Girl, Goddess, Queen, page 38
Mother glances at me, fearful now. She sees the temper in me she tried so hard to reign in. Little does she know it’s hardly a fraction of it.
I stare them down. ‘Would you care to risk that?’
‘I shall take this as a refusal to meet my demands,’ he says. He turns to the door and yells for his guards.
Hades tries to block my body with his, shouting about the things Hell will do in retaliation. I reach for my sickle before remembering I have not worn it for weeks and did not bring it for fear of escalation.
Well, there’s no escalation from being chained to the surface of Earth.
Hecate said I delighted in this game and she was right.
But I can’t stand losing.
And what else did she say? ‘Power like yours ripples through the very fabric of the magic coating the world.’
What good is that power now?
And then a thought: I could kill him.
Could I? In the seconds before his guards reach me and their hundred hands hold me firm, before they drag me to Earth and bind me to a mountain somewhere, can I reach into my power, feel the beating glow of life in my father’s chest and extinguish it? Can I, goddess of life and queen of the dead, continue the cycle and annihilate my father like he annihilated his before him?
Practically? Perhaps. I don’t know if that’s something I can do. I might vanquish every life in the room if I try.
Morally? I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve already killed hundreds of innocents, accidentally or not. Can I kill one decidedly not innocent man? I might not make it out of Olympus alive. The gods might riot, Oceanus might join them, I might cause another war. It might be worth it.
Or –
The guards burst into the hall.
‘Seize her.’
Instead of relying on the power I’ve discovered, I could rely on what I’ve always had. Before I had power I had nerve. I was resourceful. I prepared. And I grew things.
I lurch to the side, to the table where the fruit glistens in its basket. I was ready for this. There’s risk, sure, but there was risk when I first leapt to Hell. This time I launch myself towards its bearings.
Fruit grown in the Underworld. Fruit I could never eat without being trapped there.
Father must realize what is happening because he shouts, ‘No! Stop her!’
My hand closes on the first fruit it finds. A pomegranate. I don’t think before tearing into it with my teeth as hands grab at me.
Juice drips down my chin, blood red, dyeing everything it touches.
I spit out the rind and the fruit is ripped from my hand but I manage to choke down some seeds.
Six of them.
I feel every single one as my arms are yanked behind my back.
I glance at my father but it’s my mother I stare down, frenzied. Chains are slapped on to my wrists, and I wonder if I’ll ever stop seeing myself through her eyes. Will I ever look into a mirror and see myself first and her second? For now I see myself, crown tilted on my head, covered in bloody juice, chained like a wild animal. And I think if she cannot love me now, like this, then I do not want her love at all.
I turn back to my father and wonder if he knows he owes his life to me, that he lives solely because I chose not to end him. And I wonder if he knows I could change my mind at any moment. He might wear the crown of the gods but it is I who hold power for the chaos I have embraced.
‘Six seeds.’ I grin, bright red juice staining my teeth. ‘Six months. Exactly as I offered.’
‘UNCHAIN MY WIFE NOW OR you’ll have all of Hell to contend with,’ Hades snarls, his eyes entirely black, the smoke coiling from him sharpening to points.
Mother turns from me and she’s shaking. ‘Zeus, please, this is not the answer. She can visit. It will work.’
I turn to my father who glares at me with a level of hatred I imagine he does not even have for the Titans.
‘Athena!’ he yells and the goddess comes running in. She must have been waiting on the sidelines, witnessing everything, waiting for his call. I remember her at my wedding, the way she commended my choice to eat at the same time as the men and my decision not to cut my hair. I remember her on Mother’s island too. She always tried to teach me things Mother said didn’t matter. ‘Girls should be allowed to be smart too,’ she’d say. Most women taught me how to avoid men, but Athena taught me how to fight back. She has always been one of my favourites but she’s wisdom and war in one position: advisor to the king. And it’s a position she’ll do anything to keep.
It doesn’t matter if she wants to help me. She won’t. Not if siding with Zeus will mean gaining his favour.
Is this how he does it? He gives power to select women and then says, ‘Yes, of course, look at all these opportunities for you.’ Are we all too busy competing for the few spots to actually help one another?
Athena doesn’t even look at me now, just bows to my father.
‘Yes, my king?’
‘Food of the Underworld. What does it do?’
I tense. I know what it does but she must know more. What if there’s some loophole here?
The guards holding me relax their grip slightly when it becomes apparent I’m not trying to break free.
‘Ties you to the Underworld,’ Athena says. ‘Mortal souls could not physically leave.’
‘And ours?’
‘We’d feel a pull impossible to resist. Someone could be moved by force, I suppose, but it’s ancient magic, part of the weave that all our powers are tied to. If you pulled that thread the very substance that keeps us all whole would begin to unravel. None of us would stay gods for long – our powers, our immortality would slip away. I’m not even sure we’d survive as fragile mortal husks. I think that sort of power ripped from us might destroy us.’
Father fires his lightning bolt right at me and I’m too startled to even scream. It whistles past my ear, singeing my hair and slamming into the wall where I hear marble crumble and fall.
