Chapter Twenty Burnt Offerings Become Ashes

The next day, Hades gave Persephone a dress to wear. He said he was taking her back to Olympus to announce their wedding, and she obviously couldn’t wear the dress that had been burnt down to mere rags after their adventure. The new one was a scarlet dress with a boat neckline that fastened over the shoulders with ruby clips. The dress had two long slits up both sides and intricate latticework down to her knee. “The color of the dawn,” he had said, but to her, it was the color of sunset.

Her life was over.

She knew it was over when he led her to the bath. The water was hot as she stepped in. Hades disrobed and got in with her. Both of them had smudges of soot all over them and Hades splashed his face energetically while Persephone shied away from him. She watched him, fearing what he had planned for their bath together. Instead of bothering her, he conjured a bottle of soap out of thin air and made it magically pour into his hands as if someone was there, but no one was. Even Zeus had his thunderbolts made for him by a lesser god. For Hades, conjuring appeared to be something he could do with very little effort.

With a flick of his hand, the bottle glided across to her where it floated poised to pour the soap into her outstretched palms. Except she didn’t lift her hands to accept it. She couldn’t. She didn’t have the will to take care of herself. She turned away from him and stared at the water because she didn’t care if he killed her for bad behavior now. If only she could die.

She had been violated and woken to discover another hideous truth. She did not need to consent to a wedding ceremony. All that was needed was for her to eat a piece of food from the underworld. That was all. After swallowing those six tiny kernels of pomegranate, she was doomed to spend six months out of every year in the Underworld with him.

“Why didn’t you make me eat twelve?” she whispered, sliding away from him in the water.

He sighed. “I would not limit your power by forcing you to live here always. You are life and even though you are now married to death, you still need time to do your appointed duties on Olympus. I doubt your mother will withhold your responsibilities any longer. Since you are mine, you will be responsible, strong, and completely uncompromising. Besides, I don’t want to deprive your father, my brother, Zeus, of your company. There are still some things to settle. I believe he will be pleased with this arrangement.” He paused, untying his straight, white tresses and letting them float in the water. Then he said to her, “Why don’t you clean yourself? There are black streaks in your hair still.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t care what I look like.”

“I care,” he said, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at him.

His red eyes pierced through her and she shivered with a bone-chilling fear that he was going to do something dreadful to her again.

“You hurt me,” she mumbled and tried to turn away.

“Hurt me back,” he challenged. “Make me cry the way I made you cry last night.”

“I would rather die.”

He smirked. “Too bad that isn’t an option.”

She didn’t have the energy to glare at him, but instead slipped from his fingers by dunking herself in the water. She stayed under for minutes, but she couldn’t drown. She had played that way when she was a child, but it didn’t matter how long she stayed underwater, she always emerged as if she hadn’t missed a breath.

When she came up, Hades took her in his arms and washed her hair and skin like she wasn’t his wife, but his pet. It made her uncomfortable to be so close to him, but he seemed intent on getting her ready for their journey. He hurried them out of the basin and moved them along in what he saw as the routine of preparing to go to Olympus.

“You must look unfathomably beautiful,” he said. “But you must also look changed. You must look strong and womanly. You must return home like you have conquered a beast.”

“I haven’t conquered you,” she choked, as he arranged her hair. He curled it and pinned it because she had no idea how to do it herself, and she had to appear perfect to the gods on Olympus. “No one will believe it. No one will believe any of this,” she ground through her set teeth, indicating everything around her, including his styling her hair.

He stabbed a pin through a high bun he had knotted off. “They must. Together we now control the life and death of each person on Gaia. That is more than either Zeus or Poseidon can boast. We must display the will to control it fairly. Are you ready?”

She looked into his face and her expression read, ‘Only if you say I am.’

“You need paint,” he said after his appraisal. Out of the air, he summoned two tiny jars. He painted charcoal around her eyes and made her lips blood-red. “After today, this paint will be famous,” he said dryly as he moved away to prepare himself for their departure. “After all, I made it just for you.”

