Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #71: "Delphi."

I grew up in Indiana—wasn't born there, but my family moved there in 1955, and for the next 30 years, it was my home, and I still consider myself a Hoosier even though I've lived a lot of years in Michigan. So I was eager to participate in the Indiana Horror Anthology, published by James Ward Kirk publications. Indiana has always struck me as a very non-horrific state.  It does not have dark swamps like Louisiana; no old haunted houses like you might find in upstate New York; no history of witches like Massachusetts; no white alligators in the sewers, no Bigfoot. How to write a horror story?

Hemingway's sage advice, often quoted, is to write one story about each thing you know. Growing up in Indiana, I knew something about it—well, I knew lots about it. One thing Indiana has, or used to have, is natural gas. Deposits of it lay just under the surface in the central part of the state where I lived. There is a town not far from where I grew up called Gas City. And there is also a town called Delphi. At the turn of the century people did not know about the finitude of natural resources. They set up torches that burned the gas as tourist sites. Sometimes fires would start where gas seeped out of the ground ; people would travel for miles to watch them burn. In about a decade, the gas resources of north central Indiana were used up (I am told the gas is still there but too deep in the ground to make extracting it profitable).

Delphic Priestess

I mentioned Delphi. It was named after a city in ancient Greece. Gas fumes abounded there too,  so the city in Indiana where gas seeped out of the ground was named for that ancient  town. Something more about ancient Delphi:  it was the city where prophetesses lived. To deliver prophecies, they would go into caves where natural gas seeped out of the earth, breathe the fumes (which had hallucinogenic effects), and go into a trance during which they would utter prophecies about the future. The people of the day regarded their prophecies with such veneration that Kings and rulers would go to the "sibyls" before they made important decisions.

In my story "Delphi" a group of young people go into one of the caves for which Delphi, Indiana, was named because of the similarity to the caves in ancient Greece. Of course, they go there for a different reason. Liz Foreman, the main character, gets to go with a group of very popular boys and girls. She has decided it's time to lose her virginity and is delighted she will do so in good company. She follows instructions once in the cave, drinks some wine, and then bends down to sniff the gas coming up through a crack in the floor. She begins kissing one of the boys. He begins undressing her. But when she wakes up, she isn't in bed with him. She is chained to a chair in a shabby old house.

Eventually an old woman comes in. She remembers all the horror movies she has seen and supposes her captor will torture her to death. The older woman assures her no harm will come to her and her questions will be answered soon. Eventually, a younger woman appears, questions the older one, and again assure Liz that she will not be harmed. Then they hold her mouth open and force her to drink a potion. She falls into a drugged sleep.

Artist's re-creation of ancient Delphi

She wakes up in a place she does not recognize—not the old house, but a stone building with soft beds and gold trim on the walls. A young woman comes in and welcomes her. Liz demands to know where she is. The woman, Praxilla, tells she is in Delphi. When Liz says the place does not look at all like Delphi, she tells her it is Delphi in ancient Greece and she will become a pythoness, a virgin priestess of Apollo. When Liz demands to go home, the young woman becomes impatient with her, tells her the Fates have chosen her for this role and she needs to accept her place in life. She threatens to run away and is informed that if she does the local villagers will capture and return her. When she persists, Praxilla begins to lose her patience and sends as girl named Agatha to talk to her.

Delphic Priestesses

Agatha, a British girl who visited a nearby site in Greece in 1897, informs Liz that she has been taken to be a priestess, transported through time, and will live the rest of her life serving in the temple as a sibyl, "a chaste maiden in the service of the Oracle." She also warns Liz to behave herself and settle into the life the Fates have given her. She takes her out and shows her the massive three-tiered site of Apollo's Temple, the sounds, the beauty of the surrounding countryside and tells her that though she will never marry and never know the embrace of man, there are compensatory pleasures. She needs to surrender. She needs to accept.

The old horror theme of being abducted by powers you cannot oppose and forced into a life you would not have chosen operates in this story. We fear loss of freedom, of self-determination; we fear denial of our desires and dreams. These things fall on Liz and we are simultaneously filled with fear and pity (as Aristotle put it) when we enter into her story.

"Delphi" is still available if you purchase of copy of Indiana Horror Anthology 2011.

And for another scary read, check out my new novella, Sinfonia: the First Notes On the Lute: A Vampire Chronicle, Part One. Nelleke Reitsma is a talented lutenist, one of the best in the world. She tours and performs concerts internationally. She is also a vampire who has lived 300 years, played lute for Queen Elizabeth I and knew William Shakespeare--and many other figures from the music world in her lifetime--which continues as long as she can conceal her identity; and as long as she can find blood. 

For additional titles, check out my Writer's Page.

Comments are welcome. I would love to hear what you have to say.

Happy reading!