Chapter 24: Aristophanes' Myth
"Do you wanna set up a movie?" Johnny asked, tossing one of his prized DVDs into the air and catching it.
"Sorry, Johnny, I can't. It's Auntie Night," Mavis replied, pulling an overstuffed beanbag chair out from her closet and depositing it beside her bed.
"What? Already?" Johnny exclaimed, his shoulders sagging. Auntie Night was the designated get together between Mavis and her two honorary aunts, Eunice and Wanda. It was a time honored tradition, at least a hundred years old, usually held on the first Sunday of every month providing everyone could make it. Mavis had been out visiting the Underworld for the last one, so it had been pushed back a few weeks. Johnny had no clue what sorts of things Auntie Night entailed, but Mavis was very insistent it was a 'no boys allowed' kind of affair. Which was kind of sexist, if you asked him.
"I promise I'll watch your movie tomorrow, okay?" Mavis offered. She pulled the little stool away from her vanity, the mirror reflecting the other side of the room as if she wasn't even there.
Johnny sighed.
"I'm sure you can find some way to entertain yourself for tonight. Maybe you can talk the guys into watching," Mavis glanced at the DVD case in his hands, "Slasherman Part V?"
"Part Five," Johnny corrected.
"Didn't he die in the fourth one? How many Slashermen are there?"
"Well obviously you have to watch the movie to find out," Johnny replied. Truthfully, as much as he loved the Slasherman series, he didn't care what they watched, if anything. He just wanted things to get back to normal and it was getting more and more challenging to do that. Mavis wasn't exactly avoiding him, but she wasn't exactly acting normal either. They were a lot quieter, a lot more careful around each other. Like any conversation might run off the rails and land them in another argument they couldn't escape from.
Mavis didn't seem to have a response so he went on, "And the last time we got everybody to watch a horror movie, your Dad talked through the whole thing criticizing all the bogus factual inaccuracies, Wayne hid under the table after every jump scare, and I'm pretty sure the gore made Griffin cry."
"You can always watch another movie," Mavis reasoned.
"Yeah, I guess so," Johnny sighed, trying to look as dejected as possible.
"Tomorrow, Johnny, I promise," Mavis repeated. "Tonight is girl's night."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Johnny mumbled, moving towards the door. He'd figure out something to do.
Wanda always looked forward to Auntie Night. It was one night that she didn't have to keep an eye on the pups or change diapers or tidy messes. Even when she was small, Mavis had been very independent and mature, and hanging out with her aunties made her feel like a grown lady. Both she and Eunice felt a kind of responsibility for Mavis, partly because they had been friends with Dracula and with Martha for so long. They made sure they went out of their way to spend time with her. Truth be told, they enjoyed spoiling her a little, too.
Wanda was herding the rest of her litter inside for the night when she found Medusa out by the kitchen. The gorgon woman was sitting in a chair, alone, a long, curved piece of wood in one hand and a little pocket knife in the other. She was whittling at the piece of wood, shaping it. A little pile of wood shavings was accumulating on the floor around her. At the sound of barking, she jolted, sitting straight up in her chair and pulling her feet in. The hand holding the wood went up to her forehead instinctively until she realized she was still holding something. Wanda shooed the pups forward, scanning the area for her husband.
"Sorry, dear," she said to Medusa. "I hope they didn't spook you too badly."
"No, no, they're fine," Medusa gave an embarrassed sort of laugh. She switched the length of wood to the hand with the pocketknife, freeing up the other hand to touch her forehead, pressing against the rims of her sunglasses.
"Have you seen Wayne?" she asked. He'd better not be trying to get out of watching the kids.
One of the pups got a little too close to Medusa's chair, sniffing at her wooden stick with interest. Medusa lifted it high out of the child's reach. "Not for you, kid," she said. "I think Wayne's back by the sauna."
Wanda wasn't sure why she thought of it, but suddenly she found herself asking if Medusa would come with her to Auntie Night.
"We were just going to spend a little time with Mavis. Girl's night in. It's sort of like a sleepover."
"Ummm," Medusa's mouth pulled into a tight, straight line.
