There was a desire within me to keep her here.
I wanted to continue hearing her voice.
I wanted to continue looking at her.
“Like in the story,” I said, afraid of saying anything more that would easily offend her.
But Circe smiled. “You’ve been listening.” She glanced sideways at the leather book poking out of the bag she’d brought. “My mother wrote the book,” she explained, sadness soaking her voice. “I hadn’t had the courage to read it until I found you.”
I studied her profile while I had the chance. “Daughter of the sun.”
She faced me again. “Hm?”
“Circe means daughter of the sun,” I repeated.
The corner of her mouth jumped with quickness. “Well, I promise not to pull a knife on you today unless, of course, you give me a reason to do so. And if that’s the case, I know how to do it correctly this time.”
Leaning back, I allowed her to examine my tattered bandage that was still damp with blood.
“May I?” she asked, and I nodded.
When Circe unwrapped it, she darted a nervous glance up at me. “It’s been almost a week, and it’s still bleeding. I don’t get it.” She shook her head, her mind benumbed. “For some reason, you’re not healing.”
Circe’s fingers lingered across the sensitive, bruised skin on my side, tracing the colors of my stomach, and I couldn’t speak. Her touch was delicate, light, and intense for a man who’d hardly been touched at all.
I closed my eyes, trying to control myself from reacting.
Then Circe pulled her hand away and shuffled to her bag.
When I opened my eyes, the scent of vanilla from her hair engulfed me as she turned back around. I stayed quiet, watching her return to my side with a small jar and a metal box.
“I’ll need to stitch you up to stop the bleeding. It won’t feel pleasant,” Circe said, soft and careful. “I wish I had something to numb the pain.”
“Why do you choose to help me?” My voice sounded like it didn’t belong to me. It sounded confused. Perhaps at the lengths she’d taken for me when I’d done nothing to deserve her assistance.
Circe bit into her bottom lip in deep thought, the jar twisting in her hands.
She was nervous as was I.
Then finally—“Just because a ship is inside a glass bottle does not mean it is safer than a ship at sea. Anyone could decide to reach their fingers into the bottle and pluck it out. Not all at once, though. It will be piece by piece until there is nothing left.” She paused and sucked in a breath as though she’d taken a blow to the chest. “At least the ship at sea has a chance to sail away.” Her fingers stopped when her eyes met mine, and she lifted a shoulder. “You’re my sailing away.”
A long bout of silence stretched. It had taken longer than it should to process Circe’s words, and it occurred to me that she’d revealed more than I’d expected and more than she may have wanted. But there was a sameness between us—something I had never had with anyone else. We had been trapped in places where we couldn’t come up for air.
“What are you sailing away from?”
Circe opened the jar and dipped her finger inside, unwilling to answer.
I remained quiet with her refusal, trying to steady my breath and the jagged rise of my stomach as she spread the ointment across my skin.
Her touch was gentle but also felt like she was flaying me open.
I glanced down, and at the ends of her lilac half-moon-shaped fingernails, there was a silver star. They were odd—a decoration on fingers I’d never seen before. And when she held the needle over the fire, I caught sight of four small stab-like wounds on the inside of her palm.
Perhaps she was trying to sail away from herself.
Circe’s fingers shook, and the needle dropped into the sand. She leaned over, swiping hair from her eyes, and plucked the needle from the ground.
“Sorry,” she hesitated. “I’ve sewn over a hundred dresses but never sutured a wound. This is a first for me.”
