“I do not know how to end their pain,” I murmur.
“Are you certain?” Aphrodite questions, her gaze on my face begging me to meet it. “You do not look so certain, Persephone.”
“I am certain,” I swallow thickly, my stomach feeling hollow, “that I cannot end all their pain.”
“Yet you frown when you say so.”
“I frown because…it is complicated.” It is more than complicated. The choice before me is not one that seems as if it has an answer. Not one that would end the mortals’ pain. If I chose my mother, Hades will wage war on all the realms. If I choose Hades, my mother will wage war on any realm she can reach. No one wins. Pain ensues. And I am the cause.
“There you are,” my mother says from behind us, entering the chamber. My body sits straighter at her voice. My heart races. She brings the scent of the garden with her. Sun and soil and flowers. “I thought you might have gone, Persephone.” Her voice cracks at my name. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her face gaunt. The bags under her eyes tell the story of restlessness. My heart breaks at the sight of my mother.
The prayers pick up again. Many of them have my mother’s name along with mine. “I have not gone.” I tell her and nearly choke on the words. Yet. The last word that failed to slip through my lips: yet.
I reach my hand out to my mother, and she comes to sit on my other side, peering worriedly into my face. “What disturbs you, my sweet daughter?” she asks, but surely she knows it is not one thing that plagues me.
Hesitantly, I answer with a partial truth. “The mortals,” I murmur, her hand still in mine. “They’re asking why you have forsaken them.” My lower lip trembles as I dare to look at her. Meeting her eyes and knowing her truth.
My mother furrows her brow, her lips pursing in regret. I watch her try to deny it—try to clear the expression off her face—but she cannot. Have I been here long enough to persuade her to show mercy to the mortals?
“Mother.” I squeeze her hand. “Do magic with me.” A smile, although soft and one that doesn’t reach my eyes, slips onto my face.
“Magic,” Aphrodite repeats, kicking her feet playfully under the water. “I do love it so,” she reminisces.
My mother’s face lights with love. “Persephone,” she says. “You’ve never?—”
“I didn’t have a chance to ask you before. I did not know enough of my own powers.” Aphrodite peers at me as though she knows I have a secret, but she doesn’t interrupt. “I thought I might never get the chance to do this with you. Now we are together. Will you?”
She suddenly looks hopeful and shy, as if she also dreamed we might do magic side by side but never had the courage to admit it. “It is time to welcome harvest back to the earth,” she muses. “Would you like to call it with me?”
I cannot help it. A grin spreads across my face, and my power grows in me. This is the greatest pleasure for my mother, and for me?—
For me, it is almost the greatest. I do not know yet if it would surpass what I might find in the Underworld. Dread creeps in at the thought.
I shake off the comparisons. When my mother offers me her other hand, I take it. I can feel Aphrodite watching us, excited for what is to come. Perhaps the start of a truce. Perhaps with my mother’s healing, whatever Hades has done will not feel as heavy for the mortals. Maybe they can live with his pain so long as they do not feel my mother’s wrath. It is a balance. One I can provide. Hope flows through me.
“For the good of all and to the harm of none,” we whisper. Together, my mother and I start the spell, our eyes closed, our hands held by one another.
“With our whispers, seeds crack to listen.
“With our hands pressed, warmth touches the earth.
“With our hearts open, the harvest grows.
“It provides and our spell is met. It feeds life and our divinity is blessed.
“So mote it be.”
The mortal realm will be green and lush with new growth as it should be. It has never known such death before. Such coldness. The harvest will grow under the soil, ready to be at its full height soon enough.
With hope renewed, I glance into the pool of water and see the vision we have made. The chill that crept along the ground is already thinning. It will retreat fully soon, leaving the soil open for planting. Green buds appear on the tips of tree branches. The last of the storms my mother cast will leave the land, leaving water behind them, and the rivers and streams will carry that water to where it is needed.
I see the spring that will be, with all its green shoots and early petals and small leaves on the trees. Spring. What a word. I see birds returning to their homes and pecking at puddles of water in the sun. I see people walking outside their homes and stretching, tipping their faces toward the sky. It is already happening. It is almost ready to begin. It is not here yet, and it is all around us.
We return life to the mortal realm, which has been so hungry for life. We tell the life that waited there, under the ground, that it is time to reappear.
My mother stops withholding it. She lets the earth begin again, without interference. She plants life through her spells and her powers, and she will let it grow once again.
When it is finished, she’s still holding my hands, but she has closed her eyes, and she is smiling.
