The Hanged Man: Part 1: The Hanged Man, Part 2: Mabon (Entire)

In which you can read without interruption ...

Part 1: The Hanged Man

The Card: The Hanged Man

life in suspension; a pause

Photo by Airis Nikolaevaa on Unsplash

It begins with the Hanged Man.

Harvest passed through his hands, but they’re slack and empty now, scarred from picking, mowing and cutting the yield. He existed in the kiss of stone and blade, the rapturous sickle shape of the scythe. He inhabited callus, gash, thorn, wasp sting and torn fingernail. His sweat oiled the handles of a thousand tools. His blood and seed oozed out of discarded sinking fruit, smelling of rot, on the parched stubble.

Now comes peace after mighty effort. Blankets of snow are soon to cover November’s bony bed. The Hanged Man rests, dried and diminished in loose nakedness, dangling upside down by one leg from a skeletal bough. The snake, Mirmir, wraps around the branch, anchoring the Hanged Man, his flat head swaying near the man’s gold-ringed ear.

Mirmir murmurs of what might be and what might not be, what has been and what has not been, of time past and coming again soon. He whispers of worlds like glowing marbles turning through dark space, blue and green, grey and brown. Each world is a long, long story; each life a shorter one. The stories are bound, one to another, a net of star and crystal flung across the cosmos, linking one world to another so the leaves at the top of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, intertwine with the stars, each to tell, each to listen.

In this tree, on this small planet called Webbd, a crimson cloak hangs, a thin worn leaf of glory, sieving chill wind, fluttering, as leaf, snake, man, star and story revolve in endless dance, here at the turning point.

The Hanged Man listens. And he smiles.

Part 2: Mabon

(MAY-bone or MAH-bawn) Autumn equinox, the balance point between summer solstice and winter solstice. The second of three harvest points in the cycle, a time to complete tasks, measure success, give thanks and prepare for winter.

The Card: Two of Wands

growth, movement, action, clear seeing; division and boundaries

Photo by Lucie Liz from Pexels

CHAPTER 1

PERSEPHONE

“Stop with the flowers! No more flowers!” Persephone glared at Demeter.

“But I love you!” Demeter’s lip trembled.

“Mother,” said Persephone between her teeth, “I’m suffocating. You’re embarrassing me. You’ve wrapped me up in a stifling blanket of flowers and fruit and grain and I hate it! I want to be free!”

“Free,” said Demeter, her voice rising. “Free from what? I’m your mother, young lady. Your mother! You’ll never be free from that!”

“Don’t count on it!” said Persephone in fury, and slammed the door behind her.

Not for the first time, Persephone took refuge in the comforting company of the horses. These days she often pulled herself onto a broad back to amble through field and forest, restless and frustrated. Sometimes she came across people working the land or caring for flocks and herds, and stopped to exchange country talk of weather, crops and animals.

Harvest ushered in the season of the Wild Hunt, when storms swept across the sky and stole away the souls of the dead. A night belonging to the Wild Hunt by long tradition approached, and farmers and shepherds made ready to protect their animals and families.

On nights when the Hunt rode, Demeter made sure she and Persephone were well within doors. Persephone remembered the sound of those wild nights when the gale thrashed in treetops. The iron hooves of the horses, clamor of horns and hounds, and shouts and curses of the Hunt swept through the dark sky in a wave of tumult, ominous and exciting.

Odin, Wind God, summoned the Hunt and autumn storms, and Persephone knew his daughters, the Valkyries, rode with the hunt. Might Odin provide her with a teacher or a path to the future?

The autumn days grew shorter, Demeter preserved a hurt dignity and Persephone longed for a life of more than abundance and beauty.

HADES

Hades brooded on the lot he’d drawn with his brothers to decide who would rule each portion of Webbd. Poseidon drew the sea. Well and good for him! Plenty of movement and life there. Plenty of company and beauty. And Zeus drew the sky and was never seen anymore. Typical. Zeus always grabbed what he wanted and he always wanted the best of everything. He would appropriate the highest seat in the stadium. Hades himself drew the Underworld. Certainly, he possessed the worst part of the bargain! And now the eternity of his life was to be nothing but cold bones and death. His soul sickened. He longed for the sight of something more than rocks and the spectral dead. His power was empty. Despair and rebellion swallowed him.

One of Odin’s wolves carried an invitation from Odin to Hades to ride with the Wild Hunt and gather dead souls lost in storms and winds of the lengthening nights. Odin needed Hades to oversee the work, as the dead were his responsibility. Hades considered, shoulders hunched, while he sat by the fire. More of the cursed dead, as though the place wasn't already filled with them! Still, a chance to be back in the world with a strong horse beneath him, the sound of hounds and horns and wind in his face! He accepted.

MIRMIR

“In all timess and placess live thosse who ssee what’ss hidden,” Mirmir whispered, sounding like dry leaves rustling. “Their ears hear the prayers of the heart better than the prayers of the lips. They visit altars in forests, on moors, on hearths; altars decorated with symbol and rune, a pack of shabby cards, a handful of sticks or bones. Old women wait at crossroads with a gift. Uncanny peddlers spread their wares. Crones spit on a handful of marbles like jewels, galaxies in their eyes. Musicians walk with enchantment in their packs. And an old man with a staff, a cloak, and a weathered and worn hat tilted to hide an empty eye socket, wanders here and there, seldom speaking, his one eye seeing more in a day than any other two in a lifetime.”

“Odin,” sighed the Hanged Man. Sunlight shone through the tired gilt of a few remaining leaves and fingered his thin hair.

“Who knowss the thoughtss of thosse collectorss of sstoriess and prayerss?” Mirmir continued. “Who can gauge the depth of their wisdom or humor? How far behind and how far ahead do they see? And if Persephone, in her frustration, and Hades, in his anger, are offered a choice, a risk, a chance to change their lives, will they take it?”

“Tell me how it was,” said the Hanged Man.

PERSEPHONE

The night of the Wild Hunt, Persephone resolved to spend a pleasant evening before the fire with her mother. She praised the bread and honey and drank barley water, Demeter’s favorite, without complaint. They sliced apples for drying and Demeter relaxed into loving maternal approval.

Eventually, Persephone yawned and suggested bed, watching as Demeter checked to see that windows and doors were locked and barred.

While her mother breathed in sleep, Persephone plaited her long bright hair and wound it around her head under the hood of her woolen cloak. She wore sturdy country clothes, thick and warm. She made her way out of the house and into the night.

The moon, Noola, pale and tired, lay on her back. Later, Cion would rise, filling the sky with her silvery body. Persephone moved warily away from the cottage into a grove of trees. A breeze rose and rustled the highest leaves. A raven croaked unexpectedly, like a signal. Persephone came out of the trees’ shelter, her breathing easing as she put distance between herself and her sleeping mother. She walked across the long rolling flank of a hill, under open sky. Here she could see and be seen. She stood with her face raised. A gust of wind snatched the hem of her cloak and bellied it out like a sail. In a sudden rush of wings, a raven came to rest on her shoulder. She gasped and flinched, but it gripped the wool of her cloak and held on.

She heard a sound as though of mighty gates opening. From far up and away came the desolate calling of wild geese on the wing. The wind rose and rose again, and Persephone heard baying hounds, hooves of galloping horses and hunting horns, echoing and magnifying the call of the geese. The Wild Hunt swept across the sky in a dark wave of wind, and something fierce and exultant leapt in Persephone. She heard herself cry out, a wordless sound of triumph and strength, and spread her arms as though in command.

Photo by Tom Barretta on Unsplash

HADES

Fierce joy filled Hades. He gloried in the night, the Hunt, the feel of a horse between his knees. How long, how long since he’d been out in the beautiful world? For the moment, his gloom and resentment were forgotten. He added his voice to the voices of the Hunt and urged his horse on. An unkindness of ravens flew above the hunt, their grating calls contributing to the din.

Odin struck Hades on the knee with his staff and pointed with it at a figure on the long slope of a low hill ahead. At once Hades wheeled away across the hill’s flank. Wind tore at his beard and the horse's mane and tail and he grinned into it. The figure stood quite still, arms upraised, and as he swooped down toward it a black bird took off from its shoulder with a harsh cry, just audible in the gale, and flew after the Hunt. Hades grasped one of the upraised arms, not troubling to be gentle, and hauled the figure up behind him. He felt arms come around him in a tight hold, the warmth of a body against his back, and a head tucked between his shoulder blades, sheltering from the wind. With a cry, he loosened the reins and set the horse at a thunderous gallop to rejoin the hunt.

Hades gave no thought to the rider behind him. He stayed quiet and out of the way and Hades all but forgot his presence in the lust of the hunt and black passion of night sky and storm. Over and over he winded his horn. He shouted until he was hoarse. The hounds ran at his horse's feet, baying and howling at the scent of each soul. The horse fought bit and bridle, reared, screamed, outran the very wind, but couldn’t escape the will and strength of its rider, and Hades was drunk with his power over the great animal. The Hunt flowed out behind its leaders like a clamorous dark wing, and if more than lost souls were plundered, Hades took no notice.

PERSEPHONE

For some minutes, Persephone only concentrated on staying on the enormous horse. She could hardly straddle it. Its speed, combined with the gale of wind and storm and sounds of the Hunt, deafened and blinded her, snatching away her breath. She wrapped her arms around the man in front of her and hung on. His broad back provided some protection from the surrounding chaos and she clung to it, resting her cheek between his shoulder blades.

She could see the Hunt’s net sweep across the sky, gathering lost souls from the storm’s embrace, along with other flotsam and jetsam and a hailstorm of aggies and allies, catseyes and devil’s eyes, tigers and bloods and pearls, for Odin’s collection of marbles. She knew the one-eyed old man was a fearsome marble champion, a fact which many felt sadly diminished his dignity.

Persephone never forgot that ride, but even the most fearsome night must end in dawn. As the sky lightened at last, Odin led the Hunt to food and drink and the great hall of Valhalla.

Valhalla! Persephone leaned to the side to see around the bulk of the man in front of her. The gale was spent and dawn approached. Ahead, tucked in a hollow in the hills, she saw an immense hall, shining and golden. In moments, the Hunt clattered onto a cobbled courtyard. Men came from every direction. The hounds panted, tongues lolling, and horses stood with lowered heads, tails and manes in a wild tangle, hides streaked with sweat and rain. As the rider in front of her dismounted, Persephone slid off the broad back of the horse with him. In the crowd of beasts and men, with horses and dogs being led this way and that, none noticed her. She leaned for a moment against the horse's massive flank, her knees weak and trembling. The huntsmen followed Odin through an enormous set of carved doors under the snarling head of a wolf and into the hall. A stable boy took the horse’s reins and Persephone pulled her hood further down over her face and hair and followed the tired animal into the stable.

She revived in the familiar atmosphere. Generous stalls were deep bedded in clean straw. She saw a room filled with tack and saddles; several faucets producing clear, cold water; and a cavernous room and loft for storage of hay, straw, grain and other such essentials. Wary stable cats lurked everywhere amid forks and buckets, grooming brushes and combs, hay hooks and hoof picks. The good smells of horseflesh and manure greeted her nose. Grooms and boys hurried in every direction as each mount was led to a stall, rubbed down, brushed, fed and watered. The bustle gave way to the murmurous talk between horses and men who love them.

Persephone took advantage of a pump in a quiet corner, drank, and washed her face and hands. In the tack room, she found a lump of cheese and half a loaf near a partly-mended bridle, left, she supposed, when the Hunt arrived. She burrowed in between towering stacks of straw and ate her stolen meal. The stable grew quiet as the horses were left to rest. Sun shone in through high windows.

When quiet reigned, she made her way to the stall where the horse she’d ridden stood. She couldn’t guess why the rider took her off the hillside near her home, but she couldn’t spend the rest of her days hiding in this stable and Odin had taken no notice of her whatever, so she’d stay with the black stallion’s rider.

The horse dozed, a hind foot cocked. His hide shone, dry and clean. His feed bucket was empty. He raised his head and pricked his ears as she entered the stall. She passed her hands over his smooth, warm hide, scratching in the roots of his mane, murmuring the horse talk she’d learned as a young child in her mother's stable. He blew a warm breath down her neck, rubbed against her with his hard head, and then quieted again into somnolence. She settled into deep straw in a corner, wrapped in her cloak. She thought with a wry smile of what Demeter would say if she knew how her daughter had spent the night. She hadn’t left a note because she hadn’t known what would happen, and now she was sorry. Her mother would worry.

A raven alighted on the stall door and she remembered the sudden clutching weight on her shoulder on the dark hillside the night before. With a flap of wings, the bird moved to the horse’s broad back, strutting from rump to neck and tweaking a lock of mane in its beak. The horse snorted, shifted his weight, and cocked the other hind foot. The raven flew away.

Persephone rested, waiting for what would happen next.

***

Persephone roused out of half sleep. She heard new activity in the stable. The horse in whose stall she’d taken refuge snorted. She heard men's voices, the running feet of stable boys, the sounds of stall doors opening and latching and the horses themselves neighing and pawing.

Persephone took off her cloak and shook it free of straw. She tucked in strands of her unraveling hair, straightened her clothing, put the cloak back on and drew it over her head. She approached the horse, who greeted her with an impatient push of his head, and soothed him with soft words. She rubbed his forelock and between his ears, smoothed her fingers down his long muzzle. The latch on the stall door released and opened, but she didn’t turn. There was silence.

HADES

In the great hall of Valhalla, Hades and the other hunters refreshed themselves and took their ease at a long table. At either end of the hall, fires burned in fireplaces large enough to accommodate a spitted boar. The rafters of the hall were made of interlaced spear shafts and doors lined the walls. Odin sat in a carved wooden chair at the head of the table, two ravens perched on the back of the chair, one at each shoulder. He spoke little and listened much. Valkyries moved back and forth with empty plates and serving dishes, loaves of bread, rounds of cheese, tankards of ale and mead and platters of meat.

Hades sat at Odin's right hand, wordlessly eating and drinking. For a time, he’d escaped the confines of his life in the Land of the Dead, but soon he must go back and he didn’t know how to endure it. He lifted his tankard and saw Odin watching him. He set down the tankard without drinking.

"All of my life is death," he said to Odin. "How shall I live a life of death?"

"My friend," Odin replied, "all of life is death, and all of death is life. Don’t you understand you stand with one foot in each? How many can endure shadow and give birth to light?”

Hades shook his head.

"You haven’t yet begun to learn the secrets of your kingdom," said Odin.

"Is the price of my power to possess no companion, no warmth, no fellowship? Everyone fears and dreads me. My name is shunned and forgotten and I’m known only by the name of my cold realm!"

"Ah, well," said Odin, relaxing into a smile, "Who can tell?"

When every belly was full, the Valkyries cleared the table, swept the floor clean and set benches straight. Hades lay down on a pallet and slept. Sun shone through the windows, its light creeping across the floor and the sleeping men.

***

Hades woke with the knowledge it was time to return to the Land of the Dead. He accepted the offer of half a loaf and some cheese and a tankard of Odin’s mead, but refused to sit. He stood before the fire and ate alone. The hall grew dark. The Valkyries lit torches, stacked sleeping pallets in a corner and fed the fire with logs. The Wild Hunt made ready to go their separate ways. Hades thanked his host with a minimum of courtesy and walked out the carved doors to the stable. A boy directed him to the stall housing his stallion.

The big black horse was one of the few creatures Hades loved. He had no use for him in the Land of the Dead and boarded him in the Green World. The horse, like his master, was of uncertain temper and enormous strength, and suffered few to approach and none to ride him but Hades himself. Yet here, in the stables at Valhalla, he found the stallion being fondled and petted and enjoying it like a pampered lapdog. He was amazed and then outraged, drawing his black brows together in a scowl. He hadn’t thought again about last night’s passenger, but now remembered the cloaked figure he’d pulled up behind him early the night before. He’d only had one glimpse in the storm’s tumult, but this must be the same lad.

“What do you want here? Be off!”

Photo by The Ian on Unsplash

PERSEPHONE

Persephone turned, her face shadowed by her hood. She saw a broad chest, a black beard, a fearsome scowl, hands clenched into fists. The horse nickered in greeting behind her. She straightened her shoulders and stiffened her back, but said nothing. She knew her first word would give her away. She felt the horse’s lips at the back of her neck as he gripped her hood in strong yellow teeth and pulled it off her head.

Hades’ jaw dropped. His gaze roamed over her body. He took a step toward her, his eyes hot.

Persephone, maiden though she was, didn’t mistake his intention. Rage swept through her. Was her worth always to be reduced to her beauty? Was she never to be more than a pretty plaything? Hades grasped her by the same arm he’d taken hold of on the windswept dark hill the night before and it felt bruised and sore. She lifted her other hand and slapped him as hard as she could on the patch of skin high on his cheek above his beard.

Hades paused. “Do you know who I am, girl?”

“I don’t care who you are! Keep your hands off me!”

They glared at one another.

“I’m Hades, Lord of the Dead and the Underworld!” he informed her, not without some pride.

