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┏━━━━━━𖤐━━━━━━┓ chapter nineteen: the road goes ever on ┗━━━━━━𖤐━━━━━━┛
"Crouched on the altar-steps, a grisly band Of women slumbers — not like women they, But Gorgons rather; nay, that word is weak, Nor may I match the Gorgons' shape with theirs! Such have I seen in painted semblance erst— Winged Harpies, snatching food from Phineus' board,— But these are wingless, black, and all their shape The eye's abomination to behold."
— Aeschylus, "The Furies"
Oh, God, oh God, oh God Marlene was repeating in her head as she all but glided down the stairs. Never in her entire life had she felt so freaking stupid. Of course, it had to be three innocent girls living with their windowed pastor father in a little cottage up the hill — it's creepy shit 101. The truth had been right there the entire time: three sisters whose names just happened to be almost synonymous to three goddesses of vengeance with snakes for hair and taste for blood of the sinners.
Marley knew she had to kill Sam. She wished she didn't have to, but the voice in the back of her head wasn't lying — it was either her or him, and Marlene wasn't ready to die just yet. Perhaps, she wouldn't even need to kill him. If she could just reason with him —
No. God, what was she thinking? It wasn't the voice in the back of her head, it was Alex. Alecto — the goddess of wrath, she was the one driving Marley mad. But why? Yes, she had thought about killing her father once or twice in her twenty four years, a bit more in the past few months, probably, but she'd never actually done it.
Go figure.
Sam hadn't been in his room. Or in the bathroom, or in the kitchen, or anywhere in that blasted house of horrors. Where the hell was he? Marlene would kill h — nope, no she wouldn't. She ran out to the porch that was lit by a single struggling lantern and saw a tall, dark silhouette by the withered field. It could easily be a scarecrow but for the voluminous hair.
Marlene stormed up to him, "Sam, we gotta leave before I kill you. I know that didn't at all sound reasonable, but you have to trust me. Just this once." When Sam didn't make a single move to turn around, she frowned, a foreboding chill running down her spine, "Sam, are listening to me? I'm saying it's the sisters. Alex, Tiffany, Meghan — they're the Furies and they know we know. It's starting, Sam, we gotta go before we kill each — ," she was cut off by the barrel of the gun being pointed in her face, "— other."
"I'm sorry, Marlene," Sam told her, his eyes resolute, "But there's no other way."
Marley eyed the gun, then looked up at him, "I'm sure there're lots of ways," she said very carefully, "You could put the gun down and have a talk with me — that's one of them."
