She sang as she worked, trimming the thinnest strips of leather from the nest of her perch, one eye upon the sea, though she knew in her heart she would see no sails upon it. Not if what the handmaiden had said was true, and Aglaope had no reason to doubt her, for waylaying every ship that passed was certainly something Circe would do.
After she had cut the strips with the bronze knife—a gift from Akheloios himself, the last time he had come, in answer to her mother’s song—she braided them carefully, testing the strength and give as she went. It would be a crude weapon, she knew, and she had little practice with such a tool, for the sling Butes-Akheloios had used to hunt the seabirds for her grandmother had long ago frayed and crumbled into nothing.
But it was as her grandmother had said the night before, after all. She must simply have patience and faith. And she certainly had no shortage of rocks to throw while she refined her aim.
Aglaope sang her thanks to the gods, that day. She sang for the strength and skill to see her plan through. And while she sang and worked, she let the handmaiden’s words turn over in her thoughts.
Circe held a hero captive, a man of fame and renown, as well as immortal blood. Odysseus, she had called him. Grandson of Autolycus, the son of Hermes. Bred from the Giant-Killer, the fleet-footed, the friend of travelers and thieves. Surely if there was any man living with the talent to thread the rocks of her island without losing his ship, it would be a man of Hermes’s blood, that hero in Circe’s clutches. And just as surely, she would not hold him if she did not think he might sail too near.
And if he was half the hero the handmaiden had boasted of, even Circe could not hold him for long.
Akheloios, come to me...
Aglaope need only survive until he slipped her leash, and then—then she would sing with all she had left inside her, and pray to the gods it would be enough.
Anthousa was still wailing with rage into the setting sun when Aglaope dropped the last arm length from her perch, the falcon’s cooling body tucked into her belt.
“We’ll have meat tonight, Mama!” she called, half-skipping to the sheltered nook where they made their beds, cooked and ate, the three of them together. “It will be a feast for three!”
“A seabird?” her mother asked.
Aglaope dropped the falcon into her hands. “Better.”
Her mother gasped. “Oh, Aglaope, what have you done?”
“Fed us,” she said, pleased still with her success. “And given that handmaiden something to fear, too. If I can knock the witch’s falcons from the sky, perhaps the seabirds will return again, and we need not starve any longer.”
But her mother did not seem to share her pleasure, her expression stricken instead of smiling, though her fingers did not hesitate in the work of readying the bird for their supper. “I fear Circe will not forgive it, my love. She will punish us even further for such an offense as this.”
“Circe will be busy enough with the men she must keep entertained upon her island, to stop them from sailing on toward us. She will not have a thought to spare for a single falcon, lost. Not if what her handmaiden says is true about the man she holds hostage now. A hero bred of Hermes’s own blood, though he is only the grandson of the god’s son. She would not be half so determined in starving us out if she did not think he might sail into our song and save us.”
“Even if he escapes, she is bound to have stripped him of provisions for the journey,” her mother said, shaking her head. “He will come to us with nothing but the flesh upon his bones, if he comes at all.”
“He will sail his way through our rocks to tether his ship safe upon our shore!”
Her mother sighed, shaking her head slowly in response. “You dream such dreams, girl.”
She was stung by her mother’s dismissal. “Even if he doesn’t manage such a feat as that, perhaps Akheloios is among his crew,” she argued. “I cannot sing forever, and I will not have the strength of my youth for much longer, either, if Circe and Anthousa keep on. He must come.”
“Draw a cauldron of seawater to scald this fool bird, Aglaope, and do not think so much about the rest. The gods give and take as they see fit, and there’s no purpose in wasting your strength in worrying.”
“But Mama—”
“The water, Aglaope, if you wish to eat before this bird of yours goes stiff and tough, and takes more work to chew than it’s worth—if it isn’t already bringing us more trouble than we need, and all because of your dreaming.”
“Do not be so churlish, Ligeia,” her grandmother said, from her bed on the other side of the fire. “The girl has brought us a meal we would not have otherwise, and we should be glad of that much. What Circe does or doesn’t do can hardly make things worse.”
Her mother sniffed, but her shoulders drooped, her head dipping slightly. “Water, Aglaope,” she said again, but kinder. “And I’ll have the blood drained and cooking by the time you return.”
Aglaope’s jaw tightened, but she did not argue. It would serve nothing to do so, no matter how much she might wish it. Her mother would never understand, and neither would her grandmother—not truly. To them, she would always be a child with a head full of dreams. But at least her grandmother did not begrudge her the right. The right to dream and hope for something better, something more than this hungry, miserable life.
But as she walked past their small cistern, filled by the winter rains and from which they drew their fresh water so carefully during the long dry summer, she could not help but notice how low the water level was. Not for the first time, either, but in the back of her mind, she wondered if perhaps it would be the last.
And what will you do, Siren, if the rains do not come?
Goddess or witch, surely Circe had no spells powerful enough to halt the rains.
Did she?
The falcon did not offer much in the way of meat, truly, but it was still more food than they’d eaten in a moon, at least. The bones were thrown into a second pot of fresh water to boil and brew, with the last pinch of herbs from the shipwreck before Circe’s, to make a heartier broth for the coming days, and for the first time in what felt like seasons, Aglaope did not fall asleep with her stomach still grumbling.
