Asphodel (19 page)

“What do you want Zeus?” Hades gazed back into the fire, lost in thought. For a moment, he swore he saw her. He swore he saw Persephone dancing around in the whirling flames with a radiant smile on her face and the illusion made his heart ache.

“I want this,” said Zeus. “All of this.” He twirled his finger in the air, motioning to their surroundings.

Hades stepped away from the fireplace and lurched closer. “This? My realm?” The father of all nodded with a sadistic smile. Zeus had always been a power hungry God, but now he was going too far. “You can’t have it!” Hades snapped and he felt the fire of rage unfurling inside of him. “I will not give it up without a fight!”

“Oh. You’ll give it up.” Zeus lowered his voice.

Hades remembered the hatred that ran deep for Zeus when he’d first condemned him to this realm, but after thousands of years Hades had grown fond of his kingdom and he was not giving it up just because Zeus was on a power trip. “Never.” The finality in Hades voice made Zeus’s eyes widen a tiny bit. “What about Poseidon? Will you take the sea too?”

Zeus tapped his chin with his forefinger, thinking. “Perhaps, but that’s a different war for a different day.”

“You’re worse than I am,” Hades hissed. Everyone always thought that Hades was the cruelest of the God’s just because of his job, but Zeus had him beat. But unlike Hades, Zeus was able to hide his despicable side and he had one thing Hades normally didn’t compassion.

The God of the Sky smiled, a fake sickening smile that made Hades stomach churn. “I take that as a compliment.”

Hades had always believed that everything happened for a reason so there was no need for compassion and as he observed Zeus it appeared that his compassion had been waning as well. “Hades, you need to come with me,” said Zeus, motioning in a come-hither gesture.

Hades’ eyes wandered around the dining room. This was his palace. This was his world. He did not want to give it up. He did not want to leave. “And if I don’t come with you, what then? Is this really because I took her? You knew I would eventually. You knew—I.”

“It’s not just because you took her. This goes deeper than that,” Zeus interrupted.

Hades didn’t like the way he’d answered his questions. His vagueness was annoying. “Answer me, Zeus. And what if I don’t come with you willingly? What if I put up a fight?”

Zeus narrowed his eyes and held out his palms. Hades watched as his fingertips spit out white lines of electricity, snapping and cracking before whirling around in circle. Then her image appeared. She was sleeping and the hard look Hades was wearing faded away. She looked so peaceful, and beautiful, and Hades swore that he saw her mumble his name in her sleep. Suddenly Zeus lowered his hands and the ball of electricity evaporated along with the image. “You will come with me,” Zeus said with adamant tone. “Or I’ll kill her.”

“You can’t kill her,” Hades whispered harshly.

Zeus let out a long sinister laugh. “Have you forgotten who I am Hades?” he asked with a scowl. “I created her. I can most definitely kill her.”

Hades balled up his fists and gritted his teeth, hatred pounded through him, numbing everything inside of him. “You wouldn’t.”

“You underestimate me, Hades.” Zeus clutched his arm and squeezed. Then in a low, eerily frightening voice he said, “I would.”

In that moment Hades knew he had to do something drastic to save her. He had to something to ensure Zeus wouldn’t hurt her. And that something was breaking Persephone’s heart.

Persephone

P
ersephone. I hear him again half-way through my slumber. The sound of his deep, beautiful voice lures me from my bed. I’m walking, down the stairs, through the hall and my eyes open abruptly when I arrive in the kitchen.

“You,” I gasp. “You’re here.”

“Not really,” he says.

He’s sitting at the kitchen table; smiling and I beam at the sight of his smile. I start toward him. Then he frowns and right before I reach him, he holds out his hand, palm up. “Don’t come any closer.” Pain twists in his voice and he looks down trying to hide the emotion on his face.

“Why?” I choke out. My insides are a towering inferno of agony. Put out my fire. Touch me. Smother the blaze with your fingertips. “You called to me. Didn’t you… Didn’t you,” I stutter, stunned by the way he’s acting. “Why did you call my name if you didn’t want to see me?”

