Chapter 25
Things were awkward between us at first.
Penelope and I were perfectly polite to each other, of course. But there was a stiffness to our interactions, a hesitancy that had us fumbling for words.
I supposed this was to be expected after all that had come between us.
We spent every day together, learning to navigate our new dynamic as well as the uncharted waters of motherhood.
It was a blur of sleepless nights and constant bawling.
I was surprised at how much noise a human as tiny as Telemachus could make.
Thankfully, we were not alone on this voyage, as Penelope’s two other handmaids were also there to assist.
There was Hippodamia, the girl I had met the day I arrived in Ithaca, whose presence was as bright and golden as her hair. She was all laughter and smiles, and it unnerved me—how someone like us could be filled with such easy affability.
The other handmaid was a girl called Autonoe, who I guessed to be a similar age to me.
She was tall and willowy with dusky skin and long, dark hair.
Her face was delicate and ethereal, almost nymphlike, yet it had been claimed by a brutal scar, the thick, puckered skin running diagonally from eyebrow to jaw.
I had tried not to stare when we were first introduced, though the sight of it made my own scars itch horribly.
Autonoe had been with us the night we’d sung outside Penelope and Odysseus’s marital chamber. I remembered her voice most of all, its lovely, husky cadence. She was always singing under her breath, and though I never admitted it, I loved listening to her.
Hippodamia and Autonoe had both served as the late queen’s handmaids, and they went about their tasks with ease—fetching Penelope’s meals, preparing her baths, tidying her chambers—while I fumbled after them, always a step behind.
Strangely, Penelope did not seem to enjoy this attentiveness, adamant she could do most things herself.
Often, she flat out refused our aid, leaving us to sit awkwardly aside while she dressed herself.
She was just as steadfast about tending to Telemachus, refusing a wet nurse to feed him even when Eurycleia insisted.
I wondered what could have inspired such fierceness in her, but I did not ask.
In truth, I did not say much at all.
In the shadow of Hippodamia’s and Autonoe’s bright personalities, I felt myself retreating.
I found it almost unbearable each time they offered their quick smiles and sweet words, the feel of them sticking uncomfortably to my skin.
How was it so effortless for them to give kindness so readily?
I watched as they chattered endlessly with Penelope, giggling like sisters, growing closer with each passing day.
Their warmth was a beautiful thing, but it only left me cold.
I didn’t know how to be like them, how to remove this armor I had worn for so long.
But it was safer this way—to keep those boundaries clear between us.
And whenever I found myself longing for that closeness with Penelope, the one we had shared the night Telemachus was born, I would force myself to remember Callias instead.
To see his terrified face. To hear his bloodcurdling screams. To smell his burning flesh.
I would repeat those memories over and over until the very idea of closeness made me sick to my stomach.
Until I felt myself drifting further away.
***
“I heard news today,” Penelope told us one night.
It was late in the evening after an especially wearing day. Telemachus had been bawling since sunrise, seemingly indifferent to everything we offered him. Now, finally, he had settled, and the four of us were nursing well-earned cups of wine by the fire.
“What news?” Hippodamia asked from where she sat beside Penelope. Autonoe was on her other side while I knelt on the floor by the hearth, willing its warmth to soak into my tired limbs.
“Of the war,” Penelope replied.
This caught my attention.
News of the war trickled in slowly from the seas, morsels feasted on by hungry Ithacans eager to hear of their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers.
Since Odysseus’s departure over three moon cycles ago, the atmosphere on Ithaca had been strange, as if everyone were holding their breath, suspended in time while they waited for the army’s return.
Though I cannot say I missed them. It felt nice to have an island largely free of men, like I could breathe a little easier.
The last we had heard, Agamemnon had finally gathered all his allies, but they had been unable to sail for Troy due to unseasonably dead winds.
An act of the gods, people had whispered. They do not support this war.
“The winds have finally picked up,” Penelope said, swirling her cup in her hand. “Agamemnon’s army are on their way to Troy as we speak.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it? The sooner they reach Troy, the sooner this war will be over,” Autonoe said in her soft voice, a faded accent rounding her vowels.
Penelope shifted in her chair. “Agamemnon had to make a sacrifice to the gods to be allowed passage to Troy.”
