Metamorphoses

Unfortunately, Mr. Big Shot decided he was tired of the squabbling over who got the goods—again, ignoring the fact that "the goods" didn't want to be gotten—and issued an edict: Hephaestus. For once, he and Hera were in accord because Hephaestus had gone to her for a little help in getting what he wanted, which was a wife that made every other god stand at attention.

With a notable lack of an "I do" from one side, it happened.

Was anyone surprised that she put up with it for about a New York minute and then did exactly what she damn well said she'd do? And not just any old penny-ante hookup. The god of war ... sort of the poster child for bad-boy behavior. I mean, he wasn't going to say no; she's hot as hell and he's a total player. And in her marital bed. It was a total in-your-face "I told you so."

Hephaestus was enraged at what didn't surprise anyone, and he humiliated his wife in front of everyone when he caught them. Absolutely humiliated her. And his mother gloated no end about her rival being humbled.

So, Aphrodite was looking for some payback for the bitch. And she happened to be in the vicinity that night and decided to walk in on us.

"Do you know of any place more secluded than this clearing here?" he'd asked me a couple of hours before.

"Here," I waved toward a rock face maybe fifty feet away, visible as a dark mass in the moonlight. Forestalling any other conversation, I grabbed his hand and drew him toward the small cave my sisters had lent me. The entrance was tiny and not easily seen unless you knew it was there.

We slid into the chill of being underground.

"I guess we could light a tiny fire," he said, trying to judge how apparent it would be from outside.

"Tiny fire." I waved toward the small pit in the corner with its pieces of charcoal.

He looked at me strangely. I sighed. I'd been through this before. Many times. The only way to avoid it was to find a big, strong, silent ... read: dumb as a rock ... man. Unfortunately, those were good for a moment's itch-scratching and nothing more.

Now, I wanted to weep in frustration and rage, and my fierce, burning hatred of the bitch flared for a second. I turned my back on the slab of deliciousness sitting nearby—pity would make it almost impossible to keep the hot tears in check—and curled into my bedroll.

I awoke to the sound of voices. I recognized her, of course.

"You're from my dream," he said to her.

"Mmm."

"Are you real?"

"Apparently." She saw me stirring. "Hello."

"Hello."

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Are you."

"I think she's a little simple," he told Aphrodite. But she looked at me long and hard.

"You're that one, right?"

"Right." I nodded.

"May I?" She gestured toward the man.

I sighed the words, uncertain. I mean, was she asking me if she could have him for the night? That was entirely possible given who she was. But she wouldn't ask about that; she'd just go for it. I decided it was something else. I nodded again.

She told him my story. The look of outrage on his face instead of pity sealed my fate. Well, the look plus the fact that, while I could tell he appreciated what was in front of him, he wasn't panting over it and oblivious of me. To even be noticed in that company was like winning the victory olive wreath in the Games. I was this man's if he even lifted a finger.

Then Aphrodite asked him his story, and I listened avidly. It was my first glimpse into what would become part of my world.

When he was done, she sat looking back and forth between us for a long time. I have to tell you, it made me nervous. Getting caught up in the intrigues of her kind could be a real no-win proposition.

She finally spoke. Her words were directed at him, but she was speaking to me. She understood what I'd go through if she addressed me directly. She was being considerate. I took the risk of deciding that I ... tentatively ... liked her.

"Hera will never let up. She cursed one of my sons for all time just because I won a beauty contest. I've heard the rumors about what Pan did. I was sorry when someone told me—it should be an act of joy, or at least pleasure, not that. He'll come again and find her; Hera will make sure. He's actually not too far from here right now."

I stiffened. My husband-to-be-although-he-didn't-know-it-yet also stiffened. He patted his sword.

"I can defend her."

"I don't care how ridiculous he looks with those feet, he's a god." She dismissed my protector with the way she said it. I felt bad for him, but she was right. Pan was a god. She went back to studying us.

"Do you want to get away?"

It seemed like she said that to both of us.

"Get away." I remember sighing as I reached for my bag. I found the thin sheet of wood coated with wax and a stylus and flat knife. It was such a slow way to communicate. I had to heat the knife a little in the fire and then draw it over the wax to erase the last thing written. You wouldn't understand, I guess, but it was so painfully slow. Nothing like a computer keyboard.

I wrote and showed it to them.

There's nowhere I can hide that one of her people can't find me.

"If you were dead, she'd stop looking. It doesn't have to hurt. It can be very easy. Even pleasantly in the throes of passion."

"Passion." I shook my head. As attractive as the Elysian Fields might be, it was a one-way ticket I wasn't ready to punch yet.

I'm telling you, it was like a bolt of lightning. I remembered how my sister Pitys got away from Pan. I didn't want to go to those extreme lengths, of course. I'd go crazy if I couldn't wander through the world, no matter how beautiful my glade was. But my cousin Syrinx, she'd been in the same situation. Fortunately, her sister naiads were nearby when Pan went after her.

