from the compartment and held it aloft briefly. The harpe with which he severed her head had been used by Hermes to slay Argus Panoptes, and was of divine workmanship.

This one, forged at his orders, resembled the other only as much as mere human workmanship could.

“Let’s go,” he said softly.

“Wait! Conceal my compartment.”

He hesitated, then said, “We won’t be returning.”

As he left the palace, he noticed a different squad of guards than the one that had been there earlier. He eyed them cautiously, uncertain of their loyalty. One of them stared at him and the kibesis.

Timeless Tales 4 35

“What are you staring at?” he demanded as he readied his harpe. Did this guard follow Dionysus? Pterseus had defeated the god’s fanatical followers once, when they attacked the city from within and without, but he had to allow them freedom of worship to secure the peace. Argos could not afford another such war.

“My apologies, sire.” The guard’s gaze kept coming back to the kibesis.

Pterseus allowed himself a rare smile. “It was no legend.”

The younger guards gave him sidelong glances. “It really happened!” he said loudly enough for all the guards to hear.

“Do you think I would have likenesses of my enemies sculpted outside my palace? Why? To have their treachery immortalized? Why do you think it is called the Garden of the Gorgon?”

It’s no use. Either they don’t believe me or they don’t care.

He thought of asking her to say something, just so he could observe their reaction to a voice coming from the kibesis, but decided not to. She deserved better than to be used that way.

He went onward. A revolt would be coming, of that he was sure. How deeply the Dionysians had penetrated the Palace Guard was the question.

The question that wouldn’t matter after tonight.

“Perhaps you should have shown me to one of them,” she said after they had left the palace grounds.

“They’ll know the truth by tomorrow morning.”

“For a king, you have grown far too averse to killing. It has been a long time since anyone was added to the Garden.”

Neither of them spoke until his route took him past the temple of Dionysus, when he stopped and looked at the adjacent city administration building. A metope on the building—one of many throughout Argos that showed a much younger version of him severing her head--was damaged almost beyond recognition. Someone also scrawled “Down with Pterseus” in red upon it.

36 Timeless Tales 4

He thought back to the days when being called the Destroyer meant something. Now many said that he was an inept leader and that the only thing he destroyed during his long reign was Argos itself.

“Why are you squeezing me so hard?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.” He started walking. “We just passed the temple of Dionysus.” He wouldn’t tell her about the defacement.

“If the sight pains you so, why not take another route?”

“This is the shortest way to our destination and we must arrive before sunset.” After a brief pause, he continued.

“He and I were both born of mortal mothers and the same Father, but he’s worshiped throughout Hellas, even in Argos where his followers spread chaos. Curse the day that drunken bastard ever came to Argos.

“You persecuted his followers,” she reminded him.

“But instead of punishing me, he punished the people of Argos. Even death won’t make me forget the horrors we endured at his hands. How deep a draught of the Lethe is needed to drown the screams of children being eaten by their mothers because he drove them mad? And yet the people blame me for the horror while they fill his temple. Fools!”

“Perhaps his coming was the beginning of the end of your reign,” she said softly.

“So you believe my reign is over?”

“Have you not already decided so?”

“My reign ended when I threatened to show you to Athena rather than give you to her.”

And my life ended when Athena took Andromeda. A mix of emotions washed over him. The first was hatred of Athena for sending a slow wasting sickness upon Andromeda many years before, and also for using him to kill the demigoddess Medusa, of whose beauty the goddess was jealous. Underneath the anger lingered the shame for

Timeless Tales 4 37

allowing himself to be thus used. And then there was the part of his heart that still undeniably ached over Medusa’s ineffable beauty, a beauty denied him. But above all, there was the guilt for being attracted to Medusa while Andromeda was yet alive.

They finally reached the tower he’d ordered built to serve as a lookout against the piratical raids of other kings--kings who were more successful than he was at bringing wealth to their lands. Neither of them spoke as he climbed the staircase. He was quite winded when he reached the topmost room, but he pushed himself to climb until he stood on the very top of the tower, surrounded by nothing but the sky.

A breeze came from the south, bearing the smells of the sea.

“Accursed Fate,” he said between breaths as he looked out over the Aegean Sea. A coughing spell seized him. “To have had such glory in my youth,” he shouted, his voice becoming louder each second, “only to watch myself grow old, wither and die!”

He looked at the city below. My city, he thought, but no longer believed it. “They will make no monuments to this King of Argos,” he said in a low voice.

“So that is why you brought me here,” she said softly.

“I will not feed the worms.” Looking over Argos one last time, he set his harpe down and unsealed the kibesis. The wind blew more forcefully. He licked his lips, salty from the sweat of his mustache. “The sun will set soon.” He reached in and wound his fingers around some of her tentacles before taking her head out, making sure his gaze did not meet hers.

“Everything looks so beautiful from here,” she said.

He stared at the back of her head as she spoke.

“Argos, the sea, the sun, the sky....”

He set the kibesis down and took his harpe in hand.

“Argos has changed since I last showed you,” he said, “but the sea, sun and sky are the same.” A sudden gust of

38 Timeless Tales 4

wind blew the empty kibesis out into the sky above Argos, tossing it over the rooftops until it eventually landed on the ground. He swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry I ever hurt you,” he finally said.

“You had no way of knowing the truth. I never harmed anyone until Athena, in her envy, made my gaze deadly.”

It hurt him that people thought it mere legend that he slew her, and that of late, storytellers made her out to be hideous. In reality her power of petrifaction was unrelated to her appearance. How many times since Andromeda’s death had he set her atop a table simply to gaze upon her unspeakable beauty in a polished shield?

“Next to Andromeda, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” Even then, he couldn’t tell her the truth.

“Though you killed me, yet have you shown me more kindness than any god or mortal,” she said. “I am honored to die with you.”

He suspected that would happen. Those who were petrified by her gaze were petrified along with everything they touched: their clothing, their weapons, their armor.

She is truly a noble woman. Like Andromeda was.

He tightened his grip on the harpe, then turned to the west to face Elysium, and closed his eyes.

“Are you ready?”

“I am,” she said.

He lifted her head aloft, opened his eyes and beheld her.

The setting sun shone through her tentacled hair as if she put forth a red nimbus and she smiled when his eyes met hers. He wanted to tell her how he felt, but the words froze on his lips forever.

Timeless Tales 4 39

Fiction Monument to the Argive King

About The Author

Fiction

Words by

Secret Shrouds & Golden Burdens

Caroline Yu

About the story

One website introduced the idea of Medusa being a victim, which I liked. To begin, I wrote several notes about what I could do with the story. Notes are a good way for me to get my thoughts rolling before I tack down what the story should be. To give my story more creativity, I decided Marissa would be a sorceress, living in a world where powers became replaced by shallow desires. In the original tale, Perseus and Medusa each have tragic pasts.

Marissa’s gift of foresight allowed me to convey Peter’s past in a natural way. In my version, I also intended for Peter and Marissa’s connection to run deeper than their tragic histories. Peter’s insight allows him to see the shallowness of his society and understand Marissa’s perspective, something other heroes couldn’t do.

Secret Shrouds & Golden Burdens Caroline Yu

“I know you came to kill me.”

The boot protruding through my tower’s window stops shifting. Typical. My announcement makes the most cunning hero pause, but the hesitation never lasts.

This hero recovers quicker than most. The bloody fingers gripping the window’s frame tighten. With a scrape against the tower’s stone, he enters. Rather, he catapults, then somersaults before standing. Impressive. Perhaps his Gift is agility. Not useless, though not as useful as my Gift.

