Goddess of Spring (7 page)

“Wait, stop,” Lina brushed the thick hair out of her face, forcing herself to ignore the fact that it was the wrong color, length and texture to be hers. “I need to know where I am, who you are, and what is going on.”

In unison the women's heads turned to her.

“Mortal, do you not know to whom you speak?” The gray-haired woman whose name was Eirene bowed her head in the queen's direction. When Lina didn't answer, she frowned, but continued speaking. “You are in the presence of Demeter, Great Goddess of the Harvest.”

Demeter did not smile, but her blue eyes softened. “How could you not know me? Was it not my assistance you invoked?”

Dumbfounded, Lina felt her jaw unhinge. It had to be a dream—a horrible, amazing, realistic dream. When she woke up she'd have to remember not to eat whatever she'd eaten before she'd gone to bed. Or maybe it was hormones. Again. She really needed to have a long talk with her mom.

“Carolina Francesca Santoro,” Demeter said, sounding disturbingly like her grandmother. “You are not dreaming, nor do you hallucinate.”

“Can you read my mind?”

“I am a goddess, and your expression is quite transparent.” She gestured at a spot in front of her. Instantly a gilded chair materialized. “Come closer. We have much about which we must speak, and our time is limited.”

Unsteadily, Lina stood. Her steps should have been halting and awkward, but her body seemed to have a rhythm of its own. On delicate feet she stepped forward and then sank gracefully into the offered chair.

Demeter gestured, speaking softly to Eirene. “She needs wine.”

Lina watched, wide-eyed, as the gray-haired Eirene nodded, turned and seemed to disappear into a fold in the air behind her. Within two breaths, she returned, carrying a goblet that matched the one Demeter held, and a crystal bottle of golden liquid. First Eirene refreshed the goddess's cup, then she filled the goblet and brought it to Lina.

The hammered metal was cold in her hand and the wine was icy and incredibly delicious. Its taste filled her, instantly soothing her harried senses.

“It's wine, yet it's not. It's like drinking sunshine,” Lina whispered.

“It is ambrosia. Drink deeply. It will quiet the trembling within you,” Demeter said.

Lina obeyed the goddess, letting the cold liquid flash through her body. As she drank she could feel the last of the sense of displacement vanish, leaving her mind clear and surprisingly calm.

Lina met Demeter's steady gaze.

“I'm in Olympus.”

Demeter nodded.

Lina glanced down at the stranger's body. “But this isn't me.”

“No, you inhabit my daughter's body,” Demeter said simply.

Lina took another long drink of the ambrosia. Her daughter's body? Her mind flipped through dusty mental files of leftover useless knowledge from school. Demeter's daughter? Who was she? A name came to her.

“Persephone?” Lina asked. There was something else that came with the name, some vague remembrance of a myth, but the goddess's quick response gave Lina little time to ponder the elusive thought.

“Yes. My daughter is the Goddess Persephone.” Demeter nodded solemnly.

“If I'm here”—Lina pointed at herself—“then where is she?” But the chill of dread that shivered through her body answered the question before she heard the goddess's voice form the words.

“You are she, and she has become you.”

“Why?” She croaked the question.

“You invoked my aid. My daughter is fulfilling that request.”

“Your daughter? But what does your daughter trading places with me have to do with saving my bakery?” Totally confused, Lina struggled to stay calm.

“Foolish child!” Eirene snapped. “Enough of your questions. There is no better way to breathe new life into your insignificant little bakery than for it to be blessed by the personification of Spring.”

Lina looked sharply at Eirene. She was confused and out of her element, but she was certainly not going to tolerate that woman's offensive words.

“First of all, I'm not a child. Don't call me one.” Eirene's eyes widened at Lina's words. “Second, it might be an ‘insignificant little bakery' to you, but you're talking about my life's work, and the livelihood of my employees. I have every right to ask questions and to expect them to be answered.”

“How dare you . . .” Eirene sputtered, but Demeter's upheld hand silenced her.

