Chapter 1
Button Bridge Underpass, San Francisco
The Past
I HOLD DADDY, MY stuffed kitty, tight. “Was she scared?”
Mama J looks out the tiny tent’s flap. “Who?”
“Persephone.” Sometimes she loses track of the story.
Mama J glances over her shoulder at me, fiddles with the blue-green feather earring dangling beneath wavy brown hair. “Persephone was just picking flowers. Why would she be scared?”
“Because the God of the Dead saw her, fell in love.”
“Yeah, but Persephone didn’t know Hades was gonna kidnap her.”
I scoot closer. “Why did he?”
“You already know.”
“Because she was so pretty.”
“Fat lotta good that did Persephone. Hades dragged her to the Underworld. Then, she was terrified. But there wasn’t nothing she could do. Men.”
I nod even though I’m not sure what Mama J means. “What did her mama do?”
“Demeter? She called for Persephone but only found scattered flower petals. Then she scoured the world looking for her kid. Punished anyone who didn’t help find her—”
Mama J abruptly switches gears, tears through her backpack, tosses the tattered book of Greek myths she sometimes still reads me, cracked makeup tubes found behind a CVS, a few pairs of underwear, and her Do not ever touch! plastic baggy onto the floor of the tent.
Goosebumps dot my arms. “What are you looking for?”
“Medicine.”
If anything happens to Mama J, I’ll be alone. “Are you sick?”
She scratches her neck, nails rasping on pale flesh and crusty scabs. “Not yet.”
It’s cold tonight and I burrow deeper in my sleeping bag. It has daisies on it and sometimes I imagine them in the same breeze as the flowers Persephone picked. Mama J would come find me.
“How did Demeter get Persephone back?”
Mama J rocks onto her heels. She coughs and the sound is thick, wet. “She traveled to the Underworld and demanded that Hades free her daughter or else.”
“And he did!”
“I don’t know why you love this story so much.” She sighs.
“’Cause Demeter saved Persephone!”
Mama J scowls. “The truth is that Demeter was forced by Zeus to have Persephone.”
Her tone is sharp. That happens when I’m being dim. I’m only five and three-quarters. I really, really want to understand the truth part, but don’t. I can tell, though, that Mama J thinks Demeter didn’t really love Persephone. But she went to the Underworld, a very scary place, and rescued her.
Headlights flash on orange tent walls held together with gray tape. Mama J, dressed in a T-shirt with a lightning bolt on the front that shows her belly button and tight jeans she calls her moneymakers, looks out the flap, then sprays her body with perfume that clogs my nose like a cold.
“Did you name me Penny after Persephone?” I can sing the alphabet and know that both of our names begin with the letter P. I’m hoping the answer will take a long time and the driver of the car will move on.
“I saw an old penny on the sidewalk. Thought naming you Penny would bring me luck. Joke’s on me. Go to sleep.” She scooches forward.
“When are you coming back?”
“Two minutes.”
I can never tell if she’s lying but do know it’ll be longer if she gets in the stranger’s car for a ride. “Stay. Please.”
Before Mama J ducks out of the tent, she says, “Don’t go anywhere.”
She doesn’t want me to end up like Persephone.
“Never ever,” I reply, but she’s already gone.
I hear gravel crunch under heavy footsteps, a man’s low voice, Mama J’s laugh, then rustles, zippers, a ripping sound, lots of moans and words I’m not allowed to say.
It’s now pitch-black. I’m afraid of the dark.
Headlights sweep, illuminate Cerberus, the watchdog of the Underworld, and throw his shadow on our tent.
He keeps the dead from leaving hell and now he’s outside.
Shaking, I watch Cerberus’s two heads, double back, eight legs, and serpent’s spiked tail writhe each time a car goes by.
Sharp cries cut through the night. My heart hammers.
No one in the other tents stirs. I want Mama J!
With shaking fingers, I count the sewn-on cherries dotting my favorite sweatshirt again and again and again.
Finally, the beast runs off and Mama J slides back into our tent.
She smells of roses, dirt, and a sharp funk that makes my stomach clench.
As a truck rumbles past, I see that the neck of her shirt is torn and there are red marks on her arms.
“Mama J’s gonna take her medicine now.”
I roll away like I’m supposed to, squeeze my eyes tight, and hear the tin foil crinkle. Her lighter hisses like a snake.
“Cerberus was outside,” I whisper.
Mama J slides onto her blanket, kisses my cheek, then says dreamily, “That wasn’t the beast. The only real monsters are the ones inside us.”