The edges of her vision began to pulse. He was the one who was missing. She looked around the clearing but couldn’t see the hero’s towering frame anywhere.
“Have you seen Heracles?” she whispered to Hylas.
He blinked. “Not since... I can’t remember.”
Another cheer surged from the hunters. Hypsipyle clasped Atalanta’s hand in hers and raised it to the heavens. “Tonight, we celebrate the newest hunter of Lemnos!”
Danae looked around at the Argonauts. All of them wore the same glazed grin. Why was no one working on the tree huts? Where was their urgency to repair theArgo? Why was no one looking for Heracles?
She clutched Hylas’s arm. “We need to find him.” She turned, her eyes searching the depths of the jungle, and cupped her hands to her mouth. “Heracles!”
Then Sofia appeared beside her, a basket in the crook of her arm.
“Sofia, we need your help.” Panic was beginning to bubble in Danae’s stomach. “Heracles is missing.”
“I’m sure he’ll turn up.” She smiled and held out a lotus petal. “They taste good fresh too.”
26
An Unexpected Gift
Danae stretched her limbs, then reached out and brushed the mosquito curtain aside. Sofia was waiting to greet her with breakfast. She had the strange feeling she’d woken like this many times before, and there was something important she should be doing, but when she tried to remember, the thoughts slipped through her memory like sand.
She rubbed her face, unable to clear the mist from her mind.
“I think... I need to go...”
Sofia held out an omelet stuffed with lotus petals.
“You can’t go anywhere on an empty stomach.”
It smelled delicious, and suddenly Danae realized that she was starving. She bolted down the omelet, and as she ate the tension in her shoulders eased. She was being foolish, there was nothing to worry about it.
“Your task is fishing,” prompted Sofia as she began massaging coconut salve into Danae’s skin.
“Yes.” A smile drifted across her face. She was good at fishing.
Sofia nodded and handed Danae her bag.
“Have you got your knife?”
Danae stepped onto the platform and reached for a vine. “Of course,” she said as she wound one around her thigh, then stepped over the edge.
She moved along the familiar path, hidden to those who did not know the ways of the jungle. The luminous moss held the memory of each footstep she’d imprinted the day before and the day before that. How many times had she walked this way? She couldn’t remember. But that didn’t matter, it wasn’t important.
In no time at all she stepped out into the clearing. She waved to Telamon and Peleus as they passed, carrying a couple of wooden crates. They must be on their way to harvest the mango trees in the southern part of the jungle. That was their task.
She headed straight to a low, square structure on the opposite side of the Hunters Hall to Polyxo’s hut. Brushing aside the animal pelts hanging across the doorway, she stepped into the armory. Walking past the rows of wall-mounted bows, swords and axes, she reached up and grabbed a simple wooden spear and a wicker basket. Armed with the tools for her task, she turned to leave, but something caught her eye. A forgotten thing, small and white, lying on the floor in the corner of the armory.
A dart pipe.
The faintest crease appeared between her brows as she stooped to retrieve it. There were carvings whittled into the bone, prayers to Artemis to bless the speed and accuracy of the darts. One of the hunters must have dropped it. They were the only ones permitted to carry them. She should give it to Hypsipyle, that was the right thing to do.
But even as the thought percolated in her mind, her hand slipped the pipe into her bag. She would return it later. No need to delay her task.
The water sang to Danae through the network of trees, drawing her along a path she sensed rather than saw. She had the feeling she hadn’t always been useful. But now she was. She listened and moved with the jungle. It was satisfying to be part of something larger than herself.
She emerged onto the bank of a wide river that wove a torrent of blue through the trees. She tucked the basket under her arm and, spear in hand, leaped onto a large boulder that split the current in two.
