Come to Mommy |
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The harpy had a name and Mommy knew it. She knew, because she watched, how the harpy groomed herself, how she pecked between bronze feathers with her barb-shaped tongue and drew the razor quills between her lips. She knew, because she smelt her, when the harpy was aroused. She knew, because she fed her, what the harpy ate. The harpy watched Mommy and Mommy knew it, too. She said she caught the harpy under moonlight as she slept. There are seven kinds of sleep and Mommy was seven kinds of liar. She caught her awake and feeding, snared her with a wind caul, with a net of air and light cast over her head; it trapped the deadly wings and blinded her, with her talons stuck fast in the flesh and splintered bone of a talking mule. Mommy'd paid good money for that act. Well, she'd fed it and cleaned up its vocabulary. It was more parrot than conversationalist, a stunt by a failed magician. She bought the magician too, from the same doomed roadside stand. She touted the mule as a hinny sired by Xanthos, Achilles's immortal mount. Do monsters follow show business? The harpy ate the poor mule's heart and fouled its chest--from grandmotherly affection or rage at the lie, Mommy couldn't decide. The harpy was named Celaeno, Darkness of the storm, snatcher of bodies and miscreants. Creature of the night. She presented as the hybrid: head of a woman, body of a great clawed bird with knife-edged wings. Celaeno as Podarge fleet foot, the white mare, the wind horse fair enough to tempt sweet Zephyr himself, was nowhere in evidence...unless you saw her glorious pale hair under the moon, saw it lift on a breeze and flash against the bars. It might be the iron that kept her in that shape. She gobbled a language that might be Greek, her voice staining the words. When she first woke from Mommy's holding spell she shrieked three times. The birds fell dead from the trees and the wagon horses fled. The magician covered his ears. Mommy laughed like whiskey and smoke and filled her pipe. The day after you capture a harpy is a thoughtful one. Mommy sent her useful servant and the magic fool for water and firewood. She paced the circle of wagons, strengthening the locks. The harpy hissed at her and defiled its straw. Make a perch, Mommy added to her mental list. She looked at the harpy and asked herself, "What do you see?" She asked a second time and a third, to be sure. Well, well. The creature spat a word. "I don't care. You're mine," said Mommy. "Mine to hold, to know." The harpy spread her wings, spread them wide and rattling, bronze-faced reflecting blood back at the sun; dark, dark, within, gathering blackness to her breast. The knife-tips sparked against the iron, sending bright flicks to bounce and sputter in the dampened straw. Mommy cracked her fingers like two dry twigs and the bars grew smoking cold. "Kill me and you're still mine." She pulled her skirts wide and curtseyed. The harpy cawed and stamped. The men coming back quarreling, with water and wood, stopped and stared at the dance. It was a week before the wonder was routine. Mommy told fortunes in the Midnight Carnival. She was always paid up front; it wasn't a popular turn. Pearls before swine, she laughed. The fools never asked the interesting questions. They never asked why, just when, when, when, always When, and there are only two answers to that. The first is Never. When will I meet my true love? Never. When will I be rich? When will I succeed, when will my boy come home, my hair grow thick, my luck improve, my body heal: never never never. The other answer, rarely sought, is At the end. When will I die? Mommy knew. She knew the how; the when was unimportant. That was her death, sitting in its cage, and she was content. How satisfying, how convenient, to pull your death along at the end of the string. How fine, how fitting, that her age anchored it there. Was the harpy ever young? Immortal things are outside age, outside experience, outside time and knowledge gained. Look into those yellow eyes. Was power ever young, or hunger, or the wind? Was Mommy ever young? She was. Her spring was brief and bitter and happily left behind. Mommy was old, child. Mommy had lived. Mommy pulled her strength up from the roots of her whole past life; Mommy drew knowledge behind her like a train. Strong enough to hold a harpy. Smart enough to tell stone from bread. The harpy fed on grain and blood. She would have eaten anything, Mommy found. She had no living appetite. She ate as carelessly as fire. The blood, the fetching of it, the sight of the harpy eating made the men uneasy. When the men were uneasy, the harpy's nostrils twitched. Mommy noticed and set them to fanning her while she ate, in the still summer heat. Mommy laughed to herself. The harpy spread her tail and closed her eyes. Illusion, illusion. Illusion Mommy knew. Revenge Mommy knew, better than Celaeno. The harpy was a minion, an envoy who did the bidding of old, dead gods. She may have killed with satisfaction, but the pleasure was in the act, not its contemplation. Mommy cooked her own. Mommy sent her own cold hate stalking out among the fools, dimming their eyes, weighting their hearts, drawing their sinews tight. Mommy sent out the fear of who she was, the lie of who she was, the poor, old, helpless woman, ragged drab of time. Fools. Fools. Fools. Fools. They came one night on a sleeping horse. The harpy whinnied on her perch. "What do you see?" Mommy asked. |
| Note: Written for hossgal in the Yuletide 2006 challenge. Thanks to Carene and Hafital for reading and advice. |