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.