I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.

He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.

‘That is how things go. You fix them, and they go awry, and then you fix them again.’

‘The roof drains there,’ I said. ‘Those flagstones will only wobble again after the next rain.’ ‘That is how things go. You fix them, and they go awry, and then you fix them again.’

‘What makes a witch, then? If it is not divinity?’ ‘I do not know for certain,’ I said. ‘I once thought it was passed through blood, but Telegonus has no spells in him. I have come to believe it is mostly will.’

I remembered what Odysseus had said about her once. That she never went astray, never made an error. I had been jealous then. Now I thought: what a burden. What an ugly weight upon your back.

‘It is strange to think of a goddess needing friends.’ ‘All creatures that are not mad need them.’

But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

‘It is likely you are not a witch,’ I said. ‘But you are something else. Something you have not found yet. And that is why you go.’