CIRCE

“Mother? Can you not be happy for me?” No, I wanted to shout at him. No, I cannot. Why must I be happy? Is it not enough that I let you go?

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

I had painted his history in bright, bold colors, and he had fallen in love with my art.

“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.

‘Sweet son,’ I said, ‘you are right, this world is a wild and terrible place, and worth shouting at. But you are safe now, and all of us need to sleep. Will you let us have a little peace?’

Whatever you do, I wanted to say, do not be too happy. It will bring down fire on your head.

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

I caught a bee and made it into a toad, and a scorpion into a mouse. There I discovered at last the limits of my power. However potent the mixture, however well woven the spell, the toad kept trying to fly, and the mouse to sting. Transformation touched only bodies, not minds.

I felt as if I were untethered from the earth. Odysseus was gone, and Penelope was here, and I must make her broth.