“It is all right for the moment, but I cannot say it will remain that way for long.”
“What happened when I was gone?” I swallow hard, guilt churning in my gut.
“Zeus spoke to your mother.” Beatrice takes my hand and guides me to my changing room. The gown I wore to leave the Underworld will not be the one I wear to speak to my mother. Beatrice seems to understand that, because she begins helping me out of it. “It was a spectacle, both of them blaming each other. He convinced her to give you time.” She lays the black gown aside and slips a clean robe over my head. It’s blush in color and soft and elegant. “She has given orders not to disturb her.”
“Yes,” I agree, watching myself in the mirror, wishing I could find Hades yet again within mine rather than my father’s scry. “I will rest a bit more, then. I certainly need it,” I add and then take in a steadying breath.
“Do you need food? Drink?”
“Both please,” I answer. My body hums with the change in scenery. It is like having a candle lit inside me. The powers I can access here carry a different sensation than those of the Underworld, and I notice it most when I have just arrived in either realm. It’s heady. As if my magic misses me.
Beatrice slips out of my rooms and returns a moment later with fruits and a honeyed nectar. I have both at the table and find myself tired and yawning as soon as I’m finished. I’ve been restless and it’s showing.
Beatrice leaves me, and I climb into bed.
Tired as I am, I cannot sleep.
The early morning is quiet, with the waxing moon not yet a sliver still lingering. Even so, my mind will not quiet. I toss and turn for some time before I sit up and look toward the grate.
The mirror is still here. I stare into it imagining my love watching me. Maybe with my power growing I do not need to sneak to my father’s scry. Maybe I can will this world to bend to my needs. Maybe…I dream.
With a gentle murmur, I wake, blinking away a sleep and a dream I can't quite remember. Beatrice is there when I wake. She helps me into my blush gown and settles the wreath of roses onto the crown of my head. She dresses me as the queen I am here, and when she is finished, I go out to meet my mother.
She’s still in the garden. I cannot tell if she ever stopped tending to them.
“Mother,” I speak to gain her attention.
My mother looks up, and her face is transformed by her shock. “Persephone.”
She rushes to me, accidentally kicking over the basket in doing so, and I hold out my arms for her embrace. If she is cross with me, it doesn’t show. There is only love between us. There is only warmth. I watch her as she gets closer. This is my mother. There is so much love in her eyes. So much care for me. It has torn her heart out to think I was missing or stolen from her.
Our conversation will not be a confrontation, I decide. It will be a plea. I will ask her for this favor as a daughter asks a mother for a blessing. Although the very thought of it sours my stomach.
Her arms close around me, and she pulls me into a tight hug, her arms shaking. “Persephone,” she whispers into my hair. “You were gone.”
“I was,” I tell her. “But I was fine, Mother. Please. Don’t fear for me when I must go.”
“You must not go,” she utters but doesn’t relent her grasp.
Her arms tighten around me even more. Instead of pulling away, I hold her back just as fiercely. This is what she needs from me. I will give it to her before I ask her for what I need.
And I do need it. I need for the realms to be balanced. I need for Hades to be reassured. I need for all the death and strife to end, and for my life to be…
Mine. I want my days and nights to be the life I desire, and the life I must have been destined to live. As queen of the Underworld and the goddess of life. Both are to be mine, she must understand.
When my mother shifts, I release her. Her hands linger on my upper arms for a moment, then she drops them to her sides. Her gaze looks over me as a mother does.
I offer her a hand again. “Come inside and talk to me, please.”
My mother glances at my hand, then at my face. The sun rises higher above the garden walls, shining its light onto my mother’s hair. Her eyes are red. She looks as if she hasn’t slept, and she is thin, as if she has been forgetting to eat as well.
It is brutal, the guilt that I feel at this moment. Had I told her though, I don’t believe she would have relented. I don’t think her state would be changed.
That is always how my mother has been. When she focuses deeply on her plants and her tending, she puts all of herself into the work. Only this time, she is not focusing deeply on her plants. Not only on her plants rather.
She is focused on me, and where I will go, and if I will be taken from her.
That cannot be the way. I won’t ever be taken again, my leave is my own doing.
