by Lianyu Tan
Persephone crouched down and covered her head with her arms as dirt and small shards of rubble rained from the ceiling. She stayed like that until the rumbling stopped and the ground became still once more. Even then she was slow to uncover her face, doing so only when she heard hoofbeats and the rattling wheels of a chariot.
She looked up to find half the cave sunken into the earth, creating a steep passageway that went down as far as the eye could follow. The sound of the chariot drew nearer.
She should run. She knew she should run. But her legs wouldn’t obey her; she stood rooted to the spot, unable to think.
When the chariot emerged from the darkness below, all she could do was stare.
It was gilded, with a swirling design of vines and flowers carved on the guardrail. Two geldings pulled it, their coats velvety black.
Persephone could not raise her eyes to the chariot’s rider. If she ran now, she could keep her promise to Demeter. If she obeyed her mother’s wishes, perhaps she could still be forgiven...
The chariot ground to a halt, and its rider stepped out. “Persephone. Why, you’re trembling.”
She’d made a promise, a pact with her goddess mother. And now, in the wake of Hades’ presence, all she could do was stare.
Hades wore a chiton of ink black, the color deep and even, shimmering as she moved. A gold belt encircled her waist, matched by a diadem set among her curls. The air around her was icy, as if she’d brought a little piece of the underworld to the cave.
“You have journeyed far to be here,” Hades said.
Not that far, surely. Not so far as to be devoid of Demeter’s gaze—she might not be watched by the goddess herself, but surely her spies, her followers, would learn of this. Persephone wrapped her arms around her body, shivering.
Hades’ gaze dropped to the bruises on Persephone’s skin, blooming purple from her headlong flight.
She had to fix this situation before she made it worse, before she tossed more fuel onto the conflagration of her mother’s anger. “It’s nothing,” she said of her bruises. “I promised Mother—I mustn’t trouble you.” Her words came out in a rush. She turned to leave, but Hades caught her wrist, pulling her up short.
“Wait.”
Hades’ fingers were warm and unexpectedly gentle. She stroked her thumb against the pulse in Persephone’s wrist.
Persephone snatched her hand away and took a step back, cradling her arm to her chest, her skin burning as though she could still feel the press of Hades’ fingertips. “Please, O Queen—I must—I promised—”
“There’s no need to be so frightened. We are friends, dear Persephone, are we not?” Hades asked in a low voice, her calm tone belied by the intensity of her gaze, which felt like it was pinning Persephone in place. She couldn’t think; she couldn’t breathe.
Friends... A minor goddess like herself would never presume to count the Queen of the Underworld as a friend. She opened her mouth. As if from far away, she heard herself speak. “Yes, Queen Hades.”
“Well—as a friend, tell me why you are out here, alone, and at this hour?”
Words caught in Persephone’s throat. Centuries of prudence stayed her voice. “I tripped,” she said.
Hades looked at her whilst Persephone’s cheeks burned. “Then it is fortunate you tripped so close to one of my gateways.” She reached up and plucked a leaf from Persephone’s windswept hair, then twined a lock around her finger and brought her face close to the girl’s neck, inhaling.
Persephone’s cheeks grew even warmer. She wished she could sink into the ground and disappear. Instead, she took a step back, out of reach. “You presume too much,” she said, both proud and terrified of her own audacity.
Hades’ lips thinned. “Do I? You stand at the threshold of my realm, the scent of my asphodels on your skin. Why else are you here, if not to offer yourself to me?”
To... what? “I never—there must be some mistake,” Persephone said.
This whole day had been one long mistake. Upsetting her mother, walking past the grain fields, and now, disobeying her mother once more by speaking with Hades instead of running away and pretending she had never found this place.
Hades’ eyes narrowed, her gaze piercing. “A mistake. Are you so blind as to believe the legends, then?” Hades approached her, taking one step forward for each step that Persephone took back. “Do you accept all the lies they tell about me?”
