Charmingly Cursed

Psyche is abandoned and Eros makes arrangements

Charmingly Cursed

Eros

“You WHAT?” Mother was incensed, her words like spitting acid. She was trembling with rage, I could tell she was fighting the urge to overturn the table, smash the ornaments and beat her fists against the wall.

“I, accidentally, fell in love with Psyche. I thought you heard me the first time,” I said, my lips twitching upwards as if it was all a great joke.

“You-” she raised her hand, as if to strike me but I didn’t flinch, staring levelly into her burning crystal eyes. She closed her hand into a fist again and lowered it, her eyes still sparking with fury. She turned away and swept towards a silver bowl with water in it. It was the Mirror, a way of peering into the mortal world, “Show me Psyche Azaria.”

She appeared on the skin of the water. My throat thickened as I saw her, head bent low over a book, her beautiful black hair trapped into a bun, long fingers taking notes beside her. She appeared to be sitting in a library, books in dusty shelves towering around her.

Mother smiled maliciously and she gripped the sides of the basin, her words slipping down to the girl below her. “I curse you, Psyche Azaria,” she whispered, the water beginning to tremble as Psyche sat, unaware of the goddess above her, “No man will ever wish to take you as a wife. Only that of a monster will wish to take you.”

I lunged towards my Mother, ripping her away from the basin, infuriated. “How dare you!” I spat, slamming her against a marble wall. “How dare you curse her!”

Aphrodite giggled, her pink lips pulled up into a cruel smile, “Oh I dared Eros, I dared.”

It took a lot of my self control not to reach for my dagger and slit her throat. It would have no effect anyway. Instead I released her and stepped back. “Fine,” I said, in a deadly quiet voice, “for as long as she remains cursed, I refuse to shoot any arrows.”

Her smug eyes then widened in outrage and shock as I pulled out all of my arrows and snapped them in half. “You wouldn’t!” she cried, stalking towards me with utmost rage, “The earth will grow old! Humans and animals alike will die!”

“That’s your decision,” I said coldly, turning my back on her, “release Psyche or have the mortal world die.”

Mother’s splutters of rage were all that followed me as I left.

Psyche

I was getting worried. For the past week, no boy has tackled me yet. It was Saturday, and not one boy has tried to kidnap me yet. I usually have at least 7 tackles by now. It’s very weird. Not that I’m complaining, but it must mean something is not quite…right.

I was at one of Mama’s boring garden parties. The ones where my parents shoved eligible suitors under my nose to pick and choose for my ‘beau’ as Mama liked to call them. Usually I have to find some elaborate way of escaping throngs of admiring boys and even a few girls and hide behind the rhododendrons until they have all gone away.

But today… no one has even looked at me yet. This is something that has completely astounded me. I was perfectly turned out: a white sundress, embroidered with forget-me-nots, my hair pinned back with a blue dragonfly hair slide. I should have been looked at. I am always looked at, always, no exceptions. I am always the centre of attention. People look and look and look, they comment and they titter and they sigh and they just revel in the glory that is me. But…no one is looking.

The men Mama and Papa had shoved in my path this time barely glanced at me. I tried engaging them in polite conversation but they smiled and nodded with that glazed look in their eyes, that I often see in men when they are talking to other women. Not with me though. What is going on?

I listened in vaguely to two businessmen, who were talking about the sudden dip in livestock births. “The bulls are fit and healthy but they’re not doing anything,” one of the men said, “Its like they’re not in the mood. What the hell is Eros doing?”

I sighed and swilled my glass of champagne. Indeed, what is he doing?

As the sixth man of the day slunk away, Mama walked towards me, her ‘everything-is-totally-under-control-and-is-perfect’ smile in place, “Honey,” she said, through gritted smiling teeth, “Why aren’t you talking to Jack Blithe? The young lad is heir to a massive multimillion dollar oil empire.”

“I know Mama. I tried, but he wasn’t…interested,” I said carefully, watching the boy in person laugh at another girl’s joke. What? Why?

Mama’s face froze in shock; she nearly dropped her glass of golden wine. “Wasn’t interested?” she whispered, as if she was saying something dirty.

I nodded, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. She stood incredibly still for a few minutes before saying in hushed tones, “I’ll be right back sweetheart.”

She whisked away before I could reply and my eyes followed her, utterly perplexed. What is going on?

Eros

“Look at what you are doing,” Mother whispered, her gaze fixed on the Mirror. “Already the effects are starting to show. The earth is withering as we speak.”

