Medea the Enchantress

by Joan Holub

  “We know you’re Jason because we’re helping the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus to make sure you get the fleece,” Glauce chimed in. She might think this was true, but it wasn’t Medea’s plan. Not at all!

  Jason’s eyebrows lowered and he took a menacing step toward them. “How do you know what we Argonauts seek?” he demanded fiercely.

  “Spies! Walk the plank!” yelled Athena’s Dodona figurehead. Other crew members took up this call, chanting her words.

  “No! Wait! Oh, there’s Heracles. He knows us,” said Medea, waving. “Yoo-hoo, Heracles, remember us?”

  Like they’d suspected, he had been magicked here at the same time as them, but he must have landed on board instead of in the water. He was already sitting on one of the benches near the prow, Hylas at his side. During transport, that shield had somehow magically enlarged to the exact right size for him to use in battle.

  “Is she telling the truth?” Jason asked the muscular, lion-skin-caped boy.

  “Dunno,” Heracles answered, shrugging disinterestedly. He was gazing at his shield with an adoring look on his face—the same look he’d given it in the classroom after being struck by Eros’s arrow.

  Medea looked around for someone else who might help them. Her gaze landed on a guy standing at the stern (the back part of the ship). He was holding on to a horizontal bar of wood called a tiller, which was connected to the rudder under the boat and used as a lever for steering. This had to be one of Ares’ heroes, Tiphys, the ship’s pilot. He looked as suspicious of her and Glauce as most of the crew, however. No help would come from him, she thought.

  Her gaze moved on. Over on the fifth bench up from the tiller portside Medea finally saw a friendly face. Right away she knew from drawings she’d seen of her in Teen Scrollazine that this Argonaut had to be Atalanta. She looked strong and athletic, and had hair almost as long and golden as that of the goddessgirl who would guide her on this quest—Aphrodite. Atalanta was smiling at Medea and Glauce as if not at all worried they were spies. Yay! Sisterhood!

  “Don’t make us walk the plank. We can help you. We have magic wands,” Glauce announced, waving hers around.

  “Magic wands! Magic wands!” squawked the figurehead.

  Hearing her, the whole crew grew tenser still. “Hand ’em over,” demanded Jason, holding out his palm.

  “Sure. Here you go,” said Glauce. In a flash she’d snatched away Medea’s wand and given both of their wands to Jason.

  To Medea’s surprise, he immediately threw them overboard! Plunk! Plunk!

  Medea ran to the rail in time to watch the two wands sink. She rounded on Glauce in frustration. “Why did you give them to him?” She felt totally unprotected without her wand!

  “He’s the boss. But, well, I didn’t expect him to do that!” said Glauce, gesturing to where he’d tossed them.

  “Count yourselves lucky I don’t throw you both to the sea monsters too!” declared Jason.

  “Sea monsters?” echoed Glauce. She and Medea exchanged worried glances. Medea hadn’t been concerned about Medusa’s snakes or the cute little sea monsters on the game board. But real sea monsters were something else. Something scary. No way did she want to become a sea monster snack!

  Just then a winged messagescroll swooped down from the clear blue sky to land on Jason’s shoulder. As he read the scroll, his eyes widened. “Listen to this, guys!” he called out to his crew in an excited voice.

  “And girls!” Atalanta yelled. She, Medea, and Glauce were the only three girls on the Argo (if you didn’t count the figurehead). Atalanta was by far the oldest of the three, however. Maybe as old as twenty!

  “Oh yeah. Sorry, Atalanta,” said Jason, shooting her a grin. “So anyway, this messagescroll is from that famous poet, Apollonius. He says he heard about our quest and wants to try something new. He wants to write a musical about it, if our exploits prove entertaining enough!”

  Jason glanced at a boy seated near the middle of the ship on a starboard bench. Many of the heroes had weapons, like bows and arrows or spears, at their sides. But this boy had a lyre. And he was just as dreamy-cute as Aphrodite had described him back at MOA.

  “Orpheus! Apollonius wants us to keep a record of what happens,” Jason called to him. “Names, places, adventures. I think you’re the perfect crew member for the task.”

