Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories)

by Ringle, Molly

  Yeah, he texted, that is one of the perks.

  Okay, I’ve decided. Sign me up.

  Ha. Why not think about it a little longer. Anything you want me to fetch you in the meantime?

  No thanks. I’ll take it easy today and soak up some Persephone as therapy.

  Do that. Feel better soon. xo.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  PERSEPHONE DIDN’T SEE HADES AGAIN for over a month. Their next meeting was at a feast at the autumn equinox, at Zeus and Hera’s palace. Demeter and Persephone both attended. By that point Persephone had gained enough poise from her tutoring sessions with Aphrodite that she was able to greet Hades with a cool smile. Still, her heart pounded, reminding her full well that her crushed pride had not recovered.

  “Hello, Hades.”

  “Persephone.” His smile was cordial as well, though his gaze soon slipped away from hers.

  “How is the Underworld? I’ve been meaning to visit, to see my plants.”

  “It’s fine. They’re doing well. One in particular of your fruit trees has grown quite tall.”

  “Good. I’ll be curious to hear what it does.”

  His glance moved to Aphrodite, who stood across the room with her arm around the waist of her guest—Adonis. “And how are your new lessons?”

  “Quite interesting.”

  “Dare I ask what she has you doing?”

  “We’ve only lately begun any ‘doing.’ Before that it was mostly explanation—things like anatomy, and the way everything should work, and how to practice independently so I can be ready when it’s time.” There, she thought. Try not to think about that, I challenge you.

  It seemed to work. He took a few moments to answer, rotating his wine cup in his hands and frowning at it. “When it’s ‘time’?” he echoed.

  “She says by the spring equinox I should be fully educated. She promises I can find a husband at the festival there, after she’s done with me.” Would that spark any jealousy from him, any at all?

  He only peered at Adonis and looked away. “Meanwhile I suppose that lad has something to do with the practicing and the anatomy lessons.”

  “Yes.” She laughed, an imitation of Aphrodite’s carefree laughter. “I suppose the gossip is everywhere. Adonis does come to our sessions. He adores her, but she makes him no promises, and chances are he’ll have to marry soon too. He’s quite well born. His father owns a huge swath of vineyards, and they make the best wine in the world.”

  “Hm. Well, do take care to watch out for diseases.”

  “Don’t worry. Aphrodite’s teaching me about those too.”

  Zeus strolled to them, embraced each of them in greeting, then led Hades away to show him the latest building improvements added to the palace.

  Persephone spent as much of the evening as she could with Adonis and Aphrodite, flirting and laughing. When she dared look at Hades, she often caught him watching her, looking preoccupied. They said goodnight to one another at the evening’s end with exactly the same kiss on the cheek and farewell that they gave everyone else.

  Through the winter Persephone kept expanding her anatomy horizons with Aphrodite and Adonis, and tending to the home and garden where she lived with Demeter. And in secret she kept aching for the immortal man in the Underworld.

  Finally one day Aphrodite divined the problem.

  Hades had been at Aphrodite’s house, just leaving when Persephone arrived. They exchanged startled glances, outside in the winter sun. He was wrapped in his wool cloak, lately adorned with embroidery of gold and rubies at the hem. He had cut his hair to chin length, so it fell loose in its curls rather than being tied back in braids and twine as it used to be. He looked magnificent. Persephone glanced at the door, where Aphrodite leaned against the frame and waved, looking a bit rumpled.

  Hades and Persephone exchanged greetings, then Adonis came strolling up the road, and Hades made his farewells and escaped into the spirit realm.

  Persephone endured the lesson in a whirl of distraction and envy. At the end of it, Aphrodite sent Adonis out, kissing him and saying she needed some woman-only talk with Persephone.

  “He’d have been jealous,” Aphrodite confided after Adonis left. She leaned toward Persephone, adjusting the cushion she sat upon. “All that time down in the Underworld, did you and Hades…?” She tilted her face in curiosity. The jewels on her necklace winked in the sunlight from the window, as if they were listening too.

  Persephone shook her head. “Nothing at all.”

