Chapter 22
Something was wrong.
The baby was not coming.
Penelope had been pushing for what felt like days, wringing her body of every ounce of energy it had left. Yet still, the baby had not appeared.
It felt as if time had ceased to exist, and we were trapped in this repeating nightmare of Penelope pushing and pushing and pushing, trying to rip apart her own body.
Exhaustion had its teeth around Penelope now. She was slumped against her sweat-soaked pillows, barely able to keep her eyes open as she caught her breath. Her skin was so pale it looked almost gray in the draining light.
I glanced to Eurycleia, who was instructing Penelope with that sharp, steady voice of hers. Breathe. Take a moment. Now push. Yet I could see her uneasiness now. It gathered in the tightness of her shoulders, the thinness of her lips.
“You’re doing great,” I told Penelope, trying to curb the anxiety in my voice.
Her head lolled to the side like a child’s doll.
“Something’s wrong,” I told Eurycleia.
The old maid watched Penelope, face grave. She then motioned me over, and I reluctantly let go of Penelope’s hand, watching it fall limp against the bed. As I approached Eurycleia, I saw the blood staining the sheets around her.
“The baby is in the wrong position,” Eurycleia murmured to me.
“What? What does that mean?”
“Calm yourself, girl.”
I glanced back to Penelope, who was rousing slightly, mumbling incoherent words.
“She’ll be all right, won’t she?” I whispered.
Eurycleia held my gaze, her silence sickeningly loud.
“She needs to push harder if we’re going to dislodge this baby,” she said.
“Look at her! She’s exhausted.”
“She has no choice.”
I returned to Penelope’s side. In that moment, she looked heartbreakingly fragile—broken and lifeless and so very young.
Only seventeen summers old. I felt the overwhelming urge to take her in my arms and protect her from all this pain.
But I could not. She was trapped in the midst of this, and there was nothing I could do but force her to keep going.
I took her hand again. and a horrible question tugged at me—What if she dies?
For so long, I had been trying to drive Penelope away. Now, faced with the reality of losing her, truly losing her forever, I could scarcely breathe. But I pushed that thought far away, forcing my mind to focus.
“Penelope?” I leaned forward and brushed her hair from her damp face. I was surprised by how easy this intimacy felt, as if I had done it a thousand times before. “Penelope, can you hear me? I need you to start pushing again.”
“I cannot,” she murmured, voice frighteningly thin.
My hand tightened around hers. “You can. Just a little longer. That’s all.”
“I am…not strong enough…”
I knelt on the edge of the bed now, pressing my face close to hers. “You can do this. I know you can. We need you to push so we can get this baby out. All right?”
“Cut him out,” she whispered.
I stared at her for a silent moment.
“If they cut him out, you’ll die.”
She gave me a look then, her eyes heavy with defeat, as if she believed it inevitable, as if the thread of her life had already been sliced by the Fates.
“He is in the wrong position,” she said, as if that were answer enough.
Her gaze loosened and shifted away from mine, but I grabbed her face with both my hands, forcing her to look at me.
“No. No. Don’t you do that. Don’t give up.
You can do this. You must do this. For your husband…
for your baby… They need you.” My words were edged with a wild desperation.
“I need you. Do you hear? I. Need. You. And I will not let you die. You brought me to this ugly island, so don’t you dare leave me here alone. I forbid it. Do you hear me?”
“Is…that a…command?” she whispered, the faintest thread of amusement lining her voice.
Despite myself, I laughed, though it sounded more like a sob, thick and strained in my throat.
“You bet your pampered royal arse it is,” I said, a thrill singing in my veins as Penelope huffed a delicate, raw-edged chuckle.
“Melantho,” Eurycleia snapped. “How dare you!”
I ignored her as I continued, “You are not Precious Penelope. You never were. You are stronger than you have ever allowed yourself to realize, and I know you can do this. So I need you to start pushing. For your husband. For your baby. But most importantly, for yourself. Because this is not your end.”
This is not our end.
A fresh wave of determination sharpened Penelope’s gaze as she stared at me.
“Are you ready?” I asked, and she nodded, her eyes never leaving my face. “On three, all right? One…two…three.”
***
It was a boy.
A healthy baby boy with a mop of thick onyx hair just like his mother’s.
He was wrinkled and wriggling, and I could not take my eyes off him. There was something about him that felt vaguely magical: how fresh he was to the world, untouched by all its ugliness.
He fussed in Penelope’s arms, as if it were a great inconvenience that he had been ripped from his warm home and brought into this strange, new place. As I stared at him, I wondered how something so small and fragile could have almost ended someone so important.
I was lying next to Penelope on the bed, our shoulders brushing as we gazed upon this new burst of life wriggling in her arms. Our closeness felt comfortable—natural even. Which was strange after all the distance between us.
“He’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“Is it arrogant of me to agree?” Penelope asked with a smile.
She still looked exhausted, her face deathly pale, cheeks sunken, yet her tired eyes glowed as she stared at her child. I could feel the pride and relief and wonder radiating off her, mingling with my own.
“Although I think he will have my nose. Poor child.” She tutted.
“I like your nose,” I said.
Penelope only scoffed in response.
“I’m serious. I’ve always liked your nose.”
“Really?”
I nudged her arm, the warmth of her body pressing into mine. “Really.”
My eyes flickered to her face, and I watched the smile grow there.
I glanced away. “Do you think Eurycleia will be gone long?”
“I hope so. She’s brilliant, but gods, is she intense.”
I huffed a laugh. “I think she’s going to skin me alive for ordering you around so much.”
“I seem to remember you saying something about my ‘pampered royal arse’?”
“Me? Never. You were delirious. You must’ve been hallucinating.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Penelope’s smile stretch into a grin.
“Strange. I’m quite certain I heard it.”
“Well, whatever I might have said, I got results, didn’t I?” I motioned to the babe in her arms.
She chuckled at that, and I felt the sound glow inside me, so warm and alive. It never felt like that with anyone else, and I had missed the feeling.
I had missed her.
“You’re right, you know,” she murmured, voice sobering. “I could not have done it without you, Melantho. I mean that.”
That warm feeling in my chest intensified.
“You could have,” I whispered. “But I am glad I was here.”
I leaned forward, brushing a finger along the babe’s cheek, his skin so impossibly soft.
I felt Penelope’s eyes on me, and it was only when I met her gaze that I realized how close our faces had become.
I could feel the warmth of her breath against my lips, could feel her unbound hair caressing my cheek.
There was something in the depth of our silence, as if we were trying to let the stillness speak the words we could not form.
The door burst open then, making the baby bawl. I instantly recoiled from Penelope as Odysseus strode into the room, a huge grin cracked across his face.
“Where is he? Where is my son?” he bellowed, not even sparing me a glance as I shrank against the wall. “By Zeus, look at him! He is perfect! My love, I am so proud of you.”
I melted farther into the shadows as Odysseus cupped Penelope’s face and planted a kiss on her lips, claiming them for himself.
“What of your meeting with Palamedes?” Penelope pressed. “Are you to join Agamemnon’s war?”
“We will discuss when you are rested,” Odysseus said, plucking his child from her arms and shushing him back to sleep.
“But—”
“Please, my love. Let us just be together as a family.”
Penelope’s smile wavered as she nodded, and Odysseus planted another, gentler kiss upon her lips.
I slipped from the room shortly after that.
I could not stomach any more.