“I came to restore your beauty, Sorceress Marissa,” the intruder lies, scanning my tower. His eyes pan over my straw cot, then flicker to the table holding a pitcher of water, stale loaf of bread, and bowl of wizened apples. His gaze lingers on my smaller side table, well-stocked with gleaming potion bottles. After a gulp, his eyes wander. “I was told you possess the power to make yourself invisible.

Surely you won’t hide from someone who came to help you. Show yourself?”

I snort. Should a sorceress cursed with ugliness show herself to anyone? Instead, I shift in my invisible chair.

The hero blinks at his bleeding palms then hunkers like a hunchback, startled by the pain. Most heroes don’t know the thorns creeping up my tower are poisonous until after they’ve climbed them. Heroes groan over oozing wounds, waiting for poison to seep from their bodies and strength to return, waiting to rid the world of its only ugly being: me. While they wait, I use my Gift to save myself. I use it now, drifting into this hero’s feelings. Pain prickles under his skin, yet he does not cry out. Does he possess bravery?

A rare find in a hero.

He stands upright, and his heavy breathing reveals a well-shaped chest beneath his fitted tunic. Something around his neck glimmers in the sinking sunrays. A medallion?

“Rise from your invisible chair, so I may see you. I don’t fear ugliness.”

44 Timeless Tales 4

I cackle as a sorceress should. “How could you know, when beauty is the most common Gift? You’ve never met ugliness and I’ll not introduce you.” My senses stay under his skin. This hero’s youth works against me. The poison drains fast from his body. I doubt I have five minutes before he finds strength to draw the dagger in his boot. With a shiver, I hurry to speak. “Come, let’s make a deal. I will show you a safer way to leave this tower. In return, you will escape as every other hero has done, leaving me in peace.”

“Not before I’ve cured your ugliness.” He limps across the tower, closing half the distance between us. “What type of ugliness plagues you?”

“That’s my secret. And you needn’t lie. Who are you?”

“Peter.”

“Lies waste time, Peter. I know all heroes hope to rid the world of ugliness by murdering me. My Gift is foresight.”

His fair brows wrinkle in confusion. Not surprising.

Even before the king outlawed sorcery and gods stopped giving powers, foresight was uncommon. “Foresight became lost when the king bargained with the gods,” I explain. “All gifted with foresight returned their Gift to the gods, except me. My Gift means I see inside you and know things about you, including what you feel and think.”

Peter laughs a hero’s laugh, brimming with pomp and foolhardiness. “Impossible.”

“Oh?” I eye the trinket around his neck. “You wear a gold medallion.”

Peter’s hand hides it. “I was told you’d see me, though I can’t see you.”

“Yes, but I see more than you.” My eyes close. “Your father, Elias, was cheated by your uncle. Elias demanded you murder his brother. You refused. So Elias killed his brother and disinherited you. Before sending you away, Elias gave you your uncle’s medallion, a sign of your coward-

Timeless Tales 4 45

ice.” I sink into Peter’s private thoughts. “You can’t remove the medallion until you’re convinced you are brave. You plan to prove your courage by murdering the sorceress others failed to kill.”

The hand clutching his medallion wavers. “You’ve heard my story from another who has entered your tower. That is all.” He bends low, pretending to adjust his boot.

I spot the dagger’s handle behind his boot’s leather and realize I’m panting. A hero who doubts my Gift? Strange.

What if I cannot convince him of my ability? He will cross the tower and try to find me – and I will be powerless against him. My fear rises higher than the thorns climbing my tower as I delve into him again. “The king sent you?” I ask, my voice quivering. “He sends most. A disinherited son has no present for the royal wedding, does he? To please the king, you offered to do anything he desired, and he’s always desired my murder. Now you may prove your courage.”

“And impress my king.”

“He is not worth impressing. All heroes know the king and I are enemies. None know why.”

“I know the king fears you too much to do anything but imprison you here,” Peter retorts. “You use sorcery. And you claim to have an old Gift, from when gods gave powers rather than virtues.”

I cackle weakly. “You call beauty and charm virtues?”

My eyes follow his fingers as they slide deeper into his boot. “Shall I teach you sorcery?” I ask as my heart threatens to erupt. “An ambitious hero like you – ” “The king promised the gods no one would practice sorcery. In return, gods allow us to choose our own Gifts.

The king’s bargain also required sorcerers return their powers to the gods, powers like…foresight.”

“Well I know it,” I whisper.

Peter’s knife shimmers in the fading sunlight. He crosses the tower and gropes, searching for me. I exit his mind

46 Timeless Tales 4

quicker than a fisherman reels in a fish, but I’ve caught nothing. With a shudder, I brace myself for the sting of a blade. Then I notice the secret lurking around Peter’s body.

“Peter,” I breathe, “I’ve learned something about you.

Something you don’t know.”

He’s found the arm of my chair. Peter prepares to strike.

“About Ariana.”

The knife clatters against stone. He sputters. “What?”

“The king’s wedding was a lie. He sent you to kill me so you’d be away when he steals your love, Ariana.” My invisible fingers clasp a bottle on the side table. “I can offer you a new deal now: a potion to turn the king to stone. Ariana can still be yours.”

He stoops, reclaiming his knife. “You could be lying to save yourself.”

“No. I seek revenge against one who outlawed sorcery and exchanged worthy Gifts for frivolous ones: beauty, charm, wit.”

Peter cocks his head. “Is that all?”

I smile. For someone lacking foresight, Peter is insightful. Still, he needn’t know the king was my love. He need not know my love bade the gods curse me with ugliness when I defied royal orders by keeping my Gift. And he needn’t know the king never loves a woman longer than a fortnight. “The king made my skills useless,” I say.

Peter touches his medallion. “Let me see you.”

I start. Long it’s been since someone surprised me.

“Why?” I whisper.

“You say you’ve discovered an escape from this tower?

If true, you stay imprisoned to hide your ugliness.”

“And because I’ve no strength to run away. My ugliness has weakened me.”

Peter nods. “Then let me see if you are as ugly as you claim.” He retreats to place his knife on the window’s ledge.

“Let me come near and take your potion from your hand.”

Timeless Tales 4 47

My fingers fumble, making the bottle shake. He speaks true, this hero. There is no thought of the knife on the ledge. I rise to let fall the chair’s shroud of enchantments and let Peter view the carcass I’ve become.

There is no other way to describe my ugliness. I’m a skeleton with paper for skin, someone who used to be.

Someone clinging to a dead world.

Peter stares. No grimace, no wince. Just another lie. “The views of the world sometimes change. One day, you might be called beautiful.”

My returning tears feel more foreign than would my returned beauty. I hand him the potion. “Slip it into the king’s goblet the moment you return.” Next, I do what I always do when a hero comes to kill me: reveal the trapdoor and hidden staircase. “Follow the staircase down to the exit door. Long ago, I enchanted it to unlock itself.” I eye Peter’s medallion. “You are the first not to be frightened away by my Gift. Hardly the coward your father took you for. One day, you will see your courage.”

Peter pockets the bottle while lifting the trapdoor.

“Peter?”

He looks at me.

I’d wanted another cold stare. I’d do anything for more, even ask a foolish question. “Will you return?” I clear my brittle throat. “Your act against the crown will be called courageous. Soon, you will replace the king. You could outlaw requests for foolhardy Gifts, convince the gods to give powers as Gifts again. I could teach you sorcery for the good of all.”

