Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) (49 page)

Adrian sank to the ground at Sophie’s feet, drawing up his knees. “We’re the ones who are sorry,” he said to Rhea, without looking at her. “We failed you.”

“You didn’t. I’m proud of you. Look at what you’ve all become, in such a short time. I’m so glad I brought you back.”

“And we repaid you by letting this happen.” Adrian’s voice had gone gravelly. Sophie sank down beside him on her knees. He stared ahead, his eyes full of tears.

“If I can make a request,” Sanjay said, “could someone please tell my wife what’s happened, and check that she and the kids are safe too?”

“Better than that, mate,” Niko said. “We’ll fetch her here for you. You can tell her yourself.”

Sanjay nodded his thanks, and Niko extended his hand to Freya, who still sat upon the grass. “Up for a bit of travel to India?”

She sniffled, nodded, and took his hand.

“We’ll be careful,” Niko assured everyone. “Oh, and Ade, we asked around for Wilkes and his mate, but they aren’t up here, so, as expected…” His glance slid off toward the distant reaches of the cave, and he nodded in that direction.

Adrian acknowledged the remark with a slight lift of his chin.

Sophie began remembering the way now: a tunnel, at the far wall of the fields, leading down, down, down. To Tartaros. The sickening feeling strengthened in her stomach.

“See you soon,” Niko said, and left with Freya.

Sophie slid her hand beneath Adrian’s. “Do you want to stay, or walk?”

He said nothing, but grasped her fingers and got up.

Blinking away the tears that had risen in her eyes, Sophie paused to tell Rhea, in the old tongue they used as priestesses on Crete, “The world grieves to lose you. Your murderers will not go unpunished.”

As Persephone, queen of the Underworld, she had said it to souls. She remembered it now, another whisper from a time later in Persephone’s life. Now she spoke it not only as one friend to another, but as goddess to goddess.

Rhea inclined her head in thanks. “Go and live, daughter. I’ll linger here a good while yet.”

Adrian seemed to pick up energy, in a cold and determined way, as they walked. He led her straight across the fields, toward the passageway to the deep caverns they had eventually named Tartaros, in accordance with the legends people used to tell. Kiri trotted beside them.

Trying to quell the chills she felt, she asked, “What’s the point of us looking for them down there?”

“Information.” His voice remained tight. “They might have some. And now they can’t lie.”

Sophie understood that, and accompanied him without further questions. But she had to wonder if temporary vengeance played any part in Adrian’s motives: did he merely want to stand before Wilkes and humble him by showing him that he had, indeed, dared an attempt upon the king and queen of the Underworld?

Sophie saw the appeal in that, too. But she wasn’t convinced it would do any good.

They reached the entrance after walking in silence for several more minutes. It was invisible until you stepped up close to the wall and looked behind a thick stalagmite that concealed it: a jagged, narrow crevice rising from the floor to just a foot above Sophie’s head. Adrian switched on his flashlight and led Kiri and Sophie inside.

Blackness engulfed them for the first few minutes, as the tunnel descended in various large steps and steep slopes. The air grew warmer and stuffier as they negotiated the neglected path. Down and down they walked, deeper into the silent Earth.

Then a small spurt of flame, blue tipped with orange, shot out from the wall a pace ahead, startling Sophie. Adrian squeezed her hand to comfort her, and switched off his flashlight. He led her forward, and in a moment, the flame winked out, and another took its place, farther down the tunnel.

The cave sensed them, and was lighting their way as they proceeded. Sophie knew it in her bones, as part of her ancient memories. But although the Underworld was a friend to her, it had been ages since she’d seen such strong proof of its
aliveness
. It made her heart beat fast in alarm and wonder.

Soon they reached a place where the tunnel opened into a small cavern. A ring of flames burst up around the arched stone doorway, ushering in Sophie, Adrian, and Kiri. From the small cavern, dozens of narrow tunnels branched off, and within them lay a honeycomb of cells each—Sophie knew—containing a condemned soul. Soft moans and sighs echoed from the multitudes, blending in the close air.

