Some of my favorite stories are just whispers told when the moon is high and the fire is low. They come as the horizon between waking and sleeping is met. They are the stories that have no clear beginning or ending and no one is quite sure where they came from.
Some discount these stories as more untrue than any myth about the sun being guided across the sky by a chariot and four horses. Others believe these stories exist just as a teaching tool.
I share this story with you today, asking, what if these kinds of stories existed to be whatever you want them to be?
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Long ago, as the midnight air flies and the moon whispers across the silver rocks of a vast cavern, Eurydice cried over the dead body of Orpheus. She cried until she had no tears left and then she stood, clenched her fists and shouted toward the stars, “I will not stop. I will not stop until I have him back. You cannot take him. Not yet!”
Then, she closed her eyes and she listened the song of the stars. She listened to where they told her to go, for the stars know all. The stars see all. The stars are what guide us in the dark, toward the rising horizon where the sun bridges earth and sky.
The stars pointed Eurydice to a place between worlds, past broken statues, sunken into deep sand and great ships, tangled in vines. She walked in the footprints of emperors and kings, and wrinkled her nose as the smell of cabbages wafted on the breeze and a sign creaked back and forth.
In the place between worlds Eurydice came to an inn painted white with black shutters. The innkeeper gave her food and drink for the price of the girl’s story and then pointed to a crossroad beyond the inn.
Eurydice walked to spot where many roads connected and then diverged once more. She had come here expecting a grand corridor, like the roads in the great old cities.
She had expected and wide road paved with white stones, grand statues of obsidian and ivory. The living versions of the fallen relics she has passed through dimensions full of sand. Instead, the path was muddy, lined with skinny birch trees and at center of the crossroad was a cedar sign which read: stop for Time.
She turned north and looked up the stretch of road which disappeared into a mist, peaked with snowy mountains full of shadow wolves and swords made of ice. She shivered and pulled her brown shawl closer around her shoulders. She still shivered as she turned east.
Eurydice looked across the stretch of road which wound through plains, littered with rivers and spots of tree and bush. It was open and inviting under the cant of the moon, until a gust blew across the grasses and sent clouds rolling over the moonlight.
She turned south and looked down the stretch of road. It started thin and then spread out, making it hard to tell road from wayside. Rolling hills and twisted trees, a breeze which smelled of strawberries. She raised a hand as if grasping the smell would turn it into the sweet fruit. When all her hand caught was hot air which wrapped around her wrist, tighter and tighter she gasped and snatched her hand back.
Eurydice turned west and look over the stretch of road, it twisted, shot straight and twisted again, avoiding a sea of trees as it tumbled on toward the ocean. A raven cawed and a gull cried. The distant thunder of water on rock and clatter of driftwood upon the shore had her leaning forward. Curious. Until the growl of a grizzly trembled the earth.
She did not know, which way to go. She could not decide. Each direction looked full of as many fears and possibilities. All she wanted was a way to get him back.
“Where do I go?” Eurydice shouted up toward where the sky and the stars would be, if she was on her world. Here in the place between, the only thing above was a dense grey ceiling that seemed to go on and on forever. She shouted wordlessly, tired from her search, losing hope and dropped to her knees, not caring that she was in the mud.
As she sat in the mud, a voice came on the winds, travelling from the four corners and whirling about her form. “Trouble, dear Eurydice, that is where,” the voice was male and sounded as deep as ocean waves crashing upon a shore.
Then, just in front of her folded form, a whirlwind rose up from the mud, whipping up brown leaves, drops of mud, twigs and a bit of yellow yarn. It spun counter-clockwise before falling away, to reveal a man dressed in a swan-wing cloak and round purple-tinted spectacles. He bowed at the waist to the girl, pulling a top hat off with a flourished hand. Eurydice’s sobs stuttered and stopped as she fell back with a yelp. The mud squelched.
Her voice stuttered as she scrambled to her feet, “who are you?” She pulled her shawl around her, now feeling more like thick chain-mail than worn wool she repeated her question, this time in a stronger voice. “Who are you?”
The man shrugged and nodded in the direction of the western road, “just an audience member fond of swan songs. If you’re trying to decide which way to go to get lover boy back, I’d recommend that one.”
“Why? Who are you?” Eurydice asked. She dug her heels into the mud and bit her lip, uncertain but out of options. The man, in his dramatic swan-wing cloak, seemed familiar. She wasn’t sure if it was the cloak or the way he stood. “Why are you helping me?”
The man shrugged, “Personal reasons. You’re desperate. It’s better than sitting in the mud or me-forbid, an empty box office, isn’t it? That’s a bit boring for a story, if you ask me and the way you two have been carrying on…”
“It’s about to take home the wedding cake for most dramatic, off-screen romance ever. Who sacrifices their life for another? You two are soulmates, not star-crossed lovers in a play. You’re ruining the story!” The man huffed and crossed his arms before continuing.
“You know, a better question, dear Eurydice would be, what can I help you with?” The man smirked as he yanked a corner of the swan-wing cloak with a flourish. He then started to pluck handfuls of feathers which he then tossed. They caught on the wind and flew off, out of Eurydice’s sight.
“Can you help me get him back?” Eurydice asked, looking up at the man standing at the center of the crossroads. He tossed more feathers into the air and they danced upwards toward they ceiling of this place between, before twirling and twisting off in all directions.
“All those feathers I just tossed? Collect them all. There are one hundred in total and then sew them into a cloak. You can use the cloak to step into where your love is trapped. He is not dead, not yet, but he will be if you fail to collect all these feathers into a new cloak within a year and a day. Understood?”
“A year and a day?! I’ve been searching for a year already! Why didn’t you just give the feathers to me?” Eurydice stomped a foot and leaned toward the man, her fists and teeth clenched.
