Episode 10: Anagnorisis
SFX: Ignition. A van engine rumbles. The god radio hisses as someone turns the dial to tune into a station. The opening theme plays, at first distorted before clearing up.
THEME: (sings)
If there’s a stranger all alone
Set her back to walk the stone
TITLE:
Hearthbound
Episode 10
Anagnorisis
THEME: (sings)
Will she find her way back home?
SFX: A bow creaks. A squirrel chirps. The bow releases, and an arrow whistles through the air, impaling the squirrel. It dies.
ODESSA: (whistles from a distance) Mack! Snatch! I’m getting pretty handy with Circe’s bow, don’t you think?
SFX: Mack barks.
ODESSA: Alright. A rabbit for me and a squirrel for you. Don’t you look at me like that.
SFX: Mark whines.
ODESSA: Fine, you take the rabbit, I’ll take the squirrel. Never met a mutt so damn picky. Alright, come here, I’ll trade you. Hold onto that while I get your supper cleaned up. Don’t chew, that’s mine.
SFX: Odessa and Mack head back to camp. The night creatures wake up as Odessa dresses her kills and cooks dinner. Mack whines.
ODESSA: Yeah, I know. I miss them too. Cassandra’s probably already docked for dinner. Medea’s bussing the front of house and mad about it. Cal’s in the kitchen, and Circe’s hovering. And here we are. We’re still having dinner together, aren’t we? Just a little further apart than before.
(sighs) He’ll be here soon. “The Echoman leaves only when you’re ready to let him go.” That’s what Cassandra said. “Until then, he’ll wait until you are ready to want again. And when you want again, you won’t need him.” What about you? What do you want, Mack? More rabbits? That’s easy enough.
I want, hm, cane apple cider, fresh from the grove. Pressing olives. Green hills that roll on and on forever. Misty mornings.
SFX: Thunder groans gently in the distance. The pitter and patter of rain begins.
ODESSA: Mushrooms singing in the pan. Holding your hand.
SFX: The Echoman arrives. His leg creaks. He sits.
ODESSA: Hey, Echoman.
SFX: The Echoman responds. The rain is coming down harder now.
ODESSA: You brought the rain. I don’t think I ever really knew rain until I came here, you know. Sheets of it coming down. And when you look out over the sea, you can see it rolling through the sky like black silk. The hills here are brown and dry in the summer, but right after the winter, they’re green and gorged with that rain.
Penelope took me to the forest by the foothills once when everyone from her town had gathered there. They were setting fires. “Burning away the underbrush,” she told me, “so that new things can grow.” She told me about how the land used to be blackened by neverending firestorms for generations, because settlers had spent a century suffocating any flame they found, but instead they turned their whole world into kindling. How the sky turned orange, and the air was always heavy and sharp.
But before the settlers, the people who lived here knew that fire was medicine. That the land needed it to stay healthy. So much of that knowledge was lost, but what little was passed down, Penelope and her people pieced together enough to begin healing the land again.
That’s where we went wrong. In Troy. The same arrogance. Its stain sets hard in the land. If Helen had just listened. Listened for once before persisting. If I had been able to stop her. Called her back before she forced her way in.
(chuckles) Arrogance. We all pay for it in the end.
Will you sit with me for a while?
SFX: Echoman replies.
ODESSA: No stars when it rains. That’s not true. Look how they dance on the ground.
SFX: Rain. Then, thunder cracks. The Echoman leaves.
ODESSA: Hey, Echoman! Where are you going?
SFX: Mack howls and gives chase, dashing off into the night.
ODESSA: Mack! No! Wait! Damnit. Mack! Come back! Mack!
SFX: Odessa goes after him in the rain and the dark, searching back and forth.
ODESSA: Mack! Mack!
SFX: An old pick-up truck pulls up. A window rolls down. Windshield wipers work overtime as the rain pours. Thunder cracks again.
PENELOPE: Hey, everything okay?
ODESSA: Lost my dog. He ran after the Echoman. God fucking… where is he?
PENELOPE: It’s coming down real hard, and it’s the middle of the night. You’re not gonna find him wandering around like that with no light.
ODESSA: I can’t just leave him.
PENELOPE: He’ll probably find his way back to you in the morning. Dogs are like that.
ODESSA: Mack!
PENELOPE: Hey, why don’t you hop into my truck, and we can drive around real slow. At least you’ll stay dry.