“Enough.” Though the goddess's tone was commanding, her expression was open and thoughtful as she studied Lina. “Your points are valid.”

Eirene huffed and Demeter tilted her head in her friend's direction.

“Carolina Francesca is only demonstrating her maturity and sense of responsibility.”

Eirene's mouth tightened into a thin line, but she didn't speak.

“Lina,” Lina corrected, drawing the goddess's attention back to her. “My friends call me Lina.”

Demeter's brows rose.

“I would be honored if you would call me Lina, too.” She said, holding her breath. Had she overstepped herself?

“Then I shall,” Demeter said.

“And you shall call her Great Goddess—”

“Or Demeter,” the goddess interrupted, flashing an amused look at her friend.

“Demeter,” Lina said, “please explain to me why Persephone and I have exchanged places.”

“I heard your invocation. It moved me. No one from your world has called to me with such earnest hope in many ages. I chose to answer you.”

With her free hand, Lina rubbed her forehead. “But why exchange your daughter and me? Couldn't you have just, I don't know, zapped some new life into my business?”

Demeter's lips almost smiled. “I did. I gave it my daughter.”

“I don't mean any disrespect, Demeter, but what does your daughter know about the baking business?”

“My daughter has the wisdom of a goddess.” Demeter's face hardened and her tone brought gooseflesh to Lina's arms. “And she is the embodiment of Spring. She will honor your bakery by breathing the freshness of new life into it.” The goddess's expression softened. “Have no fear, Lina. You have my word that your business will thrive and prosper. In six months the money you owe the tax collectors will be repaid threefold.”

“Six months?” Lina felt like she'd been hit in the stomach. “She's going to take my place for six months? What am I supposed to do while she is being me?”

Demeter appeared to consider the question. “There is a small task you could perform for me. For a woman of your maturity and experience it should be easily accomplished.” Demeter's eyes captured Lina's gaze as she mirrored the final words of her invocation. “Let us just say that you are returning my favor.”

Lina had offered the deal. The goddess had accepted. And Lina the businesswoman would keep her word.

She nodded stiffly. “Okay. What can I do for you?”

CHAPTER SIX

“YOU want me to go to Hell!” Lina's head was beginning to throb.

“Do not think of it in your limited, mortal terms,” Demeter explained. “Hades is the Underworld. A place where souls spend eternity. There are many realms within the Underworld—most of which are places that hold both beauty and magic.”

“And the rest of it is Hell,” Lina said. She glanced at Eirene, who was impatiently listening to her exchange with Demeter. If the old woman had had a watch she would have been checking it every minute or so. “I'd like some more wine, please.”

Eirene huffed, but she refilled her goblet.

Lina took a long drink.

“You still misunderstand,” Demeter said patiently. “There is no ‘Hell' in the Underworld. There are just differing levels of reward or punishment.”

“Which are all filled with dead people,” Lina blurted.

Demeter shook her head sadly.

“Okay, not dead people—the ghosts of dead people.”

“Souls, Lina. Hades is filled with souls.”

“Just exactly what is the difference?”

“You of all mortals should well understand that difference. Does your soul not quicken within my daughter's body? Does that make you one of the unnumbered dead? Or, as you would call it, a ghost? No, you are simply displaced. That is all that has happened to those who rest in the Underworld. They, too, have been displaced. Some of them will spend eternity amidst the wonders of the Elysian Fields; some will pay for their sins in Tartarus. Others will drink from Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, and be allowed to be reborn within another mortal body. Some souls will languish beside Cocytus, the River of Lamentation, never able to cease mourning for their lost mortality. Still others—”

“Wait!” Lina blurted. “You've completely lost me. I don't know anything about those rivers or the levels of Hell . . . ur . . . I mean the Underworld. How am I supposed to manage these . . . these . . . dead, displaced souls if I don't even know where they should be or what they should be doing? It seems to me that you have the wrong woman for the job.”

Demeter waved off her doubts. “That is all easily understood. Just listen to the voice within your body. There is enough of Persephone's essence left within you to guide you through any difficulty you might have in understanding.”

