14. The portal
THE PORTAL
WILLOW
Two weeks after I kissed my husband for the first time, my new garden gives me a pomegranate tree.
I should’ve expected it. A few trees appeared after that kiss, but none of them bore pomegranates. No. They were olive trees, and I had the strangest reaction when I realized what was growing on the branches.
And then, about a half an hour ago, I walked into my garden, looking forward to spending a few peaceful moments among my patch of nature in the Underworld, and I saw it.
It’s not a sapling. Not a hopeful little branch pushing through the soil.
A full-grown tree stands in the center of the garden as if it has always been there, its dark leaves glossy beneath the strange, eternal twilight of the Underworld.
Heavy red fruit hangs from every branch, so ripe that several bow toward the ground beneath the weight.
I’m staring at it now.
For the past two weeks, the garden has continued to grow around me.
Roses have climbed the palace walls, tangling through the black stone until the thorns frame the windows.
The lavender field has grown to the point that it spills over into the main garden.
Trees that take years to grow appear suddenly…
None of it surprises me anymore.
The pomegranates do.
I haven’t seen one since the day I arrived in the Underworld, when I joined Aiden in the dining room for supper and found the fruit waiting for me beneath a covered dish.
At the time, I thought I understood what it meant.
That is was equal parts trap and warning, and once Aiden started explaining that the magic that brought us to this world would only let us leave it if we acted as though we’ve always been Hades and Persephone and played their parts well enough that it satisfied our legend, I accepted that that was what it meant.
Even from the beginning, though, I knew it would come down to the pomegranate.
That particular fruit is what everybody remembers about their story.
About how Hades tricked his unwilling bride into eating its seeds in order to keep her in the Underworld with him.
She only ate six, making it so that she was his prisoner for half the year, but she still ate them.
I can’t. At least, I didn’t that first night. But now, staring at the tree, I can’t help but wonder if that’s what I’m supposed to do.
Not because I want to go home. I think I’ve always understood that, from the moment I let my guard down around Aiden and got to know him, I wasn’t leaving. I didn’t even know if the magic would let me go, and it’s not like Persephone isn’t in my ear constantly, telling me that we belong with Hades.
And that’s why I’m not all that surprised to find a pomegranate tree here and now. I don’t know if it’s the magic giving me a nudge or not, but there’s no denying the fact that these pomegranates… they’re mine.
I grew them. I had to have. Everything else in the garden seems to respond to my emotions, which is sweet in theory and slightly freaky when you think about it as someone who hasn’t spent the last three months in the Other.
After I kissed Aiden, the roses bloomed so quickly that one of the vines cracked a stone railing.
Three days later, when I woke with his arm around me and realized I wanted to stay in bed with him forever—and not just sleep—wildflowers bloomed on the path that leads toward the southside of the palace.
And now, after I looked as Aiden last night during supper and imagined spending the rest of eternity with a man I’ve literally known for months but, in truth, I’ve known forever… the pomegranate is here.
Tempting me.
Taunting me.
My stomach twists as I move closer to it, but the feeling has nothing to do with unease.
Darn it. I’m hungry.
Not the vague, hollow discomfort I’ve learned to ignore whenever I get so sick of ambrosia that I go days surviving on water and the occasional sip of nectar. This is sudden and sharp, a physical ache that makes my mouth water the moment I reach the lowest branch.
For three months, I’ve stubbornly lived on ambrosia, though I don’t technically have to eat.
Like, I won’t die and become a shade if I stop, but I’ve spent twenty-eight years with the habit of eating whatever I want.
It was a big shock that I couldn’t in the Underworld, but, well, I couldn’t unless I wanted to close the door on ever returning home.
It doesn’t hurt as much, thinking about what I left behind. I still miss Daphne fiercely, but if she knew that I was happy with Aiden… I would feel so much better about her living her life in Manhattan while I stayed here—
And, whoa. Why did I just make it seem like it’s a done deal?
Because I’m dying to find out what Persephone’s pomegranates taste like?
I’m so sick and tired of ambrosia. True, it keeps my mortal—and immortal side, too—from growing weak.
It takes away the worst of the hunger when I force myself to swallow it, but I’ve never wanted it.
I don’t crave it. And I know it’s not just the habit of eating that’s messing with me.
I have no problem sitting at the table while Aiden eats; mainly because I refused to go downstairs and join him at the table unless he did because I hated the idea of him going hungry on my account.
I’ve been hungry before, but when I look at the pomegranate tree… I’m starving.
I can smell the pomegranate before I touch it.
Sweet and tart, but also bright enough to cut through the cool air of the Underworld.
The scent reminds me of summer even though it’s been three months since I stood beneath the sun.
It makes something inside of me clench with need, and I know instinctively that it’s not because I want to feel the sun shining on my face again.
No. I just want to eat this.
Do it, whispers Persephone. It’s what you were born to do…
I reach up and curl my fingers around the nearest fruit.
I should let go.
I know the story. Everyone knows the story.
Persephone eats pomegranate seeds and binds herself to the Underworld. Depending on who tells it, she’s tricked, tempted, or too foolish to understand what she’s doing. Hades gives her the fruit, and the moment she tastes it, her fate belongs to him.
Only Aiden hasn’t given me anything. He didn’t lead me to the tree. He didn’t place a pomegranate in my hand. He isn’t standing behind me, asking me to choose.