“It’s a pity your great title doesn’t come with better manners! I suppose the dead don’t care if you behave like a brute!“

She saw with satisfaction she’d roused his own anger. “You … How dare you? You speak to me so? I’m the Lord of Death! I wield the power of Death!”

“So you said,” she replied. “Congratulations. Tell me, then, Oh, Lord Hades of the Dead and the Underworld, what do you know? Are there many mysteries and secrets of your realm?”

He looked at her with astonishment. She recognized his confusion and seized the opportunity. “My lord,” she said, “Take me with you. I want to learn. Teach me.”

“You don’t know what you ask!” he blustered. “You can’t come there.”

“I’m not afraid! You endure it, why can’t I? I tell you, I can do so much more than I’ve done! I can be so much more than I’ve been! Let me try!”

His anger appeared to drain away, and she thought he suddenly looked tired.

“Very well,” he said, unexpectedly capitulating. “I’ll take you with me.” He left the stall and shouted for a stable boy to bring tack and saddle the horse. When the boy came, Persephone dismissed him. She dressed the horse herself while Hades watched. The stallion nickered and lipped at her as she moved around him. He opened his mouth for the bit and stood docile and quiet as she cinched the saddle, making sure no strap caused discomfort.

Persephone took the reins and led the horse out of the stall and down the aisle. The cool evening filled the courtyard. Hades mounted and pulled Persephone up behind him. She put her arms about his waist, holding him lightly. He was silent as they rode, and she watched the light fade and the sky darken while the stars lit like candles.

They rode through the night. As morning approached, they came to a massive pair of closed gates. Hades dismounted and Persephone slid down to stand beside him. Hades gave a shrill whistle and a man came running from a nearby cluster of buildings. Hades tossed him the reins. The man gaped at Persephone, showing a mouthful of discolored teeth. Persephone took no notice, but ran her hands over the stallion’s neck and down his long nose in a farewell caress. The sound of his hooves moved away as the man led him to his stable and a meal.

Image by Craig Bak from Pixabay

“These are the gates to my realm,” said Hades. “You can’t come any further.” Persephone stood silent and stubborn beside him.

“You can’t come with me!” he said, exasperated. “You don’t know what it’s like! I’m no teacher of girls! I hate the place and I hate my life here. Be off with you! I don’t want you!” He drew his brows together and scowled at his boots.

“I’m coming with you,” she said. “Show me.” She laid a hand on his arm.

He stepped forward and the gates swung open to admit them.

Later, Persephone’s memory of the journey was of blurred and soft shadow with flashes of extraordinary clarity. Hades took her hand and she never forgot the feel of his clasp. At one moment, they seemed to be children traveling together into an unknown and fearful world. At another she felt herself to be his support and comfort, but she also felt protective reassurance in the clasp of his fingers, as if he sought to tell her without words he would stay by her.

The path twisted, leading them through many gates and doors, Hades speaking now and then a word of command to open their way. She walked beside him and watched with wonder as color and light faded out of the world. Shadows grew until all was shadow and unrelieved bare rock. No insect, no sound of bird, no green of plant or color of flower softened the landscape. She had never imagined a place like this! Yet she didn’t feel afraid or appalled. She’d lived all her life surrounded by careless abundance and beauty, and now discovered a kind of relief in the barren simplicity around her. Flesh was beautiful but the hidden mystery of bone beneath flesh seduced her. Something in her expanded and breathed deeply.

They came to a river, the other side lost in dim shadow. Hades whistled and a small boat slid into view, lit by a lantern. At its helm sat the oldest, most desiccated and wizened human being Persephone had ever seen. He looked like an ancient piece of leather, tough and indestructible. His face was seamed so deeply his features were indistinguishable. A small, lizard-like creature glowing like coals in a fire, orange and sulfur yellow, crouched on his knee.

“My Lord,” he croaked, bowing his head, and Hades, still holding Persephone’s hand, stepped into the boat.

The old man dipped the oars and the boat moved across the river. This was not a chuckling, murmuring, splashing, living river, gleaming in light, but implacable, cold and powerful, flowing with a single continuous rushing sound. Persephone wondered at the old man’s strength in oaring the boat across it. It looked fast and deep and she wasn’t tempted to trail her hand in it. Glancing at the old man, she saw him watching her, but his eyes were a brief and far-away glimmer in the lines of his face and she could read no expression there. His face changed. His mouth widened and he gave her a toothless smile, but whether in kindness or derision she couldn’t tell. She gave him a slight smile in return.

Image by Peter FIscher from Pixabay

River and boatman left behind, Hades led her along a path climbing and falling through narrow ways and caverns. Around them she heard murmuring and rustling, whispering and slight movement, as though thousands of leaves spoke together. As Persephone and Hades walked through this gentle susurration the sound ceased, beginning again in their wake. “It’s the sound of the dead,” said Hades in a low voice. They’re afraid of me and fall silent when I approach.”

“What do they talk about?” asked Persephone.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“What do they do here? How long must they stay and then where do they go?” She looked at the cold shadowed rock around her. The living world seemed like a faded dream in this place.

“It’s the Land of the Dead! They do nothing, for they possess no bodies. They whisper and murmur and fear me. They move from here to there. There are many ways out and many ways in. Even I don’t know them all. Sometimes they leave, I don’t know how and I don’t care! The place is always filled with them. They’re terrible! I don’t know where they go. What does it matter?”

“It matters because you’re their midwife from life to death and from death into the next thing! It matters because they’re your people!”

His face closed and he turned away without another word. Persephone glared at his back. He was impossible! Whatever she learned in this place wouldn’t be from him. Yet there were so many unanswered questions and so much to understand. Her heart went out to the dead. To come from the green living world to this! And to find no guide, no help, no way forward. Yet Hades himself said there were many ways in and out of this place.

Surrounded with so much life and being young and strong, she’d never thought about death and what lay beyond it.

They came into a hollowed-out cavern. A fire burned and she smelled roasting meat. She saw a throne-like chair and a table set with dishes and cups. Skins softened a cold stone floor. In the shadows against a wall lay a mattress and a heap of blankets, in the manner of a great hall where the household slept together before the fire. But here there existed no household, though a man tended the fire. His body looked pale and dim. Hades followed her look.

“I can give them form,” he said. “That’s Kadmos. He lived as a servant in life and he serves me well enough now. I don’t require much in this place.”

The man inclined his head towards Persephone and she smiled at him, but he seemed not to see.

Persephone became of aware of deep weariness. She ate and drank but hardly tasted what she put in her mouth. She longed for sleep and sat drowsing before her cup. Hades shook out his mattress, putting it near the fire and making it up with blankets. He extinguished torches so the cavern flickered with firelight and shadow. He took Persephone by the arm and led her to the mattress. She reached up and pulled pins from her hair and her braids fell down her back in two golden tails. She lay down and fell asleep, curled on her side like a child, before he finished covering her.

HADES

Hades turned his chair to face the fire and brooded in front of the flames. The girl slept, the gentle rise and fall of her breath making the rich color of her hair gleam in the firelight. He thought of her questions. He felt ashamed because he couldn’t answer them. He thought of Odin saying he didn’t know his realm, and recognized truth. His hatred of the Underworld, his longing to be free of it, and his jealousy of his brothers’ lots killed any curiosity about his own portion. But now, alone before the fire, he wondered. She had said he was a midwife and these were his people. He snorted to himself, thinking of the figure of a bent old crone he associated with a midwife. Yet perhaps his role was similar to such a woman. What did the dead whisper of?

Tomorrow he’d find out. Tomorrow perhaps they’d find out together. But tomorrow would she beg him to take her back to the Green World? Would she be sick and horrified to find herself here with him when she awakened? The moment when he might take her for his pleasure and turn away was gone. He respected her courage and defiance too much. Who was she? He realized he still didn’t know. He didn’t even know her name. Even if she wished to stay for a time with him, her people would demand her return.

PERSEPHONE

The Underworld knew neither morning nor night, but Persephone woke feeling rested, though grimy and travel worn. Hades called for a female servant and a woman came to Persephone, dim and transparent as the manservant who greeted them the night before, but neat and with a shy smile for her. Hades himself had business to catch up with after his absence. The woman led Persephone through corridors and caverns and after a time they stepped from a narrow way into a large cave filled with steam and a mineral smell of hot water. Persephone heard the gentle gurgle and bubble of a spring. The woman helped her out of her clothes and unbound her braids, exclaiming with pleasure at the weight and color of Persephone’s hair. As Persephone stepped into the rocky pool, the woman moved to leave but Persephone asked her to stay and talk. She shook out and folded Persephone’s clothing and then took up a sponge and a basin of soap and helped her wash her hair.

Encouraged by Persephone’s gentle questions, the woman spoke of working in a large wealthy household until she had become ill. Her master gave her a bed and what care the household could provide, as she’d served him well most of her life. Death came after a time of great pain and suffering. She laid a hand on her belly, remembering.

“Now I’ve come here,” she said, “and I’m fortunate, for I’m given something to do. Most of the dead don’t know who they are or what they’re for. Some believe there’s more after this place, but none know how to find it. We wonder if all we were and felt and did was a dream without meaning. We miss those we left behind and seek those who came before us, for we’re so lonely. Many despair in this place.”

“And what would you do with your death, if you could?” asked Persephone.

“Lady, I would speak my name again,” the woman said. “I’d tell the story of myself, what I learned, what I rejoiced in, what gave me sorrow. I’d speak of my regrets and mistakes and the shape of my days. I’d tell of those I loved. Then…” She leaned forward, filled the basin and poured it carefully over Persephone’s head, rinsing soap away. Steam from the hot mineral water enclosed them. Persephone felt the aches in her body soothed.

“Yes?” she encouraged as the other fell silent.

“I’d be free,” said the woman in a low voice. “I’d be free to serve only myself.”

Persephone dried herself on a length of cloth. The woman brought a bowl of scented oil and massaged it into her body, combing it through the thick tangle of hair with her fingers. Persephone donned her clothes and they returned to Hades’ chamber. She sat on a low stool before the fire while the woman plaited her hair, pinning it around her head in a crown.

When her hair was neat, Persephone rose and turned to face the woman. “I’m Persephone. Lady, what’s your name?”

“My name is Frona,” said the woman, and bowed her head. Persephone embraced her. “Frona, will you come to me soon and tell me your story, from beginning to end?”

“I will,” replied Frona. She turned and left the chamber.

When Hades returned for a meal, he found a fire burning, the hearth swept, mattress and blankets tidied away and the table set for two. Persephone greeted him with a smile and held out her hand to him. He took it briefly before dropping it and turning away.

The manservant, Kadmos – Persephone had spoken to him now as well -- brought food and drink to them. Persephone waited until he was gone before speaking. When they were alone, she said, “Now it’s time to talk about the past and future.”

As she spoke, she watched him turn his cup around and around between his fingers, his eyes on the torchlight playing on its silver surface. She told him about her life with Demeter, her boredom and loneliness and longing for something of her own, something private and apart from her mother.

Then she told of her day and her talk with Frona. “I want to hear her story,” she said, “and Kadmos’s, too. I want to help them go on. I want to understand this place and what it’s for, how to use it. There’s mystery here, and power. This is the other half of my life with my mother. That was sunlight and warmth and this is shadow and cold. Together they make a whole I want to know and understand.”

He didn’t speak. The fire burned quietly. Persephone, who hadn’t paused to eat while she spoke, broke a piece of bread from the braided barley loaf she’d baked earlier in the day and spread it with honey.

Hades never raised his gaze from the cup between his fingers as he began to talk. His face softened and he looked younger under the wild black beard as he related drawing lots with his brothers to decide who would rule which part of Webbd and his first journey to the Underworld as its master. He spoke of loneliness and bitterness, his longing to be free again in the living world. “Even my name is now lost,” he said. “I’m so feared my true name is never spoken, lest it summon me. Now all know me as Hades if they speak to me or of me at all, yet none hate this place as I do.”

“I felt ashamed that I couldn’t answer your questions. Now, for the first time, I’m curious and I’ve questions of my own.” He raised his gaze to Persephone. “You’re so beautiful, so alive and warm! How can you want to shut yourself away in this place? It’s a living death! Even if you want to stay, will you be allowed? Demeter is powerful.”

Persephone raised her chin. “I’m not a child. My mother must accept I’m ready for my own life now. You don’t compel me to stay. I choose it. I’m needed here.”

Kadmos came into the chamber with a tray and began clearing the table. “Lord,” he said to Hades, “one comes who would see you and the lady. She waits outside.”

“One who’s living?” Hades asked in surprise.

“Yes, Lord,” said Kadmos.

“Send her in, then,” said Hades, rising to his feet. “Bring some of Odin’s mead, and another cup.”

Kadmos left the chamber with his tray. Hades laid wood on the fire.

Kadmos returned with a bowl of purple grapes, another silver cup and the mead. He opened the door and stood back. A bent figure swathed in a cloak entered, followed closely by a wolf with amber eyes. The wolf moved to a place in front of the fire and lay down. A gnarled hand reached up and threw back the hood, revealing short straight grey hair.

“Hecate!” Persephone and Hades both greeted the old woman with respect. Hades took her cloak and offered her a chair. In this moment, the three of them were strangely akin, the strong-chested black-bearded man, the beautiful corn maiden and the lean old woman.

Hecate’s shrewd gaze moved from one to another. “So,” she said, “the children begin to grow up.” Persephone wanted to squirm under her bright, sharp gaze.

“Perhaps you can talk sense into the girl,” said Hades. “I’ve just been telling her she can’t stay in this place with me. She must return to her mother and the living world.”

“You—” Persephone began, furious.

Hecate interrupted. “You’ve been alone long enough,” she said to Hades. “All these souls look to you for guidance. It’s a hard kingship, Hades, but it’s your place and your duty. You may find joy in it, and wisdom, and you needn’t be exiled from warmth and companionship. Haven’t you longed for a companion? Does Persephone offend you in her looks? She seems beautiful enough to me!”

“No!” said Hades, and Persephone saw the skin above his beard redden in the firelight. “She’s too fine for this place of death!”

“You talk like a child!” said Hecate. “This is a threshold place, a place of transition. Haven’t you grasped that to speak of death, to be in death, is to be in life? Have you wasted all your time here in sulking? And do you think it’s your place to choose for this young woman? Might she not choose for herself? You underestimate her, perhaps.” She turned to Persephone. “What do you say for yourself?”

“I’m more than my looks!” said Persephone. “I want a life of my own. I want to learn. There’s power in this place and I want to understand it. I don’t ask to stay to be his plaything, his pretty toy!” She glared at Hades.

“You can’t stay!” roared Hades. “I won’t allow it!”

“You can’t stop me!” she returned. “Don’t tell me what to do! I’m not afraid of you and I’m not afraid of this place. I’ve learned more today than you have all your time here!”

Hecate’s dry laughter filled the chamber. “A worthy pair!” She said. “You may do much together. Now sit down, both of you, and listen to what I say.” She reached into some pocket in her clothing and brought out a round piece of fruit. It glowed with color, now red, now orange, now pink in the firelight. She laid it on the table and called out the door for Kadmos. In a moment, she returned with a board, a sharp knife and a bowl. She cut the fruit into four quarters so it opened like a flower, showing red fleshy seeds. She scored each quarter again, turned it over above the bowl and gave it a sharp tap. Seeds fell into the bowl with a soft sound. With the tip of the knife, she removed a few seeds buried in the rind and added them to the bowl.

Photo by Kira Schwarz on Pexels

Hecate set the bowl aside. “Now,” she said to Hades, “It’s time you assumed responsibility for your realm. You’re a king. The souls who stand on this threshold are your business. You’ll need all your wisdom, which at the moment is regrettably little. But you’ll learn. The dead themselves will tell you everything you need to know.”

 Turning to Persephone, she continued, “We haven’t yet spoken of your mother. She’s suffering and everywhere the tale is told of your kidnap and rape.”

Persephone flushed. “What kidnap and rape? I chose to leave! I waited for Odin and the Wild Hunt!”

Hecate raised a hand to silence her. “I know, child. But you can’t expect your mother to accept that you wanted to leave her and chose this manner of doing it! As for rape, Hades’ reputation is deservedly black in that regard. Help is coming to Demeter, and I’ll go speak to her myself when I leave you, but I think she may not be so easy to soothe. She’ll fight for your return.”

“I’ll not be forced to go back!” But even in her defiance Persephone wondered if Demeter might not find a way to force her to go home after all. Home. It felt dear and familiar and she belonged there. She looked at Hades. He twisted the silver cup between his fingers, his gaze fixed on it. She could see the rumor of rape and kidnap rankled, yet she knew such thoughts had been in his mind in Odin’s stable. What, after all, was she thinking of? This gloomy, dark man was a stranger. Could she endure to live in the Land of the Dead, shut away from the green and living world? Yet the place spoke to her. She remembered the feel of Hades’ hand clasping hers as they entered the Underworld at the great gates. Troubled, she looked into Hecate’s eyes.

Hecate smiled. “The choice, Daughter, is yours. None can make it for you. Long ago the Norns decreed any who ate of the pomegranate in the Land of the Dead must forever be bound there. If you eat of these seeds not even Demeter can force you to leave. It is indeed time for you to find your own life.”

