Aegisthus sighed, pacing up and down the hall. He was buzzing with nervous energy, he felt it in his bones, but he wasn’t scared. He was excited enough to crawl out of his skin. Gods, he had waited so long for this and now it was right in front of him. He leaned against a wall, unconsciously tap-tap-tapping his foot on the ground where he stood, and stared at his tablet, scrolling through the to do list Cly had sent him.
“Yes, yes, done,” he mumbled, then frowned “Should probably—”
He was interrupted by his phone ringing, Clytemnestra was calling, how did she always know?
“Where’s my carpet?” She said without preamble.
“Being installed, where do you think?”
“I’m outside now and I don’t see it, astonishing that you managed to find an invisible red carpet, I’m impressed.”
“Yes okay, fine,” he sighed, “I’m running behind on it. You caught me.”
“We’re running out of hours Aegisthus,” she snapped.
“You’ve got some nerve to lecture me about time management,” he shot back.
“Just do it,” Clytemnestra said, and hung up.
He didn’t understand why Clytemnestra did the things she did. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He knew why in theory; he just couldn’t wrap his head around it. Her behavior was anathema to him. Cly made everything so much more complicated than it needed to be, and for what? Why waste time with intricate performances when they could just strike! Didn’t she understand that the two of them were never going to make it out of this, and no number of sets and costumes would change that?
He started heading to the front steps of the house, making another quick call as he walked.
“She doesn’t care,” he said, cutting off a very disgruntled supplier, “no, I’m telling you, she wants it.”
There was a pause, more protests on the other end, then he continued, “Yes. Yes of course, we all know what he’ll think. Listen I’m just—”
He scowled when he was cut off once more.
“If you don’t like it take it up with her. She wants the damn carpet. Just send some people over,” Aegisthus snapped, and hung up.
Finally, he reached a side door that opened onto the ground floor outside the house.
“Damn it Cly,” he said under his breath, less than excited about whatever he might find outside, and pushed the doors open.
Clytemnestra was nowhere to be seen, in fact the only other person in the room was a seemingly oblivious decorator on the stage, doing the finishing touches on some bouquets of synthetic flowers. Aegisthus cursed, and looked down at his phone, about to call the company back. He stopped when he heard a small cough and looked up. There were three people in front of him, a woman and what looked like might be her mother and her child? Maybe it was a family business. He didn’t care, the important part was that they were holding a large roll of red carpet.
“Just down the center, from the gate all the way up the steps,” He said curtly.
“Got it,” the old woman said, her voice was deep and smoky like a dying fire.
Aegisthus stepped back, watching the three of them begin to lay out the red carpet. He made his way to the stone steps, and climbed halfway up before he heard the click-click of Clytemnestra’s heels from behind him. She had entered through the front door, directly onto the stage, carrying an immense box full of fresh cut lilies and was shooing away the poor decorator as she started removing all the fake florals and replacing them with her lilies. Aegisthus raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“What’s taking so long?” She said, not looking up from her flowers.
“There was just some push-back from the decorator.”
“Well, it’s not up to them is it?” Cly said, “Gods, I’ll install the thing myself if I have to.”
“They seem to have it covered,” Aegisthus nodded towards the three decorators, who were finishing up the last bit of carpet that met the stage.
Clytemnestra looked up and seemed to see them for the first time. She froze for a moment, eyes widening, then just nodded. Aegisthus jumped from the stage, landing on the carpet, and she glared at him.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
He gave her a look, and she continued, “You’ll get footprints on it.”
Aegisthus rolled his eyes and said, “It’s for walking on, isn’t it.”
“Not yet.”
“You’re too tense, Cly, you’ve got to relax. They’ll be here soon.”
“I am relaxed. And who are you to tell me how to conduct myself? You can’t even handle the carpet by yourself, just go wait somewhere until—"
Clytemnestra cut herself off, this was not today’s fight. She went to him, bending down on the stage above where he stood, and kissed his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” and she supposed she was, but she wasn’t sure what for, “I might be stressed.”
They laughed then, a facsimile of camaraderie, and she squeezed his shoulder.
