Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories)

by Ringle, Molly

  “—want to explore more!”

  “They’re going to worry,” said Hades, “and will want to see us again first. We’ll go back later.”

  The afternoon sped by in that fashion, Hades escorting each of them to the spirit realm for a look around and then back again. As more of the immortals arrived home for the evening, the news spread and Hades kept sharing the experience with each new person. But Demeter still forbade Persephone to cross over.

  Finally, after she had been put to bed but could hear the adults still conversing around the hearth in the courtyard, Persephone crept to the doorway and watched. When Hades rose and wandered out alone, wine cup in hand, she stole after him and followed him into the front garden, where he stood looking up at the stars.

  “Hades,” she whispered.

  He turned. “You’re still up, little one?”

  She ran to him. “Take me into the spirit realm.”

  He set the cup next to the door, chewing his lip. “I’m not sure. We don’t know much about it, and if you were hurt…”

  “If it starts hurting, I promise I’ll jump away from you and stay here. Please, please. Just for a bit?”

  He gazed at her, then smiled and took her hand. “I suppose it’s probably safe. We’ve done enough practice runs today with no harm so far.”

  She leaped into the air in excitement, a leap lopsided as ever thanks to her weak leg, but she knew how to keep her balance on it. Hades sat upon the ground, and she climbed into his lap. He enfolded her in his arms and reminded her to keep very still. She breathed the scent of the herb garden and his warm skin, watching the house and its flickering oil lamps because she wanted to see them disappear.

  And soon they did. A small jolt, like an earthquake, rippled through her, and darkness fell as the house and village lights vanished. But the glow of the stars took over, and soon she saw her first one: the greenish streak of a ghost flying past. With a gasp of wonder she crawled out of Hades’ lap and began racing around, looking at the wild nighttime world.

  “Careful.” He caught her and drew her back to their starting point. “Remember all those large animals I talked about? They haven’t bothered me yet, but I don’t know what they’ll make of you. Possibly a meal.”

  She bounced in front of him. “Can we go to the Underworld?”

  “Of course not. It’s a two-day journey from here.”

  “But some day?”

  “Perhaps. If your mother allows it.”

  “I’ll ask her every day until she gives in.”

  He laughed. “I believe you. But let’s take you back now before she finds out.” He crouched, motioning her to climb onto his back. She scrambled on, clinging to his neck, and he wrapped both her little hands in one of his large palms. “Know what?” he told her. “I bet you’re the first mortal person ever to come here.”

  “What about the people who taught you to meditate? Didn’t they say they’d seen this place?”

  “Seen it. Sensed it. Never fully entered it like this, as far as I know.”

  Persephone wriggled into a more comfortable position against his back. “Then I want to be the first mortal person to visit the Underworld, too. Before I’m dead, I mean.”

  “Ideally long before then.” He squeezed her hands, and the world shifted, and there stood the house and its bright lights.

  And her shouting mother. Oh, dear.

  Chapter Eighteen

  DEMETER WAS NOT PLEASED AT Hades using her daughter as the latest experiment in realm-crossing, and told him so in a tirade of lashing words. He backed off at once, apologizing, promising not to do it again without Demeter’s consent. But Persephone was so excited, and begged so extensively to be allowed to do it again soon, that Demeter finally grumbled her forgiveness, and carted the girl back to bed.

  Persephone did enjoy a few more jaunts into the spirit world, carried by Hades or eventually by her own mother as the other immortals learned the realm-switching trick. Though it had taken Hades years of meditation to discover the method, it was easily taught to other immortals once he described the right sensation to reach for. Soon they could all do it as easily as snapping their fingers. Persephone listened avidly to the instructions too, and kept trying during her afternoon nap with her eyes squeezed shut. But her body stubbornly stayed put in the living world. It seemed nature barred mortals from the ability to cross over.

  And though Persephone asked time and again to be allowed a trip to the Underworld, no one ever organized the journey. Nearly all the immortals other than Hades seemed reluctant to go there, as if walking the fields of the dead was too unnatural, even for them.

