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Eurydice missed her husband dearly, even if she didn’t remember him very well. Try as she might, she couldn’t recall his face, or his build, or even his name. Nothing that would have helped her look for him in the endless afterlife.
She still tried, of course. She only got pity, or confusion, or questioning looks. Strangers asked how she knew she loved him when she couldn’t remember him. She was told, not unkindly, to move on, or to wait and let her love come to her when it was his time. That was the problem; he couldn’t.
Someone had asked her, “What do you remember about him?”
Well… everything.
She remembered the joy she felt singing with him, even if the exact timbre of his voice escaped her. She remembered being charmed by his contagious joy and a love for life that spilled over like the fountain at the agora the day they were dancing and he spun her around and sent her splashing into the water, and amid all his mortified apologies she’d laughed and splashed him back. She remembered him making up little songs for the children who followed him to listen to his music, and the days they’d daydreamed about a family of their own. She remembered how warm his arms were, and how his embrace made everything in the world right again.
What was a name, when she had all that?
Over the centuries, it became harder to remember. Now it was not only his life that was fading around the edges, but her own. Had she been human, demigod or nymph? What was that journey she’d made, almost out of the Underworld all those years before?
She was unsure why her love had not joined her yet; she had talked to every single soul who passed the gates to see if they recognized her, and they never did.
He had a lovely voice; she liked to think that one of the Muses had been taken with him and granted him immortality for his music. Could they do that? She didn’t know, but it was a bittersweet comfort.
She’d long stopped looking, but always thought of him. And then, one day, a few new arrivals (in the strange tunics that a few eras before could have mistaken for undergarments) spoke of a mysterious voice singing where there was no one. Eurydice had to hear it for herself.
She was under no illusions. This could not be her love, for the voice had been mournful and his music was of life and love and joy. But she was curious all the same, and after all this time it would be good to see the Earth again.
So she returned to the land of the living, as spirits sometimes do (she had not done so before in case her husband returned and she missed him), and walked the trampled ground and scarred land of her old home.
How much it had changed, she thought with a bit of melancholy, while I was gone. The old roads were very worn, and—bafflingly— the new even more so. They were worn so flat that it was impossible to tell where the stones were laid, yet it was rough under her fingertips. Had this been hewn from a single great sheet of rock?
The temples that were still standing were not in good shape, and not one of the visitors had offerings to give. A group of people who she assumed were temple attendants led the visitors to the relics that remained, but none concerned themselves with the crumbling statues or broken pillars beyond simply showing them. Why had the attendants allowed the temple to fall into such disrepair, and why did they not fix it now?
But, at the same time…
She could tell from the clothing and the colors of their skin that these visitors were travelers from the world over, perhaps even farther than the ones in her day came. They marveled and whispered at every stop as if the temple had been kept in its prime, and to her amazement, flashes of light rippled from them. Were these people worshippers of Zeus, bringing a small amount of lightning to him as an offering? Humans had come so far; perhaps weather was simple to make for themselves when they needed it.
Nearby, more people traveled the strange rough-smooth roads. Shining metallic herds journeyed down the center of these, and she vaguely remembered from conversations with younger souls that these were called cars. She wondered if the sun cattle from the old tales looked something like them.
Music came from somewhere, though she didn’t know the instruments nor see the players, and in a square a fountain sat where children tossed coins into the water. The copper of the little coins shone like drachmas under the water, and Eurydice smiled.
Her home hadn’t truly changed. It was like losing her husband’s face, but remembering all that made him himself.
She walked on, humming along to the strange songs in the air.
The great god Pan would not be happy, nor would the other nature spirits. She had at first wondered how she would find the grove of trees from the new souls’ tale, but there sadly were few left. She would have to walk the world again and see what remained of Pan’s kingdom in faraway lands. Perhaps it was only here that was so affected.
In the ring of scrubby trees sat two rocks, and at first the haunting melody could only have been the wind between them. But there was no wind, and the gap was too small for such deep tones.
She ventured closer.
“DON’T LOOK…”
She felt the words before she heard them. No, this voice did not belong to Or— the man she knew, but it was beautiful all the same. Such a rich voice, and so lonely.
“…BACK…”
Eurydice had always had a kind heart, and she could not leave until she found the person who was in such pain. Some had been good enough to listen to her sorrows in the afterlife, and she had been better for the relief. Perhaps she could provide the same.
“Who are you?”
“DON’T LOOK BACK, DON’T LOOK BACK!”
The voice only sounded more anguished. It was as if the singer was a spirit born of pain and sound and emotion. Someone who had forgotten who they had been before, much as many of the more restless souls had done to escape their pain.
Eurydice sat on the smaller of the two rocks, where the presence felt strongest. (Well, it was stronger on the other, but she had been dead for quite some time now and knew how rude it was to place yourself where someone else was already sitting. Even intangible, it was quite an annoying experience.) “I’m listening.”
The words of the song stretched to an almost wordless hum. It sounded almost like crying. If she caught her eyes on the slight haze in the air, she could almost make out a figure who had forgotten he used to be human.
She put an arm around him as best she could. Being a musician, she hummed the harmony to the tune, which slowly changed to a song her husband had written for her when they were first married. It was the clearest she had remembered him since that day she followed him almost to the surface.
At first she had told the story when seeking her husband, but it made her angry to hear people curse the poor man for a fool. She knew in her heart she would have done the same. How could she not, when she would give everything to stand face-to-face with him again?
The presence, whoever he was, hummed with her. It was an unsteady, raspy hum, as if a voice unused for anything but those mournful notes, but soon smoothed into a beautiful partner for the quiet duet. It was a different rendition of the song, unlike what they used to sing together— a soft and slow version, almost like a lullaby on a beach as waves kept crashing in. An anchor in the storm, even if the sunny skies overhear were bright and blue.
They did not know each other. Eurydice’s memories had been taken from her, and how could the Other recall her truly when he could no longer remember himself? But as the decades passed and Eurydice returned again and again to keep him company, she began to trust him with the memories she was allowed to keep and he one day became present enough to tell her his name— a name that filled her with a light, bubbling feeling in a way she couldn’t explain.
Orpheus, as he introduced himself, could communicate only through song. Some days he had more words, and others he made up for it with a light kiss on her cheek, like a soft breeze in the early morning blowing the fog away.
The valley filled with music again, and the visitors from faraway began to hum with the wordless songs of love they must have heard in a dream.
He had been cursed to never join his wife in the afterlife, and she had been cursed to never remember her husband. But whether it was simple luck, probability in unlimited time or a blessing from Aphrodite herself (she had always found the story so tragically romantic), that did not mean that they could not fall in love all over again.