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Authors: Lauren Hammond

Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #Mythology, #Young Adult, #Paranormal

Asphodel (5 page)

BOOK: Asphodel
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“I love how you’re acting so casual about this,” mom scoffs sarcastically. “Only pomegranates!” Her voice hikes. “Have you been away from Olympus too long, Zeus? Have you forgotten that pomegranates are the fruit of the dead? You know what will happen if she eats one.”

“Did she?”

“Did she what?”

“Eat one.”

“No,” mom huffs, shifting in her chair. “But she would have if I wouldn’t have walked into the kitchen and stopped her. And I think we both know what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped her. She’d be half-way across the Styx by now.”

There’s an awkward moment of silence. I hug my knees tighter as my legs start trembling. Tears swell in my eyes and I swallow hard, exhaling, rolling my head back, doing everything I can to keep my tears from spilling. Across the Styx? If I cross the Styx I know I can kiss the sunshine goodbye, I can forget the smell of wildflowers, I can forget the earth in its beauty and the living things that inhabit it. Goddess or not, I do know this; if you become one with the realm of the dead, you might as well consider yourself dead because there is a high probability that you’ll never come back.

Zeus lets out a frustrated sigh. “Demeter, he’s going to keep coming for her. You know you can’t stop him.”

“I can and I will, Zeus. I will not let him take my only daughter.” There’s a harsh tone of determination in mom’s voice.

“You’ve been running from him for five thousand years. Maybe it’s time that you two struck up some sort of bargain.”

“Have you lost your mind?” mom shrieks. “And besides, we wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you!”

Zeus slams his fist into the center of the table and I examine a crack as it travels from one end to the other. “I made a mistake!” he booms in a grizzly voice. “A mistake that I have regretted for the last five thousand! A mistake that you have never let me forget!”

“You’re the God of Gods. You shouldn’t make mistakes.” Mom’s tone is cold and brutal.

“Demeter, did I not go back on my deal with him? Have I not done everything in my power to keep you two safe? Have I not provided you with homes, hideouts, and financial stability? Have I not shielded her from him? I put up that time shield centuries ago, so he only has until midnight on her birthday to take her! And you know me, I’ve never been a God who goes back on his word. And I did that without a second thought, for you and her!”

“Obviously you haven’t kept her safe enough or really shielded her from him at all. He comes to her, you know? He’s been coming to her since right after we left Olympus.”

“Physically?”

“Not physically,” mom retorts. “You know Hades. He has other ways of making his presence known. Every seventeen years, the anniversary of the day you made the deal with him—her birthday.”

Zeus clears his throat. “So he speaks to her.”

I drown in my own thoughts for a second. Hades has never come to me physically before, but he did today. He came to me in my dreams and that makes me curious and frightened at the same time. Curious because I don’t have any answers to the questions, popping into my head every five minutes. Yes, I know who the voice is and now I know why we’ve been running, but it doesn’t make sense that Hades would chase me for five-thousand years because of a broken agreement. And I’m frightened because instead of just his voice, he’s physically coming to me and that can only mean one thing; there’s something different about this birthday. That something swirls around in my gut like nausea after eating a bad burrito. Something telling me, that this year, on this birthday, Hades might actually succeed.

“More like taunts her,” mom says. “He infiltrates her mind, filling her subconscious with his dark voice and it terrifies her. It started again at midnight. I rushed in her room to comfort her because she woke up screaming.”

“Why haven’t you told me about this?” Zeus inquires in a serious tone.

“Zeus, what are you going to do? Number one, Hades has never listened to you. You know he’s selfish and you know he will pursue what he wants at any cost. Two, you’ve chosen to be eternally absent from Persephone’s life.”

“You know as well as I do that’s not the case,” he growls.

Mom exhales, calming down. “Whatever. Zeus, we’re both on the same page now. We have to try and figure out a way to stop him.”

I’m torn between my feelings of hurt, terror, and anger. I’m hurt because of the way mom has kept everything hidden from me for all this time. Deep down inside, I know she was only doing it to protect me, but there’s a part of me that feels like I’ve had a knife in my back for the last five-thousand years. And now I feel the knife being wedged in deeper and deeper. The dull metal is inches away from my spinal cord, any closer and the cool blade of destruction will paralyze me.

