Herbs and remedies hung in baskets, dried root and bulb, roots black and still carrying earth, flowers and then one that would stop everything. A flower she has seen before, serpent skin petals in purple and white, pattern to confuse, so exactly like snakeskin, but this brilliant color. Black seeds to divert the eye as the petals come closer, long and tapered and reaching. Burial from when the earth was first made, when light and color and form were not yet decided, forgotten and risen now without resemblance or corollary, without place or name or belonging. Eruption of the same material from which gods were made, not meant for humans, nursed on poison. The large bulb from which it rises each autumn more poisonous in its flesh than any other plant Medea knows. Its blood was what she used to protect Jason from the bulls, afraid it might burn his skin, but it poisons only the inside, and the bulls would not breathe it, turned their heads away.

A dozen of these flowers and their bulbs waiting before her so unlikely, strange recognition, pattern in a life, fate we can never outrun. All the distance she has traveled from Colchis across three seas to Iolcus and through valleys and hills here to Korinth, all the years passed, and on this day, here as she wanders almost without sight, so lost, she ends up standing before crocus that might protect or heal but has another use. Crocus that would shed any name and remain only what it is, color and pattern that would end thought, sign of an unsolid world.

Beautiful, Medea says, and the old woman selling them doesn’t smile. I’ll take them all.

The slaves following Medea pick up the flowers and bulbs carefully, holding them away at arm’s length, some instinct.

Medea strolls in the sun and wind, restored, present again. Some fear of Kreon’s guards, but what would they see? Only flowers. And she has made no plan. She was not looking for crocus. She takes one from a slave and cups it in her hands, walks among the women of Korinth, lets the bright petals brush arms and backs. Soft touch almost unnoticed, softer than any lover’s. Women of Korinth, Medea whispers. Do I not have a right, some right to punish my husband? Did he not make vows? I have no one here, no family, no friend. He takes away all.

These women ignore her. She passes close enough to touch and they refuse to notice. They pick up a bracelet or admire an urn or whisper in another’s ear. Everyone here aware of only one person, Medea, sensing her every movement, but with no recognition. Body without weight, leaving no shadow. Fallen wife, usurped and left an outcast.