“Nymphs always do,” he said. “But I’ll tell you a secret: they are terrible at getting away.”
At a feast on Olympus such a jest would have been followed by a roar of laughter. Hermes waited now, grinning like a goat. But all I felt was a white, cold rage.
“I am finished with you,” I said. “I have been finished a long time. Let me not see you again.”
If anything, his grin deepened. He vanished and did not return. It was no obedience. He was finished with me too, for I had committed the unpardonable sin of being dull. I could imagine the stories he was telling of me, humorless, prickly, and smelling of pigs. From time to time, I could sense him just out of sight, finding my nymphs in the hills, sending them back flushed and laughing, giddy from the great Olympian who had shown them favor. He seemed to think I would go mad with jealousy and loneliness, and turn them into rats indeed. A hundred years he had been coming to my island, and in all that time he had never cared for more than his own entertainment.
The nymphs remained. When they finished their terms of service, others arrived to take their place. Sometimes there were four, sometimes six or seven. They trembled when I passed, ducking and calling me mistress, but it meant nothing. I had been put in my place. At a word and a whim from my father all my vaunted power blew away. Not even my father: any river-god had the right to fill my island, and I could not stop him.
The nymphs wafted around me. Their smothered laughter drifted down the halls. At least, I told myself, it was not their brothers, who would have bragged and fought and hunted down my wolves. But of course that was never a real danger. Sons were not punished.
I sat at my hearth watching the stars turn through the window. Cold, I felt. Cold as a garden in winter, gone deep to ground. I did my spells. I sang and worked at my loom and husbanded my animals, but it all felt shrunk to the size of ants. The island had never needed my hand. It prospered on no matter what I did. The sheep multiplied and wandered freely. They ambled over the grass, nudging aside the wolf pups with their blunt faces. My lioness stayed inside by the fire. White fur stained her mouth. Her grandchildren had their own grandchildren, and her haunches trembled when she walked. A hundred years at least she must have lived with me, pacing at my side, her life extended by the close pulse of my divinity. A decade that time had seemed to me. I assumed there would be many more, but one morning I woke to find her cold beside me on the bed. I stared at her unmoving sides, my brain stupid with disbelief. When I shook her a fly buzzed off. I pried open her stiff jaws and forced herbs down her throat, chanting one spell, then another. Still she lay there, all her golden strength turned dun. Perhaps Aeëtes could have brought her back, or Medea. I could not.
I built the pyre with my own hands. Cedar it was, and yew, and mountain ash that I chopped myself, its white pith spraying where the axe blade struck. I could not lift her, so I made a sledge out of the purple cloth I had used to wind around her neck. I dragged her through my hall, past the stones worn smooth by the pads of her great paws. I pulled her up to the pyre’s top and lit the flames. There was no wind that day, and the flames fed slowly. It took the whole afternoon for her fur to blacken, her long yellow body to burn down to ash. For the first time the cold underworld of mortals seemed a mercy. At least some part of them lived on. She was utterly lost.
I watched until the last flame was gone, then went back inside. A pain was gnawing in my chest. I pressed my hands to it, the hollows and hard bones. I sat before my loom and felt at last like the creature Medea had named me: old and abandoned and alone, spiritless and gray as the rocks themselves.
I sang often in those days, for it was the best company I had. That morning it was an old hymn in praise of farming. I liked the shape of it on my lips, the soothing lists of plants and crops, of crofts and cotes, herds and flocks, and the stars that wheeled above them. I let the words float in the air as I stirred the boiling pot of dye. I had seen a fox and wanted to match the color of her coat. The liquid foamed up, saffron mixed with madder. My nymphs had fled the stink, but I liked it: the sharp stinging in my throat, the watering of my eyes.
It was the song that caught their attention, my voice drifting down the trails to the beach. They followed it through the trees and sighted the smoke from my chimney.
A man’s voice called out. “Is anyone there?”
I remember my shock. Visitors. I turned so quickly the dye splashed, and a burning drop fell on my hand. I smeared it away as I hurried to the door.
There were twenty of them, wind-rough and shiny from sun. Their hands were thickly calloused, their arms puckered with old scars. After so long amid only the smooth sameness of nymphs, each imperfection was a pleasure: the lines around their eyes, the scabs on their legs, the fingers broken off at the knuckle. I drank in their threadbare clothes, their worn faces. These were not heroes, or the crew of a king. They must scrabble for their livelihoods as Glaucos once did: hauling nets, carrying odd cargo, hunting down whatever dinner they could find. I felt a warmth run through me. My fingers itched as if for needle and thread. Here was something torn that I could mend.
A man stepped forward. He was tall and gray, his body lean. Many of the men behind him still had their hands on their sword hilts. It was wise. Islands were dangerous places. You met monsters as often as friends.
“Lady, we are hungry and lost,” he said. “And hope such a goddess as yourself will help us in our need.”
I smiled. It felt strange on my face after so long. “You are welcome here. You are very welcome. Come in.”
I shooed the wolves and lions outside. Not all men were as unshakable as Daedalus, and these sailors looked as though they had known shocks enough already. I led them to my tables, then hurried to the kitchen to bring out heaping platters of stewed figs and roasted fish, brined cheese and bread. The men had eyed my pigs on the way in, elbowing each other and whispering loudly their hope that I might kill one. But when the fish and fruits were before them, they were so eager they did not complain, nor even pause to wash their hands or take off their swords. They bolted and shoveled, the grease and wine darkening their beards. I carried more fish, more cheese. Each time I passed they ducked their heads at me. Lady. Mistress. Our thanks.
I could not stop smiling. The fragility of mortals bred kindness and good grace. They knew how to value friendship and an open hand. If only more of them would come, I thought. I would feed a ship a day, and gladly. Two ships. Three. Perhaps I would start to feel like myself again.
The nymphs peeked in from the kitchen, eyes wide. I hurried over, sent them off before they were noticed. These men were mine, my guests to welcome as I pleased, and I enjoyed seeing to all their comforts myself. I set out fresh water in bowls, so they might wash their fingers. A knife fell to the floor, and I picked it up. When the captain’s cup was dry, I filled it from the brimming bowl. He lifted it to me. “Thank you, sweet.”
Sweet. The word set me back a moment. They had called me goddess before, and so I believed they thought me. But they showed no awe or religious deference, I realized. The title had been only a flattering courtesy for a woman alone. I remembered what Hermes had told me long ago. You sound like a mortal. They won’t fear you as they fear the rest of us.
And so they did not. In fact, they thought I was the same as they were. I stood there, charmed by the idea. What would my mortal self be? An enterprising herbwoman, an independent widow? No, not a widow, for I did not want some grim history. Perhaps I was a priestess. But not to a god.
“Daedalus once visited this place,” I told the man. “I keep the shrine of it.”