Shots at Redemption Read online

  title page

  Shots at Redemption

  Kalypso’s Song

  Best Dressed & Obsessed

  The Sea Serpent’s Tale

  ...

  Nancy DiMauro

  ...

  An imprint of

  Musa Publishing

  Copyright Information

  Shots at Redemption, Copyright © 2012 by Nancy DiMauro

  All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

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  This e-Book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.

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  Musa Publishing

  633 Edgewood Ave

  Lancaster, OH 43130

  www.musapublishing.com

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  Published by Musa Publishing, June 2012

  ...

  This e-Book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this ebook can be reproduced or sold by any person or business without the express permission of the publisher.

  ...

  ISBN: 978-1-61937-197-2

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  Editor: Jennifer Ayers

  Cover Design: Kelly Shorten

  Interior Book Design: Coreen Montagna

  Content Statement

  People think of writing as a solitary occupation, but there comes a point when a village is needed. So, I dedicate this book to my village: my husband, Matt, and our boys, Bobby and Mikey (who put up with all the times I sent them away so I could write); my parents (who suffered through all the worlds my mind visited when they really wanted me to clean my room); Colette Veron, who introduced me to Celina Summers and who in turn asked me to submit to Musa; my editors at Musa; Matt Teel and Jennifer Ayers; Kelly Shorten for the fabulous cover art, and Coreen Montagna for the interior art. Without their help and support, Shots at Redemption would still be just an idea. Thank you all.

  Kalypso’s Song

  THE PROBLEM WITH SEARCHING for a goddess is that occasionally, I want to be found.

  I sent a gentle breeze to tug the last of the obscuring mists from my island home’s shores. Suddenly exposed to mortal eyes, Ogygian’s verdant green roused shouts of surprise from the seventy-foot yacht that otherwise would have passed by the island. Moments later, the vessel weighed anchor.

  A fissure of excitement twanged through me. I had waited millennia for Odysseus to return to my shores. Now, he was finally here.

  I’d reached past my domain to plant the idea of a spring break tour of the Adriatic Sea into David’s head. His drunken dorm room proposal to hunt for Greek legends found the ears of two of my descendants. Their yearning to walk on Ogygian burned in their blood. Michael, Odysseus’s many times grandson, had the means to make their pleasure cruise happen. He was the nominal head of this expedition.

  I had to remind myself not to bounce on my toes. Goddesses were the embodiment of patience. Smoothing my hands down my sides, I straightened the line of my dress.

  The top of Michael’s head appeared over the rail. He resembled his ancestor, Odysseus: tall, dark, and broad-shouldered. The other two popped into view behind him. Susanna’s lithe form followed my own shape. Recognizing her as my descendant, the wind played with the ends of her hair. I smiled at the return of my bloodline to the island.

  The air rushed out of my body as I my gaze fixed on David. My heart stuttered in its prison of ribs. He drew my attention in the way the others couldn’t, even though he was not of my get. His hair flamed scarlet in the sunlight. Though he bore Odysseus’s soul, David looked nothing like his former incarnation. My soul ached for the scent of the man and the scrape of his skin against mine.

  Did he know why he’d felt compelled to find me?

  Michael barked an order to his father’s crew. I focused my attention on my visitors and the crew. The sudden clamor of memories, thoughts, and emotions assailed me. I put my hand to my forehead as pain stabbed behind my left eye at the assault. My hand grasped the rough bark of a Cyprus tree to steady myself. The rush of new information was at once exhilarating and daunting. While my handmaidens lived with me, I was use to their sounds and knew their history as well as my name.

  My ability to see an individual’s deepest secrets was one of the reasons for my exile to Ogygian. The grind of an immortal’s life could cripple me.

  And no god wanted his secrets laid bare.

  A rumble of displeasure rose from the captain, and dragged my focus back to the vessel. Salvadore, Michael’s father, had ordered the captain to ensure the children’s safety. Michael’s excitement at the idea of an island that wasn’t on the map overrode the man’s concern.

  A smile softened my features. They were coming to me. I allowed the impressions from the crew to wash through me and fade into nonexistence. They didn’t matter.

  The three, my three, climbed into a skiff. Michael pulled on the oars while Susanna and David conferred in the stern. I allowed them to beach the skiff and stride across the white sands before dropping the veil hiding me from their view.

  “I am the goddess Kalypso, daughter of the Titan Atlas,” I said. “Ogygian is my home, my haven, which no man may see without my leave. I have allowed you to find my island so that you may learn the truth of what happened when Odysseus’s god-driven wanderings brought him to my shore.”

  Michael, Susanna, and David glanced at each other. Fears skittered across their conscious minds. The highlights of the story of Odysseus’s time here ran through David’s mind. That damned Homer had made them nervous. I should have struck him down rather than let him spread that atrocity.

  “Don’t fret about what you have heard of this tale. It is a lie best forgotten. When you desire to leave, I will send you a fair wind to take you home.”

  Michael’s shoulders sagged. He was trying to be subtle.

  A slight smile creased my features again. Did he really expect to hide anything from the goddess of concealment? Or had David not told him of my skills?

