PodCastle

* Author : Hester J. Rook
* Narrator : Danielle Imara
* Host : Summer Fletcher
* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh
*
Discuss on Forums



Previously published in Making Monsters: A Speculative and Classical Anthology


Rated PG-13
Aeaea on the Seas
by Hester J. Rook
“Oh, go to the crows,” I snarled under my breath as the knocker slammed home. The door was supposed to be a discouragement to visitors, large and heavy and dark, the handle made up of a curl of iron shaped like a beautiful maiden with fanged dogs at her thighs, eye tormented. Scylla, in the form I’d turned her into so many years ago: Remember my power. Do not come to me lightly.
But no, there it was again, a rapping that echoed through the old house.
“What’s wrong, flower?” Her voice was strangled down the phone.
“Don’t worry, darling. I just have a visitor.”
She chuckled, low and dry. “I really need to teach you my old trick for dealing with them.”
“You forget, my love. I have my own tricks.”
As I stood, my knees creaked mournfully. The millennia did take their toll, eventually. At least the town had not realized how old I had become, or how long I had lived on the island before they built their settlement around me, or even how my garden grew so lush in the sandy soil, in the lick of the salt wind, a thousand plants from a thousand climates for a hundred thousand spells. A little bit of immortality and youthfulness and trickery were not so hard for a daughter of Hecate.
And, well, a little bit of modern medicine did not hurt.
Making my way through the house, I picked and plucked and tended to the vines strung up along the hallway, the oleander blossoms pouring through the open window, along with the breeze and the faint noise of traffic over the sea swell. Aeaea had certainly changed.
I missed the days when I could uproot my island and float her where I pleased with mankind none the wiser. When a stray man would only stumble into my home once every few hundred years.
Occasionally I was lucky—tales would spread, and perhaps only one man in a generation or two would dare to knock on my door. Then, inevitably, he would vanish, or return decades later with creases about the eyes and a hard heart and no desire to tell where he had been. Those times, not even rumors of the beautiful witch who lived alone in her wild garden could tempt them to approach me. But, slowly but inevitably, the humans would forget and some new young man would appear, brave on liquor or taunts from his friends, and disturb me once again.
I know, I know, I’m supposed to be long dead, murdered by that upstart son of that man. Son of the cleverest man in Greece and yet still he did not realize you cannot ever really kill a monster.

The man at the door was young—an adult, yes, grey eyed and strength about the shoulders, but innocence in his unlined face, youthful arrogance in his high cheekbones and pointed chin. But perhaps I’m just getting old. Humanity all look like youths to me now.
My garden sprawled about his feet, but he had clearly trod lightly—only the basil that had hopped across the stone path was crushed, and that only gently. He had avoided the more poisonous plants. Sensible. Best not to tread too roughshod over a witch’s garden.
The ancient boar snuffled about his feet, pulling up roots and tearing through herbs. If you looked carefully, you might see the plants repairing themselves,