ODESSA: Mack!
PENELOPE: Hey, are you okay?
ODESSA: Where is he?
SFX: The truck turns off, and the door opens. Penelope gets out and walks over.
PENELOPE: You know, this doesn’t feel productive.
ODESSA: Mack!
PENELOPE: Mack! What does he look like?
ODESSA: He’s a blue heeler. He’s missing half of his right ear. And he glows in the dark.
PENELOPE: Oh, okay… Mack! Here boy! Come here!
ODESSA: He never runs off like this. Mack! Where are you?
PENELOPE: Hey, what’s your name?
ODESSA: I was bringing him home. I can’t lose him now. We’re so close—
PENELOPE: (gentler) Hey, what’s your name?
ODESSA: He belongs on the bluffs. I said I’d take him home. I said I’d show him.
PENELOPE: Hey. Will you step into the light?
ODESSA: What?
PENELOPE: Please. Step into the headlights.
SFX: Odessa steps into the headlights.
PENELOPE: Take off your hat.
SFX: Odessa takes off her hat.
PENELOPE: Odessa?
ODESSA: Yes?
PENELOPE: It’s me. It’s me, Penelope.
ODESSA: I was going to bring him home to you.
PENELOPE: Look at me, Odessa. Look at me. It’s me. I’m here.
ODESSA: I was on my way.
PENELOPE: Odessa.
ODESSA: It’s you.
PENELOPE: It’s me.
ODESSA: You found me.
PENELOPE: I found you.
SFX: The rain slows. Thunder cracks, but in a soft, rolling way.
ODESSA: The storm’s passing.
PENELOPE: Come here.
SFX: They collide in a hard, tight hug of heavy, soaked clothes.
ODESSA: I was on my way to see you.
PENELOPE: That’s my line.
ODESSA: I’m sorry I took so long.
PENELOPE: I love you.
SFX: They hold each other tighter.
PENELOPE: (muffled) You adopted a dog?
ODESSA: (Also muffled) He was a stray.
PENELOPE: We’ll find him in the morning. I promise.
ODESSA: How are you so sure?
PENELOPE: He’ll come back. And we’ll go looking. Come on, you need to get out of these. You’re soaked. We’re soaked.
ODESSA: My camp is just over there.
PENELOPE: Let’s go then.
SFX: They walk back to Odessa’s camp.
ODESSA: You found me.
PENELOPE: You already said that, doofus.
ODESSA: How did you find me?
PENELOPE: Helen told me what happened. I knew you took the old 50 out east, so I followed.
ODESSA: I was on my way back.
PENELOPE: Yeah, I see that.
ODESSA: I’m sorry I took so long.
SFX: They slide open the van door and get in.
PENELOPE: Strip. You’ll catch a cold.
SFX: They get changed.
ODESSA: I’ve got some shirts back there. Take whatever.
SFX: Penelope, barefoot, walks over and rummages around
PENELOPE: Hey, this is mine! I thought I’d lost it. You had it this whole time?
ODESSA: Oh. Yeah, sorry. I was in a hurry when I packed.
PENELOPE: This is mine too! I don’t believe you. This was definitely a deliberate act of theft.
ODESSA: It smells like you.
PENELOPE: (Sniffs.) Not anymore. Now it smells like you.
ODESSA: Sorry.
PENELOPE: Hey. Quit that. Come here. What do you have to be sorry for?
ODESSA: I don’t know where to start.
PENELOPE: Then don’t. Come here.
SFX: Odessa, also barefoot, walks over to the bed.
PENELOPE: Sit down.
SFX: Odessa sits.
PENELOPE: Let me hold you. Please, let me hold you.
SFX: Odessa lets Penelope hold her.
ODESSA: I’ve missed you.
PENELOPE: I’ve missed you. So much. (one long, hard sniff)
ODESSA: What are you doing?
PENELOPE: (muffled) Smelling you.
ODESSA: (laughs– the first since they reunited)
PENELOPE: What? I haven’t seen my wife in five years, and I’m not allowed to give her a good sniff? Do you know how long that is?
ODESSA: I didn’t mean to be gone that long.
PENELOPE: I know. You’re here now. I’m holding you. I’m smelling you. I love you.
SFX: Rain continues to fall on the outside of the van.
PENELOPE: What… happened? Helen and Manny told me about the trouble out east, but after— what happened?
