“Four summers ago.”
***
I rose early the next day, as I often did.
Outside Laertes’s cottage, the world slumbered on, draped in pale mist. Overhead, the moon still clung stubbornly to the sky, a faded slash cut through the morning light.
Laertes’s home was nestled amid rolling fields bordered by thick woodland, a tiny pocket of solitude. It was a strange life here, serving a reclusive, half-mad master. Some days, it felt as if I were not really living at all but rather lost between existences. Like an unburied soul trapped on the edge of the river Styx, denied entry to the realm beyond yet no longer welcome in the land of the living.
I sometimes feared I would go as mad as Laertes. Solitude had a way of creeping into my mind and taking root in the gaps there. Yet there was peace to be found in the stillness. The unending silences were an empty void for my thoughts to fill, forcing me to acknowledge that voice in my head I had so often ignored. For the first time in a long while, I allowed myself to think on my past—the good and the bad—and gradually, I began to realize how tired I was of hiding from those memories.
I walked through fields, following the familiar path my feet had trodden many times before, until I began to hear those slow, sleepy sighs. The sound beckoned me forward until the trees thinned andspilled out onto a small, sandy beach. I took off my sandals and stood at the water’s edge, letting the waves kiss my feet in eager greeting.
I closed my eyes and listened, though it was not the sea I heard before me. It washer. Those sweet, drowsy breaths as she slept beside me.
Four summers.
It was hard to describe how it felt to be without Penelope. It was like missing a piece of my body I could not name, her absence painfully ineffable yet constantly present. In the stillness of the night, I often imagined I could feel her missing me, too, like a cry through the darkness that only my heart could hear. Sometimes, that was enough, just knowing that Penelope longed for me, that our distance hurt her also.
Other times, it felt like torture—to know she wanted this as desperately as I did, and still, we could never have it.
I would return to Penelope one day, I promised myself. I just had to learn first to control my feelings for her. But loving Penelope was in my blood, my bones, my soul.
How could I unlearn that?
I walked toward the rocky cliff that cupped the beach like a weathered hand. Here Laertes had erected a grave for his son, carving a statue of Odysseus straight into the rock face, rendering him with impressive detail. Laertes might have lost his grip on reality, but his artistic hand was still staggeringly skilled.
I stared at Odysseus’s cold face and felt a familiar rage stir inside me.
Four summers and he had not returned.
Four summers.
What could have kept him for so long? The war was long over, so what reason could Odysseus possibly have for not returning to his wife? His son? His throne?
He was not dead, that much was known. Sightings had been reported since Troy had fallen, rumors of Odysseus’s adventures with Cyclopes and sirens and witches. I only knew such stories becauseheralds visited Laertes’s cottage to relay news of his son. Though it was a futile exercise. These days, the old king only listened to the voices in his head.
“You do not deserve her,” I told the stone-faced Odysseus. “You never did.”
The statue just stared back at me with dead eyes.
***
I spent my days working in the fields surrounding Laertes’s home.
The king had once been a proficient farmer, but his expertise seemed to have wandered with the rest of his mind. Often, I found him digging in the dirt, muttering to himself about something he had lost. I usually left him to it and did what I could to tidy up his mistakes, though I knew very little about tending to plants. Still, there was something soothing about working the land, getting my hands dirty, and keeping my mind focused, wearing out my body so that sleep would find me quickly each night.
I was busy planting seeds when I heard the distant bleating. Squinting, I spied shifting dark forms spilling across the fields, accompanied by a familiar figure. I raised my hand in greeting, and the figure waved back.
“Hello, sister,” Melanthius said once he finally reached me.
His nut-brown eyes were clearer than I had seen them in a long while.
“Wait there. I’ll fetch you something.” I rose, dusting the dirt from my knees.
Melanthius nodded gratefully as I disappeared into Laertes’s house. Despite it being midmorning, the king was still fast asleep. He often slept through days at a time, and I knew better than to wake him.
I returned to my brother with a plate of bread and cheese. He took it with an appreciative nod, and we sat down together in companionable silence.