Peter’s stare stays cold but doesn’t deepen into something worse. “I will avenge you.”

48 Timeless Tales 4

I nod as Peter slips away. Yes, he will avenge me. King Peter will prevent would-be murderers from plaguing me.

But he will never come back. Even a hero with courage and without cruelty can’t comprehend it—a world where mortals chose empowerment, and beauty and charm were by chance.

I once sensed my hero’s return and unlocked the door leading up the staircase. When I lifted the trapdoor, Peter was not there.

But his medallion lay on the top stair.

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Fiction Secret Shrouds & Golden Burdens

About The Author

Caroline Yu lives in a sunny house in Florida with her handsome husband and over three hundred books. She’s always been passionate about make believe; and if Peter Pan ever allows grownups to visit Neverland, she’ll be the first to take flight.

While waiting for Peter’s invite, Caroline will help her daughter have memorable adventures in a Neverland-themed nursery. She’s expecting her baby girl in July.

Fiction

Words by

Long Live the Personal Revolution

Molly Thynes

About the story

I have always been vaguely aware of the story of Medusa. However, when I began brainstorming, I knew that my memory from learning her myth as a child was not going to be enough. I would have to know her more intimately.

I started delving into the more unsung details of the story, and what resonated with me, was the how Medusa became a monster.

How she was transformed from a beautiful woman into a monster

by Poseidon, because she had the spunk to refuse his romantic advances.

Medusa is not so unlike many women, throughout history, who have been punished for not accepting a man’s advances.

Whether they went on to do some

great good or some great evil, a woman being wronged is usually the beginning of a great story.

And that is what breathed life into Marya Krupin, the communist revolutionary permanently scarred for her potential to shame an officer of the czar’s secret police.

Long Live the personal revolution

molly thynes

“I’m coming! Mary and Jesus, just wait!”

The door lock had been broken for months, so Marya just threw it open. In the center of the hall stood an officer in a spotless grey coat and a cap of sleek black fur. So out of place in the dingy apartment building where no one owned anything new.

“Demyan!” Marya threw her arms around him. “What are you doing here so late?”

“My patrol is keeping me longer and longer,” he said, remaining stiff and straight in Marya’s arms. “The city is full of turmoil and keeping it under control is becoming more of a strain.”

“Will you desist with royal protocol for one moment?”

Marya removed his cap and rubbed her hands over his tight shoulder muscles. “This is me, remember?”

If I were following royal protocol,” he told her, reaching inside his coat. “I wouldn’t have brought this.”

In his hands, he held a bottle wrapped in red with gold lettering. It was half-empty, but this bottle had to be worth at least twenty of the grain liquor people in the building toasted with.

“Oh, this is the good stuff!” Marya exclaimed. “Did you snatch it from the Czar’s stores?”

At those words, Demyan’s breath caught in his throat.

For a member of the Okhrana, the Czar’s secret police, even a hint of disloyalty could bring horrors greater than any civilian could imagine.

“It was a joke, my love.” Marya laughed at her far too serious lover. “Come in, have a seat. Let me see if I can find some clean cups.”

While Marya leapt over cans and trash, Demyan simply brushed them aside with his shiny black boots. Other women might be horrified for their lovers to see their homes in such disarray. After all, what kind of housekeeper would such a woman be in marriage? But these sorts of

54 Timeless Tales 4

women didn’t have to work twelve hour days in the thread factory. Having the energy to come home and keep a perfect house was a ridiculous notion.

Amid the clutter, there were two clean tin cups beside the baseboard. When she joined Demyan at the table, he’d already twisted the cap off the bottle.

“Thank you,” Marya said, referring to the bottle cap.

“This cold has not been good for my hands.”

“It’s all those hours in the factory that aren’t good for your hands,” Demyan answered, shaking his head. “If you would just allow me to support you, you wouldn’t have to work in those conditions anymore.”

“I like working.” Must we go over this every time we speak?

“It makes me feel like I’m contributing to my fellow citizens.

And there’s also a certain satisfaction that comes from making something with your own hands.”

“I don’t like your factory either.” Demyan tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “The rebellious fever is especially strong there.”

“Sometimes fever is a good thing. It distracts you from being cold, hungry, and poor.”

Marya raised her cup to Demyan’s, the dented tin clinking dull against each other. “Nostrovia.” She took a large gulp and shivered as the burn moved down her throat.

The taste of liquor was something no one really liked, but this vodka was smooth in her mouth and went down like silk ribbon.

“I just want you to be careful. This sort of radical thinking has a way of polluting the minds of good people.”

“I’m a thinking human being, not a dog that can be trained with table scraps,” Marya snapped, heat rushing from her cheeks down to her neck. “I’m capable of forming my own opinions about labor and revolution.”

“Yes, that’s a fact I’m becoming aware of.” Demyan’s voice grew soft, abandoning the bold tone that command-

Timeless Tales 4 55

ed respect on patrol. “My fellow patrol men have seen you outside the common meeting places for Communist rallies.”

“You mean I was seen outside one of the thousand abandoned buildings in St. Petersburg? Half the city’s population is guilty of the same crime then.”

“And when I was informed of this, I followed him to a communist rally held at midnight. I saw you go inside.”

Marya’s throat grew tight and her skin prickled.

“I suppose there’s no point in denying it then,” she said, nursing her cup. “Is there a reason you’re not drinking tonight?”

Demyan lifted the cup, holding the rim to his lip. “Will there be any point in asking you to cease?”

“No, my dear, there’s not.” *** “I’m coming! I’m coming! Just wait!” Marya opened the door a crack to greet the loud pounding. “I hope you weren’t waiting outside for long. My joints are not what they used to be.”

I’m far too young to be saying that.

Outside, were two men, too young to be wearing the uniform of an Okhrana officer. They were also too young to have developed the cool, collected, calm an officer needed. An officer should especially never be terrified by the appearance of a woman.

“Marya Krupin?”

“That’s right. I must be hard to recognize these days.”

Marya didn’t need the horrified gaze of strangers to know what she looked like—cracked skin and red boils across her skin, thin hair and a balding head, her posture slumped like an old woman from the pain in her bones and joints.

The slighter of the two men, who probably didn’t even shave, was the first to regain his nerve. “Miss Krupin, we

56 Timeless Tales 4

have information that you may be involved with the Communist Party.”

“Did Officer Demyan Mateev send you?” The man never could stand any sort of failure, whether on patrol or in bed.

Marya laughed her now crackled, raspy laugh. “Come inside, have some tea. I’m sure we can sort through this Communism nonsense.”

She waved the young men to her table as she rummaged through her cupboards. There was already a kettle brewing on the stove. “I hope you don’t take milk and sugar.

I have neither.”

She staggered stiffly through the kitchen, neither officer offering to help a woman who clearly had difficulty moving.

It made her wonder how they treated their grandmothers.

“Let me see if I can guess correctly.” Marya settled in and passed them teabags. “It was Officer Mateev who gave you the information of my Communist leanings. Did you ever ask how he knew such things?”

The young men attempted to replicate Demyan’s stony stare, but the way they shook like children in over their heads showed just how much they failed. “Officer Mateev is the one who did this to me. He could hardly have connections to a Communist sympathizer.” Marya traced a finger over her skin. “What? You think he would have been the lover of a hideous woman?”