Then anger trumps the hurt when I think of Zeus and how he struck up this deal with Hades. It didn’t matter that he went back on the deal. He should have never bargained with my life to begin with. Finally terror, terror is a school of hungry piranha’s, munching on my fleshy muscles, ripping the meat from my bones. It won’t be long before it eats me alive. Am I destined to live out my eternal existence in a world full of darkness and death?

I bury my face in my lap. I’m an emotional mess, an overflowing landfill with pieces of trash scattered everywhere and a rotting stench permeating the air. Nobody will clean me up. All they’ll do is bury me. Bury me with their lies, secrets, and empty promises. I lift my head and center on Zeus’s shin. The bulky muscle in his calf bulges as he shakes his leg. Fury twists in the core of my chest and my lungs expand as I huff violently.

I’m tired of being lied to. I’m tired of being kept in the dark. And it’s about time I let them know.

Chapter
VII

Persephone

R
ocking onto my tailbone, I fling my leg out as hard as I can and blast Zeus with the heel of my foot in the shin. Despite putting all of my effort into kick, it doesn’t even phase him. He doesn’t even flinch. I hear the puzzled tone in Zeus’s voice. “What the?” Then he lifts the tablecloth and looks me dead in the eye. His eyes are pools of blue with puddles of green around the irises. I scowl at him, angrily.

Mom shifts behind me. “Zeus, what is it?” The tablecloth rustles and a creak erupts from mom’s chair as she bends over. “Persephone!” she yells. “What on earth?”

I turn my head toward her, narrow my eyes, and try to breathe. Then I scramble out from underneath the table as they both sit up. I shoot daggers between them with my eyes. I don’t know what to say to whom first. Zeus stands and bursts out in a jovial, fake laugh. “Happy Birthday, Princess!”

“Zip it Zeus!” I shout.

Mom flies out of her chair and her abrupt departure sends the wooden seat crashing to the floor. “Don’t you talk to your father that way! How long were you under there?”

“For the whole damn conversation!”

“Don’t you take that done with me, Persephone!” Mom places her fists on her hips. “You’re supposed to be in school!”

“Well, thank the God’s I came home! If I hadn’t maybe then I would have never found out that I have liars for parents!”

“Don’t you dare,” mom gasps. Behind her I hear Zeus breathing heavily as mom and I continue to bicker with one another. She wags her finger in my face and I fold my arms across my chest. Suddenly a hiss and a sizzle interrupts our heated discussion. I glimpse over my shoulder and Zeus’s face is crimson, his jaw clenched and sparks fly out of his fingertips. He lifts his hands slowly as ball of thin white lines flash and swirl like a cyclone. He palms the lightning bolt. “ENOUGH!” I throw my arms up over my head, prepared to duck and cover.

Just as he raises his arm preparing chuck the bolt into the wall, mom rushes to his side and gets a firm grip on his arm. “Zeus! No!” She yanks hard on his raised arm and he slowly lowers it. “Calm down, Zeus,” she soothes him. Zeus lowers his head and meets my mother’s gaze. The bolt vanishes and he lets out a long, winded sigh.

“I’m done with this!” I run from the kitchen, ignoring mom and Zeus.

“Persephone! You come back here now!”

I don’t listen.

This is one time where I’m not going to be her naïve obedient daughter. This is one time where I’m not going to do what I’m told.

In my room, I lock the door, and then pace back and forth in front of my bed. The contents of my room blur in my vision. Sea green walls, cherry furniture, the white throw rug, pretty soon I feel like I’m partially blind because all the color swirl together. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe my mom. Most of all, I can’t believe that I hadn’t caught on to what was going on sooner.

The doorknob to my room turns abruptly. I stop mid-pace and glare at the brass knob as mom turns it with more force. Then she slams her first into the door. “Persephone! Open this door now!”

I don’t even want to hear her voice right now. I need to think. And besides, I know exactly what she’s going to say. She’s going to tell me she did this to protect me. I don’t mom knows what the definition of “protect” is.

Over the centuries she’s watched me wake up screaming—terrified. She’s watched me suffer through sleepless nights. She’s watched me live in fear of every seventeenth birthday, and the whole time she knew why the voice was coming to me. What kind of parent let’s their child suffer like that? What kind of parent watches their child in pain and keeps the secret of why their child is in pain in the first place?

