Radiant Darkness (17 page)

   He's about to dismiss everyone to the banquet when I finally find my voice.

   "Tell us about Earth," I say, raising my head to look out over the throng. "Is the rain helping yet? Is the soil ready for planting?"

   "Soil?" asks a brawny man. "What soil? The rain is blasting down so hard, the fields are under water."

   A gray-haired woman shuffles forward. "It's not just the fields," she says. "Everything is flooding. A mud slide washed my town away. We're all here now. Every last one of us."

   Flooding? Mud slides? The words prick me, as sharp as brooches too hastily fastened. This is all wrong.

   "I tried to make it to the mountains, but I ended up here instead," says a shade.

   My hand is gripping the arm of the throne. It's almost as if the rain were a weapon instead of a blessing. . . .

   "The mountains? That wouldn't have helped you. That's where I'm from," comes another voice. "Water is bursting down the ravines like stampeding bulls."

   The voices and faces around me are dissolving into a blur. Desperation wells in my eyes, rises in my throat. This rain is no gift of reconciliation. No; it's just another tactic in my mother's plan. Drought wasn't working fast enough for her liking. She isn't going to stop until she's forced me back.

   I was wrong to fall asleep last night! I should have stayed up and told Hades everything! I need to talk with him right now, this minute, and explain what's behind all this. He'll know what to do.

   I turn to him, grabbing his hand, but when I see his expression, my words freeze.

   He's smiling.

   "You're
happy
?" I cry, throwing down his hand.

   "Calm down," he says sharply. "Not here."

   "Yes, here! Earth is washing away and you're
happy
?"

   "Earth isn't my realm. It isn't my place to fix it." His smile has disappeared. "We'll talk later."

   "We never talk later!"

   But even as the words ring in the air, a horrible realization is shoving its way into my head. I jump to my feet.

   "You
want
everyone to die!"

   Hades surges up from the throne to tower over me. His voice booms across the room, shaking the rafters.

   
"OF COURSE I WANT PEOPLE TO DIE! I'M LORD
OF THE DEAD! THAT'S WHO I RULE!"

   A collective gasp rises from the crowd. Most of the shades fall to their knees.

   But I'm not giving up. "And more death gives you more power. Is that it? Is that what you want?"

   "Yes, by Cerberus!" he thunders back. "It gives me power. It gives
us
power. And there's nothing wrong with that."

   Each word hits me like a blow.

   The guides start scurrying around, shepherding shades toward the doors and away from our shouting match.

   "But everyone is suffering! These are
people
, Hades, with names and lives and children. You need to help me. I need to go back to Earth and—"

   "You're not going!" His voice is an iron gate slamming shut. "And we won't discuss this again
."

   He turns from me and strides down the steps, out the door.

   "Oh, yes we will!" I shout after him. But my husband, the power-hungry tyrant, is already gone.

I
rip off the clanking jewelry and dump it on my floor, then bury it under the cursed blue chiton. Waves. Water. Like that was going to be the solution to everything.

   I need to get out of this palace and into my garden where I can breathe again. All the way down the hall I'm swearing under my breath.

   The years my mother spent trimming my branches weren't enough for her. No, she's got to yank me up by my roots and pound me back down where she thinks I belong. How could she do this? How? Does she have any idea how many people she's killed in her little game?

   I shudder, and I don't know if it's from anger or fear.

   There's my mother, flinging her power around like thunderbolts, and there's Hades, enjoying the results, and then there's me. Me, as blind as a mole, pretending I'm making things better for mankind with my stupid little garden and my stupid little questions from the throne. As if they made a difference to anyone.

I come stomping into the garden so hard, I practically crash into the pomegranate bush, and damn if that red orb doesn't plop right off its stem and land in a cushion of mint below.

   "Well," says Melita, "look what just blew in."

   She picks up the pomegranate, sheltering it in her hands, then looks back up at me. "What happened to you?"

   "We were wrong. It's not better. Nothing's better." I crumple to the ground. The downpour, the flooded fields, whole towns slipping away—I describe it all.

   "Are you sure? Were you there in the throne room? Did they let you come in?"

   "I was there. I heard it with my own ears. What am I going to do?"

   She puts down the pomegranate and reaches for my hand. "Do? We can't do anything but pray. Me, I'll pray my family is safe in the mountains. I'll pray my husband reaches home. I'll pray the gods can save them."

   "Save them? What makes you think that's what they want to do?"

   Suddenly I need to tell her everything. Melita, with her big fat heart and her common sense. She knows me so well; maybe, just maybe, she'll still love me in spite of my immortality. She's the only one in this whole mess who listens to me. She'll help me figure out what to do.

   Or she'll leave.

   Take your pick.

   I try to open my mouth. Nothing comes. A nutshell too green to crack. A clam smothered in seaweed.

   She shakes her head at my stuttering, then stands and pulls me up. She grabs a collecting bag and a spade. "You need something to do," she says. "Keep your hands busy and you won't have time to worry. Come on, we're going collecting."

   She steers me downhill, toward the Lethe. "I saw a patch of white anemones the other day, near that pale poplar. There are plenty to spare for the garden. Come on."

   With every step I'm struggling to find my words. As we near the Lethe's undulating banks, its voice gets louder, that soft, seductive song promising a perfect embrace, calling me to step closer, closer, closer—

   "No!" I jerk to a stop. Words come out but not the ones I wanted. "I can't go any farther."

   Or I might go in.

   "Too tired?"

   "I just can't."

   "Then wait here for a minute. We're so close. I'll go dig up a few plants, and we'll head back together."

   Without waiting for an answer, she walks toward the poplar.

   "Everything can be easy," the river sings, "easy, easy."

   I sit down and clamp my hands over my ears as hard as I can.

