A Collection of Short Stories

Kalopsia

There were once three sisters who were born after the rise and fall of the great goddesses Euryale, Stheno and Medusa. They came into the world of men centuries after the death of their sisters before them and were given the names Euron, Seth and Morgan. Like those who came before they were gorgons, crowned with a head of snakes. They were the fiercest goddesses to inhabit the Earth, cloaked with golden wings and brandished skin like the bronze of men's armor.

Seth was by far the most beautiful of her sisters with hair of coal. It was darker than any ink and yet it could stain your hands if you ever grasped it and write a story all on its own. The snakes that tangled in hair bore dark hoods of the cobra that would nip and bite at her neck. Her eyes reflected Apollo's sun. They could tempt any man with the bat of an eye, condemning them by her beauty.

Euron and Morgan loved Seth, but they envied her ability to look into the face of men. Unlike their sister, their eyes were garnet and unforgiving. They bore the curse of turning all those that looked into them to stone.

The sisters would watch Seth sing by the shore, calling to the ships at night. She beckoned the drunken sailors to her. The ships would veer towards the sound of her music, crashing onto the shallow beds of oysters and coral. Seth would swim out to them as their savior and kiss them sweetly. They'd never forget her face. No other face was more beautiful than Seth's.

Morgan pulled Euron aside one day. "It is not fair that Seth should look into the eyes of men like they are gods. She should feed them to us and yet she whispers sweet nothings. She gives them false hope of everlasting life. We love her too much to kill her, but I cannot bear to listen to her songs any longer. Let us bind her to a ship so that one day we can sing to her men and crash her on our reefs." Morgan's mambas hissed and spat in a frenzy; writhing in a dance that mimicked their mother's rage. Their fangs flashed under the setting sun, teasing the vipers in Euron's golden hair.

Euron slid her slender fingers along the scales of her vipers, cooing to them. They coiled around her fingers and flicked their tongues across her knuckles. "If we do this we will lose our sister forever. We will be no better than our sisters before us," she said to Morgan. "And yet, I cannot deny the want to be rid of her so that we might do with the men as we please. She goes to great lengths to protect them from us. Let her continue to do so; it will be by ship alone. If she sinks so will they."

So Morgan and Euron bound their sister and threw her into the sea; in the graveyard of ships she had sank. When she rose again she was a mighty vessel clad with gold sails for her wings and black boards for her bones. She was enslaved at the bow of the ship, her limbs locked behind her back, infused into the wood. The snakes on her head that once bit now writhed and wept. Morgan and Euron pushed Seth out to sea where she lay adrift for a whole century.

The day came when a crew finally found her. They called her a ghost ship, yet they admired her for the masterpiece that she was. Seth let the pirates aboard. They made their home within the womb of her hull. They were kind to her and cherished her as if she had been crafted by their own hands.

None but one man could see the beautiful goddess trapped at the bow of their vessel. The man was known as Samuel. He was young, old enough to have outgrown being called a boy, but inexperienced enough that he was not yet a man. He felt the magic. He saw the face of the ship move from time to time. Samuel would lean over the bow to look down at Seth's face or to speak to her. She never said anything, but remained as still as the wood she was now made of.

Morgan and Euron seethed that though the men could not see who Seth really was they continued to fall in love with her. The pirates were ignorant- blind to the magic they steered. They savored every moment aboard the vessel. Seth's song drove away their night terrors; her nets brought in fish to keep their bellies full, and her sails billowed forward to whatever their hearts desired.