The wedding torch would not burn.
Hymen lifted it above the gathered heads, and a thread of yellow smoke uncurled beneath the rafters. He shook it once. Sparks fell and died before they reached the floor.
Orpheus had his fingers on the lyre. He was waiting for the flame before he began the song, but beside him Eurydice moved her hand into his.
“Go on,” she whispered.
He looked at her. The smoke had brought tears to her eyes; she brushed them away impatiently, unwilling to give them any part in the day. He struck the first clear note. Her fingers tightened, then released him so that he could play.
By afternoon she was dead.
He heard the naiads calling from the meadow and went toward them with the lyre still against his side. Their pale dresses were gathered in a ring. One knelt in the grass; another stood with both hands pressed against her mouth.
Eurydice lay between them.
He dropped to his knees. Her ankle bore two small marks. Beyond her feet the long grass was moving, though the air was still.
“A snake,” one of the naiads said.
Orpheus lifted his wife’s head. A little earth clung to her cheek. He wiped it away with his thumb, and her head settled more heavily into his palm.
“Eurydice.”
There was still warmth in her neck. He bent close, waiting for breath against his face, waiting for the small impatient movement with which she would shake off their alarm.
The naiad beside him began to weep.
He held Eurydice until the shadows of the grass reached across her dress.
The Song Below the Earth
For days his voice carried over the hills of Thrace. He sang at morning and when the light failed, sometimes with words, sometimes with only the sound that came when he tried to say her name. The song returned from the slopes. Eurydice did not.
At last he wrapped his lyre against the dust of the road and went south to Taenarus, where a passage opened beneath the earth.
At its mouth he stood listening. No wind came out. He could hear the sea behind him, the scrape of his sandal when he shifted his weight. Inside, nothing answered.
He loosened the cloth around the lyre and stepped into the dark.
The light at his back dwindled. Stone closed above him, and the path led down until he could no longer tell how far he had walked. When his hand brushed the wall, cold water ran between his fingers.
Then the dead began to pass him.
He moved among faces that seemed almost familiar. An old man held his empty hands as though something had just been taken from them. A child stood close to a woman whose gaze went through Orpheus and rested on nothing. He searched each face before he could stop himself.
Eurydice was not among them.
Beyond the dark water and the drifting crowds, he came before the rulers of the dead. Hades sat beside Persephone. Neither rose at his approach.
Orpheus tried to speak. His throat closed.
He set his fingers against the strings instead. The first note sounded terribly small. He played another, then found the beginning of the song he had not finished at his wedding.
The nearest shades stopped moving.
He sang of the meadow, of the snake, of a life ended almost as soon as it had joined his own. Once his voice failed, and the lyre carried the melody until he could begin again.
“I have come for my wife,” he said into the music. “There was so much of her life left.”
Hades watched him. Persephone’s hands lay motionless in her lap.
“I know she must come here in the end. So must I. I am asking for the days between.”
His fingers had steadied. He could hear the whole hall now, the notes carrying farther than he had thought they could go. At its edge a man who had strained against a great stone sat down beside it. A wheel hung still. The endless occupations of the dead had stopped.
“If she cannot return,” Orpheus sang, “let me stay.”
He had no next request. He played the last phrase and let his hands fall.
One of the Furies stood near the throne. A tear travelled down her face. Orpheus watched it with an astonishment that almost displaced his fear.
Then Persephone spoke Eurydice’s name.
The crowd parted. His wife came slowly through it, favouring the ankle the snake had struck.
He moved toward her.
“Wait,” said Hades.
Orpheus stopped so suddenly that the lyre knocked against his hip.
“She may follow you,” the king said. “Lead her to the upper world. Until you have reached it, you must not turn to look at her. If you do, she returns to us.”
Orpheus looked from him to Eurydice. She was close enough for him to see the familiar line of her mouth. He wanted to cross the space at once and put his hands on her shoulders.
Instead he gripped the wooden frame of the lyre.
“Up to the daylight,” he said.
Hades inclined his head.
Eurydice took another slow step. Orpheus saw her gather herself against the pain in her ankle, and it cost him an effort to remain where he was.
