Page 17 of His in the Dark

PERSEPHONE

H ades must know what he has done to me.

It’s not only him, of course. It’s Silvie, who walked into my rooms unafraid of my status. She looked me in the eye and told me that I had not realized the freedom I had here.

Silvie’s words rang in my ears after she left, the ideas taking root like a precious seedling.

It grew surprisingly fast for the Underworld, almost as if my mind had been craving those words, and by the time Hades came back to his rooms the first night after I met Silvie, I felt anew. The crackling behind the obsidian didn’t startle me, it felt like it belonged, like the power that rippled through me.

I’ve spent too much time worrying about the state of my magic and trying to keep the fear of losing my place among the Gods and Goddesses I had grown up with to let it go all at once.

It was apparent to Hades. His honesty is as brutal as the punishments he delivers so effortlessly.

And yet, he still wanted me.

His touch felt new and tantalizing—not as if I was being forced to bear it, but as if I had invited him in, and he relished it. I will admit that I expected for him to lose more control than he did. I expected to be….ravished. Taken to the bed, at least. I wanted to know what it would feel like. I needed to experience what he has planned for me. And yet he only gave me a taste that sated a side of me that hungers for more even when limp and unable to cover my body when he was through with his tormenting.

Hades didn’t make a move for the bed until I could only draw breath to say enough, please, enough.

And then he’d helped me to dress for bed, and pulled the blanket over me, and let me fall asleep in peace and warmth. A privilege I once took for granted.

This does not mean I’ve gained my freedom. I haven’t gained the ability to go as I please, away from the Underworld and return to Olympus. But Silvie was right. I have far more freedom than I thought.

More control as well.

For example, Hades leaves each morning and goes somewhere else. The chains do not keep me confined to his rooms. As long as I do not break and run, they allow me to go where I please.

At first, I follow the path we took before, it’s thoroughly lit and familiar as well. The hallway outside Hades’s rooms has a door out to the makings of what could be gardens but is crystals instead, and from there it is easy to find the cobblestoned path with the dark blooms growing thickly on either side. I do not know the mechanism by which the path works—all I know is that if I walk on it with the intention of travelling through the Underworld, I can pass by the Fields of Mourning and the Isle of Achilles and the other realms Hades took me to see before.

I find myself burning with curiosity about the other rooms—the darker rooms. But I do not visit those places. I tell myself it is because there are too many other things for me to consider, but the truth is that I do not want to visit those places without Hades at my side.

Fear keeps my feet planted on paths I know well. Even if those paths aren’t where I crave to be.

I know how that would seem, if I were telling this story to another person. It makes very little sense to think of him as a protective presence, and perhaps that is not the way I think of him at all.

Perhaps it is that the emotions and sensations that move through my body when I am watching those things— experiencing those things from such a short distance—were overwhelming in the moment, and if I were to go back…

Well. It is not something I need to think about. I’m too busy making my way in the Underworld. Learning how it operates silently and on my own. There is little to no company for me. And the guards who line the halls are silent apart from the bow of their heads as I pass. The warmth and laughter of Olympus is lacking in the cold castle that I reside in now. I do wonder if it is always like this or if Hades has removed all witnesses for my stay here.

Or at least it was vacant the first few days but now as I set out to wonder, I’m aware there is more company than before.

The more I walk on the path, the clearer the realms alongside it become, and the same is true for the halls near Hades’s rooms. I could see the hallway outside the open door, but I did not know how many souls dwelled nearby. It is also possible that they had been told to stay away, and now they’ve been given other instructions.

And when they do…

They bow their heads.

There are more women like Silvie who tilt their heads when we pass each other as I am on my way in or out.

Silvie, I think one day, shortly after I have arrived back from a walk along the path. A few moments later, there are footsteps in the hall, and Silvie enters Hades’s rooms.

“Yes, my queen?” she asks. Is there a new light in her eyes? I cannot tell for certain but she seems to wear a semblance of peace I had not noticed before.

“I would like you to talk to me about magic,” I tell her, as calmly as I can manage. If I have this level of freedom, then I will be able to learn from her. If I don’t, and it’s only an illusion, then it won’t matter either way.

“What would you like for me to tell you?” she asks. Her fingers crest on a gold chain that wraps around her waist and over her shoulders, forming an “x” over her chest. It’s beautiful against the cream pressed silk with lace edges. It’s a dress my mother would love I think.

I answer without much thought at all, wanting to stop where my mind was headed. “Anything you know.”

Her brow raises in surprise and her lips upturn into a smile. “Anything?”

There is something about her words during our first conversation that makes me certain I should start from the beginning. The drain on my powers made it impossible to think of anything but the near future, when I would not be a Goddess at all. I should let my knowledge grow in me the way I let her words about freedom flourish.

I vaguely wonder if Hades told her about my magic. I wonder what she knows.

“Whatever you like about magic,” I tell her and take a seat on the end of the bed getting comfortable. “Tell me that.”

