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I didn’t realize who I had been reborn as, at first. Calypso wasn’t an uncommon name, and to me father was just father. It was only after the war was over and punishments were handed out that I realized who I was. After all, the only Calypso I knew of who was stuck on an island was from Ancient Greek Mythology.
It still didn’t answer why I was Calypso, though. I had been cursed to be reborn as the villain of the story, and she only ever appeared in-
Oh.
This is The Odyssey. Or, well, maybe one of its retellings, but does it really matter? Either way, all I had to do was wait for Odysseus to show up, then immediately let him go, and then my part of the story would be over. Simple.
Or not.
I was still close enough to a human – a mortal? – that solitary confinement drove me a little crazy. Or, maybe, more than a little crazy.
Shapeshifting into a dolphin and swimming away from the cursed island didn’t work. Shapeshifting into a bird and flying away didn’t work. Suicide didn’t work, but it came the closest.
Whenever I was injured enough that a mortal would die, I would sort of shut down and rest until I had fully healed. Sometimes my shut downs only lasted a few hours, but sometimes they stretched on for long enough that plant life started to grow up and over me. Eventually, I narrowed it down to two methods: jumping off the highest cliff on the island or poisoning myself with the incredibly toxic plants that had grown from my blood at the base of that same cliff. The first felt like freedom, and the second felt like falling asleep. And when I woke up, most of my insanity seemed to heal. That definitely wasn’t something that mortals could do, but there had to be some perks to being a titan? Nymph? Whatever I was.
I did my best to create something resembling a home whenever I didn’t have the urge to be scattered into nothing on the wind out of some mostly dormant sense of responsibility from my past lives, but it was mostly a haphazard tent next to a fire pit and two long squares of fabric that I used for clothes. Nothing fancy, but it sufficed until I did my best to die once again.
It was in no way, shape, or form anything even close to a healthy routine, but it was mine. In fact, I was so absorbed with it that I completely missed Odysseus’ arrival on my island, being shut down at the time. Our first meeting actually occurred when I woke up to see him scavenging at the base of my suicide cliff.
We both froze when our eyes met, me because I had been alone for longer than I had lived in any of my past lives, and him because a crazy, emaciated woman had just sat up from underneath a tangled web of vines.
He recovered first.
“Great Lady,” He began, inclining his head in my direction, tucking his hands behind his back as if that would keep me from seeing the foliage he had collected. “Are you the goddess of this island?”
“Uh,” I coughed. It had been so long since I had last spoken to anyone. “Yes? And no.”
“What?” he asked, a frown creasing his tanned face.
“I am a goddess on this island, but it’s not my island,” I explained as I pushed myself to my feet. “This is a prison for those who have displeased the Olympian gods without trespassing against them so egregiously to deserve Tartarus.”
The man who I really hoped was Odysseus paled until he was only a few shades darker than sun-bleached bone, which was quite impressive. “A prison?”
“I will try to help you leave, as you may have simply washed up here by chance. I doubt we will be successful, since you’re the only person who has ever ended up here, but we can still try.”
“I see,” the man said. Then he asked “What was your crime?”
“Siding against Olympus during the Titanomachy.”
The man choked.
“I was a child, so I didn’t actually know what was going on until my father was sentenced to uphold the sky,” I continued, wiping the dirt off of my hands on my subpar skirt.
“You are a daughter of Atlas?” the man exclaimed.
“I suppose that technically makes me a titan, not a goddess, but the details don’t really matter when I’m trapped here regardless. Anyways, my name is Calypso, daughter of Atlas. A pleasure to meet you.”
“I am Odysseus, son of Laertes,” the man said.
I couldn’t have stopped the grin that spread across my face if I tried. It was him! “Shall we see if you can leave, then?”