Radiant Darkness (22 page)

   I look down, and down, and down. I'm as tall as a tree. A blinding light surrounds me.

   I
am
a goddess.

   I marshal the power swirling around me.

   "Spare me! Spare me!" shrieks the woman. "I ain't worth your anger!"

   "Go," I command, my voice ringing against the valley walls. "Depart and never return. Leave now and that will be your punishment, though you deserve worse. But if you stay . . ."

   Without waiting to hear the rest of my sentence, the crone scrambles to her feet and careens helter-skelter down the rocky path. I watch until she's out of sight. Then I look back down at Philomena.

   She's not scared. She's snuggling as deep into me as she can, and she's smiling.

I move into the little house with Philomena, and now I'm back to working with my hands again, scrubbing, clearing rocks from the garden patch, turning the soil. Philomena follows me everywhere, helping wherever she can. On a high shelf I find a round of hard cheese that somehow evaded the old woman, and I feed the hungry child as much as she'll eat. Her bruises are starting to heal.

   At night I sleep with her softness cradled in my arms. Her breath is like music. I wish Hades could hear it, too. I imagine the three of us lying here together, his arms and mine weaving a nest for a child's night breathing.

   On the seventh morning, I jolt awake from a dream that was so vivid, it felt real. I saw a man with Philomena's eyes. He was struggling to get home, but his purse was empty, and a stocky brute was demanding another year's work to pay off a debt.

   I disentangle myself from Philomena and leave her slumbering in the bed. Wrapping myself in the dark-blue cloak, I sit by the fire and close my eyes. I go deep, deep inside myself, so far it's like I'm in a different world. I summon up the dream again and put myself in it.

   I'm in the room with the two men. The man with Philomena's eyes is slouched forward on his bench, his head buried in his hands. I tiptoe up to him and whisper in his ear, "Say you'll wager your freedom on a game of dice."

   He jerks up, staring around the room and trying to find the source of my voice.

   "Do this," I say gently. "Say if he wins, you'll work for two years without complaint, but if you win, you go free, all your debts erased. I will help you. Your daughter needs you."

   He breathes in deeply, then makes the proposal. The stocky man nods and pulls a handful of dice from his clinking purse. He rolls first. A decent roll.

   Then the man with Philomena's eyes picks up the dice, and I wrap them in golden light. When he tosses them on the table I keep each one rolling until the number I want is on top.

   The big fellow slams his fist on the table. The man with Philomena's eyes grabs his cloak and runs out the door.

   I gather Philomena in my arms one more time. I tell her I'll be back again someday. She wriggles down and runs off toward the whistle. And then I'm gone.

I
tell my mother I'm ready to come with her to the fields. She shifts the basket of grain from one hand to the other, momentarily at a loss for words. Then she gives a little smile and nods.

   "Oh, right," she says.

   This doesn't come easily for her, sharing.

   We arrive alone on a plowed field in the cool morning air. I take off my sandals so the black earth squishes up between my toes. Its energy rises through my feet, up my calves and thighs, into my belly, and through my whole bloodstream. I close my eyes and breathe in the rich, mineral scent. I've missed the feel of this earth, its rhythm and its voice.

   And then there's a song rising from the turned earth, and it's in me and through me and all around in the soil that roots me. It's a calling song, calling seeds to sprout and roots to stretch, calling green life to surge up stems and lift leaves to the sun like hands raised in prayer.

   I open my eyes and there, at the edge of the field, the black bones of a cherry tree are bursting into flower. How did I miss that before? The petals billow like great puffs of pink smoke. I'm as drugged by their beauty as I was by the scent of narcissus so long ago. I let it pull me across the soil until I can run my finger along a leaf's edge. It's jagged, like a cricket's leg.

   I realize now how much I've missed Earth, all of it: this serrate leaf, on this tree; and these grains of soil, moist beneath my feet; and the perfume of blossom and loam and fresh breeze mingling in the air.

   A gust of wind wakes me from my reverie, blowing a flock of pink petals from the tree. They swirl down, landing on my hair and shoulders. Laughing, I turn to show them to my mother.

   She hasn't budged. She's back where we started, staring at the ground. I follow her eyes.

   Each footprint I made in the soil is bursting with green. Those nearest me are just brightening with miniature leaves nestled next to the dirt. But beside my mother, where I first felt the earth's song, the outlines of my heels and toes are blurring beneath eager, thrusting plants, some already a few inches high. If I look steadily enough, I can actually see them growing.

   I look up at my mother's face. Now she's staring at me, her eyes as huge and round and blue as the sky. Her hands hang limp and empty at her sides; she's dropped her basket, spilling all the grain out on the ground. In the air around me and under my feet, everything is thrumming.

A bird calls out in single notes, a cascade of three.

I
'm wandering along by myself today, following where my feet want to go. Earth and I have this agreement: I help her green and bloom, and she fills my ears, nose, eyes, tongue, and fingers with indescribable beauty.

   The trail winds up a hillside. Under a sturdy pine, a chorus of daffodils blazes a vibrant yellow song. Rhododendrons line the path, fat buds jostling among shiny green leaves. I reach up to stroke a bud; it starts to uncrumple into a purple flower, still shell-shaped, like a wet chick.

   I hear footsteps coming up the trail behind me and I turn.

   "Hermes!" I cry in delight.

   I run toward him, reaching out to grab his hands.

   "How is he?" I ask eagerly. "What did he say? Does he miss me? Is he busy with the horses? How is he doing with the greetings now that I'm not there? What was he wearing when you saw him? Did he—"

   "Whoa!" Hermes chuckles, giving my hands a squeeze, then letting go to run his fingers through his curls. "You need to let me talk if you want to know the answers."

   I lift my hand to my lips and pretend to turn a key, locking them shut. Hermes collapses in laughter, and now I have to wait a full minute while he regains his composure.

