Chapter 3 Persephone
Persephone
My father’s face twists as my words sink in. The confession of the seeds, the taste of which still linger on my lips. His mouth curls downward, and the rest of his expression follows suit—
But only for a split second.
He manages to change it to confusion, his eyes going wide. My father shakes his head, as if in disbelief.
Is he going to make me repeat what I just said? I ate the seeds.
I will if he requires. What is done is done and I will face the consequences. Whatever that may be.
My mind drifts to my mother in the silence that follows.
The pastures have withered here, a sign that my mother has gone.
The muted browns of the field surrounding the towers are pitiful.
Death surrounds us. I don’t dare test my magic, not while so many eyes lay on us.
But my fingers twitch with the need to bring life back to these halls.
And the need to see my mother. Would she gaze upon me with horror and shock as my father’s just done.
All over the seeds.
Because of the pomegranates? My heart races, remembering Hades’s plea and Hecate’s reaction.
As if she’s aware of my thoughts shifting to her, Hecate disappears from behind me.
I do not watch her, but I feel her go. There is an absence in the air, and a slight wind rushes through the hall.
My father’s eyes lift from my face, then drop back down.
If he does not speak soon, I will have to continue. I will have to say something. Because more questions are coming into my mind. They are growing like weeds. The only way to pluck them out is to find answers.
“Father,” I begin, but the doors of the main hall slam open with a loud bang. Hastened steps of my mother and her companions fill the room.
“Persephone!” Her tone is strained with desperation. Although she says my name as if it is a prayer.
I turn toward my mother’s voice, my heart swelling, my father’s hands slipping away from me as I do. His fingers brush my back.
My mother.
With a dry throat, I rush forward a few steps, but my mother is already running. She sprints across the shining floor, the skirt of her flowing black dress flying behind her and her arms stretched out to me.
She’s abandoned her green dress for black, for mourning and death.
I barely have time for another step before I collide with her. My mother’s hair falls all around me, tickling my face as she closes her arms tight around my body. We’re so close that I can feel her pounding heart and her fast, unsteady breath.
Tears prick from the relief of being beside her. My mother. I’ve missed her so much. I’d speak but I don’t trust my voice. My throat is tight and dry, and my body refuses to do anything but cling to my mother.
“Persephone,” she says into my hair, her voice trembling. “My daughter. Persephone.” Her voice is strong and yet gentle. A warm tear falls from her cheek to mine.
Mother. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.
The relief in her voice makes my heart twist. I have missed her so much. I know that her love for me is genuine. There is no hidden meaning in her words, she’s not careful about her emotions the way my father is when he speaks.
I couldn’t hold her any closer if I wanted to. The two of us embrace as if unsure if we would see each other again. Because that’s the harshest truth. That moment existed, that memory and nightmare wove itself in our days and nights that are behind us.
Never again do I wish to mourn that loss. Never. She is my mother and I love her dearly.
“I missed you,” I whisper into her hair as my own tears fall. The scent of her, the warmth of her. The comfort of being in her embrace is exactly what I needed to breathe here in this hall.
I have worried after her. I have wanted to reassure her, and be reassured, too. I wanted her to stroke my hair and tell me it would be all right. Tell me she understood.
She doesn’t say a thing to me, but they are all communicated in her touch.
Only…
I know, too, that it may not be all right. That something is not right. That Hecate and Hades have an understanding that somehow involved bringing me to Olympus. That my mother is involved. I wish I could take it all back. There’s been so much destruction and death.
My mind scrambles to create a way where every wrong is righted. My mother, from how she refuses to let go and how she is breathing into my hair, her breaths hitching like she may be crying, is beside herself.
The gods have created an imbalance. Your mother—
Was Hades right? Did my mother really do this? For me?
She’s never been one for violence. Never wanted harm to come to anyone. She’s the most generous of the gods. And yet death and despair follow in her wake.
I’ve never known such things, but I’ve also never known grief like I did losing her. I can only imagine how she felt.
I hold her back, breathing slowly and steadily to keep myself calm. Surely there is a way to stop it. To bring life back. To let what happened stay behind us.
