by Eli Constant
“You feel better now, you hear,” Sally said as she dusted her hands off on her apron. “And remember that there’s always tomorrow.”
Delores nodded. “There’s always tomorrow,” she repeated, sealing the words inside of herself. Making them belong and wishing they were true.
“Exactly,” Sally smiled, happy that her words seemed to be sinking into this woman. “Tomorrow is a new day to start fresh, to love and to show kindness to others. Everything always looks better in the morning.”
“I wish that were true.”
Sally frowned. “Sometimes our paths aren’t as simple as we want them to be, but when we sweep the dust to one side the picture is clear—our path is clear. You just have to have strength and believe that everything will turn out okay.”
Delores felt the sting of Sally’s words. Nothing would be okay ever again. Nothing. There was nothing good left inside of her. It was all dead and rotted. Brittle bones and dried out veins. She was an empty carcass waiting for her time on this earth to end. There was no point to anything anymore.
“Sally, for God’s sake, come on!” the man called out again.
Sally rolled her eyes. “Listen, just think of someone that’s important to you, hold them close and keep going. That’s all we can really do. One foot in front of the other—for them.”
“What we do, we do out of our love for others,” Delores replied almost numbly.
Her words were true and heartfelt, because that was, after all, what she was doing. She was doing this out of love. A moment of insanity had changed everyone’s lives forever and an act of hate could only be forgiven with an act of love…an act of unselfishness.
Of total self-sacrifice.
Delores looked up through her lashes, seeing that Sally was still staring at her, “Yes, do it out of love for them,” Sally replied, feeling like she’d finally gotten through to Delores.
*
Back in her car, Delores rolled down all the windows. The air in the car was stuffy and humid, the car almost suffocating after sitting in the heat for so long. It was difficult to catch her breath. But then, she always struggled to breathe these days. Her pained heart was relentless, she was sure it only continued to throb in her chest as an aching reminder that she was alive, and others were not.
Her lungs though, they always resisted. The action of pulling air into them was a constant struggle. As if her lungs were trying to snuff out her life.
Her body was against her. And she couldn’t really blame it. Though she loathed herself much more than anyone else ever could. She turned the key, and the engine started with a roar. She watched, mesmerised for several moments as the attached keyring swung back and forth like a taunt. A reminder.
The sleek silver car was older than she was, and yet it ran as if it were brand new and rolling fresh out of the factory doors. Michael had loved this car, probably more than he had loved her. Which says a lot, because at one time he had loved her very much.
But then, love fades and dies, just like everything else in this world.
Love was as bad as hate, only twice as powerful, and even more vengeful.
Delores blinked, her eyelids feeling sluggish as she continued to watch the keyring swaying.
A lazy breeze drifted in through the open window, giving her a spilt second of fresh air, and allowing her a moment’s respite. She sucked it in greedily, the air travelling down her throat like ointment, soothing, gentle. Then she sighed heavily and pulled out of the diner’s parking lot and back on to the dusty road as humidity and guilt pressed back down on her.
Traffic was light. No one wanted to be out in this heat. Not unless they really had somewhere to go. Delores, however, did have somewhere to go and she was desperate to get there.
How many times had Michael and her put off this trip with different excuses? Too many times, that was how many. They were a busy family. With children and jobs filling their days. Long nights away with work had made Michael cranky over the years and their marriage wasn’t what it had once been. But she’d tried so hard to please him. So hard to be the woman and wife that he needed. She knew now that it was all futile.
She was never good enough for him. Would never be good enough for him.
She’d had the picture-perfect life; the beautiful children, the handsome husband, the house with the white picket fence, but it wasn’t enough to stop her own madness from creeping in. You couldn’t put off your own destiny.
And just like the inevitability of her downfall, she couldn’t put off this trip anymore.
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Chapter One.
A STROKE OF FATE
I nearly met my death as a babe. The scythes of the farmers are sharp as sin, and they cut the stalks of the ripened wheat without mercy. I was saved through a stroke of fate.
The old man who found me said I glowed with an ethereal light and he saw me through the curtain of grass before he swung his blade. Only for a moment, I shone like gossamer stars. He believed me Olympus-kissed. That gleam has never returned to me. I believe the old man was mistaken. He didn’t see a light at all.
I am so very ordinary.
A girl with no parents. A girl with no past.
Still, as if in a bid to bring back the starlight, the old man named me Persephone after the goddess of the harvest—the harvest, within which I had been found abandoned. To be named after our patron goddess, though it was meant to be an honor I am sure, feels more a burden.
“Kore, get yeeself int’ th’ eatin’ or ye’ll slumber wi’ naught bit an ache in yer middling.” Kind Woman’s voice carried over the golden wheat, finding me where I rested against the ground. Hiding in the growing things gave me peace. It was peace. Kind
Woman talked differently than anyone else in the village. She fled her homeland so long ago that she says she cannot close her eyes and see her nurturing place any longer. She cannot see the faces of the ones who raised her. But the truth in her words has stayed, like rolling hills meeting lakes which erode the shores but cannot destroy them completely.