Persephone’s back scraped against the side of the cave. She pressed her palms against it, trembling as Hades leaned in.
“Do you know what they say about you, Demeter’s daughter?” Hades asked, her voice low, her eyes as dark as pools of water on a moonless night. Persephone saw herself reflected in them, a bruised and battered girl with hair the color of mud.
She knew. Everyone knew, and she thought she would crumble from shame to hear the slurs from Hades’ lips. They echoed through her thoughts, spoken by a chorus of faceless, nameless voices.
Frigid bitch.
Thinks herself too good for Hera’s sons.
How is it that the goddess of spring keeps herself barren?
“Please don’t,” she whispered.
Hades cupped Persephone’s face in her hand and ran her thumb over the girl’s lips. Persephone’s breath came in ragged gasps.
“Don’t,” she said again. The cave wall was cold at her back, the chill seeping in through her chiton and into her bones. The heat radiating from Hades’ body felt like fire by comparison.
Hades leaned in, and for one terrifying, exhilarating moment, Persephone thought she might kiss her—but Hades instead brought her lips to Persephone’s ear.
“You were always destined to be mine,” Hades said and then took a step back, turning away from Persephone for the first time. She clicked her tongue and beckoned, and the horses trotted up to her, bringing the chariot along with them.
Run! a voice screamed inside Persephone’s head. Now, while she’s distracted... run!
She couldn’t move. Her ear tingled where Hades’ lips had touched her. “What... what do you mean?”
“I mean that we shall go on a journey, you and I.”
Persephone stared at the darkness beyond the rift, the precursor to the darkness unending beneath the world’s crust. At last, at long last, her legs became hers to command, and she ran.
She was almost at the mouth of the cave when the horses drew level with her. They soon surpassed her, and from inside the chariot, Hades reached over and snatched Persephone from the ground.
“Stop!” Persephone screamed. “Let me go!”
The horses turned sharply, and the chariot careened on one wheel, almost toppling over. Persephone slammed into the side of the chariot, and Hades fell on top of her.
She caught a tiny glimpse of the night sky as the chariot completed its turn. For all she knew, that would be the last time she saw the constellations of Cassiopeia and Cepheus, Pegasus and Deltoton.
She pushed weakly at Hades. “Stop. Stop—make them stop.”
The chariot found its balance, but the horses did not stop or even slow. They plunged into the rift, cold air wafting over Persephone’s skin as though they were passing through a cloud of mist. Pressure built in her ears until they popped with a ringing sensation, and then she found she could not stand, or scream, or even think.
Hades caught her as she collapsed, and the darkness swallowed them both.
4
It Will Pass
Persephone woke to the sound of water sloshing, the gentle, rhythmic noise so unlike the call of the ocean. She blinked, staring up at a dark and starless void.
Something hard dug into her back, and her fingers tingled, as though she had been trapped in one position for far too long.
She was on a boat, she guessed, from the sounds and the way she felt gently rocked. She shivered uncontrollably, and it took her a few dull moments to realize why.
The sky she saw was not her sky. It was far too empty, devoid even of clouds. Where
were the stars, the moon? Instead of Nyx’s veils there was a strange kind of texture to the expanse above her—it seemed rough, like hewn rock. This cavernous sky gleamed faintly from within as though moonlight were cast upon it, emitting an eerie kind of twilight glow.
“Let me help you.”
Hands at her back coaxed her into a sitting position. She grabbed the side of the boat and clung to it for support, splinters cutting into her palms.
She was on a boat. With Hades. She looked to the prow, where a robed figure drove a pole into the riverbed below, propelling them along. Only his back was visible, illuminated by a lantern. He was a thin, tall shape swathed in threadbare dark linen, but somehow she could bring his name to mind.
She was on a boat. With Hades. And Charon. That meant...
“The nausea will pass,” Hades said. She placed a bucket before her.
