Page 71 of Odette's Vow

I missed her.

I know that before we arrived here, I had wanted to distance myself from her. I had believed in the strength of that, and then I had been brash in my actions to protect her, to the point she probably hated me for what I had taken from her, given she had little. But now, without the men and in the presence of a witch with access to power I could not fathom, I bitterly regretted the trajectory of my actions and my thoughts.

I missed Odette’s snarky remarks, the snort she couldn’t help but make when she found something I said amusing in an unironic way, and the eyeroll that accompanied it. I missed the way she knew she could predict my moods and movements. How she provided comfort when I thought myself alone; a general who could not turn to anyone, not even fellow generals, for fear of being seen as weak.

Even when Odette had been withdrawn from me, when we had first come to know each other, and whenever something was working around in her little mind that caused her to retreat into herself, it was still better than the shell of the woman who now shuffled around the cottage.

Odette had only withdrawn into herself further after Telegonus had been born. I knew she thought of her own son, Lykas, who would have started school by now. My own firstborn, Telemachus, would be ten and two this year, beginning his journey into manhood.

The thought of not being there for it made me feel like less of a man, less of a father.

I still thought of Penelope often, too. I wondered how she was coping with raising a son, and undoubtedly having to fend off suitors trying to convince her I was lost – or worse – dead at sea.

Although, as I looked at Odette’s gaunt face once again as she pottered about keeping the hearth warm while Circe and I sat at the table, I wondered, not for the first time, if this was a fate worse than death. Some cruel trick by the gods, where slavery begot slavery.

“Odette, take Telegonus for his bath, please,” Circe interrupted from her seat by the fire, one hand stroking her already swollen belly. No sooner had Telegonus been born than Circe had me drink that vile wine once again, and now she was certain we would have a daughter. How she could tell so soon confounded me, but that was witches for you.

“Yes, mistress,” Odette acquiesced, brushing the needles of bark from her hands, wiping them on her apron and then turning to scoop up my son in her arms, paying me no mind whatsoever.

I wish she would, but I understood why she didn’t when Circe was around.

I caught the witch smiling slyly at me as she watched the interaction.

“So handsome, our son, isn’t he, Odysseus? I’m sure he will make a fine warrior one day, just like his father.”

I grunted, lifting my wine cup to my lips for something to do other than respond.

“And our daughter, too. She will be as pretty as me, no?”

“Still so certain it is a girl? Careful, Circe, or you will have everything you need from me and you’ll have no reason to deny my request to return to Ithaca,” I murmured, my eyes downcast to my drink, trying to hide my smile behind the rim of the cup.

Circe returned a wide smile of her own, her teeth flashing a brilliant white. “Oh, my dear Odysseus, do you not remember what the prophet said to you upon your jaunt to the Underworld? Between the Sirens and the Scylla, you would not survive the journey home.”

Sirens and Scylla. They were no monsters of the deep - they were the women in front of me. Odette, the siren I so desperately wished to hear, so much so that I could feel my body falling forward in her presence, just desperate for her to simplytalkto me again as she once had. That I might hear her thoughts or musings on anything Circe said without having to question in my own mind the choice of her words. There were so many fascinating things about this island, Circe, the creatures - enough to fill a book full of colour, and yet Odette had barely strung more sentences together than digits I had on my hands. I felt as though I was bound to this very chair I sat in. Bees swarmed about my head, cutting me off from ever truly hearing her, ever truly seeing her again, beeswax dripping into my ears.

I wondered if Circe had laced the honey on my bread.

In comparison, the witch before me was Scylla herself, the six-headed monster. For whenever I met one of her demands, another seemed to crop up in its place. First, a maid to keep her company. Then, to become lovers. Then a son. Now a daughter. What would be the other two demands, I wondered? Or perhaps Circe was more like Charybdis, the giant whirlpool, and I was merely the sailor caught up in her schemes.

At least I had been able to bury Elpenor, the first man of my crew who had stumbled across Circe, when I found his body.She had struck him down where he stood, murdered him, for he had found her when she was bathing naked, or so she claimed. He’d obviously gone scouting away from the rest of the men, for the others had found her later in her hut, and because she’d been expecting them, she’d turned them into pigs. Called their behaviour vile and rude, worthy of the creature.

Had I not been to the Underworld, had Elpenor not told me of his plight, I would not have expected murder from Circe. Witchcraft, yes. But, murder … Well, unlike Odette, I doubted I’d be able to talk the witch out of it.

“Has this truly been so terrible a place to live?” She raised one perfectly arched dark brow at me, her straight black waist-length hair rippling as she adjusted herself to gesture around the room.

Vines and herbs curved around the wooden rafters and decorated the windowsills, the wooden benches either side of the walls well oiled, as was the large wooden table we sat at in the centre of the room. The brick wall, under which the hearth stood, broke up the monotony of the wood in the main room we all shared, the fire a good focal point for when I couldn’t stand to look at Circe, or when I needed to will myself not to watch Odette.

Of course, there were other rooms in the cottage, a garden out front, the sty for the pigs -men –out the back, a barn for the cows and chickens. In other words, it was the domestic bliss I had craved during war; the simple life I had longed to live. Just not with the one I wanted to live it with. Not like this.

So, I did not even have to consider my answer. “No.”

For, in truth, it hadn’t been. The cottage had no want for homely comforts, from the solid wooden chairs with supportive lumber for my back, to the steel tub where I could bathe when I wanted hot water to soothe my aching muscles after chopping wood. Even walks in the forests were a balm, to have barefeet on earth that was not soaked with blood, sweat, piss and shit. Birdsong in the morning - charming, if I didn’t think too hard about the birds. Warm drinks, good wine (when it wasn’t spiked), an iron-framed bed whose comforter was made up of more than a pallet, though that had taken some getting used to, my body not what it once was. Fresh fruit and warm broths, nothing that had to be rationed or fought over.

In truth, the greatest gift was being relieved of the responsibility over the men, but I would never confess that thought aloud.

Circe’s smile widened as if she’d heard my thoughts. “Well,” she said, slowly rising to her feet, using the back of her own chair as leverage to hoist herself up, the babe in her belly growing bigger by the day. “I shall go and complete my rituals. Will I return to find you in our bed?”

I took another sip of wine and grunted. There was nowhere else I could sleep. The times I had tried, sitting upright in the chair by the fire with my arms crossed and my head rolled forward, thinking I could get away with it under the guise of exhaustion, my feet somehow found their way to the bed, no matter how hard I tried to force them to walk a different way.

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