Persephone rose and stood before the fire. The wolf lay with its long muzzle on its forelegs, paying her no attention. Hecate and Hades were silent behind her. The fire burned to an orange glow, echoing the pomegranate’s color, the color of life in the Green World, the color of warmth and the sun. As she stood there, she became aware of peace. The choice was made. These quiet moments held a farewell, not a struggle for decision. She turned back to the table and moved to Hades’ side, laying a light hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll eat the seeds,” she said. Hecate passed the bowl over the table to Hades. He took it and spilled seeds into his broad palm. Persephone put her fingers into the bowl. The damp red seeds were smooth and heavy. Together they ate and the taste lay sweet and tart on Persephone’s tongue. Hades poured mead and they raised their cups to one another and drank.

“You’ve chosen well,” Hecate said to Persephone. “I’m proud of you. I’ll go now and speak with your mother.” She set her cup down, rose to her feet and gathered her cloak around her. The wolf came to her side. Persephone embraced the old woman and then stepped back beside Hades. Hecate looked up into his face. “It’s time now for learning and for joy. Your place in the world calls out for you.”

He bowed his head.

CHAPTER 2

RAPUNZEL

She glanced out the tower window and saw a stranger. She dropped her book and bolted to her feet, finding herself in the center of the room with her hand pressed to her drumming heart. She hadn’t seen a human being, except for her mother, in months. It was a shock. She felt annoyed by how much of a shock it was. Why did she feel so afraid, and dodge out of sight like a criminal? She was perfectly safe. She had nothing to be ashamed of. Still, she stayed out of view from outside the window.

When she looked out again, the stranger was gone.

When her mother came for her usual evening visit, Rapunzel didn’t mention the stranger.

The tower was light and airy. Rapunzel had her favorite cat for a companion, along with books, her needlework, and her paints. Carpets covered the floor and a velvet coverlet draped the bed. Her mother brought her food and wine. She wasn’t idle because her mother continued to teach her the old and secret ways.

The tower possessed neither doors nor steps. The only way in or out was to climb the golden ladder of Rapunzel’s hair.

Image by Greg Montani from Pixabay

The stranger came again and again, until he was no longer a stranger. He rode a white horse. She no longer hid when she saw him. He walked around the tower, looking for a way in. He looked up at her and she looked down at him. Neither spoke.

Now she entertained two visitors. Neither knew a thing about the other. The strange situation gave a welcome interest, a spice of tension to the sameness of Rapunzel’s life.

One day she heard the familiar call, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair!” spoken in an unfamiliar voice. He’d been watching. He’d seen and heard her mother. He’d found the key to the tower.

At the window, Rapunzel unpinned the long heavy plait of her hair, leaned out and wrapped it around a hook mortared into the wall. The plait fell down to the ground, a golden rope.

His name was Alexander. He was amazed by the tower room and her life there. He sat with her in the window seat, asking eager questions and never taking his eyes from the thick plait of hair, now coiled on the floor at her feet.

She’d never had a friend her own age before. She’d never talked with a man. Her only companion had been her mother. His questions were soon answered. Her life was small. First the cottage and garden of her childhood, and now the tower. The biggest part of her life, the secret ways of magic and power, she never considered revealing.

Her curiosity about him was even greater than his about her. He was a window on an unknown world, filled with people and far-away places. He came from a family of wealth and privilege. He was an experienced traveler. She drank in every detail with flattering attention.

Alexander changed. He spoke less. Every day he begged her to loosen her hair. She did, to please him, though it meant nearly an hour of work to comb out the heavy sheet, braid and pin it again. He ran his hands through it and kissed her like slow fire, and she forgot everything else for a time.

Rapunzel’s mother taught her about the power of the natural world. She learned the names of rain. She learned to master wind and read the subtle language of grass, herb and flower. Yet Rapunzel looked out from her high tower windows into a world of nature and people she was entirely removed from.

“What’s the use of all this learning? What’s the point if I spend my life locked in this tower? I want to be free!”

“The world is big and it’s not safe for you.” Her mother closed her lips and turned away. Rapunzel, weeping with rage and frustration, wound her hair around the hook outside the window and threw bitter words at her mother as she climbed down and walked away. The next day she came again, stoic, patient and unyielding, as though nothing had happened. Rapunzel smoldered.

Photo by gryffyn m on Unsplash

Alexander called her his princess and kissed her mouth while he wrapped her hair around his hands. She was his secret joy, waiting for him in her tower. One day he’d set her free. They’d marry and she’d bear him many golden-haired sons. But for now, she remained his private joy, his cherished possession, safe in her velvet-lined stone casket.

Her mother and her lover talked and Rapunzel listened. After all, what could she share with them? What did she know? What could she learn, apart from what they taught her?

One night, while Alexander lay sleeping next to her, she thought, my hair gives them both freedom to come and go as they will. Why shouldn’t it give me freedom?’

The next morning Rapunzel stood by the window in the sun. She gathered up her hair, strand by strand, combing it smooth and plaiting it into its usual thick, heavy rope. She took a pair of heavy shears and cut off the plait.

She felt light and free. She turned around at the window, feeling sunlight on her bare skin. She washed and dressed, tidied the room and bed, and wrapped the rope of hair around the hook for the last time. She climbed down and walked away from the tower.

DEMETER

Demeter woke as early sun poured in through the window. Gale and storm the night before had left the air fresh and still. She’d gone to sleep thinking of wheat rippling and bending like golden fur in the wind. The cottage was quiet. Persephone still slept or perhaps was out with the horses. Demeter made her morning toilet. After she set the table with fruit, bread and honey and heated water, she knocked on Persephone’s closed door. She heard no answer. She opened it and found the bed made, the room tidy.

Outside, birds made a great noise as they began their morning activity in trees surrounding the cottage. Familiar barn smells embraced her and horses whickered in greeting as she slid the heavy door open. Persephone wasn’t there. She reassured the horses she’d be with them soon. Demeter walked here and there, visiting Persephone’s favorite places. At last, she walked through the trees and onto the bare hillside. She saw no sign of Persephone.

She returned to the house, troubled now. For her own comfort rather than any need, she ran a soft brush over the horses’ coats and tidied their coarse-haired manes and tails. She turned them out, forking hay into a pile against the barn wall. With fork and wheelbarrow, she cleaned stalls and put down fresh straw. She refilled water buckets at the pump and checked the outside trough, skimming wind-borne debris from water’s surface. While she worked, she listened for Persephone’s return. Leaving the barn cats crouched like the spokes of a wheel around their dish, Demeter returned to the house and put away breakfast, uneaten. She made herself tea and took it to an old chair of woven willow outside the door in the morning sun. She sat and waited for Persephone.

The sun rose to its zenith and then sank. Persephone didn’t come. Demeter did no work that day. In the evening, she made a bright fire for company and wrapped herself in a shawl of grey and purple. Hours passed and she sat waiting.

At dawn, she searched Persephone’s room. Nothing seemed to be missing except her cloak and a pair of sturdy leather boots. All her finery hung in the wardrobe.

As she let herself out of the cottage to go to the barn, she found a raven perched on the back of the willow chair. It flew to the ground and shifted into the shape of a woman dressed as a warrior in a leather tunic with a shield strapped to her body and a drinking horn at her belt. Her face looked hard and proud.

“I come from my father, Odin, with word of Persephone,” she said. “She was taken by the Wild Hunt and left Valhalla this morning in the company of Hades. Odin bids you to wait for further news of her. She’s well and unharmed.” As she spoke the last words, her form shimmered and wavered. The raven flew up and over the tree tops with great strong sweeps of its wings and disappeared.

Demeter took one of the horses and rode out into the world. She sent messages demanding aid and justice to Odin. She told everyone she met that her darling, her treasure, her innocent Persephone had been kidnapped and raped, spirited away by Hades. Persephone was much loved, and people heard the story with horror and grief. At last, exhausted and hungry, Demeter returned home late in the night. She cared for the horse but did nothing to ease herself. She built up the fire and sat wrapped in her cloak in her chair. The night passed. Demeter waited. Underneath the waiting, anger and grief swelled, pressing against her belly and chest, but Demeter kept herself still and silent. Soon, she knew, news would come.

Late in the evening of the third day, she heard a knock on the door, and without waiting for answer a bent old woman entered. At her heels stalked a large wolf with amber eyes. It lay down on the rug before the fire. Hecate threw back her hood and her eyes were like embers in the dim fire-lit room.

Wolf-raven image by Willgard Krause from Pixabay

“I come with news of Persephone. She’s well and safe. Come, Demeter. Set the table and we’ll sup together while I tell you of her.”

They sat together, Hecate, Queen of Crossroads, Mistress of the Dark Moon, older than Zeus and all his family, and the Corn Mother, vigorous, generous bodied, abundance in every curve of hip and breast, hair thick and faded from the color of ripe corn to wheat. They drank barley water and ate bread and honey, olives and cheese. As they ate, Hecate told Demeter of the Wild Hunt, Persephone’s night at Valhalla and her journey to the Underworld with Hades.

Demeter stood up. Her cup tipped over. “The Land of the Dead? He took her to the Land of the Dead? My girl is a prisoner—with him—there?”

“Sit down and listen to me! He didn’t take her against her will, far from it! She insisted!”

“Oh yes,” Demeter sneered, “We all know what a gentleman Hades is! Far be it from him to coerce a young and innocent girl!”

“Demeter, listen to me! Persephone is ready for a life of her own. It’s time for you to let her go. She deliberately met the Wild Hunt and she’s chosen her path ever since. As for Hades, her courage and curiosity shame him. I’ve never seen him so subdued. Make no mistake, Persephone has the power to hold her own with him!”

“Very well. She’s had her little adventure. Now she must come home. She can’t stay in that place! My beautiful, bright girl in the Land of the Dead? I won’t bear it! I’ll find Zeus. I’ll demand her return.”

Hecate reached into her robe, drew out the empty rind of a glowing pomegranate and put it on the table between them.

The fire burned on the hearth, sap bubbling. Demeter fixed her eyes on the pomegranate and her face fell into lines of age and weariness.

“Surely the law can’t hold if he tricked her into eating this?” she said in a low voice.

“It wasn’t a trick,” said Hecate. “I took it to her myself. I told her the law. She chose to eat of it, knowing it would bind her to the Land of the Dead.”

“You took it to her. You took it to her?”

“Yes.”

Demeter rose to her feet. She picked up her shawl and draped it over her shoulders. She sat with her back to Hecate and stared into the fire, her hands resting in her lap.

Hecate sighed. She stood, pulling the hood of the cloak up over her face, and became an old woman, slightly bent, moving with weary strength to the door of the cottage. The wolf came to her side. She opened the door and stepped out into the night, closing the door behind her.

Nothing could prevent Demeter from caring for the horses, and for their sake she rose each morning, clothed herself and went to the barn. These morning tasks were all that marked the passing time. She wasn’t interested in food and took a mouthful of cheese or bread when she remembered. She longed for sleep and often dozed off in front of the fire, but when she lay in her bed she couldn’t rest. Sometimes in the night she opened the door to Persephone’s room and looked in it. If only she could discover the right way to open the door, Persephone would be there in her bed. Standing in the doorway, the room silent and lifeless before her, Demeter thought, Is it real? Is she gone? My sweet child, my girl—can she really be gone?

If Persephone was gone, was she still Persephone’s mother? If not Persephone’s mother, who was she? What was she? There seemed no point to anything. Demeter no longer recognized her life.

One night she heard another knock at the door. Demeter rose to her feet, determined to keep Hecate out. She flung open the door but a woman of her own age stood there in well-made but plain dress. She carried an air of power but her face was ravaged with grief. Demeter stepped aside and the strange woman entered. She bowed before Demeter, not as a servant but as a peer. “Lady,” she said in a colorless voice, “I’m Elizabeth. I’ve heard of your trouble.”

Demeter put a hand to her breast. “Do you bring news of Persephone?” she demanded.

“No,” said the other. “No news of your lost daughter—or of mine.” Her pain filled the room. She stood there with her eyes on the floor.

Demeter’s anger lay down. This woman understood her suffering. “Come,” she said. “Sit with me by the fire. I can give you tea. I’ve no comfort to offer but perhaps it would ease you to tell your story.”

Together they built up the fire and heated water. With the pot between them and cups on the table, they sat down together. Each looked into the fire. For a time, they were silent and then the stranger began to speak.

“A life holds many seasons of waxing and waning, even a lonely life, as mine has been. It’s hard to be outcast because of the color of your soul, but no matter. This is not a story of exile, but of another sort of loss…and gain.

I lived for a time in a little stone house in a gentle countryside. At the back of the house was a walled garden where I spent many hours tending the roots of my life. One other house stood nearby, inhabited by a man and wife. None came near me, of course, except for a few driven to my door in the darkest hour of night for some overwhelming need. We won’t speak of that. None came in the daylight hours with open face and outstretched hand to mingle their touch with mine in scented herbs, share the textures of life, or laugh.

Image by Michael Berger from Pixabay

A window of the neighbors’ house overlooked my garden. I often saw the young wife there. She appeared idle and pale and they’d no garden, made no home against the earth. My cats were my constant companions, but I never saw any creature next door but the man and his wife. Candlelight glowed dim in the nighttime windows and her face looked out nearly every day. I pretended not to see her and never exchanged a look or a word with either of them. They were afraid of me and kept a safe distance.

My garden grew happily, for I know the secrets of sowing and harvesting with moons, tides and seasons. One morning when dew lay heavy, I realized some other hand had picked the rapunzel greens. I thought this strange. Some person had climbed the wall in the night and risked who knew what fearful rumors to steal a common wild herb.

The next night I waited and watched and when the intruder let himself down into my garden I appeared before him. ‘How dare you come into my garden and steal my greens?’ Of course, he turned white and trembled and shied like a miserable, downtrodden horse, and begged my pardon. ‘My wife is expecting a child,’ he said, ‘and she saw your bed of rapunzel and felt she must taste it or die. She made a salad of the greens and found them so delicious she begged me for more.’

A child. His wife carried a child. That which my life had denied me was to be hers. Before the child was even born these two couldn’t take care of her by digging and planting a garden or making friends with the earth and gathering their own greens and many other herbs to make mother and child strong.

‘You may pick all the rapunzel your wife desires,’ I said, ‘but in exchange you’ll give me the child. I’ll raise it and love it like a mother. You needn’t fear.’ I looked into his eyes with all the force and power at my disposal. He was weak and afraid, conscious of his wrong. He didn’t fight. I knew he wouldn’t.

After the birth, I brought the child away. She was a beautiful, strong little girl, thanks in part to the goodness of the herbs from my garden, and I named her Rapunzel.

How shall I tell you, then, of years of joy? What do I say of laughter, play, life shared? Do you know hours in which sleep mingles, garden days, picnic days, walks in rain and snow? I taught her everything I know of the living earth. I taught her strength and wonder and how to read skies and seasons and hear the winds whispering.”

Demeter’s tears fell, hot and painful. Her hand trembled and she set her cup down.

“The years passed by and she became a woman. She had golden hair which I never suffered to be cut and my happiness was perfect.

But change came and stole away my happiness a drop at a time. As she grew up, she began to wonder about the wider world. She became restless and bored. She asked questions she’d never asked before.

A day came in which I decided I must shut her away.

It did it for her own good. She was so beautiful and so innocent. I couldn’t bear her to be shunned as I’d been. I couldn’t bear her to be spoiled or used or broken. I wanted to keep her safe from hurt and harm. I shut her in a tall stone tower I’d built nearby. The tower contained no ladder, steps or door, and she lived in a room at the top. Her room was filled with light and air and every luxury I could provide. Outside a window was an iron hook mortared into the stone wall and every day when I visited her I stood below the window and called up to her, ‘Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your golden hair!’ She unbound her braid, twisted it around the hook and let it fall down the tower wall. I grasped it and climbed the thick, shining rope until I was with her again.

I thought I’d found a way to keep her safe forever. Every day I visited her so she wouldn’t feel alone. Sometimes she seemed quiet or cross, but I took no notice. Over the years I’d continued to teach her and her power grew at least as great as mine, though she lacked the experience to master it.

One day at the base of the tower I found her braid, shorn from her head and curled up like something dead, and I knew she was gone. The rope of hair felt lifeless in my hands. I entered the tower for the first time without the golden ladder I’d used with such love and pleasure, and my power felt like black and bitter wings. The empty room mocked me. She’d flown away and been lost in the harsh world. I was alone again, I sat grieving while hours passed. At dusk, I heard a voice below.

‘Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your golden hair!’

I’d never felt such terrible anger. I wound the plait of hair about the hook and kept out of sight. He came up as though well accustomed to such a ladder. As his face rose above the window sill, I loosened the plait, summoning every power I knew for hate and harm, and hurled it out the window at him. He fell backward from the tower with a scream of terror and surprise. He landed in a thicket of thorns and thrashed, screaming with pain and bleeding in a dozen places. I was glad. I felt no mercy.

What I most longed for, to love and be loved by a child, broke me.”

Her rough sobs were like retching and she hid her face in her hands.