Silvie tells me the earliest stories she can remember about magic, and continues to do so whenever I wish for her to come to me. I cannot tell if this is making a change in me, but I listen anyway.

It might not be the stories themselves that matter as much as the feeling they give me when I listen. In many ways, I feel more secure than I ever have. In other ways, I feel like a child again, my eyes open to all the possibilities of magic instead of the few laid out before me.

As the path has opened my eyes to Hades’s home, Silvie opens my eyes to curiosity.

Magic cannot flourish where there is fear.

Listening as if I know nothing, being able to step back and think about magic in a way that’s far more innocent than I’ve felt in a long time… It helps. I have to believe it will help me.

And if it does not?—

I must believe it will help me, no matter the outcome. No matter what. My mother’s voice is echoed in Silvie’s stories.

I begin to make a habit of believing it. Each time I go out on the path, I encounter a soul who dips their head when I pass. This is not a sign of mockery. This is a sign of respect. Each time it happens, my curiosity increases.

They know nothing of me other than stories they’ve been told. And what exactly is that? Do the stories change? Are they real? Or is it simply its own kind of magic?

I listen to all Silvie has to say about magic, then listen some more. She walks with me some days in the dark halls that seem to be brighter as my eyes adjust. I keep my gaze and my mind on what is in front of me, not the home I was stolen from. I do not resist my reality and suddenly I see the freedom she spoke of.

“There is a way, then?” I ask Silvie one morning, as she is sitting at the table with me, her hands folded in her lap. “What you mean by all this is that there is… another way to have power here.”

“Yes, my queen,” she answers.

I stare out the window, but I do not see the gardens and the Underworld beyond. It’s blurred to me.

There is no life in the Underworld, so I will not be able to use my powers to create. There is only death. I do wonder if Hades made the crystal gardens and the dead blooms that have dried and lined the path for my comfort. At first they were only a reminder of what I lost, but as I watch the garden grow with dried petals that were ash on the mortal realm, I learn to enjoy their beauty.

Maybe that is the freedom Silvie spoke of.

But, I decide, there is only one thing to do, and that is to practice magic.

I start by enchanting bells on the doorknob under Sylvie’s watch. They will ring if anyone tries to enter, and will only allow those who want my highest self to flourish to pass through the threshold. Vaguely I wonder if Hades will be able to enter.

It’s a simple spell she says. Three old bells who have seen enough to know what will come. And one little jar that hangs from the rope with the words: I am protected and guided and safe in these quarters. Only those with who want my highest self to flourish to pass through the threshold.

“Do you feel it?” she asks me.

“Yes,” I answer although that stirring in the pit of my stomach feels much like what I felt with Hades. The pleasure, the safety, the warmth. I have not felt it before.

When Silvie is gone for the day—or for the time being, as I can summon her whenever I wish—I kneel at the hearth and think of magic, not my powers. They are both divine and worthy. I think of the forces that whirl through the Underworld and Olympus above.

At first, there is nothing. I’m not familiar with this kind of magic. I had thrown myself into studying my own powers and only wanted to draw life out of the earth so I could prove that I had them—the gifts that I had been granted at my birth, from my mother and father.

Now I must reach in another direction.

I close my eyes and try to feel those other sources of power.

It is not lifelessness that I sense all around me, though that is what my childhood would have had me believe. It is not cold death—or not only cold death. The souls in the Underworld are not the same as stones left to be battered by weather.

I try to light the fire again. Did it go out before I knelt at the grate? Did it sense, somehow, that I wanted to try my hand at magic? I cannot remember.

It does not take. Closing my eyes, I raise my palms to the fire, my knees against the hard rock. I attempt to light the flames again, “You will light for me. For that is my wish and what I wish is what is granted,” I whisper.

I swear when I open my eyes there’s a flicker of light, but it’s quickly gone and in it’s place, my frustration. “Would they bow their heads if they could see my failures?” I hiss at the unlit fire. My sense of worth fades as I pace the floor and in that moment, I am compelled to leave. I cannot stay trapped in this room. It’s suffocating.

I go for a walk along the path. I do not think of magic or the fire or the way it would not light for me. That kind of failure isn’t something I’m comfortable with. I let my mind settle on lighting that candle in Olympus—casting that protection spell, which did not protect me. It had seemed like it would not happen, but then…

It did.

The scene plays over in my mind again, what I can remember of it at least. Did the magic work? I felt it. Surely I felt it through every fiber in my soul.

What power did I feel, then? I keep my eyes open as I pass the Isle of Achilles, shining in the middle of the water. I took from the power at my right hand, drawn from the stones, and blew it out with my breath until the flame lit.

I did that because I am capable of magic. Always, I tell myself, reminding myself of Silvie’s stories and the lessons they hold. The magic never leaves me. It cannot. It is only the soul who chooses not to believe in it who loses the magic. And yet, it is always right there.

