Radiant Darkness (13 page)

   "Let's put a carpet of something low around it," I suggest. "Maybe mint. At this rate the bush will be taller than us in a month. Then we can move in some hyacinths or lavender."

   "Lavender, so we can rub it on our hands and dresses! I used to do that for my daughter." She stops, looking inward with a sigh, then shakes her head. "At least my mother's there to do it for her now. She's taking good care of Philomena. I thank the gods for that."

   She starts pulling up weeds from around the bush.

   "Too bad we don't have goats," she says.

   "What for?"

   "To eat the weeds, of course. We had a herd back home. We named them after the gods. I hope you don't think that's rude. Zeus is the randy one. Athena's so smart, she always finds the path to the first flowers, the tenderest leaves. And we named Aphrodite because of her long, silky hair and her huge eyes. She has a son. He scrambles on the rocks like a bouncing spring, all four feet leaping at the same time. Once he even climbed on top of the big crag that rises behind our house. It's shaped like a rooster's comb. There he stood on the tallest of the five points, looking proud as could be. He's named Eros, of course."

   "Eros the love goat!" I laugh. "That seems just right somehow."

   She shrugs. "You know, their names aren't a joke. When their milk gushes into my bowl, all sweet and warm, it really is a gift from the gods. We make it into cheese, two kinds— one softer and one harder. The hard one ages longer, so it sells for more."

   She looks up apologetically. "I guess my head's stuck back home today. Sorry."

   "Melita, I love hearing about your life on Earth."

   And that's the absolute truth. I'm greedy to know what it's like for mortals up there—the people my mother said need us like little children. Well, Melita certainly wasn't some helpless child. I want to learn everything I can.

   "Tell me more about the cheese."

   "The
cheese
?"

   "Sure."

   "My husband built a storeroom where we aged the rounds, lined up on shelves. All those perfect circles. Pick one up and sniff, and you can still make out the smell of sweet grass by the riverbank and the herbs that cling higher on the crags. That's where the goats go foraging. Athena always finds the sweet herbs first."

   "Didn't you ever wish for an easier life?"

   She shakes her head emphatically. "I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world. My mother always said she's sorry I couldn't have been a fine lady in town. She hoped I'd marry someone richer. Attract a rich man, me? I'm no beauty. And I'm glad I didn't live that way, trapped in a house, never getting outside except for a festival day now and then. The only fresh air a rich woman gets is in her own courtyard. No, I liked working hard and being outside near the goats and the garden, like my mother always did. She taught me everything I needed to know."

   Her voice slows down. "Sometimes I miss her so much, I think it's going to hollow me out inside."

   I worry she's going to get moody and stop talking, so I prompt her. "Tell me about your husband."

   "He's a good man. He cared for me. He let me keep Philomena, even though she was small and he hoped for a son. 'She can help with the goats soon enough,' he said. 'You don't have to be big for that.'"

   "Let you
keep
her?"

   "You always have to wonder, don't you? I mean, since fathers get to decide their babies' fates. My friend's husband made her leave her newborn on the hillside. He said they had too many mouths to feed already. And what good was another girl, who'd only go to her husband's family instead of staying to care for the farm? But my husband isn't like that. He's kind and hardworking. He built the cheese room as soon as he saw we needed the space. And he agreed right away when I begged him to let my mother move in with us. He said, 'We can use another pair of hands around here.'"

   She checks that she hasn't missed a single weed, then starts separating some creeping mint to move over.

   "And that was the truth, because the three of us worked from the second the old rooster crowed until we banked the embers in the hearth at night. When I had Philomena, my mother did her work and mine both. She never complained. She never once said, 'Hurry up and get to work.' No, she said, 'You stay there with your nursling, dear. You get her good and fat.' And then she'd go off washing, or cooking, or gathering firewood."

   I've stopped working. I'm just sitting there listening. I can practically see Melita's mother bustling around, tending the fire, pausing only to gaze with warm eyes at her daughter and the newborn child.

   "Does Philomena look like you?"

