Atalanta

by Jennifer Saint

There were a thousand interconnected threads crisscrossing through it: from the ancient roots soaking up water deep beneath the earth so that the trees could lift their mighty crowns toward the sun, to the insects that burrowed into the deep crevices of the bark, to the birds that nested in the boughs, to the deer that trotted lightly and the stalking predators ready to pounce. And in the heart of it all, there was me.

She was always abrupt, unpredictable, gone in an instant, and returning without warning.

She had a core of determination; I could see it glinting from her, like bronze forged in fire—something in her that I recognized.

But he let himself be carried along with the tides, allowed them to sway him this way and then another. And one day he might look around and ask how he ended up where he did, as though he’d had no way to prevent it.

It felt so close now, a call I couldn’t ignore. I looked at Meleager’s face, browned from the sun, and lifted his hand, the calluses on his palm from the oars matching mine, and I wondered how Persephone felt when she stepped between her two worlds. If, when she came back home, she ever missed what she had left behind.