Eurydice [Unfinished]

Once upon a time not too far from three o’clock yesterday afternoon, there was a normal girl and a normal boy called Eurydice and Orpheus. They were just like me and you in the sense that they did everything normal kids were expected to do.
They played all day in sunlit gardens fuelled by high-sugar drinks and junk food treats. They went shopping with their mother, Calliope, and dragged their feet until they arrived at the toy section. They collected stickers, made playhouses and screamed at each other through video games. They fought hard and giggled harder like any normal brother and sister would because they were happy, as normal children should be.
“Happy Birthday!” Cheered the crowd, Eurydice teetering in the middle as she clutched a big birthday cake. She struggled to hold up the multiple layers of sponge and pink icing. The little plastic fairy candle wobbled at every flinch of Eurydice’s trembling arms as she puffed out her cheeks and blew her everything into the candles dancing flames.
The sweet smell of birthday smoke trailed up into the bright summer sky. The crowd clapped at Eurydice’s eccentric smile as she looked around at the happiest day of her life. Orpheus snuck around her from behind and pinched a strawberry off the cake. She stood helplessly, unable to hit at her brother like normal because of the huge three-tier cake anchoring her arms to her waist.
“Thanks sis.” He giggled and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Happy birthday too stinky.”
“Oi! I do not smell!” Eurydice wailed. “Muuuum! Orpheus is stealing bits off my cake before it’s even been cut!”
Calliope walked over to the pair, towering over with her neatly ironed apron and flour dusted hands still fresh from baking. She pulled them in together with either arm, Eurydice still struggling with her cake. “Orpheus. I told you not to eat or sneak anything off the table until everybody else is eating. Didn’t I?”
“Yes, but it’s not on the table anymore mum.”
“Don’t get smart with me.” She said firmly. “Now put it back, and wait for the others.”
Eurydice stuck her tongue out as Orpheus coyly placed the half strawberry exactly from where he had taken it. “Go on Orpheus,” his mother directed. “Say sorry.”
“Sorry sis.” He muttered
“It’s okay really,” she smiled. “I’ll make sure you get that piece if you really want it.” Eurydice replied.
“Yeah. Thanks.” He held his arms behind his back and looked up at his mother. He leaned in and gave Eurydice another kiss on the cheek. “Happy Fifteenth.” He said and smiled a big cheesy grin at both his mother and sister. He started to skip away, a mischievous smile on his chubby button nose face. “You still smell though!” He bellowed and shot off to group round with the rest of the neighbours at the back of the garden.
Later that evening amidst the discarded coils of streamers, balloons and spilt soft drinks, sat Eurydice, Orpheus, Calliope and Oeagrus.
"As your father," said Oeagrus, lifting his bottle of beer to his mouth, "I feel it my duty to protect you both." He looked intently at Eurydice without so much as a flicker to Orpheus. "Your mother and I both agreed a long time ago that this security would have to come at the price of a secret."
Calliope hung her head. Still flustered and flushed from a hectic party day the bottle in her hand didn't detract from her motherly image at all. If anything it added that she could match any man for workload, be it baking or building.
"Oeagrus." She said, staring him in the eyes as if they were talking through blinks and silence. "Are you sure?"
"We said darling, fourteen years ago, and blessed as we are it's something we vowed to do. It's what's right." A stagnant air swept through the small fire-lit living room. The curtains hung heavier than before and the windows thickened, trapping them all inside a lot closer than they were a few minutes previously. The stench of bad news was festering in the small air space and Oeagrus bit his lips ready to erupt upon their tiny child ears.
"When you were just a year old," he said to Orpheus with a look of apology already in his eyes, "your mother and I decided to try for another child. We had enough money because of our stable jobs and even had savings that we used to buy this house.
"But we couldn't. We tried for months and months spending all the money we had on treatments and inoculations. Thousands of special methods and age-old treatments but none of them worked." Unease ravaged through the room like a virus set on destruction. Jaws became unset and fingers started to twitch.
"That's when we found you." Calliope said. She looked at Eurydice without intimidation or fear. She held her head high a smiled like she was remembering her first kiss or crush. "We had so much to give and you were the only child at Aeetes Orphanage. Alone at Christmas amongst smothering nuns and cold empty beds, you were meant to be. You were our child as soon as we set eyes on you."
A sound erupted from the centre of the room. A cross between a creaking door and a machine gun of syllables Orpheus burst into laughter.
"You're joking right! You are joking, aren't you?" A manic look of desperation flooded his face. His tears of laughter started to swell and grow into tears of fear. He blinked quickly, shifting focus with every change of breath, desperate for his parents to fold back the tear that streaked down his cheek. "Mum? You're not serious, are you?"
