by Molly Ringle
“I’m traveling in the living realm, with them,” he said. “Hermes has agreed to bring my horse to the next festival. I’m without her a few days.”
Facing him, Aphrodite laced her fingers into his other hand as well, and held out their arms at both sides to draw their bodies closer together. “Then you didn’t intend to take a ride? I can’t imagine what you did intend.”
Dionysos wound his arm around her, lifted her up, and maneuvered her legs around his waist. She laughed in delight. He knew he was showing off, displaying the immortal strength she’d never witnessed in him before. He’d been able to carry her when he was mortal, but not this easily, especially not with just one hand.
Apparently she liked it. “It’s wonderful to see you this way.” She ran her palm down his jaw. “Strong and bearded and followed by worshippers.”
“It shames me how weak I must have seemed to you before.”
“You were young. Now you never have to be weak again.” She tightened her legs around him, and tilted her head to kiss him.
He savored the taste of her mouth, the feel of her, all the sensations he had missed with a physical ache for the past four years. He sank to his knees on the wild mountainside and lay on top of her, reveling in her heat as the cool wind swept over them. For a few poignant moments, he was Adonis again, seventeen and so in love and lust with a goddess that he would have traded the rest of the world for her.
But he wasn’t Adonis anymore. Nor was he obliviously young, not since eating those fruits from Persephone’s gardens.
His ardent kisses slowed.
He could have his pick of anyone, at any festival. These days it was easy. And yes, Aphrodite meant a great deal to him, the way a long-time lover would for anyone. But she was…he sought the appropriate word. Typical? Ordinary? Those didn’t seem right to apply to the goddess of love. She was the quintessential female, what every seductive woman aspired to be.
“Darling?” Aphrodite stroked his ear as he stilled.
Perhaps that was the problem. Yes, she excelled at seduction and beauty. But lots of people’s skills and looks came close, and in any case, seduction and beauty weren’t enough. They added spice to the ribald parts of festivals, and he would always enjoy indulging in them. But having entered into the spirit realm and studied its wild beasts and landscapes, and having wandered the world and his own past lives all these lonely years, Dionysos wished for something deeper now when it came to love, something more extraordinary.
And one thing he did not wish to do was tumble back into old destructive habits.
“What?” Aphrodite purred. “Is there something else you’d like?”
He drew back. He sat upon his knees and smoothed his tunic into place. “Yes. I’d like to get some sleep.”
She sat up too, draped her gown over her legs, and examined him shrewdly. “If you’re turning the tables on me by trying out a rejection, I quite understand the maneuver. But I’m offering a reconciliation, you know.”
“As one of many lucky immortals who share you.” He said it gently.
“Indeed, I’m still not offering exclusivity.” She, in turn, sounded cold. “But I did love you, and wish to remain on intimate terms with you. Especially now that you’re…”
“Immortal? Respected? Worthy?”
“Adonis…”
“Not my name anymore.”
She looked away.
He huffed a soft laugh out his nose. He stood and offered his hand.
She rose without taking it.
“We’ll always be friends,” he told her. “But now my life is different indeed. If we do become lovers again, you’ll have to share me.”
“I always did,” she pointed out. “I wasn’t the one who had a problem with that.”
“Then why are you the one who sounds annoyed right now?”
She folded her arms and turned to face the wind. The moon was rising over the crest of the mountain, painting her gown with beams of silver-blue. “Forgive me,” she said. “I must need sleep as well.”
“Nothing to forgive,” he said mildly.
He walked with her to her horse.
“Do come to a festival if you can make it,” he added. “You’re welcome anytime.”
“As are you upon my island,” she answered, but the declaration sounded formal, the way she might invite a king she had just met.
He waved farewell and watched her fly off, his heart unquiet and confused. With his new personality and lifestyle, he was in some fashion a king she had just met. A king without a country, and without a queen.
But with subjects, at least. He trudged back to them, hoping their company would cheer him.
Chapter Forty
One by one, or in pairs or small groups, several of the other immortals came to see Dionysos.
