Radiant Darkness (9 page)

   And then he throws me into the throne room like a fish to sharks.

   Now he can see what kind of queen he brought home. Not someone dignified and regal like my mother; no, he's got a bumbling girl who can't even walk a simple path. Some immortal I am!

   I groan out loud. Queen Persephone the Hilarious, that's me. I can see it now. Everyone will smile politely when I pass, then turn to each other, whispering and covering their mouths to stifle their giggles. Oh, this is going to be just great.

   I sit up in the dark, gathering my covers into a huge, padded cocoon with only my face and feet poking out. I shuffle over and open the shutters. Then I plop back down on the bed and look around.

   Grand. Elegant. Imposing. Queenly. Nothing at all like me. Nothing like home.

   I wriggle out of my cocoon. As I reach for a chiton, I realize I'm humming. What is that tune? I can't quite place it . . . something about green grass and water and—I stop cold. Of course! It's the Lethe's song.

   The Lethe, River of Forgetting. Put in a toe and you might forget what you had for breakfast. Put in your leg up to the knee and there go your weaving patterns. But step in all the way, dunk your head under, and you come out dripping, sleek, sopping, and gone.

   I hum a little more. That doesn't sound so bad right now: forgetting. Maybe I could wade in just a little, up to my ankles, and make yesterday go away.

   But as I fasten a girdle around my waist, waves of pictures sweep over me, and I realize there's so much I don't want to forget. Hades' hands lifting me into the chariot. And my friends—maybe the only friends I'll ever have, since everyone here is too busy bowing at my feet to get to know me. And the vale: dark green leaves on gnarled branches, purple drifts of irises by the lake, my courtyard (how small it was!), and the lemon tree near the overhang shading my loom . . .

   That's it! The loom I passed yesterday on my way to the throne: it's already strung and waiting just for me. My name is carved on it, after all, and that silver yarn basket isn't something a servant would use.

   My mother never taught me to rule, but she did make me weave for so many hours, my hands take over and I don't need to think, or analyze, or worry as long as the shuttle is moving.

   It's too bad the Lethe can't be measured out to my liking. As it is, I'm stuck being me, no matter how much I mess up, and I might as well figure out how to make this my home. I'll start by weaving some new covers for this bed, something with a cheerful pattern, not so regal.

I tie my hair back and throw open the door.

T
he hallways rear up like a hydra waving serpentine heads. I've already forgotten my path from yesterday morning.

   What's more, all the servants I heard bustling about earlier have disappeared, leaving me alone with a jumble of rooms and hallways. Against all the spirals and frescoes, the only figures I can see are statues, stiff with perfection. Every corner seems to shelter someone brandishing a sword or stepping from a chariot.

   Then it occurs to me—the doorways all look the same, but each statue has some distinguishing characteristic. I'll use them to keep track of where I've been, and eventually, when I have a map in my head, I'll find my way downstairs.

   A fellow with a traveler's hat and winged sandals must be Hermes. He raises his staff, preparing to guide mortal spirits away from their earthly bodies. What a handsome face he has: boyish and a little playful.

   I walk down the hall toward a towering statue of Hades, confident, bold, and totally regal. In fact, there are statues of Hades just about everywhere. Hades, reins in hand, leading eight horses across a frieze. Hades in a gesture of welcome, standing near a staircase.

   These may not be the stairs I took yesterday, but they go down, don't they?

   With every step I hear a rhythmic tapping. The lower I go, the louder the sound gets until it saturates the air around me. Where there's banging, there's bound to be a person to ask for directions.

   I follow the noise through a door into a courtyard, except it's like I've walked into a cloud, because white dust is swirling everywhere. Craggy shapes loom up like stones scattered on a hillside in the mist. I cover my mouth with my hand and try to wend my way toward the banging noise.

   I round one of the rocks and suddenly a gigantic shoulder is writhing toward me out of the stone. I lurch back, preparing to flee; then I realize the muscled, surging shoulder is nothing but marble. A statue in the making, that's what it is.

