Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories)

by Ringle, Molly

  Chapter Nineteen

  GRRR, SAID THE TEXT FROM Sophie. I’d just gotten to us meeting at Aphrodite’s house when I was 16, then my alarm went off. Where’d the night go? I want back in!

  Adrian grinned. He had drifted off to sleep in his bed in the Airstream, but the buzz of her text message awakened him. The rising sun filtered through the window blinds. His breath made clouds in the air, as did Kiri’s as she slept on her dog bed. He rolled onto his elbow and thumbed in a reply.

  Now that you’re there, you can remember it awake.

  Yes, but that’s very distracting and I have classes. Argh, I’m going to be thinking about it anyway.

  I was just in those early days too, he answered. The next bit is like a romancey chick flick. And don’t tell anyone, but I totally love it.

  Everyone loves their OWN romancey chick flick. Even boys. OK, getting ready for class.

  Update me often. This is fun.

  I will. Bye.

  Adrian settled onto his back, smiling. He lay in dog-scented chilly air inside a caravan, and would have to sneak into the living world again soon because he had nothing to eat for breakfast except some stale granola and a bruised apple, but happiness enfolded him. Us, she called Persephone and Hades. She craved more of their story. She was a part of it now.

  Watching the dim orange sunlight spread onto the curved ceiling, he let his mind return to Aphrodite’s house on that balmy spring afternoon.

  THE GIRL ACROSS the room had dark brown hair, braided at the sides and tumbling loose down her back. A crown of purple and white flowers rested on her head, with similar blossoms tucked into the woven belt that gathered her gown around her waist. She might have been anywhere between fifteen and twenty. And that face…Hades stopped moving as he took it in. Full lips, sweet eyes, long graceful brows, smooth skin. Though she stood beside voluptuous Aphrodite and radiant Demeter, she outshone them both.

  Hermes wandered near him, and Hades tugged on his cloak to get his attention. “Did we find another immortal?”

  “Where?” Hermes followed Hades’ gaze. “Her? No, you old fool, that’s Persephone.”

  “That’s Persephone?” He stared in amazement, trying to reconcile this goddess-like individual with the scrappy little girl who had crawled into his lap to visit the spirit realm. “What—how many years—”

  “She’s sixteen. I suppose you haven’t kept in touch, being busy down there with your dead people.”

  “No. I suppose I haven’t.”

  The young woman moved then, walking with Aphrodite, and Hades detected the limp she’d retained from her injury in the earthquake as a child. And when she turned to glance the other way, he noticed the scar marking the side of her face. None of it detracted from her beauty in the slightest. It only caused him a twinge at the reminder of her mortality.

  “Got quite fetching, hasn’t she?” Hermes sipped his wine, watching her. “Believe me, I’ve noticed. After all, we’re not really her uncles.”

  Hades blinked at him. “You haven’t…” He glanced again in alarm at Persephone.

  Hermes snorted. “No. Demeter would castrate me and feed my balls to a pig.” He paused to frown in thought. “Wonder if they’d grow back? Well, I certainly don’t want to try it. Regardless, our Persephone is of marriageable age. So, fair game, I would say, if you want to give it a go.” He elbowed Hades.

  “Enough, shut up.”

  But it was only a few minutes before Persephone drifted close enough that he could turn and greet her. “Persephone.”

  “Hello, Hades.”

  He took the hand she held out, and kissed it, as he would for any grown female friend. “It’s been a long time. You’ve changed.”

  “So have you.”

  “Have I? That isn’t supposed to happen.”

  She laughed. “You haven’t really changed, I suppose. But you seemed older when I was a little girl.” She gestured around to indicate the others in the room. “All of you look quite young to me nowadays.”

  “Ah. Then thank you. So aren’t you and Demeter living in the south, same as me?”

  “Yes. Along the Himeros. But above ground, unlike you.”

  “I’ll have to come visit.”

