Receiver of Many

by Rachel Alexander

  Ducking under the branches, she stood in the middle of the small grove. Hecate walked to one of the flowers and peered at its petals, soft and translucent red, glowing as if the sun shone through them. She reached out and touched the waxy leaves, then drew her hand back in surprise. They were warm, as if they were basking in the daylight of the living world above. The red blossom would be unremarkable if it were growing above ground. But this was Chthonia. This sun didn’t shine here. Hecate pulled a single petal from a low hanging flower, examining it in her hand. As she did, the one beside it shook loose and floated to the barren ground below. She rolled the petal in her hand and smelled it, tasted it, closed her eyes and moved the energy of the ether through it, trying to find something, anything, unusual about it. She could find nothing that made these trees any different from those growing in the world above, other than how quickly they grew. Perhaps that was their only miracle.

  Hecate tucked the single petal into the neckline of her peplos, and reached for the one that had fallen to the ground. When she picked it up, she cupped her hand to her mouth in shock and stumbled back, falling hard on her rump. She stood again, feeling her heart beating out of her chest, and dusted off the back of her peplos, staring closely at the place from which she’d picked up the fallen blossom. Hecate’s fingers feathered over a small tuft of light green grass. It grew in the exact shape, in the exact place of the flower that had fallen to the infertile ground. She leaned over, her breath teasing the fragile blades. “It can’t be…”

  She stood up again and looked at the trees all around her, breathing shallowly. “It can’t be!”

  Hecate turned her eyes upward and called out to the mists above. “Nyx! Mother Nyx, you must see this!”

  She waited.

  “Nyx?”

  “Your mother was Asteria— daughter of Phiobe, daughter of Gaia— who pledged you as my acolyte, young one,” a lilting voice said behind her. Hecate turned to meet the silver rimmed eyes of her mentor, the Goddess of Night, aged as many centuries as Hecate could count years. Darkness wrapped around the curves of her body like an unbound, thin himation, clinging to her and flowing around her as though she were underwater. Her jet-black hair waved about her weightlessly, and her bare white feet stuck out below the cover of darkness, hovering above the ground. She smiled at Hecate. “And after all these millennia, Hecate, we are more friends now than teacher and student, no?”

  “Yes, my lady,” she smiled.

  “What troubles you, young one?” Nyx looked around at the red flowers and answered her own question. “Is it the trees? They are no doubt the work of your student.”

  “His hands couldn’t grow this orchard. Not his two alone,” Hecate said, walking over to the tree and brushing her fingers over the leaves.

  “Which is why I first hesitated when you told me you had chosen Aidoneus,” she said. “The line of our sacred knowledge has always been passed from goddess to goddess— never to a male.”

  “And that sacred stream had never flowed to an avowed virgin before me. The world has its seasons, and sometimes we have to change with them. True, there is still much for him to learn. But please trust me, as I have asked and you have done before. Your favorite proved herself unworthy, after all,” Hecate replied. “Simple passions ruled her, not the call of wisdom. Her decisions may undo us all one day.”

  “Sooner than you think, young one. My dear son Thanatos walks the earth above too often. The Fates will cut too many threads from the Cloth of Life before this ends. Perhaps it’s best for all if we send the little queen back…”

  “We cannot, Nyx,” Hecate said, returning to where the flower had fallen on the barren ground. “The soil itself tells us why. Look…”

  The Goddess of Night tipped forward as though she were swimming through the air, her hair gently waving behind her. The shroud of darkness followed after, falling away from one breast before it rushed up on its own to cover her once more. Nyx leaned down and looked at the tuft of grass. She listened intently to a silent voice above her and moved her hand along the darkness shrouding her body, caressing it and looking lovingly up to where it swept up and faded away from her form. A slow smile spread across her face. “I knew there was a reason my husband liked her so much.”

