Dead Beautiful (15 page)

He grabs them out of her hands. “Eagle feathers — cool. Thanks, mom.”

“We need you to go find Aunt Demeter so we can clear up this whole mess. Can you do that for me, bumblebee?”

“Sure.”

“But quickly, dear. Then you and I can go on a trip.”

“A trip?” His eyes kindle with interest.

“You did tell me you wanted to visit the Minotaur Theme Park on Crete.”

“So we can go?”

“Once we find Aunt Demeter and Persephone and everything’s sorted out. Now when you find Demeter, please tell her very nicely that your father and I really need to talk to her.”

“No problem.” In a blink, he’s gone.

“Was that offer of a trip strictly necessary?” I ask.

“A little incentive,” she says. “We don’t want Hermes flitting all over Hades’ half-acre wasting time trying out those new sandals. We want Demeter here as quickly as possible.” She pauses. “But perhaps you feel differently.”

“Not at all.” I climb down off my throne and follow her out of the room.

Persephone

I stand waiting for Charon’s boat. Once again a dark cloud of gloom and despair precedes it; once again the sobbing, wailing voices float to me over the grey, tattered waters.

The boat docks and passengers disembark, four or five this time — it can be difficult to keep track, what with all the jostling and the spirits coming in to greet new arrivals. As before, some spirits are met by family, lovers or friends. Others dissipate like vapour, and still others seem to know where they’re going and set off into the shadows.

One spirit catches my eye: a young woman, in human years, about my own age. She stands alone on the wharf and stares unseeing at the ground in front of herself. Her shoulders are bowed, as if in defeat.

I walk up to her and stand in front of her, throwing off the hood that has hidden my face. “Hello,” I say. “My name is Persephone.”

She looks at me blankly, silently.

I smile. “And your name?”

Suddenly recognition dawns and she averts her face, throws up her arm as if to ward off a blow, and cringes away from me. “Hail, Persephone, Daughter of Demeter,” she stutters, throwing out the standard phrases. I see she is shaking. “Peace be up— ”

“Enough of that,” I interrupt, resting my hand on her arm and waiting for her to grow calm. She is cold, but where my hand touches her, warmth radiates. Presently she becomes calmer but still she will not look at me.

“Your name?” I repeat.

“Melina,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.

“Well, Melina, I am here to help you. Does no one come to meet you? No family? No friends?”

She shakes her head mutely. “My family is —” she stops. Tears spring to her eyes. She can’t put into words what she doesn’t yet fully understand. She opens her mouth, then closes it. Her chin trembles.

“Above,” I offer.

Her eyes dart in my direction. She nods. “And my friends —” her voice gains strength, “my friends must be, too.”

“So you are alone here.”

“Alone,” she echoes. For an instant she is silent, then she gives in to great, wrenching sobs and sinks to the ground.

I kneel beside her and let her weep, my arms around her shoulders. Tears fill my eyes and spill down my cheeks as I think of my mother, the sun, buds unfurling as if dancing, flowerheads bobbing on a breeze. Memories of the smell of sun-warmed soil, of daylight’s crisp clarity and the dark, contained singularities of shadows in the world above pierce me sharply. I rest my head against her shoulder.

“Not alone,” I say quietly. “I am here. I know your grief. I have left my mother in the sunbright upper world. I miss her with each breath I take.” Speaking this, I realize with a sudden shock it is true.

So we sit, huddled together, grieving for those we have left behind. After a few minutes her sobs weaken and abate. Then I say, “You will find this place is not so bad.”

“No?” she says doubtfully.

“No. And now you will be here to meet your family and friends when they arrive. Because they will. Everyone does.”

This thought seems to stir her. “That’s true.” She nods thoughtfully. A certain peace settles on her. She sits up, gathers herself, wipes her eyes and looks around.

“Come.” Standing, I take her hand. “I will show you.”

For a week I do this. Each day I approach as many new arrivals as I can, I calm their fears and set them on the right road. Each night I return to the palace; each night Hades looks at me quizzically but declines to enquire about my activities. This is fine with me. I am tired. All I want is to eat dinner and fall into bed.

On the seventh day he says, “I have had reports of your work.”

A long, narrow table stretches between us. Candles flicker; their glimmering shadows dance over the walls. Dishes appear. Borne by invisible hands, they float on my left; I serve myself, then the dishes blink out of sight and appear at Hades’ end of the table.

“Yes?”

He looks down at his plate, the ghost of a smile playing across his face. “It seems … effective.”

“ ‘Effective’? That’s an odd way to put it.”

“I mean that it seems to be having a positive effect. I am told the assimilation process is running much more smoothly since you initiated this effort; dread levels are lower; and new arrivals report a more positive post-death experience.”

“Well, I guess that’s good,” I say. “Glad to hear it.” I hold up my wine glass. The invisible server fills it with mead.

“Persephone?”

Something in his tone — a tentative note, a shading of doubt — makes me look up. “Yes?”

“Thank you.”

I smile.

A day or two after this conversation, just as I turn from leading a soul to the waters of Lethe, Hecate materializes in front of me. I know her because mum and she are close, both so interested in the natural world. Lots of nights mum has dragged me along on field trips with Hecate, tromping over hill and dale, park and pale, calling out to one another, “Come look at this!” If it was Hecate calling, likely as not she’d have a snake draped over her arm, or a bat dangling from her fingers. She has a preference for yucky stuff. Or it has for her — hard to tell.

I’m surprised to see her here. The Olympians don’t usually manifest down here; they respect my husband’s sovereignty over the afterlands.

