The Dark Wife (18 page)

“Oh, all those stairs!”
I sighed, returning her smile. My heart felt so light, unguarded. I realized, with a start, that I was happy. It had been so long since I was happy.

We stood and—hands clasped—urged Cerberus to follow us up the steps. Perhaps it was his monster blood, or just his puppy nature, but he raced ahead of us, paws padding, claws clicking. Soon, he was out of sight beyond the spiral.

We walked slowly—
pausing
every few steps to kiss—and when we finally mounted the ground floor of the palace, I found the nearest bench and collapsed upon it to catch my breath. Cerberus was sitting primly, wagging his tail, as his heads picked fights with each other. It was absurd and hilarious, and we sat together and laughed.

Pallas found us there, holding hands, arms interlaced, my lips lingering on Hades’ neck.

She stared, her brows peaked, and she grinned so hard that her eyes crinkled at the corners.
“Finally!
It’s about time.”

Then she knelt down to play with the puppy.

Nine: Gaea

Sometimes, Hades slept beside me. We kissed one another good night, nothing more, but the warmth of our bodies sang a heated lullaby that calmed me to an easy sleep. I nestled my head upon her shoulder, breathed in the secretive scent of her, of moss, deep caverns. My nights were finally peaceful, and my dreams were all of her.

I dreamed I stood in bright, sunlit fields, grass licking at my ankles, Hades’ mouth hot against mine. In waking life, I suppressed my deeper urges; I sensed that both of us needed for things to unfold slowly. And, to be honest, I was afraid; my head was crowded with so many disruptive thoughts, climbing one atop the other—though it took only one brush of her lips to drive them all away, to bind me fast to here, now.

I felt an insatiable need to be near her, to never waste a moment. At times, I was so blissful that I believed my heart would leap from my chest; but when I was alone, I had strange thoughts, and I worried about the dead, and Zeus, and their dark intentions. My command over my fate seemed tenuous, vulnerable.

Still, I was falling in love, and I savored it; Hades intoxicated me, her kisses like the sweetest spell.

I remembered her story, every word of it, and—one day—when she’d returned from the fields, I asked her a question I’d been wondering about. “Gaea…” I began, stroking Cerberus in my lap. “You said she’s like a mother to you. Do you visit her?”

She raised her brows and frowned, slightly, kneeling down beside me on the throne room floor, her hand alternately petting each of Cerberus’ three heads. “Yes. Why do you wish to know?”

“May I see her?”

She sat back on her heels, quiet, thinking. She looked so young, so soft, that I reached out for her, held my hand against her cheek.

Slowly, tracing her fingers over the curve of my arm, she nodded. “I’ll take you to her. Now, if you’d like.”

I had never seen the entrance to the pit of
Tartarus
, had never ventured near enough to its black maw for a glimpse. Pallas’ descriptions of it had terrified me—of the sharp-toothed monsters that lived within. Monsters, monsters, she said, over and over, until my mind conjured up appalling images, and my soul ordered me to stay away.

As we approached the entrance now, I trembled from head to toe, gripping Hades’ arm so tightly that I must have cut off the flow of her blood. She chuckled at me, as if I were a child afraid of shadows, and
prised
my fingers gently.

“Persephone,” she murmured, placing a kiss upon my brow. “Nothing will harm you in my kingdom, not when you’re with me.”

“Truly?”

“I promise you.”

But we weren’t going to enter
Tartarus
, I realized with immeasurable relief;
Gaea’s
chambers lay to the right of that fearsome black pit: it was just a small break in the rocks, easy to miss. We had to slide sideways and duck our heads to pass through it, and I saw, just barely, that we stood in a long, narrow cave. I followed Hades, grasping the cool hand she stretched back for me. There were no torches here, so she was my eyes, and we moved together slowly, quietly. My mind wandered, and it was easy to imagine that we were the only people left, two small warm creatures in a sunless world.

Hades paused, and I pressed my face against her back. “What is it?” I breathed, heart racing, thinking of beasts with hungry mouths. She turned to me, found my lips, and calmed my nerves with a kiss.

“Listen,” she breathed, drawing back, her breath warm on my face.

I heard nothing but the thunder of my pulse. But, then, above that rhythm, I began to pick out another: a deeper sound, thumping low, like blood, like drums.

It came upon us gradually, beating down the passageway, cadenced, until it found us at last and was everywhere, pounding around us, into us, until the music was one with me, and I felt I had to dance or die, and my heart was too full; it couldn’t contain this beauty, this sweet, swollen rhythm, a holy beat.

And then it faded away, and silence took its place.

“No,” I whispered, but Hades held my hand, led me further down, deeper into the earth.

“It’ll come again,” she told me, wrapping her arm about my waist to guide me around a sudden bend.

“But what was it? It was so beautiful!”

“It was the voice of the earth, singing praises of Gaea.
A hymn for her.”

“Hymn?”

“A devotion
,” she said. “Something sung in honor, wonder, out of the purest love.”

As we walked, the path beneath our feet sloping always downward, down, down, down—deeper than I had known possible—the rhythm, the hymn, rose and fell. Sometimes it seemed the walls were singing, vibrating, alive and primal.

