Chapter Eleven
Hades sat next to Persephone at a glass table in a long, white conference room. The walls were plain with nothing taped or hanging on them. Around the table were twelve comfortable high-backed black leather swivel chairs. Hades sat at the head of the table with Persephone in a chair beside him.
“What did you say this place was again?” she asked.
“It’s just a meeting place inside the neutral zone,” Hades said staring at the door at the other end.
“Neutral zone?”
He finally turned to look at her. “Yes, it’s a place that is safe for both underworld beings and upper world beings. Some of us can walk between the worlds, but not all of us can. It’s the only way Zeus and I can be in the same place for long enough to have a real conversation. I think a lot of the mortals now call it something like purgatory.”
All she said was, “Oh.”
Hades wasn’t an idiot. He knew Zeus had tricked him—sending Persephone’s powers back to her like that. It was the ace he’d had up his sleeve the whole time, and Hades hadn’t seen it coming. He’d been too lost inside the freedom of not caring about anything, too lost inside the monster.
If he kept her in the underworld, and the world died… it was too many souls to process, and he’d sworn to Persephone he’d never destroy so many souls like that again. After she’d restored him, he’d spent hours crying in her arms like a big baby. If his generals could have seen him. If Zeus could have seen him. Just lying there, broken on the floor. Not his finest moment.
He still couldn’t believe she’d forgiven him. Destroying those souls was bad enough, but the more personal things… That was something inside him he’d never wanted her to know. There was always the dark urge. How far would he have taken things if she hadn’t gotten her powers back so quickly?
“This place is more disturbing than the underworld,” she said. “I feel like Betty from accounting is gonna come in with a cup of stale coffee in a paper cup for banal small talk while endless filing goes on in the background behind her.” She put her hand over Hades’.
He chuckled. She always had a way of bringing him out of bad places. She may have forgiven him, but he wasn’t sure he could ever forgive himself. It was why he had to do this for her. It wasn’t about his rivalry with Zeus or about how he’d been tricked. It was about what he owed her for saving him in a million tiny ways, for being more than he ever could have hoped for. Much more than he deserved.
Recessed into the ceiling were a row of irritating fluorescent lighting fixtures. One of them was blinking. It had that buzzing bug zapper quality to it. Persephone was right. This place was more disturbing then the underworld.
“What’s going to happen?” she asked.
He could feel the nervous energy buzzing off her, mirroring the buzz of the flicking light. “We’re just going to talk.”
After several long minutes, the door opened and in walked Zeus. He’d always looked both very young and very old at the same time. He wore a loose white T-shirt, and long shorts that had brightly colored flowers on them.
He was tan with brilliant green eyes that seemed even more bright next to the glow of that tan. He had flowing white hair and a white beard, but other than the hair he looked about thirty. He smelled like tanning oil, the scent wafting gently throughout the conference room.
Zeus looked sadly at Persephone and shook his head. “My sweet, darling daughter, what has this monster done to you?”
Persephone scooted her chair closer to Hades. “At least he didn’t hide my powers and identity from me. At least he let me find my real self instead of endless lies.”
Hades felt the smirk inch up the side of his face. This meeting might not be so terrible after all. He wished he could bottle Zeus’s anger. The other god looked like he might turn into a ball of fire and explode right then and there, leaving a scorch mark on the light gray corporate-friendly carpet.
“You’re late,” Hades remarked.
“I was in Bermuda enjoying the sun.” He’d no doubt made a beeline for the beach the moment he fixed the earth. Zeus hated winter just as much as everyone else did.
“Must be nice. I keep hearing about this thing you call the sun, but it never wants to come out when I’m on the surface.”
“Sorry about that,” Zeus said, sitting in the chair at the opposite end of the table from them.
Hades frowned. “No, you’re not. And yet, I somehow have managed to acquire the only sunlight that matters.” He trailed his fingertips along Persephone’s arm.
“Enough!” Persephone shouted, pulling away from him. She stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not some meaty bone for you dogs to fight over! Stop discussing me like I’m not even in the room.”
Zeus looked taken aback by her outburst, but she didn’t seem to care.
“I’m not the same coddled and sheltered child you carted all over the planet and kept naive. I’m a grown woman and a goddess with a consort of my own. I’m the queen of the underworld, goddammit!”
Hades laughed. Zeus flinched—probably over that consort part. But Persephone wasn’t done.
