Destroyer of Light

by Rachel Alexander

  The mortals were growing healthier, their sallow cheeks turning blush again, their gray-tinged skin restored to a bronze sheen in the abundant sunlight. They had shown their gratitude for the land’s rebirth— those who traveled between Athens and Eleusis had renamed this seaside road The Sacred Way.

  ***

  Persephone, chaperoned by Minthe, walked barefoot down the wide path, the packed earth warm underneath her feet. Pomegranate trees grew alongside it, their bright red flowers humming with bees. The petals were ready to drop off any day and free the fruits to swell. To the east, broad fields of golden wheat swayed in the cool ocean breeze. With every step she took, she felt energy charge from her and through the earth, encouraging the healthy grain to grow stronger and fuller. This week would be the first harvest of wheat and barley. The mortals’ despair had been supplanted by excitement to see their labors yield more grain. They sang the praises of Triptolemus and his teachings, and were preparing a festival for the longest day of the year.

  Minthe bent down and ran her fingers through a clump of sweet pennyroyal that grew wild beside the path. Guilt had kept Persephone from objecting to Demeter’s insistence that the nymph accompany her wherever she went. Minthe had been forced to trade herself to mortals and rustic gods for warmth and shelter during the winter. Many of her naiad cousins and dryad friends had not been even that fortunate. Her arms were thin, her wrists and ankles bony. Minthe’s hair was flat and lusterless and she wrapped a light green linen fillet into her chignon to hide its thinness. She picked a sprig of pennyroyal and tucked it behind her ear.

  “Minthe?”

  “Hmm?” Minthe answered, absently twirling a tendril of blonde hair.

  “Your mother came from the Styx, did she not?”

  “From near there—Acheron. But… she left the company of the Stygian nymphs just before I was born.”

  “Do you know why she left?” Persephone asked, curious to learn more about her home.

  “She had… performed some sort of rite with a river god from the world above. That’s how I was conceived. She traveled here to tell him that he’d sired me. But my mother didn’t return to the world below because she was trying to distance herself from… a regret.”

  Thanatos, Persephone guessed. Given his penchant for Underworld nymphs, it wouldn’t surprise her. That Demeter had taken mother and unborn child under her wing didn’t surprise her, either— Minthe’s mother must have despised the Underworld almost as much as Demeter despised its king.

  A group of mortal women, with their hair pulled back, apodesmos wrapped over their breasts, and linen skirts tucked about their waists, carefully marked off with twine the matured patches of wheat that would fall under their sickles later that week. One rose and waved to Persephone, and the others followed her lead, calling out “Karpophoros!”

  No one ever called Persephone by her true name. They gladly used her epithets, save one— not a soul dared call her the Destroyer. She waved back at them and smiled. Most Eleusinians now treated her with the same informality as these women did, and she encouraged it. She was not a Queen in the world above, and it made talking to the mortals easier.

  “Soteira! My Lady!” A voice called out. Eumolpus jogged down the road, sweating under his priestly himation and the midday sun. He stopped, breathing hard, his hands on his knees. “Last month, you asked me to look for a man. Dimitris.”

  “Yes? There are several who live here, but none of them the one I was looking for. I’m afraid the worst may have happened, and he perished.”

  “Not so, my lady. True, there are five who live in Eleusis, but did all of them fell a fig tree during the winter…?” He gave her a cautious half smile.

  “Have you found him?” Persephone’s eyes lit up.

  “It was difficult. Their whole wedding party rests in Asphodel. But the few guests who survived say his bride’s name was Melia. You’ll be surprised. He lives close by… Just up the road, Soteira. He’s never come to the Telesterion.”

  “Please, Eumolpus, take me to him!” She picked up her skirts to walk faster, Minthe right behind her.

  They came to a stone fence alongside the road. Behind it, a row of ash trees shaded a small cottage, and they heard the arrhythmic scrape of metal against stone. They were not far from the oak glen where she had witnessed the Eleusinian wedding, Persephone realized. Eumolpus pushed through a low wooden gate and led them through the trees, where they found a young man, his features aged by grief and hunger, furrowing the rocky soil with a plow.

