Discord's Apple

The family breakfasted. Odysseus didn’t join them. After, Telemachus saw them off at the gate of the manor. He offered them a few days’ provisions. They accepted, as befitted the laws of hospitality. When Sinon blessed Telemachus and his house, he did so without calling on the gods, so the words would be true. Outside Olympus, no one had noticed the destruction of the gods. And what did that say?

Prometheus commented on this, as they walked the road to the village. “You didn’t name any gods to bless him.”

“Of course not.”

“It sounded strange, don’t you think?”

He hadn’t called upon the gods in a long time. It didn’t sound strange at all. He shook his head.

“What will you do now?” Prometheus asked.

Before coming here, Sinon had thought he might settle down, farm, find a wife, as he’d been destined to do at his birth. But he couldn’t do that now.

He could see the ocean from here. “Maybe I can hire onto a boat. See if I remember how to sail. Travel to the ends of the earth. How does that sound?”

“It sounds marvelous,” Prometheus said. “I commend that plan.”

Which, surprisingly, made Sinon feel a little better. “What will you do?”

“I think I’ll travel as well.” He didn’t look across the water, though, but up, neck craned back, squinting into the sun. “To the sky, the stars. There are other worlds than this one. I’d like to see them.”

He would go to live among the constellations, the myths and legends preserved in the night sky. A fitting end to his story. In the coming nights, Sinon would look for a new collection of stars.

“Will you ever return?”

“I doubt it. I don’t think humankind needs my help anymore. Or wants it, really.”

They reached a fork in the road, one branch leading to the village and the other leading to the hills, where shepherds took their sheep and goats to graze. Prometheus offered his hand, and Sinon gripped his wrist, as if they were two friends on the road, and nothing more.

“I leave you here. Live well, Sinon of Ithaca,” Prometheus said, then departed along the path that led to the hills.

Sinon watched him for a moment, thought of running after him, to beg him to take him along—there’s nothing left on earth for me now. But Prometheus’s departure seemed much like a dismissal. If the immortal had wanted a companion, he would have offered to take Sinon along.

Sinon went to the village and the ocean, hired onto a ship setting sail for Egypt, and left Ithaca forever.

17

Evie awoke cradled in Alex’s lap. She curled around the box, covering it with her body. He draped one arm across her back, and with the other hand he stroked her head, running his fingers through her hair. He was singing softly, absently, the notes faltering. The words were lilting—Greek.

He sat propped against a slab of gray rock.

She stirred. He drew his hands away; she missed them. She could have stayed cradled with him forever, and with him, that really meant something.

Their rock was one of many set in a wide circle. They were old, lichen covered, weathered. Lintels joined some, and broken slabs lay about. Farther out, lower marker stones were scattered on a plain of green grass, the color deep and striking against the slate of the stones, and the rolling gray clouds of the overcast sky. The breeze was warm, summerlike. It should have been—it used to be—December. It should have been cold.

Merlin had sent them to Stonehenge—but it wasn’t, because the plain overlooked an ocean. A cliff sloped down to a rocky beach where waves rushed and crashed. The air smelled of salt and seaweed. There were no roads, no gift shop, no barriers to keep out the graffiti artists. They were cast into a desolate world. A desolate time.

“What is this?”

“I think it’s Stonehenge. Or it used to be Stonehenge. Or it will be—” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I used to be able to recognize it when the gods played with time.”

She started to sit up, then changed her mind. The moment was so peaceful, she should be able to rest. Like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, who slept at Stonehenge before they came to hang her.

“It’s all gone,” she said, her face pressed against Alex’s thigh. Irrationally, she thought of her laptop on the coffee table. She laughed, and pinched her nose to keep the sound from turning into a sob. “I’ll never find out what happens to Tracker.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Not really. I keep writing to see what happens next.”