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Back The Harpy Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. The Harpy
  2. Also by Megan Hunter
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. The Harpy
  8. Part I
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. 11
  20. 12
  21. 13
  22. 14
  23. 15
  24. 16
  25. 17
  26. 18
  27. Part II
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. Part III
  36. 26
  37. 27
  38. 28
  39. 29
  40. 30
  41. 31
  42. 32
  43. 33
  44. 34
  45. 35
  46. 36
  47. 37
  48. 38
  49. 39
  50. Part IV
  51. Acknowledgments
  52. Back Cover

He carried on walking up and down, as though deciding something. He came towards me, his face different, younger somehow, new emotions, new skin, his knees down on the ground, his hands reaching up for mine.

Lucy. Lucy, please – it was – it’s not—

He was trying not to speak in clichés, I could tell. Trying not to say all the things we’d both seen, a thousand times. All of those stupid, broken, fictional couples on television, not even able to find their own original language. And here we were.

Vanessa? I couldn’t help it. Her name filled my mouth, sat on my tongue. Vanessa? That sound at the end, sibilance giving way to an open mouth, a gape.

She’s so – you promised me. These words through my teeth, as though opening my mouth again would be a mistake.

I’m going to end it. Jake mumbled this into my hands, which I knew must smell of the moisturizer I rubbed on Paddy’s eczema before bed, a bitter, chemical-­rich tang.

I’m going to— He was crying now, and this was the thing that finally disgusted me, that made me jump from the chair.

I had seen my father cry once. They used to rip each other to scraps, my parents. Domestic violence, a therapist once called it. But we never talked about it like that. Even an hour later, Dad could be humming again, frying bacon for dinner, a roll-­up at the side of his mouth. But that time, he was at the kitchen table with his hands over his face. And he was sobbing, loudly, nothing like a little boy or a woman. Like a man.

Sleep on the fucking sofa, I snarled at Jake, a rose bush, a tarantula, a creature endlessly thorned and sharp-­toothed, something that could spring at any moment. The fucking sofa, kids in bed, husband crying on the kitchen floor – cliché after cliché – how did it happen? At that moment it was infinitely mysterious, the way we had ended up like everyone else. The mystery felt almost like God had as a child, in church – something barely present, endlessly unknown, never to be brought fully into the light.

~

When I was a child, there was a book – out of print now, expensive – about a unicorn who went into the sea and became a narwhal. The book had beautiful illustrations, dark blue seas, peach-­pale evening skies. But the picture I remembered best was of the harpies: dark shadows, birds with women’s faces, who came down to torture the unicorn, to make him suffer.

I asked my mother what a harpy was; she told me that they punish men, for the things they do.

~

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