CIRCE

What worse punishment could there be, my family thought, than to be deprived of their divine presence?

“Why did he leave?” The question was like an oak seedling, I thought. A simple, green shoot above, but underneath the taproot burrowed, spreading deep. I took a breath.

I stood beneath the sun, waiting for an answer: a sizzling thunderbolt. Athena’s gray spear, pinning my heart to the rock. I could hear myself panting a little. The weight of those spells was dragging at my neck like a yoke. They were too great to stand by themselves, and hour after hour I would have to carry them with me, brace them up with my wil

This was how mortals found fame, I thought. Through practice and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun.

I had a little pride, as I have said, and that was good. More would have been fatal.

It is hard to describe what happened next. A knowledge woke in the depths of my blood. It whispered: that the strength of those flowers lay in their sap, which could transform any creature to its truest self.

But I pressed his face into my mind, as seals are pressed in wax, so I could carry it with me.

lay on the dirt, weeping. Those flowers had made him his true being, which was blue, and finned, and not mine. I thought I would die of such pain, which was not like the sinking numbness Aeëtes had left behind, but sharp and fierce as a blade through my chest. But of course I could not die.

Around me was murk and dark currents. I set Telegonus’ bright face before me. I reached. My hand passed through empty water, touching nothing. The creature was floating in front of me again, its flat gaze on mine. It is finished. My mind was black as that water. It was as if time had skipped. “I do not understand.” You would have touched the poison