Page 1 of Song of Memories

Prologue

Pan was the god of mischief.

It was a gloriously fun part to play in the pantheon. He came by it honestly; Hermes was his father. Pan always thought he got the better end of the deal. While Hermes still had some semblance of responsibilities, Pan did not.

No one expected Pan to do anything but drink with the dryads and make appearances at Dionysus’s festivals. He liked to view his role in the world as a consistent merrymaker. There was enough death and drama to keep Greece going until the end of days. Pan never took anything too seriously. There was always someone or something that would clean up his messes when things went too far. He lived his life on a knife’s edge and never intended on slowing down.

Until Eurydice.

She was a daughter of Apollo and a forest nymph. She loved music and only rivaled Pan himself in her wildness. Her laughter was a melody that coaxed flowers to bloom and caused the trees to cry. The first time Pan laid eyes on her, his immortal heart stopped—to this day, he still wasn’t sure if it ever resumed its steady beat.

After Eurydice, Pan’s perspective shifted. His heart expanded to accommodate a world that had created someone as ethereal as Eurydice. Pan brought balance to the world, delivering on a sense of mirth and frivolity he believed necessary to human life—he no longer left trails of carnage behind him wherever he went. Instead, he brought joy to those who were hurting and blessed the wineskins and fields of those less fortunate. He stopped attending the parties of royalty and merchants and would pour drinks for the farmers until dawn.

Hermes made fun of him in the way that only a parent could. He poked fingers and threatened to tell Eurydice himself of Pan’s love for her unless Pan did it himself. Pan was horrified by the idea. Parents were embarrassing whether you were eighteen or eighteen hundred.

The day Pan summoned enough courage to tell Eurydice how he felt, Eurydice met Orpheus.

Nothing had been the same in Pan’s life ever since.

When she came to meet him in the woods at their favorite meadow, he expected to reveal his heart to her. She was bursting with excitement, telling him she had news of her own. He obliged her with a soft smile on his face, eager to hear about whatever had put such a spring in her step—literally, petals littered the ground wherever Eurydice walked.

She said Orpheus’s name.

Pan’s heart shattered.

The grass under his feet died, and a cold breeze swept through the clearing. The trees shivered, and the flowers’ roots curled. Pan had never understood why humans drove themselves to despair and madness over lost love; now, he wanted to join them. All it took was a brief second, a revelation, and Pan’s chest threatened to cave in. He wanted to pull at his hair, break his horns, and join the mourners.

It was only Eurydice’s frightened expression that brought Pan back to the moment. He blamed the sudden outburst on surprise, and Eurydice waved it away. She went on to tell him of her love for Orpheus—for his music—and Pan knew that he could not compete with a nymph’s love for a musician.

So Pan pushed aside his feelings. He buried them deeper than the spring bulbs and locked up his emotions tighter than the frozen streams on the mountainside.

The only thing that mattered was Eurydice’s happiness. If she was happy, Pan could deal with the rest… Then she died.

Pan discovered that grief was a never-ending spiral. It was always waiting with new, unforeseen levels of hell to grip his heart like a vice. Orpheus was determined to rescue her, and for the first time, Pan appreciated him. That was a dedication that Eurydice was worthy of.

He failed.

Pan and Hades nearly came to blows over the number of times he attempted to sneak into the Underworld. Hermes, full of regret for his son, found a loophole. Pan was a god of the forests…and the forests of Asphodel were no different, were they?

Hades was more than happy to oblige Pan once Hermes confronted him. He didn’t want to keep people apart; he was simply trying to keep cosmic order by keeping the veil between the realms intact.

So began the happiest times of Pan’s life. He ran with Eurydice between the trees of the Underworld, cavorting with the other nymphs and dryads who had passed. He brought them wine and fruits from the mortal world and told stories of the latest human trials.

Forty years passed, and Pan was too scared to disturb the hard-wrought peace Eurydice had found in Asphodel. He never mentioned his feelings again.

Then Orpheus died.

I

1

Eurydice’s life was simple. Life was easy when you were dead.

In her opinion, the simple things were the most glorious. Most mortals and gods alike never stopped to smell the flowers; she hadn’t when she was alive either. Eurydice had created flowers with every footfall, but she had never stopped to enjoy them. In the Underworld, she had all the time in the world because time didn’t exist at all.

The memories of her life in Greece were foggy at best, as if she was constantly trying to remember a dream. It didn’t bother her because it didn’t seem real. The only horrors she remembered facing were the first few days of her time in the Underworld.

Eurydice woke up in a small valley, near a stream, unsure of what she was supposed to be doing or where she was. The ends of her hair were damp, and the top of her tunic was soaked, but she couldn’t remember going for a dip in the water. She wandered for two days, afraid to stray too far from the river, until Makaria found her and took pity on her. The goddess of blessed death was gentle and sweet, taking it upon herself to give Eurydice a tour of Asphodel. Eurydice had to be reminded she was dead.

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