   Melita walks past a small group of people and takes out her spade. But then she swivels around hard, staring at something.

   What is it?

   She drops the spade and throws her arms open wide. I can see her mouth opening as she calls to someone. Then she's running and clasping one of the dripping figures. The object of her embrace, a short older woman, just stands there.

   Melita takes a step back, a confused look on her face. She's yelling something. She's shaking the woman back and forth.

   I leap up and start running over as other shades pull Melita away from her sweetly bemused victim.

   Tears sheen down Melita's face. "How could you?" she's yelling, the other shades holding her back. "How could you leave her?"

   The woman is oddly, eternally smiling. She turns back to the riverbank as if Melita weren't even there, and sits, dangling her feet in the water. Bliss radiates from her face.

"Mama!" shouts Melita. "Where is she? Where's Philomena?"

   I peel her out of the strangers' hands and wrap my arms around her. "Melita, come on. We've got to get away from here."

   I steer her up the path from the river, shoving to keep her moving. The sight of her mother terrified me. She was so happy, so empty. So gone.

   "There's no point staying here," I say, talking loudly to drown out that insidious song. "Your mother can't tell us anything now. Let's go back to the garden. We'll talk there."

   "Persephone, don't you see?" She clutches my arm. "If my mother's here, who's with Philomena?"

   I try to make my voice soothing. "Your husband may be home."

   "What if he's shipwrecked? What about the flood?"

   "Then neighbors will take her in. She'll be all right, Melita."

   "Neighbors! Why should they care? It's my neighbors who left their newborn daughter on the hillside." She stops walking. Her voice hardens. "I have to go back. Everything's different now. My daughter needs me."

   She stares along the path, her eyes stopping where it disappears into the trees. "I can cross back over the way I came. I'll wait until the ferryman isn't there. The water didn't look very deep."

   "There's Cerberus, remember? If you saw his teeth, you'd know! You can't cross the Styx. No one can."

   She isn't listening. I reach up and shake her shoulders.

   "Don't even think about it," I say. "You'd die."

   "I'm already dead."

   "But not like that!"

   "Look," she says. "People might help when times are good, when everything's easy. But in times like this, only a mother will do whatever it takes to rescue her child."

   She plucks my hands off her shoulders. "My mother's gone. My husband's gone. I'm the only one who can save Philomena now."

My ears are ringing.

Only a mother will do whatever it takes to rescue her child.

   I hear Melita's words over and over, but I don't see her anymore. I see my mother.

   Is that what she's trying to do? Rescue me?

   I worry the idea around like a toothless dog trying to grasp a bone.

   Impossible! She's trying to punish me. Anyone can see I don't need rescuing. What does she think I am, a kidnap victim?

   
You didn't leave a note. How was she supposed to know?

   But it was obvious I wanted to leave the vale! And someone must have told her I'm fine. No, she wants to be my jailor!

   
Your savior
.

She doesn't care what I want!

She doesn't know why you came.

This is about power!

It's about love.

   Suddenly time spirals back to the night before I left. I see my mother's palm pressed to my forehead, and her eager expression, like a traveler on a doorstep hoping to be let in. And back: now her hands are on mine at the loom, her body steadies my small body from behind as I reach from my stool to the high threads. And back: until her hand is reaching far down to mine as we stand in a field of rich earth, the vibration of her song rising in me like water pulled up a stem.

   And again I hear Melita's words:
Only a mother will do
whatever it takes to rescue her child.

   The voices in my head whip around like a tornado, whirling the good and the bad together so fast, all I see is the blur, and all I feel is the wind.

I open my eyes.

   No one. Grass. Weeds. Collecting bag. Trowel lying on the earth.

   How long was I gone? I swivel back toward the Lethe, scanning back and forth, panic rising in my throat.

   "Melita?"

   I don't see her by the riverbank or up ahead on the path to the garden—

   But on the road toward the Styx, a small figure is running, arms pumping.

   "Melita!"

   She's almost up to the trees, and past the trees lies the bend of that dark river, and Cerberus pacing the banks, his teeth like swords, sharp enough to slash through bone.

   I don't have any choice. I run.

H
ow long has she been past that last curve into the trees? I'm running so hard, my lungs are on fire.

   "Melita!"

   The only sounds I hear in return are the slap of my feet, the clatter of spewing pebbles, my ragged breath.

   But as I round the bend, there's a terrible new sound: a growling so deep, it's like the bottom of the ocean, a snarl from three throats joined in a fearsome chord.

   I shudder to a stop. There's Melita, up to her thighs in the dark, eddying Styx. It swirls her chiton around her legs, trying to tug her under. And on the close shore stands Cerberus, but Cerberus as I've never seen him. He's like a huge arrow drawn taut in the bow, about to be released toward its target. Six eyes flicker bits of flame; three heads bare teeth in hypnotic snarls.

   Suddenly the invisible string twangs and Cerberus leaps. The raging water parts before him as easy as air. Melita raises her hands, screaming, and Cerberus is splashing and snarling and Melita's cries soar skyward—

   And then a third voice splits the air down the middle. A voice of power. A voice of command.

   My voice.

   
"Cerberus! Stop!"

   The beast pauses, ears pricked. He turns one head my way. The other two are still growling at Melita, but at least he sees me.

   "Come here.
Now
, Cerberus."

   He turns reluctantly, clambers out of the Styx, and trots to my side. There's still fire in his eyes, but he forces himself to sit like a well-trained hunting dog, waiting for the words that release him to capture his prey.

   I hear his hoarse panting, and the relentless river, and then:

   "Who
are
you?" asks Melita.

   Her eyes are full moons. Her skin has gone dead white. And she's staring, not at Cerberus, but at me. Me, standing there, my hand on the great beast's head.