Marya pointed across the room to a bare spot on the floorboards. “He would make love to me on the floor with his uniform folded on the window sill, so the dinge wouldn’t get on it.” When she turned back, the two boys were recoiling against the back of their chairs. “I’m sorry. Was that too vulgar for you?” Poor boys and their views of the body warped by Orthodoxy.

“You became much more than a Communist sympathizer.” The other officer, a far thicker lad with his buttons struggling to hold his coat together, gulped down his tea,

Timeless Tales 4 57

adding to his bulging gut. “You’ve become a speaker at rallies. You have a following. You command more respect than any woman outside the royal family could ever hope to have.”

Such flatterers, these boys!

“You must admit, I paint of lovely picture of the suffering of the people,” she replied. “Have you come here to convince me to give all that up? Resign myself to simply being poor and alone for the rest of my life?”

The slight officer regained his composure. “Communists are being sent to work camps in Siberia.”

“A work camp won’t want me. My skin cracks in the cold.

My joints are stiff as wooden planks. Even the factory doesn’t want me anymore.”

“People like you go there to die.”

They wanted Marya to shake, to cry, to beg for mercy.

Instead, she just stirred her tea.

“I’ve faced death once. It no longer frightens me.” Marya leaned across the table and whispered, “Does it frighten the two of you?”

The slight boy lifted his cup, but it fell from his hand, hot tea splashing across his legs. He started to scream, but the sound came out in gasps and gurgles. When he moved his hands, his fingers strained, like each was pulling hundred pound weights.

Marya rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “Your friend doesn’t look well. He is a great deal smaller than you. The tea’s probably affecting him faster.”

Finally, the slight boy fell to the floor, clutching and clawing at his throat, kicking his legs until those movements also became slower and constricted.

“Don’t bother to resuscitate him,” Marya said to the thick officer as he knelt down to try and save his friend. “Unless you plan on remaining on the floor with him for the rest of your life.”

58 Timeless Tales 4

Which would not be very long for either of them, if Filat was truly giving Marya her money’s worth.

It was a lovely mixture, once used to kill rats and roaches, until it also began killing infants. Of course, there remained the problem of what to do with the poison that had already been produced. That’s what started Filat’s new business venture. The man was a capitalist, but if he could provide Marya with what she needed, that could be overlooked.

Especially when the product itself was already so close to the taste of cheap tea.

Marya kicked the thick officer off his struggling-tobreath companion. “He’s as good as gone now. Soon you will be too.”

The men might have looked back at her with fear or anger, but both of their faces had turn to waxy masks.

Unable to breath, unable to blink. They lay like corpses for several minutes before they became true corpses. Marya stayed with the bodies, sitting beside them until they went cold and stiff.

“Demyan, my love, I hope you’ve realized what you’ve created.”

Timeless Tales 4 59

Fiction Long Live the Personal Revolution

About The Author

By day, Molly Thynes is a student at the College of St Benedict in St. Joseph, MN, studying the works of great dead white men. By night, she helps manage a group home for individuals with mental illness. At the end of the day, if she hasn’t dropped dead from exhaustion, she writes stories about everything from dragons, to secret agents, to overly entitled teenagers. Her fiction has also appeared in Tales from the Cemetery: Day of the Damned. Below is her thought process in creating her story.

Fiction

Words by

Good Eatin’

Jan Eldredge

About the story

“Good Eatin’” was inspired by two of my morbid childhood fascinations: a creepy, crumbling old crypt located in the cemetery where some of my ancestors are buried, and a slew of wonderfullybad, late-night, sci-fi horror movies hosted by mad scientist Morgus the Magnificent. Between my Louisiana upbringing and my love for all things spooky and unearthly, I often end up creating scary stories seasoned with a southern flavor.

Good Eatin’ Jan Eldridge

Digger lifted his hind leg and peed on the venerable Captain Percy T. Broussard, Civil War hero and founding father of the Louisiana town of Ovis, population 8,000.

“Aw, come on now, Digger.” Percy Landry chewed the toothpick that jutted out the corner of his mouth like a catfish whisker. He frowned, deepening the creases in his crinkly tanned face. Percy was only thirty, but he looked to be pushing fifty. Years of hunting and fishing under Louisiana’s scorching summer suns had not been kind to his complexion.

“Outta all the statues in this bone yard, you gotta take a wee on the one I’m named for? Why couldn’t you pick one of them bug-eyed fellas over yonder?” Percy nodded at two nearby statues, one clutching a shovel and looking a lot like the cemetery’s caretaker—except for the surprised, almost comical expression it wore. The other, who was just as googly-eyed, bore a strong resemblance to a member of the Ovis Historical Society. Percy never noticed the figures before, not that he frequented the cemetery all that often.

A couple of saucer-eyed animals had also been added—a cat caught in mid-slink, a crow perched on a tombstone.

Percy shook his head, confounded. “Rich people and their crazy memorials.”

Digger, Percy’s black and tan Coonhound, trotted off, not having heard any of his master’s words. Digger was up in years and hard of hearing. He was also just about blind, with milky cataracts fogging both his eyes.

“Yep,” Percy continued. “Captain Percy T. Broussard was a great man. Courageous in battle and a fearless defender of his fellow soldiers. They even named the town library after him.” He puffed out his chest. “That’s why Mama and Daddy—God rest their souls—called me Percy. They had great expectations that I’d turn out just like the Captain.”

He paused long enough to gaze at the contents of his wheelbarrow: a bag of Ready Mix, a bucket, a shovel, a trowel,

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and a trash bag for cleanup. He might have felt a momentary ping of self-disappointment, but it quickly passed.

He reached into the pocket of his camouflage jacket, pulled out his cell phone, and squinted at the time displayed on its screen. “4:30 PM. That’s plenty enough time to get that damaged crypt patched up and still get home for a 6:30 dinner.”

Pushing the squeaky wheelbarrow onward, he veered around downed tree limbs, rolling past clumps of Spanish moss the morning’s tornado had tossed about like gray-haired scalps. “When we’re done here, Digger, we’ll cook us up some turtle gumbo and alligator sausages. Yes, sir. We’ll have us some good eatin’ tonight, my friend.” Percy loved to eat, especially if it was something he and Digger had caught themselves.

Percy also loved to talk, particularly now while walking through the graveyard with the sun sinking low behind them. Being a devoted viewer of Channel 12’s Friday Night Creature Feature movies, he tended to get a little jittery around dead folk. A noose of nerves tightened around his guts. Or maybe it was just a hunger pang.

When they reached the lichen-encrusted crypt at the rear of the cemetery, Percy dropped the wheelbarrow handles and studied the damage to the ancient structure.

A gaping black hole had been punched through its crumbling brick entryway. Inside the tomb’s darkness lay something dusty and decaying, a sight not proper for curious eyes.

An icy tinsel of fear danced along Percy’s spine. No wonder the members of the Ovis Historical Society insisted he come out and reseal it right away.

Glancing around, he spied a host of uprooted tombstones, broken and scattered about. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket and whistled in disbelief. “Dang! That tornado must’ve flung them headstones into the front of that crypt and knocked a hole clean through it.”

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The strong winds had also downed a neighboring oak.

One of its leafy branches pressed against the vault’s opening as though trying to keep the rotting occupant inside from escaping.

Percy pulled one hand from his pocket and rubbed his stubbly chin. “Gonna have to cut them branches back.

Nobody mentioned that part of the job.”

Digger waited beneath another old oak, looking confused for a moment. Then he turned around in two circles, settled onto a dirt patch between the tree’s tentacle-like roots, and gave a wide yawn.

