Circe

“His face just…stopped. He fell. I tried to wipe the poison away, but there was not even a wound. I will take you to my mother, I said, and she will help. His lips were white. I held him. I am your son, Telegonus, born from the goddess Circe. He heard. I think he heard. He looked at me before…he was gone.”

My mouth was empty. All was coming clear at last. Athena’s armored desperation, her stiff face saying we would be sorry if Telegonus lived. She feared he would hurt someone that she loved. And who did Athena love most?

I pressed my hand to my mouth. “Odysseus.”

He shrank from the word like a curse. “I tried to warn him. I tried—” He choked off.

The man I had lain with so many nights, dead from the weapon I had sent, dead in my son’s arms. The Fates were laughing at me, at Athena, at all of us. It was their favorite bitter joke: those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. The shining snare had closed, and my poor son, who had never harmed any man, was caught. He had sailed home all those empty hours with this crushing guilt on his heart.

My hands were numb, but I made them move. I took him by the shoulders. “Listen,” I said. “Listen to me. You cannot blame yourself. It was fated long ago, fated a hundred different ways. Odysseus told me once he was destined to be killed by the sea. I thought it meant shipwreck, I did not even consider anything else. I was blind.”

“You should have let Athena kill me.” His shoulders were fallen, his voice dull.

“No!” I shook him, as if I could throw off that evil thought. “I never would have. Never. Even if I knew then. Are you listening to me?” The desperation scraped in my voice. “You know the stories. Oedipus, Paris. Their parents tried to murder them, yet still they lived to bear their fates. This was always the path you walked. You must take comfort in that.”

“Comfort?” He looked up. “He is dead, Mother. My father is dead.”

My old mistake, running so quickly to help him that I did not stop to think. “Oh, son,” I said. “It is agony. I feel it too.”

He wept. My shoulder grew wet against his face. Beneath the bare branches we grieved together, for the man I had known, and the man he had not. Odysseus’ wide, plowman’s hands. His dry voice, drawing with precision the follies of gods and mortals. His eyes which saw everything and gave away so little. All perished. We had not been easy, but we had been good to each other. He had trusted me, and I him, when there was no one else. He was half of my son.

After a little time, he drew back. His tears had slowed, though I knew they would come again.

“I had hoped…” He trailed off, but the rest was clear. What do children always hope? To make their parents shine with pride. I knew how painful the death of that hope could be.

I put my hand to his cheek. “The shades in the underworld learn the deeds of the living. He will not hold a grudge. He will hear of you. He will be proud.”

Around us, the trees shook. The wind had changed directions. My uncle Boreas, breathing his chill over the world.

“The underworld,” he said. “I did not think of that. He will be there. When I die, I will be able to see him. I will be able to beg forgiveness then. We will have all the rest of time together. Will we not?”

His voice was vivid with hope. I saw the picture of it in his eyes: the great captain walking to him across the fields of asphodel. He would kneel on smoky knees, and Odysseus would gesture him up. They would dwell side by side in the house of the dead. Side by side, where I could never go.

The grief of it was climbing my throat, threatening to swallow me. But I would have touched crippling poison for him. Could I not say those simple words, to give him a crumb of comfort?

“So you will,” I said.

His chest heaved, but he was calming. He rubbed the stains from his cheeks. “You understand why I had to bring them. I could not leave them, after what I did. Not when they asked to come. They are so weary, and mourning too.”

I was weary myself, overwatched, buffeted by wave upon wave. “Who?”

“The queen,” he said. “And Telemachus. They are waiting in the boat.”

The branches tilted around me. “You brought them here?”

He blinked at the sharpness of my voice. “Of course. They asked me to. There was nothing left for them on Ithaca.”

“Nothing left? Telemachus is king now, and Penelope dowager queen. Why would they leave?”

He was frowning. “That is what they said. They said they needed help. How could I question them?”

“How could you not?” My pulse was beating in my throat. I heard Odysseus as if he stood beside me. My son will hunt down those men who laid me low. He will say, “You dared to spill the blood of Odysseus, and now yours is spilled in turn.”

“Telemachus is sworn to kill you!”