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Odysseus sees him briefly in the ruins of Troy, the blood red marks of his feet the only indication of his nature – for a moment, before they are trampled by screaming soldiers dedicated to their own private battles for survival in his wake, the prints of his toes are visible. Only a god could walk barefoot without haste through such carnage.
Odysseus sees him, too, in the land of the Lotus-eaters, licking fingers dripping honey-sweet with narcotic fruit and smiling as he watches Odysseus cajole and threaten and eventually drag his men by force to the ships. It is only that his smile is so sharp in contrast to the hazy grins of other eaters of the Lotus that Odysseus takes note of him.
In the cave of the cyclops Odysseus almost mistakes him for one of his men, for the cave is dim and his fear great, nearly tries to call him back to what little safety their group can offer. The cry dies in his throat before it can be given voice – Odysseus recognizes him and his nature just in time, by the corpse pale hand upon the fine wool gathered from the sheep of Polyphemus, deliberate as a woman at market considering the quality for her yarn. There is brain matter drying freckled upon his bare feet.
When the Laestrygonians shatter his fleet Odysseus catches a glimpse of long pale hair like a torn sail waving in the wind. He watches the ship sink and the shape vanish into the sea spray and mist, and prays the nameless god is satisfied by the destruction, all the while knowing in his heart he will see that banner again.
When he calls upon Tiresias he sees eyes fixed upon him among the crowding Shades. They are as bright as a royal cloak, the only color in the gray realm of the dead. He tells himself that is why he cannot help but see them everywhere from that moment on – even solidly in the world of the living, even on Calypso’s hidden isle, he still feels a strange gaze upon his back, a sense of waiting. He is a cosseted mouse, and his hunter a sleek cat waiting for him to be released to entertain once more, keen not with hunger but play, though intent makes no difference - the mouse dies between the cat's paws just the same.
Bare-toed prints again in the wash of blood scrubbed from the floors of his palace. A single strand of hair white as milk found lying upon his pillow, neither his beloved wife’s or his own. Penelope’s fine shroud lying half unraveled once more, the threads used to close his pouch of knuckle-bones with an unfamiliar knot. When the shadows grow long Odysseus casts two upon the wall, only one truly his own.
“But I am home,” he tells it, helpless, and in the blurred bronze of his wife’s mirror a shape too bare-chested and stiff-backed, with smiling eyes too bright and hair too long and white, leans in towards him as if to share a secret.
“I am here too,” it says.