  Hermes was the only one besides Hades who didn’t mind paying visits to the ghostly cave, and he frequently told Persephone about it when he returned. His stories of the gentle, glowing ghosts, the vastness of the cave, and the myriad tunnels that still lay unexplored made Persephone burn with interest to see it. But still Demeter put her off.

  But Hades himself looked troubled when he returned one day, a few months after his discovery of the Underworld. Again he called together the immortals who were home at the time. Persephone slipped in among them, sitting beside Demeter in the courtyard’s shade.

  “I found…the place of punishment,” he said. He glanced in concern at Persephone, as if not wishing to give nightmares to a child, but went on, “It’s a bit like Tartaros, in the old stories—a deep cave, where those who have killed or caused a great deal of harm have been tied up. And…they aren’t suffering bodily, but it’s dark and stuffy and lit only by flames, and…” He looked around at his friends’ alarmed faces. “Well, it’s the natural way of things, I suppose, but it felt horrible to be there. To know it really happens.”

  The others looked pale with alarm and fear. Some of them in particular, Persephone thought, looked deeply withdrawn and stayed silent. Perhaps they were thinking of all the cruel things they had ever done, the way she was. Would they be among the punished someday?

  “Hades,” Demeter said, “I can’t help believing it’s quite unnatural, a living person visiting there. Even an immortal. I say this as your friend.”

  “I don’t wish to go to those caves often, that’s certain,” he said. “But…what if they killed someone, and could tell us who, and we could tell the victim’s families what happened, in case they didn’t already know? Or, better still, what if I found some victims in the fields of the virtuous souls, and could help bring their murderers to justice in the living world?”

  To Persephone it sounded admirable and heroic, more like the deeds of the legendary gods than anything the other immortals had done so far. But her mother and aunts and uncles looked dubious.

  “It’s a noble thought,” said Athena, “but all the murders in the world? You’d never have time to track them all down.”

  “Of course not. But if I could make a difference for just one victim—one family—each day, or even each month, surely that’s worth trying?”

  The grown-ups debated it a long while, and soon led themselves into discussions of law and philosophy that Persephone couldn’t follow. She crawled off to feed the doves the household kept in large cages, her mind consumed by images of the Underworld, both its beautiful and its terrible caverns.

  Another day, a month later, Hades arrived with a cart of rocks that glinted and sparkled in various colors in the sunlight. At first Persephone didn’t realize what they were, but her aunts and uncles did.

  “Ah, what beauties!” said Hephaestus the blacksmith, crouching to dig his fingers into the rocks and lift up handfuls of them. “Where did you get them?”

  “The Underworld.” Hades shook the dust off his tunic. Ash or dirt marked his face and hands. “I was exploring, and found some caverns where gems completely cover the walls and floor. Silver and gold too—look.” He picked up a larger, chunkier rock and handed it to Hephaestus. When Hephaestus turned it round to examine it, Persephone saw the sun flash off the gold streaking through it.

  Hermes
scooped up a handful of rough gems. “Have I told you lately how much I like you, Hades?”

  “An amount equal to the value of those sapphires, I’m sure,” Hades said.

  “Now these make your cave worth something,” said Hera, plucking a green crystal from the mix and holding it up to the sky to view the light through it.

  “I brought back enough that you can make jewels for us all,” Hades told Hephaestus. “If you’re willing to take on the work, that is.”

  “I’d be delighted.” Hephaestus was already sorting rocks, setting them on the ground in piles. “These are fine specimens. What do you think? Belts? Rings?”

  Athena, watching from the shade of the porch, suggested, “Crowns.”

  “Agreed.” Zeus sauntered closer. “We’re immortals. Let us wear crowns.”

  Persephone slipped in between Hephaestus and Hermes to look closer at the gems in the cart. Quietly she picked up a purple crystal that appealed to her. She wasn’t immortal and therefore wouldn’t get a crown, but she could still admire the stones.