But she tossed and turned all the same, worrying over Anthousa’s threats, and her mother’s words. Had she truly doomed them all by killing Circe’s falcon? Or had they been doomed already, whether she angered Circe by such an act or not?
Likely the latter, she decided, staring up at the stars. If Circe had power over the rains, she would use it. She already had meant to, by the handmaiden’s own words. Just as she meant to stop Akheloios, should he travel her way, to prevent him from coming to save them.
And no matter what her mother said, Aglaope was beginning to think Circe held him already, keeping the deathless god from his wives, his daughters, from giving her the child they would need to live on, trapped upon their rocky island.
Aglaope could not stand the thought of succumbing to such a scheme. She could not stand the thought of remaining here, forgotten and starving, year after year. If Akheloios was not Odysseus himself, he was certainly among his crew, just waiting for the opportunity to leap from the ship and swim toward her song. She had to hope, to pray, that his power was greater than Circe’s own. That Akheloios would find his way to her, and then, together, they would find their way off this desolate island, and back to the rich, green earth.
The thought settled her, and Aglaope let her eyes drift closed.
And that night, when sleep finally claimed her, she dreamed of flying.
Her shoulder blades itched all the next day, as if her back longed to spread the wings she only knew in her dreams. As if her body remembered it was meant to fly, not climb, to reach her nest upon the spire, and watch dawn’s rose-red fingers stretch across the sky.
Circe’s handmaiden did not come that morning, and Aglaope smiled, smug and satisfied with her work. A day without the constant heckling, or the taunting of a falcon’s flapping wing
s above her head. She sang of joy and victory, even in something so small, thanking the gods for the skill they had given her to bring the falcon down, and praying for protection too, that Circe’s anger might not harm them any longer.
And of course she sang for a ship, with food and supplies, but more than that, too. She sang for Odysseus, born of Hermes’s blood, to slip free from Circe’s bindings and sail on. Let him come, she prayed. Let him come, and let him find his way through our rocks in his sleek, black ship, whole and sound and safe.
Let him come, and take me away.
* * *
III
The food and broth from the falcon’s flesh and bone ought to have made them stronger, and Aglaope certainly felt the better for eating. While the broth lasted, and she chewed upon the last hard scraps of smoked and salted meat, the climb to the spire became easier, and the long days of song left no rasp in her voice.
But her grandmother still spent her days in her furs, chilled even in full sun, and too weak to rise but for the most urgent and basic needs. Ligeia cared for her as best as she was able, even using a cloth soaked in precious sweet water to bathe her face of the dust and salt that could not be escaped.
“Do not fuss over me,” Thelxiope said, pushing her mother’s hand away when she moved to wipe her brow. “I am old and tired, and that is all.”
“You are ill,” Ligeia said sharply. “Not simply old or tired, but feverish too.”
Aglaope hesitated in the shadow of the rocks, unnoticed still by the two. This was the first mention of illness she had heard and the words twisted her stomach.
“It is nothing,” Thelxiope said. “Only the same ebb every woman faces as she ages, growing cold and dry like a husk. And it will come for you, too, Daughter, in your time, should you live long enough to see it.”
“Hush,” her mother said. “Of course we will live. Truly, Mother, you sound like Aglaope with such nonsense, now.”
“She is not wrong to worry, Ligeia,” Thelxiope chided, and Aglaope’s heart warmed. Perhaps her grandmother did not only humor her, after all. “You know as well as I do that we have never suffered so long between ships as we do now. That fool war of theirs—the Trojans and the Achaeans—it has drained the life from so many. Fewer men to sail, and even fewer who are willing to venture far from their homes after so many years away, not while they still live fat and happy upon their spoils.”
“It will not last,” her mother said. “Akheloios will not let us starve. He never has before.”
“Akheloios can only do so much, and if Circe will not be swayed—child, we have only survived so long as we have because the birds found our island a welcome place to nest. So many winters, I remember. So many winters we lived on little more than eggs and fowl. But tell me, Ligeia, what will we eat this winter, with Circe’s falcons keeping the birds away?”
“She will lose interest in us soon enough, if Aglaope would only stop needling her so,” her mother insisted, making Aglaope flush. Ligeia would never understand her, nor did she seem to realize that the witch’s anger would not be so easily forgotten, as long as it had already lasted. “And Circe will not send her handmaiden out upon a winter sea. They would be just as likely to founder upon our rocks as any other ship in a storm, and provide us with food enough for a moon at least should we find the body before it is washed away. The birds will return then, and roost, and we will live another season on their eggs and meager flesh, you’ll see.”
“I pray that you are right, my dear. Truly. But better to prepare ourselves for the worst, do you not think? And better still not to scold your daughter for speaking aloud what we all wish for.”
Ligeia sighed. “She will only be disappointed, Mother. And you should not encourage these dreams of hers with your storytelling. Butes-Akheloios was a fine man, and in a time of plenty, it is all well and good to let such a man sail away to make his name. But a swollen belly is not the only gift Akheloios gives by the men he brings us, and I fear she will not have the will to do what she must, should the body of her lover come back to us.”