  “Awesome!” said Orpheus, punching a fist high in the air. “And since he wants to make our story into a musical, I’ll put all that info into songs about our adventures. Once I sing a tune, I never forget it, so I won’t have to bother with pen and papyrus till later.”

  “Excellent!” said Jason. “At the end of our voyage we’ll send your work to Apollonius. Just think! If he does turn your songs into a musical show, everyone will want to go see it at the Theatre of Dionysus. Our quest will be celebrated by all for many years to come!”

  The crew cheered.

  “Yeah, so everybody, please try to do interesting stuff worthy of celebration from now on so I can write good, catchy songs, okay?” Orpheus advised.

  Medea sensed the heightened enthusiasm of the crew. The news of Apollonius’s interest in their quest seemed to have made them more determined than ever to excel at it. Which didn’t help her one bit! Thanks a lot, Apollonius!

  Glauce had gone uncharacteristically silent and was now staring at Jason with a weird look on her face. What was she thinking about? From her soft smile you might guess her thoughts were of something really happy. Like birthday presents or getting into the Magicasters Club at school. Which made no sense, because their lives were in serious peril right now!

  Abruptly a breeze blew up, rocking the ship. While the crew got back to rowing, Medea and Glauce ran over and grabbed hold of the central masthead to steady themselves. Jason seemed to forget them for the moment as he shouted new orders to his crew to secure the Argo’s safety.

  “I wonder why Circe hasn’t magicked us out of here yet,” Medea said to Glauce over the rising wind.

  “Duh! Because she thinks she magicked us to Enchantment Academy. Weren’t you listening when she called bye and said she’d see us on Saturday?” Glauce replied. “Maybe not, since you were busy messing up her plan by getting mixed up with Heracles’ shield.” She paused to glance over at Jason again with that weird look in her eyes. It was the same way Heracles was looking at Hylas, the shield. “Not that I’m complaining,” she added softly.

  Medea thought about how the shield had accidentally transported them here along with Heracles. “Hmm,” she said, “do you think the kids back in Hero-ology can see us as statues on the game board?” Before Glauce could respond, she answered her own question. “Oh, wait. Only the statues from Mr. Cyclops’s trophy cup are officially part of the game, so I bet no one sees us here. And if that’s true, then—”

  “Then no one will come looking for us until the end of the week, when Circe goes back to EA and finds out we aren’t there,” finished Glauce. Leaning back against the mast, she watched Jason running around giving orders, and sighed happily. “Which is fine by me.”

  “Did one of Eros’s arrows get you, by any chance?” Medea asked her carefully.

  “Nuh-uh, why do you ask?”

  Medea spread her hands, palms up, to indicate, Isn’t it obvious? When Glauce just gave her a puzzled look, she added, “Because you gave Jason our wands? And you’re looking at him . . . funny?”

  Glauce wrinkled her nose. “Funny? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Land ho!” a crewman yelled, drawing their attention. He was directly above them, high in the crow’s nest atop the ship’s mast.

  The figurehead rolled her eyes. “That’s such a boring announcement. And it doesn’t tell the whole story. You should’ve said: ‘Bunch of boy-crazy girls dead ahead on the beach!’ ”

  At this intriguing information, all eyes turned in the direction of the island they were fast approaching in the Aegean Sea. “Look at all those girls jumping up and down, Zetes!” exclaimed one of the r
owing sailors.

  The sailor on the seat across the aisle from him replied, “Yeah, there must be a hundred of them! And they’re waving us over.”

  Both boys had red hair and freckles, and wings growing from their backs, Medea saw. These had to be Pheme’s heroes, the brothers Zetes and Calais!

  “I say we keep going,” Glauce piped up. “For all we know, those girls might be planning to throw spears at us as soon as we get closer. It’s not worth taking a chance.”

  “But you can’t just make a beeline for Colchis,” Medea reasoned to Jason. “Stopping on this island is just the kind of interesting adventure you need to spice up that musical Apollonius wants to do about your quest.” Her real reason for suggesting a stop was that it would also slow the quest down and give her more time to think about how she could prevent Jason from stealing her dad’s Golden Fleece!

  Many crew members nodded their heads in agreement, but Glauce glared at her.

