Aeolia

An island that floats on the open sea, ringed by bronze walls that rise sheer from the waterline. No beach. No harbor. The only way in is to be permitted. Inside the walls is a single great hall the length of the island, where the king Aeolus, keeper of the winds for Zeus, lives with his twelve children, six sons married to six daughters, and the food and wine never cease. Odysseus and his men idle here for a month. The hollows leave their faces. They remember the dreams of deep sleep. Laughter comes back. Aeolus listens to ten years of war stories every night and never interrupts. When they leave, he gifts a bag made from the skin of a nine-year-old ox, bound with silver cord, holding every wind that could blow them off course. They sail nine days with a perfect westerly. On the tenth they see Ithaca. Then the men open the bag while Odysseus sleeps. Aeolia is the kindest place in the story. It is also the place that makes the cruellest reversal possible.