She is a fool. But I did not say it.
“I do not want to go to Sparta,” he said. “Nor do I want to stay here. I think you know where I would like to be.”
“You cannot come,” I said. “It is not safe for mortals.”
“I suspect it is not safe at all. You should see your face. You cannot hide either.”
What is my face like? I wanted to ask. Instead I said, “You would leave your mother?”
“She will be well here. And content, I think.”
Wood dust floated past, fragrant in the air. It was the same smell that rose from his skin when he carved. I felt reckless suddenly. Sick of all my fretting and convincing, my careful plotting. It came to some by nature, but not to me.
“If you want to join me, I will not stop you,” I said. “We leave at dawn.”
I made my preparations and he made his. We worked until the sky began to pale. The ship was filled with all the stores it could hold: cheese and toasted barley, fruits dried and fresh. Telemachus added fishing nets and oars, extra rope and knives, all of it carefully stowed and strapped in its place. With rollers we pushed the boat down to the sea, its hull effortlessly slipping through the breakers. Penelope stood on the shore to wave us off. Telemachus had gone alone to tell her he was leaving. Whatever she thought of it she kept from her face.
Telemachus lifted the sail. The storm was past. The winds were fresh and blowing well. They caught us, and we glided through the bay. I looked back at Aiaia. Twice in all my days I had seen her dwindling behind me. The water grew between us, and her cliffs shrank. I could taste the salt spray on my lips. All around were those silver-scrolling waves. No thunderbolt came. I was free.
No, I thought. Not yet.
“Where do we go?” Telemachus’ hand waited on the rudder.
The last time I had spoken her name aloud had been to his father. “To the straits,” I said. “To Scylla.”
I watched the words register. He maneuvered the prow with competent hands.
“You are not frightened?”
“You warned me it was not safe,” he said. “I do not think being frightened will help.”
The sea flowed by. We passed the island where I had stopped with Daedalus on the way to Crete. The beach was still there, and I glimpsed a grove of almond trees. The storm-blasted poplar would be long gone by now, crumbled to earth.
A pale smudge appeared on the horizon. With each hour it grew, belling like smoke. I knew what it was. “Pull down the sail,” I said. “We have business here first.”
Over the rail we caught twelve fish, large as we could find. They thrashed, spraying cold drops of salt across the deck. I pinched my herbs into their gasping mouths and spoke the word. The old cracking sound, the tearing of flesh, and then they were fish no more, but twelve rams, fat and addled. They jostled, eyes rolling, packed against each other in the small space. It was a blessing—they would not have been able to stand otherwise. They were not used to having feet.
Telemachus had to climb over them to get to the oars. “It may be a little hard to row.”
“They will not be here long.”
He frowned at one. “Do they taste like mutton?”
“I don’t know.” I lifted from my herb bag the small clay pot that I had filled the night before. It was stoppered with wax and had a looped handle. With a length of leather cord, I tied it around the largest ram’s neck.
We unfurled the sail. I had warned Telemachus about the mist and spray, and he had a pair of oars ready in makeshift locks. They were awkward, for the boat was meant for sails, but they would help us through if the wind died completely. “We must keep moving,” I told him. “No matter what.”
He nodded, as if it would be that easy. I knew better. The spear was in my hand, tipped with its poisonous spine, but I had seen how fast she was. I had told Odysseus once that there was no withstanding her. Yet here I was again.
Lightly, I touched Telemachus’ shoulder and whispered a charm. I felt the illusion gather over him: he was gone, bare deck, empty air. It would not hold up to scrutiny, but it would hide him from her passing glance. He watched, asking no questions. He trusted me. I turned away, abrupt, to face the prow.
The mist drifted over us. My hair grew damp, and the sucking sound of the whirlpool reached us across the waves. Charybdis, men had named that vortex. It had claimed its share of sailors, all those who tried to avoid Scylla’s appetite. The rams pressed against me, swaying. They made no sound, as real sheep would have. They did not know how to use their throats. I pitied them, in their trembling, monstrous forms.
The straits loomed, and we slipped into their mouth. I glanced at Telemachus. He held the oars ready, his eyes alert. Hairs lifted on my neck. What had I done? I should never have brought him.
The smell struck me, familiar even after so long: rot and hate. And then she came, slithering out of the gray fog. Those old lumpen heads of hers crept along the cliff, rasping as they went. Her bloodshot gaze was fixed on the rams, reeking of fat and fear.
“Come!” I cried.
She struck. Six rams were snatched up in six wide-split jaws. She darted back with them into the mist. I heard bones crunching, the wet gulping of her throats. Blood drizzled down the cliff face.
I had time for a single glance at Telemachus. The wind was nearly dead, and he was rowing now, intent. The sweat stood out on his arms.
Scylla returned, heads weaving with malevolence. Tufts of fleece showed between her teeth.
“Now the rest,” I said.
She took the other six so fast there was no time to count the beat between my words and their vanishing. The ram with the pot had been among them. I tried to listen for its clay shattering in her teeth, but I could make out nothing above the sounds of bones and flesh.
Last night, beneath the cold moon, I had milked the spear’s poison. It had trickled, clear and thin, into my polished bronze bowl. I had added dittany, gathered so long ago from Crete, cypress root, shards of my cliffs and soil from my garden, and last of all my own red blood. The liquid had foamed and turned yellow. All this I had put into that pot, then sealed it with wax. The draught would be slipping down her throat by now, pooling in her guts.
I thought twelve sheep would have dulled the edge of her hunger, but when she returned her eyes looked the same as ever, greedy and ravening. As if it were not her belly she fed, but an undying rage.
“Scylla!” I lifted the spear. “It is I, Circe, daughter of Helios, witch of Aiaia.”
She shrieked, that old baying cacophony, clawing at my ears, but there was no recognition in it.
“Long ago I changed you to this form from the nymph you were. I come now with Trygon’s power to make an end to what I began.”
And into the mist-soaked air, I spoke the word of my will.
She hissed. Her gaze held not the slightest hint of curiosity. Her heads wove on, searching over the deck as if there might be sheep she had overlooked. Behind me, I could hear Telemachus straining at the oars. Our sail hung limp; he was all that kept us moving forward.
I saw the instant her eyes pierced my illusion and spotted him. She moaned, low and eager.