The Dark Wife (3 page)

The Truth

One: Olympus

"Speak as little as necessary," she whispered in my ear, anxiety sharpening her words. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

I bit my lip but held my head high as Demeter pressed her hand against the small of my back, steering me toward the gigantic golden maw that would swallow us into Olympus. I breathed in and out and willed my hands to stop shaking. I did not look back at my mother.

One step, and then another, as we neared the opening to the realm of Zeus. No gods or
demi
-gods or nymphs or satyrs lingered around the gates—they were already inside, I imagined, drinking ambrosia and laughing uproariously at whatever crude party tricks they’d devised. This was the night I had been dreading my entire life. This was the night I would be introduced as a goddess to the Olympians.

My mother nudging me every step of the way, I moved onward.

Columns rose into the clouds, up and away from us. There was no ceiling within the Palace of Olympus, only unending sky that changed, at the gods’ whims, to night, to day, to eclipse, to a hundred million stars. Distant lyre music teased my ears, and laughter, and as we crossed the palace threshold, a disembodied voice proclaimed so loudly, and to my horror, “The goddess Demeter, accompanied by her daughter, Persephone!”

Countless pairs of eyes – set like jewels in gleaming, perfect faces -- stared at my mother and me.

I wanted to vanish, wanted to shrink smaller than a droplet, wanted to hide myself away in the deep, crumbling earth. In that moment, I would have given anything, made any bargain, to be gone from that place. My mother paused, waved to someone, and touched my shoulder gently. “Courage,” she whispered, and I descended the luminous marble steps with my head held high, trying not to mind the whispers, trying to imagine that I was—once more—home, in the Immortals Forest. That I was with
Charis
, and the
lightning
bolt that tore us apart had never struck.

“Demeter, she is as lovely as you have told us.
Lovelier.”

The
goddess
who stepped near, laughing softly, dazzled my eyes. She was beautiful, more beautiful than seemed possible, or real. She wore the long white tunic of common Greek fashion, but it was woven of a gauzy stuff, diaphanous and revealing. Pink roses twined her hair, and her smile was coy, infectious. I bowed my head in awe. Though I had never met her, I recognized Aphrodite.

“You are such a pretty creature,” she breathed, embracing me fully, grazing a kiss against my cheek. She reeked of roses. “You have your mother’s eyes.”

Over her shoulder, I saw a girl, a girl like me.
New to this place, this game.
She was pretty, thin, eyes downcast, hair rife with pink blossoms, just like her mother’s.

“Persephone,” my mother said, though the introduction was unnecessary, “this is Aphrodite and her daughter,
Harmonia
.”

I smiled, wondered if I should say something, started to, but
Harmonia
did not look up at me, did not step forward or offer her hand. She remained still as a statue while her effervescent mother laughed, brushing a white hand over her daughter’s tight curls.

“Ah, I must find Ares, so I will leave you to indulge in the festivities. Enjoy yourself, Persephone. You’ll never have another first time.” Aphrodite winked at me, but there was a bitter turn to her smile. She cast her eyes about, grasping
Harmonia’s
arm, and would have moved on had she not been stopped by a shimmering figure.

 “Aphrodite, introduce me to your charming companion!” His voice was soft and sweet, but there was an undercurrent to it that I could not place. I looked up at him just in time to be kissed full on the mouth.

“Oh!” I stepped backward, raking my hand over my lips, but he was laughing, Aphrodite and my mother were laughing—
Harmonia
stayed dumb, still—and I felt shame steal over my face in the form of a maiden’s blush.

“Persephone—
meet
your half brother, Hermes,” said my mother, hiding her amusement behind a hand.

His hair was black and curled, and his sandals were winged. “Thou art as lovely as your mother informed us,” he said, in mockery of Aphrodite, and bowed deeply, snatching at my hand to kiss it. “And I am the god of thieves and flattery and all that is wrong with the world. It is ever so divine to make your acquaintance!”

I had never met anyone who spoke so quickly. His words blurred together, as did he, flickering in and out of sight, a hazy outline trembling like a leaf in the wind, vibrating.

“I have another name,” he whispered in my ear,
then
darted behind me. At the corner of my eye appeared a white rose, proffered to me by his shimmering hand. “It’s Quicksilver,” he laughed, and I brushed him away, stepped toward the long line of tables that groaned beneath platters of grapes and cakes, luscious fruits spilling out of golden goblets.

A white rose.
Charis
had become a white rose.
Charis
who was lost to me.

I leaned on the table and took a sip from one of the cups to steady my head. I had never drunk ambrosia before—it tasted of grapes and rare fruits, crushed and made perfect within the minds of the gods. It was bliss, but it wasn’t real—they created it with their thoughts, their desires. I stared down into the swirling cup and realized I would be thought rude by Aphrodite, by the statue
Harmonia
. I had not excused myself. I had been thoughtless. I had behaved as if none of this mattered to me—and it didn’t.

Still, I looked up and tried to find them, but they had disappeared in the sea of assembled immortals.

