TWENTY-TWO

Birds swarmed and tumbled.

Entire flocks – tribes, nations – of the feathered creatures formed tossing clouds overhead as the sunlight swelled, its withering heat driving the blue from the sky.

And then the sunlight just as quickly began to fade. Shadows swelled again as the daylight began a flight to the north. Birds poured from the sky, seeking refuge in brush and wood, some of them smoking, too late to hide, already singed and heat-stunned.

Just as suddenly the sun careened away from the north. Clymene hurried to the fountain and stood on her tiptoes, straining to see the morning light over walls of the villa. And then she could observe it easily, the familiar orb of the divine chariot as it wheeled across heaven.

Only to lose its way again, and tumble southward – or was it falling to earth? Far off a human being let out a wail, and another wind – hotter than Vulcan’s fire – emptied over the land.

If such a thing were possible, thought Clymene.

If such a thing could happen, she thought, half-guessing and sickened at her private fear.

Pigs screamed in distant farmyards, a sound like human terror.

But such a calamity was not possible, Phaeton’s mother reminded herself. Her knees were weak, and her speech failed, but she repeated this certainty to herself: this could not be what it seemed.

She hurried down the hall, past the busts of Merops’s ancestors, followed by the rapid footsteps of her husband, his chiton thrown on quickly, hanging unevenly as he ran, joining his wife in the village street. His entire household shielded their eyes against the errant, staggering sunlight.

A bull broke from its pen and ran, lowing in panic through the village. The street was crowded with half-clad villagers, smiths and clerks, plowwrights and slaves, all wild-eyed and disheveled.

Epaphus arrived in the street clinging to his bow, the young hunter leading white-haired Aristander by one arm. The old veteran had fallen, momentarily blinded by the sunlight – and now the wooden roof of his smithy was alight.

“What have we done,” cried Aristander, “to offend the gods?”

Epaphus could say nothing, frightened and wide-eyed, but others joined the veteran in an outcry directed at the sky, toward the divine ones.

Ino and her mother joined the throng, baffled and afraid.

“Hurry, everyone – come into my house,” called Merops, pulling in his neighbors, pushing them into the security of his stout-walled home.

But Clymene did not follow.

At that moment blond-haired Cycnus joined her, squinting, one hand blocking the ever-shifting sun.

Shielding her eyes against the errant, blinding source of light she called for Phoebus Apollo.

When the sky seemed deaf except for the shrieks of a few surviving birds, fuming and in flames as they plummeted from the sky, Clymene raised her voice, calling for cloud-gathering Jupiter himself to come to the aid of earth.

And to save her son.