“Hekate said we should come,” Rhea told him, smiling, during a festival in summer. “Exchange the blood with you, say hello. It will be less awkward for you to attend the meetings of the immortals if we’ve welcomed you beforehand.”
“I do appreciate it.” He felt truly honored to be approached by the oldest immortal on Earth. “And, er, I apologize for the…informality of these festivities.”
Rhea looked about at the carousing crowd, several of whom were naked except for animal masks. She laughed. “As if I haven’t seen wilder things in my time. Come, serve me this famous wine of yours.”
Not all were so comfortable. Hestia, Athena, and Artemis attended together, giving off forbidding waves of modesty and uneasiness—Artemis in particular. But they did prick their fingers to exchange blood with Dionysos, and spoke in a friendly enough manner with him before departing. When Demeter attended another night, she surprised Dionysos by chatting with several farmers about the growing of grapevines, and laughing with abandon at the bawdy theatrical performances.
The immortal men who showed up—including Poseidon, Pan, and Apollo— generally had no trouble accepting masks and cups of wine and joining in the festival. They left after exuberant assurances to Dionysos that he was now among their favorite friends.
But it did jolt Dionysos’ nerves when he turned around during a festival in late summer to find Hermes leading Ares to him. The soldier bristled with disgust as he beheld Dionysos in his vines, flowers, body paint, and skimpily cut animal skin. Given the heat of the evening, it was all Dionysos was wearing, and more than many of his followers wore.
“Ares?” Hermes prodded.
Ares glanced aside, and his mouth flattened in resentment. “My apologies for the dishonorable attack.”
Dionysos bowed. “And mine for the drunken insults. I assume Aphrodite has smoothed them over.”
Ares’ lip curled in a sneer. “Oh, yes. Many times over.”
“She’s generous that way,” Dionysos admitted, satisfied he could remain so calm on the topic of Aphrodite now.
“We’re all on the same team,” Hermes said, and turned to Ares. “The same army, to put it in terms you’d understand.” While Ares narrowed his eyes at him, Hermes went on, “So shall we seal this pact in blood and wine?” With a flick of his hand, a knife spun up into the air. He caught it without even looking, glancing instead between Dionysos and Ares with his troublemaking, charming smile.
Ares rolled his eyes, but held out his arm.
Dionysos held out his too. “You’re welcome to as much wine as you can drink, Ares.”
“Little good it does us.” Ares flinched as Hermes cut his finger and Dionysos’ and pressed them together. But his wince quickly smoothed as he watched two bare-breasted women stroll by. “Am I welcome to your worshippers as well?”
“If they’ll have you. Force yourself on anyone, though, and the cat gets to gnaw on your anatomy.” Dionysos nodded to Agria, who prowled around the crowd. “Those are the rules.”
Ares smirked, and wiped off his bloody fingertip as Hermes released their hands. “No problem there. I’m very persuasive.”
Hermes shook his head at Dionysos and mouthed in
comical exaggeration, No, he’s not. Dionysos grinned.
Ares didn’t notice. He snagged a cup of wine from a man passing by with a tray full of them. “See you at the next gathering. Time to try my luck.” And he swaggered off in the direction of the two women.
In the following year, Hekate heard the Dionysia were held in one area after another, month after month. Communities found reasons to adjust their usual festivals to incorporate Dionysos: the planting season, the grape harvest, the sealing of wine into jugs for the winter, the official opening of the jugs, and other bits of yearly life that warranted celebration. Dionysos traveled with his attendants to preside at as many of them as he could. Attending all of them was impossible; the festival became so popular that it often took place simultaneously in several villages and cities, and those were only the ones he heard about. But he was always on the move, it seemed, and Hekate frequently took a night or two off to fly her horse to wherever he was, and watch the festival. Hermes was nearly always there, too, never one to miss a grand party.