‘Fine.’ He bares his teeth. ‘Release her.’
I expect some grand final statement – a threat to stay in line, not to push him further. But he just stalks from the room, defeated and unwilling to admit it.
Athena ducks her head, offering me the slightest of smiles before she leaves too.
If there is a way to reverse it, to undo what I have done, she’s kept it to herself. She’s helped me.
Is this how it begins? Small actions where we can make them?
The hecatoncheires take their chains and run the moment Hades turns his glare on them. I’m rubbing my wrists, thinking maybe there is hope even within the court of Olympus, when my mother appears before me.
We stare at each other.
‘I think we need to talk,’ she says.
Hades runs his hand along my arm and I squeeze it. I appreciate the comfort but I need to do this alone.
‘I’ll meet you back here,’ I say to him.
Mother takes me to the courtyard. It’s in the same place as it is in my and Hades’ palace. It’s not as nice. There are no flowers when the ground is curling clouds. Instead there are marble benches and singing Muses.
We find a bench and when we sit she turns to me.
‘I don’t want you to hate me,’ she says.
‘You let so many people die,’ I say, unable to believe it even now. ‘Because you didn’t want me to face my own guilt? Come on, Mother, you know that’s not –’
‘It wasn’t just that,’ she says, glancing around the courtyard before shaking her head. ‘I imagine the guards will escort me out as soon as Zeus remembers he banished me.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ I say. He might have banished her because she lied about causing the famine, but I saw his temper wearing thin with her as she searched for me.
‘Don’t be,’ she dismisses. ‘It’ll be a few years at most. He can’t kick me off the council without explaining how you outsmarted them all. He’ll probably tell everyone Hades tricked you into eating those seeds. Heavens forbid anyone believe you make your own decisions.’
I swallow. ‘Like me running to Hell.’
Mother nods. ‘He’s also barred Hestia from joining the council and taken xenia from her. You proved how powerful it was and he can’t stand someone else having a thing like that. When the mortals started calling him Zeus Xenios, Hestia said she didn’t care who the power belonged to so long as it kept people safe but I think she might have just been saying that to save face.’ Mother takes a breath and gives me a look weighted with such gravity I feel immobilized by it. ‘If everyone believes in your power there will be even more driving him to find a way to take it from you. So perhaps it’s better to let him spread his lies about how all this came to be.’
My jaw tenses. I wanted to stop hiding behind lies.
But that’s okay, I don’t need to argue with Father – not when I’m already fighting him in other, more insidious ways.
Mother sighs. ‘Persephone, I have another confession. I didn’t keep the fact it was your power causing the famine from you solely for your conscience. Your father has only ever tried to strip power from you – from anyone he sees as a potential threat, as Hestia proves. Those who excel do so because they appease him but you’ve only ever wanted power for yourself. He’s terrified of that. Frankly, I think he sees a part of himself in it and knows what he did to get his crown. If he thought I was responsible for all that death then he wouldn’t realize it was you. The things you’ve done in the Underworld alone would be too much for him. I couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he realized you were impacting Earth too. And if you didn’t realize the true extent of your power, I thought maybe he wouldn’t find out either.’
I take a moment to let the weight of her words settle. Of course that’s what she’d do, all she’s ever done: try to protect me.
I glance away.
‘You need to stop,’ I say. ‘I love you, I do, but please stop trying to protect me.’
‘I can’t do that, my child.’
‘Don’t you get it? It’s not just Father who’s been stamping any hint of power from me. My whole life you’ve been trying to push me into this box and … I feel like if I let you down the world will crumble. I feel guilty for so much as thinking something you wouldn’t approve of, like you’ll never love me if I –’
‘I’ll always love you,’ she says fiercely.
‘I know that, logically – but the way I feel? The way you’ve made me feel?’ I shake my head. ‘I have all of eternity and I’m not sure I’ll ever fully work out how I feel about you. But your expectations hurt me.’
She reaches for my hand and I let her take it, only because even now I feel guilty for saying all this, and she looks so very sad.
‘You don’t remember much of your childhood, do you?’
It’s not what I’m expecting her to say.
‘What? Why does that matter?’
‘Your first memory, Persephone. What is it?’
I consider. ‘My amphidromia.’
She nods, wiping a tear from her eye. ‘I thought as much. That’s my doing, I suppose.’ She takes a breath. ‘Before that, when it was just us on the island, I … There was no box I wanted you in. I used to tell you that you could do anything, be anyone, find your own place in this world. And then your amphidromia happened and I realized I was raising a girl whose father would never let her live the life she wanted. I thought if I could make you want the only life available to you, it might make it all easier. I love you unconditionally but I … I am so sorry I stopped making you feel that. I never meant to do that. I just … Persephone, before your amphidromia, I used to tell you that you could have the whole world if you wanted it.’
My eyes widen. ‘And that’s exactly what I asked for.’
And Father shut me down. Father made clear that my mother’s words were a lie, that he would never let me have something like that.
But perhaps the damage was already done. I’d never stop wanting it.
I pull my mother into a hug and hold her close. There’s a lot left to work through, but I think we’ll be okay.
