Girlhood
It happened so fast that I almost did not notice it. When a child is raised between bones and ghosts, they learn about death faster than they learn about growing up. I was too focused on my dreams of rescuing my parents. So when the ichor in my body swelled and turned me from child to girl, I did not even recognize it until one day, staring at myself in a mirror made of the River Acheron that Charon had gifted me, I saw it. The lengthening of my legs and my arms. My widening hips. The discomfort of an almost-woman body. Where were my full cheeks? Even my hair had lengthened to my waist and I had to keep it braided so it was no longer in my way. Now, when I looked into my eyes, I saw the violet shades of my mother’s. In fact, I was starting to resemble her more and more as time went on, but the more I resembled her, the shifting sands of time took my father from my features. Is that all ageing is? Leaving things you knew and once loved behind to become something brand new?
Styx Visited More Often Now
The halls of my palace on her riverbanks
were no longer as empty as they once were.
Since that day in Tartarus,
something had changed.
Ever since then, Styx took her evening
nectar and ambrosia with me.
She would ask me about my day,
and tell me about the souls she ate.
This used to scare me, but I understood
the rules of godhood better now.
I still did not know my gifts precisely.
But one day I walked
to the mouth of the cave the river
came through and found violet flowers.
I put them inside a pot in the kitchen
and carefully stole a thimbleful of Styx’s water.
When I added it to the flowers,
I watched as they turned a vibrant blue,
then a violent yellow and then the whole pot
melted into a mess of yellow metal.
And my halls smelled for days
of a strange fragrance I could not name.
If Styx noticed, she did not say anything.
But Pallas, my uncle, on one of his visits
commented upon it. ‘Have you been burning
Krokos in here? I keep smelling saffron.’
Krokos. That was the name of the first
