From behind the galley counter, I envied the sailors sitting comfortably at table together, lounging side by side, trusting one another implicitly as they alternately listened or drifted off to sleep. I imagined taking a seat on the bench beside them.

I imagined having a job onboard the Beholder, instead of being a job myself. Imagined being one of their friends, instead of cargo.

If I weren’t who I was, maybe Lang would’ve sat beside me.

Still, I found my own kind of comfort as Homer spoke, the galley growing soft and quiet as he told his tale, the only sounds the kneading of dough and the wash of water over dishes and the folding of paper in Andersen’s hands.

ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν: πολλῶν δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω, πολλὰ δ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν, ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.

—Ὀδύσσεια

Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices,

who wandered full many ways

after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.

Many were the men whose cities he saw

and whose mind he learned, aye,

and many the woes he suffered in his heart upon the sea,

seeking to win his own life and

the return of his comrades.

—The Odyssey

14

Wonders and horrors filled my dreams that night. I didn’t know if the blood came first, or the water.

Blood oozed around my bare toes, sticky and hot and smelling like metal, twisting my stomach until I gagged. Salt water rushed from beneath a dozen doors around me.

The doors shook with knocking. But behind each of them was one intruder. One uninvited guest.

Alessandra.

I could hear her whispering my name just over the pounding of her fists.

I staggered, and suddenly a rough oak altar appeared. Daddy and I lay side by side on top, dressed as we had been for Arbor Day, our bodies slit open from throat to pelvis.

I screamed and ran, tearing down ghastly white hallways. Branches tore at my clothes, and hanging shrouds grasped after me until I burst onto the deck of the Beholder, sobbing and gulping down ocean air. That’s where she was waiting for me. Penelope, wife to Odysseus, hero of the story Homer had told us while we were gathered in the galley.

“I abandoned him.” I sobbed. Midnight-blue hair hung around her face, and gold bracelets rattled on her wrists as she pulled me to my knees beside her. Overhead, the Beholder’s three masts were olive trees, twisting and spreading beneath a foggy sky, gray as our navigator’s eyes.

Penelope gripped my shoulders. “Do you have a plan?”

“I don’t have a choice,” I choked out. “They made me go look for a husband.”

She shook her head, shining curls like dark water over her shoulders. “Not what I asked. I had to receive my suitors. You had to go where Alessandra sent you. But now. You form. A plan.” Each word was a blow, but Penelope was fighting on my behalf.

I shook her off. “Your plan fell apart,” I pointed out.