  “That one’s an amethyst.” Hades had bent down behind her. “You can keep it. Shall we make it a necklace for you?”

  When she nodded shyly, he added, “We’d make you a crown too, but the trouble is you’re still growing, and soon it would be too small for you. For now you can have a necklace. All right?”

  “Trying to woo my child with jewelry from the dead?” Demeter asked, walking up to them. She had been sitting near Athena, not joining the group around the cart until now.

  Hades tilted his head toward her in deference. “With your permission. In fact, Demeter, I was thinking, for you…” He flicked his hand through the gems, found a few, and plucked them out. “Look at the amber color of these—it’s almost like wheat. Since you’re our expert on crops and plants, I thought some of these, with a few of these emeralds for a touch of green…”

  “And some gold leaves,” Hephaestus suggested. “Or gold wheat sheaves. I could hammer out a few of those.” He picked the rocks out of Hades’ hand and arranged them on his own palm to show her. “Yes, that’d be lovely.”

  Demeter hesitated, taking in the sparkling jewels. “Well…”

  Aphrodite wandered up too, and draped her arm around Demeter’s shoulders. When Demeter glanced at her, Aphrodite lifted her eyebrows in encouragement.

  Demeter smiled. “Very well. You always do beautiful work, Hephaestus, and it wouldn’t be gracious of me to refuse.”

  “Quite right.” Aphrodite leaned over the cart, elbows on its edge, bosom nearly spilling out of her tunic. The attention of all the men, or so it seemed to Persephone, instantly transferred to Aunt Aphrodite. “Now, which would look best on me?”

  LESS THAN A year after Hades discovered the Underworld, he moved house to live there, underground with the souls.

  “There’s so much to be learned and done,” he explained to the group. “The few souls I can talk to sometimes have unfinished business I can help with. And the rest—well, I can learn their language. They say there’s a common tongue they all speak, and I can study it if I live there.”

  “But it’s so morbid,” said Hera with a shudder. “Living in a cave, with ghosts.”

  “It’s what I wish to do. I’ll still meet the rest of you as often as I can, and tell you what I’ve learned.”

  The group began drifting apart as the other immortals also sought places where they could address their special interests. Poseidon, originally a fisherman and boat-builder, wanted to live on the sea coast rather than along the narrow gulf, and took his wife and daughters there. Athena was interested in the evolving forms of government being tried out in cities, and took up residence in the largest city in Greece. Aphrodite found a private island where she could indulge her interests with any companions she wished to bring home. Hermes kept roaming, unattached, turning up wherever and whenever he felt like it. Zeus and Hera stayed put, acting as the god and goddess of the region, the house becoming something like a temple or palace for supplicants.

  Demeter took Persephone and moved south to a village on the Himeros River, in a region where the people’s livelihood came from growing olives, grapes, and other crops. Demeter had been born into a farming family, and had always been adept at tending gardens and orchards. Now she taught Persephone the same skills, while assisting the local farmers with their crops and livestock.

  When Persephone was twelve, she began growing anxious over the realization that she may need to marry soon. None of the boys and men she knew so far seemed quite good enough to merit leaving her mother for. “When am I supposed to marry?” she finally asked Demeter.

  “If you wish, you never have to,” her mother said. “You have a comfortable, healthy life here, and I can always protect you.”

  “And I’ll learn things only the immortals know,” Persephone said, relieved. “Like the secrets of the Underworld. It isn’t far from here, is it?”

  “It isn’t, but we needn’t go there. It’s unnatural for the living to visit.”

  “But there are such wonders—like the pomegranate that made Hades learn the language of the dead overnight, and lots of other languages besides.”

  Demeter snorted. “Just one example of why I doubt his sanity lately.”

  “Hermes ate it too. He says it works. He remembers the languages and everything.”

  When Persephone had asked Hermes what he was like in his other lives, he had said, “A scoundrel, always. But this is the first time I’ve been immortal, so this is the only life I feel inclined to pay attention to. I’ll leave the soul-searching to Hades.”

  “Hermes,” Demeter pointed out now, “will try, and say, anything.”