   As I come among more finished work, I start to recognize some of the statues. Right in front of me there's a white marble man with wings raised above broad shoulders. Even though the stone isn't painted yet, his face looks familiar, and so do the greaves etched on muscular calves. Then I remember a smile on that face, and those wings folded back, and that hand helping me up from the throne room floor.

   Now the hammering is almost deafening. I can see an arm going up and down just past a curving backside, the only statue of a woman in this whole place. I walk carefully through the cloud enveloping her, and there's the craftsman, chiseling away in a controlled frenzy. He must be close to done, because his creation is already laden with bracelets and necklaces. Her hair is perfectly coifed, without a single loose tendril. Slender and graceful, she stands regally with an ease I envy.

   The sculptor steps back and gives the face an appraising look. I follow his gaze to the statue's strong chin, her generous mouth, her eyes—the eyes I see in my mirror every morning.

   I freeze as still as the stone. Even my breath stops.

   It's me.

   Except the statue of me looks like she actually knows what she's doing. I try to mimic her perfect posture, her noble expression, the set of her mouth—but then the dust tickles my nose and I explode with a gigantic, most un-regal sneeze. The sculptor looks my way, smiles, and wipes his hands on his dust-coated tunic.

"Excuse me," I say. "I'm trying to find the weaving room."

   His look goes as blank as an untouched slab of rock. Without my throne and jewels I must be invisible, even though he's just been carving my face.

   "You know, where the loom is set up? I can't seem to find my way around."

   He shakes his head. "Not my business, weaving."

   Then I remember the statue of Hades with his hand on Cerberus's head. I describe it, and the sculptor lights up.

   "That's one of mine!" he says, leading me back to the door. He points toward yet another corridor. "Through there, miss," he says, "and then a sharp left will take you where you're going."

The warp strings stand at attention, held taut by their silver weights. I roll the gleaming basket closer on its little wheels and rummage through the balls of yarn. A soft greeny brown settles in my hand. Soon the boxwood shuttle starts its dance. My hand follows in its wake, and before long I drift into a place close to dreaming.

   I feel like myself again. Something more than the infamous tripping queen.

   That statue in the courtyard knows more about ruling than I do. They should tote her up to the throne room whenever they need a figurehead. She'd accept their homage without fluttering an eyelash, content to be nothing but a symbol, a receptacle for their prayers. She'd probably even look more at home in the fancy clothes.

   She's got it easy. She doesn't have a heart to hammer so loud she can't think.

   I pick up a richer brown now and wind it on the shuttle.

   Look at me! I don't belong on that throne. I'm only here because I happened to fall in love. I don't have a clue what shades want—or what they need. What, exactly, does a queen do?

   The dark brown makes wavy lines, like branches.

   Let's take an inventory of my skills, shall we? I'm good with friends, and plants, and weaving. That's hardly enough to justify a crown.

   The shuttle meanders, pulling the brown lines wider.

   And I don't even have any friends here, let alone a blossoming vale. There's only this loom. So I'll have to make weaving be enough. This and Hades' strong arms should be enough to make my life here work. Right?

   But even as I try to convince myself, my hand tightens on the shuttle and my foot itches to kick the silver basket across the room.

   
A tight hand makes tight weaving
, my mother always said, and the bit of cloth I've just woven is as puckered as pinched lips. I pull out the offending strands, then gaze at the picture on my loom. The brown needs something brighter for balance.

   I grab a bursting green and start plucking bits of color like bright notes across the fabric. Then I wrap them with a deeper green, rounding the edges into curves until they're unfurling like new leaves.

   All right, that's what they'll be: bright life sprouting from soft, woolen earth. More color now. I'll jumble some blossoms in among the leaves, so it looks like spring branches when everything is illuminated from the inside. I pick up a dark purple, but it's a late-summer color, like ripe plums pulling a branch low or juicy grapes crowding on the vine.

   I toss the purple back in the basket and start pacing.

   The only garden I have now is on my loom. No fresh water cascading over rocks to cool my fingers, no rich-smelling soil, no leaves as soft as lambs' ears. Just wool.