Lina looked dubious.

This time Demeter's lips did turn slightly upward. “Try it, child of mortals. Listen within.”

Lina narrowed her eyes and concentrated. Demeter had said there were rivers down there. She'd only remembered ever hearing about one. Styx. As soon as she thought the word, the whisper of a response, like a half-forgotten memory, came to her mind.

Lina yelped in surprise. It wasn't that there was another person inside her head, it was more like she could tap into an information source that was the ghost of a shelf of ancient encyclopedias buried somewhere in her medulla oblongata. Lina appreciated the irony of her analogy and smiled askance at the goddess, who was nodding in understanding.

“And does Persephone have this ability while she's in my body, too? Can she get information from—I don't know how to put it—from the echo of me?”

“The echo of you. That is an excellent description. Yes, she has the same ability. Though she will be mortal, she will not be lost in your world.”

“And she's really mortal while she's in my body?” Lina asked.

“Of course. Just as you become a goddess while your soul inhabits my daughter's physical form.”

Demeter's words caught Lina in the middle of swallowing a sip of wine, and she choked, almost causing ambrosia to spew from her nose.

“I'm—I'm a goddess?” she sputtered.

“Yes,” Demeter said. “As long as you inhabit Persephone's body you are invested with her powers.”

“Powers?” Lina repeated stupidly.

“Even in your foolish mortal world you must know goddesses wield many powers,” Eirene snapped.

“Merda!”
Lina swore in exasperation. Why did Eirene dislike her so intensely? “Could you give me just a little break here? How would you like it if you were suddenly sucked out of your world and plunked down in the middle of Tulsa, Oklahoma, circa the year 2000-something”—she glanced at Demeter and added—“A.D., with a stranger telling you that you had a six-month job to do in a place you thought only existed in fairy tales and bedtime stories. You wouldn't necessarily have to be in Hell to feel like you might just be visiting there.”

Eirene blinked in confusion.

“See, it's not so easy, is it?” Lina turned back to Demeter. “What kind of powers?”

“Persephone is Goddess of Spring. She carries life and light with her, and she can share her gifts as she wills,” Demeter said.

Lina's eyes widened. “You're sending me down to Hell and I can resurrect people?”

“Not people. Persephone can not return life to dead mortals. I share my realm with my daughter, so she has dominion over growing things: flowers and trees, the wheat of the field and the grass beneath you. They all respond to Persephone's touch,” Demeter explained. “She also can create light. Do not ever fear that the Underworld will be a dark, cheerless place. Persephone's presence evokes light.”

“So I can make flowers grow and I light things up. What else?”

“Everything you need know is within you. Look deeply, and you will find the powers you seek,” Demeter said cryptically.

Lina met the goddess's gaze. She knew evasion when she heard it. Okay, so Demeter didn't want her to know the extent of the powers within her new body.

“I guess I'll just have to discover some things on my own,” she said carefully.

“You have a quick mind. You will have little trouble accomplishing your goal,” Demeter said.

“Then why six months? That seems like a long time if I'm going to have ‘little trouble' accomplishing my goal,” Lina said.

“The six months is needed for your bakery to thrive. But do not be concerned about the passage of time—it is measured differently by the gods.” Demeter made a vague, dismissive gesture with her hands. “Six hours, six months, six years—it is all the same. Focus on accomplishing your goal, and all will be well.”

“And that goal is managing the Underworld?”

Demeter nodded. “That is one way to put it.”

“I'm assuming there is some kind of problem down there right now.”

“Think of it as a problem with morale.” Demeter shrugged nonchalantly. “The Underworld needs the touch of a goddess. It has too long been a place devoid of feminine influence. It is simple. Allow yourself to been seen by the dead. They need to believe that their eternal rest will not be without the love and attention of a goddess. Think of yourself as a figurehead, a symbol of female strength and wisdom. Mortal souls crave the love and attention of an immortal mother. Your very presence will begin to set things to right.”