‘This is why I looked after you,’ Demeter said. ‘My daughter asked me, and I never could deny her. But Psyche, there are things I must tell you before you enter her realm.’
I glanced at my hostess. Demeter was lost in thought, frowning. She looked like any fretful mother – at least if youdid not notice the sharpness of her divine beauty or the way her cup refilled itself.
‘From the beginning,’ she said, ‘it was as though my beloved Kore carried a secret world inside herself, one that I could never touch. She was an odd child. When she was born, there was nothing of her father’s stern glory or my own golden majesty in her. My little Kore turned away when I tried to take her on walks through fields of grain, preferring instead to see what grew under rotted logs or in hollows filled with decayed leaves. Silly me, I still call her Kore,maiden, the name I gave to her as a child, but now she goes by the name Persephone –bringer of death. She liked to collect the disarticulated skeletons of creatures she found in hidden places, polishing them to pearlescent smoothness and laying them along the windowsill. I tried to enlist nymphs to look after her, but they all left within days, muttering about unspeakable cruelties.
‘When Kore disappeared – when Hades kidnapped her – I was distraught. She was my only daughter, and I feared for her safety, but in truth I also feared for the well-being of anyone who came across her unprepared. My girl always did have a temper.’
Goosebumps rippled across my skin. I told myself that this was simply due to the cool of the evening.
The goddess continued. ‘Separation cannot kill love, as you know, but it is an agony nonetheless. Oh Psyche! Here is what I ask: Tell my daughter that her mother still loves her.’
My throat tightened. I did not say that my own mother was somewhere in the distant reaches of Persephone’s own kingdom, along with my father. Nor did I say anything about my own daughter or son, still a half-formed dream floating within me.
I took Demeter’s hand. ‘I will do as you ask,’ I replied.
Demeter and I sat together in the gloaming, a motherlessdaughter and a daughterless mother, relishing the fragile tranquility of the moment. We watched as the last of the sun’s rays vanished and stars scattered themselves like chicken feed across the sky.
The two of us arrived at the temple of Eleusis the next morning while the birds were still calling to one another. There was a chill in the air; the glowing heat of summer, so all-encompassing, had drained from the world.
Behind the temple itself was an amphitheatre, with rows of seats fanning out like a peacock’s tail before dipping down to a shallow oval at the bottom. The slanted early morning light struck long shadows along the concentric rings, shadows pooling in the recesses designed for feet. During the mysteries, candidates for initiation across the Greek world came here to prepare themselves for the sacred rites. Demeter had told me all of this as we walked; I thought she seemed rather proud of the rituals mortals made of her story.
Across from the seats was a sheer cliff, and set into it was a hole that seemed to devour all the light around it. Eleusis was so different from the desolate waste of Taenarum in its structure, but the darkness was the same.
The Underworld.
I swallowed hard. I stood with Demeter at the lip of the amphitheatre, wearing the satchel she had given me. I carried no weapons, per her instructions.
I had protested this at first. ‘What kind of hero goes without weapons? How will I defend myself in the Underworld?’
Demeter raised one tawny eyebrow. ‘Weapons will do you no good there. The hero Orpheus descended for the sake of his beloved Eurydice with only his lyre. He came back, and so will you.’
This did little to reassure me. Orpheus had returned, but not with his beloved.
Around us the world was coming to life. I could hear the priestesses going about their duties in the temple and the animals waking in their stables and pens. But my eyes were fixed on the dark hollow of the cave mouth, which seemed to swallow all light.
‘Look,’ Demeter said. I followed her pointing finger to see a butterfly making its unlikely way over the amphitheatre. My namesake,psyche, in the tongue of the Greeks.
‘The butterfly is a symbol of victory over death. A good omen,’ Demeter added.
A butterfly. I thought of Circe’s tincture and my question to Zephyrus. I’d wondered what the shape of my soul meant. Now I knew.
Demeter turned, hazel eyes meeting mine. ‘Go with my blessing, dear girl,’ she said. ‘You haven’t long now.’
She was right. Time moves differently in the Underworld, and I was running out of it. I had five mortal days, but what would that be once I made this descent?
I took a shuddering breath and raced down the steps two at a time, pausing before I entered the tunnel sloping down into the earth. The cold, musty smell of the world of death washed over me, and my nostrils flared like those of a mare scenting blood. Nausea coiled and uncoiled in my belly, sending bile into my throat.
But I had not come unprepared. I lifted a thatch of wheat no longer than my forearm from the satchel and laid it at the dreadful threshold. This was the token offering to the Underworld gods that Eros and I had forgotten at Taenarum during my first katabasis. Demeter had cut it for me herself with her own sickle.
It was enough – it had to be enough. I would not fall. I would not be turned away.
I stepped forward and let myself be swallowed by the darkness, feeling the same chill I had at Taenarum. The earth beneath my sandals was smooth, packed down by thousands of feet. The mouth of the cave was where the hierophant of Eleusis led the new initiates, allowing them to taste the air of the Underworld itself to show them the truth of the mysteries. The initiates went in groups with lighted torches, though never very far. But I came alone and carried no torch, and soon I found myself walking on earth that had never been touched by a living foot. Soon enough, I saw the circle of light that marked the exit, growing larger and larger as I walked. Then the cold hard beauty of the Underworld was spread out before me, the distant palace rising above the lane of cypresses.
I looked down; my limbs were still my own, still living flesh. I allowed myself a breath of relief. I had passed the first test.
Waiting for me was a familiar face. Medusa.
38