   What I'd give for a garden of my own, here, in the underworld!

   Then the loom seems to whisper,
"Why don't you?"

   Oh, right, trash my image even more. Who ever heard of a queen digging in the dirt, coming home with a mudstreaked chiton? I've probably done enough damage already, waltzing around barefoot.

   
"Why don't you?"

   Because queens are dignified, that's why. I'm not a country girl anymore. I have a household to learn to run, a position to uphold, responsibility to exercise . . . if I can ever figure out what I'm supposed to do.

   The shuttle, having wormed its way back into my hand, is making the fat purple grapes.

   I think of my mother walking barefoot out of the courtyard, her hand already reaching to caress a glistening lemon leaf.

   
"Why don't you?"

   Just a little garden. I'll put it near that big oak where the hill flattens out, halfway between the palace and the Lethe's plain. It's not like I'm going to wave my hands and shout, "Hey, look, everyone! Here's a queen digging around in the dirt!" No, I'll work there quietly, and the moist soil will root me and the warmth of sun-soaked leaves will revive me, and I'll be me again.

O
ut past the stables, where the land is rough and rocky, my fingers run along sturdy leaves. They're as pointy and determined as miniature swords. I stop to scratch my nose, and an astringent scent clears my head, so everything looks crisper.

   Rosemary.

   It's a small bush, a baby, with four woody shoots reaching straight up. I'll carry it back to the oak, the first transplant for my new garden.

   I pull a spade from my girdle. The ridiculous tool is gold, with chunky jewels protruding all over. It's hard to get anything practical at the palace unless you're very, very specific. Everyone assumes a queen wants only luxurious fabrics, the most exotic perfumes, the rarest unguents. Do they really expect me to walk around in the diamond-encrusted sandals they keep giving me, with huge earrings pulling down my earlobes and golden chains clanking all over my neck? So when I asked for a spade, I should have known better. Tonight I'll tell them to make me one from solid iron, unembellished. But for now this will have to do.

   The gold bends the second it encounters a stone, and when I grip harder, the faceted gems dig into my palm. But the soil is fairly loose, and between the feeble blade and some good old-fashioned scrabbling with my hands, I dig down around the roots. They're young and resilient, like the rest of the plant. Finally they're free, and I cradle the plant in one arm while I stick the so-called spade back in my girdle. Maybe they can melt the gold down and use it for something else.

   As I walk back toward the palace, warmth seems to flow out from the little bush, surrounding me in a kind of expanding lightness. It floats me along so I barely feel like I'm touching the ground.

   Now I see dust rising near the stables, and even from here I can make out a rider astride a rearing horse. The man's body has such strength and confidence, I know it must be Hades. Of course! It's the new stallion he was telling me about. He wouldn't trust a groom to break it in; he wants that horse to know his hands, his scent, his voice.

   I angle off toward the stables, eager to watch him at his work. I lean against the fence rail.

   The stallion is panicky, snorting and tossing its huge head, but Hades' hands are easy on the reins and his face is alive with concentration, reading every message the horse sends with its snorts and whinnies, the angle of its ears, the muscles tensing in its flanks.

   Suddenly, the horse leaps off the ground and takes to the air. I shake my head—it shouldn't be possible! This is a smooth-backed riding horse, not a winged horse for the chariot. When I get my breath back, I look at Hades' face. He's laughing in sheer pleasure.

   Then he catches sight of me and says something into the horse's ear. The great beast circles and lands, as tame as a house cat after its amazing feat. Hades jumps off, murmurs something low and soothing, then waves to a groom, who runs up and takes the reins.

   Hades strolls over and leans on the other side of the fence from me, all sweaty and exhilarated.

   "Isn't he a beauty?" he says. "And now you're here. I seem to be surrounded by beauty today."

   He runs a finger across my cheek, making me shiver with his energy. He's leaning in closer when he notices the gangly little plant trapped between us. He pauses, lifting one eyebrow in an inquiring way.