  “Dimitris?” Persephone called out.

  “Who asks, woman?” The plow stopped and the farmer wiped the sweat from his brow. He narrowed his eyes at Eumolpus and his priest’s robes. “And who cares?”

  Eumolpus bristled. “Show some respect! It is the Maiden who addresses you.”

  The man scoffed. “What has the Maiden or the Mother ever given me but misfortune?" He lifted the arms of the plow again. “Stay off my land, priest, and let me tend my field.”

  “How dare—”

  Persephone silenced Eumolpus with a glance and he took a hasty step back to stand with Minthe by the gate. The farmer pushed muddy rocks aside, ignoring her. Persephone walked to a pile of white stones beside a fresh tree stump and knelt. “You felled and burned your family’s fig tree to melt the frost and soften the earth. That was four days before winter ended.”

  Dimitris stopped abruptly and turned to her, his eyes wide and his face drawn. “What?”

  “It was the only way to bury your wife in the frozen ground.”

  His forehead creased. “How do you know this?”

  “Because she told me.” Persephone rose to face him.

  “You lie,” he growled.

  Persephone knit her brow, then reminded herself that this man was still deeply grieved. “You tended to Melia when she fell ill on the way back from Athens. Your wife told me how much you loved her, Dimitris.”

  The man faltered, then sat down on the tilled earth and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders slumped.

  “Did she tell you everything else? About how your mother condemned us to wander in the bitter cold, and only offered up food when it was too late? And how I had to watch the only woman I ever loved die, thanks to you petty gods,” he spat out at her. Persephone touched his shoulder and he flinched, expecting to be struck dead by the goddess, and not particularly caring if he were.

  “All she could speak about was you, Dimitris, and how much she loved you.”

  He shook again, his eyes and nose running with tears. Persephone lightly placed her hand on his back. His voice cracked. “Melia…”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Why are you here, milady?” He spoke softly. “I’m a farmer, not an initiate. Surely you’d have better luck with—”

  “I’m not here to convince you to join the masses at the Telesterion, Dimitris. I’m here because Melia needs to go back.”

  He stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you still feel her presence?”

  “I try not to.”

  “The memories are painful, no?”

  He nodded.

  “You will have no peace unless you let me help you. She was drawn back to the world of the living. Melia didn’t cross the Styx as you prepared her to do. She loved you, but didn’t want to let go, and now she is staying here and hurting you.”

  “If Melia is here, then let her stay! At least let her— let me have that, if I cannot hold her.”

  “Your wife is gone, Dimitris. She needs peace. After all you did to safeguard her journey to the Other Side— burying her at home, giving her coin for passage, loving her as much as you did, please help me make sure she returns where she belongs.”

  “And where does she belong after defying Hades and escaping the Underworld? Are you tricking me into sending her to Tartarus?”

  “I would never dream of doing that. Dimitris, a beautiful field filled with flowers awaits her.”

  She s
topped when the farmer looked at her skeptically. His wife deserved more than Asphodel. Melia and Dimitris had gifted her with more than they could ever know. How frightened would she have been the first time she saw Aidoneus if she hadn’t first seen the joy in their marriage?

  Persephone gulped in a breath. What did she want for Melia? “She will have warmth; and light. Melia is going to a place where soft breezes will fan her skin and there will be grass under her feet, trees to shade her, and cool water to drink. She will laugh and smile, and know no pain or fear ever again. And one day, a day long from now, Fates willing, you will be reunited with her.”

  Persephone averted her eyes, her stomach twisting with the many half-truths and falsehoods that had fallen so easily from her mouth. She’d described many parts of Chthonia, some obliquely, but not any one place. She rubbed her arm and hoped that the farmer couldn’t see how uncomfortable she was.

  “Please help me,” she asked.

  Dimitris looked out over his empty field and nodded despondently. “What must I do?”

