Eulises
"Are you staring at me?" lying in bed. I gently pulled the covers over us both. It was the first night we spent together. Really spent together. We'd shared a bed on our wedding night, but then we'd fallen asleep talking. Now we were finally, safely, home.
"I get to look at you," I said, tracking a scar on her arm, watching her sleep, curled up like a kitten, soft yellow hair starting to stick to her cheeks.
"Yeah, but you could be sleeping. I like sleeping," she mumbled, face in pillow.
"Okay then, go back to sleep. I'll be here, worshiping every part of you," I said, running a hand down her arm to her bare thigh, then back.
"Actively waking me up you mean? Come here," she opened her deep brown eyes and drew me to her, "You get to keep me forever you know. That's part of the deal."
"Good, I plan on it," I said, kissing her collar bone.
"Is anyone going to be looking for us?" she asked, snuggling closer to me and wrapping her arms around me.
"No, I said we were not to be disturbed. You'll find the servants are more than happy to have directives not to come around me," I said.
"Good, I want you to myself, once we sleep for another few hours," she closed her eyes again and snuggled her face back into the pillow.
"Okay," I said, quietly, and she pressed my face into her chest. I inhaled the smell of her skin, closing my eyes again. Rosewater, she had rosewater on her skin. That was the smell mixed with the smell of her. I wanted to hold onto that moment forever. Soft, safe, warm, in my own bed with my own wife. The only person I'd ever wanted to spend time around. Holding her in my arms and not ever letting go.
I wake, stiff and surprisingly sore.
"Hello," the goddess Athena sits on the wall opposite with me, her legs crossed with mine.
"Morning, Goddess," I say, opening my eyes lazily.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I was sleeping, I can't abide the beds not anymore," I am of course on the floor near the corner of the room. I can't sleep in solid bed. Too many nights on the ground. And I slept sitting up lest anyone come in. I'm wearing the clothes they gave me and leaning upon a bag that they provided me with.
I try to stand up and unlace my legs from hers, but she neatly puts her legs back through mine again so I'm forced to stay down.
"Yes?" I ask, innocently. She's dressed as a man as she often is, though her countenance is familiar as ever with her sharp grey eyes.
"Do you have an explanation for this?" she pokes the bag.
"I have in fact four, you may select one that prefer and then we'll go with thatâ,"
"Eulises, these are good people," she sighs.
"There are no good people."
"I sent that girl to find you. I wouldn't have if they meant you ill they do not," she says.
"I'll believe that when I'm not poisoned or just murdered," I inform her.
"You trust me."
"I trust no one, goddess, that's why I'm still alive and incidentally why you like me," I say.
"I don't like you."
"There it is, neither of us like anyone that's why we're a pair."
"Stop being so clever and correct; it's insufferable. The bag. Really?"
"So I took their jewels. They shouldn't have worn them if they wanted to keep them," I scoff.
"Picking their jewels from their wrists and necks is one thing, but telling them you'd seen a prowler so they'd go and check their safes of money so that you could go back and rob it later that night was excessive."
"Oh, so you know all about it. There. You didn't need an explanation goddess," I say, shrugging, and trying to free my legs again. She traps me again.
"You've been spending too much time with my brother," she says, critically.
I shrug.
"You are safe here, they will not harm you. You are going home," she says.
I say nothing.
"You are going home, look at me, I'm getting you home. Have I abandoned you yet?"
I look at her, eyes bloodshot.
"I know. I'm sorry. I can't---I got you off didn't I?"
"What's left to go back?" I ask, quietly, "I nearly killed those boys last night what am I going to do when my son walks up behind me? What is my wife going to see when she looks at me? I am not the man that left nor the man she married."
"You are her husband, and she wants you more than anything, you survived. Now you're going home."
"I survived at what cost?"
"War always has a cost. You said you could pay the price of winning," she says, coolly.
"I'm still paying it," I hear my voice cracking.
"But still reap your reward. Go home."
"Where is Ithaca? I don't know where I am it was cloudy I could not spy starsâ,"
"So that's why I'm here. To tell you. In advance."
"Oh goddess please no, no," I say, putting my face in my hands.
"It does in factâyesâinvolve the oceans," she says, holding up a hand.
"I told you I'd cross a million oceans and walk ten thousand miles to get back to you, my perfect one. I just had no idea the oceans would be attempting to murder me," I say, looking up at the ceiling.
"One more voyage, and it's not longâ,"
"All right," I sigh, steeling myself.
"Just like that?"
"Would you have come if it weren't just like that?" I ask.
She shrugs.
"Why me?" I ask.
"It's moderately your fault you're cursed you know."
"No, not that, I'm well aware of that, and the earth shaker can hold his grudge as long as he likes---I'm saying why me about you? You don't have to do this," I say, looking at her.
"Are you asking because you don't trust me? Or because you want to know?"
"It can be both."
"I'll give you half an answer."
"I'll take it."
"Sometimes women have children and don't want them. Usually my sister takes care of that, but sometimesâI know what it feels. Not to really be wanted."
"I know about my biological father," I know my mother didn't want to have me. I know she never saw him again. That's all I know and all I need to. My mother brought in a wetnurse when I was born. And she didn't hold me very much I recall. She'd put me in my room and that was it. She wasn't cruel to me but it took years for her to be kind. Once I started talking in earnest, then she started liking me better. I reminded her of her then, I suppose. But at the time it was the only reward I got from her, and I got it for endless chatter.
"Usually I just watch, but you're different aren't you? You're clever. I like clever. You weigh everything by intellect, just as I do. Your son is the same."