“I’ll be right back, Digger, ol boy. I gotta get me a saw from the truck.”

Digger laid his head on his paws, closed his eyes and began to snore.

When Percy reached his pickup, he couldn’t decide between his shiny new handsaw or his trusty old chainsaw.

He grabbed them both. As he threaded his way back through the storm-ravaged cemetery, the sun dropped closer to the horizon, and his stomach growled loudly. But as he neared the rear of the graveyard, he stopped dead in his tracks.

Digger stood facing the crypt, hackles up and teeth bared, snarling like a very hound from hell.

“What is it, boy?” Digger’s tail was tucked between his legs. The sight unnerved Percy so much, he clamped down on the toothpick hard enough to snap it in two. He’d never seen Digger afraid of anything, not even that black bear they’d run across while hunting nutria in the Honey Island Swamp a few years back.

Inside the crypt something shifted, followed by the sound of a thump—like a pair of feet hitting a floor. The spit in Percy’s mouth dried right up. His forehead broke out in sweat, little beads of it rolling down the sides of his face, all the while his heart trying to kick its way out of his chest.

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A pale, clawed hand emerged from the crypt’s shattered opening. It pushed aside the oak branches. And then to Percy’s astonished eyes, a woman climbed out.

“Holy moly,” Percy whispered.

Digger growled low and deep.

The woman moved with the spellbinding grace of a serpent, swaying her way forward, her gaze set straight ahead. Glistening pinkish-gray scales covered her body from foot to forehead.

The locks of her long, rust-colored hair stirred as though blown by a hurricane wind. When Percy peered closer though, he realized it wasn’t hair, but a head full of twisting copperheads.

Red eyes glared from their spade-shaped heads, forked tongues flickered from their slit mouths.

On an oak branch above Digger, an owl screeched in alarm. The woman snapped her head in its direction, and her eyes flared a burst of electric green, lighting up like a flash from a demonic camera. The owl dropped from the tree, hitting the ground with a thunk, as though it were nothing more than a large rock. In fact, the dead bird appeared to be completely made of stone.

“What the holy heck…” Percy studied the motionless owl, its eyes bugging out just like those on the graveyard’s newest statues. But twenty years of loyally tuning in to the Friday Night Creature Feature had not been for nothing. Percy knew exactly what he was dealing with. “Gorgon,” he whispered, understanding full well one look into its burning eyes would turn him into stone too. He jerked his panicked gaze toward his dog. “Digger! Don’t look at its eyes!”

But it was too late. Being nearly deaf, Digger wouldn’t have heard the warning anyway. Glaring and growling and slathering at the teeth, Digger leapt for the monster. She nimbly stepped aside, flashing her eyes at him.

Digger missed his mark and crashed into the front of crypt. With a yelp, he collapsed in a heap, but he had not turned to stone.

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The gorgon bent toward the old dog, her lips peeled to reveal a mouthful of venom-slick fangs. She reached her dirt-crusted claws for him, the snakes on her head whispering like air hoses and waving wildly. Digger whimpered, struggling to climb to his feet, trapped between the crypt and the creature.

Percy Landry would never be commemorated for the courage he showed in defending his old friend, or for the manner in which his actions saved unsuspecting others from their own stony demises. To tell the truth, thoughts of honor and recognition never even occurred to him. Percy was just a simple man who knew what to do, and how to make do with what he had. His mama and daddy would have been proud.

Percy turned his back on his dog and the gorgon. He ripped the chainsaw’s cord, and the machine snarled to life. Grasping the vibrating chainsaw in one hand and his shiny new handsaw in the other, he backed toward Digger and the creature, using the handsaw’s reflection to guide him. “Get away from my dog, you viperous vixen,” he snarled.

The gorgon whipped her deadly face toward him. Percy spat out the remains of his broken toothpick, and squeezing his eyes shut, he swung the rumbling chainsaw around.

Moving as swiftly and steadily as any warrior swordsman, he sheared through the creature’s neck in one clean swipe.

The head plopped to the ground, and a split second later the gorgon’s body collapsed alongside it. Through the handsaw’s mirrored surface, Percy spotted the snakes still writhing and churning. Black blood like motor oil trickled from the gorgon’s neck, pooling atop the dirt and oak leaves beneath it. A quick sizzle, a whiff of brimstone, and the dark liquid reduced itself to ash. The creature’s ghostlygreen gaze faded away, leaving the eyes loose in their sockets and dead as rocks.

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Percy set his saws down and went and knelt beside his friend. “You okay, boy?”

The dog managed to rise to its wobbly legs. With a puzzled brow, Percy glanced at the stone owl, then back at Digger. “How come you didn’t turn to stone too?”

Digger wagged his tail and stared at him from behind the clouds covering his eyes. Percy never knew for sure, but he guessed it was the cataracts that had somehow shielded Digger from the gorgon’s deadly gaze.

Awhile later, after sawing the oak branches away from the crypt’s opening, Percy pushed the gorgon’s cold, decapitated body back into its tomb. He shoveled up the hissing, snaky head, about to toss it in too, when his stomach gave a loud rumble. He paused, then cut his eyes toward his new handsaw.

A moment later, Percy flung the gorgon’s bald head into the vault. He tied up the bulging trash bag and dropped it into the wheelbarrow. Then he pulled a fresh toothpick from his pocket and stuck it into the corner of his mouth. As he set about bricking up the hole, Digger sidled over alongside him, lifted his hind leg and peed onto the crypt. The sack inside the wheelbarrow hissed and squirmed, but Percy had tied it up good and tight. He cast a glance at the bag of copperheads and gave a satisfied nod.

“Yep, Digger my friend, we’re gonna have us some good eatin’ tonight.”

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Fiction Good Eatin’

About The Author

Jan Eldredge was born and raised in Louisiana.

She now lives in Central Florida with her husband, three children, four cats, and a ghost that haunts their house. Her short stories have appeared in Refractions, Inaccurate Realities, Underneath the Juniper Tree, and The First Line Literary Journal.

She’s currently writing a spooky middle-grade novel set in New Orleans.

Fiction

Words by

More Wings than the Wind Knows

Carina Bisset

About the story

The subject of beauty as a curse has always been a topic of interest to me. I find it interesting that women in Greek myths are often punished for their beauty.

Not much has changed. More often than not, our society still settles blame on female victims of sexual violence—especially if the victims are beautiful. I wanted to tell Medusa’s story from the view of a victim, something I can relate to on an intimate basis.

In this piece, Medusa’s fear and

MORE TIMELESS TALES STORIES

BY Carina:

Her Scarlet Purse of Dreams Issue 5 Baba Yaga

Bonus Poem Issue 10 Snow White

despair turn to rage and revenge.

It is only when she lets go of bitter vengeance that she can find redemption. In many ways this is a true story. I only hope that it is one we can change in our own society—healing the wounded with faith and love so they too can discover the courage to find their own wings.

Carina Bissett

More Wings than the Wind Knows

There are more wings than the wind knows Or eyes that see the sun In the light of the lost window And the wind of the doors undone.

– E xcerpted from “The Ballad of St. Barbara”

by G. K. Chesterton Ancient stories describe the fates of unfortunate souls who have suffered from the terrible curse of beauty. Men loved by the gods turn to flowers—the short-lived anemone, the white narcissus, the tear-stained hyacinth. But those of the fairer sex rarely survived such attacks. Instead, their youth was stripped like leaves from a bough, their bones hollowed into flutes, their faces smoothed into paper masks.

