Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) (32 page)

Sophie laughed, remembering. “When I was juggling peaches?”

“Yeah. While talking about how to make a pie. For a second, anyway.”

“Hey, I got four in the air before I dropped them.”

He leaned his temple on his knuckles. “I watched it three or four times in a row. I thought…you were the cutest thing I’d ever seen.”

Sophie’s crush leaped a few steps ahead, landing within reaching distance of love.

“And then I thought, ‘Oh well, she’s in America, I’m never going to meet her,’” Adrian added, and glanced at her. “Still, I made the pie the way you said.”

“How’d it turn out?”

“Pretty good. Well, I messed up the crust a little. But the fruit part tasted great. I used your suggestion of less sugar and more spice.”

“The whole world would be better off if people used less sugar and more spice.”

His boot tapped her leg. “Spoken like a nutritionist.”

She rested her elbows on the table. “So when you learned who I was—who Persephone was these days—you must have been surprised it was, you know, the peach girl.”

He shrugged. “I was and I wasn’t. As I started remembering past lives, it became evident we kept finding each other. I couldn’t sense you at first, not before becoming immortal, so I had to ask Rhea who you were. She knew; she could sense you. And she told me your name, and there you were online. It was only a few months after I’d seen that peach post, and I had checked your blog a couple of times since. Finding out it was you—you were her—I don’t know, it mostly felt right. Surprise, then relief. Someone who was clearly a good person, not to mention around my age. And hot.” He glanced at her with a grin.

“Is that when you started commenting on my blog?”

“Yeah. I didn’t say anything till after I found out.”

“You erased all your comments lately,” she accused. “I went looking for them.”

“I had to, in case it endangered you to be associated with me. Way too late, of course. Thanatos already noticed. But I figured I might as well not leave them up.”

“But now I don’t
have
them anymore. I wanted to see what we said.”

“Oh. I kept them.” He leaned down and pulled his laptop from his pack on the floor. “Saved each page. Want to see?”

“Yes!” She happily scooted around the table to sit beside him on his bench, and for the rest of the hour they read their old comment threads. In each of Sophie’s posts, she began with a fruit or vegetable recipe or nutritional information, and wrapped up with something going on in her life at the time, usually related somehow to the featured food. Kiwi Ade had commented regularly on both the food and the daily-life parts, and their discussions tended to go back and forth for two or three comments apiece on each post. They somehow got onto the topics of music, television, movies, political news, and once even mythology.

“Maori, though, not Greek,” Sophie observed.

“Yeah. Mum’s about half Maori, half other South Sea Islanders. Dad’s white—British ancestors mostly—but with black hair like us.”

Tenderness blossomed in her mind as she remembered his words about his mother’s death, the first day they’d officially met. Sophie had been so shaken by the video of Grandpop, she’d barely been able to process Adrian’s story at the time. She interlaced her fingers with his, ready to offer more comfort today. “You said you still see her, in the Underworld?”

Adrian nodded. “Haven’t been down for a while, though. Been over here instead.”

“You should take me. I could visit Grandpop again, and maybe meet her…and I want to see the place again, now that I’m remembering so much.”

He squeezed her hand. “Of course. Anytime you like.”

She gazed at their thumbs sliding against one another. “Why didn’t you come find me a long time ago?”

“Would you have wanted me to?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

He took a while to answer, tapping his thumb up and down as if counting something. “When I was disabled, I tended to get pity from people a lot. I was used to it, but I didn’t want it from you. I didn’t want to risk it. So I thought I’d wait to see if the immortality fruit worked. And if it did, I’d try then.”

“But you
didn’t
try then. You’ve been immortal how long now, a year? And you only just came for me.”