  Hecate looked at her, perplexed, before it dawned on her. “I knew they first coupled before they reached the lands below, but I hadn’t imagined it could have been while they were—”

  “Erebus said he was honored. He told me he bore witness to the Goddess mating with her thrice-chosen Consort in the ancient manner, the way it was done before the Tyrant.” Nyx spat the last word, refusing to say Kronos’s name. She rose, righting herself. “Chaos mated with the Void in kind to create the cosmos. It was the original hieros gamos, before my generation perfected it. The true Sacred Marriage of the gods— not the pantomime your Lampades engage in with the mortals.”

  “Aidoneus’s eyes saw their union differently,” Hecate said, ignoring her teacher’s slight against her nymph acolytes. “And a mere moon’s cycle learning of her thoughts gives me much doubt that Persephone would see it your way either.”

  “You know better than most that things are not always what they seem,” Nyx said as she moved back to the trees. “The narcissus I had Gaia plant in the center of Persephone’s sacred grove was what drew her here. When she plucked it, she laid aside her old life and chose us and our ways. She chose him as her mate in that moment, whether she knew or not.”

  “The divine purpose of that flower is unlikely to bring peace to either of their hearts.”

  “Our ways are not the ways of the world above. Aidoneus has only begun to realize that. And she will see that one day as well.”

  “They have not yet performed the Rite. Perhaps then—”

  “All in due time. Be patient with them, young one.”

  “My lady,” Hecate said, pointing at the small tuft of grass, “if these blades carry the meaning we suspect, and the true purpose of their union comes to pass— will you join your consort, and become the night as he became the shadow?”

  Erebus had not always been the encompassing darkness that separated Chthonia from the world above. Before Kronos enslaved the entire House of Nyx and imprisoned them in the Underworld, all the Protogenoi walked the earth in forms made flesh. Erebus was a tall man with silver hair and midnight blue eyes. Every shadow cast in the daylight stretched forth from his raven black wings— the Lord of Shadows was a fitting consort for his wife, the Goddess of Night. After the war, one by one, they had chosen to fade from their tangible forms into their respective provinces. Hemera grew more luminous until she was the daylight itself, Gaia took root and melded with the earth, and Erebus faded into the darkness. Slowly, others among the old gods followed in their stead, including Hecate’s beloved mother. Of the Protogenoi, Nyx was the last to retain her original form.

  The Goddess of Night smiled as Hecate ruminated on their fate, which would someday be the fate of all the immortals. “Truth be told, Erebus likes holding me this way,” she said, brushing her hand over the wavering shroud of darkness surrounding her. “He says it makes him feel young when he touches me. I’ll keep this form for now. If our ambitions are realized— then we’ll see. I’m allowed to change my mind.”

  Hecate sighed. “I thought to sow the seed of our future when we sealed the betrothal of Hades and Persephone at the River so many ages ago,” she said, running her fingers along the sun-warmed leaves. “Now, infinitely more hangs in the balance, and their sapling already twists in a storm.”

  “They will find a way to weather it.”

  “The aeons have passed us by, and only this and the next remain.”

  “Patience.”

  Hecate and Nyx turned simultaneously to see Aidoneus step out through the palace portico, walking slowly toward the grove, arms folded across his chest.

  “Do they know?” Nyx asked.

  “That these are their creation? Perhaps not. They have both seen how they flouris
h here. Persephone carried her husband to the grove’s heart when she found her own path through the ether, and both are led here in dreams. Aidoneus knows as well as I that creating them is beyond his wisdom, and Persephone is thwarted when she tries to grow even asphodel in the fields of its namesake, much less leaves soaked in sunlight.”

  “How long since they spoke to each other?”

  “Three days,” Hecate said, lowering her voice as Aidon approached.

  “Have faith in them,” Nyx returned.

  They silently watched Aidoneus walk into the grove, the gravel crunching under his leather sandals. He touched the warm leaves, then thinned his lips once he realized he was not alone.

  “Hecate. Lady Nyx.” He nodded grimly to them in acknowledgement.

  Nyx floated toward him. “What troubles you, little one?”

