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We know the way this story goes, that is the truth of it.
Outside in the world they see us as three, but they are wrong. It is only here, in our place between their realm and ours, that we are three. In the human realm we are one – one voice, one mind, one heart, and all with one goal. We shape the girl.
Here between worlds is our home, a home that we have created to our will. It looks, now, like a dustbowl shack – wooden walls, iron roof, dirt and dust and sand scattered on the floor. Spiderwebs lace the walls and ceiling. It is grey and sparse, no furniture bar a few beaten-up chairs, no heat or light. The windows are shuttered, and beyond that is blackness.
It wasn’t always like this, you understand. Our space has been many things. A cave, a grand hall, a palace. Now it is this shack, but this bothers us not at all. It does not matter what form this place takes, just that we have it. We are not beings of flesh and blood. We are made of silk and stardust, and mortal needs are far beyond our interest. This is not even a place in time and space. It is us, our mind. The only one where we can be, individual.
But we are being rude. Let us introduce ourselves.
Outside we present in the same way – silver and grey and uniform. Here, we have names to ourselves. See there the oldest of us, Atropos. The one who cuts the thread, and ends the lives of mortals without a second thought. She is a practical one. Her long brown hair is held back in a simple ponytail, wearing a sturdy brown jacket over her dress, with strong black boots ready for walking. Her face is square, with a prominent nose and a mouth that was made to smile, not that she does much of that. She is pale, her eyes rimmed with dark circles from too many nights spent awake, pacing the borders of our mind. It is an illusion, of course. We need not sleep. But this is how she chooses to present herself. Currently, she leans on the back of a chair, scribbling in a leather-bound journal with ink-stained hands. Her forehead creases in a frown.
The middle of us is Lachesis, the one who allots each mortal’s time. She is dark of skin and eye, with a mass of curly and untamed hair. She wears a simple white dress, bordered in black at the collar and hem. Her hair is held back with a simple white cloth, not so unlike the turbans we wear when in the mortal realm. She has a faraway look in her eye, like one who is remembering a hard lesson; the kind that we all had to learn, once. She sits on her own in the corner, weaving a thread through her fingers and thinking. Lachesis is always thinking, though she betrays no expression.
And then there is our youngest sister – Clotho, the spinner, the one who begins each mortal’s life. Her face is heart-shaped, her skin light brown, her eyes deep mahogany. She wears a leather jacket over a pink dress, knee-length and made of a fine, floaty fabric that twirls around her as she walks. She alone of us is prone to smiles, though even poor Clotho sees less of that than she should. She is young among us, and not yet as accustomed to our ways.
There was a Clotho before her, a Lachesis and Atropos before our current sisters. We are the Fates, creations of the mortal story-tellers. It happens that as time has passed, the stories have changed; we have changed to meet them. We become different aspects of ourselves through the years. And do not misunderstand us. We may say Clotho is young, but mortal lifespans are as flies to us. She has existed for generations of mortals, as we all have.
Currently, Clotho is looking out of our windows into the inky blackness, biting her bottom lip. We know what she is seeing. The girl, the latest that we have created. She, too, is a story. One that keeps being retold, and retold, and so we create new versions of her to cycle through her sad and lonely tale. Her name is Eurydice, and she is walking down an old railway line – towards, though she does not know it, the man that will break her heart and ruin her life. Towards Orpheus.
We will guide her, as is our role. We made a bargain, long ago. Hermes would take the boy, and we would mould the girl into what she has to become to survive. Before she makes her mistake, and destroys everything she has. We have to shape her to be someone who can last beyond that.
Each of us know the qualities a Eurydice must bear. She must be strong. She must be hardy. She must be a survivor. Earlier, before we guided her, Eurydice was a victim. She stepped on a snake, or ran away and into the arms of Death. We want to ensure that she lives before she dies. That is our role, and that is our purpose. We are of one mind on that.
Clotho steps back from the window, and covers her face with her hands. Lachesis does not notice, but Atropos stands, snapping her journal shut and placing it in her pocket. It is at the noise that Lachesis’ head jolts upwards, her eyes hazy before she focuses on her sisters.