“I descended from the tower, and I ran,” she said. “I ran from what I’d done but I can’t run fast enough to get away from myself. I’ve betrayed my craft, misused my power, killed a human being, and she’s …she’s gone. My girl is gone!”

Demeter clenched her hands into fists and they wept together, two strangers with a single rage and a single grief.

Demeter rose from a sleepless handful of hours after Elizabeth went out into the night to continue her search for Rapunzel. Her face felt hot, her throat raw and her eyes swollen. She rinsed her face with water from the rain barrel in the cool morning air. It cleared her head.

She made tea, sitting in the willow chair outside the door in the sun to drink it and think of Rapunzel and her mother. At last, she tipped the dregs of the tea onto the ground next to a clump of creamy puffball mushrooms and went back inside.

She opened every window in the cottage except Persephone’s window. The door to that room stayed shut. She gathered every piece of bedding, her neglected clothing, curtains, dishcloths and table linens, and did an enormous wash, draping it to dry over lavender and rosemary bushes when the line became full. She took rugs outside and beat them until dust flew. She cleaned ashes out of the fireplace and brushed and scrubbed the hearth. As day sank into evening she brought in the laundry, made her bed and folded and hung everything else. The linen smelled of the sun and garden. She lay down exhausted in her fresh bed and slept.

After breakfast the next morning, she swept the floor with a dampened broom and then scrubbed it on her hands and knees until her back ached and her hands were chapped. She scrubbed the table, kitchen shelves and counter, noticing the nearly empty grain and flour bins and depleted tea herbs in their jars. She cleaned out the pantry and stirred and watered the compost pile. She washed days of dirty dishes and scrubbed the kettle and teapot until they shone. She cleaned lamps and chimneys, trimmed wicks and filled them. She didn’t pause to eat, drink or rest, but all the time she remembered Elizabeth’s suffering face and what she’d done in her anger and grief. By the end of the day the cottage was shining. Demeter felt bone weary and her anger was worn out. Once again, she slept until birdsong.

In the following days, she slept a great deal. Her weariness refused to be assuaged, no matter how many hours she lay in bed. Without the burning coal of anger in her belly she felt flat and diminished. She went about her tasks, noting without much interest the horses were at the end of the hay and their grain stores ran low. She washed and fed her heavy, joyless body and put one foot in front of the other, but she saw no point to it.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

PERSEPHONE

Persephone and Hades explored the Underworld together. They collected the story of every soul they met. When the tale was told from beginning to end, they asked each soul what they wanted to do next. Some could answer but many could not, having so seldom possessed the power to choose. They needed time to consider. There was plenty of time, and Hades and Persephone bade them take it and come back when they could answer.

The Underworld transformed from chaos and fear to quiet order. A deep contemplative silence replaced uneasiness. Word spread. The life of every person, no matter how humble, how long or short, was a unique story to be told and heard and then the question, “What do you want to do now?”

Some asked to be released back into the Green World so their spirits could mingle with field and forest, animals, rain, stars and sunlight. Some wished for another life, a chance to make different choices. Some chose to stay in the Underworld for a time, and among these were many skilled craftsman and husbandmen, including the two antagonistic branches of the dwarf family. The Dvorgs called all places underground home and in some cases hardly noticed their deaths. The Dwarves, more accustomed to life above ground, possessed all the skill of their more traditional brothers. Hades granted form to those who wished it and the Underworld gradually became a place of shadowed beauty. The Dwarves and Dvorgs forgot their differences and worked together, hollowing and shaping rock, freeing hidden water and veins of jewels like underground galaxies.

Workmen enlarged the cave where the hot spring bubbled into a kind of bathhouse with a pool for soaking and washing and cold water piped in to splash in its own basin.

The dead who’d loved flocks and beasts and worked farms and fields were sent to the Green World to enlarge the barn where Hades housed his stallion so goats, pigs, sheep and chickens could be accommodated. Gardeners tilled and planted. Craftsmen built furniture. Women spun wool and wove.

Teachers came. Odin and the Valkyries visited and the old one-eyed man embraced Hades like a son. He brought as a gift a wolf pup with green eyes. Hel came from her boarding house on the northern sea, a threshold place like Hades where certain souls rested between one life and another. Hecate visited often.

Persephone and Hades learned and grew together. They gave of the Underworld’s abundance to all who came, according to his or her wants or needs. Odin and Hel received quantities of food and wine for their tables, and Odin bargained shrewdly with the dwarven folk for marbles made of bloodstone, jasper and flint. Hel accepted woven and dyed wool blankets. Her boarding house was in a cold country.

Baubo came one day to Persephone. Persephone had heard of Baubo the sacred trickster, Baubo the clown, and found a stout old woman with thin curls of grey decorating her pink scalp. She was round in shape, double chinned, and her face seemed made to smile. She possessed none of Hecate’s power and dignity. The care of children and infants was her responsibility and she came to instruct Persephone about their special needs in Hades, as these souls were unable to speak and choose for themselves. Persephone had given some thought already to these, so they soon took care of their business and Baubo felt confident the young woman understood what needed to be done.

Persephone offered refreshment and showed Baubo into a chamber set aside for her private use. Here burned a bright fire, flowers decorated the table, and comfortable chairs and thick woven rugs softened the stone room. A vein of black crystal was exposed in one wall. The rock around the crystals was carefully chipped away, and they were polished until they glittered. Frona brought tea, along with a round of creamy goat cheese, olives and bread.

“Now, my daughter, I also come to you as a mother and a counselor,” said Baubo. “How is it with you, Persephone?”

Persephone sat back in her chair and fixed her eyes on the fire. “I’m ashamed to tell you what’s in my heart,” she said. “I’ve found what I was searching for, and yet…”

“You left the Green World for the World of the Dead, child,” said Baubo. “Of course, you miss your home.”

“I dream of the barn,” said Persephone. “It’s early morning and the horses are stirring. I walk in and smell the way it used to be. Cats press against my ankles. Horses nicker. Sun comes in, so golden, so bright, and everywhere color and texture and life!” Her voice broke. “And then I wake and I’m in my bed. There’s much to do, much to learn, but nowhere is there touch, warm flesh, pulse. There’s no sunrise.” She turned and looked a Baubo. “The dead tell me stories of famine and suffering in the world. Why are people starving?”

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“Yes, there’s famine in the land,” said Baubo. “Many die. Your mother has lost her joy in her work. Hecate visited her and tried to help, but Demeter can’t accept your absence. I’ll go to her soon and see what I can do, but this isn’t your fault. Children grow up and go into the world to seek their own lives. You were right to do so.”

Persephone looked into the fire again and tears fell down her cheeks. “I was cruel,” she said in a low voice. “I felt so trapped, so smothered before the Wild Hunt. But now … now I miss her so much, Baubo! But I ate the pomegranate seeds. I don’t regret it, but I can’t go back now and she’ll never come here. She’s lost to me.”

Baubo smiled. “Daughter, you’ll learn life isn’t all one thing or another. The story is not yet all told. It’s too soon to say you’ll never see her again.”

Persephone avoided Baubo’s eyes.

“Your feelings about your mother are not the only weight in your heart.”

Persephone wiped her cheeks with her hand. She shook her head but didn’t speak.

Baubo poured herself tea and sat back in her chair. She too gazed into the fire. “Here’s an old story that hasn’t yet taken place,” she said.

“Once upon a time not yet come and long ago, there lived a young man named Richard who committed the worst crime against a woman possible. He appeared before the court to receive justice. The judge was a woman. She sentenced the young man to discover the answer to the riddle, ‘What does a woman desire most?’ If he didn’t return in exactly one year with the correct answer, he’d forfeit his freedom.

Richard was astonished at the leniency of the sentence and felt he’d escaped punishment very well. As he made his way out of town, he saw an attractive young woman. He approached her with his best manners and most seductive smile.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, ’can you tell me what a woman desires most?’

She, in her turn, smiled coquettishly back, swaying her skirts and glancing up at him from under her eyelashes. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘What a woman desires most is a lover!’

It was hot in the street. Richard wiped his forehead as he walked on.

A while later he saw a woman with a babe in her arms and two young children at her skirts. She looked tired and disheveled.

Again, he approached, courteous and friendly. ‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said, ‘could you tell me what a woman desires most?’

She hardly looked at him. ‘Rest,’ she said without hesitation. ‘What a woman desires most is rest and peace.’

As Richard reached the outskirts of town, he spied an old crone leaning on a stick. People passed her with some impatience, as her slow gait obstructed the foot traffic.

He fell into step beside her. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, raising his voice in case she didn’t hear well. ‘Can you tell me what a woman desires most?’

The old woman grunted. He noticed she didn’t smell good.

‘Health,’ the old woman wheezed, without looking up. ‘What a woman desires most is good health.’

Now Richard began to feel less confident about his task. Three women had given three different answers to this riddle. What if every woman gave a different answer? He decided to buy a notebook to keep track of the answers.

So, Richard went into the world with his notebook and his riddle. He talked to women of all ages and in all conditions. He asked his question of rich women and poor women, women living in towns and women working in fields, and every woman gave a different answer. He soon filled up the first notebook and bought a second, and then a third.

In this way, the year passed and the last day found him back in the town from which he’d started. Tomorrow he must to return to the court with the correct answer — or give up his freedom forever. He sat on a low stone wall with his head in his hands. How could such a simple question be answered differently by every woman?

In the midst of his despair, he heard a voice beside him.

‘Are you in trouble? Can I help you?’

Richard looked up. The ugliest woman he’d ever seen stood next to him, and by now he considered himself something of an authority on women! Her body was twisted and crooked. Her eyes were different sizes, small and dull, the color of mud. Her humped nose looked off center. Her mouth was too large, lips loose and flabby, and her discolored teeth leaned every which way. Her hair hung in lank rattails. She was hideous.

‘Tomorrow I’m to lose my freedom forever,’ he said, ‘unless I answer a riddle.’

The ugly woman gave him a look of polite inquiry.

‘I thought it would be so easy,’ said Richard. ‘I…I did something wrong and was sentenced to find the answer to a riddle. The judge gave me a year. Today is the last day of the year and I’ve filled three notebooks with answers to the riddle, but not one answer is the same as any other.’

‘What’s the riddle?’ asked the woman.

‘What does a woman most desire?’ Richard said.

‘Oh, that’s easy!’ said the ugly woman. ‘I know the answer. I’ll tell you, but you must do something for me in return.’

‘You know the answer?’ Richard asked in disbelief. ‘Are you sure you know the correct answer?’

‘Absolutely,’ she said with great confidence, and he believed her.

‘I’ll do anything if you’ll give me the answer,’ he said, hardly daring to hope. ‘Anything is better than losing my freedom.’

‘Ah, don’t promise so quickly,’ said the ugly young woman. ‘What you must do is…marry me.’

He stared at her.

‘Marry…you?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you the answer to the riddle. You’ll go to court and finish your business and then meet me and we’ll be married. I know an inn, not far from here, where we can spend the night together. My name is Rapunzel, by the way.’

Richard hesitated. How could he bear to marry this hideous woman, promise to spend the rest of his life with her? But if he didn’t…if he didn’t he’d spend the rest of his life locked up. Better to be married to this ugly woman and free.

‘Agreed,’ he said. They shook hands on it. Her hand felt clammy.

‘What a woman desires most,’ she said, looking him in the eye, ‘is to stand within her own power.’

The young man thought for a moment. ‘Her own power,’ he said to himself, ‘her own power.’ He remembered his crime and realized he’d taken away a woman’s power, and felt ashamed. He thought of all the answers in the notebooks. Each answer fit into this answer. Each answer was different because each woman was different. This was the correct answer!

‘Thank you,’ he said to Rapunzel, and meant it from the bottom of his heart.

The next day Richard presented himself before the court. The judge was waiting for him.

‘Have you discovered the answer to the riddle: What does a woman desire most?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he replied. He straightened his shoulders. ‘What a woman desires most is…to stand in her own power. And,’ he reddened, ‘and I’m truly sorry for what I did.’

‘Very good,’ said the judge. ‘That’s the right answer. Dismissed!’

Richard, true to his word (so you see he had learned something in his year with the riddle in his mouth), met Rapunzel and they were married.

They arrived at the inn and Rapunzel wanted some time alone to wash and make herself ready. Richard, rather sadly, went into the bar for a drink.

He bought a drink, and then another, and then another, making each last as long as possible. At last, the barman asked him to leave so he could close for the night.

Richard climbed the stairs to the room where he knew Rapunzel waited. He walked down the hall. He turned the knob and walked into the room. Candles and lamps were out and the window opened to admit a sweet evening breeze. Rapunzel, mercifully hidden from view in the dark, appeared a vague shape in the bed.

Richard took off one piece of clothing at a time, beginning with his boots. All the while he remembered the way Rapunzel’s skin had looked — like the belly of a dead fish. At last, he stood naked. He made his way to the bed and gingerly inserted himself into it, trying to stay as close to the edge as possible.

‘Aren’t you going to touch me?’ Rapunzel inquired.

He must! He knew he must. He reached forward, shrinking at the same time, and encountered…well, it didn’t feel like the skin on the belly of a dead fish! It felt warm and smooth and rounded and smelled wonderful! He moved closer and took her in his arms. He kissed her. Her lips were delicious!

He leapt out of bed and lit a lamp. By its light he saw the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen! And after a year with the riddle in his mouth he thought himself something of an authority by now on women! She had a cap of short golden hair.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘What is this?’

‘I’m your wife,’ said she, sitting up and letting the sheet fall. ‘I, uh…did something wrong and my punishment was to take on the appearance I had when you met me until a young man agreed to marry me. When you did so the sentence lifted. But, there’s more…’

‘What more?’ he inquired cautiously.

‘Well, now you must make a choice. You must choose whether I’ll be as you see me now by day and ugly by night or beautiful by night and ugly by day.’ She spoke quickly and angrily.

Thinking of the night ahead, and not noticing her irritation, he said, ‘Ugly by day and beautiful by night!’

‘So,’ said Rapunzel, ‘during the day, everywhere we go, people will laugh and jeer. Young children will run away in fright.”

‘Oh,’ he said, picturing it. ‘Well then, ugly by night and beautiful by day!’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Every night for as long as we live, you’ll get into bed with the woman you met on the street.”

The young man thought. What best to choose? ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Wait a minute. This choice shouldn’t be mine. You’ll have to bear with it more than I. I’ve learned what a woman desires most is to stand in her own power. I think this choice should be yours, and I’ll abide by it.’

She looked surprised, gave him a smile and became even more beautiful, if possible, than before. ‘A good answer,’ she said slowly. ‘Then I choose to be beautiful by day and by night!’

And so it was.”

Persephone stirred. She laughed but there were tears on her cheeks. She looked at Baubo. “All right,” she said, “I choose, then, a life with Hades, whom I love, and whom I believe loves me.”

“Well done, my daughter,” said Baubo. “Now your desire is spoken, clear and true and from the heart. Concentrate on the life you want and see what happens.”

The old woman rose to her feet and smiled a wide smile, a child’s smile, a smile of mischief. “Time for talking is over. Now is time for a deeper knowing. Bring out your drum, Persephone!”

Persephone brought out a wooden box. Opening it, she took from the padded interior a dumbek. Seated, she tucked the drum under her left arm, and closing her eyes, began a slow rhythm. Demeter had taught her to play the dumbek when she was a child and she fell into a rhythm as natural and measured as a heartbeat. She remembered herself sitting on the floor in the front of the fire making friends with all the sounds the drum could make. She remembered her mother, smiling and laughing, encouraging her to explore this new toy, clapping her hands to the rhythms Persephone discovered. She smiled to herself, watching child and mother together behind her closed eyes. Her hands beat the rhythm of those days, the cycles and seasons of her Corn Mother, her abundance, her unchanging love. The rhythm spoke to her of endurance, of bonds beyond time and change, and she felt comforted.

The sound of the drum held her, rocked her, built a safe place. She opened her eyes.

Baubo had snuffed candles and lamps so the room was lit only by fire glow. She was naked. As she danced to the drumbeat she looked like a spirit of earth, solid and squat. Her big round belly and wide hips moved to the drum. Her thick thighs and ankles stepped, turned so now her buttocks moved in the firelight and now her dark and hairy groin. Her breasts rested on her belly, pendulous and softened with age, nipples large and dark. Persephone looked at her and saw strength and endurance, a body made for nurture and knowing. She saw the female spirit underlying youth, motherhood and old age. Her hands quickened from the dreamy rhythm of childhood and safety to something deeper, more assertive and passionate. Baubo responded, moved her body with even greater strength. If a rock could dance, a twisted gnarled old tree, a mountain, it would dance like this. Baubo turned her back to Persephone and released a long, loud fart. Persephone, startled, let out a shout of laughter before she could stop herself. She felt her face flush in the dim light. Baubo turned to face her again, giggling. She guffawed. Her belly heaved. She belched and laughed harder. She put her hands on her belly and rocked with laughter, watching it move. Her breasts bobbed. Persephone laughed with her.

