Page 1 of The Signature Dish of the Underworld

CHAPTER ONE: A watched pot

Thefirst Soul to walk through the doors was Simon: a flabby flat-nosed phantom of a man who came to the bistro every day, at eleven every morning.

Rae already had a pot of warmed Ibrik waiting for him, served in Simon’s favourite kylix; which was why he kept coming back day after day. She had different kylix’s for each of the regulars she saw every day. It was the little things like that which made a difference to this place.

He sat at the table underneath the one domed window in the bistro, where he read the latest from the ν?α; the parchment with the Underworld's daily announcements. Rae watched as Simon smiled at something he read and lifted the cup to his mouth. The very act transformed the kylix into a mask; the painted eyes under the rim became Simon’s, the handles his ears, and the round base became an open mouth. That way, those drinking were always conversing and looking at who they were dining with. It was a sign of polite society that separated the meadows fromotherplaces, like the drinking holes in Tartarus.

“Anything good in the ν?α today?” Rae asked when he was finished, refilling his kylix, this time with warmed spiced wine. Simon didn’t have to ask – it was custom for him on the fifth day of every week to have a glass of spiced wine, as it had been for the five decades he’d been coming here.

“Just the usual. It’s all about how Greeks and Trojans keep on coming to the Underworld. Apparently, Charon is overworked and the river Styx is still swamped, even with the new housing developments. Plus, there’s turf wars in the suburbs about who gets to live where.”

“You’d think they’d have realised that petty squabbles don’t matter now they’re dead.”

“Ah, Hades will come sort them out. No one wants to face the wrath of a god, much less one they have to spend the rest of eternity with.”

“If they don’t sort it out, they can expect him to make them drink from the Lethe and forget,” Rae warned.

“Apparently there are already hundreds of soldiers that are lining up at that river.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “I’d want the Lethe to take my memories of war too.”

“I wouldn’t.” Simon surprised her by saying. “I’d want to remember what I’d done. A life without memories would be an ache in your chest that would never leave once you were here.”

“Perhaps you’d forget that too.”

“I don’t think so. A life without a story – some part of your soul would remember that.”

Rae pursed her lips at that, nodded, and moved on to serve a nymph that had wandered in and headed for the counter.

By midday a steady stream of customers had trickled in, and the lunch hour rush had begun. Despite being an Arae, Rae’s reputation for some of the most delicious food in the realm proceeded her, and even the pious creatures that tried to avoid even beingcloseto her kind – for fear that she was one of the ancient originals evils not to be approached – came in for some of her baked goods.

The food cabinet was filled with many goods that had been adapted from the mortal recipes Rae had collected from Souls that had accidentally strolled into the bistro. They didn’t know why they ended up in this area of Asphodel Meadows, only that they had a compulsion to travel there, to see her. It was an invisible thread that tugged them to her – the Souls that had broken an oath, a promise, a vow, always sought one of her kind out; for redemption.

Endless, incessant, redemption.

When they asked what they could do, she asked them for a recipe.

Over time, she had gathered as many recipes as she could. Many of them had to be adapted to work with the ingredients she could gather from the Underworld and its meadows. The cabinet was now stocked with the products of these half-earthside, half-underworld recipes. There was fig and spikenard leaf salad freshly tucked into homemade wraps that soothed fears, corn fritters served with a pomegranate and vinegar glaze that immediately filled the consumer with positive thoughts. Rae’s filo pastries with fig and creamy goats cheese warmed the cold blood of Souls, while the pan-fried fish caught from the Lethe were stuffed with lotus flowers, dill and lemon, and made anyone eating it temporarily forget everything other than their latest task.

The meat that the mortals sacrificed earthside ended up down at the meat market in the meadows; cows, lambs and pigs all made for juicy sausage rolls wrapped in the thinnest layer of pastry Rae could manage to make. Not that Rae often managed to get any meat from the market – many of the vendors wouldn’t sell to her for the same reason the pious ones tried to avoid her. It was one of those old urban legends that had spread, and Rae had become tired of trying to correct them. She figured if she could justshowthem what she could do then maybe she could change the narrative that Araes were to be avoided at all costs.

Not that everyone down here believed that, of course. When Rae did manage to get a butcher to agree to sell her the burnt bits that were so charred no one else wanted them, Rae caramelised them in such a way that everyone came in to try her ‘sweet and savoury’ sausage rolls.

This was why Rae focused her energy not on her pre-disposed destiny of haranguing oathbreakers, or correcting those of the old beliefs, but on her dream. She diverted all her energy to her beloved copper pots and pans in the kitchen at Geras’ Grub.

The sweet section of her cabinet was just as impressive. Lemon and pomegranate seed muffins cleansed the palette. Apple ice, a fudge-like substance made from the juice of an apple and frozen in the depths of hell, was also a popular choice among the patrons. Big billowy lavender meringues gave a Soul courage before a speaking event, grapefruit and pomegranate bliss balls gave them a healthy glow and complexion, and ambrosia gave … an orgasm.

Rae’s ambrosia had become the signature dish for “Geras’ Grub: the little lunchtime bistro that’s not to be missed.” That was what the ν?α had called her dish in Rae’s first food critic review, four centuries ago now. It was not the traditional honeyed version the gods up on Olympus drank. Instead, it was a cake slice made of yoghurt from goats milk, homemade marshmallows, honey, and biscuits all mixed together.

It wasn’t often that there were any ambrosia slices left come the end of a lunchtime shift. That review had turned Geras’ Grub from an old, dingy tavern that no one would be caught dead in, to a bustling lunchtime corner bistro that had a steady stream of customers. It was why the owner, Geras, kept her around. Well that and the fact he didn’t actuallylikedoing any of the work. He just liked the fruits of Rae’s labour.

But today had been slower than most.

“Three ambrosias to finish off, Keres?” Rae asked the final table of ladies, who had been gossiping and cackling increasingly loudly throughout the lunch service.

The three females nodded and made general noises of agreement with one another.

“I should think we want three ambrosias and a bottle of golden wine,” one of them said to another, refusing to look Rae in the eye. They wouldn't look, no matter what she did. But they would eat the food – and that was what mattered more to Rae.

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