“I will go slowly,” he told her.
Then he turned toward the road.
The Last Steps
At first he could still see her whenever he closed his eyes: the pale dress, the injured foot set carefully on the ground. He carried that sight with him through the departing shades and into the upward passage.
The path narrowed. He held his lyre against his chest to keep it from striking the wall. His free hand found the stone, slid over it, found it again.
Behind him there was no sound he could be certain of.
He shortened his steps. Where the ground rose sharply, he paused before climbing, giving her time to reach it.
“There is a higher stone here,” he said.
His voice went into the passage. He listened until its last faint echo was gone. Perhaps she had heard him. Perhaps she was lifting her wounded foot at that very moment.
He climbed.
The air was thick and cold. Once his sandal slipped on the damp rock, and he caught himself with his palm. His shoulder began to turn before he checked it.
She had the worse foot. He must remember that. If the stone was difficult for him, it would be harder for her.
He stood facing the wall until his breathing settled, then began again more slowly.
The passage bent. He could no longer picture the hall or measure their distance from it. He counted ten steps and waited. Ten more. Somewhere a drop of water fell, and he strained to distinguish another sound beneath it: cloth against stone, a foot placed cautiously behind his own.
He thought he heard one.
His whole body loosened. He nearly spoke her name, but the sound came again, farther away, and he could not tell whether it was only water.
He went on.
When they were home, she could rest. He would put the lyre down and bring her water. There would be ordinary light across the floor. He held that small scene before him, trying to make it as solid as the stones beneath his feet.
Then he remembered her head in his hand in the meadow.
He stopped.
The darkness behind him seemed deeper than the darkness ahead. He had seen her in the hall; he knew she had been there. But had she followed him into the passage? Had she fallen where he had slipped? Was she waiting below, unable to climb, while he walked farther from her?
He pressed his forehead against the cold wall.
The king had given his word. Eurydice had taken a step toward him. He had only to finish the road.
He lifted his head and walked.
Gradually the stone before him became visible. He could make out a pale seam, then the edge of a ledge. A faint current touched his face. He drew it into his lungs and tasted the world above.
Daylight lay a little farther on.
He could see the last rise of the path. Beyond it the rock opened into brightness. He took two quick steps, then checked himself. Too fast. She could not keep pace with him on that ankle.
He waited.
The light reached his hands. He looked at them, at the dirt in the creases, at the place where the stone had grazed his palm. Soon he could hold hers. Soon he could look at her for as long as he wished.
Behind him, nothing.
He pictured her trying to reach him through the dark. He wanted to see her coming. Just once, before he took those final steps, he wanted to know she was there.
He turned.
Eurydice stood close behind him.
For an instant the growing light showed him her face. Then she was moving away, though she had not stepped backward.
He reached for her. She flung out her hands toward his.
His fingers closed on air.
“No,” he said, and lunged farther into the passage.
She was already beyond his reach. He saw her mouth move.
“Farewell.”
It was so faint that he scarcely heard it. She did not accuse him. Her hands were still lifted when the dark took them from his sight.
He stood with both arms stretched before him.
The Shore
Orpheus went down again.
He stumbled over the places where he had climbed so carefully. At the water he found the ferryman and tried to step into his boat, but Charon set his pole across the way.
“Once,” the ferryman said. “You were allowed once.”
“She was with me.”
Charon did not move the pole.
Orpheus brought the lyre around. His hands would not settle on the strings. He caught a note, lost it, began again. He pleaded in speech and in song, but the ferryman pushed away from the bank.
The dark water closed behind the boat.
Orpheus stayed there for seven days. He took no food. Whenever the boat returned, he rose; whenever it left, he watched until he could no longer distinguish it from the river. At times he called to the rulers who had heard him. At times he sat without lifting his head.
On the seventh day he rose and took the upward path.
He had no need to measure his steps now. He could stop where he wished, or hurry. The lyre hung at his side.
At the mouth of the passage the wind touched his face. He stepped out beneath the sky and stood for a moment before taking the long road back to Thrace.
Then he turned and looked behind him.
The path was empty.