“I’m not some object you two can negotiate over. Don’t either of you care what the hell I want?”
“We know what you want,” Zeus said. “You want to be free of him.”
Hades looked down at the table, the mirth of only seconds ago, gone. He could feel her eyes on him. He couldn’t look at her because deep down he knew that must be true. He’d taken her from her life and sentenced her to be his forever. Of course she wanted to be free of him.
“No. I just want to go home. I have work to do.”
“To Olympus?” Zeus asked, raising a white eyebrow.
“NO!” She practically growled when she said it. Hades looked up just in time to see her eyes glow bright blue. “My home! In New York. I want to go back to my apartment over the Chinese restaurant and my plants. I want my job back. I want my friends back. I want the sun and rain and wind. I want to be among the living.”
Hades flinched.
“So you want to be free of him,” Zeus said.
She sank back into her chair. “That’s not what I said. I swear, neither one of you listens.”
“Hades, don’t you think it’s time you let her go?”
“She can’t go. She ate the seeds,” Hades said. Zeus thought he was the only one with an ace. Hades had to keep reminding himself that those pomegranate seeds would always tie her to him, one way or another. She could never be completely free of the underworld.
“How many?” Zeus pressed.
Hades continued to stare at the table as if he could burn a hole through it by sheer force of will. “Six,” he said finally.
“Ah, well, that’s easy then. So you know the solution. You’ve always known it. You can’t be on the surface that long, but she can. It’s a compromise we can all try to live with.”
Hades glared at Zeus. “And what makes you think I’ll let her go? Maybe you can extract her powers again and then...” He was being crazy, and everybody at the table knew it. But Zeus had seen more than he should.
“Because you love her,” the other god said.
There was a long, silent moment.
Hades sighed. “I do.”
“Then it’s settled. I’ll alter the memories of the mortals so things are as they were, and Persephone spends half the year on the surface...” he made a disgusted face, “… and half the year with you.”
Persephone’s hand slammed down on the table. “Hey. Still sitting right here, guys.”
Zeus turned to her. “I’m sorry, Persephone. Is this plan agreeable to you?” He didn’t really sound that sorry.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I just like to be asked.”
Zeus rolled his chair back from under the desk, stood, and stretched. “Well, kids, I ordered a Surf ‘n’ Turf at the fish fry place down on the beach. It’ll be out any minute now. I will send an emissary to arrange the details. Agreed, Hades?”
Hades sighed. “Agreed.”
“Persephone?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Good then. Well, this was one of our more productive meetings, I think.” Zeus crossed to their end of the table and took Persephone’s hand and kissed the back of it. “It was lovely to more formally meet you, my dear. I hope we’ll talk again soon.”
Before either she or Hades could respond he’d turned and left them alone in the room.
Persephone sighed. “I still don’t understand why you can’t live on the surface with me. Why can I be in the underworld but you can’t be on the surface? It’s so stupid.”
The only way she’d fully understand was with a demonstration. “Close your eyes and extend your powers out into the room,” Hades said.
Persephone closed her eyes. After a few moments, she glowed with a brilliant pale pink light. Plants began to sprout up everywhere. Trees grew from the center of the desk. Budding, blossoming, sprouting fruit.
“Now open your eyes,” he said.
She opened her eyes, a look of wonder on her face as she took in the spectacle before her. She walked around the room, and everything came to life even more in her presence. Everything buzzed and hummed.
“It’s all talking to me,” she said. “I feel everything linked together inside me.”
Rose bushes sprouted up in the corners, blossoming in pink and red and yellow blooms.
Hades rose from his chair and walked the perimeter of the room. As he passed, it all shriveled and died. Apples fell off trees, turned dark, and rotted in seconds. The roses lost all their petals which curled in on themselves and dried within moments before crumbling into a fine dust. Then there was nothing left but blackened twisted vines and thorns. Everything stopped humming and buzzing, and the whole room went still and quiet.
Hades moved closer to Persephone and took her into his arms. “This is why we can’t be together on the surface. It’s not just that I physically can’t stay. Even if I could, this would be what the world would be like. And you would be just as unhappy. Death goes wherever I go. And life goes where you go. Except the underworld because I rule it. This is the only way we can maintain the balance.”
Hades brushed a stray strand of blonde hair from her face. “I’ll take you back home when you’re ready.”