"I just need to find Wayne and hand off the pups," Wanda continued. "He's supposed to take them tonight."
"Uh huh," Medusa nodded. A couple puppies sniffed curiously at Medusa's shoes. She drew her feet away and Wanda shuffled them off, apologizing.
"It's okay," Medusa replied, "I grew up in a house with eight boys. I get it."
"Oh, you have a big family?' Wanda asked.
"Huge."
"Never a dull moment."
"Something like that."
Medusa finally decided she did want to come after all, and she followed Wanda through the hotel to drop the pups off with Wayne. To his credit, the werewolf didn't complain. Overtly.
They met Eunice on the way to Mavis's room. She was, rather loudly, ecstatic about another monster joining them. Her arms were full of bottles of hair and and skin and nail products. It was going to be one of those nights.
"And then Bertha throws the whole thing straight out the window," Eunice finished, cackling loudly. Medusa laughed along with the others like she got the joke. She didn't.
Wanda settled back in the beanbag chair with her hair full of curlers. Eunice sat Medusa down at the vanity and opened up a comically large, unfolding case full of tiny nail polish vials. Mavis had left to use the restroom a few moments before and it was only after she left that Medusa realized how out of place she felt.
"What's your color, Medusa? Do you stick with green or do you like to mix it up a little?"
Medusa just shrugged noncommittally. "You can paint 'em all different if you want to." She glanced around. Mavis kept her room fairly neat for an 118 year old. The vanity was the only counter covered with random odds and ends: books, a hairbrush, a single arm sock, a few framed pictures.
"Is that her?" Medusa asked.
"What? Who?" Eunice croaked. She looked up from the nail she was starting to sand down with a giant emry board.
Medusa nodded at the small painting on the counter. "Mavis's mother."
Eunice and Wanda deflated a little. "Yeah, that's Martha," Wanda sighed sadly, almost wistful.
Medusa leaned forward to get a better look. The painting was expertly drawn, almost like a photograph apart from the sheen of the oil and the occasional mark of a brush stroke. It was a shoulders up composition of Dracula, standing next to a woman with soft, dark eyes and gentle waving hair, holding a baby wrapped in pink. The woman, Martha, was looking at the viewer. Dracula, however, was looking at her.
"She's lovely," Medusa remarked. "She looks like Mavis. Or I guess Mavis looks like her," she corrected herself.
"What was that?" Mavis said, entering the room. Medusa couldn't help but jump slightly, feeling a little like she'd been intruding.
"Medusa just mentioned how much Martha looks like you," Wanda explained.
"Really?" Mavis's eyes widened, her voice soft. "Most people say I take after my dad," she laughed, a little.
"You have his eyes," Medusa agreed, "But that's your smile," she nodded towards the painting.
"Yeah?" Mavis tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, a little twin smile creeping onto her face. Medusa hoped she hadn't made too much of a nuisance of herself by bringing it up. Was it impolite to ask about her, or was impolite not to. It wasn't like this was any of her business, and they were supposed to be having fun.
"Oh, honey, your nails are tiny!" Eunice exclaimed, inspecting Medusa's hand in an irrelevant non-sequitur.
"Uh, sorry?" Medusa shrugged, at a loss. Eunice frowned and picked up a vial of nail polish, shaking it aggressively.
Mavis plopped down on her bed. "You should've heard Johnny when I told him about tonight. I think he wants to crash one of these eventually."
Eunice gave a cackling laugh.
"I want to hear the story of how that happened," Medusa said.
"How what happened?"
"You and Johnny."
Mavis told her the story with an excited gleam in her eye. About how Johnny stumbled in off a mountain climbing trip at just the right time. How so many things converged on this one day. How her father lied to her and then made up for it by chasing down a plane after sunrise to bring her boyfriend back. Because they had zinged.
"That's the second time I've heard that phrase and I'm still not sure what it means."
"You've never heard of a zing?" Eunice recoiled in astonishment.
Mavis made a subtle yet panicked attempt at a slashing motion across her neck. Eunice stumbled over whatever she'd been about to say next.