“Not quite a year. But yeah. When I ate the fruit, life suddenly got very complicated. I had to explain everything to Dad, and make up a story for the other people I knew. Niko and Sanjay and Freya were eating the fruit and going through their changes…and just when I was getting up the nerve to approach you, Sanjay got killed. And we all went on high alert and started being very careful who we spoke to. Soon after that, someone shot me, and I had to move into the other realm to avoid putting Zoe or Dad or anyone else in danger. Rhea was upset about all the violence, so we promised her, no new immortals for a while, maybe a year; till we felt safer. I spent a while building the bus, making sure I could drive it safely, making the Underworld livable—bringing in furniture and all. But…I really wanted to meet you, and they knew it. Niko kept tempting me. ‘She’d like you. She’d be into it. Let’s go see her.’”

“And eventually you gave in.”

“Yeah.” He leaned back against the wall, pulling her with him, their shoulders together. “I said, ‘All right, bro. When she goes to uni. Will you help me?’ And of course he was delighted to help.” Adrian grinned. “Been a while since he’d pulled off a good heist.”

They clung together on the short flight back to Corvallis. The bus’s speed vaporized the rain into a mist that sprinkled them from all directions. Laughing, they endured it, coats buttoned up, wool blanket wrapped around them both.

Adrian landed the bus in the meadow. The rain pattered on the metal roof, and fell straight through the glowing horses, who twitched their ears calmly.

“Back to homework?” Adrian asked, with a regretful smile.

“Yeah.” Sophie gazed at his eyelashes, dampened and thickened by the mist.

“Maybe tomorrow if you—”

Sophie cut off his pleasantries with a long kiss on the mouth. He turned to embrace her, one hand at her waist, the other cupping her face. The hand on her waist felt warm from being under the blanket; the other cold from holding the reins. They kissed for a full minute or two, shifting closer, fingers slipping into each other’s hair.

Finally separating, breathless, they rested a moment with their noses together.

“Do they say ‘snog’ in New Zealand?” Sophie asked.

Adrian grinned. “Occasionally. Could say ‘pash.’”

“Pash? Were we ‘pashing’ just now?”

“Oh yeah, that was a choice pash. Sweet as, bro,” he assured, treating her to what she assumed was his broadest Kiwi accent.

She laughed in delight. “What are you doing the rest of the day?” she asked, reluctant to let go of him.

“Work. Got a spreadsheet full of anonymous tips to call in to various police precincts. Promised the murdered souls I would, but haven’t got to it yet. Some Underworld god I am.”

“Still. Once again, I am impressed. You do important work.”

“Suppose. If the tips lead to an arrest and conviction, then yeah, it’ll change someone’s life.”

She sat up, straightening her damp coat. “All I’ve got going on is a Communications essay. Which definitely will not be changing lives.”

“Much less morbid, though.” He sounded like he was honestly trying to cheer her up. She repaid him for the attempt with another few kisses.

But after they said goodbye, and she set off in the drizzle toward her dorm, she let herself dwell on the unspoken invitation in his eyes:
Come be an Underworld god with me, and you could change lives, too.

“I’m thinking about it, honey,” she whispered. “Give me time.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

H
ER CLASS THE NEXT MORNING
plodded drearily compared to the time spent with Adrian. She gazed at the diagram of a molecule her chemistry teacher was sketching on the whiteboard, and thought how she could blow open the professor’s world by bringing him various Underworld substances to examine under a microscope. For a moment it excited her: a future in which she became a scientist of some variety, and also became immortal and married Adrian and used her expertise to understand and explain the magic of the spirit realm.

Yeah, except before she got to do all that, someone might strap Adrian and Sophie to bombs and kill them.

She got up at the end of the lecture and trudged out into the cool air with the other students.

“Mind if we talk a little?”

Sophie looked over in alarm. The voice was female, and she feared it might be Quentin or some other Thanatos representative. But it was Rhea, wearing a long gray raincoat over a black paisley-patterned dress, walking with hands in pockets as comfortably as if she were one of the students.

Sophie beamed. “Hi. How’d you find me? Never mind. Dumb question. Yes, please, let’s talk.”

