He straightened up and pointed at the dome made of seashells, coral crusts, and luminous bones. "My mom lives just over yonder. You think she'd let me carry on like Boggin does? You'll find out what she's like."
I did not move from the spot where I stood, and he did not seem to be in a hurry. The fact that the crack in the cliffside led up to a place I knew made me reluctant to lose sight of it. It was like seeing blue sky through prison bars.
"Who is your mother? I thought Beowulf killed Gren-del's mother."
"Him? Yellow-haired bastard sticking his oar in where it weren't none of his quarrel. Them that bragged Hereot were a finer house than Arima! Fairest house in middle-earth, they said! It weren't so fair once we had done some dirty work on it, though. Heh. No, they didn't have no joy in their fine house with its roof of gold for many a day, and it was only wailing, not singing, their poets did.
"Anyhow, blondie comes in for no reason, and killt my older brother, from who I got his name second-hand. But Mom weren't killed. Can't. Mighty wounded, though, hurt bad. She had to go to the Destroyer what to get herself fixed up, and that one, he made her change sides and swear up and down to serve the Big Ones on the Mountain. We used to be part of you lot. That whelp Quentin, he's my mom's nephew. My grand-dame is Ceto, what gave birth to the Gray Witches, what gave birth to Quentin.
"Anyway, the Destroyer kept his part of things, and sent a dragon to go take care of that blond guy.
Showed him. But, no, she didn't die."
He looked at me sidelong, and added: " You know she can't die. I heard you talking about her once."
"Me?"
"Yeah! In classroom. I were outside the window, listening. You were doing your lessons, and talking about her. I came right on down here afters, and told her what you said, and it made her smile. She don't smile much, and it does a heart good to see it."
"What did I say…?"
He looked hurt. "You mean you don't remember?"
I said blankly, "I… I do a lot of lessons. I don't remember them all."
"You were talking about that poet. I ain't got much book learning, but when Mom found out that guy wrote her up in a poem and all, she were wild about it. Made me go up and rememberize it, so as I could come down here and tell it her. Not the whole poem; just the part about her. I wanted to steal the damn book, but Mom ain't so good with her letters, and the pages would have got wetted and spoilt anyhow.
It's funny, I know and you forget. You think I'm stupider than you, but I didn't forget my lessons. You want to hear… ?"
Without waiting for an answer, he tucked his hands behind his back, and squared his shoulders, and cleared his throat, and recited: " And in a hollow cave, she was born, a monster irresistible, and there are none, mortal or immortal, like unto her. She is the goddess fierce Echidna, who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge serpent, great and awful, with speckled skin, eating raw flesh beneath the secret parts of the holy earth. And there she has a cave deep down under a hollow rock far from the deathless gods and mortal men. There, then, did the gods appoint her a glorious house to dwell in: and she keeps guard in Arima beneath the earth, grim Echidna, a nymph who dies not nor grows old all her days."
He grinned. "Hear that? Even your poet feller said her house was glorious. Better than that damn Hereot place, anyhow. Ma liked that a lot. She used to have me say it out for her like that, especially when she was eating, 'cause sometimes the people she had for dinner was making lots of noise, screaming and carrying on. You know what her favorite part was? Irresistible'! She liked being called irresistible, on account of she is a mighty fine looker.
"She said you was quite a looker, too. Better than was fit for me, she says. She was really tickled when she saw how you fit into her dress. Didn't even have to take it in at the chest or nothing, not like some we've had down here. Good stock, she said you were. That's a joke, see? Get it? Good stock?"
"I don't get it," I said.
"Soup stock. Never mind. You'll get used to her little jokes. It's always a lot better when she's kidding around than when she gets in her black moods." He shook his head sorrowfully.
"Black moods… ?"I asked.
"They killt my brothers, you know. Hercules and Bellerophon and folks like that. Oedipus shoved my sister off a cliff. They say she jumped, but that's a lie. She was the smart one in the family, the only one was all loved and got along with.
"My mom, she's got like a little pile of bones out back, one pile for each of the departed, and she keeps
'em to remind herself how much she misses them. When she misses them too much, she goes out hunting to get more bones to pile on. I tell her to go up the surface, so as she can cry and let it all out, but she don't listen to me, even though I'm the only one of her kids what still sticks by her. But she surely misses her babies, sometimes. The pile for my sister is the biggest of all, on account of she misses her the most.
Such a pretty thing, too! Took after Mom, at least from the waist up.
"You'd think those puny folk couldn't do folk like us much hurt, but they had it out for my brothers.
Especially Hercules. Five of them are dead. No, six, if you count Or-thus. Mom ain't got no memento for him. He were the eldest, and weren't too bright, and we always called him the 'Shy One Brain,' on account of he only had two heads instead of three. I'm kind of sorry I made fun of him, now he's dead, but he was a bit of a bully, really, and he was married to Mom for a while, which sort of turns your stomach, if you think about it. That was after the Thunderer killt Dad, and Orthus was kind of the man of the family, but he didn't really ask Mom or nothing. He just did it.
"He turned over a new leaf, and tried to straighten up. Got himself a job guarding the Cattle of Geryon.
Good work, steady. And he were fierce, but Hercules laid him low.
"My second biggest brother, though, he's safe. Ain't no one ever going to kill him, not ever. He got himself a good job, watchman sort of thing, working for the Unseen One. Mom is always ragging and worrying us, why we can't get no good jobs like he got. I reckon he just got that job to make the rest of us look bad. Anyway. Mom's real proud of him, though he never comes back to visit. I just saw him in a dream the other day, though. He weren't too friendly, and me his brother and all.
"I guess 'cause his boss were looking on. Normally, he's kind of easy-tempered and funny like Mom is, you know: 'And you think your work is Hell!' That's something he says. It's a joke. You get it? You don't get it.
"Well, anyway, there is just me now, and Ladon comes by when he can, and gives her some of the apples he's supposed to be guarding. He's the young one, runt of the litter, but he got a pretty good job himself.
"You'll meet him in time, I guess. If you don't cross Mom and she don't eat you like she did the last one.
Hey, and if you butter him up, maybe he'll filch an apple for you, so as you can be immortal, too.
"We can be your family, now. You ain't had no family, had you? No one to look out for you." He patted me on the shoulder. "I'll look after you now, me and Mom, and my two brothers. You ain't never going to be lonesome again."
As he spoke about his dead brothers, a sense of pity welled up in me, but also a sensation of cold horror.
"But you are monsters," I said. "You kill and eat people like wolves kill rabbits."
"Yeah, but people don't mind. They used to, but these days? They're always going on and on about overpopulation and the balance of Nature and stuff. We gotta dress up different these days, o' course, serial murders and axe murders and so on. Jack the Ripper—heard of him? One of my nephews. He only killt whores, though, and everyone knows they're too many of them; all the preachers say so. No, you ain't worried about human beans, are you? It's Mom. Who would not be nervous meeting her, what with her being famous and written up in a poem and all?"