by elda lore
“It’s not ogling. I’m staring.” Veva’s clarification hung between us before I giggled and she chuckled. “And you’re practically drooling.” Her finger flicked over my chin and snapped my mouth shut. I wanted to deny my mouth watering or hanging open at the sight of Harris Black, but I couldn’t deny it. My eyes found him whenever they could. But he avoided me in equal measure.
Our view was suddenly shadowed by the bulky presence of another male.
“Ladies.” Tripper Grant tipped his hat. His eyes roamed Veva’s curvy body before flicking over to mine. I wasn’t as sultry as Veva, who gave off a vibe of a little want for sin, but I’d had my own experience of the seven levels, and I knew which temptation I’d give into the most. Tripper might exude lust, but the feeling was no longer reciprocal. I’d tasted love, and it was all the more addicting.
“Maybe one of you would like to share a sip of sweetness with me?” He winked at Veva while his body leaned toward mine. Bracing a hand above my head on the porch column, Tripper’s body language pointed him at me, while he spoke out the side of his mouth to Veva.
“Sweet doesn’t seem to be your flavor, Tripper Grant,” Veva teased.
“Sugar, sweet always has a side of spice.” His eyes flicked back to me, and rolled up my body. I held still, a sick sensation curling my stomach.
“I’ll see if Mama has more for you,” I offered, turning to enter the house.
“Your mama’s already filled me up.” The words hung heavy in the air, the innuendo clear.
“What did you say?” I asked, my tone lowered, fists balled at my sides. He couldn’t mean what I think he meant.
“Her lemonade, of course. I drank that nectar earlier. But I think I’m ready for something a little stronger, spicier.” He winked again at me and my nostrils flared in disgust. If he’d been with my mother, the last thing I wanted was to be his next conquest. My mother was a beautiful woman at thirty-eight and Tripper was certainly handsome and rugged at twenty-four, but the thought of them together sent a shiver down my spine.
“That’s enough.” Tripper’s bulk blocked the possessor of the firm voice, but I knew instantly who spoke.
“Excuse me?” Tripper half-heartedly turned to expose Harris behind him.
“I said, that’s enough. You’re making her uncomfortable.” White knuckled fists curled at his side. His chest rose and fell with the exertion of lifting and the rising irritation in his tone.
“And what’s it to you?” Tripper demanded, righting his body, standing taller to face this intruder. His bulky arms crossed over his broad chest.
“She’s to me.” The archaic-sounding rebuttal froze up my heart like brain-freeze from too quick a sip of icy lemonade.
“What?” Tripper smirked, rolling his head back to look at Veva and me a moment. His expression stated his thought: This guy is crazy. My breath held while I waited for an explanation as well.
“She’s clearly uncomfortable,” he replied. My heart sank. Maybe this guy was off his rocker a little. I certainly felt like I was going mad. The whole world had turned topsy-turvy. I suddenly felt the need to sit, and thumped down hard on the porch step.
“Pea, you okay?” Veva sat next to me with equal force. A hand covered my forehead. I have to stop thinking of him, I scolded myself. I have to stop projecting my desire on a stranger.
“Pea?” Harris questioned.
“Yeah, it’s her nickname. Pea for Persephone. And her mother calls her Sweet Pea sometimes.” Veva clarified. I blushed at the explanation. It embarrassed me to admit to this handsome stranger such an intimate, childish detail.
“Interesting,” Harris muttered at the same time Tripper said, “Don’t you need to get back to work?”
Harris’ blue eyes caught the sunlight and the sapphire color shone bright against his tanning skin. He ignored Tripper and slowly let his eyes fall to me.
“I didn’t know that,” he chin-nodded once, implying my silly nickname history. “But as I said, I’m here to learn. That’s a cute name.”
My brows pinched in question. I didn’t understand. He spun away then, and strut three steps toward the barn before stopping and spinning back to face us. “I kind-of think Firefly suits you better, though.”
