The Dark Wife (24 page)

“What?” Hermes asked, alarmed. But Hades shook her head, stepped back from me.

“Trust me,” she whispered. “I’ll be back in three days.”

Her motions were slow, prolonged, as she kissed my brow, my lips, held my hands, and then let them go.

She turned to Hermes, nodded at
him, and—with
a flicker—was gone.

It was so sudden. I couldn’t believe it. My chest felt empty, as if my heart had gone with her. I sunk down again, pressed my forehead to my knees, commanded myself not to cry. But how could I exist without her? I couldn’t fathom it. And it was only three days.

“Don’t despair, Persephone,” Pallas whispered, crouching at my side. She was shaking, shaken, but she did her best to comfort me. She offered her arms, and I fell into them.

From perfect joy to total anguish—I shivered, chilled bone deep, from the shock.

Pallas helped me to stand and rested her hands on my shoulders. “Please don’t cry. It would break Hades’ heart to see you like this. She’ll talk sense into Zeus, and it will all be fine, just as it was before. You’ll see.”

Her intentions were good, but she sounded unconvinced.

I shook my head, scrubbed fists over my eyes.

Every possibility held its breath now. Anything could change; anything could happen.

Had I truly thought that, if I buried myself deep enough, I could escape it all, my destiny,
my
fate?

The torches on the walls began to sputter and fade. We were cast in a dim, grey twilight.

“When Hades leaves,” Pallas whispered, “the light goes with her.”

The light, my light, my Hades… She was gone.

Cerberus padded into the room, sat down in the center it, arched back all three of his heads and howled.

And then…the darkness was complete. Hades had left her kingdom.

There was a hole in my heart, and it could not be filled.

~*~

“The dead…how are they now?”

Pallas ran her fingers through her hair. “They’re well. They wander in and out of the Elysian
Fields,
have formed into little groups, families.”

“Has it all been peaceful?”

“Surprisingly, yes, it’s been peaceful.” Pallas held a faceted crystal in front of her face, examined it. “Death opens minds, sets some things right. Once they were able to face their pain, forgive, the grief fell away. But there are still mourners, still wails.
Charon
has hidden himself away in the fields; I’ve glimpsed him there, and he looks…” She shivered. “But nothing ties up perfectly, in the end.”

We sat in my sun room, cradled in two gem-encrusted chairs that sparkled by the light of our oil lamps.

“You know…” I said, then, surveying my tiny, glittering garden, “I think it would be wonderful for the dead if they could come here, spend some spend time in this place.”
            Pallas shook her head, frowning, but the idea had taken root within me.
“Oh, Pallas, why not?
We could go to them now, show them the way, tell them they can come here whenever they wish,
ask
if there’s anything else they need.”

“They’re dead,” Pallas pointed out gently. “They need everything you can’t provide.”

But I stood up, determined. I needed to do something, to be busy, useful.
Anything to dull the pain.
“Come on, please. Let’s try.”

She followed me, sighing, to the village of the dead. The memory of the uprising, only days ago, lingered with me like a nightmare. I hadn’t forgotten, would never forget, that they had intended to kill Hades. But I stood in the center of the village, and I stood tall, and the gathered onlookers, many of them carrying oil lamps in their hands, pressed closer so that they could hear me—
Hageus
, as always, front and center.

“Hades has built a beautiful place,” I told them, my voice steady, as I gestured in the direction of the sun room. “Within it is a garden, a sky, a sun made of gems—like a glittering piece of captured earth. I would like to share it with all of you. This is your kingdom, too.”

A long moment followed of practiced, calculating silence. Pallas, beside me, stood stiffly, watching the souls with a suspicious eye.

Hageus
stepped forward, held out her hand, palm up to me. I gazed at her, bewildered. And then another person, a man, stepped forward and made the same gesture. Another, and another, and another—they all came before me, held out their hands to me.

Pallas gasped. “They’re offering their loyalty to you, Persephone,” she whispered in my ear.
“Acknowledging you, officially, as their queen.”

“They don’t have to do that—you don’t have to do that…” I shouted to the crowd. But they remained, unmoving, eyes on me.

“Accept it, graciously,” Pallas muttered to me, shaking her head. “Say thank you.”

“Thank you,” I called out, undone, and, as one, the dead shouted my name.

 They dispersed in separate directions, some wandering toward the far wall of the Underworld and the sun room, some approaching the distant, shimmering door that was the entrance to the Elysian Fields. It shone like a star, a star inside of the world. It gave me hope. Not peace, but hope.

~*~

“Pallas,” I said to her the next morning. We lay on my pallet, staring up at the marbled ceiling.

Cerberus was nestled between us, sleeping, one head pillowed on Pallas’ leg, one head resting on mine, and one uncomfortably positioned so that it was almost suffocating. I sat up and adjusted him, until I was certain all of his noses were breathing properly.

“Do you remember when you told me about marriage, and how you had wished to marry Athena?”

