"The Mirror of Apollo*" by Esther SP. Buhrman

I see you
You do not see me
Alone in my misery
All the love my heart beats for you
As you gaze on skies of blue
Does that golden god return
Even a fragment of the love you yearn?
 
 
 

Prologue

I surfaced from my watery grave to the world above.  The sky was black, an undulating perfection marred only by a pale moon and stars, shining splinters in the night.  Their light hurt my eyes, so accustomed to a darkness that hid all that I did not want to see.  Now, it was all I could see.  She had changed.  I touched her face and my heart crumbled in a rain of tears.  She was dying.
 
 

The Burning
 

In the depths of Poseidon’s kingdom, beyond the forests of jade coral, the beautiful water-nymph, Clytie, slept cradled in a shell.  Dreams carried her on the crest of a foam-tinged wave and she was cast on the shores of a world above the sea.  He waited for her there, illuminated with the golden haze of eternal summer.  He kissed her deeply with fiery lips, infusing her veins with licking flames that seared her soul until she lay on the shore, burning.

 
“Dreaming of me, I hope,” a voice spoke, awakening her.  Clytie opened her blue eyes; her scalding limbs becoming a fast fading memory with the cooling aquamarine waters of the sea.  She looked around her little cave and her eyes came to rest upon a water-sprite standing by her shell-bed.  His lean muscular arms were folded on his bare chest and he smiled disarmingly at her, a mischievous glint in his emerald eyes.
“Oh, Evander, have you been watching me sleep again?” Clytie yawned.  She combed her long golden hair.  It floated around her like a gossamer mist.
“It’s interesting watching you sleep, especially when you dream…Want to tell me about it? What were we doing?” the water sprite asked, winking.
“Save it for the nixies,” Clytie said in annoyance.  “I never dream of you.”
Evander turned away.  “Never?” Clytie heard him mumble.
“Never,” Clytie replied promptly.
“I didn’t say anything!” Evander exclaimed, turning around.  Clytie laughed and swam out of the cave.  Evander gazed after her, his eyes dark.
 

When I close my eyes and reality fades before me, that is where I always dream of you. 
 
 

The Mermaid’s Song
 

Behind the drapes of the seaweed curtains, Evander found Clytie in her garden grotto.  A train of orange goldfish and rainbow seahorses frolicked around her, tickling her with their fins and noses.  She giggled and batted them away as she tended to her sea anemones and star lilies peeping shyly from the amber floor.
“Evander?” Clytie murmured.  Evander knelt beside her.  “Do you ever wonder about the world above?”
Evander’s eyes narrowed.  “What’s there to wonder about?  I am content here.”
Clytie plucked a sparkling white star lily and twirled it in her hands.  “I always dream of it…or at least someone up there.”
“Someone?…It’s dangerous up there, Clytie!  Don’t you know that by now?”  Evander looked at her in anguish.
Clytie frowned and placed the star lily in Evander’s cropped jet-black hair.
“I’m sure that looks charming,” Evander said with a twisted smile.
“Oh, you look very pretty,” Clytie laughed and ran her fingers through his hair.  Evander caught her hand.  His fingers trailed down the alabaster skin of her face, the silent clothed curves of her form and rested on her thigh where he plucked a stray starfish from her jeweled gown and tucked it behind her ear.
“They say that dreams are the desires of your heart.  But, dreams seldom come true,” Evander said bitterly and dropped Clytie’s hand.  “Now, come,” Evander said shortly, getting up.
“Where are we going?” Clytie asked.
“It’s a surprise, my dear maiden,” Evander said mysteriously.  And before Clytie could protest, she was effortlessly gathered up in Evander’s arms.
 

They glided through the twisting labyrinthine forests of coral on the smooth wings of the sea.  Clytie laid her head against Evander’s chest, listening to his heart beat as he arced through the water.  Through caves encrusted with pearls and shells, veils of fish, and tunnels of blurring green and gold they swam.  Then, traversing the rippling waters on silver tongues came a sweet singing to rival Orpheus.  The song bound their hearts with its beauty.
“Mermaids…” Clytie breathed in rapture.  Evander smiled down at her.
 

Clytie sat amongst fellow nymphs, sprites and other sea-folk in the mermaid’s cave.  The mermaid was seated on a pearly rock, her long delicate fingers plucking a rippling melody from her golden harp.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Clytie sighed in envy.
“What a tail!” Evander replied, but he was gazing at Clytie.  Tears shone in her eyes as she sat enchanted by the mermaid’s song, a song of the world above the sea, where a glorious golden light shines in the bluest of skies.  The painted notes echoed Clytie’s dreams and she gasped in amazement.
“So, it is true!” Clytie said triumphantly, and leaping up, she swiftly swam through the mouth of the cave and outside.
“Wait!” Clytie heard Evander shout behind her.  She turned around.
“Why are you always swimming away from me?” Evander asked helplessly.
“I’m sorry, but I must go!”
“Oh no you don’t.  You’re not going up there,” Evander said firmly.
“Oh Evander, you are so adorable,” Clytie laughed.
“I mean it Clytie,” Evander said.  “I will not let you go.”
Clytie did not need this opposition now.  Evander could be so stubborn and the last thing she needed was to discover this new world and the light with him arguing behind her.  She would go later when he was out of the way.
“Let’s go home then,” Clytie said brightly.  Evander looked at her suspiciously, but shrugging, he took her in his arms again and proceeded on the journey home.
“Do you really have to carry me?” Clytie asked petulantly.
“I swim faster than you do,” Evander said nonchalantly.
“The faster the better,” Clytie said and grinned happily to herself.
 
