The old humming note rose up as if in greeting. “Do not touch them,” I said to Telemachus, but even as the words were out, I realized how foolish they were. The flowers could do nothing to him. He was himself already. I would not see a hair changed.
Using my knife, I dug up each stalk by its roots. I wrapped them with soil in strips of cloth and settled them in the darkness of my bag. There was no more reason to linger. We hauled up the anchor and pointed the prow towards home. The waves and islands passed but I scarcely saw them. I was drawn taut as an archer sighting against the sky, waiting for the bird to flush. On the last evening, when Aiaia was so close I thought I could smell her blooms drifting on the sea air, I told him the story that I had kept back, of the first men who had come to my island, and what I had done to them in return.
The stars were very bright, and Vesper shone like a flame overhead. “I did not tell you before because I did not want it to lie between us.”
“And now you do not mind if it does?”
From the darkness of my bag, the flowers sang their yellow note. “Now I want you to have the truth, whatever comes.”
The light salt breeze rifled in the shore-grass. He was holding my hand against his chest. I could feel the steady beat of his blood.
“I have not pressed you,” he said. “And still I will not. I know there are reasons you cannot answer me. But if—” He stopped. “I want you to know, if you go to Egypt, if you go anywhere, I want to go with you.”
Pulse by pulse, his life passed under my fingers. “Thank you,” I said.
Penelope met us on Aiaia’s shore. The sun was high, and the island bloomed wildly, fruits swelling on their branches, new green growth leaping from every crook and crevice. She looked at ease amid that profusion, waving to us, calling her greetings.
If she noticed a change between us, she said nothing. She embraced us both. It had been quiet, she said, no visitors, yet not quiet at all. More lion cubs had been born. A mist had covered the east bay for three days, and there had been such a torrent of rain that the stream burst its banks. Her cheeks showed her blood as she talked. We wound past the glossy laurels, the rhododendrons, through my garden and the great oak doors. I breathed my house’s air, thick with the clean smell of herbs. I felt that pleasure the bards sing of so often: homecoming.
In my room the sheets of my wide, gold bed were fresh as they ever were. I could hear Telemachus telling his mother the story of Scylla. I left and went barefoot to walk the island. The earth was warm beneath my feet. The flowers tossed their bright heads. A lion followed at my heels. Was I saying farewell? I was pointed up into the sky’s wide arch. Tonight, I thought. Tonight, beneath the moon, alone.
I came back when the sun was setting. Telemachus had gone to catch fish for dinner, and Penelope and I sat at the table. Her fingertips were stained green, and I could smell the spells in the air.
“I have long wondered something,” I said. “When we fought over Athena, how did you know to kneel to me? That it would shame me?”
“Ah. It was a guess. Something Odysseus said about you once.”
“Which was?”
“That he had never met a god who enjoyed their divinity less.”
I smiled. Even dead he could surprise me. “I suppose that is true. You said that he shaped kingdoms, but he also shaped the thoughts of men. Before him, all the heroes were Heracles and Jason. Now children will play at voyaging, conquering hostile lands with wits and words.”
“He would like that,” she said.
I thought he would too. A moment passed, and I looked at her stained hands on the table before me.
“And? Are you going to tell me? How goes your witchery?”
She smiled her inward smile. “You were right. It is mostly will. Will and work.”
“I am finished here,” I said, “one way or another. Would you like to be witch of Aiaia in my place?”
“I think I would. I think I truly would. My hair, though, it is not right. It looks nothing like yours.”
“You could dye it.”
She made a face. “I will say instead it has gone gray from my haggish sorceries.”
We laughed. She had finished the tapestry, and it hung behind her on the wall. That swimmer, striking out into the stormy deep.
“If you find yourself in want of company,” I said, “tell the gods you will take their bad daughters. I think you will have the right touch for them.”
“I will consider that a compliment.” She rubbed at a smudge on the table. “And what about my son? Will he be going with you?”
I realized I felt almost nervous. “If he wants to.”
“And what do you want?”
“I want him to come,” I said. “If it is possible. But there is a thing which still lies before me to be done. I do not know what will come of it.”
Her calm gray eyes held mine. Her brow was arched like a temple, I thought. Graceful and enduring. “Telemachus has been a good son, longer than he should have been. Now he must be his own.” She touched my hand. “Nothing is sure, we know that. But if I had to trust that a thing would be done, I would trust it to you.”
I carried our dishes away, washed them carefully until they shone. My knives I whetted and laid each in its place. I wiped down the tables, I swept the floor. When I came back to my hearth, only Telemachus was there. We walked to the small clearing we both loved, the one where a lifetime ago we had spoken of Athena.
“The spell I mean to do,” I said. “I do not know what will happen when I cast it. It may not even work. Perhaps Kronos’ power cannot be carried from its soil.”
He said, “Then we will go back. We will go back until you are satisfied.”
It was so simple. If you want it, I will do it. If it would make you happy, I will go with you. Is there a moment that a heart cracks? But a cracked heart was not enough, and I had grown wise enough to know it. I kissed him and left him there.
Chapter Twenty-seven
THE FROGS HAD GONE to their wallows; the salamanders slept in brown holes. The pool showed the moon’s half-face, the pinpoints of stars, and all around, bending near, the wavering trees.
I knelt on the bank, thick with grass. Before me was the old bronze bowl I had used for my magics since the very first. The flowers rested beside me in their pale root swaddles. Stem by stem, I cut them and squeezed out the drops of running sap. The bottom of the bowl grew dark. It too began to show the moon. The last flower I did not squeeze but planted there on the shore, where the sun fell every morning. Perhaps it would grow.
I could feel the fear in myself, gleaming like water. These flowers had made Scylla a monster, though all she had done was sneer. Glaucos had become a monster of sorts too, everything that was kind in him driven out by godhead. I remembered my old terror, from Telegonus’ birth: what creature waits within me? My imagination conjured up horrors. I would sprout slimy heads and yellow teeth. I would stalk down to the hollow and savage Telemachus to pieces.
But perhaps, I told myself, it would not be like that. Perhaps all I hoped would come to pass, and Telemachus and I would go to Egypt indeed, and all those other places. We would cross and recross the seas, living on my witchcraft and his carpentry, and when we came to a town a second time, the people would step out of their houses to greet us. He would patch their ships, and I would cast charms against biting flies and fevers, and we would take pleasure in the simple mending of the world.