12. Persephone’s garden
PERSEPHONE’S GARDEN
WILLOW
There are ups and downs to being the reincarnate of Persephone.
Big up? I’m a freaking goddess.
Big down? I can’t leave the Underworld.
Well, no. I’m sure I could if I asked Aiden to help me get out. I’m not, like, trapped here—not like the first Persephone or any of those who ate the pomegranate after her—because I still haven’t forgotten what Cassandra said about eating food from the Underworld.
It’s just that… Persephone insists, even as the goddess of spring, I do belong in the Underworld. That I belong with Hades—with Aiden.
The funny thing is I’m not so sure she’s wrong.
Maybe when I first arrived in the Other, I would’ve been able to adamantly refuse.
Just because I was born with her soul inside of me, meant to be the reincarnation of a goddess, that didn’t mean that it was my fate to follow hers.
So Cassandra told me that I wouldn’t be able to leave unless I did what was expected of me and relived one of Persephone’s stories; Aiden confirmed the same.
In order to do that, I had to admit that I was meant to be Hades’s bride, and if I did that, how could I ever leave?
But now… things are different now, and it happened so naturally, I don’t even know how it happened.
It all began with the flowers.
Well, no, it started with a bed, but the flowers… they change everything.
Aiden doesn’t push me. He knows that I’m Persephone, and that there are expectations that come with that. Sleeping in his bed to soothe the god inside of him… that was one of them.
The first time he requested that I sleep in his quarters with him instead of the room designated as Persephone’s, I was as nervous as I was excited by the prospect of it.
It was about two weeks into my stay in the Underworld, right around when I started to accept that this was my home now.
I befriended the nymphs. I decided that—three-headed beast or not—Cerberus was Sir, and he’s my dog now.
I even got to know Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone by name instead of the casual way that Aiden referred to the goddesses of retribution and vengeance as the Furies.
That definitely confused him. It’s as though he expected me to hide in my room, not take an active part in living in his palace.
And maybe the original Persephone might have, but I’m Willow.
A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet, and if I’m going to be here for…
a while, I might as well get comfortable.
Which is exactly how I justify making Aiden’s bedroom mine.
He assured me nothing physical would happen.
Once I swallowed the rush of disappointment that hit me to hear that, I understood why he did.
He knows Persephone is his wife just like I know Hades is my husband.
Still, we only just met. We needed to take it as slow as possible.
The proximity was because Hades was getting on Aiden’s nerve, badgering him to find out why his wife was so close but so far from him, and as long as he could hold me while he slept, Hades left Aiden alone.
I mean… it would’ve been cruel to say no.
That was more than two months ago. At least, I think that’s how long it’s been...
All I know is that the flowers? Standing on the balcony off of Aiden’s room, you can see most of the Underworld.
In the near distance, there are the Asphodel Fields where the “meh” souls who weren’t heroic but weren’t villains, either, get to spend their afterlife.
Beyond that, there are the black mountains that border the Underworld on the side, with three of the five rivers flowing from the peaks.
The fourth river—the Plegethon—is to my left, leading to the Fields of Punishment, then down to Tartarus; both places that Aiden has forbidden me to visit, and that I’m a-okay with listening to him about.
The River Styx, of course, is reachable from the palace, down the stone pathway that Sir guards when he’s Cerberus, at the end where Charon docks his ferry when it’s not in use.
But, directly below the balcony, there’s a patch of shadow with two marble benches inside of it that Aiden once told me was a place where he would go to just think before I arrived.
Now?
It’s a garden, and one that didn’t exist yesterday.
At least, I’m almost certain it didn’t exist yesterday.
Time is pretty difficult to understand here.
There are no clocks in the palace, and the sky beyond the black mountains never brightens enough to become day or darkens enough to become night.
It changes, but only in shades. Gray to violet.
Violet to blue. Blue to a bruised sort of black that makes a spattering of silver stars visible over the distant peaks.
