213. River of the Dead
River of the Dead
To be powerful after years of no power.
To be given goddesshood after years
of simply being a nymph
was a cataclysm of emotions.
Here in the Underworld,
no sisters defied me,
no brothers called me names.
No father tried to barter me,
and no mother used me for my skills.
I tended to the dead, their spirits silver
inside my waters as I took each one
and guided it to where it must go.
The ferryman, Charon, was as quiet
as he was kind. And Hades was true
to his word. He never came between me
and my work. I grew to love the silence here.
This mouth of the Underworld
where my river flowed from
almost resembled the cavern
that Asteria and I spent our girlhoods in.
Asteria. I thought about her often.
About her sister and her mother.
I had heard Phoebe and Leto served
at Zeus’s leisure. Poseidon too
held many Titanides hostage.
Hades was the best of three brothers.
He had not taken a single Titanide
and he stayed within his realm.
Pallas and I were closer now.
The chasm between us slowly healing.
It would never be fully healed,
but we were both learning different ways to love
inside this strange place.
Perhaps this ending was hard won.
But in ending there is a beginning.
And in beginnings there is hope of a new dawn.