Perhaps before I had broken every vow to gods and man.
I am tired of being sad. Tired of being tired. Tired of myself…
A storm on the horizon. The sky never tires. Nor the sea. I float here, trapped between them, hammer and anvil, trying not to think of the wreckage behind me so I may prevent a wreck before me. My wreck of a life.
There is a storm on the horizon, and I am so tired, Penelope. So very tired...
Let it be in the hands of the gods.
—Odysseus
The climb was narrow and winding, but that was not why it was dangerous. The danger was its beauty. Ascending this natural stair, I inhaled the scent of cypress trees, felt the flutter of brown moths in search of sweet nectar, heard the crash of waves against the rocks below. And, at that moment, my eyes were blinded by the clash of setting sun battling its own reflection on the sea. A glowing shield against a rippling sword. No wonder the sky was red.
My feet knew each turn, each bend in these stairs. I had come this way since I could walk unaided, a divine child on an isle ruled by my blood. Never before now had I been in danger of pitching down onto those rocks far below. I was distracted, and fearful, and had to trust my feet to walk the path by instinct.
Gazing half-blind at the sea, my eyes fell on the Azure Gate. The portal of life and death, they called it. On one side paradise, on the other strife. Standing free in the waters, the stone archway symbolized so much on Ogygia. Entry and life. Exit and abandonment.
Abandonment…
Buckling on a loose stone, my foot faltered. For a moment I peered over the edge, looking down at the craggy rocks hundreds of feet below. For that moment I imagined the fall, and wondered if I could enjoy the rush before the landing. Probably not. Though I tried, I always saw the horizon, not the patch of land beneath my feet.
Catching myself, after a startled moment I laughed. Why does your heart race, your majesty? You are in no danger. Even to my own ears, the laugh rang hollow. A slip on this path meant more than age or fatigue.
I gazed at the stone that had caught my foot. It was rectangular, and bore a winged helmet and a phallus.
A herma.
As a goddess, I was raised to recognize signs. Portents come in all shapes and sizes, from the humble bee to the great tempest of years past. That storm that had rocked my island, knocked down walls and pillars, wrecked every ship of note. I did not know then that the portent was not of disaster, but of an upheaval of a completely different sort.
This, however small, was just as potent a sign. The hermai were boundary markers, and signs of good luck. Both lay within the province of Hermes. That my foot had stumbled on a herma was telling. I had reached a limit. I was testing my luck.
Kneeling down, I replanted the square stone, murmuring the appropriate prayer. But in my mind, I was rebelling. Do not, God of Omens, tell me what to do!
Then I continued my climb.
Cresting the top of the path, I emerged through the vines into the grove that bore my name. Thick alders, black poplars, pungent cypress, where owls and hawks roosted—more signs to be read, more gods to interpret. A spring welled here, forming four natural pools in a row, each with its own nymph to placate and plead with. Beyond the spring, this well of natural stairs led down to the palace, and to the sea.
The grove was altered now, and startling. I had been mortified to uproot any of the trees planted by my grandmother’s grandmother. It smacked of sacrilege. But he had convinced me. His words could call the clouds from the sky to dew his hands.
After pleading forgiveness of the dryads, the trees nearest the sea had been moved, roots and all. The dryads must have approved, for somehow they had survived. A miracle, one the mover took no little pride in. “Preserving life,” he’d said, “is a welcome change.”
In their place stood a statue hewn of limestone. Rising as tall as three grown women, it depicted a woman, her back to the sea, her arms bent at the elbows, palms forward in offering. Or in prayer.
Her face was my own. Her stone hair lay in the ornate braids I wore. He had fashioned her in my likeness. A huge conceit. I should have been angry. I was meant to be touched. Instead I was desperately sad.
He was there, mounted upon the left arm of a massive statue, shaping its breast with hands all too familiar with the fleshly model. The setting sun made his skin glisten, night challenging fire. There were threads of silver now, more than had been there when he had first arrived. But his body was whole, and his mind so focused he did not notice me. His labors were all-consuming, and he took his time. As if time meant nothing, when it surely did.
His attention to detail was astonishing. As was seeing myself through his eyes. I had never particularly noticed the mole on my cheek, or the bump in my long nose. Were my lips truly that full? My eyes that wide?
I waited for the hand bearing the pumice-stone to rise before speaking. “Come down, my Odd Zeus. That is enough for this day.”
Turning, I could see at once his eyes were red. But his blank face broke into a smile. Always for me, a smile. “It is never enough, your majesty, until it is complete.”
“What is it you say? ‘An artist’s work is never complete, only displayed.’”
“Or abandoned,” he said, dropping from my arm into my arms.
After a passing kiss, I drew back, nodding towards the statue. “You mean to replace me.”
He swung my hands in his. “With yourself? Hardly.”
“What is the story you tell, of a statue depicting a lion defeated by a man?”
He laughed. “‘It proves nothing, for it was man who made the statue.’ Fair enough. Then see in her all my ideals of you.”
I gazed up at her proud chin, her wide eyes. “She grows more lifelike each day. Yet her youth is preserved.”
His smile was impervious to my insecurities. “What can I say? Your eternal spirit inspires me daily.”
To inspire is to breathe. He breathes me. I fill his lungs, and his chest swells.
Then he exhales again. I fill his chest. But not his heart.
Reading me as if I were one of his books, he kissed me. Not lightly, a passing kiss of acknowledgement, but a fierce kiss of passion, devotion, even ownership.
I responded in kind. I had come without servants or sons, and he worked alone, so there were no eyes to watch as his lips moved down my throat. None but those stone eyes high above, judging me, my weakness, my selfishness.
I did not care. My insisting arms pressed his head deeper into my beating pulse. He bit me, and I gasped. His hands dislodged my careful braids, and my hair came cascading down to drape him. In moments we were kneeling, then rolling, his artificial desperation striving to match my very real one. My lips touched his face, and I could taste the salt from tears he never let me see.
There, in a field starred by violets and redolent with parsley, in the Grove of Calypso, beneath my own supplicating hands, we made love for the last time. The last, I vowed.
I had been making that vow nightly for seven years.