“Lass, urr ye hearin’ me?” Her voice grew no closer. She’d not come searching for me. She had her busy ways and sparing a thought for me was all she typically had time for in a day. It wasn’t ignoring me out of mean-spiritedness. It was just the truth of things. Kind Woman and Kind Husband were older, as much silver in their hair as any color now. I knew I should be better to them, more grateful for their love.
She says often that she was lucky to find Kind Husband when he was out in the further world past the mountains, lucky to come to our small village with his promise of happiness. It made me sad, at times, that they could not have children of their own. I should feel more important, that I am one of three they adopted into their home—their first wanted child. When no one else wanted the baby from the wheat field who never cried, yet only stared at the world around her with unbridled curiosity, the Kind couple wrapped me in their arms.
“Hae it yer way,” Kind Woman yelled again, “tis yer belly!”
I heard the heavy wooden door to our rounded home set deep into the hillside swing closed. She and Kind Husband have watched over me all these years, since the night I was found abandoned by the old man. They’d had no children before me, well past the age’n of birthing. Yet, they’d created a family for themselves, takin’ in the cast-offs and the orphans.
I held my hand up, watching the way my paleness glowed in the fading sunlight. No matter how much time I spent in the sunlight, I didn’t get the Earth-kissed skin of my sister or brother. We are all shades of different in hidden village, but I have always been the only one so pale.
Really, I had nothing in common with my adopti
ve family. Kind Woman and Kind Husband were tall and broad of shoulders. Hair that was once dark and ink pools for eyes. They are brown as the Earth when it is wet, and just as sweet smelling as soil after a storm. Good Brother and Good Sister are similarly-formed, though Good Sister is shorter than the rest and goes to great lengths to smell of grapes, because they are such a rare and desirable food.
Our village was buried between mountains, tucked away from the world. The only way in and out, aside from the treacherous journey over the peaks, was the deep blue river that had worn down a narrow passageway between the guardian rocks. We were different here, cut off from society. We lived in peace with nature, growing and taking only what was needed. A wise person would not want more than the simple life our people offer.
I often wished it fulfilled me.
I must have laid there in the crop for an hour past the time Kind Woman called for me. It was easy to lose track of time out in nature. My body seemed to sink into the soil and send its own brand of magick into the roots of everything around me. I closed my eyes, digging my fingers into the black earth. Kind Woman would have a fit if she saw my nails later, though she should be used to my wildling unkemptness.
“Sephy? Are you out here?” A familiar voice made me smile and I sat up, tugging bits of wheat from my hair, even as bits of dirt fell from my hands to dirty my shoulders and sleeveless top. The crop had grown nearly to my shoulders when I am sitting down. It was perfect for hiding when lying down.
Nefeli, arms laden with barley, was pushing through the wheat stalks towards me. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you.” She spoke grumpily, but then she smiled widely, bright white teeth settled between lips stained mauve with berries. “Head father wants the largest barley field nearest the mourning stones harvested.”
“What in the name of Olympus for?” I played with a stalk of wheat next to me, gently rolling the grain at the tip between my fingers. It was not ready for the picking. It stayed secure to the stalk still, not falling away ready for drying and grinding and bread making. “Only the older younglings and elders work that field. It’s so close to the stones and woods.”
“He wouldn’t say.” Nefeli shrugged, swiping strands of midnight hair away from her face. It fell back rebelliously, swinging in front of her Earth-dark eyes. “He wants it done quickly though. Everyone who can help is being gathered to the stones.”
“I’m tired,” I complained bitterly. I’d worked most of the day, and my hands were raw from cleaning the unwanted weeds from between the good growing things. “And my stomach’s empty.”
“We’re all tired, Sephy. And I bet you ignored Kind Woman’s calling for supper again. That’s your fault. Come on.” Shifting the bundles of barley under one arm, Nefeli reached down to grab my hand. I reached up to meet her grip, though I made her pull hard to help me up. Payback for disturbing my peace in the wheat field. “You’re such a lazy bones,” she huffed when I finally stood beside her, our hands still grasped together. We were light and dark joined, our skins so different. “And you’re filthy.”
I released her hand and swiped my palms down the long skirt I wore to rid them of loose dirt. The skirt was patchwork, each piece holding a story, though the meaning was mine alone to keep. I frowned when I discovered a small hole near the hem. “Oh,” I breathed out, picking up the skirt and pushing my smallest finger through the tear.
Nefeli peered down, finding what had me standing still instead of following her. “I’ll mend it for you tomorrow.” She’d known me since I was in swaddlings, cradled next to Kind Woman’s bosom. Nefeli was my dearest one in the village. I held love for Good Brother and Good Sister, but it was not the same. We were bonded by our adoptive parents, not out of want from ourselves. There’d always been a shadow of a something keeping us from truly caring. I’d heard them talking together many sunsets ago. They’d known their parents, both dying in the flood of the river between the guardian rocks ten years ago when they were only a little more than five full season cycles. They were sixteen now, thick as thieves… thick as twins.
