Chapter 62
Medea
Years passed, one after another after another. Thessalus shot up like a weed, growing even taller than me. As soon as he was
old enough to be somewhat self-sufficient, I found myself pregnant again after a hazy night following a festival, and gave
birth to twins named Pheres and Mermerus.
And the cycle started all over again. Dishes, diapers, darkness.
My one respite was Atalanta’s letters. They came sporadically over the years, the handwriting so atrocious that sometimes
I could scarcely make out the message. But each letter was precious, a breath from another world. I stuffed them in the bottom
of the trunk where my festival clothing was stored, not wanting Jason to see them, though I could not quite say why.
Once there was discussion of a visit, about fifteen years ago if my memory served. Atalanta here, in Corinth! I’d worked myself
into a near frenzy at the thought, only for the agreed-upon date to come and go without her shadow darkening my doorstep.
After that, I gave up hope of ever seeing her again, though I still read her letters hungrily.
More years passed. I watched my sons grow up and grow away from me, turning from needy babies to rambunctious toddlers to children eager to explore the world beyond their mother’s side. Thessalus left home for an apprenticeship, and it felt like my heart had gone walking outside of my body.
Jason, of course, was a shadow.
One night, when Mermerus and Pheres were about ten years old, I came to the end of my endurance. The moment came quite suddenly
as I was brushing my hair, just as I had done thousands of times before and would do thousands of times afterward. Caught
in this featureless infinity of days, the hand holding the comb dropped into my lap, and the comb fell to the floor.
The clatter echoed against the walls and ceiling, emphasizing my aloneness. This was the room where I usually slept, in the
near-empty women’s quarters of the house, opting to leave the marital bed for Jason when he spent rare nights at home.
I looked at my life and realized that I could not keep living this way, trapped in endless monotony. The fallen comb was only
a symbol of a greater problem: I’d lost the thread of my story. I’d forgotten who I was.
Abruptly I felt hot, like those flashes old women tell you come with the change of life, though for me that was still a few
years away. My breath came short and quick. Feeling as if I might suffocate under the weight of this revelation, I fled from
the women’s quarters into the courtyard, desperate to gulp down fresh air.
The crescent moon drifted through the sky like a greeting. Or an invitation.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and my skin prickled as I gazed, transfixed, at the bone-white moon. This was not
a wholly unpleasant sensation, more like greeting an old friend whom you never expected to see again.
Around me, the plants seemed to sigh. I’d established this garden myself over the years, nurturing the lush greenery with my own hands.
This effort had been inspired by the dreams I had with increasing regularity, of green hills that rose over a storm-lashed sea, and cliffs where you could watch the flights of griffins and fierce dragons.
I dreamed not in Greek but in the tongue of Colchis, which I had not spoken for nearly two decades.
The house was silent. The boys were in bed, and Jason was off at the palace, as usual. There was no one to tug at my skirts
or call me away. I looked up at the moon and felt her familiar pull, becoming almost weightless.
Around me was a garden in bloom, and above me were the stars. Behind me was a past I could not stop thinking about, and in
front of me, a future I did not want.
A crossroads of sorts, in other words. The foundation of witchcraft.
It wasn’t really magic, I told myself as I began to dance. Magic required organization, planning, and preparation; this was
simply a frenzied outburst by a woman who had been wound too tightly for too long. I began to dance, lifting my legs and arms,
tossing my head, all to a soundless beat.
As the silent moon looked on, the dance began to speed up. The energy built and grew. When sweat began to drip into my eyes
and my limbs ached with effort, I took that energy and threw it into a single aim:
Bring me love unconditional.
An echo of my first spell so long ago, like returning to childish toys amid the stress of midlife. There was little craft
or finesse to it, but there was a great deal of passion. Between past and future, earth and sky, I asked the night and the
leaves and the moonlight to carry my desire toward me like a chariot on shining wheels.
Not any coherent sort of magic, certainly nothing that would have been recorded in any magician’s book from distant Thebes. I could even fool myself into thinking it was not magic at all, save for the instant guilt I felt at indulging in something necessary but forbidden.
I swayed in the center of the courtyard, panting with exertion. The night was silent, save for a donkey cart that clattered
outside the walls of the house.
Hastily, I gathered up my things and crawled into bed.
“Mama, Mama, wake up,” Pheres said.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the bright sunlight and my son’s insistent voice. By now it was midday, and I was still bleary-eyed;
my midnight dancing had cost me.
Little arms reached beneath the blanket to shake me, and I yelped. “Mama, I know you’re awake!”
The twins were truly unmanageable. Thessalus had never been such a difficult child.
“Mama, Mama!” Mermerus was more insistent than his brother. He flopped onto my belly, knocking the breath from my lungs. “Someone
is at the door.”
My eyes flew open, and I swung upright, levering my legs off the bed. My joints made the approximate sound of logs crackling
in the fireplace; I was in my early forties now and not as limber as I’d once been. My feet whispered along the floor, following
the scampering steps of my sons.
To my utter astonishment, I opened the door to see Atalanta herself standing there, leaning against the doorframe in her dusty
traveling clothes.
“Hello, Medea,” she said.