  Susanna blew out a small breath. David, my scholar, rubbed the back of his neck. At least there was no pretense or false bravado there.

  “Come to my home, and be welcome.”

  I turned away from the beach and lead them to my house. There was a large fire burning on the hearth, and the scent of burning cedar and sandalwood mixed with the salt of the sea.

  I set meat and drink before my guests. When they were settled, I began my story.

  I lived alone for many seasons before Odysseus came. I had never known love or loss until he arrived. If the truth had been known of how he’d willingly laid by my side for those seven years and never mourned the loss of his wife or son, he’d have met the same fate as Agamemnon when he returned home with Kassandra. I let Odysseus go. But I rush too fast.

  It is not unusual for the sea to carry shards of shattered vessels past my island. Normally, I would have turned away and allowed Poseidon to claim him, for what is the suffering of man? But as rosy-fingered Eos kissed the wreckage of a ship drifting past my island, the sun-baked and nearly naked Odysseus captivated me even as he lay collapsed atop the debris.

  He clung to life with a tenacity that rivaled my father’s balancing the world on his shoulders. I put my hand to
my brow to shade my eyes from Apollo’s glare and watched Odysseus wake at Eos’s touch on his skin.

  He struggled upright and straddled the upended keel that had been his home for untold days. Rather than accepting his fate, he reared up on the scrap of flotsam and cursed the gods.

  It is never wise to curse immortals. It attracts our attention.

  The Greek gods responded by swamping the plank. Man and lumber disappeared beneath the waves with only the wood bobbing to the surface.

  “No!” It was the first word I had needed to speak in years.

  Even now, after all these centuries, I do not know why I did it. It must be that Cupid had struck me with one of his cursed arrows. Even the gods are not immune to their poisoned kisses.

  My grip tightened on the balcony rail. Thoughts fled as though scattered by a tempest. I’d watched sailors drown before and not intervened. After all, what was one mortal life to me? But the thought of losing this one, losing Odysseus, shredded my soul. My legs barely supported my weight.

  Compelled to preserve him, I reached out and drew the sailor safely to the shores of my home.

  I ran from my tower to the beach. Reaching his side, I sank to my knees.

  “Be not dead.”

  He lay still, though his chest still rose and fell. I pulled him into my arms and brushed the hair from his eyes. His arms tightened around me, as if I were his bit of flotsam, and forced the breath from my lungs.

  My shadow protected him from Apollo’s glare as he opened eyes as dark as the rich earth in which my vineyards grew. A calloused hand rasped against the smooth skin of my calf. A tremor ran through me at the contact. Even the scent of the man, a heavy musk mingled with the salt of the sea, caused heat to pool low in my belly. No mortal or god, for that matter, had ever pulled on my emotions so thoroughly. Homer later claimed it was I who ensorcelled Odysseus, but Homer was mistaken.

  Odysseus tried to speak, but the salt of the sea had parched his throat. My maidens joined us. One handed me a golden ewer of spring water. He tried to take the cup, but his strength failed him. Cradling him, I put the vessel to his lips and held it while he drank.

  “I am Odessyus, son of Laertes,” he said after a few sips.

  His thoughts rustled against my consciousness. He sat upright and glanced around. The forest, a thick wood of alder, poplar, and sweet smelling cypress trees drew close to the white sand beach. He drew in a slow breath, his shoulders unbunching as the air eased out of him. I saw the island’s beauty reflected in his eyes.

  “I might say that I was Odysseus. It seems that Zeus, who sundered my ship, and Poseidon have had their way. I must be in the Elysian Fields to be attended by such beauty.” A smile, more dazzling than Apollo’s chariot, broke across his face, transforming it from merely handsome to transcendence. “Even Paris himself, who claimed the love of Helen, could not boast finer attendants than those I see before me.”

  “You live.” I mopped the water from his brow with the hem of my dress though I confess that I may have used more force than necessary. “Helen’s mortal beauty fades. Mine does not,” I snapped. “I am Kalypso. If you can walk, I will take you to my home.”

  “My companions—have they washed up on your shores?”

  “I have seen only you.”

  He averted his gaze. Rage built inside him and sizzled through my consciousness. I drew back concerned he was one of the Furies’ playthings. He was incensed that the gods had cheated him, taken something of his away, again. Sensing my withdrawal, he tamped down the anger. Cooler emotions balmed the path of his anger.

  He said, “I am in your debt for saving me. But I must impose on your hospitality and borrow a ship, for I have been long away from Ithaca.”

  “My hospitality you may have. You are welcomed as an honored guest to my home. I cannot grant you the ship, for I have none.”

  He took the news poorly. His expression closed and brow furrowed. Angry and impotent, he was nearly ugly. I heard the rustle of his thoughts as he, ever clever, sought a way to find an advantage in the situation. Within moments, his countenance cleared and he was restored.

  Had I been less than I am, I might have thought the emotions that ran rampant on his face had been a trick of the light. I didn’t want to know, to see, this other side of him. It was part of him, the brutal bloodlust that had sustained him all those years in Troy. I blocked out his thoughts.

