Circe(11)

“Oh, no,” I said to him. “I am not like that. I have scarcely any powers at all and cannot hurt you. Be comfortable, as you were.”

“Thank you, kind goddess.” But he said it so flinchingly that I had to laugh. It was that laughter, more than my protestation, that seemed to ease him a little. Moment passed into moment, and we began to talk of the things around us: the fish jumping, a bird dipping overhead. I asked him how his nets were made, and he told me, warming to the subject, for he took great care with them. When I told him my father’s name, it sent him glancing at the sun and trembling worse than ever, but at day’s end no wrath had descended and he knelt to me and said that I must have blessed his nets, for they were the fullest they had ever been.

I looked down at his thick, black hair, shining in the sunset light, his strong shoulders bowing low. This is what all those gods in our halls longed for, such worship. I thought perhaps he had not done it right, or more likely, I had not. All I wanted was to see his face again.

“Rise,” I told him. “Please. I have not blessed your nets, I have no powers to do so. I am born from naiads, who govern fresh water only, and even their small gifts I lack.”

“Yet,” he said, “may I return? Will you be here? For I have never known such a wondrous thing in all my life as you.”

I had stood beside my father’s light. I had held Ae?tes in my arms, and my bed was heaped with thick-wooled blankets woven by immortal hands. But it was not until that moment that I think I had ever been warm.

“Yes,” I told him. “I will be here.”

His name was Glaucos, and he came every day. He brought along bread, which I had never tasted, and cheese, which I had, and olives that I liked to see his teeth bite through. I asked him about his family, and he told me that his father was old and bitter, always storming and worrying about food, and his mother used to make herb simples but was broken now from too much labor, and his sister had five children already and was always sick and angry. All of them would be turned out of their cottage if they could not give their lord the tribute he levied.

No one had ever confided so in me. I drank down every story like a whirlpool sucks down waves, though I could hardly understand half of what they meant, poverty and toil and human terror. The only thing that was clear was Glaucos’ face, his handsome brow and earnest eyes, wet a little from his griefs but smiling always when he looked at me.

I loved to watch him at his daily tasks, which he did with his hands instead of a blink of power: mending the torn nets, cleaning off the boat’s deck, sparking the flint. When he made his fire, he would start painstakingly with small bits of dried moss placed just so, then the smaller twigs, then larger, building upwards and upwards. This art too, I did not know. Wood needed no coaxing for my father to kindle it.

He saw me watching and rubbed self-consciously at his calloused hands. “I know I am ugly to you.”

No, I thought. My grandfather’s halls are filled with shining nymphs and muscled river-gods, but I would rather gaze on you than any of them.

I shook my head.

He sighed. “It must be wonderful to be a god and never bear a mark.”

“My brother once said it feels like water.”

He considered. “Yes, I can imagine that. As if you are brimming, like an overfilled cup. What brother is that? You have not spoken of him before.”

“He is gone to be a king far away. Ae?tes, he is called.” The name felt strange on my tongue after so long. “I would have gone with him, but he said no.”

“He sounds like a fool,” Glaucos said.

“What do you mean?”

He lifted his eyes to mine. “You are a golden goddess, beautiful and kind. If I had such a sister, I would never let her go.”



Our arms would brush as he worked at the ship’s rail. When we sat, my dress lapped over his feet. His skin was warm and slightly roughened. Sometimes I would drop something, so he might pick it up, and our hands would meet.

That day, he knelt on the beach, kindling a fire to cook his lunch. It was still one of my favorite things to watch, that simple, mortal miracle of flint and tinder. His hair hung sweetly into his eyes, and his cheeks glowed with the flame’s light. I found myself thinking of my uncle who had given him that gift.

“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?”