Chapter 24
Atalanta
As I dozed languidly in the morning sunlight, a shadow fell across me.
“Atalanta!” Jason said, far too brightly. “Just the person I was hoping to see.”
My eyes narrowed. I could think of no good reason Jason should ever hope to see me, nor I him. Moreover, I was in a foul mood;
we had just sailed back through the Hellespont, and in that corridor of rock where he had died, the ghost of Meleager seemed
close enough to touch. My losses lay heavy upon me, and I was keenly aware that I was no closer to finding Procris than I’d
been at the beginning of this journey. Indeed, I’d lost my chance to search for her in Colchis, a significant setback.
“I wanted to talk to you about Medea. The princess.” Jason hesitated, and I followed the line of his gaze.
Medea was sitting in a pool of skirts, looking wretchedly out at the horizon. Normally I would have been pleased to welcome
another woman among the Argonauts, but Medea’s connection to Jason made me suspicious. Her neck and wrists were adorned with
jewelry, glinting prettily in the sunlight. Vain fripperies. I wondered at the lack of sense evident in wearing such adornment
here on the open sea.
“I thought that you might look after her,” Jason continued. “She’s a witch, yes, but she’s also a girl, and it’s not proper for her to be alone among so many men. And I thought, since you’re a girl too, you might stay with her . . .”
Jason was talking too quickly, his eyes just a little too wide. Your mask is slipping, I thought wryly.
I considered telling Jason to go suck an egg, then thought better of it. Witch, he called Medea. Like the witch goddess of Colchis, Hekate, patroness of Procris’s mother and source of her knowledge of medicines.
I knew something of what witches could do. One of their powers, it was said, was the ability to find things—and people—far
away.
Hope rose in me. Despite the Argo’s abrupt departure from Colchis, it seemed that I had not lost my chance to find Procris.
“Fine,” I said to Jason, who looked pleased and drifted away now that his request had been fulfilled. I rose and approached
Medea.
She looked at me in bewilderment as I settled down next to her. I had a careful speech prepared: My name is Atalanta, I would say. I hear you are a witch, and I need your help. There is someone I’m trying to find . . .
“My name is Atalanta,” I began. “I . . .”
Medea looked up. Her golden eyes, like the eyes of the hawks in the forest where I had grown up, transfixed me. Fierce and
beautiful in equal measure.
“You,” Medea said. “You were the one who saved me, back on the beach.” Her voice was melodious, touched by the music of a
distant land. I had the sense of someone who hovered between two worlds, just as I did. “Oh! You’re bleeding,” she remarked.
I glanced down; indeed, blood was still leaking from the arrow graze on my upper arm sustained during the battle on the beach.
An annoyance, barely even a flesh wound, but Medea did not seem to see it that way.
Without hesitation, she tore a strip from her blanket and began to bandage my arm, her touch delicate but assured.
A crackle of lightning ran down my spine. My mouth was suddenly dry, and I found myself unable to speak. I hadn’t been touched
by another human being with such familiarity since Procris. All my pretty words fled, and instead of the careful speech I’d
prepared, what emerged from my mouth was: “Can you turn a person into a bear?”
“What?” Medea stared at me as though I’d requested another head or asked to blow my nose on her sleeve. I felt myself redden,
surprised by the sudden resurgence of my childhood wish.
Medea considered the question, tapping her chin. “I’ve never done it before, but I don’t see why not. I once turned an ordinary
snake into a dragon, there’s no reason I couldn’t change a person into a bear. Who would you have it be?”
Of course she would not know I was speaking of myself. I shook my head. “No, never mind that. I need you to find someone.
Her name is Procris.”
Medea nodded, only a little perplexed at my sudden turn. “Very well. I can do that too, it shouldn’t be very difficult. Do
you have a scrap of her clothing or a lock of her hair? Something to serve as a link.”
“No,” I said with a pang of regret. “I have nothing that belongs to her.” Not for the first time, I regretted throwing Procris’s
letter into the wind.
“Very well,” Medea replied, undaunted. She pointed up at the screeching gulls circling the mast of the Argo. “If you want me to find this Procris, bring me one of those birds.”
It took little effort to send an arrow through one of the flying gulls and retrieve it. When I handed the dead bird to Medea,
she paused for a moment, looking at me curiously.
“You’re not afraid of me,” she said. “Not like the others.”
“Why would I be?”
“After what I did yesterday.” Her gaze lowered. “What I did to keep the Colchian fleet at bay.”
My mind was so full of Procris that it took me a moment to even understand what Medea was talking about. “Cutting up the dead
boy, you mean? Why would I be afraid of that? It was quick thinking and a good diversion. Otherwise, we would all be dead.”
Medea seemed to relax a little at my words, looking up at me through her lashes. Then she nodded decisively. “Very well. Let
us begin.”
Borrowing my knife, she split open the bird and exposed its pink entrails. These she sifted with the point of the blade, frowning.
I leaned forward eagerly, wondering what she was seeing.
As Medea worked, I looked at her. She was a small woman, her head barely above my shoulder though we were both sitting. Her
jangling bracelets, utterly impractical, had been shoved up her arm to allow her the room to work. A dark tumble of curls
fell down her back. Her skin was pale as cream, marred only by freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. And her eyes,
shocking gold in that soft face. I found it difficult to look away from her.
Medea squinted at the split-open gull. Moments passed. The air curdled around us, stale and unmoving. The hair on the back
of my neck lifted as my unease grew.
With a sigh of frustration, Medea tossed the dead gull aside. “This one is no good for divination, save it for dinner instead.
Bring me another.”
But the next gull was also lacking, and so was the one after that. By the time Medea threw the fourth gull onto the deck,
I was quietly panicking.
“Are the signs so bad?” I asked, nails biting into my palms. “Did something terrible happen to Procris?”
Medea shook her head. “No, the signs are neither good nor bad—they’re nothing but nonsense. Pure gibberish.”
Suddenly Medea let out a piercing cry, folding in on herself. Her chest began to heave, breath coming in short spurts. Her
golden eyes glinted with tears. “Why can’t I read the signs? What’s happening?”
Other members of the crew were turning to stare at us. I moved at once to shield Medea from their gaze, dragging her behind
a mound of folded sails. This was the closest one could get to privacy on the narrow confines of a ship.
“Nothing means anything,” Medea cried. “Nothing makes sense.”
She raked her nails through her hair.
“It is gone! My magic is gone!”