Dead Beautiful (6 page)

Mum looks relieved. “I thought it might be a mistake. Are you sure you’re not over-tired, sweetie? You look kind of peaky.”

I take a deep, sighing breath. “Maybe a bit,” I allow. I see concern on her face. I hate the thought of her worrying about me. She has too much on her plate for that.

“Listen,” she says eagerly. “Let’s take the weekend off — you and me. We’ll spend some time together.”

She looks tired, her skin pale, her face drawn. The lines around her mouth and eyes look deeply etched.

“Sure,” I say. “Sounds great.”

The next day, though, she is summoned to Olympus. A policy paper on whether to initiate another round of Ice Ages is being prepared, and Zeus wants her to set its parameters. “Come with me,” she says. “This won’t take long and then we’ll drink some mead, get caught up on the gossip with Hestia — maybe get some spa time in.”

I’d rather stay earth-side and work on some ideas I have in mind, but she looks so hopeful that I agree. Shortly after that we are up among the cousins.

Hermes is zipping around like a gnat on speed, as per usual. Zeus is dealing with a delegation of fauns angry about being hounded by PETA zealots who accuse the fauns of being pro-human and not supportive enough of animal rights.

Mum disappears into a conference room with Zephyr, Boreas, Notus and Eurus — a bunch of blow-hards, in my opinion.

I settle down near a fountain with the latest issue of Heavens Above! (“The latest in immortal gossip”) and I’m about halfway through a quiz (“How many ships could your face launch?”) when I hear a quiet cough. Looking up I find a guy, my age or maybe a bit older, standing in front of me. He’s pleasant looking, tall, slender, with curly blond hair and hazel eyes. He wears a friendly expression.

“May I?” he asks, indicating the seat beside me.

I shrug. “Sure.”

“Darryl,” he says, holding out his hand. “Demi-God of home repairs. How do you do?”

“Persephone,” I reply, shaking his hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” Darryl says, sitting down beside me. “I’m hoping to move up to full-fledged God status one of these days, but I’m still on probation for a few more millennia. I’m up here for a performance review with Hephaestus. He’s my manager. A bit of a stickler when it comes to forging and smelting, anything to do with metal, you know. Everything’s got to be done by the book. No pulling supplies out of thin air sort of stuff.” Darryl snaps his finger and a shiny new perfectly-formed nail appears in his palm. “Not allowed,” he says mock-seriously. “He says that’s cheating. To really know your materials you have to be able to make them from scratch, yadda, yadda, yadda.” He waves his hand and the nail disappears. “He does acknowledge I’ve got a pretty good eye for detail, though.” Darryl points at the fountain behind us and the sculpture in the centre shifts a bit, lengthens so that its dimensions are more satisfying, the water shoots up in a more elegant arc and falls more musically into the basin below. “There, that’s better,” he says. He turns to me. “You’re something to do with agriculture, right?”             

He’s a bit of a chatterbox, but nowhere near Hermes, and we fall into conversation. He tells me what it’s like being on call for chimney fires, leaky ceilings, that sort of thing. “It’s very rewarding,” he tells me. “Sure, people are annoyed when they first invoke me — like, it’s never when things are going well that they call on you — but when I sort things out they treat me like a full-fledged God.”

After we’ve been chatting for a while I see mum stepping out of the conference room. I catch her glancing my way, then her gaze slides past me, to Hestia. Their eyes meet, mum grins, and I see Hestia give a little nod.

What’s that all about, I wonder. Then I realize: this is a set-up. Darryl didn’t just happen along, mum and Hestia arranged this. This is so typical of the two of them; they are both so into domesticity, conjugality, matrimony, house, home, hearth, fecundity.

For an instant I am royally pissed off. I’m on the point of tossing the papyrus in Darryl’s face and stomping over there and telling mum what I think about her meddling — I am an adult and can look after my own love life, thank you very much — when an idea comes to me.

