Circe(15)

I went there every day. The brine stung my skin, and he was often too busy with admiring guests to give me more than the briefest smile, but I did not mind. We had time now, all the time we would ever need. It was a pleasure to sit at those silver tables, watching the nymphs and gods tumble over themselves for his attention. Once they would have sneered at him, called him fish-gutter. Now they begged him for tales of his mortality. The stories grew in the telling: his mother bent-back like a hag, his father beating him every day. They gasped and pressed a hand to their hearts.

“It is well,” he said. “I sent a wave to smash my father’s boat, and the shock killed him. My mother I blessed. She has a new husband and a slave to help her with the washing. She has built me an altar, and already it smokes. My village hopes I will bring them a good tide.”

“And will you?” The nymph who spoke clutched her hands beneath her chin. She had been one of my sister and Perses’ dearest companions, her round face lacquered with malice, but now speaking to Glaucos even she was transformed, open, ripe as a pear.

“We will see,” he said, “what they offer me.” Sometimes when he was very pleased, his feet turned to a flipping tail, and now it was. I watched it sweep along the marble floor, shining palest gray, its overlapping scales faintly iridescent.

“Is your father truly dead?” I said, when they were gone.

“Of course. He deserved it, for his blasphemy.” He was polishing a new trident, a gift from Poseidon himself. During the days, he lounged on couches, drinking from goblets large as his head. He laughed like my uncles did, open-mouthed and roaring. He was not just some scraggled lord of crabs, but one of the greater sea-gods who might call whales to his beck if he wanted, rescue ships from reefs and shoals, lift rafts of sailors from the drowning waves.

“That round-faced nymph,” he said, “the beautiful one. What is her name?”

My mind had drifted. I was imagining how he might ask for my hand. On the beach, I thought. That shore where we had first glimpsed each other.

“Do you mean Scylla?”

“Yes, Scylla,” he said. “She moves like water, does she not? Silver as a flowing stream.” His eyes lifted to hold mine. “Circe, I have never been so happy.”

I smiled back at him. I saw nothing but the boy that I loved shining at last. Every honor lavished on him, every altar built in his name, every admirer who crowded him, these felt like gifts to me, for he was mine.



I began to see that nymph Scylla everywhere. Here she was laughing at some jest of Glaucos’, here she was touching her hand to her throat and shaking out her hair. She was very beautiful, it was true, one of the jewels of our halls. The river-gods and nymphs sighed over her, and she liked to raise their hopes with a look and break them with another. When she moved she clattered faintly from the thousand presents they pressed on her: bracelets of coral, pearls about her neck in strings. She sat beside me and showed them to me, one by one.

“Lovely,” I said, scarcely looking. Yet there she was again at the next feast, her jewels doubled, trebled, enough to sink a fishing boat. I think now she must have been furious that it took me so long to understand. By then she was holding her pearls, big as apples, up to my face. “Are they not the greatest marvel you have ever seen?”

The truth is, I had begun to wonder if she was in love with me. “They are very fine,” I said faintly.

At last she had to set her teeth and say it straight.

“Glaucos says he will empty the sea of them, if it would please me.”

We were in Oceanos’ hall, the air sickly with incense. I started. “Those are from Glaucos?”

Oh, the joy on her face. “All of them are. You mean you have not heard? I thought you would be first to know, you are so close. But perhaps you are not the friend that you think you are to him?” She waited, watching me. I was aware of other faces too, giddily breathless. Such fights were more precious than gold in our halls.

She smiled. “Glaucos asked me to marry him. I have not decided yet what I will say. What is your counsel, Circe? Should I take him, blue skin, flippers, and all?”

The naiads laughed like a thousand plashing fountains. I fled so she would not see my tears and wear them as another of her trophies.



My father was with my river-uncle Achelous, and frowned to be interrupted. “What?”

“I want to marry Glaucos. Will you allow it?”

He laughed. “Glaucos? He has his pick. I do not think it will be you.”

A shock ran through me. I did not stop to brush my hair or change my dress. Every moment felt like a drop of my blood lost. I ran to Glaucos’ palace. He was away at some other god’s hall so I waited, trembling, amid his overturned goblets, the wine-soaked cushions from his latest feast.

He came at last. With one flick of his hand, the mess was gone, and the floors gleamed again. “Circe,” he said, when he saw me. Just that, as if you might say: foot.

“Do you mean to marry Scylla?”

I watched the light sweep across his face. “Is she not the most perfect creature you have ever seen? Her ankles are so small and delicate, like the sweetest doe in the forest. The river-gods are enraged that she favors me, and I hear even Apollo is jealous.”

I was sorry then that I had not used those tricks of hair and eyes and lips that all our kind have. “Glaucos,” I said, “she is beautiful, yes, but she does not deserve you. She is cruel, and she does not love you as you might be loved.”