Gliding so smooth over the water. A sweep of the oars and then pause, and all so quiet. Breath of flame from the torch, small liquid sounds beneath, drifting backward into darkness. A world held perfectly level, Medea suspended at the margin. All below and all above held in their place, all without disruption.

She would rather be this. She would bring all together, in balance and quiet. Rule without sound, without rough movement. All held and caught and perfect.

But she knows she is meant to destroy, and she knows she is not done. Pelias will be next, and if she were to stay here, she would destroy the new king, simply because his existence is a kind of insult. Where does this originate in her? Why can’t she rest?

Born of no mother, so perhaps she was forged. Some other metal lighter than copper and more liquid than tin, fused more completely and fusing still, strange element that never cools, some molten core and veins tracing shape and pattern from nothing, form from darkness and some intent that can be only the nature of the material itself, inseparable and without location, no less elemental. Born to destroy kings, born to reshape the world, born to horrify and break and remake, born to endure and never be erased. Hekate Medea, more than god and more than woman, alive now, in the time of origin.

20

20

Medea alone on the Argo, old sagging ship hunched and listing, settled into the sea. Foul smell of her brother, overpowering in the still air. She stands above him at the stern, torch in hand.

Dark and fused into wood, moist growth seeping beneath what has dried and hardened. Pieces of him that found no use, her father’s ship gone for too long, and difficult to believe her father would recognize the shapes now.

She sets the torch in the bindings of a rudder, kneels and uses a long wooden spoon from the cookery to sever the largest piece from the deck. Pushing in between wood and flesh trying to free what might have been his chest. Somewhere in there, a rotted heart liquefied. The spoon emerging shiny with drool, and the smell too much. Medea retching over the side and returning to her work. Taste of bile.

A creature grown to the wood, tentacles suctioned. She has to yank upward with both hands and the spoon slips and she feels spray on her face.

She tries not to breathe. Stabs the spoon in along every edge, pries upward and hears sucking sounds of her brother releasing his hold. Rib cage flexing. She levers the spoon beneath while grabbing his shoulder with her other hand, peels him back, finally, and is able to roll him overboard. Heavy splash and a few drips and ripples extending in firelight.