Debbe McIntosh rattled her car keys and glanced at her watch. Typical, she thought.
Heaving a martyred sigh, she turned toward the empty staircase and called, pitching her voice to carry.
"Samantha! We're going to be late for your gymnastics class if you don't get down here this instant. Do you hear me-"
"Relax, honey," Biff McIntosh, flushed and sweaty from his morning run, poked his head in the front door and gave her that disarming boyish grin that worked so well. No, used to work so well, she thought as he went on."Sam ran next door to take some cookies to the new neighbors -- something about a good deed she was doing for Girl Scouts. She said to tell you she'd already put her gym bag in the car and she'd be right back." Debbe pursed her lips. "Do we know anything about these people? Anything at all? They could be axe murderers or-""Give me a break, Deb -- this is Hazelton, for cripes sakes! You know how strict the covenants are -- absolutely no axe murderers. Besides, I told Sam not to go in. And I'm right here, keeping an eye on her. What could happen?"Biff paused his post-run stretches and glanced to one side. "She's standing there on the door step -- must be talking to one of the sisters.""Sisters?" Debbe grabbed up her purse and stepped through the door to peer across the narrow strip of perfect green that lay between the two houses. Shading her eyes from the sun, she saw her daughter staring up at someone just inside the other house. "Who told you there were sisters?" she asked.Biff dropped down in the top step and began to remove his running shoes as he talked. "I ran into Chuck Hendricks yesterday. You know, he's the realtor who sold that house. Kinda interesting -- our new neighbors are two sisters who last lived in Greece. Chuck said they liked the climate here and they chose Hazelton because they liked the privacy fences, of all things. He hadn't actually met them -- their banker handled the sale completely -- but he spoke to them on the phone and said their English was quite good,"Debbe squinted against the sun's glare. "It must be. Look how Sam's just standing there listening. She seemed utterly spellbound.""Why did these sisters leave Greece, I wonder?" she mused, really to herself but Biff was eager to share the gossip.
"It's a sad story, according to Chuck." Now Biff was stretching his arms and rolling his shoulders. It always annoyed her that he went through this little routine on the front steps rather than in the back yard. Rippling his muscles and showing off his tan for all the neighbors.
But she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing how much it pissed her off so she just said, "Sad?"
"Yeah," he had lowered his voice and now they were both watching their daughter. "It seems there was a third sister who was murdered--decapitated. And the guy got away with it. Greek politics, Chuck said."
The child was still frozen in place, rapt in whatever tale this Greek woman was spinning.
Debbe looked at her watch and moved to the car. She reached through the open window to tap the horn and recall Samantha.
"Did Chuck say what our neighbors' name is? Something unpronounceable ending in -opoulous, I bet."
Biff paused in the doorway. "The first names are pretty weird -- he had to write them down for me. Get this: Stheno and Euryale -- sounds like a cleaning product and a European ale, he said. Old Chuck's got this system for remembering names -- has to in his line of work."Stheno . . . Euryale . . .Back in college Debbe had had a system too. That Humanities course in Mythology -- impossible names you had to know if you wanted to pass. And she was sure she'd learned these. Stheno and Euryale were . . . who? There were three names. Stheno and Euryale and . . .
Medusa - that was the third sister -- the mortal one of the trio who Perseus had decapitated. Decapitated . . . All three sisters -- snake-haired gorgons whose glance turned people to stone. Mythical monsters. Mythical . . .
"Biff?" She had to ask. "What's their last name, these sisters?"
"I think it was Gordon -- not Greek at all. I figure their dad must have been English -- that would account for how well they speak the language."Debbbe took a halting step toward the low hedge between the two properties, trying to fight back a nameless rising surmise.
The child stood open-mouthed, looking up. Debbe saw the heavy front door slam shut and heard the crack of wood on wood but still her daughter didn't move.
"Sam!" Debbe shouted, "SAM!"
And then she began to run.
*********This is a re-post from 2010. It was a response to a picture prompt on Magpie Tales.