If Mum thinks I’m interested in Darryl she won’t be worrying about me and Hades. I can see why Darryl would appeal to her; he’s nice-looking and easy-going, and it won’t cause trouble with Hera if I’m seeing him — demi-Gods barely register with her.

I lean over and smile at Darryl. “Tell me more,” I whisper, “about plumbing.”

“Wasn’t that nice?” Mum says in a tired but contented voice later that night as we’re getting ready for bed.

“Mmmmm.” I make a noncommittal sound.

“We should do it again sometime.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Did you have a good time, sweetie?” I hear a shadow of anxiety in her voice.

I smile at her. “Yes, I did, mum.”

“Night,” she says.

“Night.”

Despite mum’s scheming, thoughts of Hades persist and intensify. I find myself drifting off at my workbench, or while I’m at work in the fields. Images of his dark kingdom swim before my eyes; the cool, shady avenues, the soft sound of the rivers that flow slowly, inexorably through that land.

Sometimes I feel as if Hades himself stands beside me. I hear his laughter in the rumbling wind that runs before a storm, and feel, in Helios’ touch, Hades hand on my skin again.

Finally, when I can think of nothing but him, when thoughts of him flood my mind, I return to the poplar grove.

In an instant he is beside me. I reach for him and he gathers me into his arms, his dark eyes traveling hungrily over my face, his hand stroking my hair. My heart pounds in my ears. Suddenly the air feels charged with energy, the sun burns more intensely, shadows grow darker, bird song is clearer and more melodious. It is as if a film has fallen from my eyes; the whole world is more: more colourful, more beautiful, more alive, more real.

We stand there without speaking, wrapped in each other’s arms, for a long time. When my heart has slowed to its normal rhythm, he brushes my hair back off my cheek and asks, “What do you want, my Persephone?”

I smile to hear my name on his lips. “Take me,” I tell him. “I’m ready to go with you. Take me to Hades.”

It is his turn to smile, although sadly. He drops his arms and turns away, shaking his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“You must come. I can’t take you.”

“What’s the difference?”

He steps away, putting a space between us, a space that might as well be the whole world. “You’ll have to figure that out,”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll know,” he says, his voice growing fainter. “You’ll know.” I watch him fade from view, like smoke dissipating on the wind.

I am left alone, bereft, in the circle of trees. The sunlight seems wan and pale, the world flat once more.

Hades

She doesn’t know her power. I see it in her, but she is unaware.

I could have had her, could have set my mouth on hers and made her mine. Before Demeter knew what was going on, the deed would have been done, my mark on Persephone.

“Take me,” she said, her face so close to mine her breath stroked my cheek. Her hair was like sunlight tangled in my fingers. The smell of her — rose, freesia, lily of the valley — swam in the air.               She was willing. I was tempted. But it was denied me. I cannot take; she has to give.

I saw arousal fade, to be replaced by confusion, then anger. I moved away.

If I had taken her I would have lost all. With patience I may gain the world.

Persphone

I was angry. “You have to come to me,” he says. What is that supposed to mean? Is this one of those push-me-pull-you power games mum’s always pointing out goes on among the cousins upstairs?

Here I am: Take me. But no, he’s got to go and get all complicated on me. “You’ll know, you’ll know.” And that fading-out act — passive-aggressive if I’ve ever seen it.

I was ready to throw down a drought or some pestilences, but it wasn’t the humans’ fault, so why should they suffer?

I went home. I decided fine, if that’s how it’s going to be, forget it. I’ll make mum happy, spend some time with Darryl, get to know him. Who knows — he seems nice enough.

My new attitude seemed to cheer mum right up. When Hera noticed I was hanging with Darryl she seemed to warm up. It meant I wasn’t going to be competing with her kids for attention/power. She invited mum to a soiree for all the Level-1 Goddesses. She included both of us in an invitation to dinner. Darryl was there, too, seated right across from me.

Dad smiled when he saw the three of us getting along. He even complimented me on my newest project — the pearange. I thought Hera’s face got a bit pinchy when he said, “She’s a clever one, my daughter, isn’t she?”