He skims his fingers across my cheeks and eases the burning. I close my eyes and moan softly, kissing his palm. He yanks his hand away and startles me. My eyelids snap open and I observe him. There’s no softness to him anymore. He’s rigid, hard like cement, frozen in a way I’ve never seen him before. Even his Aegean blue eyes are fierce, deadly. “This is goodbye,” he says boldly. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

I feel like someone has stuck the hose of a shop-vac down my throat and sucked out my organs. Soon I’ll collapse in a heap on the floor. “What?” A dull pain throbs in my side and I hug myself, hoping to take it away. It doesn’t work. “I don’t understand.”

“Forget me,” he says in a harsh tone. “Forget I ever took you. Forget you ever met me. I am nothing, but a figment of your imagination. I am a dream.”

“Never,” my voice trembles. I can never do what he’s asking me to. I will never forget him or the way he makes me feel. “I can’t.”

His eyes pierce mine and the set of shimmering blue orbs are emotionless, but I get the sense that he’s hiding something. There’s something hidden behind the front he’s putting up. “What’s going on?” I ask and reach out for him. “Why are you acting like this? I thought I meant something to you. I thought you loved me.” His eyes shift to my hand, like the gesture repulses him and then he looks away.

“That isn’t true.” His words pound into my head like a gavel into a circle of wood. “You were a challenge, that’s all.”

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.

“I’m dreaming. This is just a nightmare. I’m going to wake up.” I pinch myself, hoping that my eyes will fly open and I’ll find myself in my bed.

“You’re dreaming,” he insists, “I can only see or talk to you in your dreams. But this is not a nightmare. What I’m saying to you is the truth. You’re a challenge that I conquered. I don’t love you. I’m sorry I had to tell you like this.”

At that moment I snap. I go crazy and lunge for him, shoving him as hard as I can. “You’re lying! You’re lying!” What he feels for me is real. I’m not a challenge he conquered. I can’t be. I remember the way I’d catch him looking at me with a deep longing in his eyes. I remember seeing the love in his eyes. That wasn’t fake. It was real. I know it was real.

My face is hot and tears spill from my eyes. I slam my fists into his chest and he does nothing to console me. He stands there like an immortal punching bag and allows me to pummel him with punch after punch.

“Are you finished?” he asks a vacant tone in his voice.

I burrow my fists into my eyes then stare at him. He’s still wearing a cold, emotionless expression. He eyes me oddly before walking to the door. “Sometimes the truth hurts.” I hang my head low, trying to control my sobs. It feels like every time I get a firm grasp on keeping them inside more slip out. My throat feels itchy and raw. My entire body is shaking. My knees buckle and I fall onto the floor. _Get a hold of yourself. Get a hold of yourself. _

I’m a blubbering mess and when I finally feel like I’ve put myself back together, I lift my head up to reply to him, but he’s not in the kitchen. An unsettling silence engulfs the room and I know he’s not in my house either. He’s gone.

Persephone

P
art of me hoped that last night would be a bad dream. I hoped that when I woke up in my own bed, I’d be able to smile and know that during my slumber I had the worst nightmare of my entire life.

But I don’t wake up in my bed. I wake up on the floor in the kitchen. It was a nightmare, a nightmare that actually happened. I hear him, “I don’t love you,” and the words surge through me. They shock me, hurt me, and expand into an abyss of anguish. If I could die right now, I would want to.

Pain. All there is is pain. I feel like someone has just plunged their fist into my chest and wrapped their fingers around my heart. They are squeezing and squeezing. There is blood everywhere. A crimson river trails down the length of their arm and when they yank their hand out of my chest cavity my organ is in their palm. But it doesn’t beat. They’ve killed it. And now I’m dead inside.

How could he say those things to me when he’d said the exact opposite hours earlier? How could he look me in the eye and utter, “I don’t love you. You were a challenge that’s all.”

Just about thinking about it breaks me a part all over again. Just thinking about those vile, evil words make me want to be sick.

Unless I was right and he was lying. An image of his face flashes behind my eyes. So cold, so emotionless, so lifeless. Not even a flicker of humanity inside of him. It hits me all at once. He wasn’t lying. He was telling the truth.

For the rest of the morning, I lie in my bed. What I want is to be like him. I want to be an android incapable of feeling. I want to be able to be programmed to turn the emotion on and off with the flick of a switch. But I can’t. No. In that moment, I make a promise to myself. It’s too easy to shut everything out. It’s too easy to walk through life hollow and empty. And even though a dull pain has been pumping through me since he left me on the kitchen floor, I know I’ll never want to be like him. I will always want to feel.