Somewhere under her laughter lurked tears. Persephone tried to let the laughter out and keep the tears buried, but she couldn’t. It was like trying not to sneeze. Baubo’s feet danced as she rocked with noisy mirth. Her flesh bounced this way and that. It was too much for Persephone. She laughed, tears hot in her eyes. They slid down her cheeks. She laughed and she sobbed. She sobbed and then, watching Baubo, laughed again. Her sides ached. Her nose ran. Still her hands played on, drumbeat filling the chamber as though the drum controlled her hands and played itself.

The drum’s voice became sexy, suggestive. Baubo rotated her hips. She cupped her breasts and lifted them, reaching down to kiss first one and then the other. She kissed her own shoulders, slid her hands down her hips and over her lush belly. She circled her nipples and her belly button with thick fingers. She turned towards the fire and looked at Persephone over her shoulder, spreading the cheeks of her buttocks apart. The drum beat sensuously. Baubo stood with the glow of fire behind her and began to touch herself, stroking the curly coarse hair at her groin. Persephone watched, fascinated, as Baubo’s fingers moved in and out of grizzled hair. Baubo pinched her nipples and they hardened.

Persephone felt her body respond to Baubo’s excitement. The room felt warm. She wanted to dance too, but she couldn’t dance with abandon and drum at the same time. Baubo spread her feet apart on the floor, moving her hips now to the drum’s rhythm. Persephone saw a gleam of moisture. Baubo spread the lips of her labia and put two fingers into her vagina. Persephone gasped. Baubo smiled, brought her fingers up to her nose, smelled them, and put them in her mouth. She touched her nipples. She caressed herself with one hand and moved her fingers in and out of her vagina with the other. She held Persephone’s gaze with her own. The rhythm grew faster, building. Persephone couldn’t look away. Her own body moistened and opened like a flower. She wanted to touch herself as Baubo did. Her hands beat the rhythm and Baubo jerked her hips, hands urgent on her body. The rhythm peaked. Persephone gasped. Baubo let out a fierce cry. Persephone’s hands faltered and the rhythm scattered and lost itself. She looked away from Baubo, embarrassed and uneasy.

“Daughter, rise!” Baubo’s voice rang out strong and commanding. Persephone set the drum aside and rose. She trembled. An intimate smell of sweat and sex tinged the air. “Close your eyes!” Persephone felt Baubo come close, warm and solid. She tied a piece of cloth about Persephone’s head, covering her eyes. She felt Baubo’s hands in her hair, unplaiting and shaking it out so it covered her shoulders. Baubo slid her robe off her shoulders and helped her step out of her underclothes. Baubo took her hand and led her to a place close to the fire. She could feel its warmth on her bare legs and belly. Her labia were swollen and moist, sensitive to every movement she made.

Baubo left her and Persephone heard her pick up the dumbek. She began to play the rhythm of a heartbeat, elemental and soothing.

“Womanhood,” said Baubo, her hands beating on the drum, “is watered with blood and tears. You’ll laugh and weep and true friends will prevent you from neither. Life is a dance, Persephone. Dance for strength. Dance for joy and for lust. Dance for birth and death and dance at every crossroad. In dance, you’ll know your truth.”

The drum beat. Persephone listened to Baubo’s words and her body listened to the voice of the drum and responded.

“A woman is two creatures,” said Baubo. “One creature looks out of eyes in a woman’s head, speaks from her mouth and acknowledges the rules of civilization.”

The drumbeat changed, became insistent, somehow wilder. “But there’s another creature that a woman is. A creature of shadow, wild, a creature untamed and passionate. There is in every woman one who sees with nipples and speaks uncivilized truths from those lips hidden in a forest of hair.”

Baubo’s voice trailed away, swallowed up and overcome by the drum, and Persephone gave herself to its rhythm. Her eyes blinded, she allowed her body to move as it would and gave no thought to how it looked or smelled or seemed to anyone else. She touched herself as she’d never touched herself before, explored sensation, texture and movement, allowed the drum to command her. She threw her shoulders back, thrusting her breasts out, and feeling her flanks bunch with muscles.

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She lost a sense of time. The beating drum slowed, smoothed and quieted. She danced smaller and smaller. Her heartbeat slowed. Her body relaxed. She stood swaying in dim light. Baubo set the drum aside and went to her, lifting off the blindfold. She took Persephone by the hand and led her to her pallet on the floor. Persephone let herself down onto it and fell asleep before the old woman had pulled the blanket over her shoulders.

RAPUNZEL

Something called Rapunzel back to the tower. She didn’t want to go but she was wise enough to obey the call. She stayed out of sight. She found her hair flung on the ground below the window. She felt certain the tower was empty, but she tasted a bitter residue of grief and violence in the air. Had her mother been there?

Something moved in the forest with an incautious, clumsy sound, and Rapunzel saw a figure.

Alexander was no longer handsome. His skin was scratched and bloody and both eyes were torn out by thorns. Rapunzel gathered him into her arms. He groaned and trembled, no longer able to weep. He talked brokenly of falling from the tower into a thicket of thorns. She made him sit down with his back against a tree. He clung to her, but she put his hands firmly away and talked soothingly as she moved about so he’d know she wasn’t leaving. The horse, which she saw now was not white but cream with smudges of grey, stood nearby, ears pricked and nervous. Still talking, she approached it with slow friendliness, gathered up the trailing reins, and led it back to Alexander, putting the reins in his hands.

The thicket of thorns was broken and crushed. It grew thirty feet from the base of the tower and Rapunzel realized Alexander couldn’t have landed there in a simple fall. He’d been pushed—or flung. Broken thorns were sticky with blood and she found Alexander’s blue eyes, now wet and bloody globes, impaled on thorns. The sight made her wince, and her stomach twisted. She breathed slowly in and out her nose and felt better. She must take those eyes with her. Clear sight was deep magic. How could she preserve them? Perhaps she could wrap them in damp leaves or grass… Steeling herself, she reached forward, expecting to feel jelly within a thin skin, like an undercooked soft-boiled egg. The eye came smoothly off the thorn, soft and round at first and then subtly rounder, firmer, smaller and heavier. She opened her palm to see a milky hard sphere. Turning it, she found a blue eye looking out of one curved side. Now the eye felt and looked like a large marble. She closed her own eyes and carefully plucked the other off its thorn, felt again the transformation in her hand. She opened her eyes to see a marble like the first. Her hands were slimed with fluid and blood and the marbles filmed with the same, but they were no longer organic tissue. The fluid would wipe away. She knelt, wiped her hands on the grass and rolled the marbles in a patch of wild plantain near a clump of purplish-brown mushrooms to clean them before dropping them in her pocket.

She returned to Alexander and took his hands in her own. He clutched at her, trembling. She urged him to his feet and helped him onto his horse. Reins in hand, she headed towards the nearest town.

Image by Stefan Kellera from Pixabay

DEMETER

One night, Demeter slept for a little and then woke. It was a summer morning and Persephone moved about the kitchen, setting out breakfast. The door stood open and sunlight came in with birdsong. Demeter had overslept and the new day called to her in a glad voice to rise, eat and go out into the world to wake seed. She sprang out of bed before realizing the cottage was dark and she alone. She built up the fire and sat in front of it, wrapped in her shawl, waiting for grey dawn.

She heard a sound at the door. The handle turned and in walked Baubo. She looked wide awake, her face rosy and smiling. Scant curls bobbed on her head. She moved with a strong, light step in spite of being as wide as she was high. She greeted Demeter gaily, took off hood and cloak and laid them across the back of a chair. Demeter didn’t rise from her place in front of the fire. She didn’t want company. Why couldn’t they leave her alone?

Baubo took no notice of Demeter’s coldness. She moved around the cottage, opened every window to its fullest extent and left the door wide. Air flowed in, too cold for comfort. It was the still hour before dawn. Baubo threw wood on the fire and it flowered into enthusiastic flame. She lit kitchen lamps and began heating water. From a cupboard, she took mixing bowl, wooden spoon and yeast. She stirred yeast, a spoonful of honey, and a pinch of salt into the bowl. She warmed some milk and stirred it with the rest, covered the bowl and left it on the counter. She pinched up tea leaves from a wooden box and brewed tea in a brown teapot, setting cups ready.

Demeter pretended to ignore this activity. One of the logs Baubo threw on the fire wasn’t dry and sap boiled and popped, sending sparks like flowers onto the hearth and up the chimney. They danced, red, gold and orange, and Demeter fancied they made a sound like diminutive cymbals.

An owl called from outside, repeating his reedy two notes. Baubo tapped her foot. Persephone’s rocking chair in front of the fire creaked and rocked slightly, although no one sat there to move it. Baubo clapped her hands, once, twice. Water bubbled and boiled and Baubo filled the teapot. Tea leaves unfurled with a rustle and the earthy smell of tea filled the room. As though answering, braided bunches of garlic and onions hanging from a beam in the kitchen ceiling swayed together with gentle susurration. Baubo laughed. Yeast bubbled and frothed in the bowl under the towel. The rug in front of the fireplace vibrated like the strings on which it was created, and a cascade of notes floated up from it, echoed by the shawl of grey and amethyst draped about Demeter. She rose to her feet and dropped the shawl onto the floor.

From outside the opened door, joining the owl, came the first birdsong, a tentative note dying into silence. Demeter could see the eastern sky turning from black to navy blue. Another bird fluted in answer to the first. Baubo put a spoonful of honey in the tea and honey dripped from the spoon in a golden sound like a harp string. Baubo danced across the floor and put a hand under Demeter’s elbow. Before Demeter knew what was happening, Baubo had steered her across the patch of grass in front of the door. The willow chair outside the door creaked. One after another, birds took up the song. The owl fell silent. A streak of pale color announced itself in the sky like a ripple of piano keys. Baubo took Demeter by the hand and she walked alongside the dancing, laughing old woman. The barn doors were flung wide in welcome and the horses joined their neighing and stamping to the morning. Cats mewed, weaving back and forth under their feet and Baubo stooped and picked one up. She held it under her chin and the cat closed its eyes and vibrated with purring.

Baubo stood with the ecstatic cat in her arms looking into the eastern sky as it grew lighter and lighter, Demeter beside her. Trees stirred around them. A chorus of birdsong rose and rose in a great crescendo and the sun showed itself above the horizon in a blare of trumpets. Baubo set the cat down and flung out her arms. Her feet moved in the dusty yard and she danced. Demeter smiled in spite of herself to see her bobbing and turning in the first rays of sunrise. Everything bounced, from her curls down to her heavy thighs. The smile felt strange on Demeter’s face.

Together they entered into the barn. Every creature and object sang its own note in the day’s song. Pitchfork tines twanged and vibrated. Flakes of hay and straw fell in fragrant heaps like spray. Grain scoops and grain sang together of harvest and plenty in a dusty golden song. Cats were here, there, everywhere underfoot, mewing, rubbing against legs of horses and the two women. Swallows nesting in barn rafters flew in and out, adding their calls to the song. Water splashed in buckets. Flies buzzed about in shafts of sun, warming for the day’s work. Short Baubo bounced and danced around the horses with brushes and they stretched their necks and drew back their lips as though laughing with her. When they turned the horses out, Baubo laughed to see them kick and rear like yearlings.

Image by stepinstyle from Pixabay

They returned to the kitchen. Baubo kneaded flour into the yeast and set it to rise while they drank tea and then made another pot and took it outside into the sun. The morning settled into quiet joy, like music heard from a distance, as though underground the roots danced.

Baubo didn’t burden Demeter with words. Demeter drank her tea and felt sunlight on her face while Baubo baked bread. Tea drunk, Demeter made her bed and tidied her room. She felt glad, after all, for companionship, but she didn’t want to talk. Everywhere were threads of music and Demeter’s heart weighed lighter than it had in a long time.

As morning ripened toward noon, Baubo took Demeter’s hand. “Come,” she said, “walk with me to the top of the hill.”

They walked through trees and then onto the bare flanks of the hill. They strode along without speaking and Demeter felt the pull of muscles in her calves and the rise and fall of her breathing. How long since she’d walked like this? It seemed a long time. The leaves on the trees were stunted and scanty, filmed with grey. Grasses on the hillside were sere and dry, and when she paused and looked back the way they’d come there wasn’t a flower to be seen. As they crested the hill Demeter saw a large dog sitting watching them. Coming closer, she recognized a wolf with amber eyes. She turned to Baubo with words of reproach on her tongue for this trick, but Baubo smiled and embraced her before she could speak.

“All shall be well, my dear,” she said into Demeter’s ear. She released her, and with a wave of her hand, walked away down the other side of the hill.

Demeter faced Hecate. The old woman’s face was stern but not unkind. “You’re beginning to live again,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Demeter bowed her head but didn’t speak. “Come,” commanded Hecate, and Demeter moved to stand beside her. “Look,” said the old woman, pointing. “What do you see?”

“The fields are fallow. I see no people working in them.”

“Yes. And there?” Hecate turned to face a new direction.

“The forest isn’t green. It’s dusty and still. I see no flowers and no fruit. Birds don’t sing or move among trees.

“And there?” Hecate turned again and pointed.

“Where are the sheep? They’re not on the hills.”

“Listen,” said Hecate. Demeter listened. She heard a thin, far away piping. It wound in and out of trees and combed through grasses on the hillside. It came from far away and from every direction. It wasn’t a robust sound. It faded in and out, dying away to nothing but a shadow of itself, and then gaining, weak but insistent. It insinuated itself into Demeter’s heart and pierced her with grief, not the dull heavy ache she’d lived with for so long, but sharp, like a blade.

Hecate’s grey eyes were cool and ageless. “The sheep are dead. Fields are fallow because seed lies sullen and cold in the soil and doesn’t grow. Orchards don’t bear and trees only put forth a few weak leaves. Birds and animals are dying. Famine is in the land. Baubo came to you in the midst of many weeks of work with souls of dead children. You keep your daughter busy these days in the Underworld, Demeter.”

Demeter put a hand out to stop Hecate’s words.

“Demeter,” said Hecate relentlessly, “you’ve asked in the privacy of your heart who you are now your child has become a woman. I’ll tell you. You’re the Corn Goddess! You’re mother to uncountable seeds! You’re nurturer of man and beast! Your usefulness didn’t end with Persephone’s maturity. Demeter, the Green World dies and still Persephone doesn’t return. You must go back to work!”

The wolf rose from his place, stretched, and came to where the two women stood together looking across the land. He sat at Demeter’s feet and looked into her face. His eyes glowed in the blurring of her tears. He stretched his neck forward and laid his nose in the palm of her hand. She rested her fingers on the dark grey of his ruff in brief caress. She found her voice.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re right… I’ll go back to work.”

They stood, side by side, the wolf at their feet, and tears ran down Demeter’s face.

CHAPTER 3

HADES

Hades sat at breakfast and reflected. He’d previously not been a reflective man. Resentment, anger and impotence filled his mind to the exclusion of any quiet place in which to be calm with himself. As he began to engage with his place in the Underworld, the feeling of having no power in his life gave way to curiosity about what he might do and learn. He considered the place as a threshold and thought about ways to shape it to serve those who crossed it. He felt inadequate to the task. He was a young man. True, he was high born, of the family of the Gods, but he’d been carelessly educated and was never a scholar at any rate. He knew nothing of self-discipline; had always taken what he wanted at the moment of wanting and counted no cost. As younger brother to Zeus, few considered him or even noticed him. His scowling countenance and fearsome temper, strength and size were all he knew about himself.

Having finished breakfast, Hades left his chamber. Today the workmen had asked him to view the results of their labors in a new room.

He walked through the Underworld, returning to his thoughts.

No, he wasn’t fit to be king of this place or any place, he thought with humility new to him. Yet it seemed his fate. All these souls looked to him for guidance and direction. He’d learned much in the last months. Still, he hadn’t the wisdom or experience to lead this unceasing river of souls anywhere. He was just beginning to be familiar with the mysteries of the Underworld, let alone understand the ways and places beyond. What he’d learned and what change had occurred, he admitted to himself, were because of Persephone.

Persephone. Of all the daughters of the Green World, she must be the most vivid and beautiful. Yet she remained here with him, learning, asking questions, challenging, delighting and infuriating. It was she who understood part of what must be done was to listen to every soul’s story, and weary, endless work it seemed! Yet he’d drawn closer to himself as well as others as he listened to the life stories of servant, soldier and slave. Their lives were after all not so different from kings and rulers, politicians, scholars and philosophers, playwrights and poets. The lives he heard about were not so different from his own, in fact.

Persephone. He couldn’t now imagine his life or the Underworld without her. If he was to be king, though unfit and unwilling, he wanted no other for a queen. But was it fair? Was it right to ask her to condemn her bright beauty to this place forever? The Underworld. A threshold, perhaps, a place of power, but a place of death too. Always a place of death.

Yet he watched her as they listened to the dead together, as they ate and planned and talked together. He watched her as she moved about the Underworld and those with form smiled and saluted her. The souls gathered about her as though to warm themselves. She looked thinner and paler now, but that enhanced her beauty. He wanted her and his lust made him ashamed of himself. But he also wanted to protect her, to keep her safe and happy, to let nothing hurt her.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to speak words of love to her. His self-doubt kept him ashamed and his fear she would recoil from him (and who could blame her?) silenced him in her presence.