 

Apollo
 

How beautiful she looked as she lay sleeping amongst falling stars, their silver lacing the curve of her cheek and softly glimmering on her eyelashes.  My arms ached to hold her as Morpheus did, embracing her with his wings so she dreamed her dreams, without me.  The last thing I felt was the memory of her golden head cradled to my heartbeat.  The last thing I saw was her face…When I woke up, she was gone.
 

In a shell-carriage drawn by turtles, Clytie broke the surface of the sea and came to the world above.  Trembling with excitement and wonder, she stepped out of her shell and onto the shore of a wooded island.  Dawn’s light had just opened its sleepy eyes and its flushed yawn draped the waking world in a rosy pink.  Clytie clasped her heart, feeling it swell as it took in all the beauty surrounding her.  The willowy trees bowing their graceful frames to the wind rushing through their crowning leaves, the honeyed chirping of birds, the fragrance of the meadows dotted with the bright heads of flowers and showered by fresh pearls of morning dew.  Then, the curtains of dawn drew back, the rosy pink fading away, and there, in the eastern sky was a dazzling ball of fiery light.  This was the sun.  Clytie’s dreams were a pale imitation of it.  In the midst of the light was a golden chariot drawn by four magnificent horses with flowing manes, and, in the golden chariot, she saw him and her heart stopped as she beheld Apollo, a smiling king of such strength and beauty.  Seven rays of golden light shone from his scintillating crown and was etched in his powerful, handsome face and in the rippling, bronzed muscles of his glorious form.   As Apollo mounted higher and higher on the hooves of his galloping horses in the flooding blue of the sky, the birds sang and the sea smiled, sparkling like many jewels.  Clytie stood all day on the shore.  Her gaze was ever fixed upon Apollo, driving his horses before him.  His golden touch spilled over her and dried the salt water from her skin. And, as the flowers unfurled their petals to gaze adoringly on their god, so Clytie’s heart unfurled and it was carved anew in gold, beating for him.  Clytie followed his course until he entered the western skies and was lost to her.  “Wait, come back!” she shouted, but he was gone, her cries unheeded.  Darkness came over the earth, spreading its midnight blanket of ebony, and Clytie shivered and wept in the light of the waning moon.  When she slept, she dreamt of Apollo all through the night until dawn awoke her and she saw him again.
 

Eagerly Clytie followed Apollo’s course in the sky and as always, he appeared in the east and disappeared in the west.  He did not see her.  Clytie thought of him and nothing else, so in love with him was she.  She combed her golden hair for him until it was a beautiful golden sheet that spilled down her shoulders and lovely form, but all the sun god did was tease its beauty, making it shine.  Apollo remained focused on his course, and keeping his horses in line through the sky.  He had no idea that on the earth below him stood a beautiful water-nymph who longed for him, and the return of his love.
 
 

Metamorphosis
 

On the wings of the wind, Clytie was ascending to the blue sky and Apollo, in all his golden splendour.  She reached out to him with aching arms, and he turned around.  “At last,” she breathed, “You see me.”  But, he laughed at her and blinded her with a harsh light and she was falling.
 

Clytie woke up to the cold hard earth beneath her.  The chirping of the birds was like a dirge to her ears, and the fragrance of the meadow smelled putrid to her.  Only the sun, her Apollo, meant anything to her.  She awaited the disappearance of the tedious stars and the coming of the dawn.
“Clytie?” a voice spoke.  Evander a dim memory surfaced, but she did not turn around.  She felt his hands on her shoulders, the salty breath on her cheek, the cool waters in his touch.
“You’re so cold Clytie, so pale, so dry…” she heard Evander say.
Dawn appeared and she shrugged him off roughly without a backward glance.
“Apollo,” Clytie breathed.  And he came in his golden chariot drawn by his fiery horses stamping the sky.
“So this is the someone you have been dreaming of and he’s the light too, just my luck…” Evander said behind her.
“Isn’t he wonderful…” Clytie sighed to no one in particular.
“He doesn’t see you, Clytie…Please come back home, back to the sea,” Evander pleaded.
“Nothing matters, but him,” Clytie murmured.  Evander stood in front of her and was horrified.  Her blue eyes had become twin suns.  She could not see anything else.
“Move shadow,” she shouted.  Evander fell to his knees in despair.  “Clytie…!” he wept.  “I cannot bear it!” He stumbled away, diving into the depths of the ocean and, into the darkness.
 

For nine days Clytie stood, her hair unbound and whipping in the wind.  She ate no food nor drank save her own bitter tears soon dried up by the sun.  From sunrise to sunset, Clytie’s golden eyes followed Apollo across the sky.  On the tenth day she found she could not move her legs or her arms, and there was a dryness and weakness in her, yet she still followed Apollo driving his chariot across the blue sky.  “See me,” was the last thing Clytie whispered.
 
 

Epilogue
 

Her face was yellow gold and her beautiful, long golden hair that had hung around her rosebud face had blown away with the wind, in its place, a mane of golden petals.  Her lithe body clothed in the jewelled green gown she always liked to wear had become a stalk.  In my memories, I saw her dancing with the fish, now she was rooted to the earth.  Her arms that had clung around my neck had transformed into green leaves.  She was a sunflower, her turning face, reflecting the sun, Apollo, like a mirror.  But her head was limp as it turned around and I knew she was dying without the sea in her veins.  At heart, she was still a water-nymph, her home the sea.  I would not let her die.  I kissed her lips and felt myself changing.  I could feel the aquamarine waters of the sea rush in my ears and smiled.  I fell into her.  Cool waters infused her soul and we swam together under the falling stars.  Their silver flashed golden and I was ascending, cradled to her heartbeat as she carried me to the sun.