Reasonable Accommodations for Hissing

"Jorge, no!" I yelled, vaulting over my desk and sending a precarious stack of case files flying. The new intern, bless his innocent, non-magical heart, was poking his head out of the mailroom, craning his neck to see the source of the commotion. His eyes were wide with a curiosity that was about to get him permanently reclassified as office decor.

I tackled him, not gently, sending us both sprawling into a pile of empty mailbags that smelled of dust and recycled paper. "Keep your eyes on the floor!" I hissed into his ear. "Count the fibres in the carpet. Recite the alphabet backwards. Do anything but look towards the reception desk."

"But... I heard a crash," he mumbled, his face pressed against the industrial-grade nylon. "Is everything alright, Hygenia?"

"Everything is perfectly fine," came the silky, cold voice of our senior partner, Morag. The clack of her heels on the polished floorboards was the only sound for a moment. She had the uncanny ability to project absolute calm into the most chaotic situations. "We just have a client with a... particularly striking presence. Jorge, stay put. Hygenia, with me."

I scrambled to my feet, smoothing down my skirt and trying to look like I hadn't just assaulted a subordinate. In the reception area, the damage was evident. Our lovely receptionist was hiding under her desk. The ficus was a memory. And in the centre of the room stood Madam Medusa, her serpentine hair writhing and hissing, her arms crossed over a very stylish trench coat. Her reflection was carefully contained in the polished black marble of the far wall. We'd installed it for this very purpose.

"Morag," she said, her voice a low rasp. "We have a problem."

"Madam Medusa. Always a pleasure," Morag replied smoothly, not batting an eye at the tiny asp that was currently trying to bite the lapel of the client's coat. "Hygenia, please fetch some lukewarm tea. And perhaps a few frozen mice for the... girls."

Clauses and Conditions of Petrification

The conference room felt colder than usual. Madam Medusa sat at one end of the long mahogany table, her back to the window. We'd drawn the heavy blackout curtains. The only light came from a single desk lamp, casting long, dancing shadows. The promised mice were in a small silver dish on the table, occasionally twitching. It was deeply unsettling.

"The city council has issued another citation," she hissed, sliding a piece of parchment across the table. It wasn't paper; it felt like cured leather. "They're calling my 'disgruntled trespassers' a public nuisance and a zoning violation."

I picked up the citation, careful not to make eye contact. Her file was one of our thickest. A centuries-long series of legal battles with mortals who failed to read the 'BEWARE THE GORGON' signs she was legally required to post. "It says here the... statues... are 'not in keeping with the neighbourhood's aesthetic character'."

"They're tastefully arranged!" she snapped. A small green snake coiled around her ear hissed in agreement. "I have a lovely tableau of a postman from 1954 near the bird bath. It's classical! It's art!"

"The council argues that twelve petrified door-to-door salesmen constitute a commercial statuary, for which you'd need a different permit," Morag noted, peering at the document through her reading glasses. "And they've flagged the one of the pizza delivery boy as 'excessively modern'."

"He had pineapple on it! What was I to do?" Madam Medusa lamented. "It's discrimination, Morag. They wouldn't do this if I were a dryad with a few extra trees."

"That's what we're here to find out," Morag said soothingly. "Hygenia, pull up the precedents on arcane property rights, specifically section 5, subsection C: 'Curses, Hexes, and Permanent Biological Alterations as Property Fixtures.' We'll draft a response. We might even be able to countersue for emotional distress."

I started tapping away at my laptop, feeling a familiar headache begin to form behind my eyes. This was my life now. Legal arguments about whether a person-turned-to-stone was a fixture of the property or a bio-hazardous material. Just as I was pulling up the relevant case law (a fascinating dispute from 1888 involving a gnome and a cursed garden gnome), the conference room door creaked open.

It was Jorge. He was holding a tray with three mugs. "I thought you might like some coffee," he said cheerfully. "I couldn't help but overhear and it sounds like you're having a tough day."

He looked directly at Madam Medusa. For a split second, everything froze. The hiss of the snakes stopped. Morag’s pen hovered over her notepad. I saw the colour drain from Jorge's face as his eyes met the gorgon's famous gaze.