“Yes,” Pallas said, with trepidation. She sat up. “Why do you ask?”
            “Well, I think…I think I want to do it, Pallas.”

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask,” she laughed, poked me in the ribs. Cerberus woke up, and we wrestled with him, ruffled his panting heads.

“No, I really—I know I want to do it. Do you think Hades would like to marry me? If I asked her, do you think she would say yes?”

She swatted at me good-naturedly. “She would travel to the stars if you asked her to fetch you one.”

I smiled.

“She will say yes, Persephone. You plan on doing this, truly?”

“Yes,” I
said,
my heart beating fast. “When she returns, I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

“But you don’t know the first thing about…”
            “But
you
do,” I said, grasping her hands. “Pallas, will you help me? Would you help me with the rituals?”

She nodded slowly. “I’ll help you.” Her face clouded, thoughtful. “But many of the Greek rituals involve the partaking of food, and we have no food in the Underworld. We have water, but I doubt either of you would be interested in drinking the Styx.” She wrinkled her nose. “What could we use?”

I opened my mouth and shut it, skin prickling. “A pomegranate,” I whispered. “I have a pomegranate. It’s the only thing I brought with me from the upper world. Oh, Pallas, I have a pomegranate!”

I fell off the bed and reached up and underneath it. The pomegranate was harder now, but, as we stared at it, I knew that there was some magic to death in the Underworld, because the deep red fruit looked far better than I had expected it would.
Just slightly overripe.

“It’ll do nicely,” Pallas said. “But, Persephone, marriage—it lasts forever, and what if you can’t—” She caught herself, bowed her head, and then looked up at me apologetically.

I knew what she meant. What if I couldn’t stay here with Hades forever?

“It doesn’t matter. My heart will only ever belong to her.”

I was still afraid, but I had realized some truths during Hades’ absence. Even if we were apart, we would be bound by love. Everything else could change, on earth, below it, above it, but my love for her was fixed, like a star.

“We should do it in the sun room,” Pallas said, waking me from my reverie. “I’ll lead you both through the ritual.”

“Thank you, Pallas. I need this. I don’t know why, but I do.”

“I understand, Persephone,” she said softly, smiling. “And don’t worry! She’ll say yes.”

~*~

I missed her so
much,
I couldn’t make sense of the depth of it, the deep, dark pools of wanting that drove me to haunt the hallways of the palace each night. Before, I had wandered to her rooms, had gazed at the tree tapestry with her, had spent hours speaking with her in low, hushed tones—treasured words and moments that I had hidden away in my heart.

But now, now—there was
an emptiness
within me. Sometimes I doubled over, sick from the pain of it. Pallas kept me company, Cerberus always followed at my feet, a constant companion, and I loved them both, dearly—but they were not Hades.

On the third day, I stood in the throne room and paced. I didn’t know when she would return, only that she would, so I would stubbornly wait, fretting, pacing, longing, aching, until she appeared. It did not occur to me that she might not
return,
that she might be delayed by something unforeseen. I believed her. She said she would come back to me after three days, and my belief was unwavering. I trusted her with all of my heart.

And she came.

She was weary, bone weary, but when she saw me, she crossed the distance between us, and she gathered me into her arms, kissing me softly, so softly. Light blossomed around the room, torches ablaze. But I backed away, looked into her eyes, and even before she opened her mouth, even before she said the words, I knew.

“Your mother,” she began slowly, dully, each word like a sentencing. “She has nothing to do with this. Zeus…Zeus demands that you return, and he is using Demeter to control you. You must rise up tomorrow. The threat of eternal winter still stands. You must go, or winter will never end, and the animals, the humans will all die.”

I felt as if I were made of wood, or stone. Part of me had believed, had truly believed, that Hades would succeed, that Zeus would back down, give up, find another distraction.

But the other part of me had been expecting this.

I couldn’t understand the enormity of it, this future; it was yawning before me, a pit of blackness so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom, couldn’t see the horrors that waited, hungry, ready to devour me. Hades held me, and I did not cry, did not weep, only stood, impassive, a stone goddess.

Zeus wanted me back. Why?

“Persephone,” said Hades, pressing her mouth to my hair, burying her face in the nest of curls. “Persephone…”

Hearing her speak my name was a thorn, twisting in my side, deeper and deeper until I cried out from the pain, until I sank down and down and down, until I sat upon the cold, marble floor, as small as possible, as if—in my smallness—all the troubles of the world would simply miss me, pass me by. I had journeyed here of my own free will. I had contended with
Charon
, I had figured out my own way of doing things, I had met Gaea herself, and I had helped to quell the dead uprising. All of this,
all
of this, I had done, had found the courage to do, had kept going, had not given up.

I had fallen in love. I had opened my heart, and I had fallen in love deeper and truer than anything I had believed possible. I had fallen in love with the goddess of the dead, and now we would be wrenched apart, apart forever. Hades was the queen of the Underworld—she belonged here; she had to stay here. She was safe here. She came up to my world so rarely…where I would be, and we were going to be separated, apart…