8. Sobbin’ women
SOBBIN’ WOMEN
WILLOW
So… my cousin is a huge Broadway nerd.
Not the casual kind who knows the really popular shows and has a playlist she puts on whenever she’s cleaning her apartment.
No. Daphne knows original casts. Revivals.
Understudies. Which performers were robbed at the Tonys, which movie adaptations destroyed the source material, and which shows were doomed from the second some producer decided they could turn a beloved book into a musical without understanding why anyone loved it in the first place.
Her favorite is Newsies, though she’ll deny that if she thinks anyone is going to tease her about it.
She also loves Into the Woods, has very strong feelings about Hadestown, and once made me watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers because she said I needed to understand why kidnapping a woman has somehow been treated as romantic since the beginning of recorded storytelling.
Those women were sobbin’, sobbin’, sobbin’...
That line had been looping through my head for the last ten minutes, which was probably not a good sign.
I couldn’t help it. It was either turn my current predicament into something amusing and hope that I’ll find my way out of it before the Roman guy makes good on his threat to make me his wife or start sobbing myself.
Once I gave up on trying to escape since all I was doing was giving myself a nasty case of rope burn, I tried to make sense of what was going on.
That’s when I remembered the story of the abduction of the Sabine women.
When the Romans needed brides, they did exactly what those seven brothers did: they stole them.
I also remember what Cassandra said about playing my part and living out a myth.
I guess I thought me supposedly having Persephone’s soul inside of me meant it would have something to do with that, but who knows in this nutty place?
I’m one of the Sabine women now, and I’m really, really trying hard not to freak out when I remember the other name of that Roman story…
Five minutes ago, the soldier returned. He came back with a fistful of some greens, plus a small vial that glittered in the firelight.
I don’t know what that is or where the heck he got it from, but he pulled a leather satchel toward him that was hidden in the shadows.
Yanking out a small pot and a jug of what’s most likely water, he dumped the contents of the jug into the pot, placed it in the fire, then added the greens and the glittering powder.
Just now, he removed the pot from the fire. He transferred it to the jug, and though it’s gotta be boiling hot, he opened his mouth and tossed his concoction inside.
I hope it at least burns his throat. Nope. He even smacks his lips when he’s done swallowing it, and if his neck seems to glow a strange golden color for a moment, I blame it on a trick of the light as he pulls himself to his full standing height.
He marches in front of me. “Wife.”
Hang on—
English. He just spoke English.
He chuckles at my shocked expression. “The potion worked, I see. You understand me now, woman. Good.”
Uh. Yeah. I understand him, but we have a huge miscommunication to correct if he honestly thinks that I’m going to just sit here and accept that I’m his wife. And, sure, I’m currently tied to this tree so I’m not quite sitting, but you know what I mean.
And this guy needs to know, too.
“What? Oh, no. I’m sorry. I think you’ve got it wrong. I mean, I know this is some weird world where we’re all supposed to be Greek gods, but—”
“I am not Greek,” he retorts. “And what you think matters not. I found you. I claimed you. And you, woman… you shall be my bride.”
I squeak. I mean, I figured from a combination of context clues, charades, and lucky guesses, but hearing him say it in English…
“Bride? But I don’t want to get married!”
Persephone has some pretty crappy timing. She finally perks her head up inside my chest, chirping, Husband? Husband, where are you?
Um. It’s definitely not going to be this Roman guy—
Oh.
Oh.
I don’t know where he came from. I actually sense him before I see him, and when he appears at the edge of the camp, it’s like he materialized out of the shadows.
The man actually seems like he’s made up of them.
That’s how dark his old-fashioned suit is.
It’s how dark his blue-black hair—slicked back in a fashion that hasn’t been popular in almost a century, but darn does it make him look good—is.
The fire bounces off of him, showing his pale features and pitch-black eyes in sharp relief.
He’s taller than the soldier, though not as broad. He has a lean build, but a commanding air about him. As he moves, he seems to glide, and I let out a gasp of shocked surprise when Sir comes bounding forward even as he stays close to the stranger’s boots.