ODESSA: Yeah.
PENELOPE: Is that okay? We don’t have to talk about this now.
ODESSA: I… I shot a man, Pen. I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean to. I went back to turn myself in. To see if I could fix it. But they had closed the gates. And no one answered. So I left. I don’t know if he made it. And I have to live with that. The way back was hard on my own. Alby was falling apart. I was lucky if she’d crawl twenty miles to a ghost town where I could go digging for scraps that would keep her going another twenty miles. I kept getting stuck. The salt flats felt endless. I remember standing and staring across them for months before I found the pieces I needed to get across.
PENELOPE: I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to do that alone.
ODESSA: But then, I wasn’t alone. I found Mack. And then I found Paulie.
PENELOPE: Paulie?
ODESSA: It’s a long story.
PENELOPE: I want to hear all of it. If you want to tell me.
ODESSA: Paulie. A blind woman and her raven. I stayed with them and her people for a night. Before I left, she told me to check in on a friend of hers, Cal. I found her by a singing dune. She tried to shoot me.
PENELOPE: She what?
ODESSA: She missed. She was waiting for someone, but they never came back. She decided she was done waiting, so she left with me. We found a lodge with a woman, her niece, and an old crone. I stabbed a man in the hand there.
PENELOPE: I’m sure he deserved it.
ODESSA: Oh, he did. Cal and I stayed there while I fixed up Alby. It was a good place to trade for parts. I…
PENELOPE: What?
ODESSA: I’m sorry.
PENELOPE: You keep saying that. Why are you sorry?
ODESSA: I should’ve left sooner. I could’ve left sooner. I always needed more parts, but I didn’t. I was so close, and I could’ve just left and come home. But I was scared, so I stayed.
PENELOPE: What were you scared of?
ODESSA: You. You, waiting and angry. You, with someone else, and I couldn’t even be mad about it. You, grieving. You, a stranger. You. Gone.
PENELOPE: I’m right here.
Odessa: (cries)
PENELOPE: Darling, my darling, I’m right here.
I did grieve. I was angry. I was unbearably sad. And I was full of unbearable hope. I tried to go after you the second year, but I didn’t know where I was going, so I came back. I didn’t know how long I could wait. What I did know was that I waited twenty years to meet you. Big Bertha’s mad as hell, though. She said that when I see you that I should give you a piece of her mind. Or ten.
ODESSA: Oh no. Last time I made Big Bertha mad, she—
PENELOPE: — threw an octopus at you.
ODESSA: (at the same time) —threw an octopus at me.
ODESSA: Honestly, I forgot that everyone else might also be mad at me.
PENELOPE: But they still love you.
ODESSA: Oh! I… wrote something.
SFX: Odessa grabs her guitar.
ODESSA: I wrote something on the way. It helped, the music.
SFX: Odessa starts strumming. The guitar chords refract.
ODESSA: (sings)
I walked the ends of the earth. The…
(spoken) Shit.
SFX: She hits the guitar switch and plays searchingly. The refraction disappears, so it’s just electric.
ODESSA: Hold on. I can’t remember how it goes.
SFX: She hits the guitar switch again. She plays, acoustically.
ODESSA: (sings)
I walked the ends of this earth
A thousand battles deep in my skin
I stayed alive in this world
Though the next beckoned me in
’Cus when I was lost in the pitch of night
The only stars I needed to see
Were spread across your face
Marked by the places my hands used to trace
Oh I can take it all
The good and the bad and the melancholy
If I can wake up by your side
And say, dear, good morning
With every sunrise
Hmmmmm
PENELOPE: (sings)
The light in your eye is different
The temper of your voice has changed
But you look at me
And it feels like home
There’s harbor when you say my name
ODESSA: (sings)
And when I was drifting on the windless sea
Wave after wave washing over me
I dreamt that I stood at your door
A ship wrecked and waiting
At the mercy of your shore
TOGETHER: (sings)
Oh I can take it all
The good and the bad and the melancholy
If I can wake up by your side
And say, dear, good morning
With every sunrise
Hmmmmm
PENELOPE: (sings) We’ll walk by the oceanside
ODESSA: (sings) You’ll pick up all the broken glass
PENELOPE: (sings) Take them home, put them back together
ODESSA: (sings) With glue and gold to last
ODESSA: (sings) ’Cus I can take it all
PENELPOPE: (sings) The good and the bad and the melancholy
ODESSA: (sings) The sweet
PENELOPE: (sings) And the tart
ODESSA: (sings) And the heat
PENELOPE: (sings) And the scars
ODESSA: (sings) And the bitter ends of days in the dark. It’s work–
TOGETHER: (sings) –I want to be a part of
PENELOPE: (sings) So morning, my darling
ODESSA: (sings) I’m ready to start.
