Asphodel (2 page)

Hades had been chasing Demeter and her daughter for five-thousand years. He hadn’t been chasing them for his own purposes, either. Well, his own purpose was a small part of why he’d been chasing them. There were two other main reasons why he’d been after Demeter and her daughter for the last five thousand years; the first was he wanted to teach Zeus a lesson for going back on their deal. The second, because he felt something the first time he saw her that was too powerful to deny.

In the past, Demeter was always able to out-smart him. Demeter had always kept her daughter close—too close. But with every passing century, Hades felt himself getting closer and closer.

Hades had a feeling that during this seventeen year span it would be different. He would finally get what he’d always longed for, a queen. Or who he’d always longed for Persephone.

Demeter

I
t was five minutes until midnight and Demeter knew there was no way that she’d be able to sleep. Red burned into her eyes from the digital clock on the nightstand. 11:56 another minute slipped away.

One day every seventeen years Demeter suffered through a sleepless night. She couldn’t sleep before midnight because she was too worried about what she knew would happen to her daughter. And she couldn’t sleep afterwards because she feared that when she woke up in the morning, he might have visited her daughter in the night and stole her from her bed.

Demeter had tried for thousands of years to out-run Hades. She was smart, moving with her daughter like a nomad from place to place—from century to century, but Hades was smarter. He always found them. It didn’t matter how discreet they were or what continent they were living on. Hades found them every time.

Demeter had even tried using transformation magic to shield her appearance and her child’s from death himself, but not even some of her powers were of any use because he was that much more powerful. One time, on an off year Hades had visited Demeter while her child was at school. She had been at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and she didn’t even need to look up to know he was behind her. The moment he entered the room a slight chill whipped through the lavender curtains right above the kitchen sink. Demeter tensed up, gripping onto the tan ceramic plate in her left hand and let go of the dish sponge. “What do you want, Hades?”

He crept closer to her, the sound of his footsteps pounded into the hardwood floor. “I think you know what I want, Demeter,” he stated calmly. “I think you’ve always known what I want.”

Demeter spun around, pressing her back into the crème counter-top, facing the commander of all things unliving and sneered. “You won’t ever get what you want, Hades. I will never let you have her.”

Hades laughed, his rich deep voice bordered along the lines wickedness and insanity as it filled the confined rectangular room. “Oh, I will get her, Demeter.” Hades glided closer, snatching her wrist and squeezed it hard. So hard, that Demeter’s knees buckled and slammed into the hardwood floor. Hades wasn’t able to kill her, but he was able to cause her agonizing pain.

At first, the pain felt like a mild bug bite, irritating, but tolerable. Then as it spread through her body, the pain became so excruciating, Demeter couldn’t breathe. She panted, trying to be strong, but it was no use. As Hades squeezed her wrist tighter, she felt like her limbs were being ripped from her by a pack of hungry hyenas. “Stop!” she cried. “Stop! Releasing her from his grasp, Hades backed away as Demeter hunched over, curling up into the fetal position. As the pain subsided a swirl of coldness flourished through her and her breathing returned to normal.

She glared at Hades giving him a look full of hatred and brutality. Hades smiled, amused. “I knew you’d see things my way. Perhaps, Demeter, we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

Demeter knew better than to bargain with the master of deceit. She struggled to pick herself up and lost her balance, slamming both of her palms into the floor. She pushed herself up again, with more force and knelt down. Then she gripped the counter and hoisted herself up, clutching the edge of the counter tightly as she steadied herself.

“So,” said Hades as her examined his hands. “Do we have a deal then?”

She rolled her shoulders, cracked her neck, and spun around full of so much anger that she trembled. “Never,” Demeter growled, half-rasping half-whispering.

Hades charged toward her. “Oh, apparently I haven’t persuaded you to see things my way enough.”

He was centimeters away, but Demeter was ready for him. She snapped her arms back and clasped her hands together as a gust of wind unfurled from her fingertips. A gust of wind so forceful that it knocked Hades backwards and blew him out the front door.