It was then that she realized that his clothes were in the other bedroom. She sat in the bed-chamber for whores. This was where he brought silks for her. This was where he left the paint he had just applied to her face on the table. This was where he had raped her. Even though a marriage had been forced on her and she was technically his wife, this was where she belonged. Until she entered his bedroom of her own free will, she would live in this second-rate room. It basically amounted to forever, because that was something she could never do.

Persephone searched the room silently for a mirror. She wanted to see what she looked like. Finally, she found one. It was a hand mirror with a long gilded handle. When she looked at her face, she was astonished by the transformation. Before this, she had shiny, bouncy curls that glistened in the sunlight. Her nose had been dusted in freckles. Her lips had been the color of coral and her eyes were the green of new leaves uncurling in the sun.

Now she was an entirely different creature, Goddess of the Underworld; she believed it. Her freckles were gone and the brightness of her complexion was completely diminished to the bone-white of a storm-worn sand dollar. Her hair hung in loose curls, much different from the tight ringlets she usually wore. The pin she thought he was sticking in her hair wasn’t a pin at all. It was a peacock feather that had been mostly trimmed except for the eye, which stuck out alone from her knot. With the paint around her eyes, they appeared the green of deep forests to the point where they almost appeared black. Altogether, the virginal look was completely gone from her and in its place was that of a seductress. That was what he meant by a woman who had tamed him. Only someone even more terrifying than Hades could battle him hard enough to win against him, and it wasn’t her. The paint and dress were a magic trick he was performing for the gods and goddesses back on Olympus.

It was all a lie.

***

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Seth hollered. His darling goddess was sobbing like a lost child in the backseat and Seth hated himself for bringing this upon her. He had no choice. He couldn’t stop it. He turned left and got back on the right side of the road. The front of Rylan’s car smashed into his tail, but Seth didn’t stop. He smoothly corrected his steering and went on.

***

Hades and Persephone returned to Olympus, but when they arrived at the gates, they were greeted by two unusual sights. The first was the obvious gathering of an army. Apollo was checking his soldiers’ weapons and banging shields with other gods. So far, no one noticed Persephone and Hades standing placidly at the gate. Hades insisted they stand unconcerned and appear as though it did not matter that an army was being raised.

“It is too late now,” he said under his breath.

Suddenly, all the soldiers parted for Demeter, she was waving her arms and denouncing the nymphs with authority. Raidne and Teles were strewn helplessly in the clearing. They yelped painfully as Demeter grasped both of them by their hair and forced them into kneeling positions.

“Let it be known,” she called out loudly to the assembly. “For their crime against my daughter, these two nymphs are cursed forevermore. They will never know the joy of true lasting love. Instead, they will feast on the flesh of the men that crash against the shore believing that they have heard angels singing. These two are not angels, but henceforth shall be known as sirens!”

Even as Demeter spoke, the two nymphs began changing. Their teeth became sharp and ferocious, their fingernails grew into claws, and their eyes completely lost the soft, loving look they had once possessed.

As Persephone looked down on her two servants who had betrayed her, her mind began to whirr. Because they had not protected her, she had been hurt—hurt badly. Her chest throbbed. What her mother had done was not enough. They had not even tried to help her escape, but cared only for their own security. In the end, they believed she would care for them.

Persephone felt for Hades’ hand. She knew he still clutched his chariot whip. Grasping the end of it between her fingers, he relinquished it. Holding a whip was a new experience for her, but she was a goddess with powers of ability no one suspected. She was not the daughter of the god of lightning for nothing, and for once she was angry enough to display it. Against these treacherous hags, she could at least have the satisfaction.

She marched into the clearing with her red dress billowing behind her and her red hair flying away from her face.

The soldiers saw her and moved aside immediately.

Persephone didn’t even look at them. She knew what they were thinking. They had no idea who she was. But her mother—she knew. Persephone couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes, but she could look at Raidne and Teles and her glare was sharper than a dagger.

She unwound the whip and let it fall to the ground in a lump of snaky coils.

The sirens finally recognized their mistress and prostrated themselves on the ground before her and begged, “Lady, forgive us. We were frightened.”

