Chapter 78
Medea
Sometimes we must build with boundless sorrow.
The morning sunlight warmed my skin as I checked the snares. Six rabbits today, a bounty. Enough for a large pot of soup.
It seemed that the potion I’d rubbed on the snares, designed to draw the rabbits’ attention and decrease their caution, had
been effective. A success, though not all of my magical experiments were.
Since I’d come out of Corinth a few weeks ago, much of my time was spent refining my witchcraft, trying out half-remembered
recipes and developing new ones, mostly to treat Atalanta’s illness and moderate her pain. I could not drive out the disease,
but I could inhibit its course and strengthen her body to fight against it, giving us more precious time together. Every moment
we shared was a gift.
Detaching the rabbits from the snares, I began to field dress them, setting the skins aside for later tanning and entrusting
their offal to the earth, where it would enrich the soil. Atalanta had taught me to do this, and I’d picked up the skill readily,
since it reminded me of the sacrifices in the temple of Hekate. All around me was the endless circling of life and death;
the green plants nibbled by the rabbits, who died and nourished the earth, bringing forth more vegetation. Death and life,
a crossroads of sorts where magic might flourish.
On my way back to camp, I stopped by the glen where I’d sown the seeds of wild carrots a few days before.
Atalanta liked the taste of these to flavor the stews I made for her.
The little plants were still only small green spirals, but as I ran my palm over their leafy tops and chanted the sacred words, the fledgling carrots began to grow.
The tops sprouted, tickling my fingers, and the earth cracked as the roots expanded below.
I yanked a few ripened carrots free and brushed off the dirt on my skirts, then walked home.
Atalanta was sitting by the fire when I returned, whittling yet another spear shaft. She had become more active with her hands
as it became more and more difficult for her to walk, as if industry might keep her illness at bay. She was always fiddling
with something, always tinkering and carving, no matter how many times I told her that we already had enough spears, thank
you very much.
I rejoiced in my small exercises of magic like a child learning to walk, and Atalanta rejoiced with me. My witchcraft had
been many things throughout my life—evidence of my mother’s love, a tool to win the esteem of others, a sacrifice, a shameful
embarrassment. But it had never been simply mine. Now, I approached magic without demand or fear, simply reveling in the capability. In response, the world bloomed around
me.
“Witchcraft, I think, is like water,” I said absentmindedly, stirring the cauldron over the fire, then preparing the meat
and carrots. “Water comes in so many different forms: ice, clouds, the salt water that lapped the hull of the Argo, the pure, crystalline spring water that provides the basis for this soup. Magic reflects you back to yourself, like a still
pool.”
“And what do you see?” Atalanta asked. She put aside her carving and leaned forward, propping her chin on one hand.
I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Someone I am coming to like.”
“You’d better like her,” Atalanta said. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.”
Her gruffness made me laugh, as did the epithet. Her wife. It made me feel like a blushing bride, a cherished companion.
Her wife. I supposed I was, even if no oath bound us. The tie was stronger than that. In the meadow, the dragons played as
Kastana grazed. When the stew was done cooking, I ladled it into bowls and we both ate.
“How go matters with your sister?” Atalanta asked when her bowl was empty. She tensed as she spoke, the question both painful
and essential, like washing out a wound.
A shadow seemed to darken the bright meadow, though it might have been only a cloud drifting across the sun. My shoulders
sagged.
“Nothing has changed,” I said, thinking of the divinations I performed every morning. My heart ached to think of Chalciope
suffering far away, bereft of her sons and imprisoned far underground. But what could I do? Never would I abandon Atalanta
in her last illness. Nor could I bring myself to go back to the place I’d worked so hard to escape and face all that I’d left
behind. Each morning I prayed that my sister had found some way to outwit Perses or escape her imprisonment, and each morning
I was sorely disappointed.
The dreams had started coming again, dreams of green rolling hills rising up over a stormy sea.
A gentle hand lay on mine. I looked up into the eyes of Atalanta, questioning and sad, and shook off my melancholy.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, bringing her hand to my lips and kissing it. “After everything it took to bring me back
to you, I will allow nothing to part us.”
Except for death, I added silently, but I think Atalanta understood. Her face brightened like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.
“Come,” I continued, letting go of her hand and brushing off my skirts. “There’s cleaning to do and pelts to tan, and the
potion I’ve set to brew since the new moon should be ready.”
Atalanta took my outreached hand and struggled to her feet. This was a place of life, and we would send death scurrying. I
would focus on this precious time with her, and give no thought at all to the future.
We fell into an easy rhythm, Atalanta and I. In the evenings we retired to bed with the setting of the sun, eager to make
love and lie in the darkness together, touching and talking. Every morning, we woke in time to watch the sunrise together.
It was not as magnificent as it had been on the Argo, with the ship’s untrammeled view of the sea and sky. The protective ring of the forest obscured much, and yet even this
incomplete beauty was more than enough.
How odd it was, and how pleasant, to fall back into old habits. To feel the changes wrought by the past twenty years and yet
to remain ourselves.
As peach and gold painted the sky, I spoke. “You know,” I said, wrapped under the same blanket as her. “I think there may
be a way to cure you after all. To defy the karkinos.”
Atalanta’s head snapped up, and she looked at me from the corner of her eye. She did not speak, but every atom of her body
was alert, straining at this last chance of hope.
“Your story about Alcestis made me think of it,” I said haltingly. “The one you told back in Corinth. I might be able to trade
a life for a life, one human soul for another.”
Since there were no other human lives to trade in this meadow, Atalanta understood my meaning at once. She exploded out from
under the blanket, looming over me, insensible to the cold.
“No! You must never do such a thing.” She shook her head frantically to emphasize her point. I had never seen Atalanta so agitated.
“It would be simple,” I said, stretching out my hands in an effort to soothe her. Of course she would protest, but I had to
try, at least, to preserve this life that was so precious to me. “I’ll take your place when death comes for you, like Alcestis
did—”
“What if I ask you to live, Medea?”
The question stopped me in my tracks. Atalanta was still standing above me, drawn up to her full height, and I could see how
much weight she had lost over the course of her long illness, despite my best efforts. Her face was gaunt and pale.
“Besides,” she added. “It would not be a fair trade, since you hold two human lives within you. Medea, you are pregnant.”
My mouth fell open and my hand flew to my belly, but I knew she did not lie. A smile danced over Atalanta’s lips as she met
my astonished look, and I found myself thinking, You have made me with child. But this was a miracle that only the gods could ordain, and I refused the gods.
I recalled the furtive, frantic night in bed with Jason a few months before, when I’d sought to hide from my true feelings
about Atalanta in my husband’s arms. A lifetime ago, it seemed. Certainly long enough for the seed planted that night to grow.
Still, this new life was no less miraculous for its origins, and the child was precious to me despite his father.
“I know your body well and know how to read the changes that come from carrying a child. So live, Medea. Live without me,
however long that might be,” Atalanta said, leaning her forehead against mine. “Live through the years that run after each
other. Live because I love you.”