"Have you spoken to him?" I ask, quietly.
"Yes."
"Did you tell him I'm still alive?"
"I did, he believes it I think," she says, "But he didn't know it was me. I didn't appear as myself."
"Is this yourself?"
"It is to you."
I nod.
"I'll distract my uncle now," she says, standing.
"Thank you," I say, quietly.
"Go home, Eulises," she smiles then. I do not.
They let me go without any trouble, which is to my surprise. In the end they thank me for my time. And give me money for my journey, wishing me well. I don't know what I say, something clever and polite I suppose.
Then I go to the harbor. The wide ocean, still now, stretches before me. I pay my fare for the ferry, clutching my bag, my head low.
"Are you all right, there?"
"I'm not, excellent with the ocean," I am in the middle of the ferry, up against the wall of the pilot house, while everyone else is crowded at the rails watching the treacherous waves.
"Get sea sick do you?" the man asks, nicely.
"The sea is sick of I, I prefer to say, shh, I ought not speak," I say, shivering, arms around my knees.
"Have you ever been to Ithaca?"
"Not for many years."
I sit there like that, watching the waves far off meeting the sky. No sign of land. I'm dressed in simple clothes, no one notes me, even as my heart quickens. I'm too worn to actually believe happiness is before. It means nothing. The ship will sink and I'll not even be surprised. I can't believe it's true.
It's not true.
The day drifts closer towards night. And the sun sets off the coast, illuminating preciously familiar mountains. No.
Tears are in my eyes. I crawl to the edge of the deck, clinging to the rail, barely able to stand.
Home.
Ithaca. Within my sights. Here.
"Oi, the ferry does dock you know---,"
I leap over the side, and splash through the last of the waves, crawling to the sand. I grip it, unable to see past my tears.
Home.
I run down the dock. I know every step. My father used to send me to get the mail from the ships. Every step is familiar to me. My aching, sea worn bones cry for mercy but I ignore it.
It doesn't matter.
I'm home. I am home. I will be home tonight.
I run through town. No one even looks twice at me. Dripping wet as I am, sandy, war weary and beaten. I look like nobody at all.
I trip several times. It doesn't matter. I love the ground beneath my feet. I know every rock. The smell of the trees, the way the suns last rays wrap around the fence posts.
I'm on my way home. I will hold my wife in my arms and call her every beautiful name ever invented. And I will be home. And it will be over. It will finally be over.
I'm out of breath by the time I make it to the lane that leads to my estate. Mine. My home. I'm almost home. I'm actually almost home. I'm almost home.
I run the rest of the way to the gates. They're locked of course. I clutch them, believing this has been real. Of course I have no key. And the lock is different. Different dogs bark from the front steps.
I climb over the fence. That was my main method of getting past it in my youth anyway. I roll to my feet in the sandy drive. The dogs run up, growling in suspicion. Young dogs, they don't know me.
"Shh, shh, I'm home," I whisper, a smile actually on my face. Lights are burning inside.
I walk up the drive, there is noise from the house. A gathering? People here? Let it not be my father's funeral? No, there are still many lights and laughterâit doesn't matter. I'm home. I'm finally hope.
People are spilled out onto the lawn, drinking and laughing. Many young men. Telemachus' friends? Where is he?
I walk past them, moving towards the doors of my house.
"Hey, where do you think you're going, old man?" one of them shoves my shoulder.
"What--?" I actually choke. This boy was probably a babe when I left same as my own boy. Of course he wouldn't recognize me.
"What do you think you're doing here? They're not fond of beggars," another one says, shoving me backward.
My hand flies to my sword---which I do not have. I have nothing I'm not armed for war. I'm coming home. How many of them are there, twenty? And they are armed. If my hands weren't shaking I'd take the knife from this one's belt and slice as many throats as I could.
No. you are not at war. You are home.
"I'm here to see the lady, of the house," I say, my voice sounds odd and rough to me.
"Why would she choose you, old man? What are you, a wanderer?"
"What?" I realize I keep saying that.
"She's not even here," another says.
"Not that it would matter, when she does choose to marry she'll choose one of us first."
"Best get out of here," another one shoves me and this time I fall.
"What?" I say again.
Arms pull me up and I fight them. The men laugh.
"Stop, stop," Athena has me and is the one who pulled me to my feet, "Your wife is not here tonight, go to your father. You cannot fight them all now."
"I may manage it," I say, jerking my arms away from her.
"Your father is at the cabin, go to him. Now, your wife is not even here tonight," she says, taking both my arms again, "Listen to me, Eulises, you may kill them but not today."
I back away, nodding. She is right. I have no weapon. They, drunk as they are, are in far better fighting shape than I. And they want Penelope? Has she said she'd marry one of them?
I'm dead aren't I? I'm gone. Why wouldn't she remarry?
I stumble away, my feet obeying without my own admission.
I hear a soft growl, from the shadows.
"Shh, I'll not enter," I say, quietly, expecting the dogs to be cruel to me.
But it's not a growl. It's a whimper. An old, black and brown dog walks from the shadows of the house, coat worn and old, muzzle silver.
"Argos?" I ask, tears in my eyes. The handsome pup I was training before I went away. I left him of course behind. Telemachus would chase the dog for hours, and this was the only pup that didn't nip when my baby son would tug his fur a bit too hard. He had the darkest coat, with four white feet, but his ears were flopped and small.
The old dog rears up to lick my face.
"You waited for me? You remember me?" I ask, sobbing into his fur. The dog wags its bent curled tail and rests a big head on my shoulder, sighing deeply. "I'm home now. I'm home."