“A sacrifice to the gods is customary,” Hippodamia replied around a sip of wine.
It seemed she had not noticed the disquiet creeping over Penelope. I remained silent, watching Penelope stare intently into the hearth.
“He was forced to sacrifice his own child,” she whispered. “Iphigenia.”
Her words seemed to steal all the warmth from the fire, plunging the chamber into an icy stillness.
A sickness pierced my stomach. His own child.
“How could he do such a thing?” Hippodamia whispered, wrapping her arms around herself.
“To appease the gods,” Penelope replied.
“Why would anyone worship a god who would demand that of them?” I muttered.
“It gives people a sense of purpose to worship something,” Penelope mused, taking a slow sip of her wine.
The silence around us was a terrible, heavy thing.
All I could think of was that faceless girl, so young and innocent.
How afraid must she have been in those final moments, surrounded by a swarm of glory-hungry men?
Had she looked to her father for protection?
Had his betrayal been the last thing she’d seen?
After a time, Autonoe began to sing. It was a song of lamentation, one sung during funerals to honor the dead.
Her beautiful voice filled the room, the heartbreaking melody seeming to pluck the threads from my past, laying my losses bare in the shadows around me.
Tears were in Autonoe’s eyes as she sang, and I noticed Hippodamia was crying too.
I wondered what other ghosts lurked in the room alongside my own.
When the song was over, Hippodamia and Autonoe quietly excused themselves and retired to our shared chamber in the adjoining room. I did not follow them. Instead, I stared at Penelope as she continued watching the fire, eyes glassy.
“I cannot imagine what Clytemnestra is going through,” she whispered. “If I lost Telemachus, it would be like having my soul ripped out of me. How can a mother endure that?”
I looked away, an old pain aching through my bones. I felt Penelope’s gaze snap to my face, her pity staining the air.
“I am sorry, Melantho. Forgive me. I should not have spoken so carelessly.”
“It’s fine,” I murmured.
“I should have thought before I—”
“Penelope,” I cut her off gently. “It’s fine.”
We sat quietly for a moment. I considered retiring to bed, retreating behind those boundaries I had been so carefully keeping between us. But something kept me there.
“Why did you never tell me what happened to your mother?” Penelope finally asked, her voice painfully soft.
Normally, I would have snapped an unsavory reply, letting my anger shield my wounds. But then I thought of Melanthius. I did not want to be like him, so consumed by all the ugliness inside me. So I willed that anger to settle as I took a slow sip of wine.
“I try not to think about it,” I admitted.
I could feel Penelope watching me, waiting.
“They sold her,” I continued in an attempt to put an end to that probing gaze. “That’s all there is to it.”
“I am sorry,” she whispered.
“I used to be envious that your mother was dead, you know. I prayed my mother was, too, because at least then I would have known where she was. I would have had answers.” I stared at Penelope, waiting to see a flash of repulsion in her gaze, of anger.
But there was none. “I suppose that is rather vile…to have prayed for something like that.”
Penelope rested her chin on her knuckles as she considered my words.
“I think your mother would have understood why you felt like that,” she said.
I shrugged, turning to watch the fire.
“What of your father?” Penelope pressed delicately. “I never see you two together…”
My lips twisted into a tight smirk. “We both have little interest in each other’s company.”
“And your brother?”
“Melanthius can be…hard to reach.”
Penelope was quiet a moment, turning my words over in the stillness.
“Will you tell me what she was like? Your mother,” she prompted, as if she could sense those memories inside me, pooling so close to the surface.
It had been so long since I had spoken of my mother, it was as if I had forgotten how to shape this pain into words. Yet a part of me felt a sudden, powerful urge to talk about her, to let my mother live and breathe in this room with us, even if she could only exist through my voice.
“She was wonderful,” I whispered, throat burning. “She was kind and funny and brave and smart and fierce.”
“She sounds like you.”
I shook my head. “I was her biggest regret.”
I sensed Penelope shifting, moving to sit a little straighter in her chair.
“I do not think that is true, Melantho.”
But it was. I knew it was. My mother had never spoken those words aloud to me of course, but silent truths will always find ways of being heard, and this one had whispered to me since childhood in a language I had not understood until recently.