The Dark Wife (13 page)

“It’s beautiful,” I managed, though I saw in the weaving the lines of my favorite oak;
Charis
and I had spent countless afternoons in its boughs, wrapped up in one another’s arms, feeling never-ending ourselves. I hadn’t known the ache of her loss in days—I’d been too preoccupied with hiding, escaping my predestined path. Now the sorrow struck me hard, and I tore my eyes from the tree, stared down at my hands.

“Have I upset you?” Hades inquired quietly.

“No. I was only remembering someone.” A strange thought occurred to me, and I wondered why I hadn’t considered it before.   “If…if someone were dead,” I began, “would you know it? Would she—they
be
here?”

Hades inclined her head, pinning me with her fathomless eyes. “I know the name and history of every person, every creature, who has lived and died. No sparrow falls without my knowledge, and acknowledgment, of it.”

I pondered this, awed by the woman seated before me, her solemn strength. Summoning up my courage, I leaned forward and strung together the words in my mind.

“Do you remember…
”
I paused, started again: “I told you a story. I told you how I loved someone very much. How I lost her. Her name was
Charis
.”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Zeus—he transformed her.” My voice was barely a whisper, and I dared not look into Hades’ eyes. “I don’t know what that means, if she still lives, in the form of a plant, if her spirit is trapped or if…” I swallowed. “Could you tell me if
Charis
, the nymph, is here in your Underworld?”

I glanced up at her now, and her face was still, placid—the mask again. She sat for a moment, unmoving, and then rose to stand at the purposeless window; there was nothing but black beyond it. She clasped her hands behind her back.

“She is not here, Persephone.” Her tone was flat, and it matched my feelings.

I didn’t know how to react. Should I be relieved that
Charis
was yet alive? Should I grieve that her soul was bound in the roots of a rose? Would it have been better if she’d simply died? What did she feel, malformed into something unmoving, unfeeling,
inhuman
? What did she think about, who did she talk to, with only the soil and the stars for companions?

I wrapped my arms around my knees, reflected in the silence. Hades turned to face me; her onyx eyes were worried, and her concern unraveled something within my chest.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome,” she whispered back.

~*~

Had I been here for a week?
A year?
Time passed strangely in the Underworld, where the days were unmeasured,
the
nights indiscernible. Pallas took me again to visit Evening and Ebon, but for the most part, I remained indoors, wandering the passages, learning to navigate them with some accuracy.

Hades was a sometime, somber companion. She spoke so sparingly. When we passed one another in the halls, I nodded, and she nodded, and I felt her absence with a pang in my heart. And when my wanderings led me to her chamber—by chance, fate, or, more often, by my own design—we didn’t converse much, but I was soothed by her company. Her dark eyes enclosed depths I was eager to explore, and when they rested on me, a flush crept along my arms, my neck, and I felt warm, even while seated on the cold marble floor.

I was lost, directionless, in an Underworld dream. All was calm, quiet, dark.

“Where do you go at night?” Pallas whispered one day, brushing out my hair with a blue sapphire comb. Precious gems were as common as rocks here. There was little light to be caught by the comb’s facets, but squares of silver still danced over the black walls as Pallas dragged the thick teeth through my hair, which was growing back quickly, long enough now to
glance
my shoulders.

“Nowhere in particular.”
I winced when she tore through a tangle. “Ouch!”
Another tangle.

She chuckled. “Everywhere is nowhere in particular in the Underworld.” Next to my ear, breath hot, she whispered, “Even Hades is nowhere here.”

I felt numb, for the most part. Perhaps my heart, too, was turning to stone. I’d heard legends about Hades’ heart: a black diamond some claimed it was.
Cold and hard.
But I knew it was neither. She intoned the names of the newly dead each day like a prayer, her eyes soft with compassion. And each day, she gazed at me, and…I knew I was seen.

The stories whispered about her were lies, born of misunderstanding, ignorance and fear. She had deep love for the mortals she presided over, every one of them, even those, like
Hageus
, who scorned her openly. I couldn’t understand it, why she cared so much about these fragile, often disdainful beings. What did they have to do with the gods?

I dared to question her about it once, and her response surprised me.

“Have you ever observed a mortal family?”

I shook my head.

“They’re like…” She smiled. “They’re like the branches of a tree in your forest, bound together by a shared origin, and that bond is very hard to break. They rarely take life for granted, as the immortals do, because they can’t—it’s a limited gift. Inevitably, they will die, and they know this, know it every moment, with every breath. But the knowing is the true gift, because they cherish time all the more, hold onto it as tightly as they can, hold each other tighter still.

“Families reunite in my kingdom, years, sometimes decades after their earthly parting, and the affection they express, the tears of true joy—
There’s
no match for that beauty in all the wonders of Olympus.

“
It’s
love,” she said, smiling gently at me. “Unconditional.
And forever.”

