The Dark Wife (12 page)

And then the darkness swallowed us up, too. I was choking on it, suffocating in
it,
the black was so thick and heavy.

“Persephone!”
Pallas called, and I held out my hand, found her frantic fingers.

“Hades told me about these,” I said, trying—and failing—to hide the tremor in my voice. “I feel like I’ve been blindfolded.”

“Wait just a moment. There! It’s lifting already… See?”

The black cloud evaporated, and I found myself staring at Pallas’ infectious smile. She patted my arm. “They’re annoying, more than anything. Like a rainstorm. You get used to them.”

“I hope I will,” I murmured, noting how near we’d wandered to the river in our blinded trek. We could have fallen in, and we might have been dragged under… But we were safe.
Safe enough.
I inhaled deeply, anxious to return to the palace.

She drew the silver string from the shallows and quickly hauled the boat to the shore.

“How do you do that?” I asked her. “How can you find the string?”

“I can’t explain it. Somehow, the string acts like an anchor. And no matter where I
dip
my hands, I find it, sooner or later.”

“Does
Charon
know about this?” We stepped over the wet, creaking wood. The boat shoved off with a groan, rocking over the waves in the direction of Pallas’ extended finger.

“Does it matter?” She grinned at me over her shoulder.

“I don’t like him.”

“That’s all right. He doesn’t like anyone.”

I tilted my chin upward, closed my eyes, hummed a little to myself to block out the whispers of the underwater dead.

When we reached the other side of the bank, Pallas and I hopped off the boat, and it sunk deep into the waters without a sound.

“Well, that was an adventure, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” I agreed, but my thoughts were elsewhere. We climbed the embankment, and
when the village of the dead came into sight, I began to drag my feet.

“Must we go through it? Isn’t there another way?”

“Take courage, goddess Persephone,” Pallas teased me. Still, she held my hand, tucked it through her arm. “The Underworld is a funny place—if you wish to go somewhere, there are certain roads you must travel, or you will never
arrive
at your desired destination. It’s alive, in that way. It has a mind of its own.”

“Tell me about the places here. I want to know more, all there is to know.”

Arm in arm, we began to stroll toward the rows of cave dwellings, and now we had to raise our voices to speak above the whispering.

“Well,” she cocked her head, “there is the village of the dead, of course.
The river Styx.
The Elysian Fields—which no one can find without Hades’ guidance. She herself is the key. If she wills it, the fields simply appear.

“There are tunnels branching off from the caves along that far wall,” she continued, gesturing. “Don’t go exploring. They hide abominations—the gods’ creations, most of them—monsters that would eat you as soon as look at you. And,” she sighed, voice lowering, “there’s also the entrance to
Tartarus
.”

“
Tartarus
?”

She exhaled heavily. “I don’t like to speak the word. It’s the deepest, foulest place in all the earth.
Ghastly, through and through.”

“And none of these creatures ever come out? Out here?”

She swallowed and kept her eyes on the path.
“No, not usually.”

The dead surrounded us, but I tried not to notice, or listen. Instead, I stared at the dwellings—what did they remind me of? I had encountered something like them before, and as we walked among them, I remembered: burial mounds. Old, old creations of the truly ancient
peoples,
dug up and formed with rock, dirt and prayers. They were sacred, those mounds, and these mounds resembled them, but there was no sense of sanctity, only despair.

A child sat on the ground, making circles with his finger in the dust. He waved a dirty hand as we passed. I waved back, smiled faintly, but Pallas shook her head, pushed me forward.           

We had almost come to the start of the village—I could see the path to Hades’ palace just ahead—when a gathering of wisps confronted us, held out their arms as if to block us, and I glanced at Pallas, who had stopped in deference to them. I supposed we could move through them—they were like vapors, barely there—but I waited by Pallas’ side, shivering.

“
Hageus
,” she addressed the tallest ghost, a wide-shouldered, fierce-eyed woman.

“You spent last night in the palace.
Preferential treatment, eh?
What’s next? Will you get a place in the fields?”

Pallas and
Hageus
stared at one another with schooled expressions, but their eyes flashed dangerously.

“Don’t be a fool,” Pallas scoffed. “If I had the choice—and I did—I’d choose the village over the fields. You’ve not seen the fields, my friend. I told you; they’re insufferable: endless rows of grain, merciless sun and nothing else but silence. And regret.”

“But you’ve
seen
them.”
Hageus
strode forward, her amorphous eyes lit with a strange light. She touched Pallas’ shoulders, and I was struck by how transparent
Hageus
truly was in comparison to Pallas. She rolled like fog.

“She’s seen them! I told you—she’s seen them!”

The other souls gathered close, pressing in on all sides. I had assumed that I would be able to move through them, but when I pressed back, I came up against a resistant wall of flesh. They were solid to the touch, and strong.

“Calm yourselves.” Pallas’ words cut into the rising fervor like a knife. “I saw the fields for just a moment, a long time ago. You forget—Athena wanted me kept there.”

