Circe

by Madeline Miller

All her softness was gone in an instant. Her hand withdrew, like a door slamming shut. ‘You set yourself against me then. You with your weeds and your little divinity.’ Her power bore down on me, but I had Telegonus, and I would not give him up, not for anything. ‘I do,’ I said. Her lips curled back, showing the white teeth within. ‘You cannot watch him all the time. I will take him in the end.’ She was gone. But I said it anyway, to that great empty room and my son’s dreaming ears: ‘You do not know what I can do.’