SFX: The rain’s stopped.
ODESSA: (spoken) Not bad, huh?
PENELOPE: Not bad.
ODESSA: Rain’s stopped.
PENELOPE: Yeah, it did.
SFX: Mack whines, scrabbling against the van door.
PENELOPE: Do you hear that?
ODESSA: Mack!
SFX: Mack woofs. Odessa pulls open the van door, and Mack jumps in.
ODESSA: You little monster! Why’d you run off like that? Ok, ok, ok, enough, down, you’re soaking wet.
SFX: Mack jumps onto the bed. He shakes water everywhere.
ODESSA: Oh no, no, Mack, okay, out. Out. This. This is Mack. Mack, this is Penelope.
PENELOPE: Hi there.
SFX: Mack sniffs curiously. He growls uncertainly.
ODESSA: She’s okay, Mack. Come on.
PENELOPE: You’re a big boy.
SFX: Mack licks Penelope enthusiastically, tail thumping.
ODESSA: That’s it.
PENELOPE: Good boy.
SFX: Mack goes a little crazy with the wiggling.
ODESSA: Oh no, Mack. Down. There’s not enough room in here for all three of us. (chuckles) What’s the point?
PENELOPE: Did you take care of my girl while she was gone? Did you? Who’s a sweetie?
ODESSA: He sure did. Ate my second hat too.
PENELOPE: Good boy.
ODESSA: He’s a—
PENELOPE: –blue heeler. Good herding dog. Brings the cattle home.
ODESSA: Are you calling me a cow?
PENELOPE: Yes, a sweet, dopey cow.
ODESSA: Thanks, babe.
SFX: They settle down. An owl hoots outside. Little drops of water occasionally hit the van roof.
PENELOPE: Are you tired?
ODESSA: No. Are you?
PENELOPE: No.
ODESSA: Come here. Mack, move.
SFX: Odessa shoves Mack off the bed. He tumbles off and barks, aggrieved. Odessa and Penelope snuggle up.
ODESSA: Tomorrow—
PENELOPE: (at the same time) What do you—
ODESSA: You first.
PENELOPE: No, it’s okay, you go.
ODESSA: Actually, no. Not right now.
PENELOPE: What?
ODESSA: I don’t want to think about tomorrow.
PENELOPE: Why?
ODESSA: Tomorrow has too many questions.
PENELOPE: Like what?
ODESSA: Like, what if I’m still scared? To go home. What if I want you to come with me? What if I want you to come with me back to meet my friends? What if you came with me back to Troy, and I faced all the things left unresolved back there, but with you by my side? What if we stayed here forever? What if we went home and let Big Bertha run things, and you and I build a new house under the bluffs, and everyone had to climb down to bother us. What if we went south and never looked back?
PENELOPE: You’re right. Those are for tomorrow.
ODESSA: Okay.
PENELOPE: For now, I just want to be here. With you.
ODESSA: Okay.
SFX: Penelope hums softly into Odessa’s ear. Odessa hums along. The god radio hisses, then clicks off. The radio clicks on. A black-billed magpie sings. Sheets rustle. A body shifts and turns over.
PENELOPE: Good morning.
ODESSA: Hi.
SFX: Mack jumps onto the bed.
ODESSA: Mack! Get down.
PENELOPE: Get your big butt outta my face!
ODESSA: Down. Down. Okay, okay, breakfast time. Hey, you want breakfast?
PENELOPE: Yeah, I’d love some.
ODESSA: Bacon and eggs, coming right up.
PENELOPE: Bacon and eggs? You got a farm hiding under the hood of this piece of junk?
ODESSA: The lodge I was at specialized in pork. And they had a chicken coop in the back.
SFX: Odessa gets out of the van and gets breakfast going.
PENELOPE: What is this?
ODESSA: Hm? That’s my shirt.
PENELOPE: No, what is this?
ODESSA: That’s…a hole in my shirt?
PENELOPE: And this?
