Daughter of the Earth and Sky (2 page)

I kept trying to get over seventeen years of deception. But somehow knowing it was in my best interest wasn’t enough to forgive her for keeping my divinity…my life…
everything
about me a secret. She’d let me think I was human, but I wasn’t, and some part of me had always
felt
different from all the people around me, so I’d just grown up thinking I was a freak. That something was
wrong
with me. As much as I wanted to make things right between me and my mom again, I didn’t think that was something I could get over.

Mom rolled her eyes and handed me the mug of hot chocolate. “You haven’t been very honest with me either. Zeus lives?”

I squirmed in my seat. “I didn’t know how you would feel about the news. You never talk about him.” I watched her closely as she poured herself a fresh cup of tea. She seemed to be taking it well. I felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Keeping that secret for three months had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done.

“Don’t worry about me.” She set the tea down on the table. “I do wish you had told me earlier. You don’t need to get involved with whatever this is, Persephone. When Zeus sets his mind to something—”

“Why aren’t you surprised?” It had taken Hades weeks to stop referring to Zeus in the past tense, and Mom hadn’t even paused in pouring her tea. The truth dawned on me with a horrible certainty. “You knew?” She didn’t meet my eyes. “Answer me! Did you know Zeus was alive? Yes or no?”

Just because a god can’t lie doesn’t mean they’re always telling the truth. They’d had millennia of practice misleading people.

She lifted her chin. “Don’t take that tone with me.”

“Are you
really
hiding things from me again?”

Her green eyes cut to me with a withering mom-look. “I’m not the only one who’s hidden things.”

I laughed in disbelief. “I bet you’ve been waiting for months to be able to say that. Not telling you about Zeus made me feel sick. I couldn’t stand misleading you, but
you
…” I waved my hand. “You can’t really believe that’s even in the same category as letting me believe my father was dead?”

“He is not your fa—” The lie caught in her throat. She closed her eyes and exhaled, putting her fingers to her temples. “What I mean to say is that you can’t view Zeus as a father.”

I still couldn’t wrap my head around the way gods viewed family. Most gods are created, not born, so there are no genetic ties. They don’t think of each other as brothers or sisters or daughters or sons. Which in a way was good, because otherwise my marriage to Hades would be really weird. But I hadn’t been raised like most gods. I’d grown up thinking I was human, and my mom was still my
mom.
And my dad…I’d spent my whole life wondering about him, and now I was just supposed to disregard him because gods don’t think of each other that way? I couldn’t do it. “Maybe he wants to be more than nothing.” The handle of the mug bit into my hand. I hadn’t meant to sound hopeful, but Mom didn’t miss the plaintive note in my voice.

She stiffened and leaned across the table, eyes wide. “Persephone, if we’re lucky, Zeus doesn’t even know you exist.”

So she didn’t tell him about me either.
I guess that wasn’t surprising. “We’re way past him knowing I exist! He sent Boreas after me. He wants me for something. Maybe…maybe he just wants to get to know me?”

My mother’s face paled. “Zeus doesn’t care about anyone but himself. The only thing he wants from anyone is to use them up and to throw them away.”

I nodded, my throat aching from holding back tears. I knew she was right. If Zeus had amicable intentions, he wouldn’t have sent Boreas. He would have come himself. I’d heard enough about Zeus to know how horrible he was, but I’d never heard anything from Mom. And, judging from the expression on her face, I wasn’t about to learn anything new.

My father had been a closed topic my whole life, but it never stopped me from wondering. I’d invented stories, imagining that he was a secret agent, or a rock star, or something. In most of my fantasies he was dead, because what other reason could there possibly be to leave your wife and child? As I grew older, I realized calling my mom his wife may have been the wrong assumption. I’d wondered if she even knew who my father was. But nothing had prepared me for the truth.

I’d secretly hoped my father was someone famous, but never imagined that fame would be for sleeping with everything with a pulse and making humans miserable.

“When?” I asked finally. “When did Zeus escape the Underworld?”

“He never died.”