Persephone breathed hard, her chest heaving. “Shut your mouths. You don’t know fear. You don’t know pain. I’ve just become acquainted with both of them and I’ve come to introduce them to you!” She cracked the whip perfectly and the soldiers fanned out in waves to avoid it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hades. His arms were folded across his breastplate. His eyes were flames and she could feel his heart pounding in feverish anticipation. This was exactly what he wanted from her first appearance on Olympus, and more.

But whatever his reaction, Persephone didn’t care. Raidne and Teles had betrayed her in an unforgivable way. They should have helped her run, even if it had been impossible to save her.

She cracked the whip so hard against the cobblestones that dust flew. On Mount Olympus, dust actually flew. Someone whistled at the impossibility of it. This was a place of perfect peace, but now the most precious and sensitive goddess of them all was about to draw fresh blood.

Then she let in on them.

Raidne and Teles ran screaming as Persephone’s whip came down on both their backs in one stroke. Over and over she whipped them, cutting and breaking their skin. They ran, trying to push through the gates, but not before the whip twisted around Raidne’s throat. Persephone yanked Raidne toward her and slapped her across the face twice. She thought of strangling the siren, but when she saw Teles hesitate at the gate, waiting for her sister, she decided against it. Maybe they had learned something, even though they couldn’t make up for what they’d done. Demeter had cursed them. That was enough. She hit Raidne again for spite and felt a twinge in her hand. Then she flung the whip free from the siren’s neck.

“Get out of here!” she shouted. Then she spat on Raidne’s face.

Persephone didn’t wait for them to leave. Instead, she turned on her heel and tossed Hades’ whip over her shoulder. She walked through the wind and dust. The shimmer of her red dress floated through the haze like the eye of a cosmic storm. She walked tall and straight, past countless soldiers, and turned only to find her father. She hesitated for no one, not even Apollo, though he looked like a man who had just seen Hell. Not her mother, who trailed after her weakly. Not Hades, who sauntered behind her like he was exhibiting a rare piece of art he, himself, had created.

Zeus stood by his throne at the far end of his temple. Inside the stone structure, along the long corridor lined with many gods, not just those who were planning to invade the Underworld to retrieve her, but everyone. She walked past them all, keeping her eyes only on her father.

He did not descend the stairs to greet her, but instead watched her as she proceeded toward him. Perhaps he too did not know her. Then she realized that he was not looking at her at all, but at her husband shadowing behind her.

“Hades,” he greeted stiffly.

“Zeus, your daughter and I have come to tell you of our marriage,” her husband said lightly.

“You wanted her this badly?” Zeus asked in a low voice. He did not say anything about her abduction or of the army that surrounded them.

“Father,” Persephone said, interrupting them. She wouldn’t be left out of decisions or discussions any longer. “I have eaten the food of the Underworld and shall be required to spend six months of every year there. I beg your forgiveness for my waywardness.”

“You have grown too quickly,” he observed.

“Kidnap and rape will do that,” she said.

The look on her father’s face was strange. “Come here, both of you,” he said, beckoning them into his private chamber.

Hades put his hand on Persephone’s back as they entered.

She had been in this room many times. She had lounged on the cushions when she was a child. It seemed a different place now. It felt as though the familiarity was lost to her.

Hades closed the door himself to give them privacy.

Persephone did not know what kind of reaction her father would have to this news, and she waited with her hands clenched into fists. Would he be able to free her? She prayed there was a way as she watched him glare at Hades.

Finally, he spoke, and his words were not at all what she had expected. “To hell with you,” he muttered, looking sharply at Hades. “Brother, this is foul trickery. In the counsel you said that you wanted to make Persephone your bride, but what you have done far exceeds the desires you expressed to Demeter. Why couldn’t you have worked to convince her of your deep love for her daughter rather than hauling her off by her hair and forcing us to prepare for war? Apollo was ready to raze the Underworld for her sake.”

Hades snorted. “And I should care what Apollo does? That brat wouldn’t know power if it took his head off.”

