I wondered if I would ever see him
again. I wondered why I wanted to.
But the more stories I heard,
the brighter and more lovely
his face and kindness became.
The Crone
She was the oldest story Asphodel had to offer. The whisper passed from ghost to ghost said that she had walked here for decades. Longer than I had been in the Underworld, longer, it is said, than Hades or even Styx had been. She was glimpsed walking only by the fortunate few and they all said the same of her: she was seeking someone. Someone she had never found. Her long white hair fell to her ankles. She wore a black shroud and carried a wooden cane, its handle smooth under her wizened hands. She kept her distance, never approaching any of the spirits who walked here. So when she appeared before me one day, I remembered Styx’s words about the strange, terrifying beings and my heart thudded at her proximity to me. Where her pupils were meant to be, there was milk-white nothingness, and yet it still felt like she was staring into my soul. When she sensed me, she smiled and said, ‘It is you, keeper of the crossroads.’ I shook my head, confused by her words. ‘I am just Hekate,’ I told her quietly. She nodded slowly, ‘Yes. Hekate, the keeper of the crossroads. I have a tale for you.’ I wanted to run because that was what every bone in my body was telling me to do. But her words made me curious. And stories had become my only way to know this unusual realm I lived in. It was the offer of a story that made me stay. Instead of running, I simply nodded and sat down among the asphodel-grey flowers and lavender to listen.
A Fable of Gods and Monsters
The endings of wars are just as painful as beginnings. When you survey the damage left in the aftermath, a blood-drenched battlefield is the least of your concerns. And so, when the Titanomachy came to an end, ten thousand years of ichor lost, the old Gods, the Titans, imprisoned in their volcanic dungeon, their wives and daughters taken from them by the new Gods, the Olympians, Zeus, the God-King of this new empire, realized that to reinforce their immortality, something more would be needed. But he did not want to rule through fear the way his father had; he wanted to be a better ruler than Kronos ever was. And so Prometheus, the cosmic creator and Zeus’ oldest friend, invented the new mortals, to worship and empower the Olympians. Kronos’ mortals had been too placid, too strong, too clever. You see, child, prayer is what keeps Gods powerful. What good is immortality if you cannot call upon immense forces at whim? The mortals were taught to pray and to birth more like themselves who would continue those prayers. And those prayers kept the altars of the Gods perpetually fragranced with sweet-smelling smoke. For a while, this delicately crafted system worked. But the mortals grew restless. Like the Gods, they wanted more. Palaces to live in. Bigger fields. A perpetual, abundant crop. Their unhappy voices grew stronger until the Gods could no longer ignore them. So for the mortals, they appointed kings and queens, inventing a hierarchy that allowed some mortals to rise over others. And yet, the majority remained unhappy. Infuriated with their insolence, the Gods invented fear. Monsters were the first of their creations to inspire terror. They crafted terrible beasts to harm mortals and demolish villages until each mortal king appointed a God-blessed hero to save them. Famines. Floods. Fires. If the Gods could not have prayer through peace, then they would have it through fear. And on this occasion, their plan worked. So now these same Gods, who said they were different from the old order, ruled by the same fear that Zeus swore he would never rule by. And the monsters they sent to Earth, to harm mortals in their name, paid the ultimate price. For even though every monster fulfilled its exact purpose of what the Gods invented it for, they were named villains and their eternal fate was to be hunted by heroes chosen by the Gods. There is no difference between Gods and monsters, child. Each, in their own way, wields their power to terrorize.
‘And Precisely What Are You Doing Here?’
I knew from the cold spike
that laced those words
it was Styx, her voice
full of controlled anger.
I turned to her and smiled,
a gesture I knew
would infuriate her.
‘I was listening to a story.’
A frown marred her face
as she looked at me, then past me.
Her words were measured as she asked,
‘And who was telling you this story?’
I turned to where she was looking
but my heart already knew.
The crone was gone
as though she had never
been there at all.
Charon Visited
He knew he shouldn’t. I had been
forbidden from seeing anyone
