Page 77 of Odette's Vow

As if the thought had conjured the divine, a strange sensation began to prickle along my arms. I lifted my head, scanning the treeline, then sat up, my arms braced on my knees.

“Odysseus? What is it?”

“We’re not alone.”

As soon as I said the words, the creature emerged, stepping gracefully from the jungle. Her skin was ochre while ebony dark waves of hair cascaded down her back wildly. Her eyes, the same colour as her skin, were round with curiosity, fixed on us with an intensity I didn’t like.

She continued to approach us with an almost predatory grace, as if worried we would scarper. Yet, her attention never wavered, and for some reason my brain told me that if we ran, she would catch us, no matter how long it took.

“I’ve been watching you,” she said, her voice lilting with a strange mix of innocence and power. “I do not understand this … what you did.” She gestured vaguely at our bodies, her expression a mixture of curiosity and confusion. “Show me,” she demanded, her eyes locking onto mine with an earnestness that belied the command in her voice.

I felt Odette tense beside me, and I pushed myself up, wrapping my chiton around my hips as I did so. “No,” I replied firmly, despite the unease crawling through me. “It’s not something to be shown.”

She tilted her head, as if pondering my refusal. For a moment, her gaze softened, and she looked almost human,almost vulnerable. But then, just as quickly, her expression hardened, and I knew that this was no ordinary woman. This was a goddess, ancient and powerful, and she did not like to be denied.

I expected her to condemn us, to banish us from this island, to do something Circe might have done. Instead, she giggled unnaturally. Then, with a voice as soft as a lullaby, she turned to Odette and posed the question that would shatter whatever illusions I had left.

“Should I tell him? Of the vow you made?

“Poseidon told me, for I am the Oceanid, Calypso, and this is my island. He said he does not release you from your vow. That the man,” a curious look towards me, as if she was unfamiliar with the word, “has done too much damage. That your vow is the retribution.”

Shock rippled through my body as I looked at Odette.

What had she done?

“But,” the nymph continued, “I can find a way to help you.”

“You can?” Odette breathed.

“I will give you the means to return home, to rebuild your life anew.”

Already, Odette was shaking her head. “It won’t work, I’ve already tried …”

Calypso continued, summoning the sands until they took the form of a man and a little boy.

If I had anything to bet with the gods, I’d wager it was Odette’s husband and son.

“I can give you peace in your heart, for as long as you want it.”

“I’m not the same woman,” Odette seemed to plead now, looking towards the sand and air sculptures of her old life … and me.

“Don’t you see?” Calypso asked, still in that childlike sing-song voice that was beginning to irritate me. “It is the loophole in the vow you spoke. You must be able to return home. That way, Poseidon will have no binding cause to keep Odysseus from Ithaca. I can grant him immortality for as long as he stays on this island with me, and once Poseidon’s anger has cooled, he can make his way home again. Or, I’m afraid I will have to cast you both back into the ocean. I don’t want to witness what you two do anymore, if I cannot try it for myself.” She frowned, as if this were an obvious solution; as if she weren’t threatening our very lives.

The decision was clear as day. Odette’s old life, or together to the end.

I thought I knew what she would decide, after all we had been through. Ithaca had always been my goal, my driving force, the thing that had kept me going through all the trials and tribulations, and I had given that up. I had accepted my fate. I had chosen a life with Odette, however little of it was left.

And now I found that there was somehow a vow, that she had made, that had driven us here.

“Odette?”

But before I could voice the thoughts that tore at my heart, I saw it in Odette’s eyes – the decision. I did not need to hear the words; I already knew. I had been played like a pawn in her game. She had plotted the very thing she had been accusing me of this whole time, and I, a damned fool, had ignored my instincts, ignored everything that had served me well in the past – for her.

“Did you really hate me so much you would not see me home to my wife? My family? Knowing how that would wound me? Have I really been so cruel to you that you would leave me here, with her?”

“At least you will be alive. You will have a chance to go home one day,” she tried to reason. “If we leave together now, what hope do we have of surviving Poseidon’s domain?”

“A god’s wrath can last decades, centuries! You know this!” I threw my hands up in the air. “Do not leave me alone on this island, Odette. Do not leave me in this prison of your making, aslave,as you have abhorred. I have accepted my fate. I have chosen you over Ithaca. If you leave me here, I would rather die at sea anyway.”

---