Mothers would do unfathomable things for their daughters.
Unfathomable. That is the word Hades used. The souls filling the sky seemed unfathomable to me.
My mother would do no such thing!
I can feel in her touch that she would. That she might do worse, if she thought it would bring me back to her.
The imbalances.
All the deaths.
The souls in the sky above the Underworld. The destruction of our realms.
Hades. My mind stays on thoughts of him as I stare at my mother.
I stroke my mother’s back in rhythmic circles. She relaxes into me, and I realize I’m frowning into the distance.
I let my face rest on her shoulder, hiding it from anyone who may be watching. Olympus feels strange, but my mother does not. I keep holding her, nearly afraid of letting her go.
And I need a few more seconds to think.
Is there something I can say, here and now, that will ease tensions created?
I cannot say I wish to go back to the Underworld. They will not understand. Nor is there a way. The realms are closed. Hades never had a right to take me as he did. The anger I imagine my mother will feel at the mention of his name…
My heart aches. A wretched pain as my throat closes once again. I need both of them. My mother and this beautiful life that surrounds me, and Hades, the other half of my soul and the realm I’m rightfully queen of.
How…how can it be so? From the corner of my eyes, tears form and take far too long to fall as I attempt to hide my thoughts from prying eyes.
Behind me, my father, the king of the gods, clears his throat. “Demeter…” His tone is comforting and yet demanding.
My mother squeezes me tighter, whispering something I can’t hear into my hair. It’s too rushed and spoken too quietly. Then she straightens. “We are going.”
“Demeter,” my father says, irritation sharpening his tone. “Persephone has—”
“Whatever it is can surely wait!” my mother cries.
I blink. It’s not like her to raise her voice in the main hall.
My body tenses. That’s when I get a good look at her.
Her eyes are red-rimmed and her expression hollow.
As if she has not slept in ages. Her bottom lip wobbles slightly as she tells Zeus, “I insist that it wait. I need time with my daughter.”
For a moment, I think my father will refuse. I imagine he will demand that we stay with him in the main hall or one of the more private rooms nearby. I don’t know what there is for him to say about the pomegranate seeds, but I can’t imagine there is any way he can change it.
Gods have many powers, but I have never known my father to be able to make someone un-eat pomegranate seeds. I’m aware it must’ve bound me to Hades in some way. Or protected me.
Power and magic do not work the same way in every realm. Things that may be undone with magic or powers in one realm are permanent in others. At that moment when Hades handed me the seeds, I had to accept them. It was all I knew of comfort to do as he wished.
The moment passes. My father huffs, giving up, and my mother takes my hand, squeezing tightly. He concedes, granting her wish.
Voices rise all around us as she guides me out of the main hall with haste.
The crowd parts for us and I dare not look any of them in the eye.
I know not which gods came to watch. With everything that has happened, I am more lost than anything, and one place that is always home is in my mother’s arms.
Before I went to the Underworld, I would have fretted about what the crowd in the courts saw and what they thought.
I would have wondered for hours whether anyone had noticed that I had changed.
I thought it would be my life’s greatest failure and disaster if anyone but Beatrice was to learn that my powers were slipping away.
And now it is clear that they know so very little that I cannot expend a thought on what they may think of me and of what happened. They cannot possibly know the love that binds Hades and me.
My mother walks quickly down one hall, then another, then stops and hugs me again.
She takes several deep breaths although her hand still trembles.
I know she is trying to calm herself. Remind herself that I am still here.
Then she pulls away, and we keep walking hand in hand until we reach my rooms.
The torches light our way down the carved marble steps and all the while I avoid the eyes of servants in the same manner that I avoid staring at the withered plants along the way.
They’ve all died.
A quick glance around as we enter tells me that it has been tidied. The stone is in its place on my altar. There is no sign of someone stealing in to take me away.
As my eyes land on the ground where I last sat, a chill comes over me. The fear in the memory has not left me.
“It’s alright,” my mother whispers and holds me tightly as if she knows the terror I felt. “No one will ever take you away again.”