She had not pictured pine trees when dreaming of Cyprus, but here they were. Marching down the hills like an army, their pointed limbs slicing the air above her into shards. She had never seen anything like it. She was used to the smell of the ocean: salty and sharp, ice-cold, clean. How the waves smacked the stones beneath her balcony, how the sea-wind whistled a song through the smallest crack in her window, lulling her to sleep. It sang in her ears even now, deep in the Cyprian woods, among the bristly black trees and the smell of rabbits bleeding out in their traps. The road inland wound back around itself for hours. But her husband knew the way.
At the feast, the air was heavy with honey and figs and spilt ale. Soldiers tossed their helmets to the ground and chased serving girls through the fields, howling and spitting. Somebody played an out-of-tune love song, and there was the sudden shriek of a lyre smashed against stone, then jeers. So, she thought, this is what it means to be a wife at the edge of the world. In the dark of her chamber that evening, she wrapped herself in fresh white sheets. Emilia fluffed her pillows, combed her hair, her rhythm steady as the hushed roll of the sea. Still, Desdemona thought. How much better to be here than to be a maiden in Venice. How lucky I am, to have thwarted the thousand small deaths hung around the necks of women like me.
At night, she heard no waves. No keen and whistle of the wide world. Pine branches rattled against her window, their needles glinting like knives in the moonlight. Twice she woke Emilia, heart racing like a jackrabbit’s, thinking of the girls in the fields outside. But there was no intruder. Only the reflection of their half-turned faces in the mirror: two halves of the same pale moon, torn violently in two.
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Eleanor Ball is a queer writer and library worker in Iowa City. Her work has appeared with ballast, Barnstorm, Psaltery & Lyre, and others. Find her online @eleanorball.bsky.social and eleanorball.carrd.co.
© 2025, Eleanor Ball
Halfway Down the Stairs 