***
Persephone stood with Hades out in the rain just outside the flower shop. He bent to kiss her, and she felt something like panic welling up in her chest. All of a sudden, she hated this plan. She wanted to be in the underworld with him.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to hold onto his kiss longer, trying to remember his scent, the way he tasted, the softness of his lips on hers. Finally, he pulled away.
This was how it had to be. She would live half the time in the world she loved and half the time with the man she loved. Eventually, even with her powers, the underworld would wear on her, but for several months at a time, it was a workable solution. But why did leaving him now have to be so hard?
“You should go. I’ll be back for you in six months. Enjoy the sun and your flowers,” he said.
She could see in his eyes that he hated this plan just as much as she did. How could they be so right and so wrong for each other at the same time?
“Yeah. Sun,” she said, glancing up at the dark sky. She was getting drenched standing out here in the pouring rain.
“You have to have some rain or nothing grows, you know. There will be plenty of sun. The sky can’t help itself with you.” He brushed the wet strands of hair from her face. “Go on.”
“Are you sure they won’t remember me gone?”
“Zeus took care of it. As far as Lynette remembers you haven’t been missing.”
“What about the man I thought was my father?”
“The same. Everything is as it should be. Go.”
She started to cry. At first, she thought she could hide it from him with all the rain, but he knew.
“Persephone. Don’t make this more difficult. You can’t live for eternity in the dark. It’s not right.”
But she only cried harder.
Hades shook his head. “My poor, sweet goddess.”
She looked up at him and laughed. “Not so sweet anymore.”
“Yes. That’s my influence.” He wiped the tears off her face. “Go. Grow your flowers. Lie in the sunlight. Eat some of that amazing Italian sausage for me. Read books. Swim in the ocean. I’ll be back for you soon enough. I’ll always come for you, you know that.”
Somehow, in the underworld, she’d grown accustomed to being his, but ever since getting her powers and the meeting with Zeus, it all felt as if it were falling apart and being taken away from her. She didn’t want to lose that feeling of peace and safety—of him in control. He’d awakened things inside her that she wanted to keep. The only thing that remained to give any of it reality was the silver collar. Surely it meant something that it was still locked around her throat.
“Am I still yours?”
“Always, Sunshine. And when you return, I’ll have devised all sorts of deviant punishments to make you pay for your recent sass.”
She laughed. “Promise?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And will there be parties?”
“You’ll beg for them to stop,” he promised. “Now quit stalling.”
Hades pressed a kiss against her forehead, and then he turned and left. His long coat billowed behind him in the rain as he crossed the street.
Persephone reluctantly turned and went into the flower shop. The flowers perked up as she passed, buds opening, blooms going fuller, an extra burst of fragrance filling the room. She hoped Lynette didn’t notice, but her boss had been engrossed in a different show.
“So. I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” Lynette said. “Were you ever going to tell me about Mr. Tall, Dark, and Delicious?”
“You’d never believe the story.” And if she did, she’d probably try to get Persephone to file a restraining order.
Persephone watched out the window as Hades started another black car that wasn’t his car and pulled out into the rain. She watched until the sedan disappeared around a corner onto another street. She wanted to go after him, but he was right, she couldn’t live forever in the dark, and she had her own responsibilities on the surface.
She had to find a way not to miss him too much. And when he came for her, she’d have to find a way to remember she would have light again.
As soon as he was out of sight, the rain stopped. The clouds seemed to melt into a brilliant blue sky, and the sun came out bright and warm.
Lynette stepped up behind her. “Well, would you look at that? It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful sunny spring day after all.”
Imagine that.
Late that afternoon while Lynette was out running errands, a delivery came. A fruit basket full of pomegranates sat outside on the front stoop. Persephone stepped out of the shop and looked around but saw no delivery truck. A cawing sound drew her attention to a nearby tree where a black raven stared down at her and tilted his head to the side.
She carried the basket into the shop and opened the card.
Something to remember me by. Don’t worry, they came from your world, not mine.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment to keep the tears from spilling out. He would be back, and everything would be fine.
She opened the door again and looked up at the raven. “Well? Are you coming in?”
He cawed again and flew inside to perch on the table beside the basket. Persephone retrieved a knife from the break room and cut open one of the pomegranates. When she sliced it, the juice dripped out to stain the table. She’d thought she never wanted to see or taste another pomegranate seed again, but with Hades gone, it made him feel close.
She ate one of the sweet, juicy seeds. The flavors burst out on her tongue just as she’d remembered. When nothing tragic happened, she ate several more.