Those were the lucky ones. *** Alone in the temple, I tend my duties while singing songs learned in childhood. As though summoned by the mournful lament, the sea king rises from the surf in a clash of waves upon the water. There is no place to flee, no hero to save me.

The notes shatter under the swiftness of his storm. He conquers the fear my beauty provokes by breaking me into pieces. He severs my promises in one swift stroke and binds my invisible wings in a golden net cast through sinew and bone before leaving me bloody and torn, crowned with an olive branch—a sacrifice on the altar to pay penance for the crime.

She will never forgive me.

A cry catches in my bruised throat. The pressure behind it builds, forcing the sound to escape through cracked lips in a tortured hiss. The world is too bright, too sharp too bear. Beneath me, the cool marble scrapes flesh exposed by the tattered remains of my tunic.

The kisses he left behind collect in tidal pools trapped in the salt-stained hollows of my throat, belly and hips. I

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want to run away, but my limbs are pinned by a trident’s jagged tips, my locks a tangled chain anchored to stone columns. I want to scream and rage, but my voice is muffled, smothered under the accusations he roars in the surf breaking against the white cliffs.

The virgin goddess of wisdom finds me like this, a beautiful broken thing staked to her pristine altar in a parody of supine worship.

“I heard you seducing him, calling to the sea with your siren’s song.” A star shines on her forehead, a mark of her divine right, as she judges me.

Did you hear my screams?

“I’ve been watching you.” Each word hammers a shard of guilt into my chest. “I’ve seen the way you walk, the way you tempt with your careless smiles.”

Where were you?

“And then you defile my temple with your unholy lust.”

Her grey gaze pierces me.

It’s not true. Make it not true. “Give me courage.” My tongue, tattered and torn, struggles to form the words, a mantra to her attributes. “Give me strength.” I force the plea past bloody teeth. “Give me justice.” Save me.

I am doomed.

“I will grant you the justice you deserve.”

At her words, my tangled tresses pull free from their moorings.

My hair, my greatest vanity, has remained loose and uncut since that day so long ago when the fatherless boy I once loved spent an afternoon combing the thick glorious mass while he sang haunting melodies. He disappeared the next day and never returned.

The tendrils curl and coil in a writhing mass around my head. Silk turns to scales that brush against the nape of my neck. Screams harden into stones that settle in the pit of my stomach.

“Leave now,” says the virgin goddess of truth and justice.

“And never return.”

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A yellow-striped viper with a scarlet crown kisses my bruised lips with the flicker of a forked tongue. The other serpents crowd close to my skull, bound to me as I am bound to them. Hurry, they whisper. Flee this place. Run while you can.

I push away from the cold, white altar and stumble to my feet. Through the halls of salvation I run, leaving a bloody trail behind as a testament to innocence lost. There is no one to catch me as I fall down the steps. My wings flutter in a feeble attempt to restore balance in a world turned upside down, but the fear binds them tight and I land on my hands and knees, head bent under the unfamiliar weight on my hissing locks.

A man stops and stares as I pull myself to my feet. Caught in the snare of my gaze, he freezes in place as his body slowly turns to stone. My fury boils in the pit of my stomach.

Despair turns to vengeance and my lips curve into a mocking kiss pressed against the petrified mouth of my first victim.

There are others, countless other men left along the trail as I retreat to the sanctuary of the caves from my youth.

By the time I arrive at the land of my birth, I am past the fear of the sea and its king. He can’t hurt me anymore. But I cannot harm him either. Such is the fate of mortal women.

The last frayed remains of hope are lost in the fury of vengeance unmasked. Unable to take retribution for the crimes against me, I turn my deadly beauty loose on the men I seduce to the wild garden cultivated on the cliffs. Their lust and fear feeds the fires burning in the pit of my stomach.

I spend hours each day polishing their petrified remains.

At night, my serpents stretch to caress bare flesh. They coil around my thighs and waist. They stroke my arms and shoulders. They tickle my neck and whisper in my ears.

Burn them, they hiss. Destroy them all. Absently, I stroke the red crown of the yellow-striped viper even as my caged wings flutter against the net pinning them against my spine.

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One morning, I wake to find a hero making his way through my garden. He pays no mind to the tormented statues he passes. Nor is he tempted by the glorious fruit hanging from the trees. My serpents urge me to destroy him, but I ignore them and follow the stranger as he makes his way down the cliff to the labyrinth I call home.

He pauses at the cave mouth in front of the two twisted piles of blackened stone—monuments created from rage spewed forth in a flood of fiery lava and volcanic ash. I test the air, eager to catch the smell of fear. Instead, I am greeted with the sweet scent of anticipation as the stranger traces the twisted shapes with his sun-bronzed fingers. I freeze in place as he strokes the curves of stone. I can almost feel the hands of the boy I once loved smoothing my hair’s luxurious waves, but then the serpents coil and writhe around my face, breaking the illusion. Kill him, says the striped serpent. Kill him now.

I ignore the venomous demands and hissed warnings and follow the hero as he creeps through the tunnels. The torches flicker as he passes. In one hand he carries a sword and in the other a polished shield. This hero is no match for me and I know it, but I wait and watch. There is something familiar in the length of his stride and the way his dark hair curls at the nape. The desire to see the hero’s face builds in a wave of sweet torment.

The man halts his progress at the underground spring flowing at the heart of the cavern. He stares at the altar I have carved into the limestone walls. A pile of obsidian tears glitter in the diffuse sunlight streaming through a narrow skylight overhead. Flowers and fruit rest near trophies taken from my victims. But above it all hangs a leather thong tooled with the impression of tiny roses. A harp carved from rosewood dangles from the thin strap—a gift from the boy I once loved, the fatherless boy who had serenaded the romantic girl I’d once been. The man drops his sword and shield.

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“No.” A strangled cry escapes his lips. “It can’t be.”

Oh, but it is.

At the sound of his voice, a thousand little memories of my human life crash down upon me. The fires churning in my stomach dim.

“Em?” He spins around and I close my eyes even though I want nothing more than to gaze upon the face of the boy I loved so long ago.

A moment of silence stretches between us and then I hear the shuffle of his sandals scraping against the cave floor. The snakes snap and hiss, but he ignores their warnings and presses his lips against mine. I relax into his embrace for a moment, but then push him away. The serpents writhe around my head in an agitated dance.

“Why have you come here?” I already know the answer, but I’m not ready to destroy the destroyer. Not yet, anyway.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” His despair chokes on the words. “What have they done to you?”

All I have to do is open my eyes and I can keep him here with me forever. If only I could. He is the one man in the world I can never hate. Save me. In that instant, the last of my rage cools. My accuser made me a monster, but she left me mortal. At least I have that. And if I am doomed to leave this miserable world, I would prefer it to be at the hand of this hero, my one true love.

“Do what you came here to do.”

His breath catches in his throat. “I can’t. Em?” The faces of all of the men I’ve punished for the sins of another flicker across the back of my eyelids. In the end, I have become no better than she who cursed me. “Pick up your sword and slay the monster.”

“Do not ask me to do this thing,” he says, yet I hear him retreat back to the altar, back to his sword and shield.

The blade sings as it scrapes against the rocks. It’s not too late. I can still slay him. I search for the hatred that has

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sustained me all these years, but those fires are cold. I am left with nothing but ash churning in my stomach. My wings strain frantically against their bonds. The metal net cast by the sea god slices through skin and bone. The serpents flail about in a halo of venomous colors as they try to tear themselves free from my scalp, yet still I keep my eyes clamped shut.

