I laid my spear, arrows, and bow before the statue, as other brides offered up their childhood toys. I would make other weapons to use when I hunted at Melanion’s side, but it seemed right to offer these.
“Goddess,” I whispered. “Sovereign unto herself. Long have I been in your service, and with great sorrow do I leave it. I offer these to you, that you might grant me happiness in marriage, and know that I will never forget you.”
Even in this warm moment, I had not forgotten Artemis’sprophecy:If you love, you will lose yourself. A chill ran over my skin. Hopefully this offering would pacify the goddess and ensure that a race was the only thing I lost.
Perhaps it was only a trick of the moonlight, but I thought I saw Artemis smile.
58
Jason
It is midafternoon, and the cold winter sunlight falls through the window at a steep angle. Jason sits in the rare beam of light that graces his tiny office in the Corinthian palace, poring over the letter in his hands. Clinging to it, really, like a piece of driftwood in a raging sea.
The letter states that his esteemed mother, Alcimede, passed away peacefully in her sleep a few days ago. She has been buried with all honors by her nephew, King Acastus of Iolcus, whose seal and signature adorn the letter.
Acastus, Jason’s cousin, who sits on the throne of Iolcus with the Golden Fleece around his shoulders—the throne that should have belonged tohim. Jason’s nostrils flare, and a roar of blood fills his ears. Perhaps Alcimede grew close to Acastus at some point over the course of the three years that have passed since Jason went into exile, and the young king fulfilled her yearning for a glorious son who could bring her the influence she craved.
Or perhaps the reason behind Acastus’s letter is more sinister. Perhaps Acastus orchestrated the death of Alcimede as revenge for the murder of Pelias, and her eternal sleep was hastened onward by poison or the business end of a blade.
Jason will never know the truth; he can never return to Iolcus except under pain of dishonorable death. He is now truly Jason Amechanos, Jason the Helpless. Over the past three years hehas sent many letters to the shepherd’s hut at the base of Mount Pelion, but Alcimede returned all of them unopened.
Bleak despair hangs over Jason like a storm cloud, and he sags in his seat. Regardless of the circumstances of his mother’s death, it is plain to Jason that he failed her. He did not bury his mother, nor was he present to hold her hand as she passed from this world into the next. He has failed in the most fundamental duty of a son.
He has failed at everything, really.
Alcimede will never meet her grandson Thessalus, who is now about two years old and his father’s only joy. Bright and energetic, Thessalus toddles quickly around the cramped apartment they rent above a bakery. His bright laughter echoes from the walls, making Jason feel the closest thing to happiness he has experienced since being sent out from Iolcus.
Every morning, Jason wakes to the smell of bread that he cannot yet afford to feed his family and goes to work in the records division of the palace in the vain hope that the king of Corinth will someday notice him. His thoughts are no longer of adventure or rhetoric or how to build a better world, but instead how to secure a promotion. Jason’s world has shrunk to a pinprick and flattened to grayscale.
Jason decides not to tell Medea about his mother’s death. There is no need to trouble her, he tells himself, since she never liked his mother anyway. But in truth, Jason does not talk to Medea about much of anything anymore, except household expenses or the antics of their son. The two of them have fallen into a familiar pattern, laboring in their separate spaces during the day and crawling exhausted into bed at night.
It isn’t really fair, he knows, seeing her desperate efforts to please him. But when Jason looks at Medea, all he can see is the thing that exiled him from his home city forever.
The last vestiges of Jason’s idealistic youth die with his mother.His internal landscape shrivels to a dry, dusty desert where nothing can grow. He disappears into his duties, into the rise and fall of each day, moving through life like a sleepwalker.
The letter floats down from Jason’s hand, forgotten. He looks dully into the eye of the yellow sun as it settles on the horizon. Only when it has set does he rise from his seat and make his way home.
59
Atalanta
The house was dark, and the wind sighed in the trees outside. The night was peaceful, and the stars shone clear and bright. Melanion snored in our bed, one arm thrown over their face.
As for myself, I hunched over the cradle of our son and gripped the wicker bars with whitened fingers, terrified beyond bearing.
The child dozed untroubled, sleeping peacefully with his hands palm up like tiny flowers. But my heart hammered as though all the beasts of the forest were pursuing me. I’d woken from a dream of blood and terror in a frenzy, fearful that harm had come to the baby.
Parthenopaios. That was my son’s name. Not wishing to burden our child, Melanion and I chose instead to name him for the mountain where I’d grown up. My son’s life would be his own; the mountain, unchanging under the mantle of the seasons, was a good namesake. His birth had been one of the most grueling physical experiences of my life, but I forgot the pain when the midwife placed him in my arms.
That had been about six months ago. Melanion and I were just past the early, breathless days when we figured out how to be parents and my breasts ached with milk. Parthenopaios’s cries made me clap my hands over my ears, but fortunately Melanion was more motherly. It was Melanion who usually carried the baby in asling, happy to attend to the cooking while I brought in meat and tended the fields.
A good life, better than I ever thought I’d have. But I had not forgotten the prophecy from Artemis. From the moment I held my son in my arms, I had no choice about the love I felt. Mother love was so elemental that it terrified me; losing Procris and Meleager had nearly broken me, and I was not sure I would survive the loss of a child.
And there were so very many ways for babies and little children to die: fever, falling, choking, eating something they shouldn’t, not eating enough of what they should. It was not infrequent that I found myself standing over Parthenopaios’s crib like this, fearful beyond all reason that my son’s soft breathing would stutter into silence.
When I found myself spiraling into dark imaginings, usually Melanion would come and take my hand, leading me away from these evil thoughts. We would talk about where the best hunting was to be found, or which fences needed to be repaired, or what to do with the new pelts I’d brought in last week.
But I was tired of having my concerns dismissed. Melanion was a creature of light and air, dancing over the surface of the world, never coming into contact with the darker places. Melanion knew me, but they could not comprehend the depths of loss and grief I’d felt, never having experienced these things themself. I needed someone else, someone whounderstood.
