She stops to catch her breath, and actually looks at me for a moment. Her eye lights on the brooches; she takes a step forward, raises her hand, and runs a finger gently over the etched rose at my shoulder. Her voice softens.
"And this is a festival for women, not girls."
"But I'm—"
"No, it's better you not know about certain things. Not just yet." Her hand drops to her side. "And besides, you'd distract me. My work requires constant vigilance. I need to see who deserves rich crops and who should reap a smaller harvest—or even none at all. Mortals are like children; they need our guidance so they can live their lives properly."
I can't help myself. "Right. Like Zeus in his swan outfit."
"What did you say?"
Her face tightens again and wind starts to rustle through the branches. This isn't turning out like I wanted at all.
But she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, stilling the budding tempest. When she finally looks at me again, I can tell she's forcing herself to be calm.
"Show some sense." She sighs. "At least you can't get into any trouble here."
I almost shout,
I saw a man! Here! In the vale!
But I don't feel like one of her storms. My mouth stays shut.
She turns and walks through the gate, already focused on
gathering the power she needs. Her words trail behind her like ribbons unraveling.
"We can talk in three days, when I return, if you haven't found something to do by then. . . ."
Her voice fades into the grass, her hand reaches up to caress the leaves of a lemon tree, and then she's gone.
At least the house is cool and dark. The last thing I want now is to be outside where she is, in a field somewhere. Communing with the worms.
I pass her door. There's the shimmering chiton splayed out on the bed; and the golden girdle, thick with ripe sheaves of wheat; and the emerald-encrusted crown. Her goddess paraphernalia. Holy of holies.
This time it pulls me in. I walk to the bed. My fingers reach out and touch the luxurious fabric, then sneak underneath so it falls over the back of my hand like a waterfall. Even her weaving is perfect.
Now the rest of my body wants to know how it feels. I glance around, then slip out of my chiton, pick up my mother's dress, and pull it over my head. The fabric floats on, stroking me. I sigh, relaxing into its caress.
Is the girdle light, too? I pick it up. No, it's heavy, solid, resolute. My finger traces the embossed stalks, bumps over the crowded heads of grain. I place it around my waist. The weight grounds me, rooting my feet into the floor. At the same time the airy fabric feels like it's lifting me. I throw my shoulders back, feeling taller.
Then an earthquake shakes the room.
"Persephone!"
Damn. Damn. Damn. What's she doing back already?
"How dare you!"
Outside, wind starts to whip the trees. The room darkens.
"Take that off. Now!"
I pull off the girdle and drop it on the bed. Rip the chiton over my head. Shrink back into my own body.
She grabs the purple fabric and hugs it to her ample breast as if it were her child, not me. Her body trembles with anger.
"Do you have any idea how hard I work to prepare for these mortal festivals?"
Of course I do. She's told me often enough.
I pick up my rough linen and wad it in my hands. We stand for a moment, eye to eye, each of us clutching a chiton.
"You will
never
touch these clothes again. Is that clear?" She waits, almost as if she's expecting an answer.
"I said, is
that clear?"
Why even bother? I turn and walk to my room. I don't look back.
The shutters bang and a last angry gust of wind bursts through, grabbing my hair.
Plum
A
t the place where the trail forks, I don't even hesitate before turning uphill. I shouldn't stomp so hard; this path grows clearer every day, and I don't want anyone else to see it.
The late-morning heat is working on my anger like fire under a pot.
A quiet, ladylike daughter, that's what she wants. A calm, obedient girl who's happy to stay in one place and out of her way. Well, that's Ianthe, the contented little meadow violet. Not me.
I see the look in my mother's eyes again; I hear her sigh. If I'm such a disappointment, why does she want to keep me here forever? Me, the daughter who can't do anything right.
I hate eternity.
A fat, white cloud hovers above my head, too far from the sun to make any shade. I wish a wind would flare up and grab that cloud's edges, teasing out some wings so it could turn into a griffin and fly away.
I'll lie on my back in the high meadow, that's what I'll do. I'll drown myself in the perfume of that white flower so I don't have to hear her voice anymore.
Better you not know about certain things.
Quiet? Ladylike? Look at these blossoms crowding the path! Roses tumbling all over each other, billowing clumps of irises, daisies and rosemary cramming every spare spot— my mother makes them fling open their petals for every passing bee. There's nothing shy about
them
.
I keep walking and the flowers give way to a dense thicket of plum trees. I'm almost there; I can smell the white flower even here among all this ripening fruit. I reach up to pluck a plum. It's firm and warm from the sun. As the stem snaps, the branch bounces back, and I hear something.
A horse, snorting.
My head jerks up. I take a few steps out from under the leaves.
He's here again. The golden chariot rests in the middle of the field. The four winged horses are nibbling long strands of grass. And he's just standing there, that man, leaning against the chariot. One of his elbows rests on an emblem
embossed in gold, a snarling dog with three heads.
Don't run! I will my feet to stay put.
Sun shines full on his face, blazing on the gold behind his night-black hair, making a halo. He's looking right at me.
I've got a second chance and I'm going to use it.
But use it how? What do I do?
My senses are wide open and everything is flooding in: heat, soaking into me so I can feel every single pore opening . . . the sun, burning up the chariot so it looks ready to explode . . . birdsong and the sound of hooves shuffling in the grass. . . .
He smiles. "Hello."
It's a deep voice. I can feel it reverberate in my chest and echo all the way down to my toes.
I know I should leave, but I don't want to. I want to keep my senses like this forever. I'm all eye, all ear, all skin.
His pose may be relaxed, leaning there against the chariot, but I can feel energy radiating from him. And his fingers keep opening and closing again in a wave, as if they're pulling something in.