  “My home is through the alder wood,” I said. “We can go there and I will see that you are well-tended.”

  Pulling out of my embrace, Odysseus stood. He extended a hand as if to aid in my rising. Threading his arm through mine, he bade me to lead, a pretense to hide how he leaned on me. In silence, my maids followed. Even as I guided him, my gaze drank him in. The smooth ripple of muscle beneath skin as he moved indicated that despite the tragedies that had befallen him, he was physically unhurt. The urge to run my fingers though his straggly black hair and remove the tangles was strong.

  The pathway arched gracefully and ended at the opening of a cave. A vine loaded with grapes was trained and grew luxuriantly about the mouth of the cave. There were four running rills of water in channels cut close together, turned hither and thither so as to irrigate the beds of violets and luscious herbage over which they flowed. Birds called softly in the early morning light.

  The spot had charmed gods. Odysseus could not resist its beauty.

  “This is your home?”

  I smiled. “It is but one aspect of it.”

  With a wave of my hand, I lifted the concealment from around my home. Now he could see free of illusion. Vines twined down the fluted columns of the palisades. Water had been diverted from the waterfall down the columns to nourish the vines and the gardens that sprang away from the base of the structure. The gardens were thick and wild.

  “By the gods!”

  My laughter danced on the ocean breeze. “No, just by the will of one.”

  I gave his arm a slight tug and walked him through the doorway.

  His steps faltered, and he collapsed.

  “Carry him to the solar.”

  My maids rushed to comply. It took four of them to bear his weight.

  By time my maids laid him on the golden chaise, his muscles strained to tear themselves apart. Desperately thirsty, he must have succumbed to the desire to drink the sea water, even if he hadn’t, by now the dehydration would have posed the same risk to his health. I pried into his memories of the days on the raft. He hadn’t fallen victim to the sea’s false promise. No, Apollo’s rays had wrung Odysseus dry.

  Odysseus ranted with fever. His convulsions became so severe that we could not restrain him. Fearing for his safety, I ordered him tied to the bed, where exhaustion finally stilled him. I ladled drops of water into this mouth. I bathed him in fragrant waters until his skin pruned. Minute by minute, muscle by muscle, I reclaimed his body from Apollo’s ravages.

  On the third day, the convulsions ceased. My heart finally resumed beating when his eyes cleared and he held my gaze. His body relaxed, and he fell into an untroubled sleep.

  Never in all that time, in all those restless thoughts, did the word “Penelope” slip past his lips.

  If it had, would I have loved him less? I doubt it. But I may have bid him to leave once he was well.

  By the fourth sunrise, Odysseus was well enough to sit upright in his bed. I fed him spoonfuls of herbal broth to speed his recovery.

  “How do you come to my island?”

  While I could have seen his memories, or put together his tale from the conversations of the gods about Troy, the rules of hosting required I ask. Besides, while I could read his thoughts as easily as it had been printed in a book, I try to avoid violating a guest’s privacy when possible.

  Odysseus said, “It would be a long story were I to repeat the tale of my misfortunes, for the hand of the gods is heavy upon me. I fought for ten years at Troy. Victorious, my ship was laden with spoils, and I made sail for Ithaca. Fortune, however, led me to y
our hearth, for Zeus struck my ship with his thunderbolts and broke it up in mid-ocean. I stuck to the keel and was carried hither and thither for the space of nine days, till, at last, during the darkness of the tenth night the gods brought me to you.”

  The acts of the Greek gods rarely benefitted me. But in this, I’d been blessed. They’d sent me a mortal I could love, one that was now trapped on my island with no ties to the world he’d left behind. I lay my hand softly on his brow. A small smile lightened my features.

  “Rest well, Odysseus, for you are safe. The gods themselves would not strike at you here.”

  Odysseus sank back into the feathered bed. I pressed him no further for details of his life before he arrived. It didn’t matter to me. What his life was before he came was over. Ogygian is far from neighbors, human or divine. Amongst my gardens, Odysseus would find the peace he needed.

  He never broached the subject of Ithaca again. Never mentioned the wife and child he’d left.

  After a month, he was strong enough to roam the grounds. In the late afternoon, I would retreat to the garden. The cool afternoon breeze from the ocean was a welcome relief to the heat of the day. I was busy at my loom, shooting my golden shuttle through the warp and singing. There was no need to bind my hair; the wind blew it away from my face. Unaccustomed as I was to listening for the sounds of another being, I heard him come up behind me.

  “Kalypso.”

  A thrill ran through me at the sound of my name on his lips.

  “Are you in need?” I scanned his lovely form for any signs of distress. Seeing none, my shoulders relaxed. A small sigh escaped me, and I turned my attention back to the loom.

  “No.” His gaze traveled the path to the beach.

  “What is it?”

  He sat down on the bench next to me. “He won’t let me leave.”

  While Poseidon could not reach him on my island, he could bar Odysseus from the sea.

  “I went to the shore to watch for ships. I’d waded no further in than my knees before Poseidon sent a shark, a great hulking brute with a broad flat head. He made no mistake of his intentions and followed me through the shallows until I was again on land.”