   "Oh, that's a good one!" he finally says, snorting. "Not allowed to talk!"

   "Hurry up, Hermes. Tell me how he is."

   "Impatient for you to come back, that's how he is. Lots of pacing, as if that could make any difference. Some trouble sleeping, he said, without you there."

   I sigh in contentment.

   "Got himself a new horse to break in," says Hermes. "He thinks that will help take his mind off the waiting. Oh, and he started this system for the shades, some kind of announcement board. When I bring over newcomers now, their names get etched on this big wall. There's always a cluster of shades waiting around to check the new names and there's . . ."

   He did it! My idea to let shades know when their loved ones arrive, Hades put it in place!

   ". . . lots more hugging going on around there. It's kind of noisy, if you ask me. And you should have heard your friend when I told her you'd found her daughter. Oh, and I almost forgot!"

   He reaches into his bag and pulls out a small wooden box tied with a scarlet ribbon. "He said to give this to you. To remember him until you get back, that's what he said."

   I grab it out of his hands and start picking at the knot.

   "Would I have been in trouble if I'd forgotten that!" says Hermes.

   I open the box, and there, nestled in purple cloth, lies a small golden ring. I slip it onto my finger, lifting my hand to see the design. A ripe, round pomegranate is embossed on the shining band.

   
If you love me, if you truly want to return to my side . . .

   A pomegranate, the seeds that will bring us together again and again and again. My heart overflows with joy and longing. Soon. I'll be back soon. . . .

   "I'd better be going," says Hermes. "Lots to do, I'm afraid. But I'll see you next—"

   "Wait!" I cry. "Can you carry something back for me?"

   He nods. I run over to the daffodils and gather a dozen stems. If only they were narcissus! I lay them in Hermes' arms. It's not enough! I snap off some rhododendron branches, now flowering, and add them to the pile, and then some twigs with leaves so new they're translucent, traced with veins like dragonfly wings, and—

   "Stop!" cries Hermes, peering over the top of the pile. "It's not like I have the chariot today. Maybe next time you'll think of something smaller to send."

   He takes off down the trail and disappears around a bend, leaving me alone again.

   I look down at my hand and the golden ring encircling my finger. I press it to my cheek, covering it with my other hand to hold it as close as I can.

   Not so alone, after all.

O
nly six days now and I head home again. Just thinking about Hades makes my heart beat so fast I get dizzy.

   So much has happened. Those first light-filled leaves gave way almost overnight to heavy branches and dense shade. Everywhere you look there's green. All that mud coated the ground with new life, even richer than before.

   Sometimes I go to orchards or fields with my mother, but more often I go by myself. Just because we realized we love each other doesn't mean it's easy for us to be together all the time. I like to stretch my wings and explore. And my mother— Well, think about it! She's always needed her solitude, roaming her blossoming sanctuary and being one with the green and the growing.

   Tomorrow we're going to be worshiped together for the first time at the new temple on top of the hill.
Our
temple.

   "Don't forget," she said. "Wear something grand."

   I reach out to some blossoms for strength. This is going to be interesting.

A huge crowd stares reverently at the stone altar in front of the columns. I've never seen so many people in one place.

   My mother leans over and whispers in my ear. "Now we go into the statues," she says.

   Two towering figures stand side by side, brilliantly painted, laden with gold—but underneath, hard, cold, unmoving stone. I stare at the draped folds of my statue's chiton, thinking back to the time I saw a sculptor carving my face from marble. I realize I don't want to enter the statue. I've worked so hard to be more than a figurehead.

   "You go ahead," I say. "I'll watch from out here."

   "But it's always done this way," she whispers, impatient.

   "Y
ou've
always done it this way."

   She opens her mouth to snap at me, but then the priestess intones her name, and the crowd takes it up like a chant, and I see my mother's face change. She drinks up the praise as if it's nourishing her. The priestess pours a libation, and my mother nods appreciatively. The mortals, at least, are doing things to her liking.

   Staring at me pointedly, my mother steps into her statue. Something shifts subtly in the stone. Her eyes gaze out from its eyes.

   The priestess sings of grain and light, dark and death, as if my mother's golden wheat becomes a blazing torch and I help people carry that light with them into the underworld.

   And now the priestess pours a second libation, this time intoning
my
name. Chanting after her, everyone turns toward my statue, the empty statue, and bows.

   Everyone, that is, except for one old, white-bearded man. His eyes stare sightlessly ahead; a lyre is strung over his shoulder. He sniffs the air, smiling as if inhaling perfume from the freshest spring flowers. Then he turns directly toward me and bows.

   The bard. The one who crouched outside the door of Zeus's temple as my mother told her story. The one whose lyre I heard as he rushed from the temple to write his song— too soon, before I set the story straight.

   I see the priestess moving her lips at the altar, but I don't hear her. Instead, I'm hearing his song.
Hideous Hades
ripped her away . . .

   I know it by heart. Everyone does now. Mothers croon it to their babies. Men sing it as they sip wine together late at night. Shepherds whistle it as they wander with their flocks.

   Kidnapped, that's what it says. Forced against my will.

   Something in me longs to appear before these people and

tell the real story. Just once! But deep down I know: that song is stronger than the truth.

   The priestess reaches into a basket and brings up a pomegranate. Splitting it open, she starts to sing of a beloved girl-child, trapped in a brute's arms and bound by blood-red seeds.

   But the seeds aren't really what bind me. No, they're just sweet excuses. I'm returning to the underworld because I need to be with Hades. Once I said his arm would be my true home. And it is. It always will be. The land of death, receiver of so many: I went there so I could live.

The crowd starts to drift away and my mother comes out of her statue. She looks at me with a mixture of exasperation and pride.