He’s given me all the time in the world I need to make choices for myself.
He leaves doors unlocked even though Persephone admits that Hades hates it.
He lets me walk the palace without any sort of chaperone or guard; except for Sir, of course.
He answers every question I ask—about his past, about any possible future—even when I can tell I’ve accidentally hurt him with them.
When I ask for space to think, he gives it to me.
When I reach for him, he looks at me as though I’ve handed him something precious.
He sleeps beside me every night and never asks for more.
Not even after I kissed him.
Especially after I kissed him…
The memory makes my cheeks flame as I twist the fruit from the branch.
Aiden has been almost painfully careful with me since that night.
He kisses me now, but only when I move first or when I tilt my face toward his and make sure he knows that I want him.
His hands settle at my waist, my back, sometimes my face.
Never lower. Never anywhere that might make me feel like he’s pushing me for more.
It amazes me how he still looks so darn surprised every single time I touch him.
The funny thing is that, despite existing for as long as he has, I don’t think he knows what to do with happiness. I’m beginning to think I want to teach him.
I want him to be happy.
I want him to be happy with me.
And maybe that’s why the pomegranate tree bloomed after all. All along, Aiden has gone against his own nature, against his own god, in order to give me all of the choices. At last, I think I’ve finally made one.
Only I’m not choosing the Underworld. I’m not choosing a palace or a crown or a role in someone else’s story.
I’m choosing the man who waits until I fall asleep before pulling me into his arms. The man who calls me Blossom as though the word belongs only to him. To us. The man who has spent eighty years waiting for someone he knew would return, but expected to leave him as soon as they got the chance.
And maybe that was me. Maybe that was Willow. But before I fell through that mirror by accident, I longed for love, for romance, for nature, and for adventure… and wouldn’t you know it? With Aiden Murphy—and, okay, Hades, too—I get just that.
My stomach growls again, louder this time.
I wait for my brain to panic and yell “stop”. Or maybe Persephone will pipe up, adding her two cents.
Sometimes she does. Sometimes she doesn’t.
She has been quiet more often lately. Not gone, exactly.
I can still feel her deep inside of me, a steady presence beneath my thoughts.
But she no longer… nags, I guess is the best word for it, though I’d never admit that to the goddess herself.
She doesn’t try to steer me toward Aiden, leaving me to learn to love him in my own way.
It’s as though she understands that whatever happens next has to belong to me.
It’s my choice.
And I make it.
Turning the pomegranate in my hands, I begin to open it before I talk myself out of it. The skin splits beneath my thumbs with a soft crack, and all I see are countless ruby-red seeds gleaming inside, nestled among the rind.
My mouth waters so fiercely that it hurts.
There is no more deciding. That was done the moment I broke open the pomegranate. Cradling the fruit, I pluck one of the seeds free, holding it between my fingers.
This is the point where I’m supposed to hesitate.
Where some sensible voice reminds me of New Jersey, my apartment, my work. Of everything waiting on the other side of the mirror. I should think about what I’m giving up.
For a moment, I do. But then I think about what I might be gaining—forever with Aiden—and, welp, here goes nothing.
I put the seed in my mouth.
The flavor bursts across my tongue, sweeter than I expect, with a sharpness beneath it that makes my eyes close.
For the first time in three months, food gives me pleasure. Food has meaning. It makes my body hum, and I could easier sprout wings and fly than put the pomegranate down and stop eating its seeds at this moment.
So I do. I eat another seed, then several more, scooping them out with my fingers before I can even try to pretend I’m going to stop. Juice stains my fingertips red. A few seeds spill into my palm, and I lift them to my mouth without counting.
Six would be traditional. Twelve is what the original Hades expected of his bride.
Me? I eat the whole freaking thing.
Then, when I’m done, I sit there for a moment, holding the empty rind and… nothing happens.
Okay. I mean, I don’t know what I expected. The pomegranate has been such a weight on my mind since I saw it on that dish all those months ago, but… I don’t know. I thought something would happen—
Oh.
Oh.
It does.
It happens with a pop. If it wasn’t for how quiet and peaceful the garden is, I don’t know if I would’ve even noticed it. I barely hear it, and when I second-guess myself that there was anything at all, I turn just in time to see a shimmering patch in front of me.
It’s rectangle-shaped. About two feet wide and five feet tall. I’ve seen something like this before. Right after I followed Sir into the Other, I saw a smaller patch than this, but I never got the chance to look at it before it was gone.
Now? I look.
Peering closely, I squint until I see… I see…
Whoa.
That’s my condo. My condo, and my room. I see my phone on the floor. My sneakers on their sides in front of my bed from where I tossed them before I changed into my house slippers. There’s my bed, my dresser, the edge of the closet…
It’s my bedroom, only everything is reversed from how I remember it.
Well, duh, Willow. Of course it is. Because I… I think I’m looking through the mirror from the other side.
Suddenly, I know exactly what this is. It’s a portal. It popped into existence the moment I finished the pomegranate, and as though that is all it took to finally finish retelling the legend of Hades and Persephone, the magic was satisfied and the portal finally appeared.
Behind me, someone inhales sharply.
Forgetting the portal in an instant, I whirl around.
Aiden stands at the entrance to the garden.
His gaze drops to the empty pomegranate rind in my hands, then lifts to the portal glowing beside me.
“Blossom…” His voice cracks. It cracks. “What have you done?”