  “What about the horses? You have to admit those are a wonder. Useful too.”

  “I use them when I must, but it makes me nervous to bring you along. It’s only a matter of time before someone crashes into a mountain and gets their mortal companion killed.”

  After a couple of years living among the spirits, Hades had happened upon a combination of plants from the Underworld that, when woven together, fastened instantly to souls. Realizing there were ghost horses roaming the fields, animals accustomed to pulling chariots or being ridden by humans, he wove a harness and gained a new mode of incredibly fast transportation.

  The spirit horses never tired, never needed feeding, and went wherever you wanted—though if left to their devices, they would point themselves to the Underworld. Within the year, all the immortals kept and used spirit horses to get around, even Demeter. But she drew the line at letting them carry Persephone to the Underworld itself.

  “Look, if the Underworld were so horrible,” the girl persisted, “it wouldn’t have given us anything so good, and I’m sure Hades wouldn’t live there. I just want to see it.”

  “Stop asking. The very idea gives me chills.”

  Her voice was sharp enough that Persephone did, in fact, stop asking, for many years. Nor did she see her uncle Hades much at all. Those gatherings of the immortals happened infrequently, and usually some of the invited guests were too busy to attend.

  She kept the necklace Hephaestus had made for her, and wore it nearly every day. He had polished the amethyst and set it into a nest of gold and silver petals so that it looked like a violet, and hung it on a leather cord wrapped with threads of gold. She supposed it should be Hephaestus she thought of when she looked at the beautiful object, but whenever she closed her hand around the cool stone flower, she thought instead of the magical place it had come from, and wondered what Hades was doing and discovering there lately.

  Violets were her favorite flowers. She no longer remembered whether they always had been—perhaps that was why Hephaestus chose that shape for her?—or whether she now liked them because of the necklace.

  When she was sixteen, she accompanied Demeter to a spring equinox feast in Aphrodite’s palatial home on the island.

  Looking around the airy room, all pillars and flower arrangements, Persephone examin
ed the people she had been accustomed to view as her aunts and uncles. Today, having not seen many of them for months or years, it struck her that they all looked younger than she remembered, and quite lovely.

  Her gaze landed upon a young man across the room in a dark purple cloak, his beard clipped short, his curly black hair braided back and adorned with a wreath of ivy—much less showy than the bright spring flowers Persephone and the others wore in honor of the equinox. He stood apart from the others, squinting against the bright sun as he gazed out the window at the sea.

  Soon he turned his head and noticed her. The brooding expression on his face evaporated as he regarded her, an appreciative smile taking its place. Truly, he was quite beautiful. They gazed at each other a moment longer than was proper. A pleasant flutter danced in Persephone’s belly. Was he an immortal? Gold did seem to glint beneath the ivy, as if the vines were twined around one of the gods’ crowns.

  Then she recognized him. Hades.

  She dropped her gaze, the recognition giving her a shock that radiated out to her fingertips.

  Well, he wasn’t really her uncle, so it wasn’t incestuous to have admired him. Still, he might not agree, and her mother certainly wouldn’t approve. Persephone kept her eyes averted, and let Demeter lead her to Aphrodite for a welcome hug.

  The goddess of love, as she was already being called, was scented divinely with oils and flowers, with a few blossoms tucked between her breasts, just above the line of her tunic. She engaged Persephone in a conversation about local youths that made them both laugh immoderately. But Persephone kept stealing glances at Hades. What was it like to live in the Underworld? When could she pull him aside and ask him? Better yet, when could she visit?

  Hades, conversing with Hermes, glanced at her a few times too. Each time, she felt her heart beat faster. Burying her nose in the cup of wine Aphrodite handed her, she began thinking up what to say in greeting to him, what kind of question might hold his interest.

  She would have asked him about the Underworld even if he had still seemed to be her mature old uncle. But already her fascination with that realm was colliding and mingling with the fact that she had found him beautiful today. And she knew it was going to be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to regard him as her uncle ever again.