Chapter Text
The first time a man washed up on the shores of her beach, Calypso was sure the gods’ fury with her had finally subsided. They wouldn’t have let it happen if they hadn’t found it in their hearts to forgive her in some measure, to grant leniency in her sentencing, right? Surely company would be too great a reward otherwise.
She dressed the man in simple white linens and nursed him back from his weak, dehydrated state She tended his wounds, listened to his stories, and broke bread with him. The more she learned about his life, the more she was inclined to share about herself. Each morning they woke to the sunrise and every night they fell into sleep to the chorus of creatures that inhabited Ogygia, frogs croaking from the lake and owls speaking to each other from the trees, and the wind brushing gently against the trees outside the door. There was never a sour day on her island; each morning promised an expanse of blue sky and brilliant hours under the sun spent in her gardens with her companion. Slowly, she grew to love him.
But he was a hero, this much she knew, and as he spoke of the world he’d left behind she knew where his heart lay.
The raft arrived one night after dinner. A simple thing, ten logs bound together as the deck and a mast with a white linen sail docked on her shore in the same place where she’d found him so long ago. Before then, he’d resigned himself to life apart from everything he’d known before—but she could see the light in his eyes when he realized what it meant for him. He could go home. How could she deny him that? He didn’t even spare her one more night together. He left her alone on the shore with no one but the stars to keep her company.
That’s where she realized she was wrong, on the beach under the stars with the saltwater nipping at her toes as the waves flowed in and out and the wind blew her beaded braids around her face. So long into her sentencing and the gods saw fit not to loosen their hold on her, but to punish her further. As if solitude wasn’t burden enough, now they’d given her a taste of something more and snatched it away just as fast. If she could have died on then on that beach rather than be alone, she would have. Anything was better than living this way indefinitely. And it would be indefinitely—she was well aware by now that she was immortal.
Sometime after that, she became more nocturnal than not. She didn’t really need to sleep anyway; but now when she did it was during the day, letting the sun warm her skin as she lied in the soft piles of sand or the plush patches of grass by the lake—even in the hand-woven hammock in her garden, letting the smell of wet dirt and honeysuckle fill her nose.
At night she made a habit of memorizing the patterns in the sky, each and every pinprick of light that shone against the dark expanse above her was slowly but surely committed to her memory. Every so often a new constellation would appear. A dog with three heads, a small bear and its mother—when the next person arrived on her island to punish her, a woman this time, she begged to know the stories that accompanied the new silhouettes. This time when she was abandoned she had the stories of the stars to keep her company.
Eventually, new constellations stopped appearing as frequently as they had. When they stopped altogether, more than five heroes since the last addition and far longer than usual between heroes than was normal, she wondered if the world of gods and mortals even existed anymore. She’d be completely in the dark if something happened to the world outside Ogygia. For all she knew, the titans could have escaped their chains at last and destroyed whatever semblance of order the gods had created for themselves in the past several thousands of years.
They used to visit sometimes, the gods, her estranged family; but it had been even longer since she’d seen any of them than the last time she saw a hero. Maybe the gods really were dead after all, and she’d rot here, forgotten by her titan father when they regained their former glory. Death was impossible for her, but madness...
She shook the possibility of her mind deteriorating while she sat in her gilded cage as far away from her thoughts as she could. She wove more, she practiced braiding her hair tightly against her scalp in intricate curves and patterns, she tended to her flower garden. Then, on a rare night, she fell asleep counting the stars, instead of being visited by a hero or a god she woke before dawn to find a small drawstring bag clasped in her hands. A label tag on the string was written in neat, small, blocky script in the language of the gods: ‘Moonlace’ it read. When she peered inside the pouch she found a pile of small brown seeds. They were less than half the size of her pinky nail, oval with soft white spines coming from the ridges on the outer layer. They looked like the seeds of one of her wildflowers—except for the fact that there was a soft white glow emitting from them. There was no note saying who the seeds were from.
She planted the immediately, clearing a space in a plot surrounded by flowers that wouldn’t bloom until the sun relaxed their petals open in a few hours. She poked holes in the soil, dropped the glowing seeds gently inside them, and lovingly patted the dirt in place over them. She collected her watering can and tilted it over the plot, letting the droplets fall slowly in thin lines and moisten the soil that was now home to the strange new plant.
She stayed with her seeds almost every moment, leaving only to tend her other plants when they needed. With her knees pulled up to her chest and the can sitting beside her, she waited. The days and nights melted past her in a blur as she watched the ground where her mysterious seeds were growing, changing, maturing into the plants they were meant to be. Their first stems and leaves broke the surface about a week after she’d planted them. The three fragile little leaves on every stalk were thin and almost looked like the leaves of a carrot sticking up out of the dirt. They were a deep green, but, when night fell a soft white light shone from them. She waited with her new seedlings, her little plot of M oonlace , until the first round bundle of small white flowers opened. The rest of the flowers followed suit, one after the other until one night her garden plot had a sea of brilliant, pale M oonlace flowers blooming and glowing an almost faint moonlight blue while all her other flowers slept.
