Asphodel (The Underworld Trilogy)

Her eyes widen and the rosy color fades from her cheeks. “You do not eat this, you hear me!”

I’m puzzled by her wild and crazy antics. “It’s just a piece of fruit.”

She exhales and a calm look forms on her face. Then she places the fruit in her hand on top of the pile and carries the bowl over to the counter. “If you’re hungry I’ll make you some oatmeal.”

Something is going on. She’s keeping something from me. “What’s going on, Mom? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“There is nothing going on, Persephone. I just don’t want you to eat the fruit, okay. We don’t know where it came from.”

I snatch the index card from the table. “I do. Someone named H.”

Her head turns slowly, her eyes slant. She’s silent for a moment, then her turquoise eyes widen, burning into my jade-green ones. “Who?”

She walks toward me as I flip the card over and stare at my name. “All it says is Happy Birthday, love H.”

A worried look appears on her face aging her youthful features in a matter of seconds. She rips the card from my hand and crumbles it in her palm.

“Hey!” I protest. “That was mine!”

“You’re going to be late for school.” Her tone is vacant and she stares off in a trance.

Standing, I fling my back pack over my shoulder. She’s right. I do have to get to school, but I’m not going to just forget about what happened. And I have every intention of bringing this up again when I get home.

Persephone

As I walk down my porch steps, thoughts involving my mother’s erratic behavior remain constant. I just don’t understand. What’s with all the craziness? What kind of fruit was she keeping me from eating? I know I’ve seen the fruit somewhere before. But where? Ugh. I rack my brain, trying to remember, but five thousand years of memories are way too many to sort through at one time.

What bothers me more than anything is, no matter what mom tells me, I know she’s lying to me about something.

For the last five thousand years we’ve been on the run, moving every decade sometimes less than a decade. The shortest amount of time we’ve spent in one place is six months. In all, I’ve lived on every continent, in at least seventy five thousand cities, sometimes more than once, and all fifty states. And I’ve never known what or who we’ve been running from.

Mom blames it on the mortals. She says we have to blend. But eventually blending isn’t enough. Then we move and begin the blending process all over again.

Even though mom says the mortals are why we move so often I’ve always had this gut feeling that it’s more than that. There’s another reason because mom knows as well as I do that the mortals aren’t the reason why we left Greece. We left for another reason, something mom refuses to explain. Her vagueness makes me questions her methods every time we pack up and globe trot.

Could we be running from the man behind the voice?

I’m so involved in my theories, talking to myself, and keeping my eyes on the ground that I don’t even see him coming. Before I can stop myself, I run into him and stumble. He grabs both of my arms and steadies me. “Hey, you.” His voice is full of warmth. “You feeling okay?”

I lift my head and gaze at him. My head spins. I’m dizzy. “Hi, Adonis,” I say and greet him with a nervous smile. “I’m fine. I’m just a little ticked at my Mom.”

Adonis moved next door a few months ago. Him moving here was strange, almost like he blew in with the wind. I could have sworn I saw Mrs. Darwin, the kind little old lady who’d lived there her entire life out in the front yard, gardening a week before he moved in. Then one day, a few days before he showed up she was gone. But I just shrugged it off. She was old and I figured she either died or her kids put her in a home.

Adonis is a year older than me and he usually walks with me to school in the morning. He flashes me a brilliant smile and I quietly take a deep breath. I’ve never in all my years living seen a teenage boy that looked like him. He’s too beautiful for words.

His touch makes me sizzle and I feel like I’m starting to grow limp. He releases me and backs away. The early morning sun kisses his bronzed skin and he looks like he’s shimmering. A sinful smirk and two dimples later and I feel like I can’t breathe.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

We start walking and Adonis reaches into his book bag and hands me a piece of paper. “Happy Birthday,” he says.

My heart flutters and my pulse races. Perspiration forms on my hands. I try to find words, but I’m flustered. As he looks away I wipe my sweaty palms on my pants. “Adonis, you didn’t have to get me anything.”

Sometimes he does little things like this that make me wonder if he’s interested in us being more than just friends who walk to school together. One time he picked me a bouquet of wildflowers. Another time he’d sent me a get well card when I lied about being home with the flu. School isn’t that important to someone like me. I can’t even count how many times I’ve actually graduated high school. The on

ly reason I go at all is because of mom and her blending routine. So I fake being sick a lot.