The closer he gets, the stronger this pull I feel toward him. Between the fire and the moon and the slight glow emanating from his pale skin, I can see his face. He’s… oh. Wow. He’s absolutely gorgeous.
He’s also furious.
“Lower your sword. Now.”
When he speaks, I experience the deep, powerful timbre of his voice all the way down to my lady bits. Like… whoa.
The soldier had turned his back on me, facing the much bigger threat once he sensed that we had company. His sword is out again, and I hear the sneer in his voice as he says: “Pluto.”
Huh? Pluto? Like Mickey’s dog? No. I found the puppy. I named him Sir, and, oh my goodness, I think it’s finally happened. I’m hysterical.
And then the dark-eyed man looks over the soldier’s head, finding my gaze, and the weirdest thing happens.
His eyes go from black to white. Smoke from the fire disguises him for a second, but it’s not from the fire in the ring of stones, is it?
Because, just like Cassandra, he lifts one hand, a palm full of flickering flames hovering over his skin.
He flings it at the soldier.
I wouldn’t have guessed he was afraid of fire. Not when he has that pretty big fire going in his pit, but all it takes is a single spark of the stranger’s fire catching on the leather straps of the Roman’s man-skirt to have him losing his entire cool.
Completely forgetting I exist, he slaps at the leather. It takes longer than it should for the fire to go out. The soldier panics, and I only hope the fire doesn’t jump to me or anything.
Another hysterical worry. The fire winks out, but the moment it does, the soldier bolts. He runs for his horse, using his sword to slice the rope tethering the horse to its post. As we watch, the soldier hops on its back, kicks it in the flank with his sandal, and disappears.
Leaving me tied to a tree, and the man who saved me wiping his hands together as though trying to fool me into thinking that he didn’t just set that guy on fire.
But he saved me? That counts for something, right?
And Sir… Sir seems to like him. He’s currently yipping happily at the man’s heels, and—oh.
I gulp. “Is Sir yours?”
“Sir?” He lifts his head, meeting my gaze again for the first time since he set the soldier on fire with his flames. “His name is Cerberus.”
I blink. Cerberus? What? Like the three-headed giant dog that lives in the Underworld?
Yes, Will, I think wryly—and though that’s not my usual tone, that’s definitely my inner voice. Took me long enough, huh? As though Persephone’s comment about Sir growing a second head couldn’t be any more obvious.
All along, I was trying to keep the hound of Hades safe.
The hound of—
Uh-oh.
He’s…
And I’m…
Persephone beams. Oh, yes.
As though he can sense the enormity of the realization that just hit me, the man—god—whoever purses his lips, though he doesn’t look away from me.
“I suppose you can say he’s mine.” He pauses, his dark eyes bearing down on me as he adds, “Just like you are.”
Wai—what?
Before I can tell him the same thing that I told the Roman soldier, he holds out his hand. “Come to me, Persephone.”
Husband…
“My name is Willow.”
The gorgeous stranger doesn’t miss a beat. “Come to me, Willow.”
Is it sad that I would if I could? Shoot. For twenty-eight years, I’ve never been easy, but something about him… I give my aching shoulders a shrug. “I’m kind of stuck.”
His eyes turn white again. Only for a split second this time, and he throws out his hand, gesturing toward the tree I’m tied to.
I don’t know what the heck he just did, but when he blinks, his eyes going from white to black again, he nods before holding out his hand once more. “Come to me now. I’ve waited eighty years for you. Don’t make me wait a moment longer.”
It’s something in his deep, throaty voice. It’s how it twists something deep inside of my chest. It’s the certainty that I wouldn’t refuse, the powerful way he commands me to go without giving me a moment to really think about what he said.
…waited eighty years for you…
Instead of focusing on that, I move my hands. I… I want to go to him, though I don’t know why, and as I shift my position so that my arms are bent the way they’re supposed to be, I realize that the rope… it’s gone.
