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Chapters (53)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. PRAISE
  3. ALSO BY
  4. AUTHOR BIO
  5. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  6. EPIGRAPHS
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. 6
  13. 7
  14. 8
  15. 9
  16. 10
  17. 11
  18. 12
  19. 13
  20. 14
  21. 15
  22. 16
  23. 17
  24. 18
  25. 19
  26. 20
  27. 21
  28. 22
  29. 23
  30. 24
  31. 25
  32. 26
  33. 27
  34. 28
  35. 29
  36. 30
  37. 31
  38. BOOK TWO
  39. 1
  40. 2
  41. 3
  42. 4
  43. 5
  44. 6
  45. 7
  46. 8
  47. 9
  48. 10
  49. 11
  50. 12
  51. 13
  52. 14
  53. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Her father’s ship receding, fading into night, torchlights narrowing, rotating, and so they must be circling back for her brother’s thigh. Heavy piece of flesh, perhaps too heavy to pull easily from the waves. And now it could be lost in that darkness. They’ll have to search, and they can’t know where they’ve been. The ship drifting in the wind, but the wind with no hold on mostly submerged flesh, hidden, bobbing just at the surface, a whiteness in the black. With every moment more lost and her father more desperate. A future he could never have seen. A king always at the center, never without reference.

Hekate, keep this night, Medea says. Let it stay a while longer. Nute, do not give birth yet.

For her father, the sea is growing and his boat spinning. He tells his helmsmen one direction and then another, every patch of water black and unfamiliar and the same. The wind rising and waves larger. He could be fifty boat lengths now from his son, or only an arm’s length and still not see. He should know when his own flesh is near. There should be something that binds.

Medea sails farther away with the rest of her brother, but what she feels is a need to help her father. Be his eyes in that night, take his arm and guide him. Put her brother back together and breathe life into him again. Call on Hekate to re-form a body and sacrifice her own. Make her family whole even if she is lost. Overwhelming feeling, an anchor in her chest, lodged and pulling, her body being torn apart, and this is how women are formed. Slaves. But she will not be a slave. She will feel this need to help her father and she will not help him. She will grieve her brother and kneel in his remains and throw the next piece overboard when the time comes. She will not be mastered. If it is natural to be a slave, she will be unnatural.

3

3

Water in a seam at the stern, luminescent. Curling from both sides, folding inward, then spinning off into miniature whorls filled with stars. No moon, no torches, but the sea with its own light, the heavens submerged and flung and still burning. Whatever made Helios himself, repeated here in fragment.