I paid her no attention, choosing to be engrossed in tuning my violin.

“Eros, listen to me,” Mother’s voice sang with desperation, “Eros.”

“I have no interest in your deals or bargaining mother. Now will you please leave me alone,” I said, placing the violin under my chin and drawing out one singular note with my bow.

“Eros, you are acting like a child!” she yelled, grabbing my chair and yanking it around, “Stop this at once. She’s only a mortal!”

“A mortal who has my heart,” I retorted, dropping the violin away from my chin, “I’m already so deeply in love with her that I don’t see other women’s faces. All I see is hers, staring back at me, asking me why I am not by her side and in her bed.”

“You are insane. Insane!” she cried, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation, “There are thousands of other girls to have, all of them more than willing to throw themselves at your feet. And yet you are having a temper tantrum about only one of them!”

“I don’t care about your opinion. You have the power to stop the Earth dying. Until you agree to my demands, you will have to watch the mortals grow old and die. Your choice.”

Mother scoffed, “And what are your demands exactly?”

“I want her, for myself,” I said simply, “Without any interference from you or anyone.”

She recoiled in shock, before running her fingers through her golden hair, “But…you love me the most. You wish to be with me the most!”

“Not anymore,” I said coldly, turning away from her, “Psyche holds my heart.”

She was silent for the first time and I let the shock settle in. This was the first time I had ever disobeyed her. I was always at her beck and call, always doing exactly what she told me. Not anymore. Not when I had someone else to turn to.

“This is all so fast,” she said, a slight tremor invading her voice, “I didn’t expect it to be so soon.”

“Well you expected wrong.”

Another short intake of breath, “Ok…fine, you can have her. On one condition.”

My heart lifted at her words and I spun around, eyes alight, “Yes?”

“You get to work now. Make the world young again,” she said, her blue eyes pained at my jubilation.

“Of course,” I conceded. I reached towards her and kissed her cheek, “Thank you Mother.”

Her eyes hardened but she nodded saying, “Go before I change my mind.”

I nodded and fled the room, picking up my case of fresh arrows. As I did so, I reached into my jean pocket and pulled out my cellphone. Dialing the number I waited for him to pick up.

When he did, I said, “Zephyrus, old friend, mind lending me a favour?”

Psyche

A week after that awful Saturday, my world collapsed. “Honeybee! We have to talk to you.” My mother’s sweet call filtered up to my room that early morning.

“I’m coming,” I called, throwing a silk white robe on and tying my hair back before heading downstairs.

Breakfast was how it should have been: toast, orange juice, jam, croissants, fruit, napkins and silverware. Mama and Papa were sitting in their robes of black and grey, sipping coffee out of porcelain cups.

I should have noticed the tremor in my mother’s hand and the grim smile on my father’s face, but I didn’t. I was too happy to let those things bother me: I hadn’t been attacked for two weeks! Maybe I was becoming normal; maybe I will be able to live a normal life. No more boys causing me bruises, no more hiding at social events. Maybe I could be normal, like everyone else. I’d prayed to the Gods that this would be so and they finally seem to be answering my prayers.

Mama smiled nervously at me and gestured to my seat, “Please sit down. We have to talk to you.”

“What’s this about?” I asked, sitting down and smoothing a napkin across my lap.

Papa leaned forwards, smiling a smile that didn’t quite reaches his eyes, “Darling,” he said, and I instantly tensed. That’s the endearment he uses when he’s about to tell me bad news, “as you know, your mother and I have been looking for possible suitors for a while now.”

“Yes,” I said, my tone instantly wary.

“Indeed,” he said, starting to look nervous as I stared calmly at him, “However, none of them has taken an interest in you.”

“Where is this headed?” I asked, picking up my orange juice to take a sip.

“We are concerned about this because you are not exactly an ugly girl. And even if you were, you have intelligence, wit, charm and come from a good bloodline. You are every man’s dream. You are what your mother and I have perfected from the moment you were born.”

I stared levelly at him, trying to see where he was going with this. He swallowed and glanced at Mama before back to me again. Mama’s shaking was getting worse, she looked close to tears. This shocked me, to no end. Mama was always perfectly composed, even with her family.

“We consulted the Oracle for advice,” Papa finally said, his face now all grim lines.

My body went cold at his words and my hands started to tremble in my lap. I forced them into fists and kept them under the tablecloth to hide my fear, “Go on,” I said, voice quivering ever so slightly.

