Page 10 of His in the Dark

My mother rubs my shoulder and lets out a breath, steadying herself. “Persephone, you will not become a nymph and live in the forest. You will stay here. With me.” Her voice is strong and warm, and I want to believe her so badly. I want her to be right. “You should not worry. Worrying is for the weak,” she warns, a terse note coming into her voice. “Fate tells us the fears are not for us and to let them be, as I have taught you. As within, so without. So mote it be.”

“Then I am weak, Mother.” Tears sting my eyes, and I brush them away. My mother pulls me to her side and puts her arm around my shoulders. “I am weak, because I cannot let this fear pass me by.”

My mother’s hazel eyes shine with unshed tears as her grip on my shoulders becomes desperate. “And why not?” she asks. “Why not simply let the worry go, it is not for you. You are for the heavens and there is nothing for you to fear. I promise you that my child. If only you believe me, you will never leave my side. I promise you.”

“Because it is already here… the lore.” I lean against her and tell my mother about my faltering powers and how I cannot bring the flowers back to life and I cannot make things grow the way I should be able to. I tell her about how something is missing in me. Something has gone wrong, and I do not belong on Olympus. The Fates have told me so. I tell her I do not know how to stay.

She listens without judgment although her eyes are wide with the newly found burden, rubbing her hand up and downmy arm and looking out at the small lights in the garden. They look like stars, or fireflies. Even in the dark, the garden appears perfect, like the rest of Olympus. Even in the dark, I feel I do not belong here. When I turn to look at my mother in the moonlight, there is sadness in her eyes, but still, she does not judge me.

I take another breath, all of the words spilled out of me at her feet. “If mortals in Elysium, and all that is heaven, can choose rebirth, why can we not so I may have another chance?”

My mother frowns, a crease appearing in her forehead. She turns, unwraps my hair, and wraps it again, the motion an old habit that will hopefully soothe us both. “I cannot comprehend why mortals choose rebirth. What boredom there must be to leave all that is luxury.”

“Perhaps it’s about a second chance,” I suggest. “About being able to do it all over, but with more of what you’re after.”

If I were reborn, I would never take my powers for granted. I would practice constantly to keep them at my fingertips. I would learn what they meant earlier, before I started to lose them. I would do everything I could to stay in Olympus.

My mother is silent for a little while. She rises from the bench and walks over to where a patch of flowers grows, picks several, and brings them back to weave them into my hair. This was my favorite part as a child. It made me feel like I was being crowned as a goddess, though I already knew I was one. It made me feel like a queen from one of the old stories.

“I’ve never heard you speak this way.” My mother finishes patting the flowers into place and turns my head this way and that, looking over her work. She releases my face and waves her hand, replenishing the garden with mature sunflowers. It is nothing to her. The stems thicken and grow beneath her fingertips. That is how great her power is, and I could not bring one flower back from the dead. She takes both my hands inhers. “You do not need second chances, my love. For what has happened was meant to happen, and what will be already is.”

I stare at my mother, wishing she could understand the fear in me, but knowing that she won’t. She is too convinced that our fates are set in stone, and there is nothing we can do to change them. She believes what she wants to believe. And the universe has never dared to challenge her like it challenges me now.

“Thank you for braiding my hair, mother,” I tell her, and smile, instead of pleading with her to understand.

My mother smiles back at me and smooths my hair with her hand. “Sleep well, and know you are always loved.” She kisses my forehead, and I can feel her love. The bond between us as mother and daughter is still strong, and in it, I feel a spark of power. “Will you come inside with me?”

“A few minutes,” I tell my mother. I want to breathe here in the moonlight and try to build as much of a memory as possible. If I am to become a nymph, I want to remember this garden at night, and sitting on the bench with my mother, and how it felt to have her fingers in my hair.

She rises from the bench next to me and kisses my forehead one more time.

“Everything will be alright, my daughter. You are meant to be my counter. You have power. Know it is so.” Her hand skims my hair, and then I can feel that she is walking away, moving the air as she goes. Her footsteps are soft in the garden but I know when she is gone and I am alone again.

How can I leave Olympus? How can I live somewhere else? How can I accept what is going to happen if none of it was my choice?

I will find a way, somehow. If my mother has reminded me of anything, it’s that. I will find a way, because whether goddess or mortal, that is what is left to us if the fates are decided. We must find our own place in it.

Even if we’re afraid.

And I am afraid.

I keep my eyes closed until I’ve convinced myself more of acceptance, or at least a path to it.

When I open my eyes, there is something new in the moonlight.

I can see it there, and at first I think it may be a trick of the light, my mind convincing me that something is there when it is not. But when I blink, it stays, so I stand from the carved quartz bench and walk toward it, my heart in my throat.

There is something there after all. A small, budded flower peeking above the earth at the end of the row of sunflowers. I bend down and brush my fingers over the dewy petals.

It is real.

A light sparks within me and that small bit of the divine burns in my belly.

My powers are not yet gone. There is still hope. Part of me craves more of it, part of me wishes it would pass and grant me mercy from this torture.

HADES

My andron is a massive room made from polished obsidian with high ceilings, every inch of it gleaming and black. We head to it now, and every step draws closer an anxiousness for the night to be done with. The energy is exceptional and the power it gives me is undeniable. It will be empty tonight. It’s nearly always vacant unless there is some cause for festivity, or a pertinent meeting that cannot wait for the courts. It is the part of my home that’s farthest from my rooms and closest to the Underworld, the most public place I can be. It is a place reserved for conversations such as these, which I would rather not hold in my private rooms. I want to be able to leave them behind when they are finished, though I know I cannot really force them out of my thoughts.

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