“If she is hungry enough, she will accept the nourishment that is given, regardless of its source,” Thelxiope said. “As she has done before. As we all have done, in our time. She has not balked before.”
“It was not her child, of her body. Nor was it her lover, upon whom we feasted. You do not tell her the whole truth of our circumstance, only of the joy and pleasure.”
But Aglaope had heard enough, her skin prickling with anger. As if she did not know! As if she had not lived upon her own sister’s flesh! She strode forward from her shadowed niche, and Ligeia fell silent at once, her gaze flicking away and her face flushing red.
“You are not wrong, Mother,” Aglaope said. “I will not do what has always been done. I will not blithely accept my fate, exiled upon these rocks, and I will not sit by and wait in the hope that Circe will tire of starving us. I will leave, when the opportunity comes. And if that means it is my body that washes back, bloated and rotten, my flesh all that is left for you to eat, then so be it. As you have said a thousand times before, why should I worry? In death I will be by our goddess’s side. In death, perhaps, I will even fly.”
And she left them, climbing back up to her nest atop the spire to spend the night, where she could dream and hope and pray out from beneath her mother’s sharp eye.
Ligeia wanted to keep faith, and that was all well and good. But it seemed to Aglaope that it was far more likely the gods would help them more if they did what they could to help themselves as well. Perhaps it was because they had not acted, in all these years, which had kept them in this miserable place.
Seven days passed without Circe’s falcons circling above her head, and Aglaope sang to the seabirds, who were still too wary to settle upon the rocks, praying to the gods that they would calm before Anthousa might return. In truth, she spent more time upon the spire in her nest than she did below, avoiding Ligeia as much as she could, though it meant in large part spurning her grandmother as well.
But Thelxiope seemed to shrivel more with every day that passed, her skin dry and wrinkled, thin and delicate as onion peel. It would be too late for her, Aglaope feared. Far too late before the seabirds calmed enough to roost and brood, and they had eggs to thicken their broth and seaweed soup.
“Do not fret,” Thelxiope said, when she joined her for their evening meal—though there was little left to share. “When I am gone, my body will strengthen yours. It will be enough to see you through the winter, I hope, even if Circe’s falcons scare the birds away.”
“I wish you would not speak so,” Aglaope said, blinking back the pressure behind her eyes—she was far too thirsty to waste what water they had on tears. “I need your spirit, not your body. Your love and your support, when Mother will not listen.”
“You are old enough now, dear girl, that you will make her listen when it is needful,” Thelxiope said. “And no matter what she says, or how she argues, it is your strength that supports her. Your voice upon which she relies.”
“She does not care,” Aglaope said. “To her, it does not matter if we live or die.”
“It is what she tells herself to quiet her fears, that’s true, but not what she feels inside. You are old enough to realize that, too, surely.”
Aglaope tucked the furs more closely around her grandmother’s shoulders. “We need you.”
“You need food,” Thelxiope said. “And with one less mouth to feed, it will stretch all the further.”
She hated knowing it was true—hated herself for having already thought it, too. “I wish you had sailed away with Butes-Akheloios,” she said instead. “I wish you were lying in a soft, rope-strung bed, fleeces piled beneath you a handspan thick, with maids to see to your every need, your every breath.”
“Perhaps I will see him again, yet,” her grandmother said, chuckling softly. “But there is no knowing that I would have ever had the rest, even if I had gone with him across the water to his rich lands. I m
ight just as easily have died upon the sea, or in childbirth after the strain of such a journey.”
Aglaope snorted. “Strain! What do those women with their full bellies and blazing fires know of strain? You’d have put them all to shame with your strength, your endurance.”
“Until I became fat and happy, or even sick from so much strange food.”
“Sick upon food!” Aglaope smiled. “Surely it is not possible. Not for a Siren, used to corpses and carrion and rot.”
“It would be the honey, I’m certain. You know they douse their fruits and nuts in it, until it is dripping with sticky sweetness, or so I have heard.”
“They would not force you to eat it, though,” she said. “When there are so many options, so much to choose from—surely they do not eat everything presented at every feast.”
“Perhaps they do! Though how their men stay so trim upon their ships, I cannot imagine if it is so. You must promise me that you will, though. That you will taste every flavor of every dish that is set before you, until you are all curves and softness, without a bone in sight.”
Aglaope laughed, feeling lighter for the teasing. “I swear it upon the Styx, my most solemn vow. I will never turn a cup or bowl away, should I find myself at such a banquet. And my children, too, will be as plump and round as I can make them.”
“That is a fine thought,” Thelxiope said, closing her eyes. “A very fine thought indeed.”
Aglaope smoothed her grandmother’s white hair. “I hope Persephone will let you see it. Perhaps she will bring you with her to serve upon Olympus when she goes, and grant you the merest glimpse of the world below.”
But Thelxiope said nothing in response, and Aglaope’s breath caught with fear until she saw her chest rise and fall, rise and fall, steady still, if not particularly strong. She kissed her grandmother’s forehead and left her to her sleep—praying the gods would give her happy dreams, at least.
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