Chapter 20
Everything Changes
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ARCH is a garden Morticia Addams would be proud to call her own. Twisting magnolia and olive trees provide a canopy, branches draped with glittering moss that seems to hold every star in the sky. The ground is covered with a thousand types of night-blooming flower, some burning red, others glowing the palest blue, and everywhere there is asphodel. Everywhere.
Pomegranate and fig and almond trees dot the glade, their branches putting forth fruit in sweet profusion. It makes my mouth water. I know a single bite of a single fig would be so delicious that it would put everything else I have ever tasted to shame. I know it, and my hand is halfway raised to pluck one before I remember Apple’s warning.
Eat nothing. Drink nothing. Break either of those rules, and I may not make it home.
“Half these plants aren’t native to Greece,” says Laura, stepping up next to me. “I don’t think half of them are native to anywhere. These flowers shouldn’t exist.”
“When your mother is the Goddess of the Harvest, you can plant whatever you like,” says a voice. It is sweet as honey. It is bitter as cyanide. It is both those things, and it is everything in-between, the whiskey burn, the soothing wine. I would die for that voice. I would kill for that voice. It’s very likely I would do anything that voice asked me to, no matter how terrible, and think myself lucky to be allowed to serve her.
I don’t need to turn, don’t need to see her to know that I am in the presence of Persephone, bringer of the spring, Queen of the Underworld, whose grace is spread across my back in ink and incantation. She’s so close that I can smell her perfume. She smells of sun-ripened wheat, of pomegranate molasses, of asphodel. Always asphodel.
Closing my eyes would feel like an insult. Looking at her would feel like a betrayal. I stay where I am, frozen, and say the only thing I can think of.
“Hi.”
Her laughter is church bells for a funeral and silver bells for a wedding at the same time. “Hello to you as well, Rose Marshall.”
Why does everyone know my full name? It’s a mystery I may never see solved, and I don’t like it.
Lightly, she touches my shoulder. I shiver. “I heard you were faithless. That you tried to wash your bonds to me away. I don’t care for being dismissed, Rose. Not even by so fair a flower as you present yourself to be. Why have you come here, and in company of a living woman who has always been such? Don’t you have what you wanted, back in flesh and bone and free to roam the world until you meet your reckoning again?”
“I wasn’t faithless, ma’am.” I wince a little as the last word leaves my lips. If Persephone doesn’t like it, I’m in trouble.
She laughs again. “Weren’t you? An innocent bled to bar you from me.”
“She was talked into her own death by Bobby Cross, to take your protection away from me. He hates that you have the power to keep me safe. He wanted to prevent it. So he did.”
“How, exactly, does that lead us here? To you in skin and standing in my garden?”
“I went to the Halloween rites to wash the blood away. Somehow, he knew I’d have to do that, and he arranged to have me removed from the normal progression of time.”
“Midnight came and midnight went, and you were left among the living.” Persephone sounds thoughtful. I hear her move behind me, coming closer to Laura, and I ache for her proximity, even as I allow myself to breathe in relief that she isn’t touching me anymore.
To be a mortal among the gods is to walk in constant contradiction. I much prefer the Ocean Lady. At least she has the decency to spend most of her time inanimate.
“And you, living woman, what brings you to my garden? Why have you chosen to escort one of my lost seeds back to her grove? Rose is sworn to me. You aren’t. You don’t have to be here.”
“Rose asked.” Laura’s voice is strained and squeaky. I feel a pang of sympathy. She has even less experience with this sort of thing than I do.
“Do you always do what Rose asks?”
“I felt . . . it happened so fast. First she needed a ride, and then she needed help, and then I was standing on a highway that doesn’t exist anymore, promising a little girl who ran away from an internment camp that I would help Rose rejoin the dead without dying. This seemed like the only way. I just got swept up.”
Hands clamp down on my shoulders, too big to belong to Persephone, the fingers finding their place in the hollows of my collarbones. I squeak. I do not pull away.
Tone mild, voice the same collage of contradictions as his wife’s, Hades asks, “What, then, brings you here, to us, so far from the world in which you walk? Our mysteries are old and tired. We have no great gifts to offer you, nor monsters for a hero to slay.” He pauses, sniffs, and adds with some amusement, “Although I can tell from the scent of you that you’ve already met my dog.”
