Thomas Swann - The forest of forever

“Icarus.”

“Shame on you, Eunostos. You’re partial.”

“I love them the same,” he said (and he did-well, almost-except that he was a little frightened of Thea since her estrangement from him). “But Icarus is easier to entertain. I can talk Beast to Beast with him. He understands me, you know, even if he can’t answer. Though he did call me ‘Zeus-father’ yesterday.”

“Eunostos, he was only gurgling! He can’t even say ‘mother’ yet.”

‘Well, he can say ‘Zeus-father.’ I distinctly heard him. Anyway, he’s too heavy for you to carry.”

“Empty the arrows out of Aeacus’s quiver and bring it along. Icarus likes to ride in it.”

They set off together for Eunostos’s house, with Icarus and quiver strapped to Eunostos’s back, and Thea in her mother’s arms. Icarus was so excited by the journey that he almost squirmed out of the quiver; he kept up a constant happy gurgle which Eunostos insisted contained several “Zeus-father’s.” Thea, however, began to look around her apprehensively the moment they left the tree and, when a Bear Girl scampered across their path, she set up a howl which she steadily increased until they reached Eunostos’s stump. You would have thought that she was one of those superfluous girl-babies which the Achaeans abandon to the wolves. Only when she saw the inviting walls of bark, green with ivy and entered by a door like a big smile, did she subside, and once within the walls she managed a faint coo, which Eunostos dared to hope was directed to him. If I could bring her here often enough, he thought, she would stop being afraid of me.

“Oughtn’t you to latch the gate behind us?” Kora asked.

“Oh, no, some of my friends might come to pick vegetables. I give them the run of the garden.”

To roses and columbine he had added forget-me-nots, violets, and hyacinths; and his fruits and vegetables now included carrots, radishes, squashes, gourds, and even a grapevine with several succulent bunches. He had also planted three olive trees which eventually, he hoped, would supply him with oil. He had built an olive press in his workshop.

“One of these days you’ll be completely self-sufficient,” said Kora with admiration. “You’ll grow and make everything you need. Eunostos, I’m proud of you.”

“Three years ago, you said that carpentry wasn’t very poetic,” Eunostos reminded her.

“That was three years ago. Now I can see poetry in a well-made chair.”

“I wish-” he began. But no, he must not express or even entertain such wishes. “Come into the house, Kora.”

Icarus had visited the Zeus-father room on several occasions and he crawled at once to the toy glider, which he had already battered-broken a wing, bent the tail-but which remained his favorite toy. Thea, who could walk for short distances, headed for a doll of terra cotta, a little girl with round painted eyes and smiling mouth, who looked like a happy Thea. The resemblance was no accident; Eunostos had used her for his model. She sat in a corner and cradled the doll in her arms and looked at him for the first time in a month as if his horns were friendly instead of frightening.

With the children thus occupied, Eunostos invited Kora to walk into the garden. It never occurred to him that there might be danger in his own house.

“I want to ask you about one of my rose bushes.” He led her among the flowers and indicated a particularly woebegone bush. “I water it every day and can’t understand what’s wrong.”

“She isn’t eating properly. You can get some potash from the Centaurs. To roses, it’s what bread is to you and me.”

“I knew you’d know. That’s just what I’ll do.”

They strolled from the roses to the workshop and climbed down the ladder to greet Bion, who was polishing a large amethyst. He greeted them with a wave of his feelers but, dedicated worker that he was, never stopped the rapid swish-swish of his forelegs.

“We’d better get back to the children,” said Kora. “Thea might get scared.”

As they emerged from the workshop, they heard a whispering-not the children’s-from the house.

They broke into a run.

“It’s only a Bear Girl,” said Eunostos with relief. “They’re very gentle with children.”

The Girl was cradling Thea in her arms and talking to her. She looked up at them, startled, and then she smiled, no more than a child herself. Her smile was engaging, but her fur was in need of a comb.

Kora darted across the room and snatched her daughter as if from the jaws of a Hydra. Eunostos was about to defend the Girl, poor thing. The Bears of Artemis were always welcome at his house and free to pick his grapes. Often they came in his absence and left him pails of blackberries.

“It’s one of Phlebas’s Girls,” explained Kora. “She’s spruced herself a bit but I still recognize her after three years. You’d better see if anything is stolen.”

Quick as a rabbit, the Girl shot out of the door. There was nothing in her paws and it seemed pointless to chase her, since she wore no garments in which to conceal any loot.

“Well, she would have stolen if we hadn’t caught her,” Kora said.

Eunostos was not sure. “I have an idea that with the lodge burned down, she just got homesick for her old way of life in the log village. She couldn’t go back there-Phlebas’s Girls are outlawed, you know-so she came here instead and found a baby and felt maternal.”

“If she’s the one I remember, she has a baby of her own, and it’s a horrid little thief.”

“Well, no harm done,” he said. “But I expect we had better head back for your house.”

They had hardly begun their walk, however, when they saw that Thea was not just quiet, she had fallen asleep, and she never slept during the day, least of all when she was being carried through the forest and had an excuse to wail. Furthermore, her face was flushed as if she had lain in the sun or caught a fever.

When they reached Kora’s house, she had not so much as flickered her eyelids.

Aeacus was waiting at the head of the stairs in the trunk. He greeted them with his customary noncommittal smile and Eunostos wished for a scowl. It was what he deserved, he felt, for taking the children into the forest without their father’s permission.

“Thea seems to be sick,” he said quickly, to save Kora from having to make the confession.

Aeacus took Thea out of Kora’s arms and hurried her onto the porch and into the cradle. He fell to his knees and peered anxiously at her face. Then he placed his hand on her forehead.

“She’s not hot. Are you sure she’s sick?” he asked, looking more puzzled than angry. “She seems to be sleeping quite peacefully.” In fact, to judge by her smile, she seemed to be having a euphoric dream.

“We can’t wake her up,” said Kora.

Puzzlement became alarm. “Eunostos, get Zoe.”

Minutes later I too was kneeling beside the bed and since I have acquired certain medical skills through my long friendship with Chiron, I recognized the symptoms. In a way, Aeacus was right. She was not sick, she was drugged.

“Where has she been?” I asked. Eunostos told me about the outing and the Bear of Artemis he had found in his house.

“One of Phlebas’s Girls, you say. Do you know what they do when they want their own babies to stop crying? They drug them. They give them a bit of weed to chew, or else they brew some in hot milk.”

“But why would the Girl drug Thea?” Kora cried. “Was she going to kidnap her?”

“I don’t think so. I think she probably came to steal from Eunostos. She had lost everything when the lodge burned down. She had heard how he leaves his gate unlocked and she just walked in, hoping to find him gone. She probably heard him with Kora and Bion down in the workshop but hoped she could come and loot and go before he came out. In the house, she found Thea, who was about to cry and give her away. So she quieted her with some weed. Then Eunostos and Kora surprised her and she pretended she was just rocking the baby in her arms.”