But to give Hera credit, she smiled pleasantly. “Very clever,” she replied.

Until I began spending lots of time at Olympus I had no idea how dull it was.

Before, when I had tagged along with mum, I’d been a kid, and exempt from all the rules. Now I had to operate as an adult and the full force of regulations came crashing down on me. There was so much protocol you couldn’t even sneeze without some runty little functionary scuttling over to tell you, “That’s not how it’s done” and launch into a harangue about ceremony and ritual, preserving tradition and all that.

Protocol dictated I had to walk three steps behind any Level-1 God until I finished my probationary period and was inducted into Level-1 status myself. So say I saw Artemis on the other side of the Main Hall. I couldn’t just call out, “Hi, Arti.” Nuh-unh. There was this whole rigamarole I had to go through, “Greetings and peace be upon you, oh mighty Artemis, daughter of Leto, etc., etc.”

Everything had a rule attached to it — usually several rules. What I could wear, where I had to sit at the feast table, which utensils to use — all this was ritualized. I thought I would scream.

I never got to see Dad. That was going to be one of the benefits, I had thought, of spending more time up there, getting to know him better, the two of us bonding. But he was always dealing with delegations — like, at what exact instant in the process of evaporation did the water molecules move from the jurisdiction of the water spirits to that of the air spirits. And the rest of us were supposed to just sit respectfully and quietly on the sidelines while these meetings went on (and on). Plus he was involved in making sure all the sacrifices on earth were recorded correctly and apportioned to the right God and then, when one God got more than another, there was oil to pour on troubled waters, and turbulent breasts to be calmed (some of the cousins have pretty thin skins). I mean, these things go in phases; when it’s hot of course Boreas gets a lot of requests and vice versa, when it’s cold, Zephyr’s pretty popular, but this just seems to escape the cousins. Over thousands of years you’d think they’d learn, but it seems Dad still has to smooth things out.

And then there was Darryl. Darryl was nice enough, a sweet-natured, eager-to-please guy with tragic eyes. I spent a lot of time analyzing what it was that gave his eyes their tragic expression; was it their almond shape? Or the way the outer edges seemed to tip downwards? Or perhaps it was the way his dark lashes ringed them.

That said, all he ever talked about was building code, construction, weight loads and stresses.

He was solicitous and very thoughtful, always holding open the door, pulling out my chair for me, but for some reason all his attentions just served to irritate me, made me feel like he thought I was a helpless female, which, I wanted to point out to him, as daughter of a Level-1 Goddess and the Big God, I for sure wasn’t. But I didn’t say anything. Because of course he knew this, and he was just trying to be nice.

Demeter

Things appeared to be going well. It looked like Persephone was getting along with the young demi-God Hestia had introduced. He seemed to be a nice fellow, low-key, easy-going. Not like Persephone’s father, Mr. Dynamic. But, as I had learned at great cost, there is a price to be paid for playing with power. In my case the price involved bringing up my daughter —our daughter — on my own.

I had tried to teach her caution, so she would avoid the impulsive mistake I had made. I had tried to teach her not to be seduced by the trappings of power, as I had been. I wanted her to feel compassion and empathy, so she would never behave with the blindness her father had demonstrated, pursuing what he wanted without considering how his actions affected others.

But a child isn’t a recipe. You can’t plug in this ingredient here, that one there and expect them to turn out the way you hope. They make their own decisions which you, as a parent, have to live with, no matter the cost to you.

Cyane

I liked Darryl. He was really nice, cute, friendly, thoughtful. He reminded me of that musician who made it big by smashing up his lyre on stage. Can’t think of his name.

Anyway, Darryl was Pers’s. I watched Hestia and Demeter set it up. Pers had no idea, I don’t think, but she was pretty cool with him. Friendly, but not too. I could see she was thinking about someone else and that made me feel a bit sorry for Darryl because he really, really seemed to like her.