“He’s a very good dog,” I say, and my voice only shakes a little. The God of the Dead himself is holding my shoulders, and I’m not running screaming into the grove. “We’re here because we want you to agree to let us go.”
“Why would we—ah.” Hades tightens his hands, holding me fast. His skin is so cold. It’s like being held by a statue. I shiver, swallowing a wave of nausea as he says, “You want to play Eurydice. Little girl who is and is not of the dead, why would you want this? You have skin. You have bone. You have the freedom of all the wide world.”
“But I don’t have the twilight. I don’t have the ghostroads. I don’t have my home. I’m not going to lie and say dying was the best thing that ever happened to me, or that I wouldn’t have been thrilled by a resurrection—once. If it had happened in the first ten years, maybe. Now? I’ve been dead for so long that I don’t know what it means to be alive, and I don’t particularly want to learn. I have people in the twilight who need me, and people in the daylight who’ve spent their whole lives being told that if they get in a bad enough accident, if they get lost enough, I’ll come and find them and help them make it to where they need to go. I can’t do that when I’m like this.” I look at my hands. My pale, physical, human hands. “I didn’t ask for this. I wasn’t faithless. I don’t want to live a mortal life and lose everything, again, because of Bobby Cross. This is the second time he’s yanked me out of the world I know and thrown me into something I’m not equipped for, but this time there’s a chance I can make things right, and I’m going to take it.”
“Look at me,” says Persephone softly.
I raise my head. I look.
She is beautiful. That’s all I can really say about her, because her face is like her voice, shifting constantly, refusing to allow my eyes the luxury of focus. It’s exhausting to look upon a god. I never want to do it again. I never want it to stop.
“You have been given a gift that few in this time enjoy, that the original Eurydice still weeps for,” says Persephone. I do my best to focus on her words, to shut out the painful shifting of her face. “Are you sure you wish to discard it so quickly?”
“Life and death aren’t gifts unless you want them,” I say. “Both times my world has changed, it’s been because Bobby Cross thought he had the right to decide what I was going to be. Being alive here and now, in this time, doesn’t give me back the life I lost. It just isolates me from my friends and alienates me from my allies, and makes me even more of a target for Bobby than I already was, because now I can’t get away from him if he comes after me. Laura has her own life to get back to. She’s not going to be able to babysit me forever. Please forgive me if I’m offending you in some way by rejecting this thing I never asked for, but any gift that makes me and the people I love so miserable is no gift at all. It’s a burden. I want to put it down.”
“Tell me, then, exactly why you are here.”
There’s a command in her voice that I couldn’t ignore if I tried, and so I don’t try. It’s almost a relief to let myself speak the complete truth, with no concern that I’ll be judged for it. “I know a beán sidhe. Her name is Emma. She reminded me of what Orpheus did, how he went into the Underworld to lead his lost lover out, and how the agreement was that if he could wait until they were both on living ground before he looked at her, she would be saved, alive and his for all her mortal days, but if he looked back too soon, she would be lost to the dead forever.”
“Simplistic, but close enough to true,” says Hades, his hands still resting on my shoulders.
I suppress another shudder. The last thing I want to do right now is insult them. “Laura is willing to be my Orpheus. We’ve come to you to ask you to let us go. To let us walk the road Orpheus and Eurydice walked.”
“All so she can look back too soon?”
There’s a trap there. I hesitate. “Orpheus looked back when he was in the world of the living and she was still in the land of the dead,” I say. “That’s what we’re going to do, too.”
Persephone smiles. Some of the terrible shifting slides away from her face. I still couldn’t tell you what she looks like if I tried, but I can see now that she is kind as well as beautiful. We live in a world where the gods can still be kind.
I never thought about what a relief that would be.
“It was a good bargain for Orpheus, who loved her, who was trying to bring her back to his side, but not, I think, for you; not when you seek to shed your skin like a snake and slither back into the den that sheltered you.” She touches my cheek, lightly, with fingers like flower petals. “You want the first death you enjoyed, the one that set you on the roads, not whatever second death might wait for you ahead. That’s the real reason you’ve come to us, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Dear?” She raises her eyes to Hades. “What say you?”
