The Dark Wife (11 page)

“
Shh
.”

The water churned, murky and black, and I could see flickers of eyes and limbs beneath the waves. Hands, nail-less and white, snatched at Pallas, but she was calm, resolute. She ignored them completely.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, falling to my knees beside her. She shushed me again and lurched backwards, her arms stretched out over the water. The torchlight revealed a shimmering string clasped in her fists. She held the end of it, and the river hid the rest.

“Pallas—”

“I was in no danger, as long as my face stayed above the water. And now,” she smiled at me, her eyes twinkling, “we can cross.”

My fingers pulled at the frayed hair against my neck, and I gazed at the string in Pallas’ hands. “Have you summoned
Charon
?
With that string?”
A panic broke within me at the thought of stepping foot on his barge again, so soon.

“We don’t need
Charon
,” Pallas said simply, raising the string over her head, tugging at it, so that the water engulfing its length rippled gently. Planting her feet on the riverbank, she hauled the line; it tautened, glimmering like a silver beam, between her grasp and that of the Styx.

Several moments passed during which nothing else happened; I turned to her, perplexed.

“Wait,” she whispered.

So we waited.

Then there was a roar so sudden that I clapped my hands over my ears and cried out. Pallas grinned at me, motioning with her chin. In the distance, the black waters parted, and I saw that the end of the string was tied to a rusted loop on a rotting board—which was attached to the front end of a rotting ship with the river Styx streaming over its edges. As it rose from the depths, the waters closed beneath it, and the craft, at Pallas’ urging, drifted quietly to the shore.

“See?” Pallas laughed. “No need for
Charon
at all!”

“Thank the gods for that,” I smiled, relieved and excited. 

She leapt onto the ship, jumped up and down to—I guessed—
test
its soundness. “She’s not entirely seaworthy, but she’ll do for a short excursion. Come on, Persephone!”

I stepped over the rails, scuffed my sandals on the waterlogged wood. “How do we steer?” I asked, and Pallas pointed her finger at me, then spun about and pointed to the opposite side of the river. I slipped and lost my footing as the ship shuddered and bounced in that direction, away from the village, the palace, Hades.

“You’re amazing!” I called to her over the roar of the water, and she shrugged her shoulders, smiling widely, offering me a hand. I held on to her and scrabbled to my feet, wobbling a little with the sway of the boat. I tried not to look too hard at the water, at the doomed souls who reached for us and slapped at the wooden planks.

Finally, the boat nudged against land and shivered to a halt. We disembarked quickly.

“Why have we come here, Pallas?” I wondered for a moment if she meant to take me back up to the earth—but of course she couldn’t go there. The dead weren’t permitted to leave the Underworld.

“You’ll find out in a moment.”

Hoof beats, a hard staccato on the rocky shore.

Before us was the place where gargantuan wall met with the ground, affording a lip of earth a few strides wide before it plunged into the
Styx.
Along this lip moved two shadows, sleek and black, trotting so effortlessly it seemed they floated—but for the sound of their shoes clipping against rock. I knew them: Hades’ chariot horses.

They towered, taller than I remembered. Just out of our reach, they slowed, stopped, snorted, moving against one another and angling their great necks to survey us. Pallas held out one hand, flat, to the largest beast. I watched as he bent his chiseled head to nose her palm, and a red tongue snaked out to lick at her skin.

 “Ebon,” said Pallas, stroking the neck of this creature with her free hand. “The smaller one is Evening. Together, they pull Hades’ chariot.”

I stared at them in awe, and Pallas chuckled. “Go on, they don’t bite.
At least, not often.”

She smirked, took my hand and placed it upon Evening’s heaving side. He shifted toward me, brushed his great head against my chest and stomach; tears sprung to my eyes. Despite their imposing size and the sense of menace that preceded them, these were earth creatures…alive in the Underworld. They were like me.

“I think Evening is falling in love with you.”

“I love horses,” I whispered, stroking the dark and tangled mane, brushing the forelock out of his eyes. He and Ebon were mortal through and through, exiles from the world I’d left behind. I wondered how they coped with the sunless gloom of their mistress’s realm.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” asked Pallas. As I nodded my agreement, she added, “Pity that they’re blind.”

“Oh… Blind.” I gazed into Evening’s eyes and found a milky whiteness in their depths.

“Blind from birth—the only way they could live here and not go mad.” Pallas patted Evening’s shoulder. “Horses get along well anywhere if they’re blind. They’re not like people.”

I nodded.

“Persephone, why do you look so sad?”

“I’m not sad… I guess I’m sad for them, trapped here.”

“Hades treats them well.
Spoils them, to be truthful.
And Ebon—” She ruffled the velvet of his nose. “He’s getting fat! Hades feeds him too many apples.”

When the horses had grown bored of our pampering and wandered off to nose at the ground, looking for grass (which did grow down here, Pallas told me, in a special area Hades had created just for them), I said, “Thank you, Pallas, for bringing me here. I miss the earth—more than I realized.”

“I thought you might.” She watched me closely. “It’s always nice to be reminded of home.”

I sat down on the hard ground, felt the chill of it through my tunic. “But isn’t this your home now?”

“Isn’t it yours?”

I bowed my head. Is it? I wondered. Could it be?