  “You both seemed shaken to see each other here, right after he’d been—well, you understand. And darling, you must know that even if Hades comes to me occasionally, there is no reason on Earth for you or any other woman to be jealous.”

  At that, Persephone had to laugh, somewhat hopelessly. “We’re all jealous of you, Aphrodite. We can’t help it.”

  Aphrodite pushed at Persephone’s knee with affection. “But you don’t have to be! Especially with Hades. He hadn’t visited me for years until today. And it’s only a service between friends, since the poor immortal men can’t be quite as free with the mortal women.”

  “I know.” Persephone lifted her hand to her face, fingertips tracing the bumps of the scar that ran up her cheek and into her hair. “Which is why it was useless, even if I did have a bit of a crush on him.”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘useless.’ There are precautions you can take, if you wish to avoid pregnancy. Even with an immortal lover.”

  “The herbs don’t always work. Demeter and I grow some to make the tea for women in the village, and it isn’t foolproof.”

  Aphrodite rested her elbow on a higher pillow, and leaned her head on her hand, squinting at Persephone. “Tell me what you put in it.”

  Persephone reeled off the ingredients.

  Aphrodite waved the recipe away. “No need for all that. Just use cloudhair flowers from the spirit realm. Seeds only. It does have to be from the spirit realm, mind you, but if it is, it works every time.”

  “But does the woman have to be in the spirit realm for it to work?”

  “Not at all. I’ve stored the seeds for over a year in this realm and it’s still worked for myself and everyone else. You eat a small handful of them right after sex. I suggest chewing mint along with the cloudhair seeds, though, because they taste awful, and make you feel sick if you eat them by themselves.”

  “All right. I’ll tell Mother. We’ll improve the lot of the local women.”

  Aphrodite smiled. “And your own lot, should you wish to seduce Hades after all.”

  Persephone’s face went hot, and she adjusted the jeweled belt she had taken to wearing, in Aphrodite’s style. “Oh, he isn’t interested.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I would guess quite the opposite, the way his eyes follow you every time I see you together. And the way he oh-so-casually asked about you today.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes. I daresay that’s the main reason he came here: to get news of you. The rest was just consolation.”

  Hope and despair fought for predominance. “But Mother spoke to him, and he said he wasn’t interested.”

  “Darling. Isn’t it possible he said that to avoid alarming your mother? Or even that she bent his words a bit, when speaking to you later, in order to kill your affections quickly and humanely?”

  Persephone had dared to hope such things, but… “It doesn’t matter,” she lamented. “Even if we were lovers, we couldn’t have children, and I’ll still age when he won’t. I’m already eighteen. I need to marry someone else. Someone mortal.” She ended sounding so wretched that Aphrodite stayed quiet a while in thought.

  “Love is cruel, crueler than sex. But give it a chance when it might make you happy, for if you turn your back on it, you’ll regret it forever.”

  Persephone regarded her with a new reverence. She knew of Aphrodite’s wisdom when it came to matters of the body, but her solemn look and well thought-out words made her realize that Aphrodite truly merited the t
itle “goddess of love.” And for the first time, Persephone wondered what Aphrodite had suffered in past years to make her so familiar with the cruelty of a broken heart. Perhaps someday she would ask. Still…

  Persephone shook her head. “I’m mortal. I need to accept it. I’m lucky even to know such people as you and him. I should be content with that.”

  HADES KNEW PERSEPHONE had to marry someone else. And he hated it. But what could he do?

  At best he could hope she might take him as a lover on the side someday. But even among the rather liberal Greeks, who worshiped Aphrodite more fervently every year, an extramarital affair carried a whiff of disgrace for a woman, and disgrace was the last thing he wished to bring upon Persephone. He would have made her his queen. In an instant. If only she wished it.

  Why had she been so cruel? She knew he wanted her, so why would she flaunt her amatory lessons with Aphrodite and that young brainless sprig? It angered and confused him, but he went on loving her all the same.