The passage widened out and warm color and the sound of water greeted him as he stepped into a room. Carnelian seamed the wall ahead. It glowed with an earthy red orange color touched with brown. Dvorg craftsmen had polished the exposed surface of the gems embedded in the rock wall. To one side stood a stone basin, carved with lotus flowers and fish, and a spring, freed from the rock, splashed in the basin. Cushions and sheepskin rugs were scattered on the smoothed and leveled floor and lamps glowed in brackets set into walls. The room soothed and welcomed.

He wasn’t alone. As Hades drew near to the fountain to feel the cool water on his hand, he realized the presence of one of the dead.

“My Lord Hades, I heard the sound of water.”

Pain and longing in the faint voice, whisper though it was, touched Hades’ heart.

“I found this room and I’ve been remembering …”

“You’re welcome here,” replied Hades. “Will you tell me something of your story? What in life does this room bring back to you?”

Hades sat down on a thick sheepskin and made himself comfortable with cushions.

“It’s time, then,” said the soul, as though to itself. It remained silent for some moments. Hades relaxed into his own breathing, holding himself receptive but not hurrying the other.

Image by Sonja from Pixabay

“My name in life, Lord,” began the soul in a stronger voice, “was the Dark Prince.”

“I lived in a great city on a wide river. My mother had a broken-down hovel in the poorest part of the city. I don’t know how she kept us. We had little money and often we were hungry. I was a boy with no interest in learning or work. I didn’t mind being hungry. I could steal enough food to live. My mother was aged beyond her years with poverty and worry. She felt bitter because I wouldn’t help earn money as the other boys did in our circumstances. She called me ugly, stupid and lazy. All I cared about was a flute I’d carved myself from a bone. I taught myself to play it. I played the feelings I couldn’t name. I liked best to wander the streets, watching and listening, and then find some quiet place and play my flute.

Oh, the streets of my home! I remember how calm and cool early mornings were as the city began to stir. Vendors set up stalls. The streets filled with the sounds of chickens, donkeys braying, camels, bawling oxen and barking dogs. As the sun rose, merchants and businessmen strode along in fine robes with their heads together. Buyers and sellers bargained, exchanging insults and compliments. Wealthy women in gold collars walked about with servants a step behind carrying baskets and bundles. Children darted, stealing a piece of fruit, a round of bread or an unguarded purse, shouting at one another, fighting and laughing. The sun grew hot and glared off bleached walls and dust hung heavy, weighted with all the smells of the city. I would walk for hours up and down the streets and then at midday I would find a patch of shade to squat in.

One afternoon I felt restless and explored an unfamiliar street. I came to a high white wall. Over the top of it green tops of trees showed. It was a hot day but the trees looked cool and I thought of their shade with longing. I wondered what could be on the other side of the wall. I found a place where I could climb it. The broad top made a comfortable seat.

Below me clusters of tall trees stood between gardens. A fountain bubbled with a curved bench around it. It was like a different world. As I sat there, a woman came along a path winding through trees. She dipped her hands into the fountain. She appeared young, wearing fine vivid robes and jewelry of gold and gems. I’d never seen such a woman before and I knew she must be high born. She didn’t see me there on top of the wall. She sat on the bench by the fountain with her hands in her lap and I thought she seemed sad and alone.

Image by 165106 from Pixabay

I longed to play my flute. I brought it out of my rags and put it to my lips. I closed my eyes and played everything I felt about the hot city streets, pungent and noisy with life, this calm, cool place of beauty hidden in their midst, and this young woman, so alone and so beautiful.

She never looked around. The flute blended into sounds outside the wall. I played and played, just as I did when alone. The sun slid down and it grew cooler. All the time I played she sat there with her hands in her lap. Her head was bowed, as though she studied her hands. Then she stood up and walked back down the path between the trees until hidden from sight.

I stopped playing. I slid down the wall and returned home to my poor old mother, running through the market to snatch food from unguarded stalls and then making my way back to the slums along the river.

Every day I returned. Lord, do you remember how it felt the first time you fell in love?”

Hades, who’d been caught up in the story, came back to himself with a start. The question twisted in his heart.

“Yes,” he said, and his voice sounded hoarse in his own ears.

“Well,” resumed the Dark Prince, “that’s how it was with me. I returned to the wall every day. Every day the young woman came to the fountain. Every day I played everything in my heart. She never noticed me.

I dreamt one day she’d look up and notice me there on the wall. She’d notice me and perhaps we could be friends. She might invite me down into the garden on her side of the wall and I’d tell her about my life and the city and play my flute for her. We’d walk together and explore the gardens and I could find out where the path through the trees led. I could dip my hand in cool fountain water and look at her beautiful robes and her slim hands and her sad face. Maybe I could make her smile. But day after day passed, and she never noticed me at all.

One evening I passed a well where a group of old women drew water. They spoke of a beautiful garden and I lingered, as beautiful gardens were in my thoughts. They talked of our monarch’s palace, surrounded by gardens and grounds, and described fountains, trees, exotic flowers and a high white wall … and then I knew. I understood I’d dared to love none other than our monarch’s daughter, highest princess in the land.

I felt devastated. I’d presumed to dream of a princess noticing me, a dirty ignorant street boy. I felt as though I’d lost any reason for being alive.

I didn’t go home. I wandered the streets late into the night in despair. Sometime near dawn I came to city gates. Outside the gates, merchants camped. I smelled cooking fires and the camp was already stirring in the cool air before dawn. I walked out the gates and wandered among tents and animals. A group of men stood around a fire with steaming cups in their hands, talking in low morning voices. Once of them noticed me and poured me a hot drink. As I stood near the fire, they paid no attention to me but continued their conversation.

All men who travel the world are the same. They speak of faraway exotic places, strange animals and races of men, silks and fabrics, spices, jewels and ivory, and magic.

‘The greatest magician of all,’ said one man, ‘greater than any I ever saw in all the world, lives right here in this desert. He can do miracles, my friends, I tell you! He can change a man’s soul, that one!’

The words caught my attention. The talk moved on but I turned over his words in my mind. I moved around the knot of men until I could stand near the one who’d spoken of the magician.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, “who is this magician?’

‘Ah,’ replied the merchant, ‘yes, boy, you want to know of such a man, don’t you? His name is Shabu, that one, and he lives out there.’ He pointed out into the desert, rolling endlessly under the dim flat sky. ‘If you walk for three days and three nights, you’ll find him.’

Without another word, I set down my cup and turned away.

For three days and three nights I walked, and then I came upon a ragged palm tree and a pool of water next to a broken-down hut. A black bird flew up from the roof of the place with a harsh sound as I knocked on the door. The door opened and there stood an old, old man, ragged and dusty as the palm tree. The socket of a missing eye puckered. He was toothless, but he smiled.

‘And what do you want?’ he inquired in a cracked high voice.

‘I seek the magician called Shabu,’ I croaked. My dry tongue felt slow.

‘And that is my name,’ said the old man. ‘Come, boy, and rest. Drink and eat and then you shall tell me your story.’

I washed and drank but I couldn’t eat. I sat in the shade under the tattered palm and rested for a time and then the old man came and sat with me. He carried a handful of marbles made of carnelian, yellow jasper, rose quartz, turquoise and lapis lazuli, and he brushed sand off a flat stone and laid them out carefully, ready for a game, while I talked. I told him everything. I emptied my heart as though playing the bone flute, but this time I found words.

When I stopped speaking, we sat in silence. Being young, I felt impatient with silence.

‘Can you change a man’s soul?’ I asked. ‘Can you make me strong and powerful? Can you make me a soldier, a prince, a warrior?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the old man. ‘But be careful, boy. Once I change the shape of a man’s soul, I can’t ever change it back again.’

‘I won’t want to change it back again.’

‘And what will you pay me?’

I had nothing for payment. I possessed nothing in the world except my hopeless love for a princess and the rags on my back. Then I remembered my flute. I took it out of my robes and gave it to the old man. He turned it over in his hands.

‘This,’ he said, his one eye gleaming, ‘and a game of marbles in order to change your soul.’

I agreed and we knelt under the ragged palm tree and played Camel Spit and Scarabs and Scorpions as the sun set behind the red desert.

Three years passed. I never returned to my mother’s house. They searched for me but could find no trace, and she concluded I’d gone to sleep on the riverbank, fallen in and drowned. She’d always expected something like it to happen. She grieved for a time and held a funeral and then forgot me.

Meanwhile, my country fought a war. The monarch lost most of his land and nearly all of his wealth. Many died. The monarch and his army were camped in the desert preparing to surrender when a young man approached the camp. He walked alone, dressed all in black. He asked to be taken before the monarch and his manner was so commanding the soldiers obeyed him.

I, for of course the young man was myself, introduced myself as the Dark Prince and requested the monarch allow me to take charge of the army. If he agreed to this, I assured him he would win back all the lost land and more, and regain our country’s wealth and power. The monarch was a desperate man with nothing to lose. I was confident, well-spoken and intelligent. He agreed and turned over control of the army to me.

Within weeks I’d won back all the lost land and wealth and more besides. The enemy ranks were killed or captured and enslaved. The monarch thanked me and offered me power and wealth beyond reckoning. We agreed I would come to his palace in one month’s time and claim my reward.

Word spread about me. People called me a savior. Women swept the streets and scattered white flowers. Men stood on rooftops and women hid behind trellised windows, eager for a glimpse of their hero. I strode through the streets dressed in my black robes. I entered the palace and soldiers took me before the monarch. Next to his golden throne sat the princess. The monarch greeted me and once again offered me wealth, power and rulership, urging me to name whatever I desired.

 I thanked him. ‘My one desire is your daughter’s hand in marriage -- if she’ll accept me.’

The princess turned to the monarch.

‘Father,’ she said, ‘if it’s your command I’ll marry this Dark Prince. But first, hear my story!’

‘Some years ago, I felt so alone. I walked in the garden every day and sat by the fountain, listening to the city on the other side of the wall. One day a boy climbed to the top of the wall. He didn’t see me sitting there. He played a flute. Oh, Father, he played everything in my heart! He played my loneliness, the garden’s beauty, and the white wall dividing me from the world. He came every day and played. I used to imagine he would jump down from the wall into the garden and take my hand and talk to me. I imagined we would laugh together. Of course, I knew he would never notice someone like me.’

‘One day he didn’t come. He never came again. I sent servants into the city to inquire. Many knew of the boy who played the flute but none knew where to find him. Then news came he’d drowned.’

I could see tears on her face.

‘Father, I’ll obey your command in the matter of marriage,’ she said. ‘But I can never love another the way I loved that boy.’

The soul speaking was faceless and tearless, but Hades heard deep grief, yet grief smiling a wry smile.

“I spoke, not to the monarch, but to her, the princess, my love. ‘I once felt a love like that,’ I told her, ‘and I’d never force you to marry me.’

I turned and left. I walked out of the palace, down flower-strewn streets, and out the city gates into the desert. I walked for three days and three nights, and once again old one-eyed Shabu met me at the door of his hut.

Desert image by ELG21 from Pixabay

He wasn’t surprised to see me. I told him what happened since I’d last seen him.

‘You said once you’d changed a man’s soul you couldn’t change it back again,’ I said.

‘That’s right, young man,’ he said sternly. ‘It’s too late to go back.’

‘I don’t want to go back,’ I told him. ‘I want to go forward. I want to use my life to help others live honestly. I don’t want to change souls. I want to reveal them, uncover them.’

Shabu smiled. ‘Dangerous desire, that. Many don’t want to see or be seen clearly. Changing a soul—well, that’s always popular! But uncovering the truth of a soul is quite a different proposition.’ He shook his head.

I didn’t dare persist and despair filled me.

‘And what will you pay me?’ he asked suddenly, his eye gleaming.

The last time he’d asked me that I was penniless. The only thing I possessed was my carved bone flute, and he contented himself with that payment, worthless as it was. This time I offered him gold and jewels. He refused. I offered land, livestock, power—and he refused them all.

‘What do you want?’ I asked at last, in desperation.

‘A soul for a soul,’ he croaked. ‘A soul for a soul, my friend. You offer me riches, not soul.’

‘I did it for her,’ I said dully. ‘I wanted to be worthy of her.’

‘You’ve thrown away the soul you were born with,’ said Shabu. ‘Now will you throw away the soul you bought? Will you be any more satisfied with the next soul, or the next? Perhaps something can be made of the soul you possess now. You’ve riches and power. Perhaps you can be worthy of her yet!’

But I knew it was too late. She wanted the boy who’d played the flute, who played everything in her heart. That boy was gone. That soul was gone. I knew I could never play like that again. If she did accept me, it would only be as second best. I didn’t want that.

I persuaded him in the end. I gave him my soul—the Dark Prince’s soul -- and he promised me a new life in which to help others find wisdom and courage to live true to themselves. Then I found myself here, my body gone, and I followed the sound of water, thinking of the fountain, and of her.”

The only sound in the rock chamber was the plashing fountain. Hades felt so moved he couldn’t find words. He knew he must gather himself to speak to this soul, say something about this remarkable story, but he couldn’t. In his distress, he thought of Persephone and wished for her presence. She seemed always to have a gentle word, an easy sense of grace and respect for everyone who passed through the Underworld. The thought of her brought clarity and certainty, a powerful sense of what he must do. His confusion and self-doubt were gone. The story showed him the way.

Hades found his tongue and for some time he talked to the Dark Prince. When they parted and Hades set out to find Persephone, he thought perhaps he could learn, after all, to be a good and just Lord of the Underworld. Perhaps he was the right one for the job. Perhaps he was the only one for the job.

JULIANA

The morning was dark and the floor cold beneath Juliana’s feet. The first thing she did was murmur the fire into life, giving it air, giving it kindling, fascinated as always by ember glow and blossom.

She stepped outside into the musk of leaves, wet with death, and scent of earth and smoke. The air felt uneasily still. It felt like snow.

She heated water for tea. The kitchen smelled of drying apples. The evening before she’d finished the last of them. Next year there would be harvest from her own garden. This first year she’d made do with what the land gave freely. All her attention had been focused on getting the house ready for winter, collecting firewood, seeing to the well. It would be a thin winter, but her loom stood by the fire and she could trade in the village for her simple needs. She cut up chicken, potatoes, carrots, onion and garlic for the pot, seasoned, added stock and set it on the stove. Later she’d add herbs. She made herself tea and fed the fire. She took from a basket one of the last pears, remembering the sound they’d made hitting the ground in the night outside her window as raccoons swayed like masked corsairs in the tops of the trees. She sliced them up and added them to the stacked trays of drying apples. Her right hand felt stiff and sore from wielding the knife for so many hours.

Outside, the sky lightened to grey dawn but sunrise was hidden. She ate a bowl of her own granola made with dried apples and ginger and raisins and made another cup of tea. The hearth radiated heat and she stopped adding wood. The cat jumped into her lap and purred while she ate.

She’d come to the house the day after the first snow, three weeks ago. She’d stood, heavily laden with her few belongings, taking in the river fringed with slushy snow, neglected orchard, weed-filled garden and the sad, empty house, and known she’d found home. Ever since then she’d worked all day every day, feeling winter’s inevitable approach and making plans for the future. This morning, suddenly, she felt used up. The most immediate tasks were done. Inside, she felt empty. No, she thought. Not empty. Don't say it like that. Think of it as space. Space that’s yet to be filled. Perhaps my life is here waiting for me.

Image by Comfreak from Pixabay

She thought of all the years come and gone. Nothing but last year's fallen leaves, all those days. The end of waiting came so stealthily she’d never even seen it. One day she still waited to be loved. The next day she walked away into something else.

The old floor shone the color of honey, even in sullen storm light. The cat in her lap was the same color. She laid her hand on his comforting weight and he purred, half asleep.

She’d walked through an afternoon turned grey and chill three weeks before, bone tired, smelling snow on the cold wind and with no idea where to shelter for the night. She stopped to dig out a warm scarf and rest a minute. The pack weighed heavy. She felt tired to death of being adrift in the world.

The woods loomed, unfriendly. Trees were shedding leaves, emaciated branches stark against pewter sky. Still, they were shelter of a kind and some wild part of her reached out in response to the harsh afternoon. Something clear and unafraid in her welcomed the year's waning, sacrifice of the trees and even her own loneliness. All would go down into darkness now. Good. She wasn’t afraid of the dark. Winter ahead. Winter ahead for all. Yet something else within her cried out, "Lonely! Lonely! No one to touch, to hold! Is that over for me now?"

She pressed on, going deeper into the woods. There was nothing but wind and trees and her thoughts, blown this way and that. Walking warmed her, but the air on her face felt cold. Afternoon passed into evening. Everything was dun and grey and the wind.

Something white moving between the trees caught her eye. It was so unexpected she stopped, only aware of background rhythm of stride, breath, stretch of muscles, when it ceased. The minute she stopped she felt cold air press against her legs between the tops of her fleece boots and the hem of her cloak. She strained to see what had caught her attention. It looked like an animal. Perhaps a horse? She could think of nothing else that size that would be white. It moved slowly, gracefully, without urgency. She followed it between the trees, not afraid but curious. As she drew closer, she realized it was … a deer? A white deer …? She’d never seen a white deer. But yes, she could see antlers.

