Notes came to the air. Isme recalled her dream during the island storm, the turtle shell empty and the turtle watching her strum its insides. In Pelagia’s hands, this false turtle shell sang long tones, her fingers plucking without any pick, just the fingernails.
A song—and Isme saw Kleto working her jaw, to prepare for performance. Isme prayed: Oh Grandmother Kalliope, give her my voice, give her your voice... The voice of Orpheus, which sways the minds of men like rivers...
Kleto began a low chant that carried anger like waves beating against shore:
King Tereus, son of Aries! Victorious in war!
Allied to Athens by the daughter of Pandion,
Lovely Procne, loyal, kind, see the bride veiled.
She began to move, slowly, lifting and sweeping her hair up over her face, in that moment becoming Procne, and then she was curling her limbs through air, dancing, sinuous—
But none of the great gods attend the wedding feast—
No blessing from Hera, none of the Graces sing,
Hymenaeus’s torch refuses to light for the bridegroom.
Above the wedding bed appears a screech owl
And the hearth fire blazes out the faces of furies—
Kleto stomped her feet, pounding the table like a drum, the noise reverberating in the room. Each thud like a collective heartbeat of the audience. Then she fell still and silent. The men before the tables were riveted, straining to hear her next words.
I call on Tisiphone, who was present for the rites:
Tell the tale of blood to this assembly!
Isme jerked, barely managed to hold herself in place, for as Kleto pronounced the last lines Pelagia’s tune had come to sharp notes, sounds like the cracking of wood or bone. The fire at Isme’s back no longer warmed her. She felt something cold had entered the room—something invisible was breathing in the same space—
Tisiphone, she turned the name over in her mind: one of the Erinyes. Calling upon a Fury instead of a Muse—what madness was this? And then she was pleading, Oh Grandmother Kalliope, please forgive this wickedness and keep me safe—
The faces of the men grew taut with eagerness. The promise of a gory story, the shape of Kleto outlined by firelight, something else—who knew what held them now. But that they were held was no doubt: even Isme could see their eyes, white coals fixed on Kleto like a snared hare watching Isme approach with her knife.
Kleto gave Isme a glance of warning, a jerk of the head, and Isme realized the roles of the story had been set, as previously decided, and scrambled up onto the table with far less grace than Kleto had managed. She felt some relief that at least her part would be to play a waif, as bumbling and naïve as she imagined she looked.
Turning, Kleto strode to the other side of Pelagia, using player and lyre as a divide between Isme and herself. Pelagia was now strumming light and carefree. Kleto swept back the hair over her face, and Isme was surprised to see her look delighted, as though to stand before a horde of robbers was a wonderful sight.
She sang, in sweet and coaxing lines, the voice of Procne:
O Tereus, my husband, my beloved—
Three years it’s been since our happy day
And our son knows both our names.
She turned and made as though to pet the head of an invisible child, but performed with such raw honesty that the act was not strange or parodic, and Isme would have believed her to be a doting mother, impossibly fond of the boy, except—she knew this story—
Swallowing, Isme pulled herself to task. Apparently they were going to act out their roles. She had to pretend that she did not know what was going to happen.
Kleto raised her hand out to the assembled men and beseeched:
If I have been a loyal wife, give me this boon!
I have a sister, only one, my joy before I met you:
Let her visit me, for we shall have celebration.
As she sang, Kleto gestured to Isme, who tried not to fret as the stares of the men turned to her, but she did not need to hold still long, because they returned just as quickly to Kleto—indeed, Isme also was fixed on her. All the last days, Kleto had only glared or snapped at her, but now she was acting the part, beckoning, looking longing at Isme as though she was the person Kleto loved most.
Isme would have believed her, but Kleto did not linger long. Changing from the beseeching wife, Kleto assumed a poise of command, declared:
And so Tereus goes to Athens, there
To fetch Philomel, his sister-in-law,
Bring her to his wife, faithful Procne.
But when he sees her—
Isme forced herself to hold still and stand tall as Kleto marched toward her, but this stoic pose became harder when Kleto lifted her hands and pulled that pale-fire hair over her features, like she no longer had a face. Storming forward, Kleto reached out a hand, as though to grab Isme’s insides and tear them from her belly.
Whirling to the men, who have all stood up straighter and keener, Kleto chants:
His heart burns within him,
His hands reach and cannot grasp!
Forgotten is Procne’s gentle charms—
Whirling again, Kleto raises her hands with violence, lunging, Isme instinctively backed up—and sees between the bars of Kleto’s golden hair the satisfaction her reaction has produced in the other woman. Isme feels anger rise in her own throat.
Kleto turns back to her narration:
He tells the father his purpose:
Oh, for sweet Procne’s sake,
Let him return with Philomel,
Just a visit, just a month,
And then back in her father’s arms
Safe she’ll be again.
There is a look—solid in the flickering firelight—on the men’s shared faces. Incredulity. And then they make their first sound: a riotous laughter, coming from multiple throats at once as though they are the same creature. They do not know the story, Isme thinks, but they know the implications of what will happen well enough—they have all been Tereuses in their time—
Indeed,