  “You’d be welcome. I also wish to visit you, if I may.” She looked over her shoulder at Demeter, who was in conversation with Artemis several paces away. “Mother still doesn’t like the idea. But I think the Underworld sounds fascinating.”

  “Come anytime, if she can spare you. I’ll show you around.”

  “I hear you even have furniture down there.”

  “Yes, I’ve got a very comfortable set of chambers.”

  “Do ghosts wander through them at all hours?” she asked.

  “No, they stay in the fields.”

  Persephone sipped her wine. “Hermes told me of the pomegranate that grows there. Mother doubts the story. She thinks it only makes people see and believe things that aren’t real, the way nightshade does for the priestesses.”

  “Oh, it’s a much clearer-minded and less dangerous experience than nightshade. I’ve brought some of my mortal meditation experts there to partake, and none of them came to any harm. We all believe the memories are real.”

  “How amazing. I’d love to know who I used to be.”

  “So far none of my past lives have contained anything as momentous as immortality, but they have made me recover all the languages I used to know. That’s the main way we can tell it isn’t a hallucination.”

  “Knowing all those languages would be extraordinary. I wonder why Mother says she wouldn’t touch the pomegranates?”

  He glanced across the room at Demeter, who met his gaze with a cool nod. “Demeter has strong opinions about what is natural for a living creature, and generally it doesn’t involve anything to do with the land of death.”

  “So I’ve noticed. Still, she doesn’t mind using those horses to dash around.” Persephone smiled. “All right, she’s beckoning to me. Perhaps we can talk later.”

  “I hope so.”

  Persephone slid a violet loose from her belt, and slipped its stem into the chain securing Hades’ cloak. “Come see me two days from now. I’ll give you some of our vegetables, and you can tell me more about your caves. Hermes knows the way.”

  “Fine. I’ll see you both then.”

  She was only curious and brave, the way young people always were, he told himself. Probably the appeal would diminish along with the novelty, after he’d explained the major points of the Underworld to her. Besides, Persephone was mortal, so he couldn’t court her even if she encouraged it—especially not with Demeter in residence.

  Still, as he made the rounds and talked to his friends, his spirit bobbed pleasantly and his mind already planned the things he would say when he arrived at her house.

  TWO DAYS LATER, Hermes climbed into the chariot with Hades in the Underworld, took the reins, and guided the horses up into the bright sunlight and over the land. He slowed to point out landmarks by which Hades could, in future, navigate to Demeter and Persephone’s village. Between instructions, he hummed a naughty song about a boy trying to bed a girl, a tune he had made up himself and taught to drunken people all over Greece. Hades finally had to kick him to make him shut up.

  They landed beside a bend in the river, coasting to a stop on a large flat rock. Next to them loomed a forest. Huge rabbits and spiral-horned deer bounded away, disappearing in the undergrowth. Hades and Hermes tied up the chariot and switched into the living world. The wild forest transformed into a tidy orchard of pear and pomegranate trees, their green leaves shining in the sun.

  A stone house stood near, small but charming. Its herb and vegetable gardens overflowed with plants. Flowers and bushes grew in pots all around—beside the door, hanging from the eaves, and sitting upon the gently sloped roof. Sheep and goats bleated from a pen behind the house.

  Hades walked with Hermes up the dirt path. From the house wafted the scents of apples, wood smoke, and a
savory stew being cooked.

  Before they could knock, Persephone came around the corner, her arms around a basket of vegetables.

  Hermes and Hades nearly bowled each other over in jumping forward to take it from her.

  “I’ve got it,” Hermes said, while Hades said at the same time, “May I take this for you?”

  She laughed, relinquishing the basket, and watching as Hades finally wrested it free from Hermes. “It’s for you, actually, Hades. And you needn’t worry. I carry such things all day.”

  She was less glamorously attired than she’d been for the equinox feast. Her hair was twisted into a knot and gathered back in a small net, and her gown was a weathered plain white wool with a grass stain at the knee. Still, she had a pair of violets tucked behind her ear, and with that face she couldn’t possibly, in Hades’ eyes, look less than divine.