I try to talk, but no words come out. What am I going to do?
I glance down at the plum in my hand—ripe, purple, and taut with juice—then up at the horses grazing in front of the chariot.
The man must be able to read my mind, because he nods at me.
So very slowly, very quietly, I walk up to one of the horses, the one with a cowlick in his mane. He looks at me with gigantic, black, gleaming eyes. How can such a gentle look come from so much power? His haunches ripple with muscle.
I go slowly, but I don't hesitate.
The horse lifts his shining head halfway and nickers. I come close enough now to touch his neck, but I don't. I hold my hand out, open, the plum resting there. It seems riper than when I plucked it, its darkness reflecting light like the horse's burnished coat. I hold still, waiting.
The horse lowers his neck and takes the plum gently, barely brushing the skin of my palm with his mouth. His breath is warm and damp. It smells like grass and the soil beneath the grass and the rich warmth of his flesh.
Now, while he's chewing, I lift my hand and stroke his neck. It's like the sun is inside that soft black skin.
"His name is Abastor," says the man, and I pull my hand back because for a second I feel like I'm touching him, not the horse.
The man sits down on the edge of the chariot and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, as if to show me I don't have to worry about him coming closer.
"He was the hardest of the four to tame. He has the most spirit, the most independence. He had to choose to be mine."
"Abastor," I whisper, seeing if my voice will work.
He nods. "That's right. The others aren't that particular, or that observant. Wherever we go, whatever we do, is all right by them. But with Abastor, I always watch his ears. I trust what he thinks."
"What is he thinking now?"
"See how relaxed he is, even with you standing close? He's glad we came back."
His calm voice makes me feel braver, so I ask, "Why did you come back?"
"I saw you."
The three words fill every atom of my body so there isn't room for anything else. He's here because of me.
Should I be scared? Because I'm not, with Abastor next to me, and that deep voice rumbling through me with such certainty, and the air thick with perfume, and the sun soaking into my skin, and my mother gone—
"That's why I came," he says, as if it were perfectly normal to cross the cliffs and enter the vale. "This time I was hoping to meet you." He smiles. "Is that all right?"
"Yes." My voice is back to a whisper. "I wanted you to."
He stands and I tense, thinking he's going to walk toward me, but no; he climbs back into the chariot and picks up the reins.
"I have to go," he says. "But I'll come back tomorrow, when the sun is high. Will I see you then?" His words are as thick and rich as honey.
The horses start to unfold their wings. I step back.
"I'll be here," I say.
Above our heads, clouds are starting to move, pulled by some invisible wind.
Secrets
I
hear their voices before I see them. Admete's high, carefree laugh floats above Kallirhoe's gentle murmur. I round the trees and Ianthe looks up from a pile of little daisies. She slits a stem with her thumbnail and slides the next one through, making a crown.
Galaxaura holds out her hand and pulls me down next to her on the sand. "Good! Persephone's finally here."
I jerk my hand back, afraid she'll feel how fast my pulse is beating.
Ianthe picks up another stem, then freezes, suddenly alert. "Something else is here, too. Something new."
She closes her eyes in concentration. She looks like an
oracle, reading the future in wisps of temple smoke. Then her eyes pop open.
"Don't you smell it? There's a new flower in the vale."
"Is that all?" Kallirhoe lies back on the warm sand. "I thought for a second it was going to be important."
Ianthe glares at her. "Just because you're a water nymph, you think flowers aren't important? I suppose I'm not that important, either. I'm only a violet nymph. Well, excuse me."
"That's not what I meant, Ianthe. And I can't smell the flowers as well as you can. It's not like they're
my
cousins." Kallirhoe gives an exaggerated sniff. "All I smell is lavender."
"And mint," says Admete, "from up on my mountainside. What about you, Persephone? Can you make it out?"
I close my eyes, trying to focus, trying to be here with my friends, playing their game so they won't look at me too closely or ask where I've been. I take a deep breath.
The flowers are all vying for attention, with my mother's roses winning the competition, as usual. But in a minute I start to tease apart the strands: Admete's mint, and Ianthe's own perfume, and— There it is. As soon as I single out the scent, I see a white flower swaying next to a golden chariot. My eyes fly open like I was pricked with a pin.
Galaxaura laughs. "It must be pretty exciting after all. Look at Persephone, everyone!"
Admete stands up, shaking sand from the folds of her blue chiton. "Then let's go find it. We'll follow the scent. And Ianthe can greet her long-lost cousin properly."
Admete, with her lithe limbs and bursting energy. Admete, who wants nothing more than to sneak out of the vale and meet men. I imagine her striding right up to the man in the meadow. I imagine him looking her up and down with an appraising eye.
"No!" My voice is too loud. Everyone stares at me. "It's too hot."
"Too hot?" says Galaxaura. "It's not hot."
He's long gone by now; there's nothing for them to find. Except—what if they see the broken stems where his chariot landed? Or what if they find the meadow and fall in love with it because it's beautiful and new, and they come back later, when he's there, and—
"And I'm tired. I just got here."
I close my eyes again, trying to look exhausted. I hear his voice; I feel it pulse in the air around me.
When I open my eyes again, Galaxaura is staring at my face. Sometimes I hate how she seems to see right through me, the same way her breeze clears the lake and leaves it like crystal. I need to distract her.
"No offense, Ianthe," I say, "but I think we should do something more exciting today. We're free as birds. My mother left for three days. She has some big festival, the Thesmo-something."
"Thesmophoria!" cries Admete. "Then she's the one having all the excitement."
"That's it. I asked if I could go. Surprise, surprise; she wouldn't let me."
Admete laughs knowingly. "That's because it isn't for innocent little girls like you."