“Because you have always been the gods’ favorite!”
Hageus
cried out, and shouts rose up, growls of assent. Someone grabbed at my hair, and I stumbled back, collided with a dead woman who hissed in my ear.

“The gods would give you anything if you asked for it!”
           
“But not my life.”
Pallas’ words were lost in a cacophony of screams.
Hageus
ripped Pallas’ tunic, and I cried out, crushed between the angry souls until I could no longer draw a breath, until I grew so weak, I began to sink down—

“Enough.”

They dispersed like smoke, and swathed in the mist stood Hades. Her black eyes were narrowed, the brows drawn sharp. 

“Listen to me,” she whispered, deathly quiet. The wisps faced her, all at once, as if compelled by a force beyond their control. “Never again,” said Hades, pronouncing the words like a spell, a curse. She stepped before me, took my hand. “Do not touch her ever again.”

Pallas nodded almost imperceptibly at Hades, exchanged a short, meaningful look with her, before turning back toward the village—toward her own dwelling, perhaps. There were no sounds, not a whisper, as Hades led me away from the gaping crowd.

I had never felt so tired, and I had to trot to keep pace with Hades’ long strides.

She didn’t speak a word, didn’t address me at all, not until we’d passed through the doorway of the palace, and then she stopped and turned to me, gathered me into her arms, pulled my head to her chest.

I lost myself in the rhythm of her heartbeat, willed my own to pound in time to hers.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

“Yes. Thank you for—”“Don’t thank me.” She pulled away, rubbed at her eyes. “Forgive me,” she sighed, and, after a heartbeat more, Hades turned and strode down the corridor. My eyes lost her to the darkness.

I slumped against the wall, too exhausted to stand proud and straight, like any well-bred goddess should. What would my mother think of me now, dusty, humbled,
shorn
? I hunched over my heart, felt its drumming—imagined I heard a name in its irregular tempo.

Had there been true danger? I was immortal, but Hades had been so angry at the crush of souls and, just now, so mournful.

I wasn’t wounded, but I felt drained of energy, too tired to ponder any more questions. Too tired, really, to search for my room, but I wandered the palace, anyway, stumbling, lost, and the instant I gave up hope, there it was, my long, low bed. I didn’t know what time it was, if time existed here, but I had to rest, and when I fell upon the pallet, only one thought flared before sleep overtook my mind: Hades had thought of me.

Six: Elysian

It was impossible to tell if it was morning or the zenith of the night. I tossed and turned, slept in snatches, woke again and again in a panic—compressed by the earth, the dark. At last, I got up, smoothed my short, tousled hair as best as I could, and went wandering through the corridors of the palace. There was nothing else to do.

I found Hades’ throne room. I had walked past it before but never lingered. Here rows of glowing torches lined the walls, and a great black chair stood at the center, larger than necessary, rough and square. I traced my fingers over the dark marble, felt the carvings on the armrests: shrouded people stood in a row, lifting their arms to Hades, who knelt, embracing a weeping child.

A door behind the throne led to a shadowed chamber. I heard a stirring within and wandered closer, stood, hesitant, in the doorway, blinking at the darkness.

“Persephone?”

Hades.

She had told me, when we encountered each other in the Immortals Forest, that she didn’t believe in coincidences. Again and again, night after night, I found her without looking for her; I wondered if it was by chance.

She reclined on a low bed similar to my own, but—like everything else in the space—it was black as night.
Blacker, for the absence of stars.
Scrolls littered the floor, and she held one open in her hands, but she dropped it, rose hastily,
gave
me a bemused smile.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” I murmured, “
again
.” But she’d already crossed the room to me, reached for my hand. I gave it to her, as I had done so many times before, but now a hot current raced through me; it flashed like lightning.“Bad dreams?” she asked, and cleared her throat. She offered me a seat on her pallet, but I shook my head, sinking to the floor, careful not to tear the scrolls.

“No.
Just restlessness.
I haven’t eaten in days, I realize now.”

“Oh?” She tilted her head, sat down on the bed. “I didn’t realize you needed food.”

“I don’t, not really. But I’ve always eaten, anyway. It’s habit more than requirement. I do miss fruit,” I smiled, thinking of the pomegranate I’d hidden in my room. I couldn’t bear to eat it, my one reminder of home. “I doubt you have much of that down here, though.”

She shrugged, smiling now, too.

She was so beautiful when she smiled.

“No, not at the moment.
I gather apples for the horses whenever I surface in your forest, but they’ve
eaten
them all—greedy beasts that they are. Now they’re subsisting on the grasses and grains that I grow for them. To be honest, we have little food of any sort here in the Underworld.”
            I leaned back on my hands, gazed at the tapestry hanging on the wall adjacent to the door. It depicted a large tree with widespread roots and glorious, sky-scraping branches. I studied it, transfixed.

Hades observed my interest. “A young weaver made that for me…a very long time ago. It’s one of the few offerings I’ve ever been honored with. Most mortals are less than fond of me, for obvious reasons.” She laughed, smiling faintly. “It’s called the tree of life. See how the roots and branches spiral together?
The cycle of life and death, never-ending.
Eternity.”