I was different. Different than anyone else. No parents. No past. No indention in my belly that connected me to a womb… though only Kind Woman and Kind Husband knew that. I’d been with them longest. Over seventeen full season cycles. I remembered only the life here in the village nestled between guardian mountains and weeping woods.
Nefeli led me out of the wheat fields, past the rounded home built into the hill. There were no lamps casting light out into the falling shadows yet, but Kind Woman and Kind Husband were frugal and didn’t use the oils unless one of them had to work past the darkening.
We moved towards the direction of the mourning stones near the edge of the weeping woods, though they were too distant to see. Some folks walked behind and in front of us. It did seem like nearly the whole village was answering Head Father’s call. My adoptive parents were not among them; perhaps they were already at the large field.
“It’s going to be nightfall soonish,” I mused as we passed the Head Father’s home, which was unremarkable. Head Father believed a leader should never stand higher than his people. He said there were great cities in faraway places where leaders stood on the backs of those beneath. He learned the good things and the bad that come with hierarchy of station. So Head Father stays humble here, in our small hidden village. “Darkness is no time to be clearing fields.”
The sun had fallen below the mountains now, fingers of color reaching up into the cloudy sky above. “If it weren’t important, Head Father wouldn’t be asking.” Nefeli countered, a content expression on her face.
We stopped at the drying towers to hang the barley. It smelled musky inside. “Timo didn’t open the vents today,” I huffed, reaching up and pushing the poles that opened the sky windows.
“No, leave them closed now. The night air is too moist and the clouds are promising wetness.”
“Not enough clouds for rain,” I argued, but pulled the pole back into a fully-closed position. Nefeli was wrong about the rain. I always knew when rain was coming, but she was right about the night air being moister than the day. It wouldn’t do to risk the grain.
When we left the towers, the villagers who’d walked near us were out of sight. After a few paces, voices in the distance came to life. The din grew, until we saw what seemed like the whole village working the large field by the mourning stones. Some of the menfolk were lighting torches and preparing smoked fish to fuel the laborers. My stomach grumbled and I took a half-step towards the cooking.
“Nefeli! Kore!” Head Father yelled when he saw us. “Start the working over there.” He pointed towards the back of the field, the corner nearest to the first large stone.
We nodded, taking up sickles from the tools barrow, and headed that way, though my belly wanted me to move in another direction. I would prefer to be left to my own devices for food—the men and women of my village did not ask the river to provide if it were willing, they did not thank the animals they slaughtered for meals—but I was hungrier than I realized. I regretted not heeding Kind Woman’s call for supper and I knew that I needed to stop avoiding family meals and listen when Kind Woman called me into the round house. I wondered if they ever wished they’d not taken in such a strange child all those years past. My eyes automatically searched for my adoptive parents, but they were not in sight. I frowned. I could see them whenever I liked, and I chose not to. Now, I wanted to see them, and I could not.
That was life. That was being a mortal without the foresight to understand the importance of things. The task at hand quickly distracted me, my dirty fingers gripping the sickle handle firmly as I pulled grain into small bunches and sliced the curved blade across the stalks.
As we worked, Nefeli began to hum. Soon the humming changed to song. And, as it always was, I smiled at what a terrible singer my dearest friend was. When she glanced back at me and saw me smiling, she paused singing long enough to stick out her tongue and suggest I join her if I thought my voice was
so much better. So I did.
“Palest moon upon our mountains, coolness before the morning light. Send to us our Goddess plenty, harvest days and harvest nights. Swing the scythes and beat the barely, grains to make our bread and mead. In our heads and in our heart stones, we call to thee Persephone.”
Voices all around us came to life, joining the singing. We sent our prayer up into the starlight sky, to the goddess who died so long ago. Her mother Demeter still watched over all who lived in the way of growing things, but her daughter had always been the patron goddess of our small village. I often wondered if Demeter felt slighted. Though, to love and worship her daughter was to love and worship the mother herself. They were both the land and all things that rooted there.
My calloused hands sliced the blade of the sickle against the barley stalks, though they were not the perfect golden color we have been taught to wait for when enough sun has ripened the grain. This is the spring harvest. We are half a moon cycle early at the least.
Until the wee morning hours, our village worked. Until the torches had run out of oil, the field was barest soil once more, and all of the early barley had been bundled to be carried to the drying towers.
It was then, with the sun beginning to lighten the obsidian hue above into a navy blue, that Head Father stood before us to explain the strangeness of the past night’s work.
“My people. My dearest ones. It has been a night of odd work. We have harvested the barley before its time. It is a sin against the soil. This is what we have been taught. To take a thing before its time is unnatural.”
We all watched Head Father in silence. He smiled, reassuring us with his love.
“It has been many harvests since we have faced what is coming. I was only a small boy when it happened. I watched those older than me chosen and taken. When I was sent out into the larger lands to learn my place, to learn to lead, I heard stories from other towns. My father’s father was Head Father then.”