“He’s my son!” Zeus raged.

“She’s your daughter!” Hades countered. “Mine now. And I didn’t say I loved her.”

Zeus stopped and looked at Hades like he didn’t believe what he was hearing. “You...” he breathed, but didn’t continue.

Persephone broke the silence. “Father, please help me. Please reverse the contract. I did not partake of the fruit knowing that it would force me to live in the Underworld.”

Zeus shook his head. “I can’t undo what was done. I can give you a potion that will make you able to eat the food of the underworld freely now, but it won’t shorten your time there. I apologize, it’s the only gift I can give you, daughter.” He placed his hand on Persephone’s head and peered into her eyes, adding weight to his meaning.

She nodded piteously. She should have known. Hades would not have made a plan to ensnare her that Zeus could undo. He had a perfect knowledge of what Zeus could and could not do. He knew there was no saving her.

Zeus walked to the door. Putting his hand on the latch, he turned and said to Hades, “This was a black thing to do.”

Then he was gone and Persephone was left alone with her husband and her future. She didn’t cry, though she wanted to. There was no need to make a fool of herself. There would be plenty of time, plenty of dark nights where she could cry as much as she wanted to.

***

Hades arranged everything so quickly it was truly frightening. Persephone took on all the responsibilities of the Goddess of Fertility and learned that every creature she allowed to be born on earth would die. Giving life had been spontaneous and ingenious before Hades. Now she was face-to-face with what happened after creation. She spent six months on Olympus planting the seeds of greatness and the other six months sorting the refuse of lives exhausted, picking through the tragedy.

And he, Hades, was in her face, in her bed, touching her, running his oily black fingers across her supple skin that was made for loving, not for what he did. It was eternal violation. Not just her, but everything she made, everything she created.

The cycle of life had existed before Hades had hauled her off by her hair. Of course, he had been curious about her. Her mother had been training her for her responsibilities, and he knew the difference between Demeter’s work and Persephone’s. She was the one giving life. It was like she had been sending him messages unknowingly with every single person she made. She made a little girl who was like a butterfly. The little girl lived on earth and grew, but life was hard for her, because little girls cannot live like butterflies, and by the time that little girl’s soul arrived at the throne room of the Underworld, she had become something quite different. The God judging her had wondered who had made her so fragile that life had wrecked her so completely. And Persephone learned not to make little girls who were like butterflies.

The Goddess of the Harvest, Demeter, grieved. Her grief was palpable, so palpable that every single person who lived on the soil of Gaia felt it. Before Hades and Persephone wed, every day had been warm. The weather was continually pleasant. Afterwards, Demeter, the Goddess of the Harvest, arranged the world differently. The seasons appeared. In spring, Persephone arrived home on Olympus and everything on earth suddenly grew, babies were born, buds sprouted, the world was reborn. In summer, the joy continued, but when autumn came, Persephone would have to return to the Underworld. By that time of the year, Demeter was at her busiest with the harvest that she could let Persephone go without a qualm because she didn’t have the time to spare. By winter, all the work was finished. There was nothing left to do but mourn and the world fell into a coldness and darkness that resembled death. After all, it didn’t matter what Persephone was doing in the Underworld, whatever Persephone made, it died there.

Persephone didn’t know the depths of her mother’s suffering on her behalf, because Demeter tried her best to keep her sorrow to herself. But some of her feelings were too close to the surface to be concealed. She believed that she had truly been the one to destroy her daughter’s happiness. She had been the one to give her Raidne and Teles as servants. She had been the one who chose to raise her child in perfect innocence. And worst of all, she had been the one who refused Hades without questioning him. She could have compromised and won Persephone a better home or a better husband. She would have done it, too, if she hadn’t wanted to keep her child all to herself. Her pretty child, who she loved endlessly, now draped in red silk shouting commands like a blood-soaked necromancer. Demeter hid her face to hide the pain.

