VELVETEEN vs. Spring Cleaning #4
Persephone didn’t dodge. The knife sank into her belly just below the sheltering frame of her ribcage, continuing its passage through her flesh until its hilt rammed up against her flesh and could go no further.
Her own blade flashed white before it fell from her hand and hit the ground.
She had time to smile, to whisper, “There you go,” and to press her lips against Velveteen’s forehead before she was falling backward, gravity pulling her away from the knife. She crumpled without another sound.
Velveteen hit her knees a split second later, gathering Persephone close and looking frantically around at the others, none of whom had moved. “Well?” she demanded. “What is wrong with you? Help her!”
“We can’t,” said Jack. He sounded genuinely apologetic, for whatever that was worth: at the moment, Velveteen felt like it wasn’t worth a hell of a lot.
“I’m the only one of us who’s any good at dying, and I don’t come back all the way.
Not for a long time, anyway. Persephone is a different sort of resurrection than I am. I can’t show her the path.”
“I’m more fertility than renewal,” said the Easter Bunny. “Sorry.”
“I’m all about the joy of living, not the cessation of dying,” said Lady Moon. “I dance while the plague rages outside the gates. I don’t see to the wounded.”
“So you’re all fucking useless, is that what you’re saying? Fuck you all.” Velveteen turned back to Persephone. Was the goddess still breathing? It was hard to say. She thought so. She hoped so.
Closing her eyes, she reached.
All living things had life to offer her.
She had learnt that when she fought Supermodel, and had been reminded when Persephone had dammed up her own inner reservoir.
Persephone had also told her that an animus in the Spring couldn’t feed themselves; they had to use the world around them.
So when she hit the small, flickering thing that was Persephone’s life, she kept reaching, down into the soil, down into the bones of the world.
She filled her hands, tightened them until they could hold no more, and then she pulled.
It was like sticking her tongue into a live light socket. Life flooded into her and through her, burning and lighting up the world. There was so much of it that she couldn’t have kept it if she’d wanted to; all she could do was channel it, forcing it through herself into Persephone.
It was no real wonder, under the circumstances, that she didn’t feel the seal on her own life force when it shattered and let her access her own power again.
All she knew was that there was a little more life to give, and so she gave it, and gave more, until there was nothing else that she could hold.
She collapsed, barely breathing, across Persephone’s body.
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the disinterested hissing of Geb’s geese. Then, with no preamble or warning, Persephone opened her eyes and smiled.
* * *
The flowers making up Velveteen’s dress had died when she channeled most of the power of Spring through herself.
Lady Moon was a master costumer; she could whip up a ball gown with a wave of her hand, suitable for any occasion.
Conjuring a simple superheroine’s unitard and tights was almost an insult to her skills.
“I’m just saying, don’t you think the girl would like to wake up and find herself wearing something that was a little less, I don’t know, common?
” Lady Moon looked at the uniform and sniffed.
“It’s so bland. And already damaged. How is it already damaged?
I made the damn thing, I should at least be allowed to decide whether it goes out into the world looking like crap. ”
“It’s her uniform,” said Persephone gently. There was no weakness in her voice, no sign that she had suffered any trauma from her near-death. “It’s going to appear the way she believes it should. The poor girl’s been through hell and back again. Of course she’s going to show a few bruises.”
“Yeah, about that,” drawled the girl who was sitting, impatiently, on the other side of the room. She rose as fluidly as a cat and slunk over to Velveteen’s side. “Did you break her? Because you weren’t supposed to break her. We’re supposed to get the same shake as everybody else.”
“We didn’t break her,” said Persephone. She looked calmly at Hailey Ween until the girl—the spirit of Halloween incarnate, if her words were to be believed, and a low-grade magical heroine who would have been a matter manipulator if a holiday hadn’t decided to put its strength behind her and push—looked away.
“We showed her that there were other options. We opened our doors to her. Isn’t that what we’re all supposed to be doing? ”
And if she had tried to give Velveteen the tools to understand what had really happened in Winter, if she had tried to frighten the girl into limiting her own power, could she be blamed for that?
She had kept to the bargain that the seasons had made.
Each of them was allowed to push their claim, however they saw fit.
“Well, you had your chance,” said Hailey. Her smile was cold. “Now it’s Halloween’s turn.”
Persephone looked at Velveteen for a moment before she turned away. She had done everything that she could. Velveteen might not remember Spring as the kindest season, but it had been. Oh, yes; it had been.
“I suppose it is,” she said, and there was nothing else to say.
Hailey lifted the sleeping girl as effortlessly as if she were a feather, and tucked her into the voluminous pillowcase that was slung over the Halloween girl’s shoulder.
Then they were both gone, leaving the smell of autumn leaves and sticky toffee hanging in the air.
Persephone put her hands over her face. No one saw her weeping but the geese.