“Miasma,” I said simply, hugging my knees. “That is the cause.”
Miasma. Impurity, pollution, the dark cloud that hung over ill deeds. Certain acts had a shape and weight, and marked the doer in the same way that plunging one’s hands into a vat of dye will stain them. I’d seen the stain of miasma on the walls of the Lemnos palace, where the women murdered their own kin. Then I’d looked down and seen it on my own hands as well.
I hadn’t confided this to Jason, not wishing to worry him. But I found myself speaking freely to Atalanta.
“I realized what happened when Polyxo said Hypsipyle threw her father into the sea,” I continued. “It’s the same thing Aeetes did to the sons of Phrixus, sending them out in a boat with no oars, so that he would not stain his hands with their blood.” I chewed my lip. “The miasma, it’s because of what I did to Absyrtos.”
An axe, winking in the sun. Blood, sticky on my hands.
“We will go visit my aunt Circe,” I added, banishing the memories. “And she will purify me.” If she didn’t kill me on sight, that was. I didn’t know my aunt, had never even met her. All I had was a name, whispered in a darkened room.
Atalanta grunted in acknowledgment. We were silent for a time, until she spoke.
“We have left Lemnos,” Atalanta said, her head tilting up to look at the sky, “but Lemnos has not left my thoughts. I understand Hypsipyle, though I cannot forgive her.” Atalanta shook her head. “Polyxo’s story breaks my heart. It would be one thing to kill the men responsible for the raids in Thrace, but this was something else. The Thracian women were blameless, and they wereslaughtered all the same. I once asked Jason if the ideal world he strove to make was really a place for everyone or only those like him. It’s clear which one Hypsipyle’s island is.”
“An ‘ideal world’ with no men!” I snorted, choosing to ignore the gibe at Jason. “Hardly enviable at all.”
“Sounds rather pleasant to me.”
“You’d live on an island with no men?!” I looked at Atalanta in shock. “Who would do the hard work and the fighting?”
“I seem quite capable of both myself.”
“Don’t you want a husband? Or children?” To me, the world was shaped by the bounds of these expectations. I could not envision a life without them.
“Not particularly,” Atalanta replied. “I’ve spent enough time at the temple of Artemis to see the dangers that childbirth entails. I’d rather stand on a battlefield three times than give birth once.”
“Childbirth is a woman’s battlefield,” I said, recalling an old saying.
“I’d rather a battlefield be a woman’s battlefield,” Atalanta replied dryly.
I was irate. “That’s fine for you, Atalanta, but what about the rest of us? Not every woman has the chance to run barefoot through the forest and frolic with bears and learn to throw spears. Some of us had other things to do. Why do you get to do whatever you like? Why should you, out of all women on earth, have such freedom?”
With sudden clarity, I saw why Atalanta irritated me so much—because she could do all the things I was never allowed to, unconstrained by the narrow scope of a princess’s life.
Atalanta went still, her expression unreadable in the moonlight. “Would you like to learn?” she asked.
“What?”
“Would you like to learn how to throw a spear?”
Now it was my turn to stare blankly at Atalanta. At first I thought she must be mocking me, but her tone was utterly without guile.
Would you like to learn how to throw a spear?Such an obvious question, but somehow one I had never considered.
“I can’t do anything about frolicking with bears or running barefoot in the forest,” Atalanta continued, “but I can teach you how to throw a spear, if you like. I would not have us be divided like the Lemnian women and the Thracian ones.”
Yes. I understood what she meant: Solidarity must be chosen. We were both women, but that meant little unless we used it as a bridge to a deeper commonality.
A choice lay before me, a crossroads of a kind. I could maintain my dislike of Atalanta, as a part of me had always disliked myself, or dismiss her as Hypsipyle had, or keep her at arm’s length.
Or I could try something new and accept her offer of friendship.
“Yes,” I said with a laugh, feeling suddenly giddy. “I would like for you to teach me how to throw a spear. And once I get my magic back, I’ll help you find your Procris.”
We shook hands on it under the light of the half-moon, then walked back to camp together. The Argonauts were sleeping and the fires had burned low, but I was not tired in the slightest. Moreover, I found myself reluctant to part from Atalanta.
“You have offered me a kindness. I would offer one in return,” I said. “Let me do your hair.”