  It was his least favorite sobriquet, and one she always managed to use when his frustration was greatest. Aidoneus said nothing; the Goddess of Night was a thousand aeons older than he, and with Erebus, had once ruled both the Underworld and the night sky. He was too tired to challenge her anyway, his body and soul weary from lack of sleep.

  “You dislike it,” Nyx said, effortlessly reading him, “but our other name for you, Liberator, seems to fit poorly right now.”

  Aidoneus merely circled the grove, his arms crossed behind his back.

  “Ever as taciturn as you were before. Before her, at least. This isn’t about your new queen, is it?”

  He clenched his teeth and looked away from her.

  Hecate followed closely behind Nyx, who tried again to draw an answer from him. “Aidoneus, you can greet the rest of your subjects behind a mask of solemnity—”

  “—but you can see through it, my lady; I know. I don’t wish to talk about it,” he paused, glancing at their expectant faces, and scowled before dryly continuing. “But clearly I’m to be pestered by both of you until I say something. I’ll be brief: I’m taking Persephone back to Demeter.”

  Hecate shook her head. “Tilling the shoots under so soon?”

  “Soon?!” he flared. “She has been here nearly a month! And as soon as there was a glimmer of hope that this could work, I destroyed it. I’ve ruined everything, Hecate. She will never find it in her heart to love me after what we did— after what I said. I’ve agonized over this for three days and I’m just going to do what is best for all.”

  “And what does she have to say about this?” Nyx said.

  “I cannot bring myself to speak to her, nor would she want me to. Not after we—” he walked away from Nyx and looked out above the twined branches of the trees, the waterfall in the distance cascading upward to the world above. “The mortals are suffering in her absence, thanks to her mother. After what happened between us, Persephone cannot possibly still wish to remain with me. We will still be married in name and title. She will live in the world above where she belongs, where she’s happiest, and my life can go back to the way it was.”

  “There is no going back, Aidoneus,” Hecate replied, “And neither can she. What was done cannot be undone. You cannot build a new tree with those boards.”

  “This is my marriage!” he said, turning back to them. “It’s my decision to make.”

  “So,” Nyx said, “you will leave this realm without a Queen? Or do you have plans to take a concubine? Many of the nymphs who reside here would be willing…”

  “No.” He felt bile well up in his throat as he contemplated any kind of intimacy with anyone but her.

  “Would you stop her if she took a lover?”

  His jaw and fingers clenched shut and he closed his eyes so Nyx could not see the fire that lit them. For all the nausea he felt at the idea of laying with another woman, the thought of his wife being touched by another man filled him with a rage so potent it could lay waste to the earth. The Olympian men had no qualms about seducing a woman once she was unbound from her vows of chastity. Unbidden images of Persephone’s body being dragged underneath Apollo or Ares tore at him until he thought he would scream.

  “Did you think you could push her away so easily,” Hecate chided with a smirk, her eyes narrowed at him, “when you hold so tight?”

  Aidoneus slammed his fist into the trunk of a tree next to him, feeling his skin break open on its rough bark. His wrist smarted at the impact. He looked at his abraded knuckles, then flexed his fingers outward and felt the wounds knit back together. The branches above dropped delicate red petals to the ground all around them.

  “Do not presume that I come to this decision lightly.” His voice rasped and he forced his anger to subside. He wouldn’t let any of them— not Hecate or Nyx, nor his wife— destroy his hard-won peace of mind ever again. It had taken him aeons after the war to bury anything that could touch him. Now the wounds were open again. She needed to go back; he saw no reason why she wouldn’t want to go back. It was the right thing to do for both of them. Once she was with her mother, he would pay a visit to Olympus with a stern warning for each of the male gods. Their fear of him would keep her safe.

  “Look around you, Hades. Our world is dark and deep and hidden— an eternal tangle of flowing rivers that surrounds and protects the souls waiting to be reborn to the world above. This is a realm that needs a Queen. We have been without one for too long.” The Goddess of Night moved toward him. “Setting me and my children free, drawing the shortest twig when Lachesis held out those three fateful lots for you and your brothers… Those pale beside the real reason the Fates chose you. The gifts and curses of ruling Chthonia were never meant to be your burden alone.”

