Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast

CHAPTER SIX

THE WOODLAND GOD

THE BEAST’S TRAIL WAS not to be found. For days the two of them hunted for it, casting larger and larger circles with the deer’s few pitiful remains as the center of their search.

They returned each night to the cave that had become their home.

For the first few days, the search was all that had mattered. But as it became clear the beast had really disappeared, the two of them began to enjoy sharing the wild together. They chased through the trees, splashed happily in the streams, found wild berries and sweet honey, and ate fish the bear caught in his big claws. He even learned to like the fish cooked over an oak fire, for Atalanta could not stand eating it raw.

However, one morning when Atalanta woke, Urso was not in the cave.

She got up slowly, stretched, poked her head out of the cave entrance, thinking he was off fishing on his own.

“Urso,” she called.

There was no low growling answer.

“Are you hiding?”

Still no response.

Taking her javelin and knife and water skin, she went down to the river. She checked their berry bushes, their honey tree, even tracked halfway back to the deer clearing.

There was no sign of him.

So she did what she should have done at first, would have done at first if she’d not been in such a hurry: follow his trail from the cave.

He’d made no attempt to disguise his tracks. They led north.

“Now why are you going there?” she whispered. She was resolved to follow him. But something stopped her, something her father had once said about male bears. “They are solitary creatures.”

Well, he hadn’t been solitary in the past week.

She thought about that. Perhaps he had done that for her, to help her, his old littermate. But now he needed time to himself.

Sitting on her haunches, Atalanta stared northward. “You’ll return, bear,” she whispered. “When you’re ready.” She was sure of it.

But now, for the first time, she felt truly alone. She tried the word out loud. “Alone.” It was less frightening that way. “Alone!”

Actually, she’d never had much to do with people. Never really wanted to. Her mother and father and the forest had been enough for her.

Oh, once in a while her father brought home hunters he knew who were in their woods. Sometimes she’d accompanied him when he went on a trading journey to the villages of the Arcadian plain. There they’d bartered deerskins, rabbit pelts, tusks and antlers for corn, cheese, olives, wine. He seemed at ease with the villagers, bantering back and forth with them.

But on those visits, when she’d stood in the marketplace, Atalanta had been aware of the stares she drew—from children and adults alike. Somehow they could sense her wildness and wanted no part of it. Many were the fights she’d gotten into, wiping the smirk from a mocking face with a slap from the butt end of her small spear. No matter how outnumbered she was, she always held her own—kicking and clawing like a crazed wildcat.

“There’d be no trouble if they’d only leave me alone,” she’d told her father. “All I want is to be left alone.”

“You’re too wild, daughter,” he told her.

“I like being wild.”

She thought about the villages now.

“I can manage just fine out here,” she told herself. “They have nothing I need. Nothing.”

But she missed the bear.

Urso was away for almost a week before returning.

The second time he left, Atalanta was anxious about it, but by the third time, she understood his pattern and was comfortable with it.

Each time they came together again, it was a grand reunion. They would seek out rivers and pools where they plunged under the water with a huge splash to see who could come up with the biggest fish. They ran races through the twisting forest tracks, Atalanta forcing her legs to move faster and faster until she could just about keep pace with Urso as he bounded along.

They no longer looked for the killer beast. It was gone as if it had never been.

One day when Urso was off by himself, Atalanta spent the morning weaving a vine rope to hang over their favorite pool as a swing. She’d gotten about three body lengths done and was just casting about for some more vines. Suddenly, an odd whistling sounded across the river, like lark song, only longer, more elaborate.

Atalanta rose and waded into the water, following the stream of notes as if enchanted. Climbing up the far embankment, she found herself in a strange glade. In the shade of a leafy oak stood a grotesque figure, part man, part animal.

His face was brown and wrinkled, like an apple too long in the sun. He had thick, sensual lips, a sharp nose with wide nostrils. His arms and chest were matted with dark curling hair. As she got closer, she could see that a pair of small, sharp horns rose out of his thatch of thick brown curls. Most surprising of all were his legs. They were like those of a goat; instead of feet, he had hooves.

The whistling came from a set of reed pipes the strange creature was playing with his eyes closed. As if he knew she was there, he stopped playing, opened his eyes, and smiled.

“Ah, Atalanta, the little huntress,” he said, letting the pipes dangle from a cord around his neck. His voice was unexpectedly low and lilting. “I wondered when I’d run into you.”

For one shocking moment, Atalanta wondered if he might be the very creature who killed her father. But as quickly, she realized he had no huge claws, no orange fur. Strange as he was, he was not the beast.

“How…” she began before her voice cracked. She tried again. “How do you know me?”

He broke into a laugh that was like water over stone. “I know all sorts of things.”

She hated to be laughed at and said angrily, “Who are you? Why are you in my forest?”

“Your forest?” He laughed again.

“Mine and the bear’s,” she said stubbornly.