Exhausted, Demeter crouched down against the cherry-stained wooden cabinets and slouched. She hated using her powers while living in close proximity with the mortals, but Hades gave her no choice.

From that moment on, she knew that she hadn’t been protecting her daughter to the best of her abilities. She had to step up her game because Hades would not and probably would never take no for an answer.

The next day she’d packed up their belongings. “Time to move,” she said, taping up a box full of dishes.

“What no!” Persephone cried. “But we haven’t even been here a year!” She sat down with a slouch, whimpering softly.

It broke Demeter’s heart to see her daughter so upset. She knew how much Persephone wanted normalcy. And sadly Demeter wished their situation was different, but it wasn’t. She and her daughter were who they were, immortal goddesses. Not only that, but they were immortal goddesses on the run from death himself. They weren’t a normal family and never would be.

One minute to midnight and Demeter rose from her bed, creeping toward her bedroom door. In sixty seconds all hell would break loose like it had so many times before.

Persephone

“P
ersephone,”
he hisses.
“Come to me.”

A shrill, deafening cry escapes from my lips. My lungs expand as I suck in more air and my throat is raw—chafed, flakes of dry skin being peeled away after a sun burn.

I bolt upright in my bed as my mother bursts through the door. Hysteria washes over me. I gasp and choke on a ball of air wedged in the middle of my esophagus. Fighting. I’m fighting for the oxygen to leave my lungs.

My mother sweeps me up into her arms and whispers comforting words into my ears. “Hush, darling. It’s all right.”

I let out long ragged breaths, finally able to breathe. Tears matriculate in my eyes. I bite them back as beads of sweat drizzle down my forehead and my arms and legs begin to convulse.

Mom squeezes me tighter, controlling my flailing limbs. “Calm down, sweetheart,” she consoles me. “It was only a dream.”

But this isn’t a dream. This is a voice, life-like and real. A voice that has been coming to me on my seventeenth birthday for as long as I can remember. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, every seventeen years he comes to me, taunting me. And it’s always the same thing,
Persephone.
Come to me.
The reality of it haunts me. This is not a figment of my imagination.

“It feels so real,” I mumble, suddenly exhausted.

“Sometimes dreams feel more real than not,” my mother says, tucking me underneath the covers. “Go back to sleep, love.”

“Persephone,”
he hisses again.
“Come to me. Come to me. Come to me.”

The voice blurs and fades, like a faint cry riding on the tails of the wind. I yawn and stretch, rolling over. I fold my pillow under my head and wait for the voice to return. When I hear nothing but the sound of my own breathing I allow myself to drift back into a dreamless slumber.

“Happy Birthday!” my mother squeals. Her face inches away from mine.

I open one eye squinting, still half asleep. “Thanks,” I grumble and roll over.

“No way, young lady.” She rips my comforter off me. “Time to wake up.”

“Ugh. Isn’t it supposed to be my day?” I whine. “Can’t you let me sleep a little longer?”

She smirks, shaking her head. “Nope. You have school.”

Hurling my legs over the side of the bed, I rise slowly and my eyes adjust to the bright lighting in my room. My mother observes me for a second then tears well up in her eyes.

“Don’t cry, Mom.” It bothers me seeing her so emotional.

“I can’t help it,” she sniffles. “My baby is almost an adult.”

I roll my eyes. “Mom, do you have to do this every seventeen years? My real seventeenth birthday was like forever ago.”

She pulls a tissue out of the pocket of her violet cardigan and blows her nose. “That’s the beauty of being immortal my dear. You never run out of seventeenth birthdays.”

Most of the time I thought of our immortality as being more of a curse than a blessing. I imagine most humans would cherish the opportunity to never grow old. In the beginning of my life, I have to say it was fascinating. But living forever does become tiresome, when a person has been around as long as I have.

“Get ready for school, honey,” she commands. “After you get home, I’ve got a fun day planned for us.”

“Ugh,” I groan. “Can’t I just have a quiet, low-key birthday for once?”

She tucks a loose piece of her auburn hair behind her ear. “Now what kind of mother would I be if we did that?”

A mother who actually listens to what her daughter wants. “Fine,” I say, defeated. “I’ll be downstairs in a little bit.”