   "She's much prettier. Her head is covered with dark ringlets, and her eyes are a rich green, like olives hanging on a tree in the sun. She was born with a mark on her shoulder that looks like a flower with four petals, so we call her our little blossom. You never saw such pink cheeks! It's a good life." Then she catches herself and adds, so softly I can barely hear her, "I mean, it was."

   She pauses, nestling clumps of roots into their new spot. As she pats them down, she sighs, as if trying to settle herself back down, too.

   "It couldn't stay like that forever," she goes on. "Everything changes, right? My husband heard they were looking for oarsmen, and he signed up. 'A year will go fast,' he said. 'You and your mother can care for the goats and the garden and the baby between you, and I'll come home with gold jingling in my pocket and we'll have a bigger farm.'

   "What could I say to that? So off he went, taking those strong arms to work the oars day in and day out. I said to my mother, 'Won't he have nice shoulders when he comes back?' And she said, 'You're the lucky girl.'

   "And it did go well, at first. Philomena grew plump, and in no time at all she was toddling after the goats. We piled cabbages in the storeroom and enough garlic and onions to see us through a winter. And my mother and I took our cheeses into market every market day. We came home with coins to put in a little red pot in the kitchen, to add to the bag of gold my husband would bring. And then . . ."

   "Don't stop, Melita. And then what?"

   "One day I was in the garden with Philomena, and I felt so dizzy I had to sit down. It came over me like a wave knocking me off my feet. My mother put her rough hand on my forehead. 'You're burning up, girl,' she said. 'In you go.'

   "She took Philomena on her hip and put her other arm around my waist to prop me up, and we tottered like that into the house and over to my bed, my mother shooing the chickens out of the way.

   "I could hardly sit up, it came on so fast. I was burning and coughing and the room was spinning. Sometimes I woke and the room was dark. Sometimes the sun was shining so hard it hurt my eyes, and my mother covered them with a damp strip of cloth. My bed was soaked through with sweat. When I woke my mother cooed, 'Never you worry, dear. Everything's fine. You just rest.'

   "'But my baby!'

   "'She's old enough for goat's milk. She won't go hungry. You sleep.'

   "'But the garden! Milking!'

   "'Everything's fine. You rest.'"

   Melita lifts a corner of her chiton to wipe her eyes.

   "And then one day I didn't wake up. No, that's not right. One day I felt clearheaded again. A man with wings was there saying, 'Let's go.'

   "I pleaded with him not to take me. I told him my baby needed me to keep her safe, that she couldn't live without me.

   "But he just said, 'Look,' and pointed. There was my mother, snoring away on her cot, with Philomena cuddled up in her arms as round and rosy as an apple. What could I say? Philomena will be all right. She has my mother to love her and feed her and teach her right from wrong, like she did for me. They'll hold on until my husband comes home."

   I'm so deep in her story, I can't see anything but a simple bed; a strong, warm arm; and that dark-haired, pink-cheeked child.

   Melita wipes a last tear away, and shakes her head firmly, as if to dislodge the sorrow. Then she says in a brisk, determined voice, "Haven't I gone on!" And the garden floods back to life around me.

   "I know this sounds strange," I say, thinking out loud, "but do you ever think it might be good that you're here? You don't have to work so hard anymore. And you know your baby's well cared for, so you don't have to worry."

   She stares at me. "Have you lost your mind? I'd be back with Philomena in a second. I miss hugging her all soft and warm, smelling the sweet milkiness of her. And I miss my mother so much! I ache for the way it felt when she put her arm around me and I knew she'd make everything all right. I'd be building my farm again with my own two hands if I could, and welcoming my handsome husband home."

   So much to love—and to lose.

   Too moved to say anything, I reach up and pluck one of the orange-red flowers from the bush. It's shapely, like a woman draped in a bright, snug dress. I trace the curve of her breasts and the wider curve of her hips, where the tight petals split, revealing a ruffled swirl of underskirts, dancing. One of the pesky hummingbirds comes exploring, so I swoosh him away, his quiet buzz the only sound.

