Chapter 44
If someone asked me for the definition of peace, I would say it was the seasons that followed my return to the palace, a time so golden in my mind, it is as if the memories are encased in sunlight.
There was still the threat of the empty throne, of course. But even that could not darken my days. Rather, it served as a reminder to seize each moment, to wring out every droplet of happiness I could for as long as the Fates allowed me.
In some ways, things were as they always had been.
In the day, I worked and laughed and explored alongside the handmaids, and at night, we gathered around the hearth to chatter and listen to Autonoe sing.
Once, I might have taken such things for granted, but the years of solitude made me appreciate every second, sweetening even the most mundane moments.
Each night, I would climb into my bed beside Actoris and Hippodamia, as I always had.
But once the drowsy darkness finally filled with snores, I would slip away, padding on silent feet to another chamber, another bed, where familiar hands would be waiting for me, reaching through midnight shadows to guide me into the safe harbor of her arms.
There are some things our bodies just know how to do, woven into us from the start, like breathing or laughing or dreaming. That was what it felt like to love Penelope, like dreaming—beautiful and instinctive, familiar yet extraordinary.
In the company of daylight, we kept our distance, rationing our affection into stolen glances and accidental brushes of skin.
But the nights were ours, and we spilled our love into those precious hours of darkness, relearning each other by the light of the moon, taking great care to memorize every sacred inch.
Afterward, when we were wrung out with pleasure, we would lie tangled together and talk, our whispers filling the dark with thoughts and fears and hopes and dreams, just as we had done as children.
As always, Penelope listened with such intense focus, gently probing me with question after question until I fell asleep with answers half formed, the sweetness of their honesty melting on my tongue.
“Tell me: What’s on your mind?” was Penelope’s favorite question.
She asked it one night while my head was resting on her chest and she toyed with my curls.
I had been listening to the steady thrum of her heart, watching her belly rise and fall with her breaths, thinking what a miracle it was, that of all the thousands and millions of threads the Fates wove, they had allowed ours to intertwine.
“I spoke to my brother today,” I said.
“How is he?”
“I don’t know. It can be so hard to tell with Melanthius,” I admitted. “I saw Telemachus too. I think the prince has finally forgiven me for leaving.”
When I fled the palace, Telemachus had been just a boy, only ten summers old. Now, at fourteen, he had transformed into a young man, all gangly limbs and fits of dark moods.
I felt Penelope smile against my hair. “I knew he would come around. He just needed time.”
“He told me I seemed happy. The happiest he has ever known me to be.”
“And are you?”
“I am.”
I traced the moonlight spilled across Penelope’s bare stomach, savoring the soft whisper of her skin against mine. It was a wondrous thing, and it was a terrifying thing, to be so consumed by someone, to feel your existence irrevocably tied to theirs.
“Tell me what is troubling you,” she murmured.
Nobody had ever been able to read me as clearly as Penelope. I had once believed I hated this skill of hers until I understood what a gift it was—to have someone truly see you. Truly know you.
I shifted so I could look up at her, noting the beautiful fullness and color that had returned to her cheeks over the past few moon cycles. She looked like her old self again, and it made my heart sing to see it.
“I just…I suppose it scares me,” I admitted.
Her eyes were silvery in the dark. “Being happy?”
I nodded. “My happiness has never felt like my own. It has always felt borrowed, something I will inevitably have to give back…and I suppose a part of me is always waiting for that day to come.”
Penelope reached out to tuck a curl behind my ear, her thumb brushing my cheek. “This happiness is yours, Melantho. You deserve it, every piece.”
“But it cannot last, can it?” I whispered into her palm. “Things as perfect as this never last.”
Her thumb stilled against my skin. “I do not know.”
I knew Penelope was not one to make grand, empty declarations.
Yet in that moment, I wished she could have lied, could have remedied my doubt with promises of eternal happiness, even if it would just have soothed it for a moment.
But only the divine could grasp such concepts as eternity, and we were not gods.
We were women forced to play in a game only men could win.
I settled my head back down against her chest, tracing idle circles over her bare skin.
“Do you think they watch us? The gods?”
Penelope’s fingers wandered down my spine as she replied, “They are too busy with their beloved heroes. We are of no interest to them.”
“Do you think they would be angry if they saw us now?”
She huffed a warm laugh against my hair. “The gods are hardly paradigms of marital fidelity.”
“But do you ever wonder if they’d care that I…that I’m not a man? Would they think this…wrong?”
I felt Penelope’s hand still against my back.
“Do you think this is wrong?”
“No.” I pressed my lips against her neck to seal the words between us. “Never.”
Her fingers continued their lazy journey along my spine. “That is all that matters to me.”
I shifted to look at her once again. “But why are there no stories like this, like ours? Why do people only sing of love between men or men with women?”
“Because men are the ones telling those stories, and they cannot fathom something existing without their involvement, especially not sex.” Penelope looked thoughtful for a moment before continuing, “I do not believe men would view love between women as wrong. They simply would not think of it at all. It would be insignificant to them, because we are insignificant to them—unless we have a man to legitimize our worth.” There was no anger in her voice, just a worn resignation that chafed against each word.
“In Sparta, women sometimes took female lovers.”
I gaped at her. “I never knew that.”
Penelope nodded. “Even with all the freedom Spartan women were awarded, the men still didn’t want others knowing about it.”
“Just like no one will ever know about us,” I murmured.
Penelope cupped my face. “It is safer that way, Melantho.”
“I know that. But sometimes I just…I cannot stand it, to think you will always be known as his.”
Penelope’s hand fell away, voice softening. “But why should that matter?”
“Why should that matter?” I frowned, sitting up.
“Doesn’t it bother you? People will sing of Odysseus for generations, and you will always be his dutiful Penelope, his obedient wife.
That’s the version of you the world will remember.
You’ll be immortalized as his property, and I…
” My voice caught as the realization closed over me.
“I’ll be no one in your story. I’ll be nothing. ”
I glanced away, ashamed of my jealousy, of how poisonous it could become. We spoke so rarely of Odysseus, and it felt like a betrayal of mine, to stain this sacred time between us with his name.
Penelope brought her fingers to my chin, gently tipping my face back to hers as she whispered, “Let history have its lies if it means we can have each other.”
I let her guide me back down to rest my head upon her chest. We stayed like that for a time, and I counted the seconds passing in the drowsy rise and fall of her stomach.
“It will be morning soon,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“I should go.”
“You should.”
Neither of us moved. Instead, we held each other a little tighter, as if in doing so we could chase away those first sips of daylight draining the darkened sky.