His face softened. “Mine, too,” he said. “I’m the god of this woodland. Your people call me Pan.”

“I don’t have any people,” she answered. “Not anymore. There’s just me.”

“I am sorry for that,” he said, his voice low.

It was the tone of it, with its hint of human comfort, that broke her. She could feel herself starting to cry. Once started, she thought, and I’ll never stop. Instead, she forced herself to say, “You’re a real god? I’ve never seen a god before.”

He grinned at her.

Putting her head to one side, she considered him. “You’re not very impressive.”

“I could say the same about you,” Pan replied, “but I’m in the mood to be charming. When I’m charming, I’m irresistible.” He laughed again.

The sound shivered down Atalanta’s spine, but deliciously.

“See,” Pan said, “you are liking me already.”

“I am not.”

“Are, too.”

Really, she thought, he is more like a child than a man. That’s the way I used to argue with Papa when I was younger.

Thinking of her father brought a wave of sadness.

As if sensing her pain, Pan asked immediately, “What’s wrong? Can I help?”

She looked at him and thought that if he was really a god of the woodland, perhaps he knew something about the beast. She asked, “Tell me what creature slew my father. Where is it? How can I find it?”

Pan gave a dismissive wave with his hand and kicked the grass with one hoof. “I am no oracle. And I certainly will not help you seek out a beast for vengeance.”

“You asked me what help you could be and I told you,” Atalanta said.

“That’s not why I am here.” Pan looked at her with mischievous eyes.

“Then why are you here?”

He smiled and spread his arms wide apart. “To discover why you are in my realm.”

“I live here,” she said.

“The birds and the rabbits, the fish and the otters are all part of my domain,” he said. “The deer and the boar and the bear.” His hooves drummed on the ground. “And of course the goats!”

She waited, hands on her hips.

“But you are not one of my creatures,” Pan said. “You belong with your own kind.”

“My kind threw me out when I was an infant. I was nursed by a bear. The only humans who loved me were my adopted papa and mama, and they are both dead.”

Pan nodded but said nothing.

“The bear Urso is my friend and companion. He cares for me. So who do you think are my kind?” Atalanta could feel her cheeks flaming.

“Humans can be friends with wild folk. Indeed, I encourage it. Nevertheless, that does not make them kin. Atalanta, you are a human and not a beast,” Pan said.

Atalanta shrugged. “I can’t help that.”

Pan’s eyes gleamed. “But I can.” He made a gesture with his left hand and suddenly a pomegranate appeared in his palm. He stretched out his arm, offering the fruit to Atalanta. “One bite and you’ll turn into any kind of animal you choose.”

She put her hand out to take the fruit, then pulled back. “That’s not possible.”

“Everything is possible for the gods,” Pan said. He leaned toward her, the pomegranate tantalizingly close. “You could be a doe, a sow, even a she-bear. Isn’t that what you want?”

Atalanta looked down at herself, at her clever, hands, her quick feet. She hugged herself, feeling her humanity. “I’m not…not sure,” she said.

“Not sure you want to be an animal?” he asked, stepping closer to her. “Or not sure you want to be a human?” A thick odor of musk wafted from his shaggy body.

For a moment Atalanta wanted to scream and run from him. She fought down the panic and stared back. “Not sure,” she said stubbornly.

He grinned. “What have you got to lose? Nothing but troublesome thoughts and pointless questions. Things the forest creatures never worry about.”

She leaned away from him. Really, the smell was overpowering. Not like Urso at all, but rank and enticing at the same time. “What do you mean—troublesome thoughts and pointless questions?”

He withdrew the pomegranate, holding it close to his chest. “Oh, you know—thoughts like Where do I come from? What’s going to become of me? All that nonsense.”

Atalanta’s hand drifted to the ring about her neck. She thought: Where do I come from? What is going to become of me? And then she wondered: Would I really prefer not to have those kinds of thoughts?

“And then,” Pan continued, as if guessing what she was thinking, “there are the bad memories. Your mother’s long sickness. Your father’s awful death.”

“How do you know…” she began.

He took a bite of the pomegranate himself, letting the juice run down his chin. “All that pain will be forgotten with a single bite.” He thrust the fruit under her nose, grinning broadly and revealing two rows of crooked teeth.

“Forget Mama? Forget Papa?” Atalanta said, the breath whooshing out of her. “Never!”

“Never?”

“I’ll live with Urso in the wild just as I am.”

“Really?” Pan said. He threw the pomegranate into the air and caught it between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s not all that easy, child. The lure of one’s own kind is hard to resist.”

“I thought…” Atalanta said, this time leaning toward him, “I thought you said you weren’t an oracle.”

Pan shrugged his hairy shoulders. Then he threw the pomegranate into the air again. This time it did not come down. “You don’t understand,” he said. “But then mortals never do. That’s what makes them such delightful fools.”

He turned and, playing his pipes once again, disappeared as if the air had swallowed him.

Atalanta was left, gaping.

And alone once more.