“What is it, Clotho?” Atropos says. Her voice is high and musical, but there is a steel to it, barbs hiding in the softness. Our voices always sound strange to us when we are alone. We were meant to harmonise, three parts of the same song.
Turning, Clotho looks out at her sisters, and smiles. So little are our smiles genuine that, when we see a false one, we know it instantly in our hearts. “Nothing, sisters.” Smooth and sweet, just like Clotho always is. “Eurydice is close to the story. We should prepare.”
“What is there to prepare?” Lachesis speaks now, still sitting in her corner. Her voice is blank, devoid of any emotion. “We have done this many times before.” She knots the thread through her fingers once more – we can see in her eyes the story play out, the destiny she writes for the lovers each time their tale is told.
“Still, sisters,” says Clotho. “We would do well to think what we want for her, now. Before it all begins.”
Silence reigns in our small room for a moment. Atropos stares at Clotho, her eyes narrowing. Atropos, of all of us, is the one who sees weakness in each of the Eurydices that come through our lives, and works to stamp it out. We sometimes think that she can see the same in us, her sisters. Or at least, that she is trying to.
“And what exactly would you have us prepare, sister?” Atropos’ voice is all steel now, all anger. “Lachesis is right. We have done this before a thousand times. What would you change?”
Clotho does not respond, for a moment. Her fingers wind in the fabric of her skirt. Atropos’ eyes are locked on her face, demanding an answer. Clotho scuffs a foot in the dust beneath her. When she speaks again, her voice is pointedly level. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Atropos waves a hand. “Then leave. We can find another Clotho.”
“No, I mean…I want to continue being one with you, sisters.” Clotho sweeps her hands across the room, though there is a slight tremble in her fingers. “But I don’t want to do this anymore. Making Eurydice’s life a misery.”
Atropos scoffs. “That girl’s life was destined to be a misery. Or have you forgotten our purpose, small sister? We are Fate, after all.”
“I know that,” says Clotho. “I know. But that’s what I mean. We have her fate in our hands. Why can we not change her destiny?”
“We are preparing the girl for her destiny.” Atropos stands, her chair screeching back behind her. “Is that not change enough?”
“It didn’t do the last one any good,” Clotho mutters. “Or the one before her, or the one before that.”
“Don’t talk back to me.” Atropos is glaring daggers at Clotho, daring her to make a move. “We know what is best for her, better than she does. We can see her future, and so we can prepare her for it. It is not our place to change the story.”
“But-”
“Enough,” says Lachesis, her voice cutting through the ice in the room. She does not move her eyes from the string she is playing with, but her sisters immediately heed her voice. There is calm in her eyes, her face expressionless. “There is no need for this. Clotho, we will do as we have always done. We will guide the girl until she meets the boy, and then we will guide her to the Underworld. This is how this tale goes.”
Ah, the arguments of the immortal. We are one mind, true enough, until we are in this space. Here we can argue, here we can squabble, here we can disagree when none are there to see us.
In truth, this has perhaps been brewing for a while. We have noticed Clotho’s hesitance to perform her role, these last few cycles. Oh, she sings to our tune well enough. Certainly, any who saw us in the mortal world would not notice the difference. But we have seen her look at the girl with pity, and taken notice. We have seen the way that she looks at Orpheus.
Clotho has turned away from her sisters, and stands by the window once more. Through the darkness outside, the images that she is seeing swim into view again. Eurydice. The girl stumbles through the darkness, her hair whipping back into her face. A storm is rising. The same storm that breaks over her, every time we run through this story. Soon she will look for shelter, and find a young man with a lyre. The same way that she always does.
Atropos’ voice cuts through the silence once more. She is sitting in her place opposite Clotho, her journal open in front of her, but she pays it no mind. “If you wanted to change things, sister, make it so they don’t meet. That’s the only way the girl will ever find happiness.”
“I said, enough.” Lachesis stands, staring down both of her sisters. The string that she wound so delicately around her fingers tumbles from her hand onto the floor. She shivers slightly, the air grown cold around her. “No amount of squabbling will change anything. The story goes, as the story has always gone.”
Clotho glances back at Lachesis, with fire in her eyes. Her jaw is set, her every motion deliberate as she glides across the room to her sisters. “And what of the changes that the story has taken, sister?”
