The Last Nymph

Sister Thoe

As Doc got up, he felt the compulsion to give Maera a fatherly hug. And before he could move forward, she had already sprung toward him and kissed him sweetly on the cheek.

"I welcome your help," she said appreciatively. "And I do trust your judgement in people. Hopefully in men this summer."

He smiled a bit self-consciously, and then winked at her assuredly. As they walked back toward the abandoned village of Kastro, Maera, engaged him in yet another story, this time of her sister Thoe. Its purpose, as it turned out, was obviously to express her strong but confused feelings about love.

"Thoe and I were always together," she began. We were called the twins by our sisters. Not that we looked alike. But because we spent so much time swimming together and talking so freely and personally about everything we shared."

Doc was delighted his young companion was again speaking so animatedly about her mythological sisters. And for this he purposely walked slowly along the forest trail toward the castle.

"Once during those times when the Venetian ships were sailing between Italy and the large island to the west of us, Lefkada . . . my sister Thoe, tasted briefly of love. He was a young sailor and from the great city they called Venice. My sister had, while swimming with the rest of us that day, lured him off the side of his ship by her beautiful voice. As always, I was at her side and even witnessed their first kiss under the waves . . . which made me a little jealous, I must say."

Doc paused and looked carefully into her Maera's eyes. They were animated with memories.

"You see, I was surprised at how long the poor mariner stayed under the water with her. As she led him back to the surface, he clung to her and didn't struggle to regain the ship like so many did. Always they did this in moments, once they had come to their senses in the cold sea."

As before, the former professor was as intrigued by the tale as any myth he had ever dug out of the worlds most informed libraries.

"This young man, who called himself Julius, took to my sister's charms stronger than most. And she saw something herself in his sweet face and kind words. It was what led her back to the ship's side that moon-lit night where he was waiting for her."

Doc walked quietly and slowly now, not wanting to interrupt her thoughts.

"Thoe tried to get me not to follow them, as the sailor quietly lowered himself back into the sea and swam off with her toward the shore. But I was so accustomed to be at her side, that I did not listen to her warning. I swam behind them and under the surface, not wanting to let my fair sister out of my sight. I had never trusted men, as my father, King Nereus, had always taught us back in his kingdom, below the waves in the Aegean."

When Maera and Doc had reached the stone turret, now at evening twilight, the professor did not want either the company nor the story to end. He politely invited the Nymph into his abode, where she accepted without hesitation. Two glasses of wine were set out on his humble table, along with lit candles, and the two faced each other as Maera continued her intriguing story.

"As Thoe and the young man left the sea that night and walked through she surf to the sandy beach, I stayed in the waves and watched them as they talked and kissed sweetly. This young sailor, Julius, was not pushy with my sister. He did not have his hands all over her, as the other mariners so often tried to do. I watched for that carefully and was prepared to approach them if that habit began. But besides a few kisses, I could see the meeting between them was not like anything I had experienced at that time, or even ever witnessed. It was all so sweet and lovely, I remember it well now, hearing them laughing. But their voices were too low to hear the words they shared."

Doc quietly raised his wine glass, as Maera did too, careful not to interrupt her enchanting narrative.

"I asked my sister later that night, what they had spoken of. And she told me the young man shared with her his wonderful homeland . . . the special city where he claimed there were beautiful girls . . . but none so beautiful as her."

Doc could see the now the familiar melancholic expression come over Maera's face. It seemed to be an emotion react to those memories told so vividly there in his quiet house.

"Thoe went back night after night. It was while the moon shone brightly on the water. And each night I saw them grow closer and more attracted to each other. My sister warned me not to follow them anymore, but I lied to her, and I did follow. I saw them one night, walk hand in hand along a beach to the cliffs. And there to a cave that my sister and I had played in for its many passageways and rooms. As I followed them inside, unseen. I could hear their voices becoming quieter and I was close enough to hear their kisses in the still darkness."

Doc had by now finished his first glass of wine and was hypnotically beginning his second as Maera stared at the stone wall, unmoving. It was as if she was not seeing but just listening once again that fateful night.

"Soon it became very quiet. And out of fear for my sister and my distrust of men, I moved even closer into the same room of the cave they were in and saw them lying on the sandy floor. I could not see clearly but heard the soft sound of my sister's dress coming off. Soon their breathing and sounds of pleasure were as loud as the waves on the shore outside the cave."

She paused a moment, as if allowing all the lurid sensations to return to her.

"My sister was beginning to moan with pleasure in a way that made me feel both jealous, and at the same time evil. Evil, that I was there being too close to something. Something I should not have. Something I did not deserve, but that she did."

Maera paused again, as if to listen to those erotic sounds once more.

"I left the cave as quietly as I could and swam out as far from the island as I could. Into the dark depths of the sea I went, where I could just feel empty. Feel cleansed of what knew Thoe was doing with the sailor from Venice. You see . . . I did not want this for her, as I did not want it for myself. But there was this feeling . . . that I wanted it to be me not her in that cave. Feeling the magic of what Julius was doing to her."

Maera stopped speaking and took a small drink of her wine. She just stared into it as if looking into a small golden sea, but an ocean of powerful memories.

Doc now found it hard to endure the silence. Her forced stoicism. It was a silence which she used to fight back the emotions which were ready to be unleashed were she to continue.

"What happened to Thoe and Julius, Maera?" the professor finally asked.

"She loved him too much," she answered coldly. "So much that she lost herself. Lost her life and loyalty to her sisters."

"How?" Doc asked, his voice now strained.

"She climbed the ladder of the ship one night to be with him. When he no longer appeared at the side to look for her. We found the young man's body many days later in the waves. He had been killed . . . out of jealousy by the others."

Doc held his wine glass motionless as he absorbed the tragic ending to the story.

"As the ship pulled up its's anchor the following morning, we saw our sweet Thoe had been captured by the crew. She was in a cage on the deck of the ship. We all cried helplessly as they sailed away with her. Sailing on the strong winds, west. Toward Italy."

Doc remained speechless. While he expected Maera to now be crying from recounting the sad tale, she was not. It was plain to see she had cried too many centuries over the loss to cry anymore.

"And so, now you see why I have avoided men all these many years."

Maera said this sombrely, looking from the little sea inside her wine glass up into Doc's eyes. Her face was still aglow from the sun and the sea, and the elements—whatever those elements were that comprised her. For as the professor now painfully knew, she was nothing less than an inexplicably rare creature—not human, but not unlike the most innocent of them in every way.

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