Many of the snakes swarmed toward Meg, nosing around her shoes as if deciding whether to join her on the ledge. Meg tiptoed from foot to foot as if she wasn’t crazy about this idea.
“Did you say sing?” I asked.
“Yes!” Her voice squeaked. “Charm the snakes! Make them go away!”
I didn’t understand what she meant. When I sang, my audiences always came closer. Who was this girl Meg, anyway? She had apparently confused me with Saint Patrick. (Nice guy, by the way; terrible singing voice. The legends don’t normally mention that he drove the snakes out of Ireland with his hideous version of “Te Deum.”)
“Sing that song you did in the ants’ nest!” she pleaded.
The Ants’ Nest? I remembered singing with the Rat Pack and A Flock of Seagulls, but the Ants’ Nest? I didn’t recall ever being part of such a group.
However, it did occur to me why Megan/Peg/Meg might be nervous. Water moccasins are poisonous. Much like yales, they can be aggressive when their territory is invaded. But Meg stood at the mouth of the tunnel, not really in the snakes’ territory. Why was she nervous?
I looked down. Hundreds of vipers swirled around me, displaying their cute little mouths with their sharp little fangs. They moved sluggishly in the frigid water, or perhaps they were just awestruck to be in my presence—cheerful, charismatic, charming old Whatever-my-name-was!—but they did seem to be hissing a lot.
“Oh!” I laughed as the realization struck me. “You’re worried about me! I’m about to die!”
I had a vague impulse to do something. Run? Dance? What was it Meg had suggested?
Before I could decide, Meg began to sing.
Her voice was weak and off-key, but I recognized the melody. I was pretty sure I had composed it.
Whenever someone bursts into song in public, there is a moment of hesitation. Passersby stop to listen, trying to discern what they are hearing and why a random person in their midst has decided to serenade them. As Meg’s uneven voice echoed through the cavern, the snakes sensed the vibrations. More thumb-size viper heads popped to the surface. More white mouths opened, as if they were trying to taste the song. Around my waist, the swirling storm of water moccasins lost its cohesion as the snakes turned their attention to Meg.
She sang of loss and regret. Yes…I vaguely recalled singing this song. I’d been walking through the tunnels of a myrmekes’ nest, pouring out my sadness, baring my heart as I searched for Meg. In the song, I had taken responsibility for the deaths of my greatest loves, Daphne and Hyacinthus. Their names came back to me as sharp as broken window shards.
Meg repeated my performance, but with different words. She was making up her own verses. As the vipers gathered at her feet, her voice grew stronger, more self-assured. She was still off-key, but she sang with heartbreaking conviction—her song every bit as sad and genuine as mine had been.
“It’s my fault,” she sang. “Your blood on my hands. The crushed rose I couldn’t save.”
I was stunned she had such poetry in her. Clearly, the snakes were too. They bobbed around her feet in a thick mass, just like the crowd at the Pink Floyd floating concert in Venice in 1989—which, for some reason, I remembered perfectly.
A bit late, I realized it was a miracle I had not yet been bitten to death by water moccasins. What was I doing in the middle of this lake? Only Meg’s music was keeping me alive—her discordant voice somehow beautiful and enchanting, holding the attention of thousands of rapt vipers.
Like them, I wanted to stay where I was and listen. But a sense of unease was building up inside me. This cave…the Oracle of Trophonius. Something told me this cave was not the right place to bare one’s soul.
“Meg,” I whispered. “Stop.”
She apparently couldn’t hear me.
The entire cavern seemed fixated on her voice now. The rock walls glistened. Shadows swayed as if dancing. The glittering stalactites strained toward Meg like compass needles.
She sang of betraying me, of returning to Nero’s household, of succumbing to her fear of the Beast….
“No,” I said, a little louder. “No, Meg!”
Too late. The cavern’s magic caught her song, magnifying her voice a hundredfold. The chamber filled with the sound of pure pain. The lake boiled as panicked serpents submerged and fled, pushing past my legs in a strong riptide.
Perhaps they escaped down some hidden waterway. Perhaps they dissolved. All I knew: the little rock island in the center of the cave was suddenly empty, and I was the only living thing left in the lake.
Still Meg sang. Her voice now sounded forced out of her—as if some giant invisible fist were squeezing her like a squeaky toy. Lights and shadows flickered over the cavern walls, forming ghostly images to illustrate her lyrics.
In one scene, a middle-aged man crouched down and smiled as if looking at a child. He had dark curly hair like mine (I mean Lester’s), a broad freckled nose, and soft, kind eyes. He held out a single red rose.
“From your mother,” he whispered, a chorus to Meg’s song. “This rose will never fade, sweetheart. You will never have to worry about thorns.”
The pudgy hand of a child appeared in the vision, reaching for the flower. I suspected this was one of Meg’s earliest memories—something just on the edge of consciousness. She took the rose, and the petals unfolded into brilliant full bloom. The stem curled lovingly around Meg’s wrist. She squealed with delight.
A different vision: the emperor Nero in his purple three-piece suit, kneeling to look Meg in the eye. He smiled in a way that might have been mistaken for kindly if you didn’t know Nero. His double chin puffed out under his helmet-strap beard. His bejeweled rings glittered on his fat fingers.
“You’ll be a good girl, won’t you?” He gripped Meg’s shoulder a little too tightly. “Your daddy had to go away. Perhaps if you’re good, you’ll see him again. Won’t that be nice?”
The younger version of Meg nodded. I sensed, somehow, that she was about five years old. I imagined her thoughts and emotions curling up inside her, forming a thick protective shell.
Another scene flickered into view. Just outside the New York Public Library in Midtown, a man’s corpse sprawled on the white marble steps. One hand was splayed on his gut, which was a gruesome battleground of red trenches—perhaps slashes from a knife, or the claws of a large predator.
Police milled around, taking notes, snapping photos, holding the crowd behind a line of yellow tape. They parted, however, to let two people in—Nero, in a different purple suit but the same ghastly beard and jewelry, and Meg, now maybe six, horrified, pale, reluctant. She saw the body and began to whimper. She tried to turn away, but Nero planted a heavy hand on her shoulder to keep her in place.
“I want you to see this.” His voice dripped with false sympathy. “I am so sorry, my dear. The Beast…” He sighed as if this tragic scene was unavoidable. “I need you to be more diligent in your studies, do you understand? Whatever the swords-master says, you must do. It would break my heart if something else happened, something even worse than this. Look. Remember.”
Tears pooled in Meg’s eyes. She edged forward. Clutched in her dead father’s other hand was the stem of a rose. The crushed petals were strewn across his stomach, almost invisible against the blood. She wailed, “Daddy! Help me!” The police paid her no attention. The crowd acted as if she didn’t exist. Only Nero was there for her.
At last she turned to him, buried her face in his suit vest, and sobbed uncontrollably.