“Would you do me a favor and go check on my daughters please?” She said.
“Of course.” He wouldn’t, but she didn’t really want him to. She’d just decided to have decency not to tell him to get out.
Clytemnestra tossed the last of the fake flowers in the box that had held the lilies. She would find some use for them. Perhaps Electra would like to paint them black, that seemed like a lot of what she enjoyed doing these days. The three decorators who had been laying out the carpet were gone, but they had done their work well. The long stretch of red extended, tongue like, from the heavy front doors to the old iron gate.
Clytemnestra began to walk around, making sure everything was just right. She soon found herself moving more fluidly, it became a dance. She and Helen had taken ballet classes when they were young. Neither of them had enjoyed it that much, all the rules and structured movement, but they used to sneak into the studio after classes and make up their own dances. Wild twirling and jumping that was just for them. Cly closed her eyes and spun around and around on the stage, her arms out like wings, and the world began to fade into dizzy nothingness.
Suddenly, she felt someone take each of her hands. They didn’t stop her, rather held on and spun with her. Eventually, they stopped, and Clytemnestra opened her eyes.
Helen looked just as she always did—The picture of loveliness until you caught the crackle of lightning in her eyes, the booming thunder in her laugh, the strength that did not match her form—and you can no longer escape the strangeness of her. And if you were worth her time, you knew the strangeness improved her. Clytemnestra stared at her sister, shocked, but Helen just pushed a piece of her short, swan-feather-white hair out of her eyes and stared straight back, as if impatient for her sister to speak.
“How?”
“What, no ‘Hello Helen, how was the war Helen, it’s so good to see you Helen!’?”
Clytemnestra eyed the apparition, suspiciously, “I have only ever seen my daughter’s spirit, ghost. Are you real? Or am I truly losing my mind? It’s no use lying to me, if you mean to be my sister I know all her tells. Are you real?”
“A matter of opinion. Is any ghost real?” Clytemnestra glared at her, but she went on, “I think I stopped being real a year into the war.”
“Oh gods, please, don’t get philosophical right now.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Telling people what to do is the only think I know how to do.”
“Completely untrue,” Helen barked a laugh, “you just enjoy it.”
Clytemnestra looked at her sister, and her face softened, then melted into a frown, “So, you are dead then?”
Helen laughed again, and said “please Cly, of course I’m not. Who even knows if I can be?”
“You can die, Helen,” Clytemnestra was unmoved by Helen’s graceless laughter.
“Maybe so,” she mused, “I’m not though. Just somewhere in between—”
Clytemnestra started to cut in, but Helen laughed again and continued, “I’ll be fine, Cly, don’t worry about me!”
Clytemnestra stared at her unhinged not-dead twin for a moment, processing, then said, “Well I suppose if I am crazy at least my mind’s got your personality right.”
Clytemnestra dropped Helen’s hands, and collapsed onto the ground, laying on her back to look up at The House towering above her. Helen laid beside her, tucking her head against her sister’s shoulder, and they huddled together beneath the lights like children hiding in a blanket fort.
“What do you think would happen if the house fell down? Cly asked.
“I imagine there would be a very loud crash.”
“I mean on a person. If the whole house fell down around us now, do you think I’d die?”
“Is that how you’re going to do it?” she seemed genuinely curious.
“I’m not going to kill myself, Helen.”
“No of course not, I know that,” Helen sounded a bit offended at the assumption. They were silent for a few minutes more, until Clytemnestra said “I wish Aegisthus had killed my daughter. Gods, would that Aegisthus had been the one to do it. Would that anyone had. Would that I could siphon the deed out of Agamemnon, cut it out like a tumor and plant it in someone else’s chest. Then—”
She stopped, and Helen, who was looking at her with wonder, said “then what?”
“Then I could keep him,” she paused, “but there is no witchcraft, no words to speak or herbs to burn, that will draw the poison from Agamemnon and feed it to another.”
“Do you still love him, Cly?”
“Don’t ask me that,” Clytemnestra squeezed her eyes shut, her voice a strained whisper, When Clytemnestra opened her eyes Helen was gone, and she was alone with The House in the lily scented air.
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