And all of us cousins ... mountains, trees, rivers, all of us ... laughed at how gullible the horny fool had been just because one pretty naiad batted her eyes and told him a heartbreaking tale of her sister changing into a reed to escape, while that sister slid off through a thicket of them. Every time I saw someone playing panpipes, I chuckled.

It took forever, scribbling, showing, blading the wax, moving onto the next part to explain to the two my thoughts. When I was done, both of them laughed at me.

Then they thought about it some more. They looked at the final thing I'd written: Syrinx, Pitys, Danaë, Io, Daphne, Baucis, Philemon, Lethaea, Aglauros, Sykeus, Myrrha, Philyra, Lotis, Dryope ... I could keep going with precedents!!!

Then they laughed with me.

Aphrodite shook her head in amusement as she became my idol. "You two play your parts. I'll do everything else. It'll drive the old crone crazy!"

"Crazy!"

For weeks we acted out our little skit, letting a villager here, a shepherd there, see us. The beautiful man followed by the woman who tried but never managed to catch him.

"I don't want you," he'd yell.

"Want you," I'd call back.

My fears of nearby Pan were allayed when I saw a woman suspiciously fleet of foot and suspiciously looking very much like me leading him on a merry chase. He was slow, but she'd let tantalizing bits flash whenever he flagged. That could go on for a long time.

And then we added the second act. The man fleeing the woman would stop by every pond to stare in, use every polished piece of bronze as a mirror. "You're so beautiful, I have to have you. I'll kill myself without you," he'd say in tears and rip at his clothes and hair like he was going mad. Exact words sure to be meaningful to Ameinias's family.

Word filtered to me through my cousins: all the players were drawing near. There were plenty of watchers, seen and unseen. The mortals barely concealed in the bushes watched the man staring fixedly at his reflection, crying "I have to have you" over and over. They were wary of his sword and content to wait for their masters.

The satyrs, better hidden, watched the woman, obviously wasting away with fatigue, crying piteously, repeating "You!" over and over in response. They, too, were waiting for a master.

The old crone screamed imprecations at us, telling us to get out, we were scaring the fish, and she needed to eat. Only I caught the brief flicker of satisfaction on her face. "He's here," she breathed between shouts.

"Here," I repeated quietly as goat legs stepped into the clearing. The crone shrieked in alarm. The mortals went absolutely still. The glade went quiet except for the man crying to his reflection.

I stared at Pan across the clearing. He smiled, jovial and happy, a morning's lark.

"Go away, you monster!" the old woman screeched at him. "Gods, hear my prayer. Save me."

"From me?" The laughing voice. "I'm only here for a little fun. Would you like a little fun?" The suggestive leer sent the old woman scurrying away, still calling upon the gods to save her.

I'm telling you, I bit my lip. I clenched every muscle I had to hold it in. I trembled with the effort, glad he would think it was fear as he ambled toward me. He spared one derisive glance for the crazy man, then turned to me.

"You still make my blood boil. I hear you had a pair of girls," he said.

I closed my eyes. I let what I was holding from the crone burst free. "Gods, save me," I screamed.

The world turned white. Even prepared, it burned into my retinae. But we were on a mountain I knew well even if it wasn't mine. I moved by touch, fast as a flood of scree coming down a hillside. My whispered "girls" was lost in the shouts of pain and alarm.

I looked out from a convenient knothole in the trunk, feeling the warm press of a dryad cousin's breasts in my back, as visions cleared and the watchers saw what was before them.

A stone. Vaguely shaped like a huddled woman. A dark chip showing newer, darker rock where her mouth would be open in a scream. Standing next to it, a towering, stern figure.

Aphrodite in her fiercest avatar, that of wronged love avenged. Nemesis.

"This was between her and me," Pan complained. "You've no right to interfere."

"I don't care about you or your pleasures. Do what you want. I'm here for him." She pointed at the man who was blinking tears away and returning his gaze to the water. "Take up your quarrel when you find out who she asked for help." It was one of the smoothest not-lies I'd heard in a while.

Pan grumbled. He kicked the rock. Finally, he muttered sourly, "There are others," and left.

"You," Nemesis said to my future husband. "She loved you."

He turned back to his reflection. "I only love him."

"Love him," I breathed quietly.

"You are beautiful," Nemesis pronounced. "But without compassion, beauty is nothing more than the flowers in the field."

The light flashed again and when it cleared, the watchers could see both he and Nemesis were gone. They rushed forward. Had he thrown himself in the water? No, there was no one there. But on the shore stood a flower where none had stood before, a white and gold flower that was different from those they knew. The story would get back to Ameinias's family; their hunters among the crowd would make sure of it. Just deserts: smitten by a goddess for failing to return love.