Persephone clutched it with both hands, staring down at it while her stomach roiled. Some unknown liquid sloshed at the bottom of the pail, reflecting her haggard countenance and eyes wild with fear.
She gritted her teeth and willed herself not to vomit. She wouldn’t be seen like that, like some lush handmaiden at the Dionysia.
The motion of the boat did her no favors. She closed her eyes and imagined the shape of a narcissus. Six tepals, count them—one, two, three, four, five, six—surrounding a corona. Within the corona, six pollen-bearing stamens (one, two, three, four, five, six), around a central style.
When she opened her eyes again, the nausea had diminished sufficiently that she was no longer in danger of embarrassing herself. She pushed the bucket away, and it scraped against the deck with an awful whine.
“What is wrong with me?” she whispered, barely audible over the slap of water against the side of the boat. She loathed the weakness in her voice but could not force any more air from her lungs.
“You are alive, and thus the transition to the underworld is... unpleasant,” Hades said.
Persephone gripped the vessel’s wall once more and peered over the edge. The water was dark, but there were glints of light in its inky depths. She looked closer and gasped.
Someone stared back at her.
The dead man’s face was visible for just an instant, long enough to embed within her mind the bloated pallor of his skin, the colorless eyes rimmed with purple. She longed for the bucket, but it was too far out of reach, and she didn’t trust her legs to support her. She longed to be on dry, sun-kissed land. She longed for her mother.
“What is that noise?” Persephone asked. It set her teeth on edge and sent shivers down her back—distant cries of lamentation and woe, seeming to grow louder as the boat pressed on.
“The shades are restless tonight,” Hades said.
“Every night,” Charon said from the prow.
He and Hades shared a laugh.
How could they find humor in something so terrible?
Hades’ hand landed on her shoulder, her fingers closing in as if to never let go. Persephone was too weak to swat her away. “Almost there,” Hades said.
The other side of the river rapidly approached. The boat bumped against a pier, and Charon secured them to the dock. He leaned on his pole, hood obscuring his face as he waited for them to disembark.
Before Persephone could protest, Hades scooped her up in her arms and carried her onto the pier. Behind them, Charon freed the boat and pushed off, a solitary guardian endlessly crossing from one side of the marsh to the other.
Persephone stared at the craggy not-quite-sky overhead. Torches lined the path, flaring into life with blue flames as they approached, then winking out behind them. The lights blurred when she blinked, and at some point she must have fallen unconscious once more, for the next time she opened her eyes they were in a chariot.
The shrieking had grown more distant, dying down to a barely perceptible murmur. Hades continued to hold Persephone in her arms. The fragrance of asphodels still surrounded her. Or was it simply that they had just passed a field of asphodels? Persephone couldn’t trust her senses, nor come to terms with the fact that she might not be dreaming.
The chariot slowed to a halt, and Hades shifted her weight, moving so that Persephone’s head lolled against her shoulder.
“I can stand,” she said, trying to sound more convincing than she felt.
Hades looked down at her with a smile on her lips. “As you wish.” She set Persephone down on her feet, watching as she stumbled and grabbed for the rail of the chariot.
“Why have we stopped?” Persephone asked.
“I have someone I would like you to meet.”
Persephone clung to the railing, breathing heavily. The floor insisted on spinning beneath her. “Take me home.”
“This is your home,” Hades said without a trace of humor.
Persephone turned to look at her and managed to stand up straight, although she still held the railing for support. She glanced up at the formless sky. In this barren land she had no favors to give, no weapons, no allies. She ought to say something nice to her captor. Something that would make Hades more inclined to take pity upon her and release her in a timely manner.
“Go p-pleasure a goat,” Persephone said.
Hades’ lips pressed together as though she were trying not to laugh. “You must be feeling better. Good.” Hades left her in the chariot and walked on ahead.
Persephone gazed up to see that they had stopped before a pair of tall black gates set within a massive wall. In front of the gates sat an enormous hound, a bright red tongue lolling out of each of its three heads.