Hekate only saw Aphrodite attend once. Aphrodite dressed modestly enough by her usual standards, but still outshone every woman there. The way she and Dionysos greeted one another, with a calm kiss on the cheek, made Hekate think they’d reunited before tonight. The thought dejected her. Although he didn’t select Aphrodite as one of his “concubines” or “brides” or whatever they would be called that night—indeed, Aphrodite left too soon for that—his manner seemed both wilder and more preoccupied for the rest of the night.
Hekate wished she could get drunk that time. She tried, boldly entering into a drinking contest with a burly local man. But she won much too easily, feeling only a slight and temporary warping of her sense of gravity and judgment, while her opponent crashed unconscious to the ground. The people cheered and awarded her extra garlands of flowers and spices. She felt no victory, only guilt for having used an unfair advantage. She sat by the unconscious man and held his arm between her hands a while, sending magic through him to chase out the noxious alcohol and leave speedy healing in its wake.
“I don’t quite understand what Dionysos is doing,” Hades said to her one day in midwinter while they walked through a village market. “Just traveling and being worshipped?”
“It isn’t only that. He visits vineyards whenever he can and advises them on growing grapes, and on any problems they’ve had.”
“Like your grandmother in that sense, then.”
“Yes. But with rather more taste for playfulness and madness than Demeter.”
“The things I’ve heard about those festivals.” Hades shook his head, and glanced aside at a donkey passing them, loaded with bags of barley. “I’d forbid you to go, but I don’t think I’m physically able to stop you.” He tossed her a half-smile.
She grinned and dropped her gaze. Would it help to tell him she was, in this body, still a virgin? No, she was old enough now for it to be none of his business. And he’d still worry anyway. “The festivals, the masks and craziness,” she said, “think of it as his being an ambassador for the immortals. Showing mortals we do want them to have a good time. Reminding them life renews after death. Really, we Underworld folk could hardly do a better job delivering that message if we tried.”
“Good, because I’m not sure I’d look at all handsome in a jackal mask,” Hades said dryly.
The jackal mask, long-nosed and tall-eared, was one of the three she had crafted to bring to the Dionysia. She had made it in honor of Kerberos, who sometimes looked like a jackal when his ears perked up. The second mask was a simple cloth one that covered only the top half of her head, with pieces of multicolored stone fastened to it with tree sap. The third was a large bark mask, blackened with charcoal, with white bits of shell stuck to it to suggest the face of a skull. To judge from how people drew back a step when she wore it, it gave off a fearsome aspect indeed.
She told her parents she kept attending the festivals because she enjoyed the variations each area created, and because it was good to see an immortal earning adoration from the people instead of resentment. She didn’t tell them she hoped to weasel into a sacred marriage with the god some night. Or even be one of his “concubines” on a non-marriage night—for his followers adopted whimsical titles for themselves, based on the roles they temporarily played for him. Some called themselves “minions,” “executioners,” or “slaves,” though no one was literally being killed (except the goats in the sacrifice, so everyone could eat); and while his followers came from all social classes, the title of “slave” could apply to anyone who took the role. But comely youths of both sexes were fastened to his sides at every moment, whether during the festivals or on the road between them, and she saw no way to intrude.
Besides, he treated her differently than he did the others. With her, he displayed gallantry and respect, as if still thanking her for saving his life.
She would have preferred a more physical form of thanks.
He did at least take interest in her magical abilities. At the next festival, he brought her a cup of wine and drew her further under the large tent cloth they had tied up between tree branches. A summer rain shower had just begun sprinkling everyone. Loads of other revelers crowded under the tent too, bringing their musical instruments and still playing them while others danced the ground into a muddy swamp.
“Hermes tells you can control the elements,” Dionysos said in her ear while the music blared.
“Some of them. And only within limits.”
“Can you make the rain go away?”
She lifted a palm, testing the air and the raindrops. “I could, I think.” She grinned at the dancers. “But they seem to be enjoying it.”
He grinned too. “Then can you make it rain harder?”