Among some tall trees near the library, they found a hidden spot where Rhea wrapped her arms around Sophie and transferred her into the other realm. Sophie glanced around for Adrian’s trailer or for Adrian himself, but Rhea said, “It’s just us today. Adrian’s at work in the Underworld.”

Abashed, Sophie ducked her head. “Oh. That’s fine.”

“I imagine you have a lot of questions.” They began strolling along the hillside.

“Not as many as I had the first day. But yes, I do have some.”

“You’ve probably realized that the main reason I didn’t want to bring you into the secrets yet was because of Thanatos. They’ve become dangerous. We had agreed, no new immortals for a while, until we better understand the threat.”

Thinking of her father, who unknowingly possessed a former goddess’ soul, Sophie nodded. What if he regained his youth and strength, and was rewarded by Thanatos blowing up their house in Carnation and killing her whole family? She shivered. “I wouldn’t want to put anyone in danger. And I hate these Thanatos people, from what I’ve seen of them.”

“I’m sorry they’ve bothered you. Keep doing as you have been: saying nothing about us. Not in person and not even under other names on the…” Rhea hesitated. “Website?” She gave Sophie a questioning glance, as if asking whether she’d chosen the right newfangled word.

“The Internet. The web. Online. Right, I’ll keep quiet.”

Rhea smiled. “I can’t fault Adrian for pulling you in. We all think you’re wonderful. And clearly he loves you, as he always did.”

Happiness bloomed in Sophie’s chest. “I don’t know about now,” she admitted, “but I believe he did in past lives.”

“Of course he does now. I can see him catch fire when he talks about you.” It would have sounded odd to Sophie, except she recognized the direct translation of a phrase people used to say in the pre-ancient-Greek she and the others once spoke. It was the equivalent of saying someone’s face lit up.

“I couldn’t stay angry with him,” Rhea added, “when he waited so long to meet you, and when it makes him so happy to be with you.”

She could get addicted to hearing such things. Sophie basked in it a moment, then returned to business. “He’s been great. But I’m glad you came to see me. I’ve been curious about
your
life. My memories don’t seem to cover it much.”

“I can tell you some things.” Rhea paused at a large fallen log covered in moss, tested its surface with her long fingers, then sat upon it.

Sophie joined her, setting her backpack on the ground.

“To begin with ‘How old am I?,’” Rhea said, “the answer is I don’t know exactly. But it’s over four thousand years.”

“Holy cow.”

“I wasn’t awake for most of them. When the other immortals were killed, and I was the only one left…well, I tried being the Underworld goddess a while, the way some of you used to be, but I found it too lonely. Finally I resolved to sleep. There is—or rather, was—a fruit in the Underworld that killed mortals and put immortals into a deep slumber. The sleep could last months.”

Sophie circled her fingers in the moss. “I remember that. Sort of. It was some kind of berry I planted.”

“Yes. It still grew there at the time. I ate that and then crawled into a tiny cave and slept. Every time I woke, I ate more—I had brought dried berries with me. They work just as well whether dried or fresh. I grew weaker and weaker, going so long without other food, until finally I stayed asleep in a sort of…what do they call it?”

“Coma?”

“Yes, a coma. Then one day, I heard someone speaking of Hades and Persephone. It was a pair of the souls, wandering near the cave where I lay. The names resurrected me. I awoke and managed to crawl out from under all the rocks and dirt and hair that had piled up on me.”

“Hair?” Sophie repeated.

Rhea flashed a grin. “My hair had grown while I slept. I was still alive, after all. It grows as long as my ankles before each hair falls out and starts fresh. So years and years’ worth of long, long hair had fallen out and grown and fallen out again, and was wrapped all over me like a nest.” Sophie supposed her face must have displayed her horror, because Rhea nodded wryly upon glancing at her. “I was a terrible mess. I’m sure I looked like an animal.”