Chapter 9 Persephone
Persephone
With a simper on my lips, I stare at my upturned hand. There is no mistaking it. My powers have returned.
I am not sure exactly when I think to reach for them, but when I do, they are there at my fingertips.
The spells and prayers come easily, with power flowing through me like water.
I run to the nearest garden beds and press my fingertips into the earth, and there is life.
Beautiful and vibrant. Whatever I imagine to grow.
Life!
I sit back on my heels on the flagstones next to the garden beds with fistfuls of dirt in my palms. I know I must look just as crazed as I did in those first days in the Underworld, but I cannot control my surprise.
My delight? It is a bittersweet joy to be here on Olympus with all my powers restored.
Long are the days that I feared they’d leave me or that I did not deserve them. I earned this. This beautiful gift.
But then—they were never gone, were they? Because the powers were not what mattered. What mattered was how I practiced. How I believed in myself. How I learned.
The process is just the same on Olympus as it was in the Underworld, only here, I am not starting at the beginning. I was born with my powers. My mother taught me the ways of them when she taught me to speak.
I open my hands and look down at the dirt there, then put it back in the garden bed.
Then I spool a plant up from it, bringing life in the form of a blooming rose, straight from the earth. And with a snap, I can deliver it to the mortal realm and let them multiply. I give beauty. I give hope in the despair that still lingers. My mother’s grasp has slipped. Her pain subsiding.
I might not’ve trusted my own abilities if I had not gone to the Underworld. I might not’ve built that sure, strong feeling within me. How could I have? If I had stayed here—
I do not know what might have happened. I might have lost my powers entirely. I might never have learned how to wield my own confidence no matter the realm I am standing in.
I grow flowers in the garden bed in a wild frenzy.
If there are seeds, then they spring up at my call like they were waiting for me to summon them.
If there are no seeds, I can create one by imagining what it might be like as a bloom.
I practice this until I have to lie down at the edge of the garden bed, my body weak with how good it feels to be myself again.
The sky above me, and above Olympus, is a pale blue dotted with clouds. It has cleared, for the moment, but gray clouds in the distance make me wonder if something else is coming. A storm is brewing.
Something else is always coming. That is what it means to be a god, or a living mortal, and even a soul destined for new life in the Underworld. There will always be change. There will always be growth. There will always be death.
There will always be something to face.
I frown at that blue, the tingling enjoyment of bringing so much life to the garden bed fading from my hands.
Would I give it up, I wonder?
Would I give it up to be with Hades? I cannot stop thinking of my love. He’s in all my dreams, appearing there the moment I fall asleep.
I need to get back to him. My palm itches for his touch and I must admit, I miss the weight of my crown upon my head.
Slowly, I rise from the flagstones and return to my rooms. The night is quiet and the people are scarce. I wash the dirt from my hands and change my gown, then settle before my altar.
My heart races. The last time I came to this altar, I was taken to the Underworld. I’m no longer afraid to be taken there, or to go there of my own will.
If I am afraid at all, it’s because of the uncertainty of what may come. I’m unsettled by my mother’s answers or non-answers to my questions. And my father…
I left, my emotions running high once Hecate was content with me and asked for my leave so she could speak to Zeus. The unease spreads through me once again.
Nothing makes sense here. He’d been angry about the wine. He had threatened me with the mortal realm, and why?
I already had to come to terms with the idea that I might spend my days as a nymph.
It has always been a possibility that I might choose to spend some of my time in the mortal realm.
But my father threw it at me like he was thinking of banishing me from Olympus.
Condemning me to the mortal realm, not wishing me well on a visit.
I’ve not spoken to him since. He is the god of gods, but there is always a consequence to every act.
I do not put it past him, but I would fight to return to my mother.
Just as I would fight to return to Hades.
And what of the pomegranate seeds? When will there be a decision on what consuming the seeds would do?
That conversation could be what is waiting for me. I don’t think it will be a pleasant one, but it might be polite, at least.
Over wine, I think, gazing at my altar, my gaze soft. Because he wanted me to drink the wine so badly that it infuriated him when I did not.