She’d been a plaything of greater powers for her whole life. She was finished being the doll danced about for nostalgia and rainy-days by deities greater than the sum of the mortal plane.
The man chuckled, “I know.” Then, he shrugged and added, “it is the way of stories. If you truly love him, and you truly will let nothing stand in your way. Then pop off. Get busy. No one ever said love was easy.”
“But we’ve already been through enough!” Eurydice would not let it go. She was done. She took another step forward. One more step and she knew she’d likely punch the man; whatever or whoever he was.
“Time is wasting, and you wanted to live. You want him to live. Life is not about enough. That’s the next stage. If you wanted death, you would have done yourself in the moment you woke up to find him gone.”
Eurydice stiffened and pulled back from the man. Then, a scowl crept across her face and she crossed her arms. The man’s words had hit deep and true.
“I don’t trust you. I don’t like this. In fact I’m absolutely furious. But I’ll play the game, for Orpheus. But, I have a demand of my own. When I get him back, you will ensure that no one else gets in the way of our lives. You will leave us alone. We want no more part in the cosmic game of catch and toss that is being played.”
The man shrugged, “that was implied. You, dear Eurydice and dear, hapless Orpheus shall be left alone to live out your days as you see fit. A, what is it called? Oh yes, a happily ever after.” He let the weight of his statement sit for a moment before continuing.
“Remember, you have a year and a day to collect the hundred feathers I have tossed. The stars will guide you, as they always have and when each and every feather is in your hand, sew a cloak and a door will open. Step through that door and you will find him.”
“That’s it? The only catch is the time limit? Nothing else? No take-backs, no clauses hidden in small print?” Eurydice raised an eyebrow as she stared with pointed frustration at the man in the swan-wing cloak.
“It’s the deal you’re getting my girl. I’m going against the three sisters of Fate here just for you and the silly mess little Orpheus got himself into. Although I love putting a spin on the turn of the galaxy, everything is energy and that means there must be balance. Something must be given in return for that which is asked,” the man said with a pointed look.
Eurydice crossed her arms and raised her brow, “hence the time limit and the ridiculous fetch quest?”
“Well, of course. Your other option would have been me dropping you into a pit full of chaotic tentacles where you would have to guide Orpheus out with only your voice. No looking. He’d disappear if you did. This a ridiculous fetch quest in return for an easy open door where he can dramatically fall into your arms. How is that for a happily ever after?”
“Ridiculous, utter rubbish. If you have the power I suspect you do, you could summon Orpheus here and now and we could be on our way,” Eurydice pointed out. She could be just as stubborn, and although she was committed to doing as the man had asked, she wanted her opinions known loud and clear.
The man raised his brow in return and stepped toward the girl with a swirl of his swan-wing cloak. The movement reminded Eurydice of Orpheus on one of his more dramatic days.
Bending down to her level, pushing purple-tinted spectacles up with a long gloved finger. “I could, but what would you learn? I am not one of your gods, descending to the stage on a platform to fix every little plot hole in your romantic trials.” He jabbed the finger he’d used to push up his spectacles toward Eurydice’s face and added more to his lecture.
“You and Orpheus made your choices. You both have had quite the story up to this point and you both come from rather dramatic bloodlines, if I don’t say so myself.”
The man stepped back on his heel, letting his swan-wing cloak fly out behind him like a pair of wings.
Eurydice’s widened as the man’s gestures reminded her at last at what was so familiar. “You’re him, you’re the Magician! You taught Orpheus how to world-walk!”
The Magician began to laugh and clap, “and so the light turns on. Well done! Took you long enough.”
“Fine,” said Eurydice in a tone that implied she was still not okay with the situation but it had trundled along far enough that she was going to go with it. Realizing she was getting help from Orpheus’s old mentor was both a relief and yet another concern. She’d heard many stories of the Magician and most of them were of his unpredictability.
“Wonderful. You know, I want Orpheus back, having his happily ever after as much as you do. You’ll understand one day, what is to be a myth, to be a legend, to a whisper upon the wind that is only told by the fireside of inns on dark and stormy nights.”
The Magician pulled off his top hat and gave Eurydice a sweeping bow before resetting the hat on his long dark hair.
A breeze picked up around the Magician, and twirled faster and faster, cloaking him until he was a cyclone of shades which rose up into the dark and faded. A tendril of air danced through the ends of Eurydice’s hair.
She pulled the loose strands under her shawl and looked toward the grey sky. She scowled up at it and hurried back the way she had came. The sooner she was under the starry sky of her world, the sooner she could collect the feathers and bring Orpheus home.
As she disappeared into the grey of the place between worlds, a single feather tumbled from above. It twirled thrice before landing with a poof as it settled into the brown bed of mud at the center of the crossroad.
Eurydice, you’ll be pleased to learn, succeed in collecting ninety-nine feathers. She returned to the center of the crossroad a year later and on that last day, she collected the last feather and then she sewed a cloak of swan-wing feathers.
Throwing it upon her back with the same flourish of the Magician, she stood tall and watched the air before her as it began to shimmer and stretch. A tall, red-painted door formed at the center of the crossroad.
Just as Eurydice reached to open it. Hand shaking, feeling her nerves slow her movements, she heard a knock.
“Orpheus?!” She shouted and she yanked open the door.
“Eurydice!” Shouted a man on the other side of the door.
The two embraced as the door faded into grey dust, swirling up toward the grey ceiling of the place between worlds. Then the swan-wing cloak upon Eurydice’s shoulder disappeared too. As it swirled up toward the grey ceiling, the Magician’s deep, ocean tide could be heard chuckling.
“All a good happy ending ever takes, my dears, is a little trust and a lucky feather.”