  “Right! We’re stopping. Everybody off!” called Jason. He motioned to Medea and Glauce, saying, “And that includes you two.”

  Turning toward two of the crew, Jason amended his order. “But not you guys. Tiphys, while we’re gone, I’ll trust you to plan our navigation from here. And Heracles, you’ll stay on board to stand guard.”

  The minute the rest of the Argonauts disembarked, dozens of girls wearing chitons woven from sea grass ran up to them. They didn’t throw spears. But they did throw compliments.

  “Ooh! Cute guy alert!” said one, giggling. They were only interested in the boys and pretty much ignored Medea, Glauce, and Atalanta.

  “Gosh! You all look so strong!” said another, clapping her hands at the sight of the boys as if they were cookies on a plate. Flattered, some of the crew members began posing in ways that showed off their muscles. This display was greeted with great approval by the silly girls.

  Then the sailors’ crowd of admirers parted to make a path for a girl wearing a very fancy sea-grass chiton and a tall crown made of grapes, cherries, and apricots. She walked right up to Jason. Batting her eyelashes at him, she said, “Welcome to Lemnos, the eighth-largest island in Greece! I am Hypsipyle. And you are Jason?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “Pheme, of course!” trilled Hypsipyle. “She is spreading the word all over Earth about the musical Apollonius plans to create about your exploits. And now that you’ve chosen Lemnos to be the first stop on your quest, we’ll be famous! Our economy will skyrocket and we’ll get lots more tourists coming here. Mostly boys, we hope!”

  Before Jason could reply, Hypsipyle summoned an artist to draw a sketch of the two of them. “And speaking of boys, wowee-wow-wow! You are super kee-YUTE!” she told Jason as the artist worked. “And talk about a strongman! I bet you could lift the Argo above your head with no trouble at all! And maybe even spin it around on the tip of your finger!”

  “Well, uh, I . . .” Jason seemed unsure how to respond to this over-the-top praise.

  Once the artist had finished her drawing, Hypsipyle instructed her to send it off to Pheme right away. “You must hang out for a while,” she told Jason and his crew. “Anybody hungry? We’ll make lunch.”

  “Good idea. And we’d love to get a tour of your island!” enthused Medea. The longer she could delay the Argo, the better. She racked her brain for a way to thwart Jason’s quest. Would one of these girls agree to get a warning to her dad about Jason’s plan to steal the fleece? More likely they’d rat her out to Jason, since they adored him.

  With Medea’s encouragement, the Lemnos girls proceeded to show the crew every corner of their island, from its lovely sandy beaches to its picturesque (but smelly) sheep pastures. Then they all enjoyed a lunch on the beach, dining on figs, melons, olives, cheeses, and meats.

  Unfortunately, Glauce was working at cross-purposes to Medea. “We’re wasting time!” she kept telling Jason. “The sooner you finish your quest, the sooner you’ll become famous heroes.”

  After hours of listening to her constant grumbling about how they needed to get going, the crew began to get antsy too. They began to say things like: “She’s right.” “Makes sense.” “Let’s get a move on!”

  Eventually Jason agreed that they should go.

  It took a while to convince the super-friendly Lemnos girls to let them leave, however. When they finally did, Hypsipyle gave Jason a new pair of sandals and a frilly, dove-shaped pillow with JASON LOVES LEMNOS! embroidered on it.

  “Thanks,” said Jason, appearing pleased. “I can use the pillow as a bench cushion!”

  “Just a sample of the souvenirs we’re going to be marketing to tourists!” she informed him. “We’re also making Jason action figures and toy Argonaut helmets.”

  As the heroes began climbing aboard the ship again, the Lemnos girls tossed each of them a souvenir pillow shaped like one of the birds of their island. At last Jason and his crew took their oars in hand, sighing with happiness as they sat on the cushy pillows they’d set beneath themselves on their benches.

  Medea and Glauce hadn’t been given pillows, but they found comfortable-enough perches on the two large coils of rope that naturally formed chairlike bowls, located halfway between the stern and the main mast. Luckily, their chitons, sandals, and hair had dried by now.

  “This pillow is so comfy,” Medea heard Jason comment as the ship slid through the water. “It was really nice of Hypsipyle to give it to me. And this new pair of sandals, too, since I was missing one.”