“You are so beautiful.”

He begins singing a haunting melody from our childhood, a song of love and loss. Tears slide down my cheeks, solidifying into volcanic glass as they fall to the cave floor. I am done with this mortal life and the suffering that comes with it. In a flurry of violence, my wings rip free of their bonds. They unfold in bloody tatters that brush against my back.

“I love you,” he whispers between notes. “I have always loved you.”

His sword is swift and sure. His song crescendos as the blade arcs down to sever my head from my neck. In that final moment, the last shreds of the golden net fall away and I leap out of my human body and into my new form.

My wings stretch and flex, creating little whirlpools of wind in the cave. Impatient, I strike my hooves against the rocks. Sparks fly as I race towards the cave mouth and the freedom of the open sky beyond.

I am more beautiful than ever with my white coat and golden wings, but this time I am untouchable. In a sweeping circle, I make a pass over the wild cliff-side garden and its stone sentinels. The hero stands at the cave mouth. A bloody bag hangs from his belt, but his shield and sword are lowered. I can feel him urging me to return, to offer myself to him. But can’t he see? I am no longer a woman dreaming of love lost. Nor am I a monster seeking revenge.

I am finally free.

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Fiction More Wings than the Wind Knows

About The Author

Carina Bissett spends her time crafting twisted fairy tales and cross-pollinated mythic fiction.

Her short fiction and poetry can be found at the Journal of Mythic Arts, The NonBinary Review and other assorted journals and anthologies. Links to her work can be found on her website at www.carinabissett.com. Fans of Greek mythology might especially enjoy her retelling Tuning Philomel’s Steely Strings in the Wasteland’s Dark Matter published in the April issue of Alphanumeric.

Fiction

Words by

Diva

Dan Micklethwaite

About the story

The idea for this piece came about unusually quickly, within a few hours of seeing the theme for this issue. I’ve been fascinated by ancient Greek mythology for almost as long as I’ve been able to read, and remember finding the backstories of characters - especially the more monstrous ones - deeply intriguing. The tension between the before and after periods of their transformation into creatures of terror always seemed to provide fertile material for the storytellers - this desire to return to a time of purity, to the paradise of their past; the inability to make peace with what they’d become, and the madness that followed - and means that most of these myths have a doubly tragic core, with both the hero and the antagonist struggling with the burdens of reputation and history, and in need of release from the pressures these bring. Medusa’s story, to me, seems now a parable of not only the misuse

and exploitation of beauty, but also of the insecurity that often follows in its wake. With this last notion front and centre, my reworked version of the character could only become an artist - for who is more insecure (and more prone to ridiculous reactions to criticism) than we artists? And what kind of artist is more tragic than one who is led to misunderstand their own worth and to forget the true nature of their talent? Hence ‘Diva’, and the duality that implies. All this retelling needed then was an agent to counteract this and restore some kind of clarity - given the obsessive nature of the way in which most heroes in such myths pursue their respective monsters, a die-hard (if unconventional) fan seemed like the way to go. Enter Percy, and, with him, the first rough outline and the start of the tale...

MORE TIMELESS TALES STORIES

BY DAN:

Recipe for Success Issue 5 Baba Yaga

Impatient History Issue 9 King Arthur

DIVA Dan Micklethwaite

Three hours after dress rehearsal should have started, the stage manager, trembling, escaped outside to smoke. Or, rather, she tried to, but she couldn’t hold the little white stick steady and the flame of her Zippo –gunmetal casing inscribed with an owl – wouldn’t stay still. She stared hard at the tip, quietly pleading with it to catch fire. It was her last cigarette – her last ever.

Honest. – the one she’d hidden at the bottom of her bag for emergencies only. She’d been fully quit for almost a week.

And now this.

She wanted to scream, to kick out, to throw something at the wall. But there’d been far too much of that already.

Her ears were still ringing. So much so that she didn’t hear the guy asking if she was alright, whilst he struck a match and guided it towards her precious, sacred cigarette, in the shelter of a hand like a sandstone slab.

When he asked again, she looked up and saw the man smiling. It was Percy, one of the security guards, in his black puffer jacket, the vermicelli-like earpiece caught in his raggedy hair.

She’d always been a bit wary of him, but the chorus girls said he never gave them any trouble. And anyway he was big and strong, which, after what she’d just been through, felt like a comfort.

After a deep drag, she answered his question. She told him everything. All the fuss, the drama. The minutiae of the mayhem. It took her so long she was able to beg a couple more smokes from him as she talked. Then, her suggestion clear, he left her to luxuriate in her own private, peaceful, almost ethereal mist.

As he traversed the twisting backstage corridors, he told himself one thing, over and over: Don’t panic.

He may have been six-foot-five and seventeen stone; instructor at the agency may have said he was ‘born for the job,’ but he still got very, very nervous if something was about to happen. To really happen.

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Most of the time, he relied on his presence to defuse a situation before it got that far.

But this time he hadn’t been there.

He wanted to switch some music on to calm himself down, but he couldn’t because that was part of the reason he hadn’t been there. Not that he’d dared tell the stage manager. He had a feeling she didn’t like him too much as it was.

Trauma, however, had a way of helping people overcome differences.

And, as he finally reached the corridor in question, he realised it had been more traumatic even than she’d said.

A long parade of both attendants and performers were either slumped or foetal-curled against the wall, frozen absolutely stiff and, barring the odd nonsensical chittering, completely catatonic. Everything lifeless, demoralised, drained. Everything torn down and made wretched and muted. Everything, that is, except the weeping coming from behind the door.

He stared at the gold star, at the name underneath it: Miss Diaz.

There was a tingle at the back of his neck. He couldn’t believe he was this close to her – the most celebrated performer on Broadway. He’d seen her from a distance, of course, but she’d always left by the front entrance, to the cheers of her adoring fans, and he was always stuck guarding the back. He’d seen her on stage as well, nearly every night since he’d learned how to sneak through the fire exit.

The first evening he worked here, he’d heard her voice, felt it, through the windows, through the shaking cement between bricks in the walls, and knew, quite unexpectedly, that he now enjoyed musicals. He’d always thought they were soft before and not his kind of thing – but as of that night, he was sure that he loved them. He’d drifted along the pathway of sound as though on a magic carpet or a

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flying horse, all the way to the wings. And stood there, stock still, behind the crushed-velvet curtain.

But he’d never been this close.

Only a door in between them. Perhaps between him and a selfie. Something to prove that they’d actually met. Because he couldn’t believe it. Not without that.

Neither, however, could he quite believe what the stage manager had told him. The memory stayed him from twisting the handle. Don’t panic. He’d heard how temperamental these artistic types could be – especially the geniuses – and there’d even been a few minor issues with her previously.

Just… nothing like this.

The stage manager had said she’d seen it before, with an old diva, back when she herself was only an intern. She’d said it was the ugliest, most terrifying thing she’d ever witnessed, and that she really didn’t know if she could handle it again. The death of a Star—that was how black holes began in this industry and she didn’t want to be sucked in.

She wasn’t alone. Three others, the diva’s assistant included, had already quit.

It had started from something so small—idle chatter between two of the supporting actresses, remarking on how her voice maybe wasn’t as strong as it had been and how she might be getting too old to play the beautiful lead. Nothing particularly unusual except that they happened to be passing Miss Diaz’ dressing room at the time. And she, having just concluded her first set of vocal warm-ups, happened to hear.

