‘Orestes,’ I say. I don’t need to say any more. He can hear everything we’ve already rehearsed, everything I’ve told him. He stiffens, stands taller, ready.
I don’t look away, not once. I scrape my fist against the stone wall beside me so the blood trickles through my fingers, but I don’t take my eyes from my brother. I thought he would crumple; that he didn’t have it in him. But then I think perhaps he hears it too – the unfurling of leathery wings, the malevolent hiss of the serpents seeping down from the palace roof. My pulse beats deafeningly in my skull, a relentless drumbeat. He cannot fail me, I want to scream at him that he mustn’t, but I don’t have to say anything else at all.
I watch her fall. I hear the clatter of Orestes’ sword as he drops it to the floor beside her body.
I hear them take flight. Their heavy, ungainly bodies swooping from on high. The shrill bark as they circle overhead, their furious gaze centred on the killer in the courtyard. I hear my brother cry out to Apollo as they dive, and I flinch away as they sweep so close to me that my hair flies back in their wake and my ears ring with their howls. I duck down, but they pass me by, intent upon Orestes alone.
My eyes are screwed tightly shut, but I know it’s Pylades who’s standing at my side. The warmth of his hand on my shoulder brings me back, steadies my racing heart and heaving breath. ‘It’s done, Elektra,’ he is saying, and I’m crying. It’s over, at last, it is over.
I straighten myself up and Pylades’ hand clasps mine. The scene in the courtyard shudders and then resolves itself. The bodies, there in the centre. Orestes, kneeling, his hands clamped to his head, his eyes desperate, his mouth stretched into a grimace as though he endures the most unthinkable torment. The creatures are gone to our eyes, they are beyond what Pylades and I can see. It’s Orestes’ burden to bear, but we will be with him. Together, we draw him to his feet and although he whimpers, he acquiesces.
Pylades makes as if to lead us out, but I hesitate and shake him off. Orestes is hunched, his shoulders shaking, his face buried in his cloak, but I can’t look away. Her cloak, only loosely held around her shoulders before, lies on the ground where it fell beside her, a bright pool of fine cloth. I’m hypnotised by it: the intricate stitching, the rich purple hues of its folds. Orestes is muttering, a low, intense stream of indecipherable words that rises to panic as I take a step, and then another, towards her.
Everything around me is so vivid and clear, the earth so steady beneath my feet as I move closer. I pick up the cloak and the scent of her perfume drifts out on the warm air. I close my eyes and breathe it in. Then I lay the cloak over her body, smoothing it out so that it lies straight, and I stand back.
After a few moments, I feel the gentle touch of Pylades’ hand on my back and I turn away. I don’t need to look any longer. The sun is a bright gold disc, climbing in the blue sky. Our arms around my brother, we walk away together, into its light.
Epilogue
There’s a chill in the air today, a bitter edge to the wind that whips up froth on the tips of the waves. The water surges around my ankles and retreats, leaving the sand slick and dark gold beneath my feet. Out on the horizon, clouds and sea merge into one another in a grey haze.
These are the easiest days. In the silent, barren months when the earth yields nothing, when Demeter wanders in grief for her daughter, this is when I feel a communion with the world. I spent so much of my life in a dreary vigil; the stillness and the sorrow still feel comfortingly familiar.
But as Georgios told me once, it doesn’t last forever. I thought it would, when we were driven from Mycenae, helpless against the wrathful Erinyes. Pylades and I could do nothing but wipe the spittle and foam from Orestes’ chin, bathe his fevered brow and murmur soothing words as he writhed and screamed, his terrified eyes fixed on a vision we could never see. He couldn’t take the throne in his madness. The kingdom was in disarray, and when we fled to Phocis to ask for help from Pylades’ father, he cast us out, horrified by our crime.
If I thought I’d known what scorn and censure were before, I was wrong. No friends would take us, polluted as we were by matricide. I was grieved to find there was so little loyalty to my father, that no one wanted to help his children. Even Menelaus condemned us, his love for Helen greater than for his long-dead brother. I felt as though we were turned away from every home in Greece.
How long the journey to Delphi took us, I don’t like to think. Every step of the way, Pylades and I held Orestes up between us. Every night was shattered by the sound of his shrieks and his whimpering pleas for them to leave him at last. I had time enough to think of Georgios’ words, how he had seen the curse plague each generation of our family, how the merciless gods demanded more and more from us. In those dark days, I truly thought it would be unending.
And then, at the oracle, respite at last. It’s murky in my memory: a cave wreathed in smoke; the whites of the priestess’s eyes gleaming; a stream of incantations I couldn’t understand. Fire and blood; bones wrapped in fat burning on the altar, flames roaring and sparks streaming all the way up to Mount Olympus. Cool water on my face. Petals crushed into oil, the sweet fragrance perfuming the air. A quiet dawn, Orestes’ face calm, upturned to the rising sun.
After the purification was done, our crime atoned for, still I couldn’t go back to Mycenae. All I’d ever known there was pain and yearning. There was nothing there for me. Orestes, free of his pursuers, went alone. And Pylades brought me here, to make our home, a remote settlement far away from any place where we might be recognised.
The calm grey mist on the horizon makes me think of my father’s shade, somewhere beneath the earth. No longer tormented by his thwarted vengeance. We gave him peace, and knowing that brings me solace. The ache in my chest is still there, but it hurts only with the memory of the wound. It’s healed enough that I can think of her as well, if I make myself. Drifting along in a dim and shadowy cavern, silver ripples darting across the surface of the dark river, the shadow of a girl at her side. They walk together in my mind, the girl’s laughter as sweet as I remember. Our mother smiling back.
The baby swaddled at my chest stirs and her eyelids flutter. She sighs and snuggles closer, lulled by my movement. She sleeps most soundly here, close to me, unburdened by any knowledge of what I’ve done. And who will tell her now? Orestes’ rule of Mycenae is just and fair. He gave Georgios a place in his court, a voice of reason and mercy to help him unite the shattered kingdom, to build it up stronger than ever before. My once-humble friend, raised up from his lowly station to power and influence, an adviser to the king. Meanwhile, I, my father’s hope for our family, live an unobtrusive life here, happy to be forgotten by the rest of the world.
Rain begins to fall, softly at first, but quickly gathering pace. I pull my cloak around my daughter, sheltering her little head from the wind coming up from the east, and, holding her close to my heart, I turn back home.
If you loved ELEKTRA and haven’t read Jennifer Saint’s first retelling and debut novel ARIADNE, why not get yourself a copy now?
A mesmerising retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Perfect for fans of Circe, A Song of Achilles and The Silence of the Girls.
As Princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the terrible bellows of the Minotaur from the Labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur – Minos’ greatest shame and Ariadne’s brother – demands blood every year.