  He kept making his trips to the mortal world to deliver justice for the souls, at least in Greece and nearby countries, where he could communicate with the people. More and more people recognized him lately, and bowed to him in reverence or fear—sometimes hitting the ground completely like supplicants before the great Goddess. Given that the justice he delivered was frequently in the form of dragging a murderer before the local courts, which often enough led to public execution, he supposed he understood the fear. Besides, the rumors of Tartaros, which was what people had taken to calling the hell-like caves beneath the fields, had spread and become embellished until the stories were even worse than the reality. Some citizens avoided speaking Hades’ name, he was told by his fellow immortals, because they thought it might invoke him to appear, kill them on the spot, and drag them beneath the earth. As if such a thing could ever happen.

  But he couldn’t laugh it off. Hearing himself called “the god of death” dismayed him. What woman would want to marry the god of death? He tried to spread it around that he was actually just the king of the dead, but people rarely grasped the distinction.

  On one of his errands, less than a month after running into Persephone at Aphrodite’s house, he encountered a skinny dog, limp and trembling, lying beneath a tree. It was a male, with a sleek tan coat and dark brown ears that folded back fondly as Hades knelt to examine him. The dog’s curly tail, showing a fluff of white fur, thumped the dusty ground. A large patch of hair was missing on his neck, where the skin was marred with deep, inflamed wounds.

  “Poor fellow.” Hades stroked the soft ears. “Looks like you got in a fight with someone much bigger than you. I expect I’ll see you in the Underworld soon if no one takes care of you.”

  He looked around, but found only farmlands and a few houses. He carried the dog to each door, but the inhabitants shrugged and said they’d never seen him before. Finally, unable to leave him, Hades brought him to the Underworld.

  “Persephone had a few plants that helped with infection,” he told the animal as he carried him into the orchard. “Let’s see if I can do it right.”

  He must have chosen the right leaves to wrap around the wound, for soon the dog perked up and began eating better and walking around, though with a limp. Somewhat whimsically, Hades named him Kerberos, after a fearful dog-like monster that was supposed to guard the gates of the dead, in the stories the Greeks told. Hades kept Kerberos with him nearly all the time. It eased his loneliness.

  Hermes visited him in the Underworld a few days before the spring equinox festival, cajoling Hades to come to it.

  Hades wandered across the fields with him, Kerberos limping along at his side. “No one wants the god of death at their fertility festival.”

  “Sure they do. I’ve heard plenty of girls sighing over your tasty darkness.”

  “Tasty darkness. Really.”

  “You wouldn’t think they’d want the god of thievery and mischief at their festival either, but I’ve received a lot of invitations.” Since Hades made no reply, Hermes added, “Look, just because Persephone’s likely to be married to Adonis by the end of that day is no reason for you to stay down here and mope.”

  Hades flinched. “Is it settled, then?”

  “Oh, nothing’s ever settled about these festivals. But everyone expects that’s how it’ll go. They both ought to marry soon if they’re ever going to. They know each other and get along…it would work. It doesn’t mean you’re out of the picture, though.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Not when she obviously prefers you.”

  “She doesn’t. Demeter came to me and said Persephone didn’t want me, and wished to stay away from now on.”

  “Oh, Demeter said?” Hermes snorted. “Demeter, who’s never wanted Persephone anywhere near you, who would say anything to keep her daughter above ground and out of the hands of an immortal man? You never guessed she might have been…what’s the nice way to say this…lying?”

  The hope that spiraled up in Hades’ heart was the cruelest emotion yet. “It still couldn’t work,” he snapped. “I couldn’t give her children, not without endangering her.”

  “Adopt some. She wouldn’t mind.”

  “She’s mortal. She’ll age. There are other dangers, other problems…just, no. It’s better we stay apart.”

  “Oh, yes.” Derision seeped from Hermes’ voice. “You only have a certain number of years you can be together. Much better you don’t use them.”

  “You must have other people to irritate today. Don’t let me keep you.” Hades strode ahead, leaving Hermes to find his own way out.

