Radiant Darkness (5 page)

   "He?" Has she seen him, then, in his chariot, his four black horses?

   "Stop wobbling the boat, Persephone. He's a river god, with blue-green skin and wave-green eyes. He's young and strong, and when he whispered in my ear . . ." Her lids droop, as if all her energy is getting sucked inside, to the place where her heart is beating.

   Kallirhoe gives an appreciative sigh. Even Ianthe looks dreamy. I relax and trail my fingers in the lake, sketching lines for a moment before they disappear into nothing again.

   Then Galaxaura blows the mood away with a blast of reality. "What does your father say?"

   "My father? You think I'd tell him?" Admete gives a hard little laugh. "Once he remembers I'm here, he'll marry me off like he did with my sisters. I'll get some stodgy old man with a great pedigree. Someone who's already gray. And flabby." She shudders. "No, the second my father finds out, that's the end of my fun."

   Ianthe glances around again. "And what about Demeter? What if she hears you've been lying?"

   "Calm down, Ianthe," I say. "Admete isn't exactly lying; she's just neglecting to mention something. It's different."

   Ianthe shakes her head. "I think you should be careful, that's all. Deception sows some dangerous crops."

   She doesn't understand. You can't always tell everyone everything. Sometimes you have to cheat, just a little tiny bit, to get what you want. It won't hurt anybody.

   Admete isn't really listening to us. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, and it's obvious she's with her river god again. "It was quiet except for lapping waves, and moonlight was dancing on the water, and when he kissed me . . ."

   The rest of us lean so far in her direction, the boat tilts.

   "Tell us!" begs Kallirhoe.

   But Admete doesn't say another word. She's lost in a moonlit cove, blue-green arms wrapped around her glistening skin.

W
e sit closer. His hand is only a few inches from mine on the grass. He's wearing a golden ring with that three-headed dog on it, the same snarling beast that guards his chariot. I want to trace the raised outline.

   He still hasn't touched me.

   "Why do you come here, really?" I ask.

   "You intrigue me, Persephone."

   He seemed to know my name from the start; I suppose I told it to him. When he says, "Persephone," his deep voice flows all around me, warm, like a caress.

   But do I know his name? No—and what's more, I haven't even asked him. I've had plenty of chances. Maybe I'm afraid if I say his name, reality will come crashing into this dream world where we meet. I'll keep him a dream if it means I can be with him longer.

   There's so much I don't know.

   "How far do you travel to get here?" I ask.

   "Oh, a long, long way. It's another world, really."

   "You come from the stars just to visit me?"

   He laughs and his smile is so real, so alive, I feel like the whole vale is suddenly lit up.

   "My home is in the other direction. I come from down here, beneath the earth." He smooths the long grass with his fingers, and his voice seems to resonate through the soil and the rock and the fire beneath the rock at the center of the earth. I burrow my fingers under the grass, as if I could find the path of his voice there, among the roots.

   He tilts his head, giving me a piercing look. "What do you think of that?"

   "It must be wonderful," I say. "That's where this all starts growing, after all. Down there in that rich darkness."

He looks inordinately pleased. "I'm glad to hear that."

   His fingers find an errant fold in the cloth of my chiton and they start to stroke it. Everything tingles—the air, my skin. I can feel molecules of desire floating around me, traveling up the threads in the cloth so they hug my whole body.

   "Let me tell you something," he says. "Not everyone agrees with you about my home. They like this part of existence: green leaves, fresh petals. But this soil . . ." He drops the cloth to pull up a handful of earth, letting the moist black grains sift through his fingers. "This comes from leaves and trees long past. Everything dies, and dying, returns to earth, air, water, and fire. To start again. Where I come from."

   I want his hand back on my chiton. I want it to touch me through the cloth.

   I try to keep my voice steady. "That's the problem here. Everything's green, everything's female, everything's the same. This flower . . ."

