I step away, leave her and the other maidens behind. My body may quake, but it is strong—strong and certain, and ready for what I must do. I can see the whole world from here. Odysseus hasn’t sailed far enough to escape my gaze. He never will. I find him, headed north, a speck no bigger than a mustard seed down there among the waves. Starlight has robbed the red from his sails, but still I recognize them. Still I know him.
Ahead of his ship’s path, one slender horn of moon rises above the horizon. It is hardly wider than a thread, a pale crescent, curved like a reaper’s blade. The moon is waxing now. Waking from the dark of its slumber, gathering its power night by sacred night. I close my eyes and breathe deep; odors of salt and stone and pine-sap fill me, cleanse away the last shuddering memories of the pain of childbirth. They cannot blot out the pain of all that came before. And even with my eyes tight-shut, I can see Odysseus fleeing.
The baby cries again, stirring something within me, a hot, twisting, animal instinct. My arms burn to reach for the child and hold him to my breast—a mother’s instinct. For I am a mother now, whether I would be or no. I watch the moon as it climbs higher, exposing more of its curve, shedding more of its power on the dark sea. Then I turn back to Anthousa. “Bring me the child.”
Anthousa hesitates. She hugs the baby tighter to her chest. She has never looked at me before with any emotion but kindness, sympathy, devotion. But now I see a newborn suspicion in her black eyes, and something that borders on fear. “Please, my lady,” she says, “the baby is innocent.”
Eumelia and Demetria gasp. It had not occurred to them that I might harm the child. Eumelia, carrying my hunting spear over her shoulder, takes one step back, then another. I can read her thoughts as easily as I read the letters from Crete, written in my sister’s hand. Eumelia wants to run back down the trail and take that damned spear with her.
I repeat the command. “Bring the child to me.”
Trembling, Anthousa obeys. She has served me since I was a chieftain’s daughter; she has not forgotten the power of my station, even if I held it years ago.
When Anthousa lays the baby in my arms, an unwelcome surge of warmth rises in my gut, hums along my spine. My breasts tingle with a sudden flow of milk. For a moment, I yearn to feed the child, to feel the sweetness of an innocent mouth at my breast. But I am like Hera, wakened to find a small, unwelcome stranger in my arms. I must hold fast to my purpose.
“The spear, Eumelia.”
“No, my lady…please.” She chokes back a sob.
“I will send you away for disobeying,” I tell her. “You’ll never see me, or this island, again. Would you rather that?”
“I…I don’t know,” poor Eumelia stammers.
“Gods blast this night,” Anthousa says suddenly. “Gods blast this whole year. And most of all, may the gods blast that useless Achaean, Odysseus. Poseidon, take his ship now! Drown him a thousand times over, for what he did to our lady.” She wrenches the spear from Eumelia’s grip and marches to me. “If the gods will damn anyone for this act, then it shall be me. You keep your hands clean, Eumelia. You as well, Demetria.”
I tell my handmaids calmly, “If you do not wish to see what I will do here tonight, then you may go. You, too, Anthousa. I will make my way back to the house alone.”
“In the dark, so soon after giving birth?” Anthousa says.
“The moon and stars will light my way.”
Anthousa shakes her head, resolute. “I won’t leave you, Circe.” The others murmur reluctant agreement, and remain.
Gently, I lay the bundled child on the cold, bare stone. He makes a small complaint, a whimper and a cough. He works one hand free of the wrappings. A tiny fist waves in the air, neatly formed, soft and perfect. His eyes are screwed tightly shut; thick black lashes rest on his plump cheeks.
I kneel beside my son, lift my face and hands to the moon.
“Hekate,” I call out in a voice loud as thunder—a voice strong enough to carry across the sea, strong enough to fill the sails of Odysseus’s ship. “Hekate, goddess…Mother. Hear your daughter’s cry. Feel the pain that has filled me, Mother, Mistress of Witches, Queen of Sorcery. Take away my weakness, and in its place, give me the power of revenge!”
The baby opens his eyes. He screams, a crackling newborn wail; the women cringe and look away.
“The spear, Anthousa.” Without looking away from my son’s face, I hold out my hand. Anthousa hesitates again, but a moment later the smooth, dry wood of the spear’s shaft falls firmly into my palm.
I raise the spear high above my head, above the baby’s writhing, kicking body. “Hekate, claim this child now. He is yours—as I am yours, Mother.”
Mother I never knew.
I never knew my mother—not even her name. My father never spoke of her; nor did Pasipha?, my half-sister, though we talked of everything else imaginable.
Pasipha? and I never could be separated, nor could we be silenced, even when ceremony and propriety demanded. We were born in the same month of the same year, to different mothers; we were as inseparable as twins. We would whisper and giggle at the temple shrines, until one of our nurses clouted us both upon our ears. When our father, Heliodoros, a great and wealthy chieftain, feasted the other chiefs of Colchis—or even greater men; princes and kings—Pasipha? and I could still be counted upon to make mischief. During those many lavish feasts, we seldom remained in the gynaeceum—the dining area set apart for women and girls—of our father’s house. Instead, we snuck through the halls to his andron; there, we spied on the men in their private space, listening to their conversations, wondering which chieftain each of us would be married to when our time came to wed. If we were caught by one of our brothers, Ae?tes or Perses, he would chase us back to the gynaeceum, grinning and laughing, or roaring like a lion to make us squeal. But if our father Heliodoros spotted us, he would summon our nurses to drag us back to the bed chamber we shared. There we would be scalded by their tongues, and sometimes beaten on the backside. But even the harshest rebukes couldn’t deter us for long.