My pace quickens as I harness that feeling, deep in my womb it emerges as if it was waiting for me to remember.

With a prickling at the back of my neck, I feel someone watching me.

Turning on my heel, there is no one. My heart races and I’m met with an uncomfortable feeling. Like being woken in the middle of the night.

It could be Hades; I have not seen him since he left his rooms this morning.

After a moment, a woman passes me on the path. She stops and turns toward me, dipping her head, so I nod back to her. Curiosity sparks in my chest. Where is she going? Does she have an errand, is it for pleasure, or is she going on someone’s orders? What does it look like to live in the Underworld, a place where there is no life?

I think to follow her but I do not. I think to call out and ask, but I do not. For it is the curiosity that intrigues me.

I try to keep my mind open as I return from my walk. There are a thousand questions that could be asked about the Underworld, and I let all of them float into my mind. I don’t let myself dismiss any of them, even the simple ones.

Curiosity is like a flame.

Curiosity is its own power.

Quickly, with this feeling brewing inside of me, desperately holding onto it, I rush back to the bedchambers.

I kneel back before the hearth. The low flames that have not done a single thing to warm Hades’s rooms flicker out, fading to nothing as I watch.

The hearth is waiting for me. It’s waiting in anticipation for me to direct magic to it and bring the flames back to life. My breath leaves me in a rush as I realize it’s there. It’s waiting.

With my eyes wide open, I direct the magic into the hearth. Telling it to do as I will.

An ember cracks under my magic. My hands tremble and a new flame rises within me. Just as I feel so close to bringing the flames forth, the bells on the door ring, interrupting me.

Olympus

Beatrice

My Goddess did not leave me. I know it to be true. From the runes and the cards. From her mother’s wails for nine days. She’s been taken.

Zeus does not seem as stricken as Demeter. She’s searched all of Olympus and reached out to the corners of each realm. No one heard but a single scream in the night.

The courts have gone quiet and the skies darkened with bolts of thunder.

It is unlike anything that I have witnessed before. Fear is not my companion but as the days pass with no answers, my concern grows and tears now flow freely as I mourn her loss.

Where has she gone? I ask again to the cards and once again the Death card emerges but I refuse to think of her soul as gone. It mustn’t be right. I toss the deck with worn edges to the side, refusing to believe she is no more. She is my Goddess and I swear I can still feel her and there is pain there. As a mortal, I can barely stand the agony.

The terrors that plague me in my sleeping hours are only worsening.

It is my duty to petition Hekate. To pray with everything I have. The spell must be cast with the plea in my heart.

Wiping my eyes with the small cloth I lay it down and place a key on where the tears have soaked through. As I smooth it out, my hands tremble. I gather 9 black candles for protection and place them in a circle around me. Evenly and with a single match I light them all.

“Hekate,” I pray, ”we beg for your intercession. I beg for you to find Persephone. Please. Her loss is my pain.”

My voice shakes with the prayer and I bow my body in respect as I continue.

“Demeter searched for nine days. Her mother and the Goddess of Harvest and Fertility. She weeps with sorrow. Her father, Zeus, the God of Thunder and Sky seeks for union but knows not where to light for the truth of where she lies. Please, I beg you. I beg you please. Goddess of Night and Mother to all, I cry out to you.

“Find Persephone in the crossroads where she has been lost,” I pray, casting the spell with as much power as I can summon. I cast it with the heart of a mother who has lost her child. Who would do anything to bring that child home. She will always be Demeter’s daughter and her agony is felt in the desperate nights. Tears flow and my nose runs as my body rocks, needing the comfort of Hekate.

As I whisper, “please,” my warm breath on the cold paved floor beneath me, the screams from the courts are heard.

Demeter’s cries of agony and the threats she gives to Zeus. “If I must suffer, they will all suffer!”

The skies brighten with flash of lightning followed by a thunder that trembles the ground. I close my eyes, fear and rage echoing through me.

“I will let them all die!”

“You mustn’t upset the balance! You will destroy everything!” Zeus’s voice booms as the sky cracks again. My body tenses as I cry praying they do not know I still dwell where Persephone once laid.

“If I must be destroyed, so be it!” Demeter shrieks and I don’t dare raise my head to peer out from the window. I don’t dare to look.

Demeter screams at Zeus to do something. To find Persephone. She has withered all the plants that thrived on Olympus. Yesterday, she said she would go to the Earthly realm. She said she’d take away all warmth and life if no one brought forth her daughter. She rages and in her rage, suffering spreads. The crops are all dead because of her anger, and she shows no signs of relenting.

“Find her now ,” Demeter screams, her voice shaking the walls. She breaks down in tears, her sorrow felt by every God and witness I’m sure of it. The tears puddle on the ground beneath me and soak into my cheek.

“Hekate,” I pray. “We beg for you to find her. Please,” I whisper and at that moment, Demeter wails and every candle around me goes out, leaving me in darkness.

“Mother?” I whisper.