"Yes." she replied.
"Yes we are." seconded Oegrus.
They became the apprehensive nervous children Orpheus and Eurydice were seconds before. They sat and watched. Waited. They saw Orpheus shift and think. Rethink and shift again. They watched Eurydice blank and vacant. Not distant, for her focus moved steadily between Oegrus and Calliope with the precision of a ticking clock. Oegrus leaned into Calliope and put his hand on her knee, presenting her with a smile as strong as his weakening face could manage. He stood up and Eurydice did too as if she were his reflection. Sharp. Fast.
"Eurydice. We still love you as much as we always have. This doesn't change anything if you don't want it to." He took a step forward and like a mimicking doll Eurydice stepped back. "Eurydice?"
She stood silent and blank.
Orpheus started to tremble at the scene that was crumbling around him. "I can still love her can't I? That's not wrong. Is it? She is still my sister, isn't she?" Calliope nodded and swept a tear from under her eye.
"Of course she is."
"No I'm not,” said Eurydice. Calm and collected. She didn't flinch from the gaze she had with Oegrus. The father raised his leg forwards like a soldier about to step on a land mine.
Eurydice stood and smiled. The kind of smile Calliope and Oegrus had never seen before upon her fragile face. It didn't fit within her cute little features nor suit her flowing red hair. It was searching for acceptance yet pronounced the people she saw as strangers. It was broken. Foreign.
"Euryd...." before he could finish her name she was gone. She ran upstairs inside a storm of tears and slammed her bedroom door shut. Closed behind a panel of wood and concrete she melted into the floor. Limp and lifeless. Alone.
Calliope motioned to Orpheus to go after his sister. He lifted his racing thoughts trapped heavily inside his skull and walked towards the stairs. The banister was cold and dark and it felt as if he were climbing these stairs for the first time. Photographs on the wall laughed at him with every trudging step like he was walking along death row as a shamed and convicted criminal. Each group shot or face paint day veered through glass, protected from him and being all the more boisterous because of it. Laughing and mocking at him. He looked towards his mother and father and they were embraced, holding their foreheads together.
"She'll be okay love. She just needs to let it sink in." comforted Oegrus. Calliope scrunched the shoulder of his jumper in her hand as she buried her head deeper into Oegrus' chest. Her ears were pounding and her head felt as if it were a vase of blood. She knew Oegrus' words were naive, just as he did when he said them. A plaster on a lost limb. A spitted hanky to wipe the burns off a charred body. Still, she knew he was only trying. He was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her. Nerves were tense and snapping them at each other wasn't going to make it any easier. They had expected this. Worse if anything.
"She's gone,” said Orpheus.
Calliope and Oegrus swung their heads to the top of the stairs. Orpheus stood there with his sister's favourite teddy clutching at the worn buttons and thread. It was one that he had chosen for her when he was little and buying it was the first memory Orpheus had of him and his sister. Looking at him trembling and swaying at the top of the stairs, Calliope could see he was leaning as if he were about to jump from top to bottom. Rejected.
Oegrus ran into the kitchen and clanged about with keys and coats.
"Let's go." He commanded. "She can't have gone far."
Calliope walked to the door as Orpheus plodded down the stairs his neck still bent into his chest covering his face with Eurydice's abandoned teddy. Hugging it tightly, the bear's head became bent backwards so much it looked as if his neck were snapped. His shiny buttons eyes wide and round the teddy looked in pain.
Calliope put her arm around Orpheus as he stepped out the front door still clutching the raggedy old toy. She glanced a look at Oegrus that confirmed what she was thinking.
Their expectations from the day had been fulfilled, surpassed and broken. Things had become worse. A lot worse.


Eurydice stopped at a tree and sat at its wet base. She'd been running for what seemed like the whole night. Tired and exhausted she wrapped the blanket around her tighter and cried. The trees loomed over her with their black electric arms, pointing and prodding at her from the sky. She had run upstairs, grabbed her bag and a few things and escaped from the window. Escaped from those people downstairs. Escaped from the open arms and needy smiles.
She'd always felt different from them but not anything like she did now. The trees and wet mud felt more like friends than any she'd had before. Everything cracked and peeled away inside her head like old paint struggling to keep on a brick wall. Her memories grew different viewpoints, her fondest becoming false well-acted plays where everybody else was in on the game and she was the mug that believed it all. She felt haunted and used as she let her eyes close and headrest amongst the wet bracken.
The trees grew lighter and became painted in blue. Their scratching arms receded as the sun warmed the brown mud of night into morning. Eurydice opened her eyes and felt the wetness smeared on one side of her face. What had seemed like an enclosed space a few hours before revealed itself to be a few broken branches and stubs of grass. Again, what felt like security, showed its true face.