I sighed and lifted the cup to my lips again but froze in place before the drink touched my tongue. There, that man—from behind, and only for a heartbeat, I’d mistaken him for Zeus. Hot blood thundered through me. It wasn’t him; perhaps it was Ares or Poseidon. But, still, Zeus was here.  This was his palace, and he was ruler of all he surveyed.
All of us.
Somewhere in this great hall, he breathed, spoke, laughed, watched.

“I apologize if I offended.” Hermes appeared so suddenly that I
jumped,
spilled ambrosia down the front of my dress. He waved his hand over the fabric, and the liquid beaded out of it, crawling over my breasts and down my arm to settle into the goblet once more.

I stared at him, and he bowed again. “I do not mean to startle.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. He held out his hand to me, but I refused it, clutching my goblet tightly. Hermes shook his head, frowned.

I heard what happened to
Charis
.” Again, he whispered in my ear, lips so close they brushed against my skin there.

I stiffened. He had spoken her name, my beloved’s name. No one had spoken it aloud to me since it had happened, and I murmured it myself only in the dark of night. I liked to whisper her name into the moving waters of the stream; the ripples caught and carried away the private sounds of my grief.

“What do you know of
Charis
?” I breathed. “How
could
you know?”

He took the cup from my shaking hand and set it on the table. “I know that Zeus takes what he wants, always. I know what he did to her, that he broke your heart.” His eyes were downcast, and when he raised them, they burned with a fierce light. “I, too, have cried out against his violence, Persephone. You are not alone.” His expression softened. “In
myself
, you have a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Yes.” He offered his hand once more, and I accepted it, tentatively placing my fingers in his flickering palm. He grasped hard and all but dragged me out beyond two sky-grazing columns. We stood on a narrow balcony, and, far below, the earth turned, blue-green and shining. It was so beautiful, the melding of living colors. Now, at this moment, so many mortals were living out their lives on that spinning orb.
So much heartache and love and hardship and life.
I leaned on the balcony railing and stared down, awestruck.

Zeus has taken much from me. I have learned to live with loss. A worthy existence is still possible.” Hermes turned to me, elbows on the railing, eyes searching my face. “But you do not have to let
them
”—he tossed a sour glance over his shoulder—“dictate how things must be, Persephone.”

These words—it was as if he knew my heart. I opened my mouth and closed it, tears brimming at the corners of my eyes. I could not weep again, not here, not on Olympus. “My path is set,” I whispered, threading my fingers together, like the pattern of my life. “I am the daughter of Zeus, and I am, therefore, an Olympian, with all that entails.” I shook my head helplessly. “I have lost my love. I feel so empty. I don’t know what to do.”

For a long moment, I thought he was laughing, and he was, but his mouth hung open like a water-starved animal, and he leaned close, lips curving up as he spoke a single word, the dare, the key: “Rebel.”

Rebel.

As if I could, as if it were possible.

“It is.” His eyes were on fire, shining so brightly, and for the first time in a month, I felt my heart shift to something other than sadness. A glimmer of hope shone from deep within me, beneath the rubble of my broken heart.

“Can you hear what I’m thinking?” I whispered, and he surprised me by nodding.

“Not everything. Mostly, I sense feelings. It’s a lucky gift to have.” He shimmered momentarily, flickered out, and then reappeared with a bunch of grapes in his hand. He began to pluck them, one by one, and tossed them into his mouth, all the while regarding me with his too-wide grin.

“I have wished I could do something, go somewhere, to get away from all of this.” I waved a hand at the crowd behind us. “But there is nowhere on the earth that is not my mother’s domain, and my mother fears Zeus.” My voice caught, and I coughed into my hand. “I fear Zeus, too.”

“Oh, sweet, sweet Persephone,” said Hermes, leaning closer, as if we were sharing a secret. “Our father is violent, selfish, and he exists for no other purpose than his own satiation. You say that your mother fears Zeus, and that you fear Zeus. You want to escape all of this but don’t have
anyplace
to go.” 

Hermes shimmered and appeared at once on the other side of me. “You say that all the earth is your mother’s domain.”

It is,” I replied, perplexed. “Any child knows this.”

“All that is
on the earth
.”
He lifted his eyebrows, staring intensely at me.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yes, yes, of course.”

“But…” He chewed a grape, then another. “Not what is under
it.
”

“What do you—under—
”

“Persephone!”

Even as I felt my mother’s cool fingers grasp my arm, felt her tug me through the columns, heard her haze of chatter, Hermes’ words pulsed within me. I walked in a fog. I staggered, glanced at Hermes, open-mouthed, and—slowly, deliberately—he winked, blew me a kiss.

And disappeared.

“Persephone, are you listening to me?” Demeter exclaimed, shoving some stray locks back from her pale forehead, patting my hand and rubbing it hard, too hard—her nervous habit.

I should have noticed the tremor in her voice, but it wasn’t until he stepped within my line of sight, and I blinked, once, twice, that I realized what had happened, what was about to happen.

“Dear, I want you to meet your father, officially.” She inhaled deeply, and I stared at her, at the way the fabric of her gown quivered in the space over her heart. “Persephone, this is Zeus.”