‘I have six months on Earth,’ I say. ‘We can talk more then. I think maybe you should talk to Hecate too.’ I laugh. ‘You have more in common than I realized. She told me to meet her at Eleusis.’
‘Why?’
A long-term plan, perhaps. Not as Hecate wants it, but I’m sure I can persuade her towards something else – power united, power that might be enough, one day, to undo my father’s world without a war.
But that’s an idle fantasy.
‘I guess we’ll see,’ I say. ‘But I’ll see you there?’
She nods. And then, I suppose out of habit, she says, ‘You have pomegranate juice on your dress. It stains, you know.’
After I say farewell to my mother, I return to the megaron and Hades doesn’t even wait for me to reach him. He rushes towards me the second I walk through the door, grasps my hands, examines my wrists, sweeps my hair out of my face to check for damage.
‘Are you hurt? The chains or the lightning, did they –’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Your mother?’
‘I am equally undamaged by her.’ He looks like he believes that one less and I squeeze his hand. ‘I promise, I’m fine. And I think Mother and I will be fine too.’
He nods and casts a wary glance around him. There aren’t any gods here right now but there could be at any moment.
‘Let’s get off Olympus.’
‘Let’s. I can’t stand these clouds.’
‘Lack of soil?’
‘Yes, and I know exactly where I want to go.’
I have to wait until we’re out of the gates of Olympus, when my feet touch grass again. Flowers encircle us. When they clear, we’re in a meadow, stalks of dried asphodel in front of us.
‘This is …’
‘Where I called to you.’
‘Sicily?’
‘Sicily.’
The meadow billows around me as the flowers spring to life once more. I can feel it echo out, life flooding back not only to this island but across the Earth. I could stay here and the world would recover, the circles rippling out across the ocean to the lands beyond. Life has returned.
The nymphs won’t be happy their plants were dying. But they’re not here. The meadow is empty. No doubt they are off with the dryads of the trees on the meadow’s edges. Or now that I have left and the wards are gone, maybe they’re off with the mortals they always wanted to dally with. I hope they’re happy, wherever they are.
I sit on the ground that opened for me, where the hole formed and I leapt.
‘Of course, why should I expect chairs?’ Hades shakes his head as he joins me. The darkness that surrounds him retreats until it’s a fine haze across his skin.
‘You’ll survive,’ I say, taking his hand. ‘And I assume you’d rather talk than see the island.’
‘You bound yourself to the Underworld.’
I shrug. ‘Only for six months of the year.’
‘So for half a year every year for the rest of your life you’re stuck in the Underworld.’
‘Sure, I married you for all eternity but binding myself to the Underworld is what shows commitment.’
‘Persephone.’ His voice shakes like it might break at any moment. ‘This is different. Even I’m free to leave the Underworld if I want to, but you’ll be trapped there. That’s … You sacrificed freedom.’
‘The Underworld is my freedom.’
‘I want you to choose to be there, not be stuck there.’
‘And I chose to be stuck there. Please, Hades, we did it. We can be happy now.’
‘Can we?’
‘We won.’
‘This doesn’t feel like victory.’
‘Is it the lack of celebratory drinks?’
‘Aside from you sacrificing your freedom, you’re about to leave me, right now, for months. You’ll be gone half the year for the rest of our lives.’
His words strike my core. But if I don’t see this as victory, don’t find the good in all this, I’m going to fall apart. When I speak, it’s to convince myself as much as him.
‘We’re gods. What’s six months in a year apart? We have eternity.’
‘We have half an eternity.’
I trail my fingers down his face, wanting to comfort him, wanting to touch him while I still can. He raises his own hand to it, clasps it tight.
‘Hades, I love you.’ My voice cracks. ‘And I love Hell too. And flowers. And this island. And the nymphs.’
‘I imagine that list goes on.’
‘It does.’
‘Good, because Styx would be furious if she didn’t get on it.’
I’m startled into laughter and suddenly it’s clear everything will be okay.
Because how could it not be? This rhythm of us – an awkward declaration followed by a terrible attempt at humour, the way we each know what the other needs to hear, the way we lean into each other just enough to know that we aren’t alone – they can’t take that from us. Time apart certainly won’t take it either.
‘Angrier than she’ll be when she finds out she didn’t get a goodbye?’
‘Fates, I have to tell the court what happened.’
‘You’ll be fine, Hades.’
‘Without you? It’s doubtful.’
‘We’ve managed larger problems than six months apart.’
‘I know. But still.’
‘All I’ve ever wanted is to see the world,’ I say. I can’t feel it yet. All I want right now is comfort. But I know that when the sun rises tomorrow I will wonder what is beyond the horizon. And now I’ll be able to find out.
‘I know.’ He sighs. ‘I know this is good. You get to explore the world like you always wanted to and you get to rule Hell on the side. But I’m left in the Underworld. I can’t walk this world with you – it would be encroaching on territory.’
‘I wouldn’t let you even if you could. You’d hate it. And who would run our home?’
‘I’m not sure Hell without you is preferable to this world with you.’
‘I’ll explore and you’ll create and time will fly by.’