“Chthonic,” she mutters, stooping to scoop up a small brilliant green frog, which slipped from its perch on her shoulder. She plucks it up and carefully tucks it into the voluminous folds of her gown.

“Excuse me?”

“You were wondering how I am here. I’m chthonic; I can work upstairs and down here as well. You can, too. Now.”

“I can go back above?” For some reason I assumed my move here was permanent.

“You can.” She nods. “It might be a good idea,” she adds off-handedly.

“Why?”

“Shall we?” She points at a nearby slab of rock suitable for sitting on.

“Sure.”

She shakes out her gown. Small creatures — mice, voles — and various insects — midges, gnats, dragonflies — rise in a cloud, flutter, then settle back into her gown. She shifts around until she is comfortable.

“There are problems upstairs.” She leans toward me, takes my hand in hers. Her fingers are rough and calloused, there is dirt under her fingernails; tendrils of vines loop around her arms. From her hair comes a constant low-level buzzing of insect conversation. The smells of the outdoors — water, grass, soil, the tang of ripe apples — rise off her. A wave of homesickness washes over me. “Your mother has no idea where you are,” Hecate says. “She is distraught. Crops do not grow, plants wither and die. Frost, flood, famine — disaster upon disaster.”

“I had no idea,” I tell her.

“Of course you didn’t.” She smiles and leans back, her hands withdrawn from mine. “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower will not be denied.”

“Pardon?”

“A protégé of mine, a nice young man, in time to come,” she answers cryptically.

I’m not sure I’m following her, but then her conversation always has been enigmatic.

“You must consult your husband,” she says.

“But — how did you know?”

“My dear.” Her eyes are warm, her hand brushes gently against my cheek. “Ripeness sits on you like golden dust, like golden pollen. And ripeness is all, but difficult to achieve alone. Parthenogenesis works only in a few simple cases. It was never a very satisfactory, or satisfying, system.”

My cheeks burn. Am I so visibly altered?

“The apple blossom and the bee, the ocean current and the clam — these are my domain. Eros rules erotic love; I rule something older and wilder. Now,” she stands, arranges her gown. “Go talk to your husband. He is an man of understanding.” In the next instant she is gone.

Demeter

The girls, the sweet girls. I watch them do their morning chores, the drudgery punctuated by mirth and whispers.

“Girls, girls,” Metaneira chides. “More quickly. There is much to do.”

I offer to help but they cry, “No, no, no. You are our guest.”

“Even guests must contribute,” I reply.

They give me the lightest tasks to do, and then, before I am half-finished they come running back to take the bucket from my hands, or carry away the beans I am topping and tailing. “Old Mother, let us do that,” they say, and run off in a flurry of laughter.

They are so good to me, all of them, and the girls are so like Persephone that their presence is both balm and anguish.

And I can see the hardships they endure because I ignore my work. My heart begins to soften towards them. I begin to think I might cast off the rags I wear and walk the earth once more, coaxing seeds to sprout and bloom to fruit.

This is how my thoughts are tending when, one morning, as I sit picking stones from the lentils we will have for dinner, Hermes materializes right in front of me, the air crackling with energy.

“Man, you’re hard to find, Aunt Demeter.”

I am so startled that for an instant I feel my disguise waver as air shimmers on hot days. I take a quick breath, glance around to see if any people are present. The coast is clear. “Disguise yourself,” I hiss at him. “Or, better yet —” I reach out, touch his hand, and in a breath’s time we are standing on a high, distant hill, the place deserted except for a flock of sheep grazing nearby.

“How did you find me?” I demand.

“Simple: follow the green. Everywhere else the plants are dead, the trees have no leaves, the crops in the fields —”

“All right, all right.” I wave my hand, cutting him off.

“Dad — Zeus,” he corrects himself, “and Mom ask would you please come see them.” He says this in a sing-song voice as if reciting from a script.

“Why?”

His feet fly up into the air, the wings on his sandals beating rapidly. He describes a full circle — head over heels — and lands, feet back on the ground. “They’re pretty sure Persephone is with Hades.”

I feel the blood drain from my face, the air empty from my lungs. “This is not news. I already knew that.”

“You did?” He seems confused. “Mom and Dad — Zeus — just figured it out.”

“ ‘Just figured it out’? You mean they didn’t know already?”

“Don’t think so.” He is frowning, bored, fidgeting. “When I dropped in, Hades told me to tell Dad he had no information. And then when I told Dad that, Mum said — ”

Thunder is a low, distant, angry rumble. No information. “When was this?”

He shrugs. “Yesterday.” Glances around. “Can I go now?”

Thunderheads mass on the horizon. “I’ll go with you.”

Persephone

After Hecate leaves, I sit for a while longer, thinking. Of course mum would be upset, me disappearing like that, without a note or any explanation. Maybe I should have told Cyane what was up and asked her to tell mum. But that might have put her in a tough position.

I guess I figured that if mum knew, she’d put a stop to me and Hades and I needed to be with him then — it was like a fever, or a hunger.

Too tired to walk all the way back to the palace, I decide to dematerialize from here, and materialize there. I aim for Hades, focus on him, wherever he is. He and I have to talk. I have to see if I can go visit mum, if I can leave, for at least a little while.

The rock Hecate and I were sitting on fades out, along with the circle of trees that surrounded it. In a blink I’m in Hades’ office, with the wine-red velvet curtains and the desk of dark, shining wood. But something’s wrong, I must be worn out from this new job. I land off-balance and stagger —

4. Spring

Hades

— I’m beside her in an instant, my arms around her before she tumbles to the ground.

“Are you all right?”