Page 8 of Aïdes the Unseen
A real one.
Small. Quiet. Beautiful.
I stepped back into the sunlight, and the world rushed to meet me. Warmth, birdsong, life blooming at my feet.
And yet…
I turned, but the cavern was already gone. A hollow in the earth, filled with echoes and roots.Hewas gone.
The question hung like dusk on my lips. Would I see him again?
A part of me wanted to go back to the hollow, to see if the cavern would open for me once more. Before I could act on it, though, I felt it. Felther.
A soft thread, taut and golden, pulling at the edge of my being.
Kore.
My mother’s voice, no louder than a breath, but filled with warning.
I swallowed the garden whole in my silence. Hid every shadow-laced memory like a pressed flower inside my ribs.
I didn’t answer her.
Not yet.
Chapter
Two
KORE
When I stepped out of the wood, the land around me bloomed, releasing a breath held too long.
My mother was already walking the fields, her feet bare, her arms open. Vines coiled toward her like children rushing to greet her. She didn’t call for me, not aloud. She never did. But her joy rose in the barley and the wheat, in the fruit trees waking too fast, in the gardens bursting out of their own roots.
I stepped back into that abundance with the certainty of someone slipping into an old garment. Everything fit, but something felt different. Tighter, maybe. A little too warm at the collar.
She met me with open arms. “Kore,” she said, soft as summer wind. “Kore.”
I let her hold me. I even smiled. She smelled of grain and sunlight, as she always had, and her hands were stained goldenfrom the fig harvest. But I kept my eyes low. I didn’t want her looking too closely.
“You’re thinner,” she said, brushing a curl from my forehead. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Time felt strange,” I answered, which was not quite a lie. She hummed and didn’t press, but the pause lingered between us like mist refusing to burn off.
We worked together for a time. The new season needed tending. She walked with the ease of someone returning to herself, her laughter like wind across ripe fields. Wherever she touched, the crops grew fuller, bloomed stronger. I followed beside her, quiet, careful. I was not less than I had been. Still, I had learned something of silence. This silence, once known, had become a companion.
I thought she might ask about where I’d been and about whom I’d met. But she didn’t. Not directly. Instead, she said things like, “Your color’s different,” or, “You used to hum more.”
I nodded. I smiled. I bent to gather the wheat.
Because this was not the time to tell her anything she wasn’t asking. Not when the humans were coming with their offerings.
They brought bread still warm from their ovens. Grapes laid in woven baskets. Pears from early trees. Even jars of honey, tucked between sprigs of mint and thyme. Children carried small bowls of beans and garden squash, shy in their giving, while their mothers whispered prayers into the wind.
“To the Mother of All,” they said. “To the Bringer of Harvest.”
They didn’t look at me. I didn’t expect that either. Instead, I stayed by her side as they piled up the harvest’s generosity. The drinking and revelry would last into the night. Dionysus would appear before too long. Mother would share the bounty with him.
