No, I thought. Not yet.
“Where do we go?” Telemachus’ hand waited on the rudder.
The last time I had spoken her name aloud had been to his father. “To the straits,” I said. “To Scylla.”
I watched the words register. He maneuvered the prow with competent hands.
“You are not frightened?”
“You warned me it was not safe,” he said. “I do not think being frightened will help.”
The sea flowed by. We passed the island where I had stopped with Daedalus on the way to Crete. The beach was still there, and I glimpsed a grove of almond trees. The storm-blasted poplar would be long gone by now, crumbled to earth.
A pale smudge appeared on the horizon. With each hour it grew, belling like smoke. I knew what it was. “Pull down the sail,” I said. “We have business here first.”
Over the rail we caught twelve fish, large as we could find. They thrashed, spraying cold drops of salt across the deck. I pinched my herbs into their gasping mouths and spoke the word. The old cracking sound, the tearing of flesh, and then they were fish no more, but twelve rams, fat and addled. They jostled, eyes rolling, packed against each other in the small space. It was a blessing—they would not have been able to stand otherwise. They were not used to having feet.
Telemachus had to climb over them to get to the oars. “It may be a little hard to row.”
“They will not be here long.”
He frowned at one. “Do they taste like mutton?”
“I don’t know.” I lifted from my herb bag the small clay pot that I had filled the night before. It was stoppered with wax and had a looped handle. With a length of leather cord, I tied it around the largest ram’s neck.
We unfurled the sail. I had warned Telemachus about the mist and spray, and he had a pair of oars ready in makeshift locks. They were awkward, for the boat was meant for sails, but they would help us through if the wind died completely. “We must keep moving,” I told him. “No matter what.”
He nodded, as if it would be that easy. I knew better. The spear was in my hand, tipped with its poisonous spine, but I had seen how fast she was. I had told Odysseus once that there was no withstanding her. Yet here I was again.
Lightly, I touched Telemachus’ shoulder and whispered a charm. I felt the illusion gather over him: he was gone, bare deck, empty air. It would not hold up to scrutiny, but it would hide him from her passing glance. He watched, asking no questions. He trusted me. I turned away, abrupt, to face the prow.
The mist drifted over us. My hair grew damp, and the sucking sound of the whirlpool reached us across the waves. Charybdis, men had named that vortex. It had claimed its share of sailors, all those who tried to avoid Scylla’s appetite. The rams pressed against me, swaying. They made no sound, as real sheep would have. They did not know how to use their throats. I pitied them, in their trembling, monstrous forms.
The straits loomed, and we slipped into their mouth. I glanced at Telemachus. He held the oars ready, his eyes alert. Hairs lifted on my neck. What had I done? I should never have brought him.
The smell struck me, familiar even after so long: rot and hate. And then she came, slithering out of the gray fog. Those old lumpen heads of hers crept along the cliff, rasping as they went. Her bloodshot gaze was fixed on the rams, reeking of fat and fear.
“Come!” I cried.
She struck. Six rams were snatched up in six wide-split jaws. She darted back with them into the mist. I heard bones crunching, the wet gulping of her throats. Blood drizzled down the cliff face.
I had time for a single glance at Telemachus. The wind was nearly dead, and he was rowing now, intent. The sweat stood out on his arms.
Scylla returned, heads weaving with malevolence. Tufts of fleece showed between her teeth.
“Now the rest,” I said.
She took the other six so fast there was no time to count the beat between my words and their vanishing. The ram with the pot had been among them. I tried to listen for its clay shattering in her teeth, but I could make out nothing above the sounds of bones and flesh.
Last night, beneath the cold moon, I had milked the spear’s poison. It had trickled, clear and thin, into my polished bronze bowl. I had added dittany, gathered so long ago from Crete, cypress root, shards of my cliffs and soil from my garden, and last of all my own red blood. The liquid had foamed and turned yellow. All this I had put into that pot, then sealed it with wax. The draught would be slipping down her throat by now, pooling in her guts.
I thought twelve sheep would have dulled the edge of her hunger, but when she returned her eyes looked the same as ever, greedy and ravening. As if it were not her belly she fed, but an undying rage.
“Scylla!” I lifted the spear. “It is I, Circe, daughter of Helios, witch of Aiaia.”
She shrieked, that old baying cacophony, clawing at my ears, but there was no recognition in it.
“Long ago I changed you to this form from the nymph you were. I come now with Trygon’s power to make an end to what I began.”
And into the mist-soaked air, I spoke the word of my will.
She hissed. Her gaze held not the slightest hint of curiosity. Her heads wove on, searching over the deck as if there might be sheep she had overlooked. Behind me, I could hear Telemachus straining at the oars. Our sail hung limp; he was all that kept us moving forward.
I saw the instant her eyes pierced my illusion and spotted him. She moaned, low and eager.
“No!” I brandished the spear. “This mortal is under my protection. You will suffer eternal agony if you try to take him. You see I have Trygon’s tail.”
She screamed again. Her breath washed over me, stink and searing heat. The heads were weaving faster in her excitement. They snapped the air, long strands of drool swinging from their jaws. She was afraid of the spear, but that would not hold her for long. She had come to like the taste of mortal flesh. She craved it. Stark, black terror rolled through me. I would have sworn I had felt the spell take hold. Had I been wrong? Panic drenched my shoulders. I would have to fight her six ravening heads at once. I was no trained warrior. One of them would get by me and then Telemachus—I would not let myself finish the thought. My mind spat through ideas, all useless: spells that could not touch her, poisons I did not have, gods who would not come to my aid. I could tell Telemachus to jump and swim, but there was nowhere to go. The only path safe from her reach would take him into the devouring whirlpool of Charybdis.
I set myself between her and Telemachus, spear out-thrust, nerves drawn up. I must wound her before she gets by me, I told myself. I must at least get Trygon’s poison in her blood. I braced for the blow.
It did not come. One of her mouths was working strangely, jaws hinging and unhinging. A choking noise came from deep within her chest. She gagged, and a yellow foam ran over her teeth.
“What is it?” I heard Telemachus say. “What’s happening?”
There was no time for an answer. Her body sagged out of the mist. I had never seen it before, gelatinous and huge. As we watched, it scraped down the cliffside above us. Her heads squealed and bucked, as if trying to haul it back up again. But it only sank further, as inexorably as if it were weighted with stones. I could see now the beginnings of her legs, those twelve monstrous tentacles stretching away from her body into the mist. She kept them hidden always, Hermes had told me, coiled in the cave among the bones and bits of old flesh, gripping the cave’s stone so that the rest of her might dart down for her meals and return.
Scylla’s heads were snapping and whining, rearing back to bite their own necks. Her gray skin was streaked with yellow foam and her own red blood. A noise began like a boulder drawn across the earth, and suddenly a gray blur tumbled past us, smashing the waves beside our boat. The deck dipped wildly, and I nearly lost my balance. When I was steady again I found myself staring at one of her huge legs. It hung limp off her body, thick as the oldest oak on Aiaia, its end disappearing into the waves.