Ebon and Evening moved together as if in an equine dance; they showed no signs of their blindness.

“How is Athena?” Pallas whispered so softly I wondered if I’d even heard her. When I turned in surprise, she was gazing down at me; quickly, she looked away. “Athena?” she murmured, and there was pain in the word…perhaps fear, too.

“I saw her on Olympus,” I admitted, grappling with the truth, hoping for the means to conceal it. Again, I saw the Athena of my memory, red-faced and riotous, her arms entangled with another woman’s, hands caught up in her hair. I bit my lip, and Pallas sat down beside me.

“I miss her,” she said, leaning forward, elbows on her knees. “I dream about her every night.
Every night.
And when I wake up, sometimes I think I’m still there with her…and then I realize where I am, and I lose her all over again.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“It was a long time ago. It seems like yesterday to me. But to her—”

We sat in silence. I watched the churning of the river Styx, and my thoughts drifted along with the dark waters. I thought about my mother. I hoped she wasn’t worried for me. I wondered if Zeus knew I was missing.

Most of all, I wondered… Was Hades thinking about me now?            

The Elysian Fields—the name was familiar, but I knew nothing about it, told Pallas as much. She crinkled her nose, staring up into the black.

“It’s a reward for the heroes. If they’ve done service in honor of the gods, they can receive a blessing from Zeus, bypass the village of the dead, and live out their eternities in a place of sunshine and golden fields. It’s not really so idyllic, though, as much as the heroes talk about it, as much as they dream of going there.” She leaned forward and studied her hands. “See, that’s all it is—a bright sky and fields of grain, and the heroes sit there for all eternity, alone with their thoughts, trying to forget the men they’ve killed, the atrocities they’ve committed, the horrors their eyes have seen. It’s…it’s worse than the village of the dead. It’s a nightmare.”

“But Hades welcomes them there?”

“Well…” Pallas sighed. “She speaks with them. She takes away the worst of their pains. Not physical pain—none of the dead feels physical pain in the Underworld, only the ghost of it. But there are other pains, of the mind…and the heart.” Her eyelids fluttered for a moment, and she licked her lips. “Many of the heroes came from the wars—they murdered women, children, in the name of Zeus.” She shook her head, sneered, and her expression spoke volumes: Pallas hated Zeus, too.

“So Hades helps them,” I prompted her, and she nodded.

“She does what she can to ease their transitions. She doesn’t have to, but she wants to. She exhausts herself. I’ve tried to tell her it’s a wasted effort. No matter how she counsels them, they all end up the same, sobbing or moping in the field, staring at nothing, lost in the darkness of their own thoughts.”

“I’d like to see them.”

“You wouldn’t. It’s depressing beyond words.”

“I’m sure it is, but I would still like to visit, see for myself.”

“Perhaps someday Hades will take you there.”

I gazed across the Styx.

Besides Pallas, I had had only a handful of interactions with mortals; I knew so little about them. But this is what they had to look forward to, after a long, hard life? Endless darkness, crowded together, waiting for…what?

“That’s why they’re angry, you know,” said Pallas, and if she’d read my mind. I turned to her, and she
steepled
her fingers, leaned close to me. “That’s why I spend so much time in the village. The dead are angry that the heroes have the Elysian Fields and they have only those hollowed-out mounds. I’ve tried to explain to them that the Elysian Fields are a joke, a cruel trick—but they don’t believe me. I’m only one person—and a favorite of Hades, who they distrust. The stories are too strong among them. They won’t listen.”

A chill crept over my skin, and I shivered, rubbing at my arms. “I’d be angry, too, Pallas.”

“Yes, it’s terrible. But Hades didn’t invent this design. It’s all Zeus’ doing. How can it be undone? We don’t know who created the earth, the Underworld, but the dead end up here by Zeus’ decree. I have always wondered—for as long as I’ve been here—if we were all meant to end up in the Elysian Fields, not just the heroes. And if it were populated, if there were enough souls to form communities, I think it could be a truly beautiful place. But that’s beside the point,” she shrugged. “The dead blame Hades for everything. They cling stubbornly to the unfairness of it all, and they need a target for their anger.”

“But what could they do, other than complain? They’re insubstantial… One of them passed straight through me.”

“Look at my arm,” Pallas said. “See how real it looks. You’ve felt it; you know it’s solid. I’m this way because I believe I should be—because I don’t accept the idea that the dead are
less
.
Less real, less physical, less important.
It’s all about belief, Persephone. They think they’re nothing, so they look like nothing. Feel like nothing. But if they claimed their own power—” Her eyes were hard, unflinching. “If they banded together, discovered a way to harm Hades… I fear for her.”

Pallas’ words disturbed me to the core. I felt helpless, and I was so cold, my teeth were chattering. I wanted comfort and would have none, not here.

I took Pallas’ proffered hand, and she helped me to my feet.

“Hades thinks I see plots where there are none. But she is too trusting. She loves her people even though they hate her.” We began to follow the edge of the river. Unease gnawed at my bones as I watched the waves, unseeing.

The horses noticed our movement and galloped ahead, then hung back, ran ahead again, caught up in a game. Finally, we bid them farewell; they snorted and trotted away, back to their grassy plain, I imagined, black tails streaming behind them like banners snapping in a wind. We watched them go until the darkness swallowed them up.