  He cradled the basket of vegetables in one arm. “Thank you very much. Where’s Demeter?”

  She folded her hands behind her back. “Off to help with a birth. There’s a woman on the other side of the hills who’s expecting twins, and arranged for my mother to attend her. She won’t be back for a few days yet.”

  Hermes turned to him with eyebrows arched. “Well, I really must be going. You two have fun.”

  Hades managed not to glare at him. “Don’t you need a ride somewhere?”

  “We brought my horse, remember? I’ll detach it from the team and be off.” Hermes kissed Persephone on the cheek, his arm around her waist rather tighter than Hades thought necessary, then he turned and kissed Hades on the mouth. “Be good. Or not.” Smiling, the trickster stepped into the other realm, leaving only a gust of wind swirling to fill the space where he’d been.

  Persephone gazed wistfully at the spot. “I’d love to be able to do that.”

  “Perhaps someday we’ll discover a way.”

  “I hope. Well, shall I show you around?”

  She acted so natural about being there alone with him that he relaxed, forgetting Demeter and her possible disapproval. After all, as Hermes had rightly stated, Persephone was a grown woman, one who could have been married by now if she wished. (Did she not wish it, then? Hades couldn’t help wondering.)

  She showed him around the orchards and gardens, pointing out new plants they’d acquired from markets near the docks. Crouching, she touched a branch on a potted tree no higher than their thighs. Its leaves were glossy dark green and smooth-edged, and its flowers white and fragrant. “This one came from Asia. The man who sold it to me said it grows ‘golden apples,’ but clearly it isn’t an apple tree. Those were just the closest words he could think of in our language. I can’t wait to taste the fruit.”

  “Looks like it’s thriving. You’re excellent with these plants. I only know a few crops, the ones we grew on Crete. And, I suppose, the ones I remember from other lives, elsewhere.”

  “I’m sure the souls in the Underworld could tell us about lots of crops. What they use different plants for in their country, what to call them…”

  “Indeed. You should come talk to them.” The invitation was out of his mouth before he realized it.

  She rose to her feet, beaming. “Agreed. Let’s go.”

  “Hah. Your mother would sense you suddenly heading southwest, wouldn’t she?”

  “Only if she thought about it. Isn’t that how it works?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “And haven’t I heard that the hillside containing your cave is thick with oaks? So she wouldn’t be able to track my whereabouts once I was there.”

  “True.” He studied her not-quite-innocent smile. “I’m beginning to think you invited me here today because you knew Demeter would be gone.”

  She turned to the arbor beside her, curling a vine of a climbing flower around her finger. “Let’s say I wanted to avoid an argument about it. The truth, whether she likes it or not, is that I’m an adult and can go where I wish. She wants to protect me, but she overdoes it. If I could switch realms, I’d visit the Underworld myself on a day like today, when she’s not here. But I can’t.”

  “I’d love to take you. It’s only, she’s my friend, and if she felt I’d betrayed her…” He thought of Hermes’ suggestion involving pigs, and shivered.

  “You talk as if she’d find out.” Now looking fully as mischievous as Hermes ever did, Persephone pulled Hades’ arm around her shoulders. Holding onto it with both of her cool hands, she stepped up close against him. “Come on, take me.”

  As if he could resist her, of all people, saying that.

  “Gracious, woman, all right.” Balancing the basket of vegetables in one arm and Persephone in the other, he swept them into the spirit world.

  Chapter Twenty

  SOPHIE STARED AT HER LAPTOP in Communications—her least favorite class so far, taken only because it was required for practically all students—and watched the cursor blink while she failed to take notes. The professor lectured on, his voice a background drone, and she knew she’d better start paying attention or she was going to have to do an extra hour of remedial textbook reading to figure out what he said. But the more dominant part of her mind danced and whirled in the Elysian Fields—did they call them that back then? No; the name was added in mythology later.