ODESSA: That’s…um…that’s a hole in my other shirt…
PENELOPE: Why??
ODESSA: I’ve been busy!
PENELOPE: Oh my god.
SFX: Penelope, still barefoot, walks over to her pack. She pulls out her kit and heads back to sit over the edge of the van door.
ODESSA: What are you doing?
PENELOPE: Fixing your shirts.
ODESSA: You brought your sewing kit with you?
PENELOPE: Yeah. It’s practical.
SFX: Odessa cracks an egg into the pan.
ODESSA: Oh shit!
PENELOPE: Did you break a yolk??
ODESSA: No. I just missed hearing how mad you get when I break a yolk.
PENELOPE: (gasps) Bad.
ODESSA: I know.
SFX: Eggs sizzle. Penelope hums. Birds sing.
ODESSA: Over easy.
PENELOPE: Just the way I like it.
ODESSA: I, uh… only have one fork.
PENELOPE: Don’t worry, dummy, I brought my own.
ODESSA: Oh, right. (whistles) Here, boy. That’s yours.
SFX: Mack snuffles.
ODESSA: I want to go north.
PENELOPE: Okay.
ODESSA: That’s where she went. Cal’s mom. I want to find her. Or at least news of her and bring her back to Cal. She deserves to know what happened.
PENELOPE: I’ll come with you.
ODESSA: What about Ithaca?
PENELOPE: (sighs) Let’s get to that lodge you keep talking about. Someone there should be able to get a message back to them. They’re plenty capable of running the ship themselves these days. And if your friend Cal is still there, I think she should have a say in this first.
ODESSA: Okay. You’re right. I’ll ask her.
PENELOPE: (mouth full) We can hitch Alby up to my truck, and you can finish stitching up your rags while I drive.
ODESSA: (laughs) Okay. I love you.
PENELOPE: Eat your eggs.
SFX: Just birdsong fading out into quiet.
THEME: (sings)
If there’s a stranger at your door
CREDITS:
Hearthbound
Episode 10
Anagnorisis
Features the voices of
Jo Chiang as Odessa
Keren Abreu as Penelope
Odessa's Guitar by Pete Lanctot
Hearthbound is created, written, and produced by Jo Chiang
Directed by Jack Towhey Calk
Music directed by Ginger Dolden
Sound design and editing by Levi Sharpe
Additional dialogue editing by Anna Kelly Rodriguez and Amador L. Rodriguez
Music production, additional engineering, and mixing by Pete Lanctot
Production managed by Charlotte Muth and Neaco Fox
Special thanks to Multitude Studio and our illustrator, Anya Boz
Stay in touch with us on hearthboundpod.com
You get home safe now, you hear?
THEME: (sings)
And listen to her humble lies
With belly fed, she may dare
To speak a name into the air
Lover faithful
Lover fair
Lover restless
Lover rare
If there’s a stranger all alone
Set her back to walk the stone
You may wonder, but never know
Will she find her way back home
JO: Hi! Jo here. You can learn more about controlled and cultural burns and the restorative protection they bring to fire-prone and fire-adapted landscapes at burniebobcat.com. It’s a practice indigenous groups have long championed, and that public land policy is finally, in recent years, now reconsidering.
This show is a love letter for the wild parts of the American West that my immigrant parents, with their own foresight and passion, introduced me to at a very young age. Dearest to my heart are the rolling hills and sweeping coastlines of where I grew up. That land is the traditional home of the Ohlone People, and today Ohlone women are leading the work restoring reciprocal relationships with the land and re-envisioning community for all those who live there. To learn more about some of their work, visit sogoreate-landtrust.org.
Our Penelope is played by the incredible Keren Abreu, a singer-songwriter whose music is a multilingual blend of folk lyricism, pop melodies, and powerhouse vocals. You can listen to ÉXITO, her debut EP, which is a 5-song exploration and celebration of queerness, afro-latinidad, spirituality, and the people and places she calls home. You can also listen to her as the titular character in Lava For Good’s podcast Erased: The Murder of Elma Sands. She’s currently working on a new album about loss and longing, so keep up with her via Instagram at @kerenabreumusic.
And finally, our illustrator, Anya Boz, who brought Odessa and Mack to life through animation, who beautifully composed our album art, who believed in me when I wasn’t sure I could get Odessa home. My own Penelope. I found you in so many corners of this story. To me, you’re home.
