Free Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds by Fiction River

attacking
creatures off their feet, out of their flight paths, and halfway to
perdition.
    My aunts alone were spared from the general
eviction. They hovered in mid-air, astonished by the sudden
depopulation of their theatre of war, until their eyes lit upon the
wizard. They drifted to earth with the grace of autumn leaves and
bowed before him.
    “You have our thanks, O Merlin,” Aunt
Euphrosyne intoned. Her harpy voice was considerably more
impressive than her tremulous human one. “What dread agency set you
free from your ages-long durance to aid us in this, our most
desperate hour?”
    “The dragon-thing spit on my door,” the
wizard replied simply.
    “Melantha!” Aunt Domitilla ruffled her
feathers. “Spitting in the house? And you, a lady born and bred.
What next? Public nose-blowing ?”
    “Excuse me, dear Aello,” Aunt Euphrosyne
murmured, calling her sister by what I presumed to be her true
name. “If we are being accurate, our sweet Melantha did not spit in the house so much as on it.”
    “Do not chop prepositions with me, Ocypete,”
Aunt Domitilla replied in the same wise. “The fact remains that the
child’s intemperate actions have caused a dreadful upset in our
domestic arrangements. We now have a legendary wizard for whom to
provide, as well as the dawn-goddess’ castoff lover. However shall
we manage to introduce them to the vicar and the local Hunt?
O, we are socially ruined! I shall never be able to contribute my
tatting to the parish jumble sale again, and you know how it
piles up!” She flapped her wings in despair.
    “Does this mean you will be staying at
Dyrnewaed?” I asked innocently.
    “Of course we will!” Aunt Domitilla (née
Aello) snapped as we all wended our way back to the spring. As my
aunts had chosen to walk rather than fly, out of deference to
Merlin, we made a rather comical procession. Harpies are cruel
grace itself when airborne, but on the ground they tend to waddle.
“It would not do to leave you unchaperoned with both a legendary
wizard and a prince whose manners thus far have been less
than—”
    She stopped in her tracks and stared. Miss
Cubbins stared back, her face pale, her expression sheepish, her
hair serpentine. Tithonus was pale as well, though this was due to
his having become as fine a piece of marble statuary as the British
Museum might covet.
    “Oh my,” said Miss Cubbins, while her hair
hissed and writhed. “I am most terribly sorry. I did not mean to
turn the gentleman to stone, but when Miss Melantha splashed me, it
simply could not be helped.”
    “A gorgon!” Aunt Euphrosyne exclaimed. “Did
we know she was a gorgon when we hired her, Aello? I’m sure I was unaware of the fact.”
    “Apparently, so was she,” my elder aunt
remarked with a wry smile. Turning to Merlin, she added: “I am
gratified to perceive that your magic has protected you from the
effects of our governess’ coiffure.”
    “Shieldings and wardings, Madam,” Merlin said
smugly. “Never cut corners on your shieldings and wardings, I
always say.”
    “Indeed.”
    At Aunt Domitilla’s behest, the wizard turned
his powers to restoring us to our human guises. Despite the social
niceties, the governess went first. As her fellow Mythics, we were
immune to her petrifying gaze, but my aunts declined to become the
empirical proof of whether our mortal bodies would be equally
unaffected.
    Later, over tea, it was arranged that Merlin
should stay on at Dyrnewaed as a long-lost uncle, newly back from
the Afghan border. Miss Cubbins also agreed to remain, with the
proviso that half a glass of spring water accompany her to all of
our lessons, a visual memorandum for me to remain on good behavior
or—as she so crudely put it—else. I thought it beastly of my aunts
to approve this, but had no choice in the matter.
    As for Prince Tithonus, Merlin’s magic had no
effect on him, alas, nor did repeated aspersions with the spring’s
restorative waters. My aunts had him removed to the