Page 11 of Circe

“I met him once,” I said.

Glaucos had spitted a fish and was roasting it. “Who?”

“Prometheus,” I said. “When Zeus punished him, I brought him nectar.”

He looked up. “Prometheus,” he said.

“Yes.” He was not usually so slow. “Fire-bearer.”

“That is a story from a dozen generations ago.”

“More than a dozen,” I said. “Watch out, your fish.” The spit had drooped from his hand, and the fish was blackening on the coals.

He did not rescue it. His eyes were fixed on me. “But you are my age.”

My face had tricked him. It looked as young as his.

I laughed. “No. I am not.”

He had been half slouched to one side, knees touching mine. Now he jerked upright, pulling away from me so fast I felt the cold where he had been. It surprised me.

“Those years are nothing,” I said. “I made no use of them. You know as much of the world as I do.” I reached for his hand.

He yanked it away. “How can you say that? How old are you? A hundred? Two hundred?”

I almost laughed again. But his neck was rigid, and his eyes wide. The fish smoked between us in the fire. I had told him so little of my life. What was there to tell? Only the same cruelties, the same sneers at my back. In those days, my mother was in an especial ill humor. My father had begun to prefer his draughts to her, and her venom over it fell to me. She would curl her lip when she saw me. Circe is dull as a rock. Circe has less wit than bare ground. Circe’s hair is matted like a dog’s. If I have to hear that broken voice of hers once more. Of all our children, why must it be she who is left? No one else will have her. If my father heard, he gave no sign, only moved his game counters here and there. In the old days, I would have crept to my room with tear-stained cheeks, but since Glaucos’ coming it was all like bees without a sting.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was only a stupid joke. I never met him, I only wished to. Never fear, we are the same age.”

Slowly, his posture loosened. He blew out a breath. “Hah,” he said. “Can you imagine? If you had really been alive then?”

He finished his meal. He threw the scraps to the gulls, then chased them wheeling to the sky. He turned back to grin at me, outlined against the silver waves, his shoulders lifting in his tunic. No matter how many fires I watched him make, I never spoke of my uncle again.

One day, Glaucos’ boat came late. He did not anchor it, only stood upon its deck, his face stiff and grim. There was a bruise on his cheek, storm-wave dark. His father had struck him.

“Oh!” My pulse leapt. “You must rest. Sit with me, and I will bring you water.”

“No,” he said, and his voice was sharp as I had ever heard it. “Not today, not ever again. Father says I loaf and all our hauls are down. We will starve, and it is my fault.”

“Yet come sit, and let me help,” I said.

“You cannot do anything,” he said. “You told me so. You have no powers at all.”

I watched him sail off. Then wild I turned and ran to my grandfather’s palace. Through its arched passageways I went, to the women’s halls, with their clatter of shuttles and goblets and the jangle of bracelets on wrists. Past the naiads, past the visiting nereids and dryads, to the oaken stool on the dais, where my grandmother ruled.

Tethys, she was called, great nurse of the world’s waters, born like her husband at the dawn of ages from Mother Earth herself. Her robes puddled blue at her feet, and around her neck was wrapped a water-serpent like a scarf. Before her was a golden loom that held her weaving. Her face was old but not withered. Countless daughters and sons had been birthed from her flowing womb, and their descendants were still brought to her for blessing. I myself had knelt to her once. She had touched my forehead with the tips of her soft fingers. Welcome, child.

I knelt again, now. “I am Circe, Perse’s daughter. You must help me. There is a mortal who needs fish from the sea. I cannot bless him, but you can.”

“He is noble?” she asked.

“In nature,” I said. “Poor in possessions, yet rich in spirit and courage, and shining like a star.”

“And what does this mortal offer you in exchange?”

“Offer me?”

She shook her head. “My dear, they must always offer something, even if it is small, even if only wine poured at your spring, else they will forget to be grateful, after.”