  Communications couldn’t possibly compare with this, with Persephone discovering the land where all the dead of the world converged and shared their knowledge and their bittersweet memories, their glow lighting the plants and trees, all of which contained magic that had lain inaccessible and forgotten for centuries…

  PERSEPHONE DREW HER eager steps up short when she first saw all the souls. These were real departed people and pets. Would her beloved cat who died five years ago be here? Or the man from the village who died last week, whom Demeter and Persephone helped care for in his final illness?

  She leaned closer to Hades both for support and warmth—the cave was chillier than the warm spring air above ground—and felt comforted when he hooked his hand around her elbow.

  “One of the first souls I found down here was my wife,” he said. “I asked the crowd if they knew of her, and they spread the word among themselves and brought her to me.”

  She now remembered hearing that Hades had been married, long ago, before offering himself up as the sacrifice at Knossos. Yes, that was why he volunteered, she supposed—he lost his wife and felt he had nothing to live for. “How old was she when she died?”

  “Sixteen. I was the same age at the time.”

  The same age Persephone was now. She shivered. “How sad.”

  “By the time I discovered this place, however, I was—let’s see—forty-five. It had been a long time, so it wasn’t as painful as it might have been. And by then she had her parents to keep her company.”

  Forty-five when he discovered the Underworld. Persephone had been eight at the time, so now he was perhaps fifty-three, not that he looked it. Was that already too old for him to be interested in someone young like her, or did age not really matter for the immortals?

  Hades added, “Our infant son, though, who died with her…” His voice went quieter, and Persephone’s heart ached. She had utterly forgotten there was a baby who died too. “My wife had let him return to the living to be reborn, not long after they died. He was so young, he’d had no real life at all. It seemed only fair to give him one.”

  In the face of such grown-up concerns, she felt hopelessly young and useless. She wished she could at least find the courage to stroke his hand or face, the way Aphrodite or another self-assured woman could. “He’s probably someone very smart and happy now,” she said, hoping that might help.

  He smiled, looking more thoughtful than sad. “I like to imagine so. Since he’s of my blood, I could track him if I like, but…well, I never knew him really, and he has other family now. I’ve chosen to let him be. Ah—you were after the plants? Look at these.” He led her to a vale between hills, where flowers carpeted the ground.

  She knelt to examine them. “Violet
s, only they’re red! And narcissus that are purple.” She sniffed them, finding the scent was sweet as she expected from those flowers, but with the dank smell of cave rocks beneath it. “You never see these colors in the living world, not on these flowers. May I pick some?”

  “Of course.”

  She stood with her handful of flowers. “And the pomegranates? Where do they grow?”

  “The grove’s this way.” It was a long walk, especially since she couldn’t move as fast as he could, but they filled the time with her many questions and his answers. Finally the path brought them beneath the boughs of a forest so dark and thick she could only see as far as ten or twelve tree trunks in any direction, and nothing above but branches. The souls seemed to avoid the grove; she only spotted one or two wandering through it, and without their glowing light it was especially dark within.

  “These aren’t pomegranates.” She studied leaves and bark as they walked over the crackling dry leaves and bumpy roots. “They’re all kinds of trees.”

  “Yes—those willows are part of what we use to harness the horses. We braid them together with—”

  “Ivy,” she filled in. “I’ve examined the ropes.”

  “Very good. Ivy. Some of the tree trunks are covered with it.”

  “Ah. That’s a pomegranate.” She stepped off the path, reaching for one of the fruits above her head.

  “Whoa.” His hand closed around hers, stopping her before she picked it. “Do you want Demeter to know you’ve been here?”

  She let her hand drop, with a pout. “If I eat the pomegranate, you’ll tell her?”

  “No, if you eat the pomegranate, she’ll know, because you’ll never act the same again. It’s impossible, with the memories flooding your mind. Think it over. Don’t do it on your very first visit.”

  She grimaced. Then, after a pause, she lifted her eyebrow. “You mean I can have more visits?”