“It said,” he began, hands now forming a steeple over his plate of food, “that your beauty is too great for a mortal man. It said that we need to leave you on the nearest mountain for any chance of a husband.”

Tears were finally rolling down my mother’s face and into her food. I sat, stock still, letting the words wash over me. My beauty was too great for a mortal man. I was set a fate of becoming the plaything of whatever the hell found me on the side of the mountain. Gods have mercy!

“No,” I said, looking him straight in the eye, “I will not go. I don’t have to marry. I can get a job somewhere. I don’t need a man!” My voice rose and rose until  I was finally shouting at him from across the table.

He flinched and Mama let out a choked sob before getting up and fleeing the room, crying: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Papa stared down at his plate and back up at me again, his face now blank. “We thought you’d say that.”

There was a creak behind me but before I could run or scream, something pricked into the side of my neck and my eyes widened as the tranquilizer infiltrated my veins. My mouth opened in a silent scream and I remember slumping back into the arms of my father’s bodyguard before everything went black.

***

The next thing I remember is the feel of blazing sunshine on my skin. I groaned, my head filled with cotton wool and it took a while to lift my heavy eyelids.

Once I did so, I found myself, propped up against a tree, a couple of metres away from a tarmac road. I was on the side of a mountain, the dead and the dying tundra surrounding my vision. I was sitting in the dust, my beautiful silk pyjamas and robe now covered in red and yellow earth. I had no suitcase, or change of clothes or phone or anything. My parents had abandoned me, to who knew what fate.

Tears stung my eyes and I curled into a ball, burying my head into my knees. I would never see my friends again or my sisters. No one knew I was up here and it tore at my gut.

I don’t know for how long I stayed there and cried. I cried until the tears wouldn’t come, my throat felt thick and my mouth felt dry. It was so hot, I was glad for the tree.

It was when I heard the sound of a car engine, did I look up. A midnight blue corvette drove up the sweltering tarmac, gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight. It stopped where I was sitting. A man stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind him with his foot clad in a black cowboy boot. In fact, he was dressed head to toe in black: black jeans, black T-shirt, black jacket. The only colour on him was the streak of electric blue zig-zagging through his ebony hair. He pulled down his aviator sunglasses to peer at me with deep blue eyes and grinned, “Jeez, he wasn’t joking. You have to be the finest mortal I’ve ever seen.” His voice was smooth, reminding me of caramel.

I jumped up and scrambled away from him, brandishing my tiny fists, “Whoever you are, don’t you dare come near me.”

He roared with laughter, and the surrounding bushes and trees rustled with a sudden wind, “Or what babydoll?” he asked, taking a step forward.

“Or…I’ll…” he had me stumped on that one.

He grinned and held out one callused hand, “I’m not going to hurt you babydoll. I’m just going to give you a lift somewhere. Friend of mine wishes to take care of you. He’ll use my guts to string his bow if I hurt you, you don’t need to fear me.”

“Who is he?” I asked, still not breaking out of my stance.

He shook his head saying, “I can’t tell you that. I can tell you that he is going to take good care of you. Woman like you needs his kind of care.”

“Really?” I asked, sounding sceptical, “how do I know you are telling the truth.”

The man shrugged, muscles rippling beneath his T-shirt, “You don’t. But let’s think about this. If I leave you, you will die of dehydration or a snakebite out here after a few long and painful days. If you come with me, there is always a chance you can escape to somewhere more suitable. Your choice.”

I hated to admit it but he was talking sense. I had more of a chance of escaping to a better fate with him than I did out here. After a pause, I stepped forwards and took his callused hand.

He smiled triumphantly and said, “Oh babydoll, you are in for the time of your life.”

Author's Note

Hope you liked it! Please review!

Reviews

[Faith Nicole Lackey]

I love Greek mythology, especially the myth of Psyche and Cupid (or in this case, Eros). An excellent book that retells the myth is Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, and I highly recommend it if you love Greek mythology!

I really enjoyed these two chapters. Your writing style is lovely and descriptive, and your story is fast-paced. Sadly, I have a difficult time believing the love story - why is he in love with Psyche? If it is merely a love of her beauty, what makes him better than any of the others who come on to her? Also, the motives for Eros' mother and Psyche's parents are rather unbelievable, but that is more or less the fault of the original myth.

I genuinely believe your story could be amazing if you took just a little time to develop the characters. You are a good writer, and I think you could make this story great. I really hope you continue to write this story - I am eager to read more!