Asphodel (The Underworld Trilogy)

“Demeter,” Zeus says. “I think you’re reading into this too much. They are only pomegranates.”

“I love how you’re acting so casual about this,” mom scoffs sarcastically. “Only pomegranates!” Her voice hikes. “Have you been away from Olympus too long, Zeus? Have you forgotten that pomegranates are the fruit of the dead? You know what will happen if she eats one.”

“Did she?”

“Did she what?”

“Eat one.”

“No,” mom huffs, shifting in her chair. “But she would have if I wouldn’t have walked into the kitchen and stopped her. And I think we both know what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped her. She’d be half-way across the Styx by now.”

There’s an awkward moment of silence. I hug my knees tighter as my legs start trembling. Tears swell in my eyes and I swallow hard, exhaling, rolling my head back, doing everything I can to keep my tears from spilling. Across the Styx? If I cross the Styx I know I can kiss the sunshine goodbye, I can forget the smell of wildflowers, I can forget the earth in its beauty and the living things that inhabit it. Goddess or not, I do know this; if you become one with the realm of the dead, you might as well consider yourself dead because there is a high probability that you’ll never come back.

Zeus lets out a frustrated sigh. “Demeter, he’s going to keep coming for her. You know you can’t stop him.”

“I can and I will, Zeus. I will not let him take my only daughter.” There’s a harsh tone of determination in mom’s voice.

“You’ve been running from him for five thousand years. Maybe it’s time that you two struck up some sort of bargain.”

“Have you lost your mind?” mom shrieks. “And besides, we wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you!”

Zeus slams his fist into the center

of the table and I examine a crack as it travels from one end to the other. “I made a mistake!” he booms in a grizzly voice. “A mistake that I have regretted for the last five thousand! A mistake that you have never let me forget!”

“You’re the God of Gods. You shouldn’t make mistakes.” Mom’s tone is cold and brutal.

“Demeter, did I not go back on my deal with him? Have I not done everything in my power to keep you two safe? Have I not provided you with homes, hideouts, and financial stability? Have I not shielded her from him? I put up that time shield centuries ago, so he only has until midnight on her birthday to take her! And you know me, I’ve never been a God who goes back on his word. And I did that without a second thought, for you and her!”

“Obviously you haven’t kept her safe enough or really shielded her from him at all. He comes to her, you know? He’s been coming to her since right after we left Olympus.”

“Physically?”

“Not physically,” mom retorts. “You know Hades. He has other ways of making his presence known. Every seventeen years, the anniversary of the day you made the deal with him—her birthday.”

Zeus clears his throat. “So he speaks to her.”

I drown in my own thoughts for a second. Hades has never come to me physically before, but he did today. He came to me in my dreams and that makes me curious and frightened at the same time. Curious because I don’t have any answers to the questions, popping into my head every five minutes. Yes, I know who the voice is and now I know why we’ve been running, but it doesn’t make sense that Hades would chase me for five-thousand years because of a broken agreement. And I’m frightened because instead of just his voice, he’s physically coming to me and that can only mean one thing; there’s something different about this birthday. That something swirls around in my gut like nausea after eating a bad burrito. Something telling me, that this year, on this birthday, Hades might actually succeed.

“More like taunts her,” mom says. “He infiltrates her mind, filling her subconscious with his dark voice and it terrifies her. It started again at midnight. I rushed in her room to comfort her because she woke up screaming.”

“Why haven’t you told me about this?” Zeus inquires in a serious tone.

“Zeus, what are you going to do? Number one, Hades has never listened to you. You know he’s selfish and you know he will pursue what he wants at any cost. Two, you’ve chosen to be eternally absent from Persephone’s life.”

“You know as well as I do that’s not the case,” he growls.

Mom exhales, calming down. “Whatever. Zeus, we’re both on the same page now. We have to try and figure out a way to stop him.”

I’m torn between my feelings of hurt, terror, and anger. I’m hurt because of the way mom has kept everything hidden from me for all this time. Deep down inside, I know she was only doing it to protect me, but there’s a part of me that feels like I’ve had a knife in my back for the last five-thousand years. And now I feel the knife being wedged in deeper and deeper. The dull metal is inches away from my spinal cord, any closer and the cool blade of destruction will paralyze me.

Then anger trumps the hurt when I think of Zeus and how he struck up this deal with Hades. It didn’t matter that he went back on the deal. He should have never bargained with my life to begin with. Finally terror, terror is a school of hungry piranha’s, munching on my fleshy muscles, ripping the meat from my bones. It won’t be long before it eats me alive. Am I destined to live out my eternal existence in a world full of darkness and death?

I bury my face in my lap. I’m an emotional mess, an overflowing landfill with pieces of trash scattered everywhere and a rotting stench permeating the air. Nobody will clean me up. All they’ll do is bury me. Bury me with their lies, secrets, and empty promises. I lift my head and center on Zeus’s shin. The bulky muscle in his calf bulges as he shakes his leg. Fury twists in the core of my chest and my lungs expand as I huff violently.

I’m tired of being lied to. I’m tired of being kept in the dark. And it’s about time I let them know.

Persephone