Then it begins all over again without the sun ever appearing to explain itself, and the only true illumination coming from the orange glow in the east that is the flames of Tartarus.
I’ve seen fire appear in the oddest places sometimes, too.
Along the stone pathway, near the gate to the palace, while I’m walking the grounds while Aiden is busy doing whatever it is that Hades does when he isn’t entertaining his guest. It’s like he wants to give me sunlight instead of watching me wilt in the darkness of the Underworld, and while I appreciate that, I don’t really mind the shadows.
I don’t know. I kind of like them. Maybe because they remind me of his dark suit, his dark eyes, and his dark hair, and, welp, I kind of like Aiden, too.
But the flowers. I mean, the flowers… I tell you, there were no roses beneath this balcony yesterday when I looked.
Today, there are hundreds.
They climb the black stone walls in thick, twisting vines, their petals so dark red that they look almost black until the strange light catches them.
Poppies bloom beneath them, bright and soft against dark, ashy soil that should be incapable of growing anything.
White narcissus flowers line the path between the palace grounds and the edge of the gate, their narrow petals tipped in gold, and to the west, an entire field of dark purple lavender moves beneath a breeze I can’t feel.
Deep down, I know I did this. That the longer I stay here, the more at home Persephone feels. Her magic seeps out of me, and while I thought I had the whole “growing flowers magically” under control ever since I left the land of the living above the Underworld, I know better now.
And, as I grip the cold stone railing and peer down at them in wonder, I also wonder if the roses will survive if I leave.
The thought arrives so quietly that I almost miss the word buried inside it.
If. Not when.
Ever since I followed Sir here, I’ve been sure there will be an after, when I’m home again and I can think that all of the time I spent with Aiden in his palace was nothing more than a super vivid dream.
Only it’s not a dream. Dreams don’t usually make me feel guilty for wanting to stay, and somewhere in the last few days—and only cemented by the garden in bloom—I’ve thought about what it would be like to really be Aiden’s wife.
If he wanted me, and if I could let myself love the dark stranger who holds me like I’m precious while never making me feel like I have to stay while I sense how much he needs me to.
…I waited eighty years for you…
I close my eyes and blow out a rush of air in my next breath.
Daphne is probably furious.
No. Furious probably came later. First, she would have been worried.
Anxious. Scared out of her freaking mine.
She would’ve sent another message after the proof-of-life request went unanswered, then called when I didn’t respond.
She would’ve hopped on a train, come all the way to New Jersey, and let herself in with the spare key after threatening to break it down loudly enough that Mr. Singh, my downstairs neighbor, came upstairs to help.
She would’ve found my phone on the floor beside the mirror. My bags packed for my camping trip, stowed in the trunk of the car still in the parking lot.
No sign of me anywhere.
The thought of that makes my stomach twist into knots I can’t unravel.
During the first few days of my stay, I tried asking Aiden how time passes here compared to the human world, but he doesn’t know exactly.
Or Hades doesn’t know. Or neither of them wants to answer because they can see the panic taking hold inside of Willow before she gets to the reason why she can’t let it go.
Maybe I’ve been gone three days. Maybe it’s closer to how it feels: three months. Maybe it’s no time at all, and I haven’t gotten fired. I haven’t lost my housing and started a manhunt for the missing teacher who vanished into thin air… or through a mirror.
Most of all, maybe I haven’t left my poor cousin to wonder what the hell happened to the last of her family…
I press one palm against my chest as though that might settle the ache beneath it.
Daphne has always been the person who notices when I disappear.
Not literally. Until now, disappearing mostly meant ignoring messages, canceling plans, or hiding in my apartment because facing the world felt like trying to walk through wet cement.
She never let me vanish completely. She showed up with food, sarcasm, and more concern than she was willing to admit until I was sunny, bubbly Willow again.
What does it say about me that I can picture her searching for me with pure Daphne determination and still look out over this impossible kingdom with something dangerously close to longing?
“You plannin’ to jump, Blossom?”
I turn.