  “You must let go,” she said, and thought about how Aidoneus had used those same words countless times with the shades. “When she is freed of her grief, Melia will return to the Other Side, cross the Styx, and drink from the Lethe. All her sadness will be forgotten.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to forget?” He clenched his teeth. “What if I don’t want to forget?”

  Persephone sat beside the farmer. “It hurts her more to keep her pain and memories. As it does for you now. One day, after she has rested in Asphodel, her soul will return to the living world.”

  “No one returns from there, my lady,” he said, shaking his head.

  “No,” Persephone answered, “Death is not the end. It’s just another place along the path. The beginning of another journey. You are a child, and then you are a man, and then you are an elder, and then, it is true, your flesh goes back to the earth. But your soul is eternal and will return again and again to learn more. To grow.”

  Dimitris shook his head. “I— how do you know this, Karpophoros?”

  “Because I am not merely the Unseen One’s captive bedmate when I am on the Other Side. I am the Good Counselor’s wife, his counterpart in overseeing the souls and taking care of them. I am the Queen of the Dead.”

  He shuddered and blinked, cold racing through him, though she’d avoided referring to her husband by name.

  “Can you help me, Dimitris?”

  “I’ll try, my lady.”

  A sudden clatter of shattering pottery caused the farmer to jump. “Does that happen often?” Persephone asked.

  He frowned. “In truth, too many such things have happened in the last few months. Sounds, voices… I feared I was going mad.”

  “Do something for me,” she said, remembering how Hermes had coaxed a stubborn ghost from her daughter’s home a fortnight ago. “Think of her. Think of Melia as she was. Your happiest memory of her.”

  “Our wedding day.”

  Persephone smiled to herself. She too remembered the ecstatic joy they’d shared in the grove. “Hold fast to that image of her in your mind, Dimitris.”

  He closed his eyes and nodded.

  Persephone stood and paced slowly to the house. The air was colder here, and her limbs felt heavier the closer she came. “Melia?”

  Silence.

  “It’s Kore.”

  A charred branch clattered to the floor next to the hearth, accompanied by a low moan. Persephone balked suddenly unsure of how to proceed. Hermes had retrieved plenty of lost souls, but he had been doing so for millennia, not months. She took a deep breath. Trust your instincts, she thought. Trust in your fated role.

  “Melia, it’s time to go. Please.” She put her hand on the windowsill and heard soft weeping. “See what Dimitris sees of you.”

  The cries stopped.

  “You will always have your love for him. He will always be with you.” The ash trees above them rustled in as if in a gust. “And before you know it you will see him again. But please Melia, it’s time to go home.”

  The leaves murmured gently again and the air grew frigid for a moment. Dimitris wrapped his hands around his shoulders and gooseflesh prickled Persephone’s arms. Wisps of exhaled breath drifted in front of them. A voice whispered through the trees… Dimitris… my Dimitris… and was gone.

  A warm summer breeze chased the chill air, and the farmer stood, sighing heavily, letting the burden ease from his shoulders. “Soteira…”

  Persephone smiled. “She went home.”

  Dimitris stared at the dirt, then dropped to one knee in front of her. “Forgive me, please. Forgive how I spoke to you earlier.”

  “I already have.”

  Dimitris swallowed. “Would you and your companions do me the honor of sharing a meal with me?”

  “I’d love to,” she said. “Will you tell me more about yourself and Melia?”

  Dimitris smiled and nodded, realizing as he did that he’d grown accustomed to answering such questions with a resentful ‘no.’ He missed Melia, but visions of her slumped against their meager belongings had been supplanted by thoughts of her smiling as she fed him honeyed cake at their wedding. “I’d love to.”

  The farmer broke open a heavy loaf of barley bread. Dimitris had traded for it with his neighbor, he’d said, in exchange for a pheasant he’d shot down last week. Persephone, Minthe, and Eumolpus sat with him around his table and broke bread. Minthe ate her share quickly, despite trying to pace herself. Persephone noticed that her ribs were still prominent under her chiton.