I push the thoughts of my father out of my head and practice my powers and prayers once again. The repetition fills me with more of that bittersweet joy. I had felt such panic and grief at losing my powers. I cannot help being happy that they are back.
But I wish I could show Hades. I could demonstrate them through the mirror, of course, but scrying is not the same as being in the same room.
If he was here, he could put his hands over mine.
He could feel the blooms rise up with his own fingers.
He could see how truly worthy I am. How I can bring life.
I wish he could.
My mother’s scream echoes through Olympus, startling me. I suck in my breath and turn with wide eyes. I put a hand to my chest with a gasp and sit still, frozen, so I can hear if she screams again.
“Persephone?” Beatrice’s voice is concerned. “Are you all right?”
I get to my feet, turning to face her as I do. “That was my mother.”
We look at each other for a silent heartbeat, and then we both move for the door, walking quickly. I do not wish to run. I know that things on Olympus have been unsteady. I know my mother has taken her rage out upon this place, too. So I do not want to run.
As Beatrice and I hurry down the halls, an earsplitting crack makes me jump again. In bare feet, we pass through a pavilion that’s open to the sky, with columns draped in ivy, and we both look up to see the sky torn into two. My mother lets out another scream, this one pure rage.
Both Beatrice and I break into a run toward the god of god’s courtyard.
We enter the main hall and almost collide with each other as we come to a stop.
My mother is on the floor, and Zeus stands over her, his staff to her throat.
They are not alone in the hall. Rage brews inside of me.
The sight of my mother, laid on the ground with her dress a mess around her.
My heart beats slowly as heat rises in me.
Hecate is there as well, her eyes blazing just as hotly as my mother’s. As hotly as Zeus’s. All the tension of his lightning bolts hovers in the air.
The ground beneath our feet trembles with the threat of a crack as my mother’s hand presses against the earth.
Threatening the world to quake. Her eyes are narrowed and pained as much as enraged.
What has this come to? More tragedy and war?
More threats and destruction? My head spins and my lungs fail me. I cannot stand idly by.
I step forward, my hands out.
“Stop this!” I call. “Let her up!” My throat is horse from my cry. My mouth goes dry and somehow I take another step forward.
To defy the god of gods is unwise. But I will not see him harm my mother. I would do anything for her and she for me.
Zeus turns his back on my mother, the cloak whipping through the air as he does. Quickly, Demeter climbs to her feet and stands there, trembling, venom in her expression. I swallow thickly, barely able to glance at her before being forced back to meet Zeus’s furious gaze.
“Tell me what happened,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Tell me what I need to know.”
Hecate is the only one to meet my eyes. “You must return.”
I know, I almost say. But my mother cries out in protest. Quietly, I ask again, “What has happened?”
“You ate the seeds,” my father snaps. “He owns your soul.”
My heart flips over. It’s not fear or terror that I feel. Perhaps a little, but it is only from the weight of those words. My mind accepts them as true for a few seconds before it argues back. It’s as if I’ve just asked the question and now I’ve been given an answer I never wanted.
“Owns?” I question, directing the word to Hecate. My heart rises to my throat as thoughts race through me. Has he deceived me? I know he has held back truths from me. But to own my soul?
My father scoffs at my question.
Hecate does not look at him. “Any life who consumes the seeds is condemned to remain in the Underworld for all time.”
I blink at her. My chest rising with my quickening breath. That does not exist between me and Hades. I rule beside him, not under him.
But it is Hecate’s eyes that send dread trickling through me. All time? All eternity?
What of my home here? My altar? My powers. How else will the world see beauty in color and delicate petals if I cannot provide them? And the prayers, they haven’t come again since I’ve left. But the prayers for children and birth. I can do that. Surely, I am capable now.
When I have felt the warmth of life blooming from my fingertips. When I have felt what it means to be a goddess who is strong enough to answer prayers and worthy of hearing them in the first place. I do not wish to be forced back.
My mother lets out a furious cry and rounds on my father. “You did this!” She stalks toward him, brandishing a finger at him, blaming him. “If you take her from me, it will be the last of—”