There is a long pause, long as a winter, long as a lie, before Hades says, “There are secrets here you do not know, and still I say I’ll let you go. I will let you walk the long, cold road between here and the surface. The woman Laura Moorhead will walk in front, and the girl Rose Marshall will walk behind. If the woman can make it to the world of the living before she looks back, she’ll be free of our domain. But if she looks back while still in the lands of the dead, the woman’s life will be forfeit, while the girl’s will continue.”
Laura gasps. I can’t blame her. If she looks back too soon, we both lose. She, her life; me, my death.
“If the woman waits too long, allows the girl to follow her back to the world of the living, both will live. But if she pauses as Orpheus did, at the entryway, when she is among the living and the girl is among the dead, then the girl will be restored to what she was before her resurrection, and none shall carry claim against her that she has not accepted of her own free will.” Hades pauses. “Do you agree?”
We are in his domain, in his wife’s garden, and there’s only one way out from here; still, it seems important that we agree. “Yes,” I say.
“Yes,” says Laura, anxiety and unease in her tone.
Persephone turns to look at her for perhaps the first time. Laura quails a little under the attention of the goddess. I would feel bad for her, but Hades is still holding my shoulders, and the cold is beginning to burn me. I don’t feel like I can ask him to let go. I want nothing more than for him to do it on his own.
“Pretty Laura,” she says, in a tone like rainstorms in spring, like hurricanes in summer. “You’ve spent so much of your given time dwelling among the dead, it’s little wonder you should wind up before us now. I wouldn’t have expected it to be on the behalf of your own personal fury. Are you sure you wish to take these risks for her sake? Knowing what you might lose, knowing that you might be lost? Are you sure your motives are true? For there is another aspect, which you may not have considered.”
Laura worries her lip between her teeth, and says nothing.
“Rose will be behind you if you look back too soon; she will not be able to guide your lost and lonely spirit back into the land of the living. You’ll be trapped here, in our domain, for all of time. Whatever you think waits for you in the afterlife of your own lands, you won’t find it if you fail.”
I gasp. I can’t help it. No ghostroads; no Tommy. If Laura loses here, she loses everything, as much as I do.
Somehow, she finds a wan and wavering smile in the depths of her courage, and offers it to Persephone. “You can’t have a katabasis if you’re afraid of failure.”
Persephone’s smile is brighter, broader than Laura’s. It is the smile of a woman who was swept out of springtime into winter, and found the heart to be happy even in the cold. Everyone I know who worships her does so willingly, and because they believe she is kind. I can’t wait to go home and tell them all that they were right; that they chose the kindest goddess the darkness had to offer them.
“Then go,” she says.
Hades releases my shoulders. “Go,” he echoes.
Laura looks at them, bewildered. “I don’t know the way,” she says.
I do. I can feel it thrumming in the soles of my feet, the last, longest road calling me to start walking, calling me to—
“The routewitches,” I say abruptly. “They’re tied to the dead. They’ve always been tied to the dead. They become road ghosts when they die. Is this the road they listen to, when they walk out of their lives?”
Hades steps around me, stopping next to his wife. Like her, he is a shifting shadow, handsome and ugly, dark and light, all at the same time. Like her, he is beautiful no matter what the blur of his face implies in any given second, and I feel, truly, as if he must be kind.
“It’s among them,” he says. “The oldest roads run deep into the lands of both the living and the dead. They must, if they’re to serve their purpose.”
I start to ask what that purpose is, but catch myself before the question can form. These are gods. I could ask them questions for a hundred years and not exhaust the things I want to know . . . but I might exhaust their patience, and I don’t know what time is doing up in the land of the living. It doesn’t matter so much for me, since most of my friends are dead, and the ones who aren’t can always ask Mary where the hell I am. But Laura? She’s still alive. Her job, her apartment, her entire world, they all depend on her making it home before too much time has passed.
“Is there anything else we need to know in order to make the journey?” I ask instead.
Hades inclines his head. He saw the choice I made: he approves of it. “She will begin and you will follow, all the way to the end of the road.” He turns to Laura then. “Start walking. The road will rise up to meet you. It is a brave thing you do, Laura Moorhead. I hope only that you do it for the right reasons.”
Laura looks away. Then, slowly, she turns, until her back is to me, until I can no longer see her face, and she begins to walk toward the end of the grove.