She looked at Adrian in entreaty. All she wanted was to leave.

But he picked up a scrap of a willow-and-ivy rope from the ground—several lay scattered around them, dropped by souls on their way out as the cave released them—and he wound it around his hand, leaving a short length dangling. He waved the loose end into the flames around the doorway, where it ignited like a candle wick.

“Fates who guard these souls,” he said in the Underworld tongue, “guide us to those we seek: Bill Wilkes and his accomplice, who died yesterday in an attempt upon our lives.”

Sophie remembered this procedure now, too. Since the souls were all in solitary confinement down here and couldn’t speak to each other, you couldn’t send out a call among them when looking for someone. Instead, the living cave would guide the seeker, if the right protocol was observed.

A new flame burst from the wall in one of the adjoining tunnels. Adrian dropped the burning rope, stamped out its fire, and walked toward the flame. Sophie and Kiri accompanied him. Down the tunnel they walked, following flame after flame that shot out ahead of them to guide them forward. They passed hundreds of cells, into which Sophie was, at first, too scared to look. But eventually she took a glance, and then longer glances, and soon made it a point to send a compassionate look into the eyes of each soul they passed.

No one looked terrifying or dangerous, only unhappy. The cells were all the same: tiny hollows in the rock, with open doorways that had no bars or barriers. But the cave chained each captive to the wall with a willow-and-ivy vine around the waist so they couldn’t escape before their time. Aside from the rare occurrence of another soul or an immortal guardian walking past, they had nothing to look at in their cell but a single flame rising from the floor, and in it, Sophie recalled as a whisper from Persephone, they saw the harm they had done and the consequences it had caused. To feel joy or contentment was impossible here.

The trail of little flames stopped after five or six turns among the passageways. In the cell below the last flame, Sophie beheld the soul of Bill Wilkes, tied to the wall.

She felt slightly sick again as his eyes met hers, though he displayed no malice; only depression. A second flame burned on the opposite side of the corridor, two cells down, and she stepped aside to glance into that one. Indeed, there stood Wilkes’ taller accomplice—some man in his twenties or thirties with bristly blond hair and small, blue eyes.

How strange, Sophie thought, that she didn’t even know this man’s name, nor anything about his life, and not much more about Wilkes, but they had assaulted her and tried to kill her beloved friends, and now she was viewing their souls in the afterlife.

Her life had indeed changed in the last couple of months.

Adrian ignored the accomplice and looked at Wilkes. “Who killed Rhea?”

“I don’t know their names,” Wilkes said. “Street criminals. The guru found them.”

“How can we find them and have them arrested? And have the guru arrested?”

“You probably can’t. The plan was to incinerate her along with hundreds of dead bodies, so if they carried that out, there’s no proof of a murder or any crime at all.”

Adrian sighed in frustration. “How do we stop them? Quentin’s been arrested, but is this going to continue?”

“Of course. It will always continue.” Wilkes sounded defeated, not triumphant. “The group has plans for every setback. And Quentin probably won’t stay in jail long. We have a plan in place for that too.”

Adrian scowled down the corridor a while. Then he looked coolly at Wilkes. “What else did you do, other than come after us? To end up here, it must have been pretty bad.”

Wilkes’ face grew sadder, stormier. He gazed at the flame on the floor of his cell. “Murder—a man I hated; I got away with that. Poisoned him. Even he didn’t know who did it. Violence; beating people. Seeing prostitutes, girls I knew were underage—”

“I don’t want to hear any more,” Sophie interrupted softly, addressing Adrian.

“Enough,” Adrian commanded Wilkes.

Wilkes lifted his face and looked at the two of them. “So you really were Hades and Persephone.”

Sophie turned away from his gaze. Yes, Wilkes would have all the common Underworld knowledge now. A lot of good it did him.

