Chapter 63
Medea
“Why does she dress like that, Mama?” Mermerus asked, staring slack-jawed at Atalanta’s riding leathers, as though she were
some exotic creature dropped into our garden.
“Can I touch it?” Pheres asked, rising on tiptoe to examine her spear.
Just as I was about to chide them, Eirene appeared. The boys’ nurse, she was a superstitious woman, and I’d once caught her
making the sign against the evil eye in my direction. But she was good at what she did and quickly bustled the children out
of the courtyard.
“My apologies,” I said to Atalanta, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “They are like wild beasts sometimes.”
“They are only children.” Her shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “It is a difficult age, but a charming one.”
“Every age is difficult,” I replied bleakly, thinking of the long years of dishes, diapers, and darkness.
A little smile lifted the corner of Atalanta’s mouth as she stared off into the distance, recalling a pleasant memory. “I
remember when my son was like that, so full of questions.”
The reminder struck me with the force of a slap. “That’s right. You have a son about the same age as Thessalus.”
She’d mentioned her son in her letters, this child with a very long name.
Not for the first time, I marveled at how odd it was that Atalanta’s life had come to parallel mine.
I felt a familiar wistful sadness that the things she’d said she never wanted—a husband and a family—were the very things she’d chosen in the end.
Or had she chosen them, really? A flicker of disquiet ran through me. Had she chosen, or had she been forced by some invisible
hand? She’d mentioned being trapped by her father, Schoenus, in much the same way I’d been trapped by Aeetes, though she was
characteristically vague about the details. And who was this shadowy husband, this Melanion, who vanished so abruptly from
her letters? Atalanta had been evasive before, but now that she sat in front of me, I could finally ask the questions I’d
long burned to know.
“And your husband, Melanion.” My stomach curdled a little at the name. “How does he fare?”
Almost at once, I regretted the question. Atalanta curled into herself, proud shoulders drooping, knees drawing up to her
chest. She was a creature of fierce passions behind her stoic exterior, and it was clear that I’d stumbled on some hidden
hurt.
Forget about it, I wanted to say, waving away my words like errant flies. Tell me about your strong son, whom you hold so dear. Tell me about your hunting, tell me anything that does not bring such
a sorrowful expression to your lovely face.
But Atalanta had begun to speak, her words a low monotone, her gaze fixed on something far away that only she could see.
“It was a stag that killed Melanion,” she said.
Atalanta
I did not point out that Melanion was not a he, strictly speaking, since Melanion and I had long ago agreed to shield the complexity of their selfhood from an uncaring
world. Someday I would reveal the truth to Medea—if there was time—but for now I added it to the bundle of secrets slung over
my back.
“This was when we were lions,” I continued, remembering Melanion’s rough tongue grooming my fur. The breathlessness of the hunt, the crunch of bone between my jaws. The strangeness of being granted a version of my childhood wish and seeing that it was nothing very special after all.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Medea nodding. I’d already told her about the goddess’s curse in the letters we exchanged,
and she had no issue believing it, being well acquainted with divine magic herself.
“The stag had a limp, and we thought he would be an easy kill,” I said, worrying at a leaf with my fingernail. “But one of
his antlers caught Melanion’s side and tore it open. A terrible wound, and a fatal one. There was nothing I could do.”
My voice cracked and I dropped the leaf, unable to continue. It felt so much like physical pain to recall the memory of my
ineffectual hands pawing at Melanion’s body, no longer a lion but a human being again in their final moments. Only death could
lift the curse, though by then it was too late.
On the bench in Medea’s fine garden, I wrapped my arms around myself, shaking with remembered sorrow. A warm hand laid itself
on my shoulder, and I looked up into the golden eyes of Medea. Her presence strengthened me. With a deep shuddering breath,
I forced myself to continue.
“The goddess Artemis appeared,” I said. A shining figure with a crescent circlet on her brow, standing at the edge of the
forest. “Perhaps she was the one to restore us to our human forms, I’ve never been sure, but she could do nothing to save
Melanion. She disappeared into the forest before I could force my clumsy tongue to form words.”
“The gods are useless,” Medea said darkly, and I did not disagree.
“After that, I went home.” My voice grew stronger as we moved on to firmer territory.
“Back to Parthenopaios, my son. He did not recognize me at first, but I scooped him up in my arms and held him as though he was the most precious thing on earth.” The memory made me smile.
“I taught him all I knew: How to track game and survive in the wilderness, how to ride and shoot. Parthenopaios was never a very swift runner, despite the skill of his parents, but he could throw a discus farther than anyone. Still can.”
I thought of my son’s flashing dark eyes, so much like Melanion’s. Melanion was gone, but part of them still lived on in the
person of Parthenopaios, our son.
“And then I trained Psyche, as you know,” I added. Psyche, princess of Mycenae, my only apprentice. A precocious and willful
girl, with a self-possession that rivaled my own. I gained new respect for the patience of the hunters and the old bear who’d
raised me.
Psyche had been the catalyst for my decision to come to Corinth. She’d stumbled upon my camp in the wilderness, fleeing some
threat she would not name and seeking a lost husband she would not describe, who’d become separated from her after a calamity.
We had spoken of love and death, and after Psyche left for her parents’ home in Mycenae, I mounted Kastana and went to Corinth,
ready to seek an end to the story begun so long ago.
Medea was looking at me strangely, and I realized I had ranged quite far from discussing Melanion. But she did not seem angry,
only deeply sad.
“I am sorry,” she said, her eyes pools of tears. “I am so sorry that you lost your Melanion.”
A tremor ran through me, and my own eyes prickled. Over the years, I’d tried to run from my grief and hide from it in the strangest places. But now, instead of fleeing from her gentle concern, I surrendered to it.
Medea took my hands in hers, holding them tightly. Her palms were roughened by housework, not like the hands of the princess
she had been on the Argo’s journey. But then again, neither of us was the same person we’d been back then.
“And were you . . .” Medea swallowed hard. “Were you happy? With Melanion?”
Did you find happiness anyway? she did not say, though I understood her meaning. Did you pull it from the jaws of despair, snatch it from the inconstant gods, trick the world into giving it to you despite
all the odds stacked against women like us?
The question undid me. Yes, I thought. Yes. But the words did not come out. All I could do was nod as tears shook me when I remembered Melanion in their last moments,
lying in the grass. Their eyes glassy with pain and blood frothing at the corners of their mouth, though their lips bent in
a little smile as one hand came up to stroke my face.
I hate to die on you, Atalanta, Melanion said with their last breath. But oh, didn’t we live?
I’d held myself aloof from Melanion even in marriage, but in the end it made no difference. Heartbreak never did get any easier.
I’d feared losing my son; instead, the gods had taken my spouse.
At the time, with a young son to raise alone, I’d cut myself off from my emotions. Now, they came flooding back. I lost myself
in a torrent of weeping as though Melanion only now lay dead before me.
Through it all, Medea held me.
She wrapped her arms around me, speaking soothing words and stroking my hair. She swore she’d find the damn stag that killed Melanion and send a spear through him, and her ferocity made me laugh despite my tears. She’d march down to the Underworld and pull Melanion out herself, she declared.
Because I couldn’t speak, I could not tell her that it was enough, more than enough, to be here with her, to be held like
this. To know that, despite my terrible grief, I was not alone.