“But Hades
saw
him in the Underworld when Olympus fell and the rest of the gods died.” I still wasn’t clear on how that had worked, but gods lived off human worship. Without it, they died. By the time Olympus fell, the gods’ power had been fading away for want of worship for centuries. The smarter gods, like my mom, had paid attention to all the signs and stocked up on worshipers by cursing them with immortality. Others, like Hades, were just so powerful already that it didn’t matter. Undead worship is still worship, so he’d never lost a single follower. The rest weren’t so lucky.

While a handful of other gods were still alive, none of them were as powerful as they’d been before. Most of the power my mom had went to keeping her alive. Hades could do quite a bit more, but his power maintained his whole realm. It was a heavy burden. So the gods pretty much lived like regular people now. That was part of why mom had tried to raise me like a human. So many gods failed to adapt to the lifestyle and burnt what little power they had left. She didn’t want that for me, so being human was all I knew. But of course
that
had come with its own price.

Mom shook her head. “Hades assumed Zeus died when the rest did, so he extended Zeus a personal invitation to Olympus. Olympus is different from the rest of the Underworld. It was Zeus’ realm, so he was able to come and go until his powers dwindled away. He lost his ability to return to Olympus a while ago.”

“How long have you known?”

“You’re seventeen. Do the math.”

I gaped at her, “You said that you waited until the world was safe to have me.” She’d made it sound like she’d had some sort of crazy everlasting pregnancy.

“I 
did
 wait until the world was safe to have you. You weren’t unplanned.”

“Do you even know how to tell the truth?” I was far too angry to heed the disapproving look my tone provoked.

“Persephone—”

“Don’t!” I stood so fast the chair knocked over and fell to the floor with a crash. “There’s no point in listening to you if you never actually
say
anything. I’m going to Cumberland Island to figure out what that dream meant. If I’m lucky, Poseidon will give straighter answers than you do.”

Something akin to fear flashed across her face, but it was gone before I could figure out what it was. “Persephone, Zeus is a powerful enemy, and he didn’t want anyone to know he was alive. That’s why I misled you. I don’t want you getting involved in this.” She spoke calmly, as though she thought laying down the law meant I would obey.

Did she know me so little? Did she think her opinion even counted anymore?

“I
have
to go,” I argued. “Who knows what he’s up to? It could affect all of us!”

Mom must have heard the conviction in my voice because she stopped arguing and said, “I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

“Persephone, I know we’ve practiced using your abilities all summer, but you’re not ready to try anything on your own yet.”

“I know. That’s why you’re going to give Hades permission to travel to this realm and come with me.” Hades didn’t technically need permission, a fact that became obvious when he surfaced last year to take me to the Underworld, but trespassing into another god’s realm was not something to be taken lightly. Everything would go much smoother with her consent.

“What?” my mother demanded, brow furrowing. “Gods, no! If you’re going at all, I am going with you, not that—”

“Be very careful what you say next. That’s my husband you’re about to insult.”

She threw her hands up in the air and stood. “A technicality.”

I took a deep breath and tried to still my shaking hands. There was a time to be angry, but this wasn’t it. I needed to be logical. “I trust him, in a way that I can’t trust you.”

“Persephone!” Mom tucked her chair under the table with more force than necessary.

“He’s never lied to me, never misled me, and he saved my life on more than one occasion. I need someone at my back whom I can trust, and at the moment you don’t fit that bill.”

“I—”

“Did what you thought was best for me, I know.” At her surprised look, I rolled my eyes. “Gods, Mom, I’m not stupid. I didn’t think you were lying to be mean. You’re my mother; you love me. But you keep trying to protect me when all I really need is to know what’s going on. If Zeus really is as dangerous as you say, then I’m going to need someone who will tell the truth, not what they think will be easiest to hear.”

She fell silent for a long moment. “Fine,” she acquiesced. “You can go tell Hades.”

“I told him before I came downstairs. He should be here soon.”

She grimaced. “Of course you did.”

I tensed, ready for another argument about how I spent too much time with him. A sharp knock at the door saved me from the familiar lecture. I threw the latch to let Hades in.

“Hello.” He gave me a rakishly handsome grin.

My knees felt weak, and I’m sure I turned three shades of red, but he had the grace to ignore it.

“Demeter.” He nodded his head.