“Perhaps, but love isn’t a talent reserved for mortals.
Gods
love, too, deeply—I…I know this to be true.”

Her smile faded. For a moment I feared she wouldn’t speak again, she looked so withdrawn.

“Hades?”

Her eyes found mine, shone at me, intense. “I believe you. I believe you have loved sincerely. But I have never met any other god, or goddess, who knew the true meaning of love, or valued it as the precious thing that it is. And I don’t mean to appear pessimistic, but I have lived for a very long time, Persephone.” She lowered her chin, looked down at her hands.
“So long.”

I stared at her, and she lifted her gaze, stared at me, and—it made no sense, given the somber topic of conversation—but I felt as if my heart had finally flung open its doors, to her, to the mortals, to everything below and above the earth. I felt full up of love, and I feared my feelings would overflow. I feared I would speak too fondly, or presume too much. I searched for safe words.

“What of Pallas?” I heard myself whisper, because I ached every time she mentioned Athena’s name. “She’s alone here, always will be. Athena is immortal and— I saw her on Olympus, Hades. She was…she held—”

“You know as well as I do that Athena has forgotten Pallas. There is no offense in loving again when one’s love is lost. But I have spoken with Athena, offered to arrange a meeting between Pallas and herself—it is forbidden, but I could do it, would do it.” Hades scowled bitterly. “She refused, claimed Pallas exaggerated, that they had never been more than casual lovers. Perhaps, for Athena, that was true.”

“You haven’t told Pallas any of this?”

“No, it’s not my story to tell. Still, I think she knows, no matter how she wishes it otherwise.”

“My heart breaks for her,” I said, unsurprised by Hades’ admission about Athena. And I couldn’t deny that most of the gods in my acquaintance were fickle creatures—and often cruel.
But not Hades.
Never Hades.
“She is lucky to have you, such a loyal friend.”

“I am lucky to have her,” she smiled, her eyes flicking over my face. “And you.”

My heart stilled.

Quickly, she changed course. “Do you know why they call me the Hospitable One?”

I inhaled, reeling with unspent emotion, and shook my head.

“It’s because my realm will always have room for more. Sometimes they call me the Rich One. And…” she smirked, “less flattering things. The mortals fear my name, will not speak it. They’ve built me no temples. Everyone cowers before the lord of the dead—who is, as you can see, no lord at all.”

I managed a weak smile.
“No, indeed.”

“They fear a
god
who doesn’t even exist, but it doesn’t truly matter what I am; they fear me all the same.”

“Why? Why can’t they see…
”

“I represent the end, and that terrifies them.”

They are fools, then
, I wanted to say.
Who could ever fear so lovely a soul as you? Who could fail to love you, once they knew how good, how noble, how beautiful you are, more worthy of worship than all of the gods combined?

But I was no longer thinking of the mortals.

I bowed my head, held my tongue.

~*~

One night, I woke screaming. I dreamed I was being buried alive. I craved light and wide-open spaces so
desperately,
I couldn’t bear their lack even in the oblivion of sleep.

Hades appeared by my bedside within moments, offered me her arms, held me as I sobbed softly on her shoulder. And when I calmed down, she told me stories—stories of her people, her ghosts, their lives and their loves. Her steady heartbeat against my ear was companionable, familiar now.

I fell asleep with my head pillowed on her breast, and—for the first time since my arrival in the Underworld—I rested peacefully.

She was not there when I woke. My hand found the depression of her body on my pallet.
Still warm.
She had stayed with me, reclined beside me.

I slid into the empty space she’d left behind.

~*~

As much I longed for Hades’ company, she had duties, so many duties. Wars raged on the earth, and there were battalions of deaths each day, and heroes, designated by Zeus, eager to gain entrance to the Elysian Fields. Hades listened to their tales, encouraged them to release their painful memories. Sometimes she administered waters from the river Lethe. Sometimes she used meditative
magics
. She told me these things, and I tried to imagine what the experience was like for her. It cost her so much; she could never truly rest. Sometimes she fell asleep in the middle of speaking to me, waking when her head fell, with a start and an apology.

“Come with me,” she said, finally, when we stumbled upon each other in the palace entryway. She was about to leave again. “You should know, see this for yourself.”

Eagerly I took her hand and followed her outside, but we paused together on the last step of the staircase.

“How…” she breathed, staring.

The fallen tower—the broken tower that we’d had to climb over, through, countless times—was gone. No remnant, not a pebble, of it remained.

“Hades?”
I moved my hand to her arm.

We both turned and gazed at the palace behind us. There, where there had been a large gap in the marble—a hole where the broken tower once stood—we beheld an impossible sight. The tower was repaired, restored, as if it had never crumbled.

“Oh,” Hades said, and our wide eyes locked, and we both laughed, perplexed. But soon enough, she resumed her pace, walking easily over the cleared path, slowly, thoughtfully. I followed behind.