Iphigenia enters the House Atreus and wrinkles her nose at the mess inside. Her father’s corpse sits bloated in the bathtub, his head dropped carelessly on the ground, rolled far enough away so as to almost kiss her stepfather’s mouth. He lays rotting, decayed faster than all the others, less skin and more sludge, a feast for flies. Her mother lays not far from him, an axe pressed to her chest like a babe, almost hiding the gaping wound between her breasts. In the middle of the room lies the lone figure of a woman strange to her, clothed in purple, dead eyes staring at the sun. Its last rays caress her face, and Iphigenia decides she is as good a place to start as any.

The carpet sops under her feet, fat and wet with blood. Even when she was a child the house had stunk of roast meat, but the smell has become overwhelming now, such that she can almost taste it. She’ll have to open the windows, air it out. Dirty dishes lay forgotten on the table, the last remains of dinner spoiled, mold spilling over the edge of the plate and feasting on the tablecloth. No use trying to disinfect that; it’ll have to be thrown out entirely, the table replaced.

First, though, the woman. Ash coats her hands and mouth, dappling her teeth. Her lips are curled up slightly, either in disgust or the beginnings of a smile. Her mortal wound is small and thin, a dagger stuck clean between her ribs and straight through her heart. Iphigenia glances at her mother and her white-knuckled, bloodied hands, raising an eyebrow. She looks back at the stranger, considering. Then she shakes her head; she’ll never finish cleaning if she doesn’t start now.

Iphigenia heaves the stranger up into her arms and begins to walk outside. “What will you do?” asks the Chorus, dogging her steps. “Prodigious daughter returned, what will you do?”

“Who was she?” she asks them.

“A brave girl.”

“Like me?”

“Yes, yes,” they sing, “exactly like you.”

Iphigenia looks down at her with pity. “Poor thing.”

“What will you do, what will you do?”

“I suppose the rot needs dealing with first.”

She spots the Furies in the rafters, hanging upside down like bats, and barely suppresses a sigh. The rot may have to wait.

“Your brother is not here,” sings the Chorus, “your sister is not here, your cousin is not here.”

“Less mess that way.”

She pushes the door open with her hip and steps into the sun. She lays the poor, unlucky stranger next to the house, smoothing out her robe.

“Is there a shovel somewhere around here?”

“Oh, plenty, plenty. Will you be digging graves?”

“Not sure where else I’m supposed to leave the corpses.”

“There’s graves for them already, dug long ago.”

Well, that’s good. Iphigenia is eleven and her arms are thin. “Could you point me to them?”

They point, and Iphigenia walks the path to the four open graves. Her father, her mother, her uncle, and the stranger. Should she bury a stranger in the family plot? Perhaps not, but she certainly shouldn’t leave an empty grave.

“Will you dig?” the Chorus asks.

“I am not my mother,” she responds, “Or my brother, or my sister, or my uncle, or my cousin.”

“Grandfather?”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

If she took after anyone, it was her father.

She returns to the house and eyes the Furies in the corner, staring at her. She grabs a broom. Before anything else, she’ll have to solve the pest problem.