Hades hugged the nearest head, her arms unable to reach around the girth of its neck, and placed a kiss on its cheek. In return, the hound barked happily, the sound echoing, and it lowered its head before her, pushing against her hands. All three heads vied for affection and did not desist until Hades had paid adequate attention to each of them.
Persephone was not a great lover of dogs—they trampled her flowerbeds and chased rabbits through her carefully plotted lines of salad greens—and so when Hades turned and crooked a finger in her direction, her first instinct was to remain in the chariot, where she had at least the illusion of safety. The horses fared little better; they shifted their weight back and forth, stamping their feet, the whites of their eyes greatly apparent, but they were too well-trained to abandon their designated position.
It grew clear they would go no further until she did as Hades bade, and so she stepped out of the chariot, holding onto the rails until the last possible moment. She hiked the skirts of her chiton up in one hand to avoid tripping as she made her way up the path, the gravel abrading her bare feet.
“Cerberus, this is Persephone. She is to be treated as a treasure,” Hades said when Persephone drew near.
Each of the heads swiveled to look at her. The hound had dense black fur, against which its yellow eyes seemed almost to glow. It was incontrovertibly ugly, its form densely muscled under the fur, its skeleton deformed to accommodate the weight of the three separate heads.
Persephone shivered under its scrutiny, not resisting when Hades took one of her hands and held it out to the beast.
Cerberus sniffed her palm with each of its three noses and then nuzzled her face, almost knocking her off her feet.
“Good boy. Enough.” Hades gave each of the heads a final scratch and led Persephone back to the chariot. The gates opened before them, and the horses leaped forward, leaving Cerberus far behind.
The chariot took up speed shortly after they left Cerberus, and the landscape flew by in an unnatural blur, too quickly for Persephone to see the landmarks around her. They only slowed as they approached the path leading to Hades’ palace.
The palace stood atop a great hill, its walls dark and glittering as if carved entirely from obsidian. In contrast to Zeus’s abode, with its organic, sprawling curves and meandering paths, Hades’ lair was made of sharp edges and parallel lines, cold in its symmetry.
Hades guided the chariot to a stable,
where a waiting groom took over. Not far away, a gaggle of servants clustered, all of them women.
Hades turned to Persephone. “I must leave you, for my duties await. We shall speak again in due time.”
Persephone didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted. For Hades to abduct her and then to drop her as quickly as that was mildly off-putting, to say the least. “Wait,” she said, reaching for her.
“Patience.” Hades took Persephone’s hand and pressed a kiss against her knuckles, her fingertips stroking the underside of her wrist as she released her.
Persephone cradled her hand against her chest and watched Hades depart. It wasn’t until Hades was out of sight that she felt like she could breathe again.
The servants clustered around her. “Come inside, you must be freezing!”
“But—” Persephone began. “Hades—”
One of the servants patted her arm. “Our queen always keeps her word.”
That was not particularly reassuring.
The servants led her into the palace proper, through a maze of corridors and into a bathing room wreathed with steam. They divested her of her garments and proceeded to wash her from head to toe. Persephone started to shiver again when the steam caressed her naked body, until the chill of the underworld melted away, leaving only the warmth from the water.
The servants finished washing her and anointed her hair with scented oil. The fragrance of asphodels made bile rise in her throat, but she endured it. However, when a girl began to file away at the calluses on her feet, Persephone screamed.
“Don’t! How will I walk?”
“Pardon me, mistress, but it’s not becoming of your station.”
“I need them,” Persephone insisted, but despite her rank she was ignored. Two of the girls held her down, while the other two worked at her feet, scrubbing away at the worst of the calluses and then smearing on a thick ointment to protect the newly exposed skin.
Persephone screamed and sobbed until her voice was nothing more than a whisper. They were her anchor to the land, her way of feeling the health of the flora, of hearing the hidden language of the earth. She had climbed mountains, forded rivers with those feet.