My mouth fell open and I wobbled as I rose slowly like I sipped champagne too quickly. Spots danced in front of my eyes before shifting to the tiny flutters: wings of butterflies. I moved as if to leave the porch, but Tripper blocked my way. Glancing over his shoulder, I saw Harris loading hay again. I stared in disbelief, no longer filled with doubts. Those small sparks, floating in the air, flew to their landing strip along an inked arm. My Hades had departed the underworld.
--
“I don’t know how he did it, but he’s come back for her.” The tender concern and puzzlement in my grandfather’s voice stopped me from skipping up the stairs to my bedroom. I stepped back and stood outside the parlor door, my head tilted for optimal eavesdropping.
“That’s impossible.” My mother’s voice twisted between determination and fear of the possibility. My fists clenched. The avoidance of discussing my kidnapping and mysterious return infuriated me. My mother continuously repeated she was just happy I was home whenever the subject even breached out a teeny bit, but she knew something bigger than she let on and refused to expand on her knowledge. She had to have known the pomegranates held power, or she would not have sent them to me through Edwin. The gesture held good intention, but she denied knowing such things.
“It has to be him,” Titus said. “I felt it in his touch.” The incredulous sound resonated out to me, and I recalled Harris Black’s refusal to let me touch him. How could touching Harris give Titus any knowledge of who he was?
“Titus, you’re being a silly old man. Any power allowing him outside the realm is impossible. We both know this,” my mother answered and I spun around, still hiding behind the wall separating the staircase from the front room.
“We don’t know this,” my grandfather retorted. “This younger generation is stronger, more resourceful. We’ve seen it happen, which is why we’ve kept it from her.”
I fully engaged in listening at this point. My hands pressed against the wall, using it as a barrier to prevent me from rounding the corner, interrupting their disagreement, and never learning any possibilities of truth.
“You can’t keep this from her forever.” Grandfather’s tone softened as he addressed his daughter. “Discovery will happen. It’s her destiny.”
“I don’t want it to be her destiny,” my mother argued in return. “Hades can’t have her. His father already took one Persephone from me.” The petulance in my mother’s tone didn’t surprise me. She meant what she said. He was not going to be allowed to have me, keep me, take me again. The near prison-lockdown I’d been under since my return proved this — they would not let Hades get close to me, even if he could miraculously appear in my world. Given the avoidance Harris Black did of me, I returned to my puzzled state.
“You know as well as I do, it’s unavoidable. The only choice she has is to follow the curse or break the bond, but it has to be her decision. Or his.” Sarcasm dripped with uncertainty from my grandfather’s older voice.
“He won’t let her go. His father’s wishes demand she return. This is how the curse worked the first time.”
“He’s already gone against those commands once,” Grandfather stated. That was true, Hades had returned me; I still didn’t know why.
“Just because he had a change of heart once doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try to take her again.” My mother’s words raked with bitterness. Her hatred of men stood behind a closed door, but once opened, she leaked her venom of distrust. Her sister, Hera, was even worse. It was a miracle Veva and I even knew what the male species was at times.
“Don’t let your disappointment project on her, Demi. It won’t help her make a decent decision about the boy.” The silence lingered between them before my mother whined.
“The pomegranate assur
ed her life.”
“Exactly. She lives, but this won’t prevent the discovery happening. Her time is due. She needs to know who she descends from and who she could be.”
My breath hitched at the thought of even more secrets and my hand covered my lips, holding in air.
“Why can’t Zeke have more control over his brother? He’s the oldest, after all.” Mother huffed and the puff of a couch cushion confirmed she sat with a thud, her frustration deflating her fight. At least I had one fact in their circle of discussion: Zeke and Hades Sr. were brothers.
“He has no more control over them than I had of you three girls.” My grandfather teased, but a twinge of disappointment rang true in his words. Demi and her sister, Hera, had both been young and pregnant out of wedlock, raising daughters as single mothers. Their older sister, Hestia, left the farm sometime before I could remember and lived with several cousins in the woods of the Northwest. Titus hardly visited them since the death of my nana.