She looked at him, and her breath caught at the beauty of his gray eyes and easy grin in the smoky torchlight. She lifted her hand higher, and tipped her head back. Darkness obscured the sky, but she could feel where the clouds were, and they moved about easily as she sent out her magic to prod them. She gave the winds a twirl, squeezing the rainclouds tighter above the revelers. The rain poured down in a gush, doubling or tripling in strength.
Everyone shrieked—mostly in joy—and the dancers stomped more enthusiastically than ever. Dionysos laughed. “That’s marvelous. What else can you do? Summon beasts?”
“I can, but I rarely do. There’s not much reason to. Other than calling my own dog.”
“You’d be an asset to hunters.”
“Ah, but for hunting it wouldn’t be fair,” she said. “The score’s already about even: hunters with their weapons versus animals with their speed and strength.”
He saluted her with a lift of the wine cup. “You are a just soul. I commend that.”
“But if you merely want to see some animals…” She turned her gaze outward, and let her mind’s feelers stretch through the nocturnal forest. A little rustle of energy sent up into one treetop did the trick: within moments, a flapping rush zoomed toward them, and a cloud of small bats arrived. They circled over the heads of the dancers, in the midst of the pouring rain. Another cry of wonder rose from the crowd. The bats wheeled and darted out again into the darkness, where they vanished.
“Amazing.” Dionysos turned to her. “Utterly wonderful. Can you work any magic on me?” He held out his arm in invitation. His smile became a touch wicked, his eyes sparkling.
Desire spread warm in her belly like a swallow of the strongest wine. She could touch him and give him a jolt of lust. But that didn’t seem like playing fair, and he might not like her for it afterward. So instead she offered, “Shall we make your hair the color of your grapevines?”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You can turn people green?”
“Your hair, at least. Temporarily. It would fade long before sunrise.”
“Then yes, do it.” He opened his arms, and closed his eyes with a comical cringe like someone expecting a splash of water in the face.
She slid her han
d over his warm shoulder, along the edge of his wildcat-fur tunic, and grasped his wavy ponytail. His golden hair already nestled comfortably against its wreath of bright green grapevines, which made it easy to convince the color to spread out. In a quick shimmer, the gold all turned to spring green. “There.” She released his ponytail.
He eagerly drew it across his shoulder to look at it. His face lit up, and he whooped a laugh. “You’re extraordinary. Simply extraordinary.” He kissed her on the forehead, then leaped out into the rain, and called, “Friends, behold! I am become one with the grapevine!”
And though his magically tinted hair was the spectacle of the rest of the night, he never divulged that Hekate had caused the magic—for which she was grateful, if regretfully so. Secrecy was the best approach in matters between mortals and immortals, even if it meant less adoration for her.
The last night of that festival, she slipped up close to him during a wild dance in the torchlight, with everyone masked, including herself—the pretty colorful cloth mask this time. But he knew who she was, of course, and laughed. “Dear Hekate.” He twirled her in the dance, his arm deliciously tight around her waist. “Now, you are one I don’t dare tamper with.”
“You can if you like.” Excitement and anticipation filled her chest until air barely had room.
“One whose parents rule the Underworld? I can’t imagine anything more unwise.” Still, he wasn’t letting go of her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, savoring the heat and sweat of him, and the tangy smell of the grapevines in his hair. “I do what I wish. They respect that. And it isn’t as if I would tell them.”
Behind the holes of his leopard mask, his eyes fluttered downward in flattery, and he laughed again. He sounded a bit breathless too. He squeezed her closer, caressed her rear, then let go. “I think you’re putting a spell on me,” he teased, sweetly enough that she couldn’t be angry, only dismayed; and he turned about to catch up a new dance partner.
Chapter Forty-One
Betty Quentin and her two companions swung into the parking lot of the Darrow family produce stand. On this December afternoon, a mix of rain and sleet gushed down from heavy clouds. The weather had driven everyone indoors. Perfect: no other customers. And as far as Betty could see from her foggy passenger-side window, only Terry Darrow worked inside the stand today, unpacking some fruit or vegetable into its display case.