Already at fifteen she looked like a young woman. Her wavy red hair normally ran down past her shoulders but now she had it tied up in a ponytail. She snapped herself out of the shape she had lay in and pulled her bag over her back. Her short summer dress didn't give her much warmth through the night and she was glad she'd grabbed a thick canvas blanket and a coat before she'd opened the window and left. She began to walk through the woods watching the early sunlight grow stronger and stronger until it was dancing upon the leaves, playing hide and seek with her eyes. Patterns shone through the gaps in waves like a disco ball throwing lights onto a ballroom floor.
Snap.
Eurydice flinched as she heard a sound amongst the broken branches and fallen leaves. She paused.
Snap.
She turned around to where the sound had originated and saw a shadow dart across the worn path. Hidden inside breeze and foliage she could see two shiny eyes staring back at her.
"Eurydice?"
She spun around to see a hand on her shoulder, her eyes full and convex like water balloons ready to split and burst. "What on earth are you doing out here?" She followed the arm up to its head and saw the tattered old hat and creased smiling face that greeted her every morning.
"Jesus, you scared the life out of me."
"Sorry," replied Aristaeus "I'm used to seeing you every morning but you're normally behind a desk. I didn't know you liked morning walks?"
"I don't." She replied to her secondary school teacher.
Aristaeus was old but acted a lot younger. He often got the mickey taken out of him by the other students for his youthful passion and keen interest in what was 'hip' and 'down'. At sixty-five he was no spring chicken but he kept himself alive and energised which was something Eurydice admired over the other coffee guzzling bitter people that called themselves teachers. It was now obvious that he did make special effort at school. His old man jacket and trousers clashed with his hat to make him look like an aged aristocratic version of Noel Gallagher. He probably didn't even know who Noel Gallagher was even though he'd claim to "have all of his albums" and have "seen him last month at the Brixton Academy. Innit". At least he was trying Eurydice would think, which is more than can be said for all the others.
"Oh I see. Well I'm just on my way back home if you wanted
to come with me. I've got a wicked new album you'd love." His timid little face beamed a smile from ear to ear like an excited little boy ready to show off his brand new toy. Eurydice knew that there must be some unwritten rule against her going back to his house but after last night she felt anybody's house couldn't be as intimidating as her own.
This was Aristaeus anyway. He acted more like her age than anybody in her own school year. All they talked about was sex and smoking. Some of them even bragged about the drugs they'd taken, parties that they'd been to, which boys they'd fucked and how big they were. Eurydice hated it. She knew it was just them growing up and making up stories. Over-embellishment from what was probably a smoke, an alcopop and a quick fondle in the dark at some guys party down her street. Somehow she knew they'd all been in bed by eleven really. Eurydice often felt she'd skipped a few years and was just waiting for all the other immature girls to stop telling their stories and start living them because the bravado of lies was really starting to wear down their character.
"Sure." she replied and linked arms with him. She could feel his little weak muscles try to hold themselves in link as they walked down the track to a little bridge.
"Just over here and then we're done." He said. "You can see my gaff now if you look through the branches." Eurydice lowered her head to peep through the leaves and he was right. A tiny little cottage seemed to sprout out of the ground, buried between the trees and hills. Eurydice smiled. It looked so pretty and safe. Like a haven in the mess that was the city. Living in the suburbs she felt claustrophobic. The perfectly manufactured houses with white trims and front lawns looked like something out of the Stepford Wives catalogue. If it wasn't for the fact that her mother kept burning herself on the oven when she'd had too many afternoon cocktails, she'd of thought everything and everybody was plastic. The only thing she truly loved about that place was Orpheus. Even now his name stung her memory. He wasn't even her brother, but she knew that wasn't his fault. She didn't hate him and she wished she'd of been able to leave him a note or message, but in the rush she left the teddy he'd bought her hoping he'd understand that that was her thank you. A tear pulled itself slowly down her cheek as her voice whispered a goodbye. She knew they'd see each other again eventually and that she'd miss him terribly in the meantime, but still another tear pulled itself down her cheek.
"Here we are my dear. You go sort yourself out in the bathroom and then you can tell me all about what's happened. You look as though you've had a lot going on." Aristaeus smiled. He wasn't patronising or ominous. He just knew he was in for a story and his smile said that he was more than ever; ready to listen to her.
"Okay." Eurydice giggled and breathed in the scent of his little cottage. Fresh and new it felt like real sunshine, not those tacky packaged fragrances her mother used to cover the smell of her smoking. She smiled.
It smelled like a home should smell.