“I think you will,” I said. If he heard the change I made, he said nothing. I could feel my chest heaving a little. It had been so long since I had spoken to Hermes, I’d forgotten the effort it took to face down that shrewd, all-seeing gaze.
He said, “Do you think Athena will try to kill me?”
“She must swear an oath before she comes, she will be bound by it. But I will have the spear, in case.”
I made my hands work through their chores, plates and washing and weeding. When it began to grow dark, I packed a basket of food and sent Telegonus to find Penelope and Telemachus.
“Don’t linger,” I said. “They should be alone.”
He reddened. “I’m not an idiot child.”
I drew in a breath. “I know you are not.”
I paced while he was gone. I could not explain the stinging tension I felt. I had known he would be leaving. I had known all along.
Penelope returned when the moon rose. “I am grateful to you,” she said. “Life is not so simple as a loom. What you weave, you cannot unravel with a tug. But I think I have made a start. Is it wrong of me to confess that I enjoyed watching you set Hermes back?”
“I have a confession of my own. I am not sorry to let Athena twist for three days.”
She smiled. “Thank you. Again.”
Telegonus sat at the hearth fletching arrows, but he had scarcely managed a handful. He was as restless as I was, scuffing at the stones, staring out of the window at the empty garden path as if Hermes might appear again. I cleaned the tables that did not need cleaning. I set my pots of herbs now here, now there. Penelope’s black mourning cloak hung from the loom, nearly finished. I could have sat and worked awhile, but the change of hands would show in the cloth. “I am going out,” I told Telegonus. And before he could speak, I left.
My feet carried me to a small hollow I knew among the oaks and olives. The branches made good shade, and the grass grew soft. You could listen to the night birds overhead.
He was sitting on a fallen tree, outlined against the dark.
“Do I disturb you?”
“No,” he said.
I sat beside him. Beneath my feet the grass was cool and faintly damp. The owls cried in the distance, still hungry from winter’s scarcity.
“My mother told me what you did for us. Both now and before. Thank you.”
“I am glad if it helped.”
He nodded, faintly. “She has been three leagues ahead, as always.”
Over us the branches stirred, carving the moon into slivers.
“Are you ready to face the gray-eyed goddess?”
“Is anyone?”
“You have seen her before, at least. When she stopped the war between your father and the suitors’ kin.”
“I have seen her many times,” he said. “She used to come to me when I was a child. Never in her own form. I would notice a quality to certain people around me. You know. The stranger with overly detailed advice. The old family friend whose eyes shine in the dark. The air would smell like buttery olives and iron. I would speak her name and the sky would glow bright as polished silver. The dull things of my life, the hangnail on my thumb, the suitors’ taunts, would fade. She made me feel like one of the heroes from songs, ready to tame fire-breathing bulls and sow dragons’ teeth.”
An owl circled on its silent wings. In the quiet, the yearning in his voice rang like a bell.
“After my father returned, I never saw her again. For a long time I waited. I killed ewes in her name. I scrutinized everyone who passed. Did that goatherd linger strangely? Was not that sailor too interested in my thoughts?”
He made a sound in the dark, a half laugh. “You can imagine people didn’t love me for it, always staring at them, then turning away in disappointment.”
“Do you know what she intends for you?”
“Who can say, with a god?”
I felt it like a rebuke. That old uncrossable gulf, between mortal and divinity.
“You will have power certainly, and wealth. You will likely have your chance to be Telemachus the Just.”
His eyes rested on the shadows of the forest. He had scarcely glanced at me since I came. Whatever had been between us was dispersed like smoke on the wind. His mind was with Athena, pointed at his future. I had known it would be so, but it surprised me how much it ached to see it happen so quickly.
I spoke briskly. “You should take the boat, of course. It’s charmed against sea-disaster, as you know. With her help, you shouldn’t need that, but it will let you leave as soon as you are ready. Telegonus will not mind.”
He was quiet so long I thought he had not heard. But at last he said, “That is a kind offer, thank you. Then you will have your island back.”
I heard the crackles in the brush. I heard the sea distant on the shore, the sound of our breaths vanishing into its ceaseless wash.
“Yes,” I said. “I will.”
In the days that followed, I passed him as if he were a table in my hall. Penelope eyed me, but I did not speak to her either. The two of them were often together now, mending what had been broken. I did not care to see it. I took Telegonus down to the sea to show me his swimming. His shoulders, hard with muscle, cut unerring through the sea. He looked older than sixteen, a man grown. Children of gods always came to their strength faster than mortals. He would miss them when they were gone, I knew. But I would find something else for him. I would help him forget. I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.
I set out their evening meals, then took my cloak and walked into the darkness. I sought the highest peaks, the brakes where mortals could not follow me. Even as I did it, I laughed at myself. Which of them do you think is going to chase after you? My mind turned through all those stories I had kept from Odysseus, Ae?tes and Scylla and the rest. I had not wanted my history to be only an amusement, grist for his relentless intelligence. But who else would have tolerated it, with all its ugliness and errors? I had missed my chance to speak, and now it was too late.
I went to bed. I dreamed till dawn of the spear tipped with Trygon’s tail.
The morning of the third day Penelope touched me on the sleeve. She had finished the black cloak. It made her face look thinner, her skin dulled. She said, “I know I ask much, but will you be there when we speak to her?”
“I will. And Telegonus too. I want it finished and clear. I am tired of games.”
All my words felt like that, hard in my teeth. I strode up to the peak. The rocks there were darkened from sixteen years of my draughts. I reached down, rubbed my finger against the pitted stains. So many times I had come here. So many hours spent. I closed my eyes, and felt the spell above me, fragile as glass. I let it fall.
There was the faintest ping, like the snap of an overdrawn bowstring. I waited for the old weight to drop from my shoulders, but instead a gray fatigue rolled through me. I put out my hand for balance and found only air. I staggered, knees wavering. But there was no time for such weakness. We were exposed. Athena was coming, arrowing down upon my island like an eagle in her dive. I made myself start down the mountain. My feet caught on every root, the rocks turned my ankles. My breath came thin and shallow. I opened the door. Three faces startled up to mine. Telegonus rose. “Mother?”
I pushed past him. My sky lay open, and each moment was a danger. The spear, that is what I needed. I seized its crooked shaft from the corner where I kept it and breathed the sweet poison scent. My mind seemed to clear a little. Even Athena would not risk this.
I carried it into the hall and set myself at the hearth. Uncertainly, they followed. There was no time for a warning. Her lightning-bolt limbs struck the room, and the air turned silver. Her breastplate glowed as if it were still half molten. The crest of her helmet bristled over us.
Her eyes fixed on me. Her voice was dark as ore. “I told you that you would be sorry if he lived.”