“Thank you for everything,” I say quickly, unwilling to leave the company of the gods without showing the proper courtesies. That’s the sort of thing that ends with someone transformed into a marble statue for a couple of centuries.
I think Hades smiles. I know Persephone reaches up and tucks an asphodel blossom behind my ear, the petals soft as silk where they brush against my skin.
“Go,” she whispers. “I know you were not faithless.”
Those words singing in my heart, I run after Laura, and I leave the terrors of divinity behind. When I catch up to her, some three feet behind, I slow down and fall into step, careful not to rush.
Behind me, I hear Persephone laughing.
We walk forever, or at least what feels like forever, the grass beneath our feet giving way first to smooth white marble and then to hard-packed earth. Laura’s shoulders are tight, her eyes fixed directly ahead, like she’s afraid of even looking to the side.
“As long as you don’t turn, you’re okay,” I call.
“That’s what you say now, but if I trip, I could turn further than I mean to,” she says. “You’ll forgive me for not taking unnecessary risks. Right now, I have more to lose than you do.”
Her voice is cold and hard, unforgiving; every syllable judges me and finds me wanting. I shiver, wishing I had a coat to pull tight around myself. The living and the dead feel cold differently. I’m used to freezing without pain, and this chill, while milder than what waits in the twilight, is more painful, because it’s more personal.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
Her shoulders slump a little. When she speaks again, her voice has thawed, at least a little. “I’m sorry, Rose. I shouldn’t yell. I know it’s not your fault that we’re here.”
“It’s okay.” It isn’t. “What happens now? Do we just walk until we come out?”
“We’re not the only spirits on this road,” says Laura. “Some of them are likely to be angry, because we could still get out, and they can’t. They’re going to try to make me turn around. They’ll say horrible things, maybe using your voice, to trick me into looking. I can’t let them trick me. Do you understand?”
Even if I need her to turn, even if I’m in genuine distress, she won’t be able to, because it could be a trick. I shiver again, this time with something deeper than cold. “I do,” I say.
“Good,” she says, and keeps walking.
The road is long, and that’s enough to make it hard, especially since we’re both human; we both get tired, even here in the Underworld, where the rules are different, but not entirely suspended. We’ve gone for what feels like hours, what feels like miles, when I stop, bracing my hands on my knees, and struggle to catch my breath.
“Wait,” I wheeze. Laura tenses and keeps on walking. Louder, I call, “Please, wait. I’m not asking you to turn around, but I need a break. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“Says the teenager,” says Laura, but she stops. That’s all I wanted. “We can’t stop for long.”
“Why not?”
“No food. No water. No way to take a proper rest without risking me rolling over and seeing you. Plus the longer we hold still, the more likely it is that something unpleasant will catch up with us and make this harder than it has to be. Is that enough reason for you?”
It is. “Just give me a second,” I say, and breathe in, slowly, carefully, trying to get my lungs back on Team Rose, and off whatever weird tangent they decided would suit them better.
My heart slows. The ache in my lungs subsides. I straighten.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Laura resumes her walk, and I follow her, keeping a safe distance between us—close enough that I won’t lose sight of her, far enough back that if I trip, I won’t touch her by mistake and cause her to turn around.
We walk, and we walk, and we walk, and I’m bored out of my mind, but that’s okay, because I’m starting to feel like we’re going to make it.
Naturally, that’s when my own voice snivels from behind me, “Laura, I think I broke my ankle. Please help.”
“That’s not me,” I call.
“Please. I need help.”
“Honestly, do you think I’d be crying over a little broken ankle? I died in a fiery car crash. Buck up, buttercup, and do a better job of pretending to be me. Better yet, find a different hobby. Coloring books are popular right now. They make them for grownups, even.”
“She’s just going to desert you once you get her out,” says the voice, sounding less like the real me, and more like the little voice that sometimes tells me the rules are for other people, people who’ve suffered less than I have. This is the cruel side of my soul, and I don’t like it having a voice of its own.
So I turn around, because there’s nothing in the rules that says I can’t, and I punch the speaker—a thin streak of gray shadow that looks only vaguely humanoid—squarely in the nose it doesn’t have. It falls back, startled.
Five more rise up to grab me and jerk me off the path, and I am overwhelmed. The last thing I see is Laura’s back as she keeps walking, heading away from me, heading toward the land of the living.