Novella Excerpt: Echo

ECHO

The cliff becomes a girl.

One moment there is only the slick slab of stone, long and narrow, fit for the roof of a cave— then, tiny rocks sprout to limbs. Fingers form outward, arms yawn upward, legs fling dust from the compressed rocks, and the girl of stone rises and stretches toward the sky until the small buds she had sheltered in the cracks of her skull open to chrysanthemum and short strands of leaves.

The oread flexes her toes to the ground. Her feet thump rhythmically, stone hitting stone, as she runs to the listening forest, for the trees have curious branches and roots that speak all the way down to Father Cithaeron’s slumbering ear. The leaves swish in her hair, the rocks of her limbs clatter and grind, and she cannot help but laugh, the sound like pebbles dancing across stones until they catch a breeze and fly. And flying is precisely what she wants to do now, but she has never flown. She knows not the beat of scattered wings and the distances she could travel, but she has seen the world from her dreams. What magnificence, what beauty. It had never been close enough to taste.

As the ridges deepen and slice through rows of sleeping trees, the oread shouts. “Sisters! Awake, sisters!”

The other oreads obey, stretching their stone limbs to the sky, and then they laugh and dance in the pond, greeting the oread with shouts that will never be as loud. “Hello, Echo! Hello!”

During slumber, Echo dreams of when she will wake again—she dreams of moments like this: her sisters splashing in the pond, their laughter singing, the trees rustling their leaves for the hope of silence while the wind plays with their hair and tosses rocks at their feet.

“Which god has come to the mountain now?” Ida asks, her mineral eyes darting across the clearing.

Adrasteia stretches, the vibrant purple and pink flowers in her green hair blooming as she steps into the sunlight. “Who cares? They’ll be here soon. Perhaps they’ll try to pluck our petals.” She deftly pulls a petal from her hair and settles it over the water. The breeze carries it to the pond’s center.

Echo reaches over the water and then peers downward. At first, it is only sheen with sunlight, clarity blazing into the pond, and then she sees her eyes—pebbles of amber translucency, her pupils like circular cracks in stone. She smiles and counts the crooked pebbles in her mouth and lifts the leaves framing her hard cheeks.

And then, Father Cithaeron shifts, his giant’s back sending ripples of warning.

“It’s a god,” Britomartis says. “Sisters, we must hide.”

“I do not fear the gods,” Pitys says, cracking her boulder fists together. “A god has claim over mortals, not us.”

“Are we certain it’s not a goddess instead?” Echo asks.

“Father Cithaeron has warned us, so we shall hide,” Britomartis declares, brushing aside their questions. “No more squabbling.”

After Britomartis’s harsh command, Echo scrambles with her sisters and hides behind a tree. The clearing remains unbroken, the pond stiller than a held breath. Then comes the plodding rhythm of steps. Clack. Clack. Clack. Echo places herself close to the branch and peers through a slit in the leaves.

The god appears like a man with furry goat legs. He has long rustled hair, and in his hands, he carries—Echo’s stone heart drops—rounded wood, trimmed to the size of his palms, bound together with wax. After he bends to the pond, he scoops several handfuls of water into his mouth, rubs his chin, and holds the assembly of rounded wood to his lips. A keen cry sounds. Echo can’t help but hum the pitch deep in her chest.

The god startles and turns. “Nymphs! You beautiful goddesses, where do you hide? Have you turned to trees so that I may climb you?” Held breaths. Echo traps the noise in her throat and desperately shakes the sound away. If they are found, they may be used against their will. Best to wait. Best to—

“We would never! We have no fear of you,” Pitys yells, and steps from the other side of the clearing.

“No fear? Only love, then?” he says, and his bearded mouth quirks to a smile. “I am Pan, god of the forest. And who are you, fearless nymph?”

“Pitys.”

Echo’s thoughts are a tumult of worry and panic. She steps before Britomartis—merely one oak tree away—can usher her back.

“There are many of us. You are surrounded,” Echo says, with courage she didn’t know she had. Merely watching Pitys rise in defense gives her the strength to do the same.

“Surrounded? This is the stuff of dreams,” Pan says, laughing. “Continue surrounding me, then. If I try to escape, do stop me.”

Pitys and Echo stare in confusion, and eventually Adrasteia saunters forward, her hands placed on her curving hips, the petals of her hair waving in the breeze. The other oreads step out one by one with eyes like stones aimed to throw. Pan laughs and sinks down to a log, nonplussed by their unease. Echo cannot place the cause of his joy until he exhales into the curved wood in his hands.

Sound. Sweeter than laughter, it dances around them. Echo’s ears cradle the melody like some precious thing. It is not the first time she’s wanted to hold so strongly to every pitch, afraid that if she loses the sound that she will never hear it again.

And before long, the oreads sit around Pan in a circle, listening calmly, determinedly, to what he plays. Music, he tells them.

“Music,” Echo whispers. The word is almost as beautiful as the sound it evokes.