An exaggerated sigh emphasized my mother’s exasperation. Whatever this curse they referenced, she had no control over it and my mother liked to be in charge. It was her thing.
“I think it’s time you tell her, Demi.” Silence filled the room only briefly before my mother softly called out my name. My back straightened at the knowledge I’d been caught; she somehow knew I stood behind the wall.
I rolled around the barrier and stared at my mother. I didn’t know what to ask, and from the look on her face, she didn’t know where to begin.
“It’s a long story,” she muttered, rubbing her hands over her jean-covered thighs. “One that starts too far back to imagine.” Her eyes squinted as she looked out the front picture window. I’d never seen my mother so nervous.
“I didn’t want you to ever know. I wanted you to live a normal life. Be human.” Her head shook with disappointment. “But it seems Fate has other plans.” Her weak attempt at a smile did not reassure me.
“You’ve met Hades. Senior,” she clarified. “He was in love with me, but I couldn’t return the affection. We were friends: Hades, his brother Zeke, and his other brother, Idon. Three sisters. Three brothers. Only Hades wanted more.” Her labored fingers scrubbed through her hair, holding back the chestnut waves and exposing her ever-youthful face.
“Your Day of Discovery would happen, only not like this. I didn’t want it to be like this.”
“My day of what?”
“Day of Discovery. It’s like a birthday. A day where you learn who you are and what you can do: your purpose, your gifts, your talents. We do not know your destiny before it happens. We only know a gift will come to you. Discovery will reveal your power.” My grandfather answered for my mother. Pride filled his voice.”
“And who am I?” I asked slowly, letting the words drag.
“You’re my daughter.” She smiled more assuredly. “And I’m…oh gods,” she muttered under her breath, looking down at the rug-covered floor.
“You’re what?” The words snapped. Irritation and fear grew inside me.
“I’m more like Hades than I’m like you.” Silence filled the air between us. Questions collided inside my head. Was she saying she was dead? Did she have a power like Hades’ mother? Could she roam the earth and the underworld? The thoughts forced me back, literally. I stepped away from my mother, backing into the parlor wall.
“What am I?” My eyes shifted to my grandfather, who looked older than I remembered, his liquidy eyes hinting at the reality. They were not like me. Or I was not like them. Or I had no idea what I was.
“You’re human, like your father.” My mother spoke as if reading my thoughts, her voice saddening at the mention of my dad. She never talked of him. “Well, mostly human, but you’ll have powers one day, like me.” She sighed.
“What kind of powers? Do you have powers? What are your powers?” I fired, looking around our comfortable living room as if the answers lay in the rug, the overstuffed couches or the bookshelves on either side of the window.
“My strength is in agriculture. We won’t know yours until you’ve discovered it yourself.” Her voice softened, and I scanned the room again. This had to be a dream. A joke, actually. My mother was a farmer. Of course, that took skill, and she was excellent at it, but special powers? I took in the cozy cushions of our couch and the heavily filled shelves of our bookcases. The Persian rug centered on the floor. I thought of our whole house: the size of it, the opulence in it despite my mother being frugal. Were these riches acquired from more than skill? Did she hold powers that made her successful to the extreme?
“I’m not as powerful as Hades, Sr. I’m…unique…like he is, and I’ve lived a long time, but I’m not as strong as him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I pushed off the wall and stepped toward my mother. “I’m not a baby anymore. Quit treating me like one.” My fingers brushed aggressively through my hair. “Didn’t you think this was important to tell me?” I stared incredulously at her. “What you’re telling me is I’m going to be some kind of freak?”
“Not a freak, a…a goddess. Well, a demi-goddess of sorts. A princess in fact.” Her head lowered.
“A princess?” I choked.
“There was a prophecy. A curse.” Her choppy words only increased my heart rate. “Hades would have what was mine. He took another girl, a long time ago. Her name was Persephone and she was very special to me.” My mother’s lips weakly curved, her eyes filling with liquid. “I named you after her.”
