Asphodel (The Underworld Trilogy)

Thick saliva coats the lining of my esophagus, sticky like warm molasses. I try to push it down with more saliva, but I can’t. On the outside I appear to be calm, but on the inside I’m a knot of hysteria. Shrieking, trembling, and sobbing. The man’s face is blurred and I can’t make out his features. He’s dressed from head to toe in black. I lurch forward fighting the better half of myself that’s screaming for me to stay put. “Who aaare you?” I stutter.

He doesn’t answer.

As I close the gap between us I can make out his broad, muscular build. The man tilts his head to the side and I swear I can see a set of eyes as blue as the Aegean Sea. “Are you the voice?” My own voice goes up an octave.

I’m so close to him now that I can make out his profound jaw-line, high cheek bones, and the slightest bit of stubble on his chin. But then, when I’m only feet away he vanishes into thin air. He’s a particle of matter floating in the atmosphere. Invisible. I’m so confused. “Where did you go?” I pivot in a circle, taking in the whole field, but the mysterious man is nowhere in sight. “Where did you go?”

A finger digs into my shoulder and I pivot again. I’m still alone. “Who’s touching me?” Then a hand clamps down on my shoulder and I’m shaking. My whole body is shaking. “Stop it!” I swat at the invisible hand frantically. “Stop touching me!” The shaking intensifies and I feel my whole body convulsing.

“P!”

“Stop! Get your hands off me!”

“P! Damn it! Wake up!”

My eyes snap open. Marisol is inches away from my face wearing a concerned look. I sit up and stifle a glance around the packed cafeteria. “Mar?”

“Are you okay?” Marisol gasps. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Yeah,” I breathe. “I must have dozed off and had some kind of nightmare.”

“I’ll say.”

She gives me another apprehensive look. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I nod and relief floods through me. I’m elated to be in the safe haven of the cafeteria. The dream felt too real and my cheeks are hot, like I’d actually been basking in the warmth of the sun. “I’m fine.”

“Good.” Marisol slides a thick book with a hard cover casing toward me.

I stare at the cover. “Greek Myths for Beginners.”

“I found it in the library,” she tells me. “Remember how you offered to help me?”

“Yeah. My offer still stands.”

“Well, I’m taking it,” she says discouragingly. “I’m terrible in mythology.”

I smile. “Well, luckily for you, I’m not.”

“Of course you’re not. Your name is Persephone for God’s sake. You have to have Greek in you somewhere.”

“Some.” More than she’s aware of.

Flipping through the book, I laugh; amused at how mortals recount the existence of the Olympians if they only knew we could actually vouch for ourselves, I’m sure this would make their literature seem silly. I turn a few more pages and freeze, stopping about half-way through the book. “Oh…” A breath is clogged in the back of my throat. “No.”

Marisol leans over my shoulder, focusing on the image on the page. “What’s the matter?”

I stare at a picture of the fruit I’d received as a birthday gift this morning. The thick reddish skin fills my gaze and I make a shocking discovery. “H is Hades.”

Marisol draws her eyebrows together. “Huh?” She points to the picture, reading the paragraph beneath it. “The book says that’s a pomegranate. Supposedly, it’s the fruit of the dead.”

A queasy feeling ripples through my stomach. “H is Hades,” I repeat robotically. Rising from the table I can feel my knees trembling. I lock them in place as Marisol follows me with her brown child-like eyes. “What’s going on P?”

I’m numb and a feeling of betrayal surges through me. I picture mom’s panicked look when I placed the pomegranate against my lips. “She knows,” I pant as my breaths come out short and raspy. Backing away from the table, I’m hyperventilating. Shock is a brick sitting in the pit of my stomach. I want to spit it out. I want to throw it up. “I don’t feel so hot. I have to go home,” I mumble.

“P, wait! What’s wrong?”

“Just text me later if you still need help,” I tell her. Then I bolt from the cafeteria, sprinting to the