Soon after that, a new set of stars appeared in the sky: the Huntress. In her left hand she held a bow across her torso and with the right she was reaching back for an arrow to knock against the bowstring. Calypso stared at the constellation for a long time until its shape faded into the blueness of daybreak. By then her Moonlace was beginning to close and she whispered a word of praise to them before she stood, shook the stillness from her joints, and went to attend the other matters on her island. Whenever she looked at the Huntress she felt comfort, an odd kinship with the stars, though she couldn’t explain why.
Percy Jackson shed light on the situation. The Huntress was Zoë Nightshade; she was a lieutenant to the goddess Artemis, protector of girls. She, too, had been a daughter of Atlas. His words stayed with her long after he left, not the ones about saving her—she'd heard promises like those too often to expect them to be kept anymore. No, he said that Zoë had been one of the bravest people he’d ever met. A daughter of Atlas had been good and honorable enough not just to hold that rank in Percy’s heart, but to be a trusted right hand to a goddess. Her sister... For just a moment, the longest she would allow herself, she imagined what her life would be if she every left Ogygia. She imagined being good and honorable, someone who protects others—a hero.
But her fantasies couldn’t last and neither, it seems, did the latest hero’s promise. He never did come back for her to make sure she was freed. Whether or not he won the latest battle, she couldn’t say, though when the gods had begun to visit her again they told her no news. Then, abruptly and without warning, those visits stopped as well.
She sat on the beach and she watched. The waves, the stars, the horizon line that she would never get to visit. She watched everything as it continued on as normal in the pale blue moonlight. Nothing ever changed, not on her island. Occasionally the sky would shift, though she doubted there would be any new constellations added any time soon. She was so focused on the waves washing up over the sand and pulling it slowly into the sea a layer at a time; wishing that when the tides swept over the dark skin of her legs they might decide to take her as well, wash her out to sea piece by piece, layer by layer until not an ounce of her remained on Ogygia. She was so focused on the thought of the waves taking her away she almost didn’t hear the soft footfalls on the shifting sand. Almost.
The girl was shrouded in moonlight—no, it was coming from the girl herself. Her hair was braided in a thick halo around the top of her head with silver bands around some of the braided sections. The rest of her hair was gathered low on the back of her head into a braided bun. The moonlight shone on the black skin of her face and her expression was regal as she stepped closer. It’d been so long since she’d visited her but Calypso could never forget her face.
“Lady Artemis,” She said, rising from her place on the ground and bowing at the waist. “It is an honor.”
Lady Artemis smiled and crossed the space between them to lay her hand on Calypso’s. She expected the goddess’ palms to be soft but she was surprised to feel their roughness, strong and deft fingers calloused from the hunt. “No need for the formalities, Sorceress . I’ve been keeping tabs on you—it feels as if we’re already old friends.”
“Can I offer you anything? I can have the wind spirits prepare a meal if you’re hungry,” she offered.
“No, no actually I came with a proposition for you,” she said. “I’ve been observing you. I’ve seen your dedication to the skills you practice, the loom and your spellwork, and I’ve seen your natural nurturing capabilities.” Lady Artemis gave her a knowing look.
“The Moonlace,” she gasped. ”You—”
“—Yes,” she said with a nod. “It was both a gift and a test. I’ve been waiting for the day I could make you this offer for a very long time. And I know if you accept my offer you’ll be able to handle immortality with continued grace and poise.”
“My lady,” Calypso stammered, her hand going to twist at the beads on the ends of her braids. “Are suggesting that I...join the hunt?”
“Only if you want, Calypso. Before you accept or decline I must tell you that you’re free to leave Ogygia either way. One of Percy Jackson’s conditions after he and his demigod army helped the gods defeat the titans was that you be released. The gods approved his request. I’m here to deliver the news.”
The weight of every star in the sky pressed down on her shoulders at once as she processed her new reality. Leave Ogygia? She’d attempted it once, so long ago now that the edges of the memory were blurry in her mind when she looked back on it. The outcome was, well, she obviously hadn’t been successful in her attempt. This island was all she’d ever known. It was her birthplace and her prison and her home...where would she even go in the mortal world? It was like trying to imagine what the seafloor looked like hidden under leagues of the ocean; she had no idea what secrets the mortal world held for her.
As if predicting the questions and fears racing through her head, Lady Artemis spoke. “My hunters are free to leave my service whenever they wish. I don’t hold my girls prisoner. I worry about your fate, Calypso. Once you leave Ogygia you’ll no longer be immortal. With the hunters, you’ll at least have somewhere to start. You’ll have comrades in arms and you’ll travel the world with us. It will be dangerous at times but you will never be alone.” Lady Artemis’ hand went to her cheek; she stroked her thumb along Calypso’s cheekbone. “Do you know yet what you’ll choose to do with your freedom?”
Calypso looked into the goddess’ deep brown eyes. Her face was kind and though she appeared as a girl who’s physical form was two or three years younger than her own, she knew better than anyone to let that discredit her. Calypso’s eyes traveled upwards, back to the stars, to the Huntress.
“Will you tell me about my sister?”
Artemis’ eyes followed hers to where she watched Zoë Nightshade’s form in the sky, forever a guiding body of light.
“Of course.”
Hand in hand they walked across the shores of Ogygia and off into the moonlight.