Back in the black rooms of the Underworld, Persephone stayed in the room intended for whores. Days and nights felt almost the same. It didn’t matter if the sun was in the sky or the moon, because she couldn’t feel the warmth either way. She found other rooms besides the ones Hades had initially shown her. He had many strange beasts besides the horses and Cerberus.

There were practically no servants. There was Charon, but he wasn’t exactly Hades’ servant. His purpose was to ferry the dead. The god didn’t care if the ferryman did his job and the ferryman didn’t care if the god did his. Charon was paid for his work by the dead by one coin that was put in their mouths when they were buried. A soul who had no money to pay him would wander a hundred years before they found the way. In any case, Hades did not need servants. His animals were immortal beings that did not need grooming or feeding. As an expert conjurer, Hades required no one to wait on him as other gods did.

The work of the dead was demanding, but there was no rush to complete it. Hades would lie across the throne with a knee hooked over the armrest. With his eyes closed, he would decide on the fate of a thousand souls in an hour. Demeter had not exaggerated when she said that Hades was perfect in his role. Even his rebellious wife could not deny his talent. When she took over, she would agonize over one soul for hours and in the end, decide to send them to the resting room to wait for further judgment. Hours later, Hades would empty the resting room. If he found her indecision frustrating, he never mentioned it. It didn’t matter how many hours he spent or she spent, there was always more to be done, more souls waiting.

As for her nights with him, they fought. They threw things, broke things. She raged, he beat her, she screamed until she was limp. Against her better judgment, she would look for signs that he was falling in love with her, but his treatment of her never altered. He didn’t mind her slow work, but he wanted her to be strong-willed like he was. He wanted her to have the strength of will to make mistakes and take responsibility for them. Sometimes, she didn’t put souls in the waiting room. Sometimes, she put them in the wrong room. When she reneged a soul’s eternal assignment and tried to take back her judgment, he hurt her. It happened frequently. She could never be happy with him. It was impossible.

When she returned to Olympus, Hades dropped her off at the gate. She wore a black, backless dress and her arms were stained onyx from all the dirty souls she had touched. Hades took her hand and kissed it before he rode off. Looking around, she saw at once that she didn’t fit in anymore. The gods and demigods glared at her. Her mother was the only one who didn’t follow her with their eyes like she was a traitor.

Apollo’s reaction to her changed self was the most heartbreaking. He cried in the open, falling to his knees. He tore at his hair and covered his head in ashes because of the passion of his grief.

“Persephone is lost,” he cried as she stood still as a statue before him.

She turned to her mother and said, “There’s work to do.”

Each time she completed the cycle to Olympus, to the Underworld, she became different. Sometimes she was apathetic. Sometimes she let herself say exactly how she felt, but life with Hades was not something she could grow to love. He was not a person she could grow to love. He showed her no mercy and she began to long for death. She wanted out of her body. Her body belonged to him. She wanted out.

It was hundreds of years before she found a way. She was in the throne room judging spirits when the spirit of a young woman approached her. She was holding a bag of gold in her arms that was almost overflowing. A person did not need that much gold to bribe Charon, so Persephone questioned her about it.

“It’s for my family. Every one of them was murdered by sirens. I couldn’t find their bodies, but I wanted to free them from the prison of being wandering spirits, so I brought money for them,” the girl said.

“Were you expecting to die?” Persephone asked, thinking the girl must mean Raidne and Teles, though she didn’t keep a tally on everyone who was cursed on Olympus.

“Yes. I took my own life,” the ghost explained. “I couldn’t stand to live anymore. I was so frightened. I was the last one alive. The sirens murdered and ate my family. I didn’t want to wait for them to come to kill me too, so I…”

“How did you kill yourself?”

“I drowned, Lady.”

“Ah! So your body is complete and unharmed in the water somewhere?”

“Yes, but I don’t want another chance at life. I only want to be with my family again. Please help me find them.”

Persephone nodded. “I might be able to help you, but you have to give me a few things in return. And,” she continued, holding up one finger, “you are going to have to understand that my help won’t be immediate. I can reunite your family, but not instantly.”

“What do you want?” the ghost asked desperately.

“I need your permission to borrow your body, and I need you to tell me your mortal name.”