What came next was a scream so loud and shrill, it broke her mirror. Everybody heard the shatter – ‘I’m surprised you didn’t,’ the stage manager had said. Percy didn’t want to confess that he’d been breaking the rules. That he’d rigged his earpiece to play her old songs from his phone and had been playing so many that he’d worn the battery out.

One by one, they tried to calm her. Everyone had a go, from the male lead to the producer to the lighting guy. Yet she bawled and wailed and cursed each of them to such

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terrifying and offensive extent, threatening them physically with all manner of projectiles, that their minds had no recourse but to shut down entirely. To drift off to a safer and happier place.

Their childhoods, maybe?

A favourite first date?

Perhaps a small island, somewhere off Greece?

Wherever it was, Percy felt like joining them. He just couldn’t believe that someone with a voice so divine could be capable of such cruelty and harm. He didn’t want to believe it.

Don’t panic.

Whether to protect himself physically, or simply to prevent himself seeing what she’d become, he suddenly felt the need for some kind of shield. He could probably lever the door off its frame, of course, but that felt like overkill. One of the waiters had dropped a silver platter.

That would do.

Holding it in front of his face, Percy opened the door.

He expected the plate to ring with the noise of multiple impacts, for dents to pop out of it, bruising his cheek.

But they didn’t.

After a minute of standing there, doing nothing, saying nothing, and having nothing said or done to him, he lowered the shield, peering over its broad upper rim.

This was…not how he’d hoped they’d meet. For weeks, he’d stood at the back entrance, daydreaming about it, wondering whether it would be acceptable to sneak around front for a few minutes as she was leaving,wondering if she’d see him and smile— Right now, though, she was staring at him, sneering at him, visibly tired, but determined regardless, to raise further hell. Indeed, rather than the glorious, commanding, spellbinding figure he’d witnessed on stage night after night, the creature who sagged on the stool by the make-up table seemed positively possessed. Her eyes were red and narrowed, her nose was streaming, her mascara and her

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rouge had run. Her chestnut hair, so elegantly styled for performances, was knotted and backcombed, resembling nothing short of a nest of snakes.

Percy didn’t know what to do. He just stood there, doing nothing, saying nothing, timorously peeking over the top of his shield. Miss Diaz just sat there, staring at him, her lips twitching like the hairs on her head, as if she were readying to assault him with curses.

He began to panic (he’d forgotten to tell himself not to).

He could feel his knees going weak—all six-foot-five and seventeen stone of him turning to wet cement, ready for pouring across the ground before setting for good.

She was opening her mouth. Simultaneously, she reached behind her for whatever sharp or heavy object she could find. He mustered the energy to raise the platter again and whimpered from behind it, “Please, Miss Diaz…I’m a big fan…” Then scrunched his eyes tight and awaited the end.

“You are?’ she said, the tension suddenly shifting.

Then: “...You aren’t. You’re just saying that. I know your tricks. I know all your tricks. You all think I’m past it. You all want me out…”

“No,” Percy said. “I mean it. I really mean it.”

He then confessed how he’d been sneaking into performances, how he’d downloaded all her albums (legally!) and listened to them on-duty to get the lyrics clear so, in the darkness of the wings, he could mime along. How he’d wanted a selfie for weeks, but always found himself too shy to ask.

As she sat there, she seemed to re-inflate, to re-ignite.

She wiped away the smears and smudges, blew her nose.

Began returning to the person – the magnificent, celebrated musical diva – he’d wanted so much to see.

When he felt that she’d calmed down enough, he decided to press further.

“The thing is,” he told her. “Because I’m such a big fan of yours, of how you sing, I’d really love it if the show went ahead…so, do you think there’s any chance we can get you to the dress rehearsal?”

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He couldn’t tell whether her eyes were narrowing again.

Whether her hands were clenching into fists. “Is that okay?”

Still no response.

He decided, rather hopefully, to take this as a yes. “I’ll leave you to get ready, then, shall I?” He moved towards the door.

But then—”Percy,” she said in a tone he had difficulty reading.

Don’t panic, he told himself, even as his knees weakened again and his whole body began to creak and harden.

“Percy,” she repeated.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

“Listen, I don’t suppose that, well...”

Don’t panic. “...that you know how to style hair, do you? Only, I think I made my assistant quit.”

Don’t… Oh. He didn’t know what to do. Or say. For a moment. Then moved towards her, as if enchanted. The memory of her music swarmed in his head, leaked in through the earpiece, danced in his muscles.

He set the plate upright on her table to act as a mirror and then leaned over her shoulder to pick up a brush.

He could see her smiling, finally, in the reflection. Standing beside her, he smiled too. To be this close to Miss Diaz—to this beautiful woman with the beautiful voice.

This diva. His diva. He wanted to save this moment forever, to get that long-elusive picture – the proof of this. He just couldn’t believe it.

He really couldn’t believe it.

He really, really couldn’t believe it.

When he reached for his phone, it had run out of charge.

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Fiction Diva

About The Author

Dan Micklethwaite does most of his writing in a small, wet town in the north of England. He escapes vicariously via his short fiction, which has travelled extensively and internationally, to such wonderful, exotic locales as Birdville, Eunoia, BULL, 3:AM, Litro, and The Missing Slate, in whose New Voices competition he was runnerup last year. His debut novel, a contemporary riff on Don Quixote set in the aforementioned small, wet town, is due for release in 2016 through the brilliant Bluemoose Books. In the meantime, if you’re curious, feel free to pop over here: smalltimebooks.blogspot.co.uk and/or follow him on Twitter @Dan_M_writer.

Poetry

Words by

Experiment

Ed Cooke

About the poem

For Experiment, Ed originally planned a mashup of the legendary Perseus with the King of Macedon of the same name. It didn’t work. So he settled for an outline of lesser-known events in the myth. He thinks Peter Ramus would be proud.

e x pe r i m e n t

E d C ook e

I want to test a theory that has seemed likely at the following moments: 1. W hen the head rolled to a halt at my feet, spewing blood, and I threw back my own head and laughed.

2. W hen I squabbled with Atlas and slew him over a portion of fruit.

3. W hen I gave a speech to Andromeda’s parents while she shrieked in her mother’s embrace before the sea-serpent. “There will be time enough for tears.

This hour is all we have for rescue. My rank as the son of Jove and my renown as slayer of the Gorgon might—might, I say—make me acceptable in your sight as a suitor. Yet if you will allow me, I shall woo and win her by services rendered, if the gods will only be propitious. If she be rescued by my valour, I demand that she be my reward.”

In other words: I was only thinking of the money.

4. A nd yet, when Phineus, Thescelus, Amphyx and the others burst upon my wedding, did I hesitate to turn Medusa’s head on them? We should have laughed together over a jug of wine.

5. A h, Andromeda. Ruler over men. Did I hope to pluck that dusky jewel?

6. Probably not. It should be obvious, from the rough treatment I gave my mother’s suitors, that I have unresolved issues.

I believe the evidence speaks for itself. If I am wrong, the following will happen: 1. I will be turned to stone.

I open the wallet the nymphs gave me, take out the head.

It is as I thought: I had no need of the mirror. I am stone already.

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Poetry Experiment

About The Author

Ed Cooke is a freelance writer based in York, UK. His credits include six stage musicals and a seven-volume set of Health & Safety manuals for Network Rail. He scripted a short film as a fundraiser for Diabetes UK: youtu.be/SLkQjYm5kdM Ed has spoken on the pleasures of fiction at Bettakultcha York: youtu.be/pCbeyaQeh1s

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