I do a closer inspection. Is that ash on my skin? I don’t know, but it looks like ash. Almost as though he used some kind of magic to incinerate the rope binding me against my will, but how? It couldn’t be those flames again. I didn’t feel any heat. What did he do?
No clue, but I see his pale hand outstretched, Sir waiting expectantly at his feet.
He saved me.
He owns you.
What? That thought rushes through my head, though I’m suddenly not sure if I thought it or Persephone thought it for me. It doesn’t matter. As if my legs are acting on their own accord, I’m shuffling in my bare feet toward the man.
His eyes are hypnotizing. I could no sooner escape him than I could the soldier.
I lay my hand on his. “Where are we going?”
“Home, my blossom. We’re going home.”
Yes!
So… turns out, I got way too excited for nothing.
Home, as the dark-haired, dark-eyed, sexy stranger called it doesn’t mean my condo.
It does mean that, with a wave of his hand, he opens a portal that looks like a big patch of dark, thick, black smoke, and, gripping my hand lightly, tugs me inside of it to his home.
The freaking Underworld.
What do you think of when you hear that? The Underworld? Now, I’m not sure what the rest of it looks like since his particular portal thing brought us right into his honest-to-God throne room—or, as Persephone provided, the megaron—but it’s exactly what I expected.
It’s dark. Everything is made of stone, with silver accents. Fire is everywhere. Despite the amount of, like, torches and stuff that illuminate the dark room, it’s cold. Really cold. I’m shivering in my summer clothes, and my poor feet are super chilly.
One good thing about standing on a stone floor instead of being outside? At least I stopped creating flowers with every step. Though, if I’m telling the truth, I kind of miss them.
Sir—because he might be Cerberus, but to me, he’s Sir—came back with us.
I finally understand what happened. For whatever reason, he lured me through the mirror, had me chase him all through the woods, all with the intent to bring me to that river with the whirlpool that doubled as an entrance to the Underworld.
Only I went and got myself taken by a Roman soldier, and while Sir did actually go to get help, he came back with—
With—
Nope. Not going there.
Not yet.
And ‘for whatever reason’… silly Willow. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that reason is.
…I waited eighty years for you…
I didn’t know he was already reborn! At least, of the two of us, Persephone is somewhat delighted to be here.
And look at what he’s done with the place.
I remember telling him it needed more light the last time I was reincarnated, and I think he really brightened the megaron up.
Go on. Take a seat on your throne. I want to see if it’s as comfortable as I remember.
I couldn’t. Just because there are very obviously two thrones in the room that he brought me to, that doesn’t mean I’m going to plop down in one. Sure, I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I’m also hungry and nervous and trying my best to stop staring at the man who is attuned to my every move.
So I ignore Persephone, and thinking that I’m too busy eye-banging her man, she settles down to watch the show.
I’m sure that Daphne would think I’ve totally lost it if I told her I was hearing voices—well, no, not voices, just her—but there’s something kind of comforting about having Persephone as company.
And, yeah. I’ve lost it. Totally and completely lost it.
Ah, well. It could always be worse. I could be a Roman soldier’s new wife right about now instead of being led by the elbow up a wide flight of stony steps.
We go up three floors, and when he bows his head, tells me this is Persephone’s room and to make myself comfortable until dinner is served, I’m so taken aback that he knows about the goddess inside of me that I just say “okie dokie” and let myself inside.
Okie. Dokie.
To the most stunning yet imposing man I’ve ever met in my life who just might be the king of the dead.
It’s a good thing that I’m in the Underworld because you can just go ahead and kill me now for that one.
It doesn’t help that, when I walk into the room, I’m stunned by how instantly I feel put at ease.
There are tapestries everywhere, and wall coverings embroidered with nearly every flower that sprouted behind me since I’ve been in this world.
The bedding is a soft green color, like spring, and though I first coughed when I breathed in the fire and brimstone smell in the megaron thing, this space smells sweet if a little musty.
Right. Because Persephone hasn’t been here in a while. At least twenty-eight years, and if the stranger who saved me can be trusted, it’s at least eighty…