I try to concentrate on my weaving, but the shuttle is playing tricks on me. Nothing's smooth today. I'm like a dog that keeps losing a scent and ends up circling back, lost and confused.

   I can't stop thinking about Melita and her mother. And every time I see them together in my mind, I get the strangest feeling: prickly and sinking at the same time.

   I didn't know anyone could welcome a mother's help that way.

   I stop for the tenth time to untangle my thread, and suddenly I picture my mother's face. Just look at her! She's the epitome of a powerful woman. I think back to when I was little and I still used to beg her not to go off to the fields. Time and time again she explained how crucial her work was to the world, so she couldn't stay and talk.
Maybe after this
festival, dear, or once harvest season is over.

   Sometimes mortals are the lucky ones.

R
ounded river pebbles mumble under my feet, and my collecting bag hangs eagerly at my side. The garden needs more reeds. Farther up the shore I see Charon's boat pulled up, and a second later I hear his rough voice.

   "Good boys! Fetch it! Fetch!"

   A gigantic dog leaps, its jaws grabbing a stick in midair. Then another mouth reaches over, tugging the stick to the side. A third head barks gleefully as the beast runs back up the beach and deposits the stick at Charon's feet.

   "Good dogs," says Charon, bending to pick up the branch.

   One of the dog heads whips up, sniffing. The other two heads follow. Then the dog is bounding my way. There's no mistaking those three heads, those powerful jaws. I've seen them embellished in gold on Hades' chariot and carved on the arms of my throne.

   "Stop!" shouts Charon in a frantic voice, waving the stick over his head as if to keep the dog from attacking. He pants in pursuit, but the dog's long legs move like the wind, and the ferryman is rapidly losing ground.

   He's still struggling up the shore when the dog skids to a stop in front of me, eager and playful. I hold out my hand for each of the three heads to sniff. The right head licks my hand, and I scratch it behind the ears. Then the beast is jostling me like a gigantic puppy. He flops on his back with all four huge feet in the air, and I scratch his tummy. He kicks his hind feet in pleasure.

   Charon arrives, gasping for breath. "Careful there! Step back!"

   The dog rolls over and sits by my side.

   "I never." Charon's bushy eyebrows meet in consternation. "He don't do that with nobody but me, and him and me, we've known each other forever."

   The dog reaches over, grabs Charon's stick, and begins to worry the wood with his teeth.

   "Is
this
Cerberus?" I ask.

   He nods. "Cerberus, Guardian of the Dead."

   "Some guardian!" I laugh as the right head rubs against my side, begging for another scratch.

   Charon's brow is a confusion of wrinkles. "I never seen him like this with nobody before. You don't want to be there when he's doin' his job. Those three mouths drippin' blood and strips of flesh, those six eyes drunk with death—it's like the furies themselves settle into his soul."

   "I didn't know people were so eager to get in here," I joke. "It seems kind of silly to kill them to keep them out."

   "Keep 'em out! Girl, his job is to keep 'em in. Look at you, forgettin' already what I told you back in the boat that one time. No one goes back. Once you're here, you're here. Them that think they still got business on the other side, Cerberus tells 'em different pretty quick. Three days ago the picture wasn't so pretty. She was a young one. Not much older than you. They say she left a sweetheart on the other side. Never stopped cryin'. Didn't give the Lethe a chance to wash her clean. She just plunged into the Styx and started flailin' across. I don't know how, but she made it to the other shore."

   Charon pauses. His mouth narrows into a grim line. "Cerberus was standin' there, pullin' his lips back and barin' his fangs, those three heads rumblin' all together like a volcano. But it was like she was in a dream and couldn't see him. She kept goin'. He leaped; knocked her flat. And then those heads was rippin' and snarlin'. Bits of flesh sprayed around like raindrops."

   He shakes his head. "Once he does that, the screams don't last long. Ravens land in the trees, waitin' for their turn. Cerberus ain't done till there's nothin' bigger than this here stick, bones and all. Then the fire dies out of his eyes. He swims back over here. The river washes off the blood, the little bits of skin. He climbs out and gives a shake, lookin' all pleased with himself."