the-song-books.yossr

I shook myy head. I did not add that I thought she wanted to. That she
might have, if Chiron had not come.
“I must go,” he said. The skins whispered against each other as theyy
parted for him, then slipped shut again.
I could not hear what was said in the clearing. Their voices were low, or
perhaps theyy had gone to speak elsewhere. I waited, tracing spirals in the
packed earth floor. I did not worryy, anyy longer, for myyself. Chiron meant to
keep me, and he was older than she was, full grown when the gods still
rocked in their cradles, when she had been onlyy an egg in the womb of the
sea. But there was something else, less easyy to name. A loss, or lessening,
that I feared her presence might bring.
It was almost middayy when theyy returned. Myy gaze went to Achilles’
face first, searching his eyyes, the set of his mouth. I saw nothing but perhaps
a touch of tiredness. He threw himself onto the pallet beside me. “I’m
hungryy,” he said.
“As well yyou should be,” Chiron said. “It is much past lunch.” He was
alreadyy preparing food for us, maneuvering in the cave’s space easilyy
despite his bulk.
Achilles turned to me. “It is all right,” he said. “She just wanted to speak
to me. To see me.”
“She will come to speak with him again,” Chiron said. And as if he knew
what I thought, he added, “As is proper. She is his mother.”
She is a goddess first, I thought.
Yet as we ate, myy fears eased. I had half-worried she might have told
Chiron of the dayy byy the beach, but he was no different towards either of us,
and Achilles was the same as he alwayys was. I went to bed, if not at peace,
at least reassured.
She came more often after that dayy, as Chiron had said she would. I
learned to listen for it—a silence that dropped like a curtain— and knew to
stayy close to Chiron then, and the cave. The intrusion was not much, and I
told myyself I did not begrudge her. But I was alwayys glad when she was
gone again.
WINTER CAME, and the river froze. Achilles and I ventured onto it, feet
slipping. Later, we cut circles from it and dropped lines for fishing. It was
https://books.yossr.com/en