"I think you're more of a fall color, darling. Wouldn't you say she's more of a fall, Wanda?" Eunice tipped the hand she was painting so everyone could inspect the color.
Medusa hoped she wasn't prying or asking something inappropriate. She felt a little out of her element here. But a lot seemed to be riding on this zing thing. Not only was a vampire dating a human because of it, everyone was willing to put a lot at risk to keep them together despite all that monsters and humans had been through.
Wanda stayed more on topic. "A zing's just a word for that feeling you get when you meet your one," she explained.
"One what?"
"Your one true love. The one person you're meant to be with."
Medusa frowned. "You mean like Aristophanes' myth," she commented.
"Ari-what?" Mavis squinted her eyes in confusion.
"It's just a story from a book I had once."
"Was it a love story?" Eunice wondered.
"More of a old drunk's discussion on love stories."
"We'll, how does it go?" Wanda asked.
"Yeah, you haven't told a story yet," Mavis pointed out.
"Are you sure? It's kinda saccharine nonsense. I have better stories."
"Just tell it already," Mavis insisted.
"Umm, okay," Medusa folded her legs underneath her, taking time to remember how the thing started. She wasn't sure if it was girl talk material but at least she wouldn't have to come up with a story of her own. She couldn't remember the words specifically, but she remembered the gist of how it went.
"A long, long time ago when the gods ruled the heavens and earth, people were built like barrels. All round with two sets of arms and two sets of legs and round heads with two faces, back to back, one on each side. They moved around like acrobats, cartwheeling over the ground. The gods were threatened by these creatures. They were afraid they'd grown too strong and powerful and would one day rise up and conquer them. And because the gods are always massive jerks in these stories, they decided to punish them.
But they didn't want to kill them and miss out on the sacrifices the humans gave to them. So they sliced them all in half with a giant thread, the way you'd slice an egg down the middle. And they turned their heads to face the cut, and drew the wound closed to a small hole on their bellies. To remind them not to mess with the gods. They cast a huge storm and scattered the broken halves to the ends of the earth. And so that thing we call love is the longing to be reunited with our other half, and become whole again."
"Wow," Mavis said, her head leaning against her hand.
"A romantic thought," Wanda said.
"If people were puzzle pieces," Medusa shrugged.
"It's a metaphor," Eunice croaked.
"It's not at all sensible," Medusa added.
"Why not?" Mavis asked.
Medusa suddenly felt apprehensive, like she was sticking a pin in something important to her. That maybe she wasn't quite old enough to have figured this out yet. "It's a myth, Mavis. Some guy made it up. You're never stuck with one person. Half the fun of dating is that you have the freedom to pick."
"My mother said a zing only happens once in your life," Mavis said.
"That's right," Wanda added, "It's special. It changes you, somehow."
"How do you know?"
"I think when you know, you know," Eunice added. Medusa bit back the reflex to ask what in the heaven that meant.
Hecate spent the better part of the evening wandering through the labyrinth under the hotel. Not because she was lost, she had a very accurate schematic of the whole thing already drawn up. It hadn't been altered much since it was built in the late 1890s. All her plans for the casting circle had been other floors of the hotel, places that were visible, and that was no longer an option. Nobody seemed to come down to the labyrinth at all. Apart from two, easily dispatched guards, security was nonexistent. If she found a spot in the floor big enough, she could make a circle that would be strong enough to cover the whole hotel when the time came.
She reached a section of the maze that broke off into three different tunnels. The main tunnel was wide, more so than the others, to accommodate all the different pathways. It was still too narrow for her needs, but if she continued the circle onto the walls… well, it was the best option available at the moment.
She started at the east end of the room with her master sketch and a piece of chalk. There was a bit of prep work to do before she made the carving. Every detail had to be accurate and she was probably only going to get one shot at it. She had to make it count. She was drawing not more than twenty minutes when a low, moaning noise coupled with a metallic squeaking startled her from her work.
She whirled around. A lone zombie in uniform was ambling slowly down the hall towards her, dragging a mop inside of a small bucket on wheels. He stopped short when he came within eyeshot of Hecate, surprise inching slowly onto his undead face.