The creature stopped and turned its head to look at her out of liquid dark eyes. No, she thought. Not a deer. She’d never seen such antlers. They were perfectly balanced and intricately woven. Most of the bucks in this season carried broken prongs, for it was the time of rutting. She’d seen them, heads lowered, striking their antlers together with a sound like sticks clacking, vying for mating privileges. She walked hesitantly nearer. She didn’t think of trying to touch the animal, but the eyes compelled her. It was much bigger than any deer she’d ever seen. It was, in fact, about the size of a horse. And it seemed perfectly white, without a blemish, without a spot. It glowed in the dim woods.

She stopped, just at arm's reach. They looked at one another. She was aware of nothing but this great creature in front of her. "Is it a dream?" Her voice wavered just above a whisper. It took a step closer, lowered its head regally. She thought how heavy those antlers must be. She took her hand from her pocket and pulled off her glove, offering her bare hand, palm up. It pressed its muzzle into the cup of her hand. She felt the flick of its tongue in her palm, warmth and breath against her skin. She gasped with the wonder of it, gasped with something like joy. A hard, protective shell fell away from her. Tears sprang to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Life and warmth raced through her body and she wanted to shout, to howl, to weep, to scream, to vomit with the awful pain of being alive.

It raised its head from her hand and looked at her again. She felt transfixed by its regard, utterly and terribly naked. She felt wholly seen. There was no place to hide. She stood helplessly, held in the creature's gaze.

Gently, silently, snow began to fall. She suddenly realized the wind was still. Dim white hush of snow fell on tree branches, on the ground, on her shoulders and scarf, and on those beautifully carved and knotted antlers.

Image by Press 👍👍 Love you 💖a from Pixabay

The White Stag turned away from her and stepped gracefully through the trees. Without a thought, she followed. The woods darkened around her and snow fell as the glowing stag led her on.

After a time, the stag turned suddenly into a cleft between trees. It widened out into a narrow valley, only dimly seen through falling snow. Tree branches laced overhead into a sheltering roof.

They came to a jutting ledge of woven roots and earth, and under the ledge someone had hollowed out a shelter in the cleft wall. She heard a trickle of water and saw a spring flowing into a natural stone basin. Against the wall the ground hollowed and dipped into a cup of earth filled with dry leaves and bracken and neatly stacked furs. She realized her weariness suddenly. It was full night now. The White Stag watched her steadily out of those dark, calm eyes and Juliana felt comforted. She wasn’t alone. It wouldn’t leave her, hopelessly lost and alone in the night and the first snowfall.

The stag turned and dipped its head to the stone basin, drinking. She bent and cupped water in her hands and drank also. It tasted fresh and sweet, not as cold as she’d expected, smelling of fallen leaves. She laved her face with it gratefully, using the tail of her scarf as a towel. When she turned back to the White Stag a man stood looking at her out of the same calm, dark eyes. Without thought, she picked up a fur and draped it around his shoulders, for it was a cold night of snow and he was naked. They stood, face to face, and she trembled. He lifted her hand, opening the cup of her palm and putting his mouth to it. She felt flick of tongue, breath, and then, gently, teeth on the mound beneath her thumb.

Her knees loosened and she staggered. He swept her into the crook of his arm and knelt, laying her in the bed of leaves and bracken on a fur. She looked up into those eyes, those terrible, beautiful dark eyes. Together, they loosened her clothes and let them fall away. She felt desire, yes, but something deeper than that cried out to be held, to be comforted, so that the richness of desire, awful vulnerability and need for nurture wove together, overwhelming her. In that moment, she acknowledged her fear of being old and unseen and couldn’t bear the grief of it. She clung to him, the stag man, clung with all her strength and opened herself to the dreadful shattering wave of emotion, wise enough to know if she fought against it she’d be broken to pieces.

 After a time, she became aware of the steady strong beat of his heart in her ear. It called her home, back to her body, back to this sheltered forest hollow. She let it surround her even as his arms did. It seemed to her it was the forest’s heartbeat. He breathed quietly and her own breath slowed, comforted by the nearness of another. Her fingers ached from the strength of her grip on his body and she loosened them, understanding herself part of a greater life that held her tenderly and would never let her go. She took in a deep breath. She could feel his hands now, pressing against her back, holding her firmly. She breathed again, feeling her breasts against his chest, feeling her belly push against him. Oh, to be held like this! To be held by something stronger than oneself! To give up responsibility, just for a while! To be allowed to be weak, to be afraid, to be tired! Again, tears welled in her eyes from what felt like her very roots, tears of gratitude for rest from the work of being brave. With those tears, weariness filled her as a slow tap fills a sink. She was warm. She was safe. She wasn’t alone. She settled herself yet closer against his body and felt one of his hands move away from her. The gentle weight of more skins comforted her and he tucked them in around their shoulders and sides and slid his hand under them to hold her against him again. She slept.

She dreamed. She dreamed a leaf, clinging to life and then surrendering and falling, falling gently, dancing, and alighting in a new life… She dreamed of ivory-colored antlers, twined and woven into an intricate pattern and holding innumerable candles, shining and gleaming like stars, like snowflakes… She dreamed of walking down into the earth’s body past layers of bracken and leaves, still smoldering with color like embers, layers of tired white bones--or were they antlers?--that became brown and copper and russet of roots and then rocks, buried and unseen but holding up the roots … She dreamed of a handful of leaves, dry and fragile, with their scent of old things, and the rough feel of a tree trunk against her cheek.

She dreamed a handful of black seeds. They were cold, like chips of ice. They burned her flesh with their cold. She felt afraid of them because they were death. They were utterly dead and cold, dry and hard. She wanted to cast them away. It seemed as though her hand would never again be warm or free of their chill. Her hand wouldn’t turn over and release them. She couldn’t let them go. As she looked in horror at the palm of her hand where they lay, she saw a fragile thread of light, golden and warm, and then another and another. The seeds cracked open, releasing light, rich and beautiful. One by one the seeds opened until her palm held a web of light and warmth.

The light winked out, and against her cheek she felt the short white coat of an animal, coarse and oily, smelling wild.

She dreamed of being uncovered in a dim place, but not alone, for she was touched. Every bump and scar and line, every hidden fold and cleft was smoothed and explored. She felt breath upon her body and knew he drank her scent. She felt hands, lips, long strokes of a tongue. She felt skin and bone and hair. She felt utterly loved, utterly cherished. She felt seen. She felt recognized. She felt known. She’d never known such depth of love, such tenderness, such regard. She slept.

She swam up from deep sleep through layers of light and color. Her body felt absolutely relaxed and deliciously warm. The rich smell of wet leaves came to her and she opened her eyes. She was lying in the hollow against the cleft wall, wrapped warmly in skins. Early sunlight infused the sky and tangled branches overhead were powdered with snow. The stag stood near the spring, regarding her calmly out of its great dark eyes.

She threw the skins aside. Her clothes were piled neatly under another skin and quite dry. She stood naked, running her hands through her hair and briefly over her belly, along the ridge of her hips, down her thighs. She felt strong and well. She dressed, pulling on her fleece boots, fastening her cloak and wrapping the scarf around her throat. She approached the stag and put her arms about him, laying her cheek against his neck. He smelled wild, a smell that rang like a familiar bell in the back of her mind. She shouldered her heavy pack and the stag turned and began to walk, Juliana falling into step beside him, one hand against his shoulder.

They moved up out of the cleft into the warming forest. Snow melted along branches and leaves gave up their wet scent. The stag paused, laid his muzzle against her cheek and snuffed, making the hair on her arms and neck rise in response. She felt the flick of his tongue and then he moved away through trees, disappearing into blurred light of sun on new snow and the muted colors of late autumn.

She stood for a moment, her hand against the wet trunk of a tree. The forest lived and breathed around her. She’d lain in the secret heart of it for a night, sheltered in its mystery. She was seen. She wasn’t forgotten. Her scent was part of the forest. She’d been loved in the nakedness of her self. It was enough. She turned back to the path and all the places it would take her.

The first place it took her was home.

Image by Innviertlerin from Pixabay

PERSEPHONE

After the evening meal, Hades told Persephone the Dark Prince’s story and laid bare his self-doubt and desire for her.

“I don’t know what kind of a King I can be,” he said. “But these are my people and if I don’t accept responsibility for them no one can. I don’t know anything about love. I’m a dark man of dark moods and this is a shadowed land, but I want no other for queen.”

Image by Craig Bak from Pixabay

He looked away from her, into the fire. “You’re always in my thoughts and I desire you, not just once but always.”

She didn’t speak. He looked into her face again. “Persephone, will you be my queen? Do you think you could love me?”

Her answer trembled on her tongue but she held it there. She remembered Baubo and recognized Hades’ simple vulnerability deserved equal honesty from her. Would he want her if she allowed him to see beneath sweetness and beauty? Did he ask her to become his property or his equal?

She rose without speaking and extinguished the lamps, leaving one on the table lit. The room dimmed. She took her dumbek out of a chest against the wall, along with a bracelet of bells for her ankle. She wore a robe of white linen embroidered with red thread in a pattern of leaves and poppies. Her hair hung in a long plait down her back.

“Ah!” said Hades when he saw the dumbek. “I haven’t seen one of those in a long time!”

“Do you play?” she asked in surprise.

“A little. Do you?”

She smiled for answer. She took her seat, tucked the drum under her arm, and began to play.

The slow pulse filled the chamber. Persephone let her mind relax and open. Her breathing and heartbeat became part of the hypnotic rhythm. Hades sat at ease, long legs stretched out toward the fire, a half smile on his face. Firelight revealed the planes of cheek and chin. Persephone felt a pang of desire and wondered what he would feel if he knew how fiercely he attracted her. She would find out.

She stood up, hands moving faster, quickening the beat. She added the sound of bells to the drum. Her feet moved up and down with slow deliberation on the hard stone floor. She welcomed the warm air against her skin, the light touch of linen, the weight of her hair. Hades watched her. She circled around the room, reaching deep within herself for rhythm, aware of his presence but putting the knowledge aside in her private expression of dance and drumbeat. She played hidden desire. She played the Green World and the shadowed inevitability of the Underworld. Her hands fell with assurance, drawing reverberating response from the dumbek. Her slow circling of the room brought her close to Hades. He reached out and put his hand on her bare arm. Her hands faltered and lost the rhythm. He took the dumbek and set it between his knees.

He picked up the rhythm she’d been playing, and she easily slid back into her dance. His hands were sure. He varied the sound, now cupping his hands, now hitting the drum with a flat hand or letting his fingers play lightly against it. Persephone felt as though his hands touched her, seeking to know her resonance and range. Her breasts felt heavy and full. She remembered Baubo telling her to see with her nipples, untied the sash of her robe and let it fall open.

She watched his eyes find the cup of her navel, follow the slight curve of her belly, catch a glimpse of her hip. She was naked underneath the robe. He beat the dumbek. She didn’t know if he followed her dance or she followed his hands as the rhythm increased. Freed from holding the drum, she allowed her arms to float, a graceful counterpoint to her grounded, deliberate steps. Bells added their silvery music to the drumbeat. She ran her hands over herself, molding linen to the lines of her body. She cupped her breasts. Her hands skimmed the curve of her buttocks and she cupped herself between her legs, turning and circling nearer to him now. She smelled her own sweat and arousal.

She drew a finger between her legs. In a quick movement, she stepped forward and ran her finger over his cheek above his beard. He groaned in surprise. She leaned down in front of him and her breasts fell forward. Her hair unraveled from its braid. She put her hands over his and stilled them.

“Come.” She pulled the robe around her and left the chamber.

She led him along a series of passageways to the bathing cave. Persephone lit a lamp. Light revealed a basin carved out of the stone floor. Pipes jutted over the basin’s lip, one from the mineral hot spring that bubbled out of the rock and the other from a cold spring. Stone benches were hewn out along the walls. The music of gurgling water, welling up and out of layers of earth and rock, filled the place. The steamy air smelled pleasantly herbal. Persephone moved aside a small wooden door in the ceiling, opening a vent to the world above. She unplugged the pipes and water fell into the basin. A bench beneath the pipes allowed the bather to sit under the flow of water.

As the basin filled with water, Persephone selected a bundle of herbs from a basket. She rubbed them between her hands and the scent of marjoram, minty and earthy, filled the chamber. Next, she added a bundle of lavender, rolling it between her palms until the healing fragrance released. While the herbs steeped in the water, she took bottles from a shelf and added their contents to the bath. Rich scents of bergamot and cinnamon mingled with lavender and marjoram. She brought another bottle to Hades and held it under his nose. It had a strong, clean scent, reminiscent of peppermint or wintergreen.

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

“Eucalyptus,” she said. “This comes from far away. It’s good for muscle aches and it’s cleansing.” This too she added to the basin.

Hades shed his clothing and stepped into the pool. He adjusted the flow from the pipes as the basin filled. The room filled with a green, earthy odor, both soothing and exciting.

Persephone, now naked, laid out towels and mixed oils. She caught his eye and motioned for him to seat himself in the pool. He stopped the flow of water and sat. Water lapped against his collarbone, fragrant and steamy. She sat behind him, her lower legs and feet in the water, one on either side. He caressed her legs.

“No.” she said from behind him. “You don’t touch me. I touch you.” She made her voice commanding. Her knees were hard against either side of his chest. She kneaded the muscles in his shoulders and neck, using her thumbs and knuckles. He relaxed under her attention and rolled his head, letting his neck loosen. She put all her weight into the massage. He hung his head forward and she worked at the base of his neck. She allowed her feet and legs to sway as her upper body moved, and her knees tightened and relaxed against the sides of his chest. He didn’t touch her.

She worked over his shoulders and onto the muscles in his upper chest. His heavy head rested against the inside of her leg as he relaxed. Her fingers worked at his pectoral muscles, kneading hard. Slowly, her hands moved lower, deeply working muscle tissue just above and lateral to his nipples. She watched him grow erect in the hot water. He rubbed his cheek against the inside of her thigh.

She suddenly gave a swift pinch to each nipple with hard fingers. He gasped. She returned to kneading muscles in his shoulders. He rolled his head back and forth in the soft cradle of her thighs.

“Again,” he said.

“No. And you may not touch yourself, either. Or me.”

She smiled to herself behind him. His shoulders and neck tensed with desire. She put aside the oil and rubbed her hands through his hair, massaging his scalp and the skin of his face under his beard. She moved back to his neck and let him feel her fingernails. He leaned his head back. She wanted to rub herself against him.

 She stepped down into the hot water. A bundle of fresh marjoram steeped in the bath. She rubbed it against her neck. It felt pleasantly rough and smelled fragrant. She raised her chin, using the bundled herb like a sponge. Her unraveling hair fell back. She polished the skin over her collarbones, shoulders and arms with slow deliberation. She raised her hands and ran the herbs down the inside of her arm, into her armpit and then down her side. When she was finished with her upper body she sat on a large stone above the water in the middle of the basin. The water level skimmed her thighs. She bent her knee, put her heel on the stone, and rubbed from the ankle up her lower leg, over her knee and then to the top of her thigh.

Hades remained motionless, but she could feel his tension. She sat with both legs in the water and used the bundle of herbs on her belly, over both hips, and reached behind herself, rubbing her low back and then dropping lower. She ran it up between her breasts, circling each one. She released the herbs into the water and watched the bundle sink while she cupped her breast, pinching the nipple gently. The sensation made her want to display her body. She supported herself with a hand behind her and arched her back. The hard point of her breast pressed into her palm. She caressed the other breast. Hades’ harsh quick breathing excited her. With one hand still at her breast, she held his gaze and lowered the other. She leaned back. Her mons was just at the water’s surface. With two fingers, she spread her labia. The scented water lapped against her swollen tissue. She ached to be filled, to be stretched, to be rubbed against. She pinched the tender lips of her sex.

Hades’ lips parted. What was in his face? Was he appalled? Was she too blatant? Did she go too far? She remembered Baubo’s dance and her words. Something stubborn in her didn’t care what he thought. Something wild and primitive in her took fierce pleasure in revealing her true self. If he didn’t want her—if he didn’t find her beautiful—well, she felt beautiful. She wanted herself. She wouldn’t hide herself to please him. But she loved him. She wanted him to want her—to claim her as his own. Still holding his gaze, she put a finger inside herself. He groaned softly. She withdrew her finger and gently squeezed the folds of skin around her clitoris together. It felt so exciting she knew she mustn’t do it for long. Again, she squeezed. Once again, she put a finger inside, pushing it deep, watching his face. She raised one knee and rested her foot on the seat so he could see her finger moving in and out.

“Come here, Lord,” she said.

He approached her. She moved off her stone seat and gestured him to take it. He did so, with his legs wide and his shaft erect, reaching up out of its nest of black hair towards his navel. She loosened her hair so it floated around her shoulders. She moved around the stone seat, exploring him with her eyes, deliberately brushing against his legs. He put his hands on his thighs and waited. Behind him, she pulled herself onto the rock. She stood behind him and looked down at the top of his penis where it strained upward. She stepped around him and stood with her legs wide. He leaned to taste her, to explore her, but she drew away. In a sinuous movement, she crouched down. He steadied her with his hands, guiding her. She knelt and straddled his lap, reaching for his shaft. He closed his eyes at her touch. She rubbed the tip of him against herself, feeling his wetness and the soft skin sheathing his hardness. She trembled from the strain of kneeling on the hard rock and her own need. She suddenly felt afraid.