   I reach out to a stalk leaning toward me and run a finger across its bulging bud; it's so ripe, the bud splits at my touch and white petals start to unfold right in front of us with a burst of perfume. I snap its stem and take a long, deep breath.

   "Funny," I say, "I don't even know its name."

   "Narcissus."

   "This narcissus needs the earth below as much as it needs the sun."

   "I was hoping you'd say that," he says, suddenly all seriousness. There's such a coiled intensity in his gaze, I have to pull my eyes away. Then, looking only at the flower, I hold it out to him. He lifts his hand and wraps it around my hand around the stem. He starts to pull my hand toward him, starts to pull me toward him—yes, I think, yes—and then he stops.

   "Wait," he whispers, as if to himself. He unfolds his fingers and gently lifts the flower from my hand. He puts it inside the drape of his chiton, next to his skin.

   "There's something we need to talk about," he says. "But I have to leave now. Come back tomorrow." His eyes are ablaze. "Tell me you'll come."

   "Yes. I'll come."

I drag my feet back along the path. I'm as slow and heavy and full of heat as the olive trees. With every step I play his voice in my head again, the way fingers keep playing the same tune on the strings of a lyre. I'm putting his hand on my hand over and over and over.

   Talk? He knows what I want. I want him to kiss me. Why do we need to talk?

   A snake slithers off the path and disappears under some tree roots.

   At least I know something more about him. He lives underground, so he's probably a river god. I try to picture his home and I see an echoing cave, dripping with stalactites. I hear a surging river, as dark as his hair. It might be under my feet right now.

   Roses crowd the path, but I don't smell them. I smell narcissus.

   I bet that three-headed dog roams his lands, scaring off mortals who sneak in to steal gemstones and fat veins of gold.

I'll ask him tomorrow. I'll ask him his name.

   I drift around the last bend, a boat on the stream of my thoughts. The lemon trees float into view, and then the red clay roof tiles, lapping each other like waves, and the whiteplastered walls, the shutters closed against the heat.

   And my mother, pacing.

   Her short, crisp steps block the courtyard gate. Her arms are crossed as tight as prison walls. She whirls at the end of a step, and her eyes meet mine.

S
he knows. It's the only thing that would explain the tension in her shoulders, the straight slash of her mouth, the hunter's eyes. She must have been there at the edge of the meadow, maybe saw his hand touching mine, the narcissus, the look in his eyes, my hand lingering. . . .

   I'm dead. Dead. Dead.

   "Persephone."

   Her voice is a command. I drag my feet toward her, wish- ing I could turn and run. My hand clutches at the lavender bushes as if they could swallow me, but my feet keep walking, step by agonizing step.

She isn't pacing anymore, just standing there, staring, waiting.

   I pass a tree.
Open your rough bark
, I pray silently.
Close
me in
. Nothing.

   How long has she known?

   As I approach she lifts her hand and I cringe. But she's just motioning me into the courtyard and then to a stone bench. I sit.

   She draws a deep breath, looking down at me. I look at the hands clenched in my lap.

   I'll never see him again.

   "I've heard news that causes me grave concern." Her voice is as rigid as her lips. "It would be an understatement to say I'm disappointed in you."

   My cheeks are burning; my heart is pounding so loud, I have to struggle to hear her words.

   She takes a few steps and stares over the gate, her eyes tracing the path. "I have always allowed you considerable freedom. I haven't asked you to tell me where you're going or which friends you see. I have felt, in the security of this vale, I need not limit you to our four walls. Now I doubt the wisdom of my choice."

   My body is an empty shell. That's all I'll ever be now: a husk, rattling in the wind.

   He'll wait for me tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe one more, and then he won't come back.

   I barely sense her sitting next to me. She lifts my hand from my lap, traps it between her cool fingers.

   "Yet what happened is certainly not your fault, nor, other than neglecting to tell me, are your own actions in question. So it is clearly not you who should be punished."

