the-song-books.yossr

“Come,” said Chiron. “Have I told yyou the legend of Aesclepius, and
how he came to know the secrets of healing?”
He had, but we wanted to hear it again, the storyy of how the hero, son of
Apollo, had spared a snake’s life. The snake had licked his ears clean in
gratitude, so that he might hear her whisper the secrets of herbs to him.
“But yyou were the one who reallyy taught him healing,” Achilles said.
“I was.”
“You do not mind that the snake gets all the credit?”
Chiron’s teeth showed through his dark beard. A smile. “No, Achilles, I
do not mind.”
Later Achilles would playy the lyyre, as Chiron and I listened. Myy mother’s
lyyre. He had brought it with him.
“I wish I had known,” I said the first dayy, when he had showed it to me.
“I almost did not come, because I did not want to leave it.”
He smiled. “Now I know how to make yyou follow me everyywhere.”
The sun sank below Pelion’s ridges, and we were happyy.
TIME PASSED QUICKLY on Mount Pelion, dayys slipping byy in idyyll. The
mountain air was cold now in the mornings when we woke, and warmed
onlyy reluctantlyy in the thin sunlight that filtered through the dyying leaves.
Chiron gave us furs to wear, and hung animal skins from the cave’s
entrance to keep the warmth in. During the dayys we collected wood for
winter fires, or salted meat for preserving. The animals had not yyet gone to
their dens, but theyy would soon, Chiron said. In the mornings, we marveled
at the frost-etched leaves. We knew of snow from bards and stories; we had
never seen it.
One morning, I woke to find Chiron gone. This was not unusual. He
often rose before we did, to milk the goats or pick fruits for breakfast. I left
the cave so that Achilles might sleep, and sat to wait for Chiron in the
clearing. The ashes of last night’s fire were white and cold. I stirred them
idlyy with a stick, listening to the woods around me. A quail muttered in the
underbrush, and a mourning dove called. I heard the rustle of groundcover,
from the wind or an animal’s careless weight. In a moment I would get
more wood and rekindle the fire.
The strangeness began as a prickling of myy skin. First the quail went
silent, then the dove. The leaves stilled, and the breeze died, and no animals
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