For the first time, Lachesis’ mask slips. Her brow creases, and her eyes narrow. “The story has not changed,” she says, in her precise tone. She glances over to Atropos, as if willing her to speak. But Atropos just leans back in her chair, steepling her fingers and making no comment.
Smiling, Clotho stops in front of Lachesis. “Surely you have seen it too,” she says. “What happens now is not as it used to be. Time was, we shared a dusty cave deep in the bowels of the Underworld. Now Hades rules his own town, and creates cars and oil as those in the mortal realm do. Time was, Persephone just brought the seasons, not storms and frozen wastelands. Time was, Eurydice was a bystander in her own tale, not a heroine.”
Atropos, from her corner, scoffs at the last. “The girl was weak, before. That is our doing, yes, and our only influence.”
“But still, we changed the tale,” says Clotho. “And why are you so reluctant to say her name? It is not as though you have no cause to know it.”
“You know very well why,” Atropos scowls.
Lachesis once more silences her sisters by raising a hand. “Besides that,” she says, and we do not show that we have noticed but her tone is less deliberate than before. There is something else there instead. “Besides that, there is no change. That is not the story, sister, just its trappings. Settings move and change, but the narrative is as it was.”
“Narratives change, too,” Clotho says in a low voice. “We know it as well as any. Things are not as they once were.”
Something flashes through Lachesis’ dark eyes – confusion? Fear? Anger? She tilts her head to one side, and stares at her sister.
Clotho swallows, despite her dry throat. “Hermes,” she says. “He was not involved in the story as it was. Now he is. We invited him in, sisters. That was our doing.”
“We are not ones to speak for the whims of the gods,” Lachesis replies, flatly.
“And yet,” says Clotho. “It is so.”
In her corner, Atropos lets out a grunt of distaste. “And he talks to the boy, so that he can make puppy-dog eyes at her. Such a fine addition.” She spits the words as though they are bile in her mouth. We observe our sister for a moment, sitting in the corner that Lachesis has abandoned. She is slumped forward, her eyes distant and unseeing. Her hands tangle her hair, knotted over the back of her head. Around her, the walls weep with black mould, creeping down from the ceiling to touch the back of her chair. Paint peels away behind her, and the floorboards beneath her are black and rotten, their nails rusted.
We share a look, our argument abandoned for concern. We have not seen our sister like this before. The change around her is one of our influences on this place – as we said, we shape it to ourselves. In the usual days, when we are one, she is the brightest of us. She inspires us with her words and instructs us with her experience. We have not seen her come apart in this way.
Lachesis shakes her head at her sister, who has opened her mouth to speak. Clotho’s arms are wrapped around her body, her eyes half-closed. She seems to be remembering something, something long ago and forgotten. But Lachesis’ warning goes unheeded, as Clotho speaks in a low murmur, seemingly to herself.
“Why do you hate him?”
Atropos’ head jolts up. Now, more than just weary, her physical appearance has degraded once more. Her eyes are bloodshot, her veins prominent against the pallor of her skin. Her words are violent, her voice cracked and harsh. “He is the cause of her death!” she bellows. “You care about her so much, why do you not hate him? Loving him is why she is killed. She loves him, and discards all sense to do it.” Atropos launches herself out of her chair, striding across the room until she is face-to-face with her sisters. “She loves him, when the better thing would be for her to move on and forget him, because to love that boy leads only to despair.” Atropos points in turn to her sisters. “You know this as well as I. Both of you, you know this.”
Lachesis looks to the ground, her eyes closing – by her side, her hand curls into a fist. The temperature around her has dipped a few degrees. Clotho does not look up, does not give any indication that she has heard. She stands in the eye of Atropos’ storm, her eyes still downcast. Once again, almost to herself, she whispers the words. “I still cannot hate him.”
Atropos scoffs. “Then you are too young, too new. You can’t remember what it is like for her, out there.” Behind them, the darkness seems to shimmer, until Eurydice is once more shown. She is walking down the railroad track, shivering through her thick coat. She stumbles, blown back by the wind, dropping the small bag that she carries over her shoulder. With a snatched-away cry, she turns back to find it, cursing the wind as she does.
