Ligeia lifted a shoulder, bent over the salt-crusted shreds of cloaks and blankets she worked to turn into a mat to place beneath their worn furs and fleeces. “The gods take many forms, that much is true. But until I have seen him for myself, I cannot say with certainty. He does not sound like any of the men who have come before.”
“But they have all been different,” Aglaope said. “Butes-Akheloios did not look like the Akheloios I knew, when he came to you during my childhood. Or so Grandmother said.”
“No,” Ligeia agreed. “And your father’s form was altogether different again. But Akheloios has always been lean and tall, strong to fight his way through the waves and survive. A man like your Odysseus—I am less certain of his mastery over the water. And do not forget that more men than Akheloios have thrown themselves into the sea, hoping to swim to our island—always, without Akheloios’s strength, they have failed.”
“And none have ever threaded their way through our rocks, their ship unscathed,” Aglaope said, sighing. “But what if he held his ship away, like Circe’s women do? Still near enough that we might swim back together, but safe.”
“That will be in the gods’ hands, my love. Whether they are lured by our song too near or sail by. Whether they hear us at all. Whether the gods will allow you the escape you dream of at Akheloios’s side. Swimming toward our rocks is one thing, but escaping the waves crashing against them with only the strength of your arms and legs to propel you forward, that is another.”
“I will tell him what to do, if he will only come,” Aglaope said. “I will tell him where to hold his ship if the waves are too rough, and we will find a way. We must.”
“Without the wood of the wreck to wash up on the beach, he cannot build a ship to sail away in,” Ligeia reminded her. “We have so little left, we will be lucky to keep the fire burning until spring. If he swims this far, there may be no returning.”
Aglaope frowned, watching her mother work the fabric scraps. If it came to that, they would burn the mats upon which they slept, even the fleeces, too and all the rest of the scraps of cloth and hide—even those that lined her nest upon the spire. And then they would have to hope that a ship would come to replenish their supplies, just to keep them warm and sheltered from the wind and rain and sun.
“The gods have always sent us what we needed,” she said, though whether it was for her own reassurance or her mother’s sake, she was not certain. Even as she said the words, she felt no certainty at all.
Before, a goddess-witch had not been working against them, begging the gods for what favors they owed and determined to see Aglaope and her sisters suffer for what she imagined as a slight. Before, the only punishment they had been fated to endure was for their failure to find their lady when she was taken beneath the earth. But who knew what power Circe had, truly? Power enough to keep Akheloios at her side. Enough to keep her falcons trained and fed and her maids obedient and happy to do Thelxiope harm.
Could Circe turn Akheloios against them altogether? Could she persuade him never to leave her side?
Of that, Aglaope was not certain, no matter how confidently she might have spoken otherwise. And as their food dwindled, and Ligeia ate less and less to be certain Aglaope would have enough to see her through and sing, still, when the water calmed enough for ships to pass again, her worries only grew.
“Have another bite,” she urged, pushing the salted meat from her own portion into her mother’s hands. “And more water, too.”
Ligeia shook her head, her lips pressed thin. “It is you who must eat. You who must survive. Without your song, there is no hope for me at all.”
“You are not so hoarse that you could not sing, still,” Aglaope said, though she did not know if it was true. After long years of singing upon the spire, and climbing up and down its height, Ligeia had been more than grateful to give up her place to her daughter and her much sweeter voice when she had come of age.
Ligeia smiled sadly. “I have not the strength to climb the spire, day in and day out. Not any longer. And with so little to live upon this last year, I surely have not grown stronger. Even caring for Thelxiope had begun to be too much, though I would never have let her know it.”
Nor had she let Aglaope know it. Her mother had always bent to her work without so much as a sniff of complaint. And until that moment, it had not occurred to her to think Ligeia might have weakened so much.
“But you must live,” Aglaope told her. “We must both live to see the day Akheloios returns to us.”
Ligeia smoothed back her hair and kissed her forehead. “It is my dearest wish to see you made happy and free, if that is your fate. But whether I live or die—that is for the gods to decide, and if it is my choice, I would rather be certain that it is you who survives.”
* * *
VI
They were both weak by the time the seas had calmed at last, and Anthousa appeared again, bobbing in her skiff just out of reach, an unwelcome herald of the finer weather and Persephone’s return to the lands above—though there was nothing upon the island to bask and grow in the glow of Demeter’s joy. And with so little rain to replenish their water, they were fortunate to have as much left as they’d had when winter had first come.
Not enough to last them both through the summer.
Not nearly enough.
“Have you survived, Sirens?” Circe’s handmaiden called out. “My mistress would know if her work is done for her by the winter storms!”
Aglaope climbed slowly up the spire, her stomach all but empty and growling with hunger. Bone broth and seaweed was all they had left, and the broth was weak and briny. But still, she had strength enough for this—to prove that she lived.
Anthousa flashed a grin at the sight of her when she had settled herself in her nest. “You look weak and wasted, Siren. Tired and broken. Is there only one of you left? I cannot imagine you will last much longer, looking like that. And my lady will be certain she warns her guests against you before she allows them to set sail. Stop their ears with wax by her own hand, if she must, to be certain they will not hear your song.”
Aglaope did not dare to respond, remembering too well how Anthousa had used her falcons and the trouble and pain it had brought. If only she had been wise enough to keep silent before, perhaps Thelxiope would not have been killed in such a way.
But she would have died still, all the same. That much she could not deny, as much as she might have wished to. Perhaps it would have taken longer, and they all might have suffered more, but Thelxiope would not have survived the winter—could not have survived the winter, without dooming them all. It had taken her moons to accept what Ligeia had known at once: Thelxiope’s murder had been more favor than curse.