Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two by Bernard Evslin

shoulders or tucked under their arms, or upside down, dangling by the ankles. One group of girls who had caught two men each had tied their nets together, stuffed their whole catch in, and were dragging the net downhill. The men struggled like herrings, trying to get to the center of the net bag because the outside ones were being bruised as they bumped over rocks.
    Nycippe took her man to the pool and was about to throw him to the scrub girls, but suddenly decided to bathe him herself. She carried him into the pool, and after ducking him a few times and swishing him back and forth in the water, she pulled him out and stretched him on a flat rock. She had taken sand from the bottom and now began to scour him. The dirt came off, but she kept scrubbing. A fierce curiosity had seized her; she felt she was unpeeling him to discover what was within. She scrubbed harder and harder, then saw that his skin was actually peeling off. He was in pain, she knew, but he made no outcry—although the other men in the pool were weeping and screaming as the girls worked on them.
    â€œWhat am I doing wrong?” called Nycippe.
    â€œYou want to mix oil with the sand before scouring,” said a scrub girl.
    â€œNo use bothering with that one anymore,” said another. “Look at the poor thing. You might as well drown him.”
    Nycippe was rambunctious, but not really cruel. Now, she didn’t recognize her feelings. She turned the little man in her hands to see how she had misused him. He looked like a half-flayed rabbit. He was a rabbit, and she felt herself turning into a leopard to rummage his bones. She saw the others looking at her, and knew they expected her to drown him.
    She pretended to be pushing him under the water, but hid his face under her hand so that he could breathe. When the others were too busy to notice, she bore him to the shore and scooped some moss over him. He didn’t say anything but his black eyes questioned her.
    â€œYou’re not much to look at, but you’ve got guts,” she whispered. “Maybe I can whip you into shape. Stay right here until I come back.”
    Now, Thyone had not let herself be lulled into carelessness while living happily with Malo. She had always suspected that the Amazons might come after their lost sister, and she had prepared against invasion. High up, near the mountain peak, she had arranged huge, round boulders, balancing them so that a slight shove would send them thundering down to crush anyone who might be climbing the slope.
    Now, when the first sounds of the manhunt reached her cave, she snatched Malo up, set him on her shoulders, and raced toward the peak, letting him off only when they had reached the circle of rocks. She said, “I know you want to go down there and help your friends, my brave darling, but I won’t let you.”
    â€œYou won’t?”
    â€œAbsolutely not. You’d never come back. One of the sisters will take you to Scythia and peel you like an onion to see where the song comes from.”
    Now, Malo’s courage was confined to daring metaphors. The last thing he wanted to do was go down and fight. But he had always encouraged her to overestimate him. He heaved a deep sigh and said, “Very well, I’ll stay up here—but only to please you.”
    â€œOh, thank you, sweetheart.”
    In the pure hush of the mountaintop they heard faint screams drifting up from below. “Listen to them,” said Malo. “They’re having an awful time. I really should—”
    She swung him off his feet and hugged him tightly to her. “You can’t go! You promised! Anyway, you told me you write better about battles you haven’t been to. Didn’t you tell me that? Didn’t you?”
    â€œTrue, true,” he murmured. “I shall want to write about this one, and had better not confuse myself with facts. Put me down now; you’re breaking my ribs.”

12
    The Hippocrene