Watching this, Atropos’ jaw is set, anger blazing in her eyes. Lachesis observes neutrally, expressionlessly, but after a moment she turns away. Clotho raises her eyes to meet Atropos’, and now there is passion burning within them. “Out there?” Clotho spits. “She’s happy when she’s with him! In all her life, that summer is the only time she finds happiness!”
“Based on a lie!” Atropos shouts in frustration. “She doesn’t see all that is coming.”
Lachesis’ calm voice cuts through the argument. “She cannot see her own fate. She is mortal.”
Ignoring her, Clotho draws herself up to her full height, looking Atropos in the eye. “Are you telling me that Orpheus brings this storm?” At the name, both of her sister shudder. Regardless, she continues speaking. “He’s mortal too. He’s innocent.”
Atropos clenches her fists. “That boy is not innocent.”
“How?”
“He’s a fool! Wasting his time on hopes, and wishes, and dreams, and love.” Once more we stare at our sister. She paces the floor of our space, and where she steps the floorboards blacken and rot. Her voice rises, filled with a pain we knew existed, but a pain with depths of which we realise we had only previously skimmed the surface. We watch helpless as she rants, and if she cares that we are listening she does not show it. “Dreams do not fill your belly. Love does not light your fire. Hopes and wishes mean nothing against the world, and the storm, and the reality they have to bear. And that is the truth, sister.”
Clotho takes her sister firmly by the shoulders, stopping her pacing, forcing Atropos to look her in the eye. “Love is not a waste of time.”
Atropos sneers. “Tell that to the girls he sends into death, every time.”
Clotho’s knuckles are white as she grips her sister. “He is not the reason she dies. We are the reason she dies! We go out there, time after time, and tell her of the value of Hadestown. Of its riches, its shining streets of gold, its benevolence. We know everything her life has lacked and then promise it to her and more. We betray her, not him!” Clotho lets go of Atropos, lets her step backwards, pure and naked hatred on her face. Lachesis, hovering between them, does not move, just stares at Clotho with dawning horror.
Atropos’ voice is small, but steady. “To protect her,” she says. “To harden her heart.”
“Against him? Against Orpheus?”
“Who else! Perhaps she can break her own curse by not feeling anything for him at all!” Atropos barks a small and humourless laugh.
Clotho shakes her head. “And why do you hate him so much?”
“He should never have come back for us!” Atropos shouts. The sound seems to echo in the small room, silencing us. Atropos glances around her, and all the anger seems to drain from her face. The tension floods from her body, and her next words are not a shout but a strangled whisper. “He should have left us where we were, and not break my heart again by trying to bring me back.”
Clotho’s hands fly to her face as her eyes glisten with tears. Lachesis, standing between them, takes a step back from Atropos, comprehension dawning on her face. Our younger sisters stand side by side as Atropos falls to her knees, emotion crashing over her. She does not cry. She kneels, her hands on the floor, her teeth gritted.
This is the secret of Eurydice’s Fates, the secret the three of us share. We each remember a time when we were her. All of us were once Eurydice, once a young girl caught up in a story of love and loss. We remember dying in Orpheus’ arms. We remember falling to the Underworld. We remember Orpheus coming for us, and petitioning mighty Hades himself on our behalf. And we remember standing by the mouth of the exit, a step away from freedom, the cold night air almost blessing our skin, when Orpheus turned to face us for the last time. We once were Eurydice, and after our second deaths, we were given the chance to become something more.
All this time, Clotho has been staring at Atropos. She moves to comfort her sister, but Atropos bats her hands away, shaking her head even as her heaving breaths hiss from her mouth.
“We were dead,” she whispers. “We were dead, and that was the way of things. Then Orpheus had to drag us back. We could have been dead. Just dead. We could have been happy.”
“It wasn’t his fault.” Clotho, kneeling, lays a careful hand on Atropos’ shoulder. “He didn’t kill us.”
“He did, the second time. Because of him, we had to die twice.”
“He tried.” Clotho smiles. “He tried his best to bring us back. He walked through Hell to try and save our soul. And he’s still trying. All this time, all these cycles, we’ve never seen an Orpheus who gives up on her.
