Empty footsteps

A ghost had taken up residence in the palace. Telemachus could have sworn to it! Dancing footsteps echoed through the empty corridors, belonging to no one. Laughter drifted from rooms locked from the outside, and someone was heard moving things about inside. Strange drafts swept through the halls, carrying barely audible whispers and giggles. The Queen frowned and, seizing the pretext, no longer left her chambers in the evenings. The servant girls began walking in pairs in the distant corridors and shrieked at every rustle. And even the grown men, adorned with battle scars and wearing swords at their belts, scowled and peered intently into dark corners or at the dance of shadows cast by the torchlight on the walls. And Telemachus... Telemachus was delighted! When Troy finally fell and rumors reached Ithaca that all whom the gods had permitted to return had come back from the endlessly long war, the young prince was only a little more than ten winters old. And he did not yet fully understand what it meant. Why huge, rough men had begun to swarm their home, claiming that his beloved mother must now become the wife of one of them. At first, he would still rush up to every stocky figure in a dusty cloak that appeared at the palace gates, still trying to find his father's familiar features—known to him only from frescoes and vase paintings—in the strangers' faces. But soon he began to grow wary, dodging unwelcome hands like a ruffled kitten, hiding inside his own home from the crowd of insolent suitors who behaved as if they were the masters. None of them was his father. None deserved his mother's hand. But each one felt entitled to look down on Telemachus, each demanded respect as if he were already the new king. Telemachus would hiss back like a wild creature, muttering something crude, barely audible, so as not to break the accursed law of hospitality. Though this "mercy" of Zeus had already brought plenty of trouble upon their house: the suitors ate and drank their fill, and their upkeep lay heavy on the estate of Ithaca. But with the ghost's appearance, the suitors began to look over their shoulders, flinching nervously and grabbing for their weapons at every rustle. They stopped drinking themselves into a stupor, complaining loudly that, in their drunkenness, every shadow seemed to teem with horrible monsters, and the whisper of the wind from the windows sounded like accusations and threats. They often quarreled over something someone had said, but could never determine who exactly it had been. And not an evening passed without jokes about missing daggers or jewels and mutual accusations of theft. And, what was possibly most important of all, the shadows on the walls would begin to swirl more thickly and the otherworldly whispers would grow louder whenever another uninvited suitor of his mother tried to corner Telemachus in a deserted corridor to "teach him manners." And the seasoned grown man would often retreat from the disheveled boy, staring in horror at the wall behind him. The unknown ghost never frightened Telemachus himself. Only sometimes, in the hottest hours of the afternoon, when the air was thick with heat and even the laurel and myrtle leaves in the palace garden drooped sadly under the relentless sun, a light, mysterious draft would purposefully slice through the treetops to wash over the prince with a coolness akin to the light touch of a hand on his hair. And it would chuckle faintly when Telemachus started from the surprise. The ghost slipped easily into his securely locked room and teasingly left traces of its presence. A branch from an unknown tree, unlike any on the island, smelling of sunshine and the spicy scent of foreign lands. A ripe, juicy fig, out of season. A round pebble, seemingly unremarkable, but foggy-golden when held to the light. A piece of amber with a spider forever frozen inside. Real treasures for a thirteen-year-old boy! Telemachus diligently hid them and told no one, not even his mother. Especially not his mother! For, in the very first days after the ghost's appearance, lounging like a lazy cat on a large, comfortable branch of the old laurel tree beneath his mother's bedroom window, Telemachus had accidentally overheard her conversation with old Nurse Eurycleia, who had nursed his own father. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, honestly! Usually, only the soothing, rhythmic sounds of the loom, on which she wove a shroud, came from his mother's room. They were so perfect for dozing on a hot afternoon. But that day, the unruffled rhythm of those familiar sounds was unexpectedly interwoven with his mother's voice, tautly calm, like a string about to snap: "Can it be him, Eurycleia? Can my husband have returned... like this? A disembodied, unquiet spirit? While his body rots at the bottom of the sea?" And for the first time in all these years, Telemachus heard his mother's voice tremble on the verge of a sob. He himself went cold, only now realizing who his unknown friend might be. "Gods forbid, my Queen!" the usually dignified and calm Eurycleia replied, almost indignantly. "Would your husband, my boy Odysseus, have endured what these accursed suitors of yours are doing and limited himself to mere pranks? He wouldn't be untying their sandal straps or watering their wine, he'd have slit their throats on the very first evening! It's not him, I tell you truly. Some stray spirit, perhaps from his crew." "But he protects Telemachus so... as if he were his own. Why?" "Who can fathom these spirits? Maybe he's taken a liking to the boy, or maybe he just wants to anger your suitors. And it's for the best; let them think our prince is cursed and dangerous to touch. Otherwise, as he starts coming into his strength, they might..." That same strange breeze rustled the branches, preventing him from hearing the rest. Almost habitually now, it ruffled Telemachus's hair and slipped away. The prince jumped down from the tree, nearly skinning his knees, and rushed after the retreating draft. "Stop! Wait! Are you my father?!" Only laughter in response. Had his father been like this? Mischievous and laughing? Legends and songs of traveling bards described him as cunning and a heroic sacker of cities, but perhaps death changes people? Could he, even after death, be trying to grow closer to the son who didn't even remember him? Telemachus wandered restlessly for a long time through the garden, flooded with solar heat, never catching up with the ghost. And at night, he lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling, and unbidden tears tickled as they crawled from the corners of his eyes toward his temples. Until a small white feather suddenly fell onto the pillow beside him, and cool lips weightlessly brushed his forehead. "Your father truly would have slit all their throats," the wind whispered, barely audible. "But he is not a ghost yet. And who I am, you will figure out for yourself... when you're older."