Goddess of Spring (Goddess Summoning 2)

Cease this nonsense!

The echo within her mind startled her so much that she almost cried aloud. Your body knows the dance. Relax and trust it.

Lina glanced down at herself. She had forgotten that she wasn't wearing her forty-three-year-old skin. She was young and lithe and in such amazing shape that she could probably eat Godiva chocolate nonstop for days and not have to worry about zipping her jeans.

"Goddess?"

Lina looked up to see al the maidens watching her with openly curious expressions on their pretty faces. She probably looked like a moron standing there staring down at herself. Lina smiled, straightened her shoulders, and let her legs begin walking again. "I was just admiring the... uh..." She looked down again, "clover in this meadow. It's lovely, don't you think?" Al of the heads nodded energetical y, reminding Lina of dashboard ornaments.

"It is our special meadow. We like clover and green, growing things, so it has arranged itself to please us," the first maiden said.

"Wel , I like it, too," Lina said, joining the circle.

You begin in the center. Her internal voice directed.

Lina took a deep breath and moved to the center of the circle. Then she did the only thing she could think of doing. She closed her eyes and concentrated. The music fil ed her and automatical y her body began to sway. Her arms raised themselves and she spun in a slow, lazy circle. The music was wonderful. It reminded her of something wild and feminine. Her body matched itself to the music as she began to trace intricate steps with her long, supple legs. Her hips turned and swayed. Her arms painted images in the air. She wasn't a forty-three-year-old baker. She wasn't a young goddess. She was the music.

Lina opened her eyes.

Faces glowing with pleasure, the maidens circled around her, trying to match her movements. They were beautiful and many were obviously talented dancers, but the difference between their mortal dance and that of Persephone's was clear, even to Lina. Persephone moved with the inhuman grace of a Goddess. Lina's heart swel ed with joy at the power she felt within her. This must be how a prima bal erina felt at the peak of her career. She leapt and twirled and shouted with joy.

She could have danced forever, but one of the maidens stumbled and then col apsed into a laughing heap in the middle of a bed of clover. Soon after, several of the other girls were obviously struggling to keep up the dance. Lina quel ed her disappointment, and with a glorious final twist and flourish she brought the dance to an end. While the girls cheered and clapped, she sank into the deep curtsy of a prima bal erina. Then the spirits surrounded her, gushing their thanks and asking when she would return to frolic with them again.

As they giggled and talked, Lina tried to unobtrusively search the background for Hades. She found Orion and Dorado first. They were grazing contentedly not far from the pine tree that had served as their finish line. Her eyes traveled back. Hades was standing under the tree. He was leaning against it, his arms crossed nonchalantly and his body relaxed. But his eyes were bright and his hot gaze was locked on her. His lips were tilted up in just the hint of a smile. When he saw that she was watching him, he slowly raised his hand to his lips and then gestured toward her, as if sending her a kiss.

It was the most unabashedly romantic thing that a man had ever done for her.

"Wel , ladies, it has been wonderful to dance with al of you. We'l have to do it again very soon, but Hades and I must move on," Lina said, extricating herself from her circle of admirers. Several of them shot shy glances at the waiting God, and then there was much whispering, of which Lina could only catch the words Persephone and Hades linked together. Giggling and waving good-bye, the maidens disappeared into the pines.

Hades walked away from the tree to meet her in the middle of the meadow. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then, he reached out and brushed a damp strand of hair from her face.

"I have never watched anything as graceful as your dance," Hades said. Lina suddenly felt more breathless than she had been while she was twirling and leaping to the music.

"You must be thirsty," he said.

Until then Lina hadn't realized that she had been thirsty or sweaty, but in actuality she was both.

"Very."

"There should be a spring near here." He took her hand and started toward the opposite side of the meadow. "Things never stay completely the same in Elysia, but they do tend to reflect the same elements."

"So it's kind of like a changeable fantasy?" Lina asked, letting her hand trail over the clover that was knee-deep at that end of the meadow. Instantly, tufts of white flowers sprang from between the shamrock-shaped leaves, emitting a perfume that smel ed of summer and freshly mowed lawns.

"Yes, a little." Hades smiled at her. "Elysia is divided into different parts, but those parts can mingle and change, according to the desires of the spirits."

"Different parts? You mean like there's one place for people who have been real y, real y good, another for people who have been mostly good, and another for people who were just ordinarily nice?"

Hades' laughter fil ed the meadow. "You say the most unexpected things, Persephone. No, Elysia is divided into different realms. One is for warriors. One is here" - he gestured around them - "for maidens to come and frolic. And there are several others. Royalty exists in one. Another is for shepherds." His smile turned lopsided and Lina thought he looked twelve years old. "Oddly enough, shepherds do not like to mingle with others."

"Who would have guessed?"

"Exactly."

"So they can't mix? What if a warrior wants to court a maiden? I'd think even the most dedicated warrior would get tired of only doing manly things after awhile."

"They may mix, but it is rather difficult." Hades paused, considering. "But perhaps it should not be difficult. Perhaps they do not realize what they are missing because they have been so long without." The God stared off into the distance, deep in thought.

"Can you make Elysia rearrange itself according to your wil ?" Lina asked. Hades' gaze returned to her. "Yes."

"Then have the meadow of the dancing maidens placed next to the warriors' practice field. The rest should work itself out."

Hades barked a laugh. "I think you are correct."

They entered the forest of pines and after some searching, Hades found a smal path. They fol owed it until it crossed a stream that bubbled and tumbled over smooth rocks. Hades left the path and led Lina downstream and around a bend where the water pooled into a little sandybottomed basin before continuing its trek by splashing noisily over one side of the rocky ledge.

"For you, Goddess, only the best in drink and dining," Hades said with a rakish smile.

"You may be kidding," she said, hurrying to crouch at the edge of the pool, "but al that dancing has made me incredibly thirsty, and right now water looks better to me than ambrosia." She cupped her hand and drank of the clear liquid. It was so cold that it made her teeth hurt. She sighed happily and slurped another handful. After she drank her fil , Lina kicked off her soft leather slippers and let her legs dangle into the icy pool. Hades reclined next to her, leaning against a fal en log. The wind sloughed in the trees above them, surrounding them in the scent of pine and sap. The mystical Underworld sky cast an opaque glow over everything. Rose-colored glasses, Lina thought dreamily, so this is what the old cliche" meant.

"Demeter told me that the Underworld was a magical place, but I would never have believed that it held so much beauty," Lina said softly. "If the gods real y knew how wonderful it was down here, you'd have a constant stream of visitors."