“What do you need my body for?” she shivered.

“That’s not your concern,” Persephone said stiffly. “Do you want my help or not?”

“Stella. You can use my body.”

“And I need you to give me that bag of gold coins. I will give the coins to your family when I find them.”

Persephone’s plan was almost perfect. If she borrowed Stella’s body, Raidne and Teles would probably be the first to find her and she would need their help. When she possessed Stella’s body, she wouldn’t remember anything. If she knew who she was, pretending to be someone else would be pointless. The sirens owed her any and all help she might require. The one flaw was that now she needed a place to hide Stella’s spirit. If she put her soul in the resting room, Hades would certainly find her and if he didn’t interrogate her, he would send her off to her final resting place, and then Persephone wouldn’t be able to find her in the end. Finally, she got an idea. She’d put Stella in one of her empty perfume bottles to rest.

“Come with me,” she said, opening the trap door and bringing the dead soul into the living space of the palace.

She took Stella all the way to the whore’s bedroom and took the bag of gold from her.

“Thank you for your kindness,” Stella said, before Persephone sealed her in the glass bottle.

“Think nothing of it,” Persephone whispered as she went to lie down on the bed. Her head fell on the pillow as she went over the steps of her plan once more.

Astral projection was simple in theory. All a person needed to do was separate their spirit from their body. Humans could do it. The necromancers who worshiped Hades did it all the time. She’d seen it done countless times. She’d do it this time.

Breathe slowly. Breathe evenly. Envision flying. She did everything the necromancers did, but she did them in seconds rather than hours and, even though she’d never done it before, her spirit flew from her body as though she was a bird in flight.

Her body lay beneath her. For many years she had detested looking at herself because of the changes wrought in her appearance. As she saw her body without her spirit, she realized that it was her spirit that was hurt and not her body at all. Her body was the body of a goddess which could not be marred by time or abuse or fatigue, but her spirit was the spirit of a woman that longed for love and happiness. This being the case, she ached as she scooped up the bag of coins and drifted to the door.

She disappeared around the corner and thought of the many years this idea had eluded her. She should have realized ages ago that it was her body that committed the sin by eating the pomegranate and not her spirit. Hades could not trap her spirit and as long as her body remained in the Underworld, she could go anywhere she wanted.

But there remained one final obstacle. There was still Charon, the river master, who needed to ferry her down the Styx. Persephone had the fare with her, but she did not know if he would take her. It was impossible to trick him into believing she was someone else. She was never as exposed as she was when she passed through the halls of the Underworld without her flesh.

When she reached the portal, Charon had just arrived with a collection of new souls. He turned his blank face toward her and she approached to pay him the required coin. “Where is your master?” he questioned dully.

“Asleep. Please take me,” she asked simply. It was impossible to rouse much emotion. An emotional appeal wouldn’t have meant anything to the ferryman.

“Get in,” he said, taking the gold from her.

She sat down and he pushed away from the shore. They had never spoken. She did not know if he had feelings or if he pitied her. He never said. The water ran smoothly and the twinkle of lost souls along the cavern walls lit their way.

“Lady,” he said in a low voice once the dock was out of sight. “You know this is only temporary.”

“I know.” Moments passed as they pushed against the current, going the unnatural way in more ways than one. “If he asks you what happened. Please tell him that I left a message for him with you. Tell him that I’ll stay with him all year round.”

***

Seth swung his head around to check on Juliet for the millionth time. She had stopped fighting. She no longer shook or cried, but stayed perfectly still as if she was dead. Seth spared two fingers from the wheel and placed them on her throat to check her pulse. He hoped he wasn’t imagining that it felt strong.

His mind was breaking apart in pieces. Keeping focussed on the mad car chase as well as watching over Juliet as she went through this ordeal was almost too much. He had to find a way to lose Rylan. He was persistent! Seth had a full tank of gas when their chase started, and he found himself wishing passionately that Rylan’s tank didn’t. Seth didn’t know how he was going to outrun Rylan if he didn’t run out of gas.