Maybe this place wasn't so deserted as she thought.
In one fluid movement, Hecate swept up all the soapy water from the zombie's bucket and engulfed him in it. She blasted the water against a wall, freezing it on impact. The zombie worker remained, frozen inside the ice with a shocked expression. The end of the mop handle was the only bit that broke free of the ice.
Hecate paused for a tense moment. And when she was sure that no one else was venturing down the hall she picked up her chalk and continued.
Medusa instantly regretted letting Eunice mess with her hair. She was more or less indifferent to hairstyles, and even though the up do Eunice created made her look a bit like a palm tree with squirming snakehead leaves, it wouldn't have bothered her much if it wasn't so painfully uncomfortable. She tried and failed several times to undo the knot holding her hair up as soon as she left and the women dispersed. The knot was too tight and her freshly painted nails too short to make much progress. She'd have to find a mirror and cut it loose.
She was making her way toward the staircase, the first of many that led up to her room, when a muffled scream and an eerie blue light showing around the cracks in a door led her curious into the room. A projector set up against an old sheet was displaying an impressively crisp looking film. She hadn't seen one in decades, apparently humans had figured out color and had the attention span of gnats from how fast everything was whizzing by across the screen. Medusa shut the door, still unnoticed by the little audience viewing the film, and approached the couch. Along the back of the couch she could just make out the silhouettes of Frank, Dracula, and Johnny. The mummy lay on the floor with a blanket covering most of his head. On the screen a chainsaw screamed to life.
"What the heck are you watching?" she asked, leaning against the back of the couch.
Johnny turned, about to shush her, and ended up jumping, panicked, onto the arm of the couch. "Holy smokes, what's on your head?" he shrieked.
That was enough to distract the room from the flashing violence onscreen and for a sudden moment Medusa was seriously regretting not heading straight for her room to take care of her hair.
"Eunice?" Frank asked calmly.
"Eunice," she replied, trying to keep from sounding too disdainful. Eunice had only done it to be nice. She fiddled with the knot, unsuccessfully trying to loosen it, and instead pushed her fingers against her scalp, trying to ease the tugging pain.
"You look like a dying palm tree," Dracula said dryly.
"You look like an upside down exclamation mark all the time and I don't complain," she fired back. Frank snickered and dropped a handful of popcorn into his mouth.
An ear piercing scream ripped from the film's speakers. On the screen a woman half covered in mud was standing against a wall, screaming her little heart out.
"Why is she just standing there? He's taking forever. Just run," Medusa lectured the screen.
"I know, right?" Dracula looked at her with the unrestrained glee of a person who had no doubt been saying the exact same thing several times already. "It's like they're not even trying. You should've seen what happened to the boyfriend."
As if the woman on screen could hear them, she suddenly ducked the oncoming chainsaw, taking off running into the woods while the blade dug into the outside wall. The mud she slipped through in her escape flung back at her assailant. A close shot showed him getting hit in the mask and staggering backwards, arms flailing. Medusa couldn't help but laugh aloud at it.
"Augh, soil! My only weakness!" Dracula's accent twisted in a mocking imitation of the man onscreen. Frank burst out laughing.
"Gods, you are bad," Medusa shoved Dracula's shoulder. She hoped he got that she said bad meaning good. Johnny said it that way a lot.
"Shush, dudes, you'll miss the best part!" Johnny insisted.
Their attention turned back to the movie. She barely registered the wave of Dracula's hand before her hair magically unraveled all at once, falling loose. She swallowed back a yelp of surprise and instinctively touched her hair. The snakes rolled and stretched, grateful for the freedom.
Dracula glanced back just long enough for her to catch his proud smile.
A/N: The origin of love myth Medusa tells is from Plato's Symposium. Which is a long, philosophical discussion on love between Plato and a few other guys. Aristophanes' part is the most widely known. It was the easiest illustration I could think of for the soul mate concept, which is also what the Zing idea in the HT movies reminded me of.
-School and jobs have basically been kicking my ass as of late so I apologize for the sporadic updates. I'm going somewhere with this. I promise.