   
What?

   "And so I have asked Admete to leave," she says, dropping my hand. She stands again, paces a few steps, and heaves a vast sigh, rustling the leaves. "To think I've been nurturing this traitor in my vale! I must tell you, when I heard she had been seeing this . . ."—she stops, shudders—"this so-called 'river god,' I was shocked. There has . . ."

   Her words wash over me, nothing but noise. She doesn't know!

   ". . . and in the future I would expect you to tell me when you hear news of inappropriate . . ."

   The orchestra inside me drowns out her voice. It's playing a song of sun and skin, blaring about the life filling me again. I'm thinking of the way his hand looked lying on the grass, the brown back of his hand, the sunlit hairs licking his glowing arm.

T
he afternoon hangs hot and endless. I'm working at my loom in the courtyard, under the shade of the overhang. The warp threads, pulled taut by their silver weights, are blue like the sky after twilight, when night deepens its hold. I've just started on the background. The fabric is smooth and free of blemish. I run my finger down the suspended threads. They're waiting to see what life I'll weave into them.

   Plain blue would be too simple. Where's the art in that? I used to weave fabric without pattern when I was little, back and forth, back and forth, learning to get the tension even. But now I know what I'm doing. First, a border. I pick up the black yarn. It's mysterious against the blue, like a shadow at night. I start with horses running across the top of the fabric. It's coming so easily today; I'm weaving them as smoothly as the fates weave mortal lives, measuring out the length of their thread, the number of their days.

   Over the sounds of fountains and birds, I hear steady footsteps. My mother must be on her way to the groves. Now that she's cautioned me, she wants to be friends again. She comes over to look at my work and smiles with rare approval.

   "You've learned well. This is a gracious design. I can almost feel the wind under their feet. And your colors are pleasingly subtle."

   Then she's gone across the paving stones, under the fig trees and out of sight.

   I could stop now if I wanted. I've done enough. I should find my friends down by the lake because we need to talk about Admete. But something's tugging at my fingers.

   I reach down to the basket of wools and rummage around. There it is, near the bottom, a golden yellow. Why is it calling me? What does it want to become? It's the color of the sun, but I don't want the sun against this deep, dark blue. Maybe a row of flowers.

   I wind the golden wool on a shuttle and start a first row, hints of gold for the pointed tips of petals, getting ready to work my way down. Row follows row and the rhythm lulls me. The shuttle wants to pull my hand. Maybe I'll just let it have its way.

   The golden shapes grow wider. Now they look like pointed ears, six of them. I follow them down to bold eyes. I've seen this before: three heads, one staring right at me and the others turning to guard each side. I've brought the three-headed dog from the chariot to life. There's an energy in him, a fierceness and alertness, that almost frightens me. I've never woven so well.

   It must be hours later when my mother comes humming back into the courtyard. I hope she stops to look again and admire my work. I keep weaving, pretending I don't see her so she won't think I care. She comes over. I'm already smiling for her praise.

   
"Persephone!"

   Her voice sets off alarms in my head.

   
"What on earth are you doing? Where did you see that?"

   I think fast. "It felt like it was weaving itself, like in a dream." That part is true, after all. I just won't say the rest, about the chariot with the design in gold and the meadow full of narcissus.

   "A dream? Are you sure that's all? Because if Cerberus is here in the vale—" She looks ready to smite someone.

   I'm scared and excited and my body is tingling, because I can tell this is huge. I have to know why.

   I make my eyes wide. I shake my head like an innocent little girl. "I've never seen a living creature like this, I swear." True again, as far as it goes. "Who is it? What does it mean?"

   "That brute roams the banks of the Styx."

   "The Styx?"

   "You know," she says crossly. "The river separating the earth from the underworld, the realm of Hades. I gather this beast is
his
special friend: Dark Hades, ruler of one-third of all creation, the insatiable lord of the dead."

   I gasp. It's him.