As the dawn light creeps through the shutters, Jason goes to wake Medea for the journey. He will honor his wedding vows and provide for his wife as they begin a new life in a new city.
But for the rest of his days, he will never sleep soundly next to her.
55
Atalanta
On the slopes of Mount Parthenion, I stared at the empty ruins of the hunters’ hut.
The door had fallen in, and the windows were like the hollow eye sockets of a skull. The small garden was overrun with weeds, and no chickens or barking hounds disturbed the silence.
The old man and woman must have left to live out the rest of their lives in civilization, I told myself sternly, ignoring the prickle of tears in my eyes. They were too old and tough for the forest to claim. Still, I felt a strange heaviness in my chest as I turned away.
Next I went to the den of my mother bear, warm and scented with milk. The bear was the same as she had always been, though her muzzle was whiter and a new litter of cubs tumbled in the grass. She acknowledged me with a swipe of her tongue, then turned back to her children. Her message was clear:I am pleased to see you, but I am busy right now.
I left half a deer carcass for her and went back to my cave by the stream.
To my irritation, my blankets and bowls had been rifled through, and the sharp scent of animal musk filled the cave. I saw the glint of eyes from the shadows; a family of foxes had taken up residence. I could not in good conscience evict a vixen and her nursing kits, so I decided to share my home.
In truth, I found myself glad for the fox family’s company. Theantics of the kits provided a distraction from the melancholy that settled upon me, as day after day passed with little to distinguish one from another.
A few months after my return, I sat under the rustling leaves of a great oak and felt as though I might go out of my mind with boredom. A peculiar pressure built inside me, like a cyst about to burst. Once I’d longed for the silence of the forest, but now I missed the sound of human voices.
Perhaps it was not so easy, as I’d once insisted, to leave behind the orderly roads of civilization and carve one’s own path.
The idea made me think at once of Medea. She’d asked me to visit, hadn’t she? Maybe I could go see her, and we could talk as we once had.
With a cry of frustration, I leaped to my feet. No, no, there was no use indulging in navel-gazing meanderings. If I went to see Medea, nothing would be as it had been; she was a married woman now, and Jason would be there too. I’d pulled Jason back to his feet when he was about to be trampled on our way out of Libya, but my goodwill did not extend much further.
No, I would not be going to see Medea, not now at least. My heart was still too raw, and I had no desire to spend time around a newly married couple.
Deeper and deeper into the woods I went, climbing the slopes of Mount Parthenion. I’d come home, but home was not the same. I stalked the forests in an unending loop, trying to pinpoint what was different. It took some time to realize that it was not the forest that had changed, beyond the ordinary cycles of the seasons.
It was me.
Solitude no longer came as naturally as it once did. I’d known belonging and friendship and love as well. Meleager, my first friend, and Procris, who had initiated me into love. And Medea too, whohad shown me what it meant to be looked after and taught me so much. To be separated from them was a great bitterness to bear.
Perhaps this was why, when the messenger appeared, I did not chase them off.
I saythembecause I could not quite tell at first glance if the stranger was male or female. They dressed in hunting clothes like a man, but their limbs were slender as a girl’s, and their movements like flowing water. A shock of black hair, soft as a raven’s wing, hung over their forehead.
The stranger crouched down at the mouth of my cave, scratching the ears of one of the fox kits while the others tumbled around their feet and chewed the lacings of their leather boots.
“What a wondrous home you have,” the newcomer said, looking around to marvel. “Simple, but comfortable.”
“Who are you?” I demanded, holding my spear more tightly. “What do you want?”
The dark-haired one swept a hand into the air, then laid the splayed fingers on their heart and tilted their head to the side, allowing a little smile to grace their lips.
“I am Melanion, born of Amphidamus,” the stranger said. Their speech was peculiar, relying on the neutral case, whereas a man would use the masculine and a woman the feminine. Besides that, Melanion was an unusual name—the suffix was a childlike diminutive, odd for an adult. Almost feminine.
As peculiar as my own name, I supposed.
“And you,” Melanion continued, “I presume to be the hero Atalanta, of Argonaut fame? Oh, what marvels I have heard about you! Is it true that a fountain of water sprung up where you struck your spear against a rock near Kyphanta? And that you killed the Calydonian boar?” Melanion’s beautiful black eyes shone.
“I am indeed Atalanta,” I replied warily, caught between curiosity and suspicion. “And it is true that I joined the hunt forthe Calydonian boar, though I’ve never heard anything about Kyphanta. Have you really come here just to ask me these things?”
Tension rippled across my skin like a bear raising her hackles, but I was too entranced by this strange visitor to run. Until that moment, I had not realized how profoundly hungry I was for human company. Besides, this stranger could not be so bad if the young foxes trusted them.