She nodded back and turned her attention to me. Her green eyes flickered over me, and the corners of her mouth turned up in an amused grin. “Persephone, I’m sorry but I can’t allow you to leave in that.”

Hades glanced at me, and I followed his gaze down to my Eeyore nightshirt. We shared a look. I did have to go get dressed, but I didn’t want to leave Hades to be interrogated by my mother. He gave a slight nod, and I sighed and raced upstairs.

Their murmured voices drifted up the stairs behind me. When I reached my room, I threw open my closet and switched on the light. What in the world was I going to wear…?

Forget what I was going to wear! Hades was downstairs with my mom. Alone! Who knew what she was saying to him? I threw on a floral printed dress, ran a brush though my hair, yanked on a pair of sandals, and ran down the stairs.

“…
not angry,” Hades was saying. “I know better than anyone how intimidating Zeus can be.”

I paused on the last step, standing behind the wall. The soft light cast shadows of my mother and Hades on the pine floor before me.

Her voice was barely a whisper. “Hades, I don’t want her involved with any of this.”

I stared hard at the yellow wallpaper with lines of miniature pink roses.

“Normally I’d agree with you,” Hades replied. “But, I think she needs to do something. She’s terrified; I can feel it. You know her better than I do, surely you’ve noticed.”

“Of course she’s terrified. She watched her best friend die, and then she killed someone!” Mom’s breath caught, and she lowered her voice. “She can’t handle any more of this—”

“What? ‘God stuff’? This is her life, Demeter, whether you want to admit it or not, and honestly, I don’t think she’s mature enough to sit things out when she’s in over her head. Look at what happened with Boreas.”

You mean besides me saving the day?
I wondered. Yes, going after Boreas alone had been stupid, but they kept overlooking that everything had ended up more or less okay. Melissa was back from the dead, and Zeus didn’t have me yet. I called that a win.

“I didn’t say she wouldn’t
want
to get involved, Hades.” Glasses clinked against the kitchen sink, and there was a sudden rush of water. “I said she shouldn’t. She’s not mature enough to sit out when she’s over her head, but that doesn’t mean you give in and let her.”

“Yeah, I’m really not going to handle her that way.” Hades sounded amused.

“If you can’t handle a little immaturity, then maybe you shouldn’t rob the cradle.”

I could almost hear the muscles in Hades’ jaw tighten. “I don’t need to
handle
your daughter, Demeter. I need to step out of her way and let her handle herself. In case you haven’t noticed, she has a way of getting things done. Now, I could tell her to stay home, and you could watch her like a hawk, but you and I both know that she’d do everything she could to slip past you and end up on Poseidon’s beach, alone. And neither one of us wants that.”

“I just wish it wasn’t Poseidon.”

There was something in Mom’s voice. Vulnerability? Fear? I frowned. Poseidon was one of the good guys, wasn’t he?

“I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Your concern for my seventeen-year-old daughter is touching,” she said dryly.

I walked off the last step with a stomp. They fell silent when they heard me.

“I’m ready,” I said in a cheerful voice, rounding the corner.

“You’ll call me when you get there?” Mom asked, sounding exactly like any other worried mother.

“Of course. Oh, and I used your card for the thing.”

She blinked. “The thing?”

“UGA.”

“Ah, yes. Good luck with that.”

I cocked my head and stared at her in surprise. She sounded sincere. “Thank you.” I gave her a hug and walked down the wooden steps of our porch with Hades.

I froze mid-step when I saw a pink, unicorn-shaped bag, complete with legs, a tail, and a stuffed head, on the hood of my yellow bug. “What is
that
?”

Hades gave me a confused look. “Your luggage. I hope you’ll forgive me for putting a few of your things in my bag. Cassandra said you’d forget to pack, and she was insistent that you’d want your bag, but it doesn’t have a lot of room in it…” He trailed off, looking between my amused expression and the unicorn. “That’s not yours, is it?”

I giggled, imagining him carrying that bag all the way here. Cassandra was a prophet who’d died in the Trojan War. She was Hades’ most trusted advisor, but she got bored easily. Picking on Hades was her favorite pastime. “Nope. How long will we be gone?”