Atropos doesn’t look up. “He should have left me there.” Her expression is emotionless again, her eyes far away. “He should have left me there or come to join me.”
Clotho rubs her sister’s back, speechless for a moment. She looks up to Lachesis. “What say you?”
Lachesis, standing on the edge of the argument, raises her hands. “What is done is done,” she says. “I don’t think about that anymore. We are not Eurydice now, sister. We are Fates, and we must act as Fates act.” She isn’t meeting her sister’s eye.
Reaching out to her, Clotho gives a sad smile. “We are Eurydice. We have been Eurydice. That has shaped our actions for cycles and cycles. That is why we are her Fates.”
Standing, she spreads her arms out, encompassing her sister standing behind the mask of decades, her sister kneeling on the floor surrounded by hatred and bitterness. “You have said your piece, now I shall say mine,” she begins. “We were hurt. Yes, we were hurt. We died, and had a chance to live again. But at the last, we were dragged back to death when our lover turned to see us. So we became as we are, sisters, and in our own space we have found comfort. But just because we suffered does not mean she has to suffer. Just because we wept, and screamed, and cried to the unhearing gods, does not mean that she has to do the same.”
Atropos is staring at her, the pool of black mould around her body slowly drawing in. Lachesis stands in the chill of her side of the room, biting her lip.
Clotho does not stop speaking. “I am the spinner. I can spin her a story that ends in sunshine.” She extends a hand to Lachesis, though her sister does not move. “Lachesis, you are the measurer. You can allot her times of joy, times of pleasure, times of peace and times of love.” Now she turns to her other sister. “And Atropos, you are the inevitable end to this story. You can choose that end, just as well as I can choose the beginning.”
Silence reigns once more. We think on what our sister has said. There is a storm inside Atropos, a storm not unlike the one that rages around the new Eurydice. It burns inside of her, hardening her heart against all harm, in the way that it has had to. Atropos knows pain, has been its arbiter for centuries. She was one of the first. She felt the venom of the viper in her veins and died screaming, agony coursing through her body. Shall we recount her time in the Underworld, in the darkness of Asphodel? For Eurydice was a young woman, who had not time to prove herself. She consoled herself with thoughts of Orpheus joining her. Shall we tell you of how she screamed when he left without her, screaming once more because of that boy, who dared to love her and lose her and lose her again?
Lachesis stands statue-like, not letting her feelings show. She was later, of course, but her story is the same. When she became one of us, she was told her purpose. To monitor each Eurydice, and continue the story-cycle, for this is a story that the mortals will retell. Perhaps when they have forgotten it, she can rest. No more Eurydices to feel what she felt. And what is easier to forget than a story that does not change?
And Clotho, the youngest of our three. She tried, that is her tale. She tried to become like them. She tried to close her heart and let her feelings turn to anger, to rage, to justice and renewal the way that her sisters have done. But she could not. She remembers the end, of course – the look on her lover’s face as he turned to her for the last time, the feeling of falling as she lost her last chance of life. And every time they reach the end of their tale, she sees those feelings too, on Eurydice’s face. She cannot see that face one more time.
Clotho still holds her hands out to her sisters. She is smiling. Still, despite all of this, she smiles. And from her mouth comes spilling a familiar tune. “Sister, shall we change our plan? Go back to where we began.” She raises her eyes to the window – to the current Eurydice, struggling through the cold. “A lonely road, a lonely heart. We can give her a new start.”
There is something soft in Lachesis’ eyes as she takes her sister’s hand. Both of them reach out to Atropos, who still huddles on the floor. Atropos, the oldest of them. Atropos, who has suffered. Atropos, who among us three has seen so many Eurydices pass through. So many young girls lost to the storm. So many versions of ourselves who we have betrayed.
And slowly, surely, Atropos takes her sisters hands.
They haul her to her feet and for a second, we say nothing. We just feel the closeness of our bodies, the connection of our minds. Once again, we are singing in harmony. One mind. One thought. This time, she will not suffer.
So there, in our space between the worlds, we three sisters stand arm-in-arm, staring through the shutters at a young girl struggling through the cold. And slowly, quietly, we begin to talk of her future.