  Hypsipyle might be nice, but she was also smart when it came to business dealings. Medea had a feeling that girl planned to use the single sandal Jason had left behind on Lemnos as a tourist attraction!

  The more Jason talked about Hypsipyle, the sourer Glauce’s expression got. Seeing how unhappy she looked, Medea felt kind of sorry for her. Normally, her frenemy wasn’t the type to crush any more than she was, but Medea was pretty sure Glauce was crushing now—on Jason!

  On the heels of this thought an idea bloomed in Medea’s brain. Carefully she reached into her pocket. Luckily, that mini arrow of Eros’s was still there. Hmm. What if she could somehow manage to prick Jason with it while he happened to be looking at Glauce? It would cause him to crush on her, which would make Glauce happy. Then, once Jason was crushing on her, Glauce might be able to talk him into giving up on his quest to steal the fleece. But for this plan to succeed, Medea would first need to convince Glauce that this quest was a terrible idea.

  So, stretching her arms and giving a big fake yawn, Medea said casually, “Who knows how many more islands of cute girls there are between us and Colchis? I bet Jason and this crew are going to have tons of girlfriends and souvenirs by the time we get there and this quest ends.”

  “Huh?” Glauce looked alarmed.

  “Oh, sorry, do you . . . do you like him? I mean like-like him?” Medea asked, trying to look surprised by this notion. “In that case, maybe we should try to cut this whole quest thing short. That way he won’t meet any more girls. And he won’t steal from my dad, either. It’s a win-win.” Unfortunately, Glauce looked unconvinced as well as not quite ready to admit her crush. Had Medea pushed too hard too soon?

  Just then Orpheus began singing a little song he’d made up after the crew’s adventure on Lemnos:

  “Hypsipyle gave Jason a soft pillow dove.

  Could this mean that those two are falling in love?”

  Jason’s cheeks reddened. “What? No!”

  Glauce gritted her teeth in irritation. “ ‘Love,’ my foot!” she muttered. Leaning toward Medea, she murmured, “You know, maybe you’re right about cutting this quest short. We’ll just have to figure out how.”

  “I might know a way,” Medea told her mysteriously.

  “You’d better let me in on the plan, whatever it is,” Glauce insisted. “We don’t want to take a chance of you messing up again.”

  Grr. Gritting her teeth, Medea ignored the remark.

  6

  Trouble
makers

  THE NEXT MORNING MEDEA STOOD at the rail of the Argo, her chiton and her long black hair whipping in the stiff sea breeze. She and Glauce had slept curled up on the rope coils, which had been made more comfortable by the loan of Zetes’s and Calais’s pillows. Those boys and the rest of the crew had slept on their benches throughout the night, except when taking turns as lookouts and oarsmen.

  Though Jason’s bench was dead center at the very back of the ship near the tiller so he could see straight up the main aisle and keep an eye on everything and everyone, he was rarely seated there, Medea noticed. Instead he was usually among the crew, talking over problems or offering instructions as the ship started through a long, narrow passage called the Dardanelles that would take them from the Aegean Sea into the smaller Sea of Marmara.

  She patted the pocket of her chiton, feeling the shape of Eros’s magic arrow inside it. By now the Argo had been at sea for a day and a night. But while the whole crew was around, she hadn’t dared to put her plan into action. The last thing she needed was for Jason to get pricked by the arrow, then start crushing on an Argonaut he spotted instead of Glauce!

  As if the crewman high in the crow’s nest had heard her thoughts and wanted to help get the crew off the boat (which seemed unlikely), he suddenly shouted, “Land ahoy!”

  “Yeah, I think we can all see that,” the figurehead called back to him. “Could you puh-leeze try to put a little more excitement into your announcements? Something like: ‘Towering, mysterious mountain looming dead ahead! Beware!’ ”

  A very tall mountain was indeed sticking up from a spit of land about a half mile ahead of the ship near the entrance from the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara, Medea saw. But whether or not that was cause for concern was yet to be seen.

  “Take us in, Tiphys!” ordered Jason. “We’ll dock and climb that peak. I’ve got a bad feeling about what lies beyond it, so it can’t hurt to check.”