  Dimitris dug through his stores for a small cask of wine and poured it into a kylix in the center of the table. Eumolpus was unable to hide his glee, having been denied this indulgence while in service to Demeter. He soaked his bread through and savored each dripping morsel. Persephone politely declined when the wine came to her.

  “There is no sun on the Other Side, yet there is light?” Dimitris asked as he took away the empty bowl.

  “It’s quite beautiful,” Persephone said. A slightly tipsy Eumolpus smiled and gazed longingly at Minthe, who demurred and shifted in her seat. The pretty nymph nervously listened to the spring goddess continue. “I cannot describe how awe-inspiring the dawn really is. You’ll see one day.”

  Dimitris leaned his head in his hand. “And when I eventually do, I will be reunited with my Melia?”

  “Yes,” Persephone answered, then thinned her lips. “And no.”

  Dimitris looked at her in horror. “But you said… she’s not sent to Tartarus, is she?”

  “Of course not, I promise. From what you’ve told me of her, the judges would never send her there.” She was interrupted by loud cawing outside.

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “Well…” Persephone paused to consider how best to explain the effects of the Lethe when a crow landed on the fence just outside the door. It flapped its wings loudly as it steadied itself then started its cries again. The bird picked at a burlap sack slung over the piled stones.

  “Damnation, not again…” Dimitris swore under his breath. He grabbed a short bow and pulled an arrow from the quiver hung next to the door.

  “What’s wrong?” Minthe spoke, following Dimitris.

  “I didn’t spend all day toiling in the field just have that creature steal my seeds!”

  “Surely you don’t have to kill the poor thing?” Minthe said. “He’s only trying to eat.”

  “Trust me,” he muttered, nocking an arrow. “The crows had more than enough to eat this winter.”

  Before Minthe could nudge his arm and force the arrow from its course, it sailed through the air, puncturing its target with a dull, wet sound. The crow fell off its perch with a shriek and lay on the ground, flapping its wings in futility. The arrow stuck straight up, impaling the creature, pinning it to the dirt.

  Persephone frowned at Dimitris and picked up her skirts, grumbling as she walked to where the crow lay. “So unnecessary…”

&n
bsp; “Soteira,” he said, “You don’t understand. That same crow has come here three times now—”

  “Well, you finally shot him. Are you pleased?”

  “No,” Dimitris said, growing pale. “You misunderstand me, milady. My arrow struck true the last three days. He won’t die.”

  Persephone looked at him with a mix of confusion and shock, then stood above the bird. Two holes from Dimitris’s arrows gaped on its chest, each crusted with blood. The arrow pinning him to the ground stuck out from its heart. The crow stared up at her, flapping its wings intermittently. She pulled the arrow out of the ground, then freed the bird, cradling it in her hand as its breathing steadied.

  Persephone could always feel the raw power of all that lay beneath the earth within her, could feel Aidon’s presence at the entrance to the Underworld— the cave where she emerged and created Spring. But as she held the injured bird in her hand, she didn’t feel death. The last time she had seen Thanatos was when an Eleusinian elder had belatedly succumbed to the hardships of winter and famine. She’d seen and felt death even when Thanatos was not around— after all, beings died every minute, just as flowers bloomed every minute. The gods couldn’t be in all places at once. But the essence of Death was missing, as though it didn’t exist at all…

  “Milady?” Dimitris said. They all startled as the crow righted itself in Persephone’s hand, then flew away into the highest branches of the ash tree. They heard it call out at them reproachfully.

  “It’s a demon!” Eumolpus said quietly, his voice shaking. “One of Echidna’s brood…”

  “No,” Persephone finally said. “It’s much worse than that.” She looked at the sprig of pennyroyal tucked behind Minthe’s ear. The summer heat should have wilted it by now. Instead it was as green and vibrant as when Minthe had plucked it from the roadside.

  She reached her hand out to Minthe, who flinched back. Persephone curled her fingers and produced new leaves and a bright purple bud from the pennyroyal. This wasn’t natural, even with divine intervention.