She kisses my forehead gently. “Good.” Then she walks out of my room.

At my dresser, I slide open the top drawer. The cherry stained wooden container is relatively new and the smell of fresh cedar hasn’t faded yet. I inhale deeply, filling my lungs with the musky scent and I adore it. Any scent reminding me of the outdoors is something that I’ll never get tired of. Being the Goddess of Springtime probably has something to do with that.

Reaching into the drawer, I fumble through my assortment of underwear and inch my fingers toward the bottom. I graze my fingertips over a smooth flat object. My journal. I retrieve it and set it on top of my dresser. Another year. Another birthday. Keeping track of all of my birthdays is something I’ve done for ages. In fact, I’ve got about twenty crates in our attic reminding me of how many birthdays have accrued over the years.

We left Greece five-thousand years ago and have never looked back.

“Why are we leaving?” I’d once asked.

My mother didn’t elaborate. “Don’t ask questions. Just gather your things.”

I have it on good authority that my mother had a reason for making me flee the only home I knew. But I never asked her any questions about why we were leaving after that. I simply did as I was told.

Flipping through the pages of my journal, I found the spot where I’d written in it last. Three more pages to go. Two more birthdays, then I’ll need a new one.

“Hurry up in there!” Mom’s voice has a nagging tone to it. “You’re going to be late!”

“I’m coming!”

I pick up a pen off my dresser and write down the same thing I write every seventeen years.

My Seventeenth Birthday-April 25, 2011

Location-Klamath Falls, Oregon.

The voice came again.

The first time I heard the voice was shortly after we had left Greece. Back then, when it came to me, it was a soft, rhythmic, seductive voice that wrapped around me like crushed velvet, a deep tone that caressed me, making my spine tingle. I felt drawn to it. Curiosity plagued me. I knew it was a man. The all-around over-powering, voice didn’t belong to a woman.

For centuries, the whole complexity of this situation puzzled me. Who exactly was this person? Why was he trying to reach out to me? What did he want from me?

After hearing the voice for five seventeenth birthdays in a row, I went to my mother and told her about it. I don’t really know what I had expected from her but, it wasn’t laughter. After she contained herself, she had me convinced that I was dreaming this voice up. Until seventeen years later, it came again. And after mentioning it to her once well, her reaction made me never mention it again.

I enter the kitchen. An incessant plunking noise echoes from the sink as droplets of water from the faucet drip into the metal basin. Other than that, it’s silent. My eyes dart around the empty, organized room. “Mom, where are you?”

No answer.

In the middle of the kitchen table is a bowl of fruit. A loud, rolling rumble escapes my belly. I stare at the fruit, thinking it looks vaguely familiar. The round reddish fruit resembles a plum, but slightly larger. I’m starving and it looks delicious. Pulling out a chair I plop down in front of the bowl. Buried in the center, tucked between the balls of round deliciousness is a white card. “Hmm.” I pick the card up and scan it.

Happy Birthday.

Love,

H

“H? Who is H?”

I shrug and toss the card aside. Maybe he knows my mother. It has to be someone she knows and I think that them sending me a bowl of fruit for my birthday is an awfully kind gesture.

After grabbing the biggest piece, I bring the plump, fruit to my lips. I open my mouth to take a bite when I hear my mom scream. I face her, my mouth still hanging open, the fruit still in my hand.

“What are you doing?” she shrieks, races toward me, and slaps the fruit out of my hand. It hits the floor with a thud and rolls under the kitchen table. “What were you thinking?” She’s panicking, fumbling as she tries to move a chair, and mumbling incoherent words under her breath. Her face twitches and she scrambles to pick the fruit up off the floor.

I’ve never seen her like this. I’ve never seen her so unglued. “What’s wrong with you?” I’m so confused and concerned. Why is she freaking out over a piece of fruit?

She palms the fruit and waves it my face. “What were you trying to do with this?”

“Trying to do with it? I was gonna eat it. I’m hungry.”

Her eyes widen and the rosy color fades from her cheeks. “You do not eat this, you hear me!”