I tripped over a rock—what I assumed to be a rock; it was far too dark to know for certain. I fell against Hades, and she caught me, her hands cool on my elbows. “Wait, Persephone. I’m sorry. I’ve grown too used to the darkness. I should have done this before.”

I inhaled a quick breath as a light came between us, illuminating Hades’ solemn face. It was a golden sphere, hovering over her palms, twinkling in the narrow cave like a star.

Hades shrugged her shoulders, smiling the shy smile that always made my heart stop, tumble, skip.

“It’s…silly, but it’s what I do.
My official use here.”
She tossed the sphere lightly, and it rose, floated, and then drifted back down to cast a yellow glow on her hand. “I create light for the Underworld.”

“You do more than that,” I insisted, but her soft eyes were unfocused, far away, and I wondered if she’d heard me. I remembered watching her dance with the light. I remembered dancing with her under a shower of stardust. How cruel, to bury her brightness in the darkest place. Though, I had to allow, no place needed her light more.

At last, we came to the end: the corridor fluted out into a small arching room of glittering stone. It felt safe, cozy. The ceiling rose over our heads to a single sharp point; if I stood on Hades’ shoulder, I could have touched my fingertip to it. Before us there was a depression in the stone, a pond brimming with still water, reflecting Hades’ light. I stood at the edge of the bowl and gazed at my own reflection—I looked different, but I recognized myself, perhaps for the first time.

Hades knelt down, tilted her head back, arms curving upward, as if embracing. I sat beside her, careful not to make a sound, and I watched her, mesmerized.

The goddess of the dead, my goddess.
Love radiated from her face, a love that broke my heart in its purity, its totality.

“Beloved Gaea,” she said, whisper soft, “beloved earth mother, please…come unto me.”

A heartbeat, two heartbeats,
three
… There was a ripple upon the silver surface of the pond, a lucid thing, a luminous thing, spiraling ever outward. And, from the water, she came.

Like
Charon
, she shimmered, shifted, so that I could never make out her form, the outline of it or the features of her face. But she was as unlike
Charon
as could be imagined; her aura pulsed with love.

She filled the room. She was everywhere—she
was
the room, the ceiling, the floor. She was Hades, and she was me. Before us, suspended, was a changing spiral of color, of beauty, of earth and sea and sky and a mass of stars, the perfect pattern of a leaf; and the beauty of a stag, dying; and the splendor of a swan, rising up. There was everything within her, everything that had been,
everything
that yet would be part of the planet. I understood, in that moment, the smallest truth of all that was, and it was still too big, too awe-full for me to bear. I wept, and I pressed my face to the floor, and my heart burst open, love
waterfalling
from the hole there.

“Child.”
The word surrounded me, embraced my shoulders, and there was such beauty in its syllable, such wisdom and empathy and compassion.

“Yes,” I whispered, closing my eyes to the storm of color, the riotous burst of life occupying this small space, and my small body. My chest ached at the splendor; it was too much.

“Persephone.”
A gentle hand touched my shoulder, and I turned—wordless, wide-eyed—and reached out to her. She was warm, like the sun, soft, like the soil, and gentle, like Hades’ kiss. She gathered me into an embrace and held me close. She smelled like my mother, but deeper, older: wet earth after a rainstorm; new baby leaves, the first of spring; rich harvests of berries, grapes, grain. “Persephone, Persephone,” she whispered and kissed my forehead.

She looked like a woman now, her glory contained in a vessel, a body like mine but not like mine. She was
round
, curved, voluptuous. Bountiful
..
Her hair fell to the ground and was every color on the earth, her dress perfectly woven from the green of ferns and mosses. Upon her face shone the kindness of every person, every creature which tread upon her world, herself, and it was too beautiful for me to understand. I fell to my knees before her, and her smile created me anew.

“My child, I have dreamed of you.”

“Of…me?”
I whispered.

“You.”
She reached out her hands and cupped my face gently. “You will change
everything
.”

I gaped at her, uncomprehending. And then Gaea sank down before me, drew me to her,
gathered
me into her arms like a mother takes her child. “You are so loved, Persephone.” And the love, like a wave, washed over me, lifted me up, filled me. “You will endure such sorrow, but you will transform the world.”

In my heart, now, I felt the depth of future pains. I gasped, breathless, and twitched upon the ground as Gaea watched, her eyes brimming with the blue waters of her seas.

“You are destined for heartache, but also triumph, Persephone.” Two shockingly blue tears fell from her eyes. “You—both of you,” she said, taking my hand, Hades’ hand, and joining them together, “are part of a very old story, a story that has and will always withstand the test of time.”

I gazed at Hades; she glowed with love for me.

“It was foretold,” Gaea smiled, watching us together. “Persephone, your descent was foretold.
And you, Hades…
Your souls were one long before there was an earth to be born upon. Millennia later, they are come together again, whole. All of this—” She held out her arms. “All of this has been foretold.”

My mouth parted to ask her a question—the one that troubled me, sometimes, even when I felt complete, and so loved, in Hades’ arms.