Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast Read Online Free PDF Page B

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