 the nereids by ellie stewart the world broke down in a small way when my mother was wheeled out of the house on a stretcher the last time i saw her she was sitting up in her armchair waxen and pale after her heart stopped beating the next time it was only her shape zipped up in a body bag sailing away i watched from between the banisters as the men and women in green sombrely removed her from the house i turned my head another way and they transformed no longer were they uniformed professionals but headless women three of them in billowing dresses that flew around them like wings greek statues in marble depict solidified gods and nymphs like this my eyes reformed the matter in the air from mirages to new deities they took the stretcher in their long white arms and their clothing flew slowly round as if underwater silently they moved in a procession out the door and down the steps and out of sight i don t know where they took her a hospital a stainless steellined morgue to cut her up to sew her back together to dress her up in clothes we had selected perhaps then she was in a box carried up the hill to the grave by four men with sunken skin and stiff black suits then they lowered her into the ground and we looked down into the pit there was a body in the box they told me it was her time shifted along like ice flows at the poles i sat on my piece of ice that floated slowly on the arctic seas aimless never moving forward cracking on contact freezing again the seals moved as dark shapes underwater the sun shone cold i reached out a hand and found hope another human s warmth a young man with eager hands and straining clothes and growing impatience he grew afraid of the look in my eyes the watery imprint of another realm a place of darkness he did not want to visit he couldn t bear to look at me and he left my mother had left me all over again i looked up to the bareness of the sky and longed for god my ice sheet moved away and onwards through the freezing sea no this will not do i thought i will find her again the nereids the headless women in their underwater movements who had taken my mother away they took the souls of the departed and carried them across the sea to the afterlife if i could find them i could find her i could go back to where we had begun i called to the narwhals and they pushed me along northward onwards to the top of the world where the sky swims in technicolour shot with electric green they stood in front of me those three headless women they swayed like seaweed their bodies hummed down to the underworld one said but you re not dead i know i said bowing down in supplication but i can offer you whatever you want please let me descend so i can see her again the nereids moved their torsos distractedly if they d had heads they would have shaken them they turned to each other this is not allowed surely said one but we re not fussy are we said the next as long as there s no guarantee of her ever coming back said the last they paused they turned back to me we can take you there one said but we can t promise we can take you back said the next only hades decides who leaves said the last i know i said i understand the terms i gave them each a cup of my blood and they were satisfied come then they said and off we went they carried me in their arms across the sea we skimmed the water with our feet rode on the vast backs of blue whales and travelled through the turns of the clock from light to dark and on to endless day when the sun never sets and the doors to the underworld stand there they set me down we ll go no further said the nereids i stood on the glittering rock and nodded thank you for your kindness i said they paused a moment sighed collectively and left i stood at the edge of the world the gates opened out of the ground and the earth gaped wide it was a leap of faith to jump i knew i might never return again the sun blazed in the sky that was nowhere and endless the darkness rumbled i jumped i landed on the damp shores of the river styx it was an underground river with a great ceiling above it dripping cold water that echoed in the cavern the mud was black and sucked down my feet as if it meant to swallow me whole on the shore the boatman stood he was old and tired and he looked at me from under hooded eyes he knew i was alive it s only one way he croaked he looked worried on the other shore the air shifted no one stood on the other side i know i said i stepped forward please take me across as you wish he said and stepped back to let me board the boat the oar moved through the smoke stained river my eyes took in the space around that stood still like stems in water the air watched it chose when to move i looked down into the water that passed slowly underneath dark shapes moved on its surface debris shadows memories it sighed a heavy sad sigh the sigh that departs the human body in the final moments of life a sigh i thought that came from the souls swimming in the river though i saw no evidence of them no matter how hard i tried to bend my eyes into the deep dark of the river styx we re here he said as the boat jolted onto the shore thank you i said he said nothing but turned the boat around and began to row back to the other side the air was thick with something that felt like soot in my lungs it wasn t meant for the living as i walked along the path i felt eyes watching me from the rocks and mud they moved as i walked they wondered at the heavy reality of my presence i tried to pretend they weren t there and trod on through the land of the dead there was a kind of sky in the underworld it slid and shimmered above like petrol and reflected the underside of the sea looking far through i thought i could see the pilot fish drifting on down there there were no bird calls only the whale song way above in the dark water where life peels away hades met me on the riverbank he appeared as a dark shape that grew larger as i grew nearer he looked like an undertaker with long fingers and he turned his head like an owl the water changed colour when he did so and the air shivered and morphed into new forms he could fashion new beings with the blood from his fingers he could extinguish lives with a motion of his eyes now what do you want my dear i bowed down low before him i pressed my hands into the dark mud at his feet the sadness of the water soaked into my skin lord please let me have her back i ll do anything hades laughed ah my dear he sighed they all say that he crouched down i looked up and saw his face the shadows lowered i looked into his eyes his eyes stretched backwards into the darkness i felt dizzy i wobbled he pressed his hand onto my shoulder he was like a cliff falling and i the trembling waves beneath you really want her back tears from my eyes fell onto his arm and echoed in the cavern please i said i ve come so far hades nodded and for a moment it seemed as if he had changed into a shark a great shark lying on the bank with its fin on my shoulder and its great mouth opening wide with rows and rows of teeth and the black forgetting falling away inside you have come far he said he was a man again you can take her back with you he said softly and singsong as if talking to a child he rose and so did i and he gestured behind him there she was standing in white her eyes looking nowhere mama i shrieked and jumped and tried to run his body fell across my path he shook his head on one condition he said you can walk back to the land of the living and she will follow you but you must not look back you must not look back even for a second to see if she is there until you have walked into the sunshine behind us a towering staircase carved from the rock appeared it led up up through the shuddering depths of the earth to the first break of sunlight of the new day if you look back even once she will return to me forever i looked at mama she stood still by the rocks i turned to hades his eyes his tunnel eyes said what choice do you have so i ascended the stairs as i climbed them i listened for the sound of her footsteps i trod as quietly as i could upon the rocks and strained my ears but i heard nothing please mama i said please give me a sign that you re there say i m here please i kept walking upwards the air became clearer the shadows fell away the rocks became luminous with the light from above yet still i could not hear her mama i cried please just a sound a cough a sneeze just let me know you re there i felt the warmth of the sun on my arms just say hello i heard the birds singing i hear the waters of the ocean falling on the sand i was almost there but what if hades had tricked me what if she hadn t followed me and was back down there in the dark if i turned now i would still have the chance to run back down say he tricked me demand a new bargain even if it meant living down there forever with her i stopped on the last step before me the sand opened up under the sun the sky was blue there was a boat on the shore waiting for me mama i sobbed please let me know that you re there no sound she was not there he had tricked me she was back down in the underworld he had kept her there and tricked me into leaving her i turned furious ready to fling myself back down those infernal steps but i saw her standing for a second the sun was on her face and she was smiling mama then she was gone and the door to the underworld closed and she was lost to me forever at the end of the world i sat down on the beach and cried the ocean rolled back underneath it was the corpse of the boatman and all my memories scattered like glass and i am at her bedside again where i always return her lids are lowered her mouth halfopen the oxygen tank hisses beside her and her moaning has finally stopped there she is at the mouth of the cave returning to the dark elsewhere there she is in a nightgown that hangs on her skeletal frame exposing the lumps of tumours and her stretched out skin the image repeats and repeats i always look back issue 2 ellie stewart 