“I suppose you won this skirmish,” Wilkes added. “But it never ends, you know.”

“We didn’t win. In here, no one wins. All I know is you should try to do better in your next life,” he regarded the ample gauge of the ropes holding Wilkes, “which appears to be in a long time.” He turned away. “We’ll be sure to tell Quentin you said hello.”

Sophie, Adrian, and Kiri left the caves and climbed up the sloping tunnel. As the flames disappeared behind them, Adrian switched his flashlight back on. His features looked hardened and gloomy in its cold blue light.

“At least they’re where they belong,” Sophie said, hoping it might soothe him.

“But like he said, we can never stop Thanatos, not really. And what good does it do, being locked up in Tartaros? It doesn’t
work
, evidently. You’ve seen how the world is. Evil people are everywhere.”

“They forget when they’re reborn,” Sophie said.

“Exactly. What’s the point, then? What is the cave doing? How am I supposed to help out, be some kind of god down here, when I don’t even know?” He sounded completely desolate.

On top of Rhea’s death and the violence they underwent last night, trying to work out the secrets of the universe was surely too much to ask. Sophie curled her arm around his, and leaned her cheek on his shoulder in consolation, unable to provide any answers herself, and feeling equally lost in the face of such questions.

They emerged into the fields, where the collective glow of the souls seemed almost bright after the tunnels. Sophie slid her arm around Adrian’s waist. He sighed and leaned his head aside to touch hers. They stopped beneath a large pale-blue willow growing in a valley.

He sniffled, and swiped his palm across his eyes. “I was just this nice disabled kid, you know?” he said, his voice wobbling. “I was going to be a lawyer…”

From her pocket she pulled the cotton handkerchief he had handed her that first day, when she had watched the video of Grandpop. She had washed it and kept it, and frequently carried it. Now she handed it back to him. He glanced once and then twice at it, and chuckled in a broken way. He wiped his eyes with it, then hugged her again.

Sophie stroked his back, feeling his warmth and the perfection of his body through his flannel shirt. Her heart accelerated in anticipation as the decision took hold of her. “I want to eat the orange,” she said.

Adrian pulled back slowly to look at her. Interest and wonder displaced the grief in his eyes. “Really?”

“Yes. This is where I’m needed.”

“But…your family. Your life.”

“I had to grow up and find something else to do with my life eventually.” She smiled, through a tinge of panic. “I never guessed it would be this, when I left for college. But this is the most amazing thing anyone could do with their life. Besides, you guys are an endangered species. I want to help.”

“By becoming endangered yourself?”

“Being in love with you, I already am in danger. I at least want to be able to defend myself next time, instead of having to call you in to do it.”

He looked almost joyous, but hesitated. “I just…you said you wanted a long time to think about it.”

“I’ve
been
thinking about it. Melissa was right. I’d be crazy not to accept immortality when someone offers it.”

He exhaled a laugh of surprise and happiness, and caught hold of both her hands. “All right. If that’s your decision.”

“It is. Let’s go.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.” Holding his hand, she turned toward the orchard, and they began walking.

“
S
OPHIE, THIS IS
Marilyn with the police department; we spoke yesterday. It’s about eight a.m. on Saturday now. I need to inform you that the suspect Betty Quentin escaped from custody sometime during the night. Obviously we’re investigating how that happened, but we also wanted to put you on alert, as the primary victim of her crimes. Our guess is she’ll try to lie low rather than go after you or anyone else, but it’s safest to consider her dangerous and to be on the lookout. So please call back with any questions, and we’ll be in touch soon.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Afterword

It doesn’t take much research to find that there is no one “proper” way to tell any of the Greek myths. People developed their own favorite versions in different areas, with contradictory details cropping up between one story and another. Therefore, in taking a Greek myth and turning it on its ear, I figure I’m only adding to the longstanding tradition of creating a version of events I personally am fond of.