  Making matters worse, that night Kerberos came down with a fever again, and the redness and inflammation returned to his neck wound, which reopened with an alarming amount of bleeding after the dog scratched at it too deeply with his hind claws. Hades located a different type of leaf that Persephone had discovered was good at stopping bleeding, and it did work for that. But nothing seemed to work in fighting the infection and fever this time. In grief, Hades carried Kerberos around the orchard, looking at the plants in hopes of a new treatment.

  “I’m sorry, boy,” he told the dog. “I don’t know which to try. I don’t know a thing without her.”

  He felt pathetic. Hugging a dying dog among a bunch of fruit trees in the land of the dead, ready to collapse weeping like a child. Hades sank to the ground and sat beside the row of the newest trees, cradling Kerberos in his lap. He wiped a tear off his face while the dog wriggled, trying to sniff one of the trees.

  Hades moved him closer to let him smell what interested him. “What, you like those?” Kerberos licked a fruit that had recently ripened. The little tree had grown from one of Persephone’s saplings, and had just produced its first fruits—only two of them. Hades knew from his memories that they were oranges, and that they came from Asia.

  “Dogs don’t eat fruit, you fool. But I suppose you can try if you want.” Hades picked the orange and tore off a scrap of the peel. Its sweet fragrance filled the air. As he uncovered the flesh, he found it the strangest color: blue like the midday sky. “Well, that’s different.” Detaching a wedge of the blue fruit, he ate a bite himself, and found nothing amiss with it. He held out the rest of the wedge on his palm.

  Kerberos gobbled it up, his muzzle and whiskers tickling Hades’ hand. After swallowing it, he licked Hades’ arm, then curled up in his lap and lay there shivering.

  Hades petted him sadly. “Yes. Sleep a while. We’ll see how you feel later.”

  He carried the dog across the river on the raft, and through the tunnels to his own bedchamber.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  IT WASN’T IDEAL, SOPHIE THOUGHT as she let her mother in, to see your parent at a time when you were obsessed with a memory in which your parent had messed up your love life.

  Just to confuse her, of course, Demeter was now her father, not her mother. But her current mother was still causing problems in relationships—not Sophie’s, at least, but the one between
herself and Sophie’s dad, which was almost as upsetting.

  “Hi, Mom.” She hugged her, smelling her perfume and feeling the coolness of her raincoat.

  “Hey, sweetie. It’s so good to see you.” Her mom hugged her an extra few seconds, then looked anxiously at her face. “Still feeling sick?”

  Sophie sniffled, and nodded. “Sore throat started yesterday. Now I have a stuffy nose on top of it.”

  Her mom laid her hand on Sophie’s forehead. “Yeah, you’re a little warm. Well, that’s why I came bearing soup. We’ll skip going out, and eat in your room.”

  It almost shamed Sophie how readily and comfortably she submitted to her mother, letting herself be taken care of as if she were a kid. But, hey, Mom knew how to do this. She urged Sophie to sit on the bed with a blanket on her lap and pillows behind her back, served her a bowl of soup brought in a carton from a restaurant nearby, and brewed mugs of herbal tea with the electric kettle Sophie kept in the room.

  Even Melissa, who was still healthy, found herself given tea and homemade cookies when she returned from class. She obediently sat and ate while Sophie’s mom drew her into the conversation.

  The talk was all about home, putting the little town of Carnation and the gray Washington skies foremost into Sophie’s mind again. Her dad was manning the fruit stand today, with help from a hired high school kid, and since it was October they had shipments of pumpkins to unload and arrange. Sophie had assisted with the task so many times she could almost feel the bristly stems in her hands as she listened. She ached to be home again, where things were simpler and no one wanted to hurt her. Adrian and ancient Greece seemed surreal, impossible, for the time being.

  But then, perhaps home wasn’t so much simpler. When Melissa left for her next class, Sophie finally found the strength to ask her mother for the truth.

  Gazing at the honey-thickened inch of tea at the bottom of her mug, she asked, “Are you and Dad getting a divorce?”

  Rather than act shocked, amused, or angry, her mother stayed quiet a few seconds, then set her own mug on the desk. “No. But you must have seen or guessed something that makes you wonder.”