His strong hands held her waist. He leaned forward and took her nipple in his mouth. The exquisite feeling made her gasp and press herself closer against him. He slid inside her, and as she came down onto him, she felt resistance, a thin blade of pain, and then he filled her, filled her as she’d ached to be filled. She made a sound, half groan and half sob, resting her head against his shoulder. He clasped her against himself. Her legs encircled his hips.

“Now be still,” he whispered to her. “Be still with me, my darling.”

She took his face between her hands and smoothed his beard, smiling into his eyes through a sheen of tears. He put his mouth on hers and his slight movement rocked them together. At once she tensed with desire. She wanted to rub, to feel…

He took her full bottom lip between his teeth and bit gently, then harder. Heat shot through her and she curled her fingers in his beard and pulled. She tightened her muscles around his shaft. He stiffened.

“Be still, woman!”

Smiling, she lifted herself off him, kneeling again. She felt sore and swollen but it wasn’t unpleasant. She reached with an exploratory hand and felt the sticky wetness of him and he hissed out a breath at her touch. She positioned herself, relaxed and opened as much as she could, and let herself down. She rocked her hips. He moved within her in response.

“Persephone,” he breathed, “Do that again.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to move,” she said, teasing.

She raised herself. Big hands cupped her buttocks. He helped her slide up his shaft and then lower herself. He swelled within her. She raised herself and his hands were hard now against her in bruising demand. He thrust his hips to drive more deeply into her. She floundered, unable to catch the rhythm of it, overwhelmed with the intensity of his demand.

Then she fell into it and relaxed, rocking her hips to meet his thrusts. The friction between them built. She was caught in a great wave of pleasure and thrust herself down on him as hard she could, grinding and rotating her hips. He touched a deep place inside her and pleasure swelled to a peak. She cried out, sank her fingernails into the skin over his shoulders.

He paused and then tipped over some unseen edge, echoing her own cries as he jerked and spasmed, jerked and spasmed, prolonging her own climax as she felt the jet of his ejaculate.

Slowly she came back into awareness. Subterranean water gurgled. Rock felt hard beneath her. Hot water lapped against her legs. She loosened her tight clasp on him. Their breathing slowed. She felt sore. He softened and grew smaller inside her. She wondered if she was heavy in his lap. The scent of oils was strong. What was he thinking now?

“Persephone,” he said into her hair.

“Yes?”

“I withdraw the question.”

Her heart sank. She tensed and tried to pull away. His arms tightened and she felt his face move as he smiled against her.

“Persephone. You are a queen. May I be your king?”

Image by Mark Dekkers from Pixabay

CHAPTER 4

MARIA

Rocks hurt her bare feet. Her skirts were in the water now. Three more steps and the current pushed against her. It was hard to keep her footing, between rocky bottom and swift current. Another step, and another. The last step took her into the middle of the river. The bed dropped away under her. Heavy clothes clung to her legs. She gave herself to the current, lying in its arms and looking up at the sky. The dawn colors would make a beautiful rug. She would lay such a rug across the threshold of an eastern-facing door so rug and sky could look at one another every morning. She closed her eyes and water flowed over her face. Yes. She would have done that if she possessed a door, a threshold, and a rug woven in colors of dawn sky, if life had been different.

Image by jplenio from Pixabay

***

Maria felt no cold. She felt no wet. She felt no body at all. She was weightless. Am I a thought, or a dream? she wondered. She wasn’t in the river. Everywhere she looked—but I have no eyes! How do I see with no eyes?—she saw rock and shadows. She groped for a color. She decided it was all the color of dust. A no color. Not brown, not grey. A soft smudged shadow smelling like stale air under the bed. A color of old hair, dead skin, desiccated pollen, tiny anonymous microbes and insects, crystals of dried sweat, forgotten dreams and wakeful night hours.

There were others around her, murmuring.

“Can I talk?” she asked aloud.

Evidently, she could. But how could she speak with no mouth and hear with no ears?

“What’s your name?”

It was another. It looked like a disturbance in the air, the ghost of a curtain moving in a breeze. This gave her an idea.

“Are we dead?”

“Yes,” said the other. This is the Underworld. What’s your name?”

“Maria.”

A light shone, dim, but the brightest thing Maria saw in this place. It came from a lamp sitting on a bracket in a stone wall. A woman lit the lamp, a woman with a plait of honey colored hair. She wore an orange skirt and a pink shirt and there were flowers in her hair. Maria recognized them. They were small golden poppies.

Maria and many others like her were in a large cavern. Air stirred and stilled again as the woman spoke.

“I’m Persephone. You’ve come to the Underworld. You’re welcome here. This is a resting place between your life before and what will come after. You may stay with us as long as you like. Before you leave, you’ll tell the story of your life, either to me or to Hades, Lord of the Underworld. Then you’ll choose what you want to do next.”

The air around Persephone trembled subtly. Maria thought of the dusty brush of a moth’s wing, or the movement of air from a passing bat at dusk in a high-ceilinged barn. She dropped back. She didn’t want to be in a crowd. She didn’t want to speak to anyone.

She held to one desire, one hope. Were they here? They’d only been a few minutes ahead of her. They must be here! Yet just minutes ago she’d wanted to leave hope and love behind.

She moved through the cavern. She heard whispers and sensed slight movements. She didn’t dare cry their names aloud. She searched, checking every shimmer in the air, listening, trying to catch the scent of their skin. She found no sign of them. In fact, there were no children at all. They weren’t here.

She couldn’t weep. Her body, a companion so constant and faithful its companionship was invisible, was gone.

Maria wedged herself into a corner of a rocky cavern. She turned her senses inward, away from horror. She had nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Time was not there. A moment came when Maria became aware of another close by. The other trembled. Maria pitied it.

“What’s your name?” she whispered.

The other stilled. After a moment, it answered, “Eurydice.”

“Eurydice. I’m Maria.”

“We’re dead,” said Eurydice. It wasn’t a question. Her tone was desolate.

“Yes. We’re dead.”

“I’d only begun to live.”

“Was it an accident?” Maria asked with some hesitation.

“It happened so fast! So fast…“ the other said. “I think…I think a snake bit me. I felt a slash of pain in my foot. I fell onto grass. The girls around me were calling for help and crying and then… and then…”

“You were here,” said Maria.

Time was not. Nothing happened. Maria thought about her story. She couldn’t tell it to anyone. She couldn’t tell it to herself. Nowhere to go and nothing to do went on.

Eurydice was there. Then she wasn’t.

“I was a tree nymph,” she said once. “What were you?”

“I was a weaver,” said Maria.

Yes, she thought. I was a weaver.

“Are we still what we were?” she asked Eurydice.

“I don’t know. I was a tree nymph and a young wife. I don’t know what else I was. There wasn’t time to find out.”

“Now what are we for, Eurydice?”

“I don’t know.”

Time was not. Nothing happened.

Eurydice said, “There’s a door.”

“A door? Do you mean you found a way out?”

“I don’t know. No. A door. It’s shut and locked. It’s for me.”

“What do you mean?” Maria asked.

“I mean there’s something for me on the other side of the door. I want to sit in front of it and wait for it to open.”

“Will you show me?”

Eurydice and Maria made their way down one stone passage and another. The way ended and they found a closed door in the wall.

Image by Prettysleepy from Pixabay

“I’m going to sit here. What will you do?” Eurydice asked Maria.

“I don’t know. I’m lost.”

“Maria,” whispered Eurydice, “Maria, you aren’t lost. You’re here. Tell me a story.”

“I don’t know any,” said Maria.

“You know one. Tell me a story while I sit in front of my door.”

“No,” Maria said.

“No, I can’t,” Maria said.

“Tell me.”

“No, I mustn’t.”

“Tell me, Maria.”

“I lived in a little mud town by a wide river where chickens scratched in the street and people earned enough to live, but no more. I was a weaver. I wove the colors of river, sky and earth. I made blankets and rugs and clothing.

One market day, as I sold my rugs, a fine horse galloped down the dusty road and wheeled into the village square. Oh, it was a prince of horses! Its bridle and saddle were set with silver and turquoise. A young man slid from its back and strode across the square. His hand looked smooth and narrow against my rugs.

His name was Juan.”

“Juan,” said Eurydice.

“Juan,” agreed Maria.

“We made two sons, Juan and Carlos. Their eyes were dark, like their father’s. Juan gave me money so I didn’t need to work so hard at my weaving. He didn’t want his children’s mother working in the market.

I knew when the babies came Juan would marry me and live with us. He was so proud of his sons! Yet he spoke no word of marriage and I felt ashamed. People whispered about us. They called my sons bastards.

One day Juan came to say he would return to Spain with his family. A wedding was arranged for him to a high-born Spanish girl. He intended to take his sons with him. He bade me make them ready. He didn’t get off his horse. He didn’t look at me.

I cried. I couldn’t sleep. I vomited until my stomach felt sore and empty. My mind darkened. When morning came, I felt weak and trembling. My clothes were torn. There was blood on my face from my fingernails. I made a bundle of my unsold weaving. It was a small bundle because I hadn’t touched my dyes or loom for more than a year. I took Carlos on my hip and Juan by the hand. I walked to the river.

I threw the bundle of weaving into the water. The river swept it away. I lifted Carlos off my hip and threw him into the water after the weaving. I waded in with Juan and when I felt the current pull at us, I let him go. He screamed and cried while the water took him.”

Time was not. Nothing happened.

“Maria.”

“No.”

“Maria.”

“No more.”

“Maria, then you walked into the river.”

“And then…” said Maria.

“And then you were here,” said Eurydice.

Time was not. Nothing happened.

The door stayed closed.

“Thank you,” Eurydice whispered. Maria could hardly hear her. “Thank you for your story, Maria.”

The pale form of a servant came to say Lord Hades asked for Eurydice.

“Come with me, Maria,” whispered Eurydice.

Reluctantly, Maria followed Eurydice to a large room where Hades and Persephone sat side by side. A young man in a sapphire blue cloak knelt before them with a golden lyre. His hands were still, but the notes of the lyre lingered in the room. Maria saw tears on Persephone’s cheeks.

“Orpheus,” whispered Eurydice.

Orpheus fixed his gaze on a spot beyond the servant’s shoulder. His face was a study in joy and anguish.

“Eurydice! Eurydice! My love! I’ve come for you!”

“This is against all rule and custom of the Underworld,” Hades rumbled. “I return her to you, Orpheus, for the sake of your music. Never again will I make an exception. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my Lord.” Orpheus bowed his head.

“You may take her out of the Underworld by the path you descended. You mustn’t look back until you’re both free of the shadow of her tomb, or she’ll return here and the way will be shut to you.”

Hades gestured toward the place Maria and Eurydice were. To Maria’s amazement, the dim figure of a woman appeared beside her, generously curved and strong-bodied. She didn’t return Orpheus’ eager gaze, but stood with bowed head, thick dark hair shielding her face.

“Stop!” Persephone sprang to her feet. Her hands were clenched and her jaw tight. She glared at Hades, who looked surprised.

“Do you think,” Persephone asked with steely courtesy, “we might ask Eurydice what she wants to do before you give her away, my Lord?”

Hades opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again without speaking.

Persephone swept across the floor to the transparent form of Eurydice.

“My dear. I’m Persephone. What do you say about all this?”

“Eurydice!” Orpheus sounded agonized. “I need you!”

“Eurydice,” Maria said.

“Oh, Maria,” said Eurydice sadly.

“Don’t do it,” said Maria. “Go back to your door.”

“I can’t,” said Eurydice. “I can’t. Maybe there’s nothing but him. He needs me. Maybe I’m not—without him.”

“No!” screamed Maria, but she could only whisper, thin, like the far away sound of a child screaming.

“I’ll go with him,” said Eurydice to Persephone. “Thank you, Lady.”

“Ah,” said Orpheus. His face showed triumph. Without another word, he turned and walked away. Eurydice followed. They moved out of sight.

“You beast!” Persephone turned on Hades. “You arrogant, self-satisfied beast! How dare you treat anyone like that!”

“But he loves her…” Hades began.

“He does not! He doesn’t love her, you fool! Didn’t you see he only loves himself?”

She flung herself out of the room in a sweep of skirts that reminded Maria of a summer storm.

Hades slumped in his chair. He drummed his fingers against its arm. His beard seemed to grow blacker and thicker as he retreated behind it. He hooded his eyes.

Time was not. Nothing happened.

Then Eurydice returned.

***

“He turned and looked,” she whispered. “I wasn’t yet free of the tomb’s shadow.”

“Ah. Uh…Eurydice?”

“Yes, Lord?”

“It seems I’ve made a mistake. Uh…I wonder…what would you like to do?”

“I’m bad,” she said dully.

“No,” whispered Maria.

“No,” said Hades. “Eurydice, you’re not bad. Your death belongs to you. I was wrong to make you powerless.”

“I’m not safe here now. He knows…”

“You’re safe,” Hades assured her. “But…would you like to go somewhere else, somewhere he can’t find you?”

“Where?”

“There’s a place, a boarding house on the sea in the North. You can go there and no one will disturb you. Perhaps something waits for you there.”

“The sea,” said Eurydice. “Lord—are there trees?”

“There’s a pine forest,” replied Hades.

“Yes, please. I’ll go there.”

MARIA

Eurydice was gone. Time was not. Nothing happened.

Maria approached Persephone.

She told her story.

“It’s a hard story,” said Persephone. That was all.

“Now what do you want to do?” Persephone asked Maria.

Maria told her.

PERSEPHONE

One day Hecate came to Persephone and Hades after a long absence. After much talk of the news of Webbd and a meal, Hecate revealed her purpose.

“I come with news of Demeter.”

Persephone looked down at her hands in her lap.

“You know the famine is over,” Hecate continued. “Once again Demeter blesses the seed, but there’s little joy in her heart. We’re concerned for her state of mind.”

Persephone looked up.

 “I have a proposition.”

Hades raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

“If Persephone were to go back to the Green World for a visit, I think much could be healed. Are you willing to be parted for a time?”

Hades looked at Persephone. “This is your choice,” he said. “What do you think of this plan?”

Persephone was silent. She didn’t want to leave Hades. Yet the estrangement from her mother was painful and she longed for reconciliation. She could see the Green World again! Was it possible her mother could bless her new life, love Persephone the woman as she’d loved the child?

She looked up and met Hades’ eyes, smiling and touching his hand. “I’ll go,” she said. “But my life is here with you and I’ll return.”

His face relaxed. He turned to Hecate. “When will you take her?”

“As soon as may be, Lord.”

Persephone spent the night in Hades’ arms and the following morning she set out with Hecate. Hades accompanied them to the great gate. There he and Persephone parted after a wordless embrace.

Once more under the sun, Persephone saw color and life in every direction. Fields were green and golden. Trees bore fruit. The Green World was vivid and beautiful. Flowers lined the road and dust lay soft and thick. They came to the sloping hill from which the Wild Hunt had swept her so many months ago. As they stepped out upon the flank of the hill, a figure wrapped in a grey and amethyst cloak came out from the trees on the far side. Hecate stopped but Persephone continued on, walking and then running to meet her mother. Demeter opened her arms wide to embrace her, and Persephone flung herself into them, weeping.

Demeter smoothed Persephone’s hair and spoke words of comfort and Persephone quieted. Demeter took her daughter’s hand, turned, and made a sweeping movement with her arm. The hillside swathed itself in golden poppies in full bloom. Persephone gasped. Hecate, knee deep in glowing flowers, raised a hand, turned and walked away.

Image by magdus from Pixabay

As day followed day, Persephone told her mother about her new life in small, tentative pieces, unwilling to disrupt the fragile harmony between them. Demeter listened with interest and attention, asking questions and expressing wonder. She told Persephone, with unmistakable pride, that she’d heard rumors that Hades was transformed into a place of beauty and powerful transition.

Persephone relaxed and soon mother and daughter were once again as close as they’d ever been.

Weeks passed. Rain fell on seed sown by Demeter’s hand; the sun shone in its turn and the world was green. Trees grew tall and healthy. Everywhere flowers showed their faces. Persephone reunited with every horse and cat in the stables, rose with the sun and went out to the barn, and then spent bright days wandering in field and forest, drinking color and scent and sunlight. She filled the cottage with flowers. She harvested herbs, baked bread and dried olives and figs in the sun.

Persephone was filled with gratitude for reunion with her mother, but she began to ache for Hades. Her nights became broken. She sat by her open window and heard her life calling from the far-away gates of the Underworld. It was time to go back.

Hecate visited and the three of them worked out a plan. Every year Persephone would visit Demeter in the Green World.

Once again mother and daughter parted, this time with acceptance and love and the next visit to think of. Hecate and Persephone traveled together, and when the gates of the Underworld stood ahead and she saw Hades waiting, Persephone ran, heart full of joy, into his arms.

(To read Part 3 in its entirety, go here.)