Questions continue, filling up my brain. What did he want me for then? Did he want me to stay there as a statue at his side? Don’t speak. Stand still. Look pretty. You’re wall décor.  A portrait hanging on the wall in his dreary home. He’d admire me thoughtfully and marvel at my beauty and think how much he enjoys having me on his wall, but that would be the extent of it.

I smother my face with my pillow and scream. I let the torture out. I let the pain out.  I scream away my heartbreak.

Later on that night, I sit on the back patio and stare at the moon. It’s full and bright and glowing, casting light spots and dancing shadows on portions of the back yard. I watch the shadows take form and whirl around sliding from tree trunks to the grass. Sounds of night; crickets chirping, and the pitter-patter of forest creatures feet hammers in my ears. I used to like the sounds that emerged after the sun went down. It reminds me that even after the sun sets that the earth is still alive. But not today. Today I want every sound to fade away and die. I want the silence to drown me.

Plodding footsteps cut into my thoughts and I turn to my right as the shadow of a person comes into view. Instinctively, I stand and that’s when Adonis, the beautiful boy from next door steps out of the shadows and into a glowing beam of moonlight.

“Persephone,” he gasps, jogging toward me. “You’re okay!” I sit back down and he sits down next to me. “I was worried,” he tells me as sincerity flashes in his melted chocolate brown eyes. “Your mom told me you were sick. Are you feeling better?”

I try to smile, but my lips only curl up half-way. Normally just looking at Adonis knocks the wind out of my lungs. But I felt the sliver of emotion I’d felt for him seep out of me the first time Hades kissed me. “Yes,” I reply weakly. “I’m better.” I’m not better. I’m worse. Much much worse.

Adonis flashes me a radiant smile and playfully nudges me with his shoulder. “I’m glad. So does that mean you’ll be in school tomorrow?”

“Probably not. I’m just getting my strength back. It might take a few more days.”

He scrunches his eyebrows together and looks at his hands. “Was it the flu or something?”

I turn my head. “Something like that.” I wonder if he can sense that I’m distant. I examine his face. No. He looks happy, smiling brightly, eyes sparkling, dimples indented in his cheeks.

“I heard you yesterday. I wanted to come over then, but I thought you might have wanted a day to yourself.”

“You heard me?”

“You were shouting. A name. Hades.”

“Oh,” I say, trying to keep calm on the outside. On the inside I’m panicking, racking my brain for another lie. In my moment of grief I forgot about the neighbors. I didn’t think anyone would hear me. “I was delusional. I had a fever,” was all I could come up with.

Adonis rests his palm against my forehead. The warm sizzle I used to feel when he touched me isn’t there. It’s just another sweaty palm. “Not anymore,” he muses. “You’re as cool as a cucumber.”

Adonis mentioning Hades punctures a hole in my heart all over again. I don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t want to think anymore. I want to lock myself away in a closet and never come out again. “I’m tired,” I announce as I stand. “I’m going to turn in for the night.”

He remains seated and a spark of concern resonates in his creamy brown eyes. “Persephone, wait.”

But I don’t wait. I turn on my heel, slamming the sliding glass door, and leaving Adonis alone on my back patio to admire the moon.

That night I dream of Hades again. But this time he doesn’t come to me. This time it’s like an out of body experience and I’m watching events unfold. We’re in the Hall of the Gods and Hades is on his knees in front of Hestia, Mom, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus. He hangs his head low and Zeus is shouting, his face red with fury, and he’s shaking a fist, but I can’t hear the words coming out of his mouth.

My heart palpitates. My breaths quicken. And before I know it I’m running then sliding on my knees next to Hades. I glimpse over my shoulder at the other God’s and Goddesses and shriek, “Stop! Stop it! He didn’t do anything wrong!” Then I try to cup his face with my hands, but they slip right through him. Frustrated and terrified for him, I throw the weight of my body into him, but once again I slip right through him. There is pain on his face and I swear I can see a miniscule tear dribble down his cheek.

Then it hits me and I bolt upright in my bed, gasping. Oh God. Hades projected the dream. He’s able to put images in my head. Yesterday… Yesterday he was lying. He wants them; the other God’s to think he doesn’t love me. He wants them to think he’s cut off communication. He’s trying to protect me from something. I know it. I can feel it.  But what is it that he’s protecting me from? My mom? Could it be Zeus?