“When Hades Sr. learned of your birth, he threatened he’d have everything that was mine. I thought he meant the land. I didn’t think he would come for you.”
I held up my hand in defense. “But Hades didn’t come for me. His son rescued me.”
“It was the son’s destiny,” my grandfather interjected. “His Fate that set things in motion and yours seems entangled with his, despite the odds.”
“What odds?”
“Centuries.” My grandfather’s head hung and my mother’s eyes pleaded with me. “I didn’t know. Didn’t know he’d come for you, be drawn to you. He’s broken bonds for you.” Fear filled my mother’s shaky voice.
“But he wasn’t drawn to me. He saved me. I was attacked by another man and Hades was…” My voice faltered and my chest ached. Had I misunderstood? Hades loved me. I heard those words leave his lips as he placed me on the field, but was I wrong? Hades had been there at the river, watching me. Had he been waiting all along to steal me?
Temperance
[Hades]
I felt her presence before I saw her. She raced around the corner of the barn and stopped cold when she saw Veva, and a girl named Penelope, staring at me. Bare-chested, my skin glistened in the sunlight. A sheen of sweat coated my toned back as I lifted bales of hay. Persephone watched me, too — the movements of my muscles, the flexing of my arms, the contraction of my core. She’d swallowed hard, and I’d caught her.
“Dear gods above, look at him,” Veva drawled in a sweet, flirty tone. I bit the inside of my cheek to prevent the smile. I’d seen how men reacted to her. Boys were drawn to her like a moth to a flame. Veva burned hot, and I’d seen her temper, too.
“I’d do him in a heartbeat,” Penelope replied.
“Don’t you girls have something to do?” Persephone snapped from behind them, as their eyes did wicked things to me. They scampered off, but not before Veva gave Persephone a shifty-eyed-look. Continuing to lift the bales, I pretended to ignore her approach. Just like I pretended each time she was near me that I didn’t know her. But my body knew her, and it ached nightly for the closeness of hers pressed against mine. I released a rectangular bundle and twisted for another one, but her hand caught my chest, pausing the motion. She instantly grabbed the cord dangling from my neck.
“What’s this?” She growled, as her fingers clasped around the medallion. I stood slowly, so she would not tug the object from its leather strap, and it forced her to step closer to me. If only my heart beat, it would drum out
a solo like none other in response to her nearness. Opening her palm, the twisted metal glowed against her flat hand.
“A firefly,” I choked out, stretching for her wrist and then withdrawing from the touch.
“I knew it,” she whispered.
“Knew what?”
“It is you.” Her voice softened.
“Persephone,” I warned.
“Why?” she whined. I glanced away instantly, my jaw clenching while answers warred in my mouth. She couldn’t know the truth. “Why?” she yelled and I flinched.
“I’m Harris Black,” I snapped. She dropped the firefly pendant that she’d given me and it bounced lightly against my hard chest. She took in the ancient watch tattooed over my left pec and the new tattoo of butterflies fluttering to fireflies. The truth was inked on me.
“You’re lying. But why? Why are you here?” She stressed each word. “Why?” The whine softened to a sob and her eyes filled with tears.
“Why did you bring me back? Why did you leave me here? If you’ve come back for me, why are you denying it, denying me? Was it all a lie? A game to you?” Her voice rose higher with each question, and I stood taller to peer over the stacked wagon, making certain others were not near enough to hear.
Suddenly, she went silent.
“I needed to see for myself that you were okay. That everything was all right for you. That you…”
“Hadn’t died?” Her forehead pinched. “I could have stayed with you if I had,” she choked out, stepping closer to me. My timeless heart poked at me. I stepped back, bumping into the wooden carriage.
“I wouldn’t have allowed it.” My arms spread wide and I gripped the low plank of wood supporting the hay. I sweated profusely, fighting the urge to wrap her in my arms and pull her close to me, to inhale her scent and kiss those angered lips. My lightly tanned knuckles turned white from the pressure. No, they turned a light blue tint.
