Chapter 74
Atalanta
The axe gleamed in the morning light as it fell, splitting the log apart. I gathered up the wood and threw it on the stack.
The pile of firewood soared higher than my head, and yet I could not seem to stop; the only solace from my frantic thoughts
lay in physical movement, though it taxed my weakened body. My shoulders bunched and released, and the axe-head cracked into
the stump again.
I was furious at myself. To think I’d gone all the way to Corinth only to find myself unable to say what I’d come to say,
the words dying on my tongue. Shame lay heavy on me; I was not a bear but a mouse, scurrying back into my hiding hole. The
mention of Melanion had thrown me off, the memory of my spouse’s death reopened like a wound. In such a state I could not
summon the words, and eventually I’d fled to the sanctuary of the forests.
The wind rustled through the trees, and I echoed it with a sigh of frustration. I’d failed and might never get another chance.
I would die, and she would never know all that she meant to me.
In the distance, a thin column of smoke rose into the air from the city of Corinth. I paused to watch it, wiping sweat from
my brow. Nothing unusual—there were fires in the city all the time—but for some reason the sight made the hair on the back
of my neck prickle. I shook off my misgivings and went back to work.
It was not long after sunrise. The light was newly minted, the birds singing.
The beginnings of a clear and sunny day, it seemed.
Abruptly, the sound of birdsong was interrupted by the clatter of wheels—not on the dirt path twining up the mountain, I realized with astonishment, but from the sky overhead.
Something large enough to blot out the sun flew over the tree line and landed heavily in the clearing of my little camp. I
scarcely possessed the words to describe it. Great sunburst wheels gleaming with gold, and two creatures with long, sinuous
necks and sharp-toothed jaws. Dragons! I staggered back in shock. Kastana whickered anxiously, and I took the axe in hand.
It had been quite some time since I’d fought a dragon, but I was ready.
Someone moved behind the dragons—the driver of the chariot. The face of the stranger slowly resolved into that of Medea.
For a moment, neither of us moved. A hush fell on the world, and everything was silent with awe.
Against all odds, we’d found each other. She had come back to me at last.
A spasm of emotion came over Medea’s face. She’d held herself stiffly when she dismounted the chariot, her features blank.
But catching sight of me, she was like a weary sailor who sees a safe harbor. She dissolved into tears as I ran to her, and
when I came closer I saw why.
Mermerus and Pheres, or what was left of them, slung over the front of the golden chariot. I drew back, pierced with grief.
Many nights had I stood above my son’s crib fearing that his breathing would stutter and stop, ending his life before he had
a chance to live it. Here was my old terror realized.
Did Jason do this? No, the coward would never have the nerve.
What happened? I wanted to ask as I took Medea into my arms, but she was in no state to answer. She smelled of smoke and blood, and clung
to me as though I were a raft in a tempestuous sea, burying her face in my shoulder.
One of the dragons leaned back to fix me with a baleful eye, hissing. I glared at him over Medea’s head, refusing to let her go.
She shook with sobs, and tears sprang to my eyes as well. It was as though I’d set down a heavy burden—or, rather, one had
been lifted from me.
Our story was not over. I hadn’t doomed it when I slunk away from her house, unable to say what I’d come to say. She was here,
she had come. I was not glad she was here, because it entailed her suffering. But I was glad that I had been given the chance
to comfort her in her darkest hour, as she’d once comforted me.
The twining paths of life had brought us here to this moment, so that we did not have to face the unimaginable alone.
“Why does it hurt so much?” she gasped, voice muffled against my chest.
I held her tighter. “Love always does.”
Medea
For a long time, I waded through a darkness that never seemed to end. No mother should have to bury her children, but I buried
mine under a great oak tree with Atalanta’s help. The proper thing would have been to leave their bodies on a high platform
in the Colchian custom, but I could not stand the thought of birds tearing the flesh of my children. Better for them to sleep
beneath the earth, dark as a mother’s womb.
Look after each other in the Underworld, I exhorted the boys, rending my clothes. I might have followed them into the realm of the dead if Atalanta had not been there
to stop me, plucking the noose from my hands and enfolding me into a fierce embrace.
The sun and moon wheeled through the sky as I lay comatose on my bedroll.
Now and then food and water were laid beside me.
I was aware of a gentle presence as I wallowed in my sorrow, one that did not cajole or make demands but instead kept company with me, like another traveler walking the same path.
A hand smoothed back my hair, tracing gentle circles on my back.
Grief was as thick as fog, and in it were flashes of memories. Mermerus’s first fumbling words as he learned to talk. Pheres
playing with a toy in a sunbeam. Jason holding Thessalus’s hands as the child took his first steps.
In a single stroke, I’d lost it all. The life I’d spent the past twenty years building, my sweet sons. I’d known many sorrows
in my life, but nothing so all-consuming as this. It crashed over me in waves, wringing me out until I was a mere scrap of
myself. And yet the gentle presence never left my side, buoying me up through the worst of the pain.
One day at some point after my arrival—I cannot say when, because by then time had ceased to matter—I became aware of a cramp
in my left calf. The pain grew until it was like a siren, and I was at last persuaded to vacate my bedroll to stretch, lest
I perish from the discomfort.
For the first time, I had the presence of mind to truly take in my surroundings. I was in a small wattle-and-daub hut, barely
large enough to fit my bedroll and its twin, along with a few supplies. Folded blankets lay nearby, along with a cup of water
evidently placed there by a loving hand.
I drained the cup and went to the door. It was late afternoon, golden sunlight falling across the fields. The sun chariot
stood not far away, and the two dragons tussled with each other in the grass like puppies. Unperturbed by their antics, Kastana
the mare grazed nearby. How strange it was that the world carried on as usual in the face of unimaginable loss. And yet what
a comfort also.
A path wound from the camp into the forest, disappearing into the tree line that stood all around like a protective sentinel. There was a figure on that path. Drawing closer, I saw that it was Atalanta.
She was standing with her hands braced on her knees, panting for breath. A water jug sat beside her, carried from the stream
below. Her legs were trembling with exertion, the tendons on her neck and arms standing out. Perhaps an old injury aggravated,
or a muscle strained.
The sight struck me like an arrow, propelling my feet forward. I understood that the bright presence that had led me through
the worst of my grief was Atalanta, and that she had tended to things like blankets and water and food when I’d been incapacitated
by my loss. Now it was my turn to look after her.
In that moment, I saw what I had not seen before: that love is an action, not a resource to summon up or compel. This was
why my working in the moonlit garden so long ago failed, not because of insufficient skill or scope, but because you cannot
beckon love like a servant. You can only feel it and let it rise through you into the world, and seek to become a person worthy
of love in return.
Which does not mean, as I’d always thought, carving off chunks of yourself to serve on a silver platter to others. No, love
was more like taking a heavy amphora from weary hands and hefting it onto my own hip, then walking with Atalanta back to the
hut, all the while commenting on the weather, the birdsong, anything but the sudden weakness that had come over her on the
path and her clear embarrassment about it. Her honor was as dear to her as life, but dearer still she was to me.
Together, we walked home.