The doorknob jingles again. “I’m serious Persephone! Open this door!” Mom turns the doorknob so hard I think it might snap off.

“No! Leave me alone!”

“Pack your things!” she shouts through the door. “We’re moving!”

I grind my teeth and a lowly breath leaves my slotted lips. “I am not moving again!”

Part of me thinks this a ruse; mom is just saying this to get me to open the door.

“Oh yes you are!” She tries twisting the knob again. “I’ve already purchased the plane tickets.” She lowers her voice. “This time we’re moving to Vermont. Remember how much you liked it the last time we lived there?”

“I am not moving!” I march over to the door, unlock it, and yank it open. “I refuse!”

Mom is propped up against the frame and she smiles. “Thank you for opening the door.” She brushes past me and sits down on my bed. Heat rises filling my cheeks with warmth and I glare at her furiously. I was right; it was all a ruse to get me to open the door.

Mom pats the spot on the bed next to her. “Sit down. We need to talk.” I ignore her and fold my arms across my chest. She shakes her head. “Quit being stubborn, Persephone.”

“You lied to me!” I snarl.

“Just because I didn’t tell you every single detail involving our moves does not mean I lied to you. I did this to protect you.”

“Really? Letting me suffer through centuries of sleepless nights is protecting me? It’s funny how parenting works.”

“You want to know the truth, don’t you? I’m about to tell you,” she says, sternly. “Now sit.”

I huff and sit down next to her. The soft mattress dips down and coils squeak. I don’t face her. I drop my head and the planks of the hardwood floors fill my gaze. “Tell me, then.”

Either way, I’m going to get something out of this conversation—some answers.

I lift my head, stealing a glimpse at mom out of the corner of my eyes. Mom adjusts herself scooting farther back on my bed. “Oh goodness, where do I begin?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” I say sarcastically. “How about the beginning?”

Mom gives me a hard look. “Lose the attitude.”

A gust of wind leaves my lungs as the heat evaporates from my cheeks and I start to calm down. “Fine.”

“Before you were born, Hades came to your father and asked him for a queen. He’d spent centuries in the underworld alone and his loneliness was finally getting to him. He longed for companionship. He longed to have someone to share a life with. So, even though your father shouldn’t have agreed to this deal, he did, agreeing to give you to Hades—to be his queen. And just days before your seventeenth birthday, Hades came for you. But Hades did not expect your father to go back on the deal. You see, after watching you grow up, Zeus had become attached to you and his love for you was greater than his word to Hades.”

Guilt seizes my insides and grips onto my heart. I feel terrible. “Zeus went back on his word for me?”

Mom nods. “He did.”

One thing I know about my dad is that he’s always been a God of his word. If he made a deal with someone he kept it. “I know he hates doing that.”

“He does.” Mom places her hand on my shoulder. “But that didn’t matter. It matter what your father said. Hades had already seen you. He’d been watching you from afar and was taken with you.” Mom lowers her voice and there’s a hint of sadness in her tone. “Your father tried to bargain with him. He tried to offer him another woman in place of you, but it was no use. Hades could not be bargained with. In his eyes, you were already his. Your father is a very powerful God, but, he has never been able to control Hades. Hades is the type of God who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He doesn’t take no for an answer. In the end, their debate over you ended in an explosive argument. Hades made it perfectly clear, that if your father didn’t hand you over, he would simply just take you. That night, your father came to me, informing me of what happened. Then he told me to take you and flee. So that’s exactly what I did.”

Even after listening to her explanation I still feel like a part of the story is missing. Most of all, I feel like Atlas. I’m holding the weight of the world on my shoulders. I hope I’m strong enough to keep the world up. I hope I don’t let it fall. Mom and Zeus have sacrificed so much to keep me safe. All of my anger dwindles away and now I’m not sure what to do. “What can we do to prevent him from taking me?”

Mom stares ahead, a blank expression on her face. “It’s harder for him to track us if we keep moving. He has so many tasks in the underworld that sometimes it takes him a while to find us. But eventually he does. He always finds us.”

“Why can’t we stand our ground? Are we going to have to do this for the rest of our immortal lives?”

BOOK: Asphodel
6.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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