Unfortunately, as with many of life’s problems, green olives and salty crackers aren’t the answer. They’re not the answer to six times seven17, or what’s the capital of Venezuela18. They don’t help ghost rams and boys who are hiding in the basement of the British Museum and they’re completely useless for problems that sit at café tables in Rome, twisting a streak of violet hair around their white fingers.
Remember that violet streak? I thought you might.
And believe me, I am sorry for having to bring Medea into this story at all. However, you might recall that I have tried to be kind to you up until now, by dropping little hintlets about her unpleasantness to prepare you. Nevertheless, I shall try to make this as quick as possible.
Whilst Alex was busy scolding Aries for thinking about olives when he ought to be thinking about the mess they were in, Medea was sitting miles away sipping a latte in the Piazza Navona.
Bathed in the sunlight streaming through the café’s windows, she looked magnificent. Flawless, in fact. With skin as smooth as a shark’s tooth she appeared barely twenty-two of her three-thousand-eight-hundred-and-seventy-six years, which is what being an immortal sorceress will do for you, Greek-witch magic being a whole lot more effective than those anti-wrinkle creams they flog on the telly.
Of course, she’d have been even prettier if she smiled occasionally but Medea hadn’t smiled for months now. Instead, she’d sulked and raged, smashing china and summoning up thunderbolts that split walls and wilted dahlias, not to mention using the sort of language that would curl your eyelashes. All of which Hex, her accomplice – or ‘familiar’ as they say in witchy circles – could have told you about (and shown you the bruises) except that he was at that moment hidden inside the carpet bag at her feet, a carpet bag that writhed and hissed. As you might now have guessed, Hex was a snake. However, what you probably haven’t guessed is that he was a black mamba – and a black mamba, for those non-snake experts amongst you, is one of the deadliest snakes on Earth. Able to kill a man in minutes – hiss, nip, thud! – it’s also the fastest snake in the world and can zip through a classroom in under two seconds. However, unless you live in Africa, where mambas usually live, don’t worry about any black snakes you might see hanging around school, because despite their name, black mambas are grey. It’s the inky-black insides of their mouths that give them their name.
Now, back to Medea.
Since she left ancient Greece all those years ago she’d turned her hand to designing clothes. Not just any old clothes, but fabulous dresses and jackets, exquisite ball gowns that shimmered like tropical fish, wedding dresses as soft as snowdrifts and suits that made the dowdiest of men look debonair. For centuries, kings and queens, emperors and politicians, artists, musicians and several Hollywood stars had clamoured for her designs. Yet no one had ever connected her in any of her incarnations – as the seamstress at King Henry VIII’s court, the maker of Georgian silk pantaloons and white wigs in the eighteenth century or the modern-day business woman with a studio in Rome – to the sorceress in an ancient Greek myth with the same name. I mean that would’ve been silly, wouldn’t it, for who in their right mind could imagine that such a fresh and glamorous young woman was really a witch? Or that she was thousands of years old? I mean, I bet you know some boys called Isaac, but did they discover gravity standing under an apple tree? How about women called Cleo? Did the one you know rule Egypt four thousand years ago? Well, quite. And just in case any smart old person with an even smarter memory might grow suspicious, Medea vanished for decades every so often, to return refreshed and ready to tempt a whole new audience with her catwalk collections of clothes. But for a very special few, shall we say her most privileged customers, Medea offered a special service where she herself took the customer’s measurements, cut and sewed the cloth, snipping and tucking and stitching until the clothes were, well, breathtaking.
It was for just such a lucky customer that Medea was at that moment sketching, adding layer upon layer of pink taffeta to the skirts of the prom dress outlined on the page in front of her. She shrugged off her nightshade-purple jacket to reveal a short-sleeved black dress that fitted her as snugly as the skin on a spider’s tummy, and took a sip of latte, glancing up at the café television, which was showing footage of Hazel Praline arriving in London. Amused, Medea set down her sketch pad to watch as the screen filled with images of the young pop star stepping out of her pink-winged jet, adjusting her pink headband and throwing kisses to her screaming fans, her manager-father standing behind her, waving his white cowboy hat.
“Ooh,” hissed Hex, peeping out from inside the carpetbag. “That’s her, isn’t it, Mistressss?”
Medea sighed, scanning the other customers to make sure that no one else had heard before holding her pencil up towards the screen to check the proportions of the gown she was drawing against the girl on screen.
“Daddy’d make a good meal,” added Hex, slapping his lips with his black tongue. “Texasss hasssh!”
Medea shoved Hex back into the damp flannel-lined bag and jabbed him with the heel of her spiked boot, ignoring the muffled squeal of pain. Unfortunately, as Medea had recently discovered, black mambas, unlike black cats, don’t make good familiars. Despite their mean looks and reputation, they’re born daydreamers who’d rather snooze than squirm around a cauldron and spend most of their time lingering like a lost sock under the bed, which is hardly sorceress-chic.
“Breaking news,” barked the newscaster as the screen flipped to a picture of the British Museum, “from our London correspondent, where reports are coming through that a sheep – yes, you heard me correctly, a sheep – has run amok through the British Museum. Witnesses say that the sheep seemed to appear out of nowhere in Room 18, home to the Parthenon exhibits.”
Medea glanced up as the screen changed to a jittery video, clearly from a tourist’s camera, to see Aries looking back at her.
“According to those present,” the reporter went on, “the sheep was simply not there one moment but there the next, crashing into a caryatid from the Parthenon. A second vandal, this time a boy dressed as an ancient Greek, was accompanying the sheep, although museum guards now tell us that both boy and sheep have been removed from the premises and are being dealt with by the relevant authorities.”
Medea stared.
It couldn’t be, she told herself, the image of Aries emblazoned on her mind. It simply could not be him. Except, as her icy brain pointed out, how many other enormous bald rams with horns like bedsprings were there on the planet? Or, in fact, usually in its Greek Underworld.
Flipping shut her sketchbook, she knocked her coffee cup to the floor.
“Mistressss?” Hex edged his snout up and stopped, startled by her expression.
She was smiling, actually smiling. Hex blinked to make sure. But seeing the corners of her mouth lift upwards turned his tepid reptile heart to ice cubes. Medea smiling, you see, was always more dangerous than Medea sulking.
“Mistressss?” he murmured, sinking back into the bag.
“Mind your own business,” snapped Medea, dropping her sketchbook on top of him.
Snatching up her coat and bag, she hurried out of the café, as erratic as a startled scorpion. She didn’t care about the muffled ouches as her bag knocked into one chair after another. Nor did she notice the customers nudge each other and whisper as she strode past them, out into the square where now, wholly oblivious to its baroque architecture and magnificent fountains, she hailed a taxi to Leonardo da Vinci airport and her private jet.