  “I have judiciously ruled this kingdom alone for thousands of years. Three and a half weeks are not—”

  “And for those thousands of years we waited. We waited for the Queen to find you. To seek you out. And seek you out she did, beckoning you, before you were thrice chosen by her. First when you appeared in her dreams, second when she entered your sacred grove wearing a wreath of laurel and olive, and lastly when she plucked the flower that drew you to her from the depths.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not how it happened, Nyx. I went to her father for permission to take Persephone as my bride, as it is done in the world above. I invaded her dreams; I chased her from her home, I rapt her away in my chariot and took her maidenhead in the dark.”

  “Thousands of years, and still you think like an Olympian.” Hecate said. “Theirs is a different world, and ours are different ways.”

  “Hecate, if I never hear you say that again, it will be too soon.” He turned to leave the grove again. “Please— both of you— just leave me in peace with my decision.”

  “Hades…” Nyx breathed.

  He turned, slowly and deliberately, to face her. Aidoneus watched as she raised her hand and looked at the ground. Nyx splayed out her fingers and turned her palm upward. The red flowers lifted, hovering in midair as languidly as she did. They circled her and spiraled into a tight ball hovering weightless above her outstretched palm before bursting into flames, the embers shining like stars before vanishing into the darkness that shrouded her.

  “Tell me, little one…” she said to him, “at what point should these be factored into your decision?”

  Aidon looked down to where Nyx pointed her long fingers. On the gray, lifeless soil were scattered tufts of vibrant green, lying in the exact places the petals had been knocked to the ground. Making sure not to step on any of them, he walked carefully over to one, and crouched low to examine it. Aidon squinted at it and gingerly brushed his fingers along the soft blades of grass. “What in Tartarus…?” he whispered under his breath.

  Hecate met his confusion with her placid gaze. “You are not the first lovers to quarrel, Aidoneus. But you are the first to create anything like this.”

  “I did not… I cannot—”

  “No, you cannot,” Hecate said. “Not you alone.”

  “How are Persephone and I able to do this?” he said, his eyes wide with confusion.

  Nyx and He
cate looked at each other. The Goddess of Night spoke. “My son said you came to him seeking an answer— that you’ve seen these in your dreams, and she as well…”

  “Morpheus knew nothing about these,” he said. “They don’t appear in the dream world.”

  “When you first went to Persephone, my son brought you together,” Nyx said. “To dream of another or ask that another dream of you is one thing…”

  Aidoneus thought about their first meeting. How full of confusion he had been when he discovered himself pressed against her skin. How natural it felt to be with her.

  “…But to bring two together in the same dream, to unite them— has only ever been asked of my son once.”

  “Remember how you appeared to each other in the dream,” Hecate said. “And consider that it was her dream.”

  He looked at Hecate, dumbfounded.

  “Is it so hard to believe, Aidoneus?” she continued. “You dreamed you met her in her own shrine, and so did she. She dreamed of her future husband that night, the night you walked into her dream to announce your betrothal. How you appeared to her was her idea. Your name a mystery, your realm unknown to her, she still grew your sacred bloom from the earth where she slept and dreamed of you.”

  “You are her chosen Consort. And just as was done in that first dream, you, Aidoneus, provided the seed to create these. Together you have dreamed these pomegranate trees into existence, little one,” Nyx said, softly motioning to the leaves and flowers hanging above them.

  “But what does it mean?”

  “That is knowledge I cannot pass to you,” Hecate said.

  “Of course it isn’t!” he said sarcastically. “Because the day I get a straight answer out of either of you, the Styx will flow backwards!”

  Hecate and Nyx stared back at him. Aidoneus turned once more to leave.

  “I don’t think you understand Hecate’s meaning,” Nyx began, stopping him. “We cannot pass this knowledge onto you because we don’t know what these mean. There are possibilities, but that is all they are.”

  He looked at them somberly. “A shame they will remain just that, then.”