A flower? I'd call them gullible, but maybe I'd believe it if I hadn't known. I mean, Pitys actually is a pine tree. But future-hubby was the son of a river god and a naiad. He could slide into the water with no more splash than a mink and hold his breath across the entire width.

The stories about him, about us, spread like wildfire.

LOL. I never tire of teasing him about us and language. I write, I'm all St. Paul's Whispering Gallery and beautiful canyons. You're assholes and psychiatrist couches! and stick out my tongue. He scowls at me. Then he tells me I'm rude, and rude girls should be punished. He grabs me, and we end up making love until he sighs out my name and I repeat it.

I have to go. Our hour's up and I have to get dinner out of the oven. My son, Ireneus, is visiting tonight.

What do you mean, what did I say? What do I always say? The end of what you did. I don't know why you have me keep the sound on anyway.

You asked what his name meant. It means peaceful.

Talk to you next week.

Dinner in ten, I texted the men. Life had gotten so much easier for me with that invention.

I heard the ring of someone zooming my husband in his office. Why do they call at dinner time? I hoped it didn't run late. I had other plans once Ireneus left. He wasn't staying the night, saying he was meeting someone. I suspected a woman based upon his grin.

My talk with my confidante ... my new friend, really ... had me remembering the old days, particularly some of those wild, heady first years with my husband. I don't care how many centuries have passed, we're still young by our kind's standards, and ... I giggled to myself ... everyone knows the young have needs.

As soon as we were alone, my husband was going to find himself straddled and put to work. He wouldn't fight it; he was still as lusty as he'd been that night in the cave after our little performance. I tingled at the memory of barely being able to stand when morning came. Maybe I'd find something to tease him about. A couple of playful little swats on my rump always got that man in a particular mood, and the idea of getting downright plundered tonight ... mmm.

Busy with the manicotti and the salad, she didn't hear the Zoom call in her husband's office.

"Hi, Iaso. How did it go?" he asked.

"Well, we finally got past the weeks of building trust and convincing her that I wouldn't judge. And you're also right that she's desperate for another woman to share her thoughts with. She just absolutely spilled." The woman on the screen grinned. "I learned enough dirt that I feel like a member of the family now."

"And?"

"And you weren't imagining it. Every once in a while, not very often, she doesn't repeat something. She just starts typing her next sentence. And—" The smile grew huge.

"What?"

"I asked, 'What does your son's name mean?'" The two men in the office stared. "She said, 'Peaceful.'"

"Said?"

Iaso nodded enthusiastically. "She didn't even realize. She's overcoming it, or Hera's bane is weakening ... which is the same thing, I guess."

"She still doesn't recognize you?"

"Aphrodite did a good job. My own father wouldn't know me. I feel weird doing this, but telling her we were working on it would set up blocks, I think. Letting her believe I'm just some late-born nymph who took up New Age touchy-feely stuff is best. We'll 'fess up later and let her yell at us. By then we'll be best friends."

"I don't know how to thank you, Iaso."

"Hey, anything for my future in-laws."

"You still want to be part of this crazy family?" the older man asked.

"She called you a thirst trap"—the dark-haired beauty grinned at his eye roll, and her gaze switched to the gorgeous younger man standing beside his father—"and like father, like son. So, hell yeah! You are coming over tonight, right, hon?" She wiggled her eyebrows at Ireneus and all three laughed.

Thank you for taking the time to read the story.

Author's note: Of course, my ending to the story of Echo and Narcissus diverges quite a bit from Ovid's, not to mention all the other Greek authors who put their take on it.

Just as told here, the traditional tales had Echo distract Hera while Zeus had sex with nymphs. As punishment, Hera cursed Echo to repeat only what was said to her. After some misadventures, Echo fell in love with Narcissus.

However, there the old myths diverge. In his self-absorption and his belief that she was teasing him by repeating everything he said, Narcissus drove Echo away. She refused to eat or drink and eventually pined away—in some versions, turning into a stone—until only her voice was left, where it can be heard in canyons and around lakes.

Narcissus, meanwhile, was punished for his callousness by Aphrodite, who cursed him to fall in love with his own reflection. He, too, pined away. In some versions, he drowned himself in despair. In others, he melted into the eponymous flower, the narcissus or daffodil.

Iaso was the demigoddess of recuperation and healing. The other deities are probably well-known to you or so minor in the story that they're irrelevant. Ameinias appeared in Conon's version of the tale, although not Ovid's. Pan's chase after Echo appears in most versions. I've incorporated other fragments that say she had two daughters with him, Iynx and Iambe, but Ireneus is my invention.

Beyond that, I tried ... as the ancient Greeks did ... to make them talk colloquially and behave with the foibles of ordinary mortals, although magnified. I hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks to norafares and MsCherylTerra for reading through it before publication.