Asphodel eBook final0

by Hammond, Lauren

  Mom doesn’t let me have friends. And she definitely wouldn’t let me have a boyfriend. A boyfriend would earn me a round trip ticket to another state. I remember one of our debates a few years back when we were living in Massachusetts. A kid from my class who I sort of had a crush on, kissed me and I’d let him. The kiss took place on the front steps of the school, in front of the entire student body, and in front of mom who had been watching it unfold from her mini-van. I took my time walking to the car that day because I could see her face, twisted and bunched up from the school steps. She was furious.

  “That’s it!” she’d shouted. Pack up. We’re moving.”

  “Mom, no!” I’d protested. “It was just a kiss.”

  “Persephone,” she’d said sternly. “You know we’re not like the mortals. If we stay in one place for too long or get too close they’ll start to suspect something. Don’t whine. Pack your things. We leave tomorrow morning.”

  I like Oregon. I’m not ready to leave yet.

  Adonis gazes into my eyes. “I wanted to. It’s nothing much. Just something I saw in a department store downtown that I thought you’d like. And don’t get mad,” he says. “I know you said you hate celebrating your birthday, but it reminded me of you.”

  I beam and laugh giddily. “I’m not mad. I’m just saying you didn’t have to.”

  He stops in front of me and I come to a halt. “Open it.” His amber eyes shimmer like topaz gems in the sunlight and are filled with excitement.

  Eagerly, I rip into the paper and my breathing stops. “Oh my. Adonis, it’s beautiful.” Fanned out along the heel of my hand is a delicate silver bracelet with an ornate rose charm dangling from it.

  “Let me put it on you,” he says with a smile.

  After I shove the excess wrapping paper in my book bag, I hold my wrist out and he fastens the bracelet. Lifting my hand, I marvel at the gift and as the sun catches the charm, it glistens.

  I shoot him a patronizing look. “Seriously though, how much did something like this cost?”

  “Don’t you worry about it. It’s your birthday.”

  “Still. You could have spent your money on something you wanted or needed. Instead you spend it on a gift me.”

  He shakes his head as a smile spans across his lips. “I have all I want and need. Just do me a favor and enjoy the gift.”

  A flicker of light reflecting off the bracelet catches my eye and I look down at it again. Then I glimpse at Adonis, but he doesn’t meet my gaze. He’s staring straight ahead, his amber eyes sparkling, and a radiant smile as bright as the sun on his lips. An uneasy feeling swirls around in my gut. This is not a friendly gift. This is a gift that says he wants to be more than friends and that scares the Goddess out of me.

  ****

  Klamath Falls high isn’t a school that holds very many secrets. Every morning as I walk to my locker, I know what to expect. I know that Kate Perry and Grant Pierce will me making out in front of the mass of black metal and I know that I’ll have to shove them aside with my shoulder just to get my books. I know that Mr. Doyle, the gym teacher will be standing at the end of the hall checking his watch periodically to make sure there aren’t any stragglers lingering in the halls after the bell rings. And I also know that the popular kids will stroll past me flashing me scowls before they break out into a hymn of whispers.

  I’ve been here since I was a freshman and despite my efforts to be friendly, they’ve never warmed to me. When we’d first moved here, I knew trying to talk to people would be difficult. Klamath Falls is a small town and the townspeople and students have been sorted into their own social circles since they were children. There’s no room for someone like me in those existing cliques. There’s no room for a freak anywhere.

  One of the cheerleaders in my biology class labeled me a freak about three months after I’d started high school. During biology, I had a weak moment where I noticed a dying rose on the teacher’s desk. Just the sight of the rotting petals and wilted stem made my heart ache. So when the teacher wasn’t looking, I touched the flower and it magically came back to life. The vibrant red petals regained their full color and the wrinkles in the stem faded away.

  Sasha Ferrar’s mouth had dropped open and her emerald eyes followed me back to my seat and then she looked over her shoulder. “What did you do, freak?”

  All of the Immortal Olympians are gifted with special powers. In my opinion, I’ve been cursed with the lousiest one. The only thing I can do is revive dead plants. My dad, Zeus can shift into any animal he wants or shoot bolts of lightning from his fingertips. Why can’t I do something like that?

  Ever since that day, I never slipped up again. My façade of normalcy is too precious and I prayed every day that my mom would never find out about the incident. She didn’t. Sasha eventually forgot about the rose, but the freak name stuck to me like a sign on the back that says ‘kick me’.

  I enter my first period class—which is English and this semester we are studying Mythology. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?

  Mrs. Kirk, the petite mousy teacher leans against her desk as I slide into my seat. A strand of my mahogany hair breaks free from my ponytail. At first I try blowing the strand out of my face. I give up when the reddish brown strip only moves a centimeter so I tuck it behind my ear.

  Marisol Nicholls plops down next to me. Red flushes her ivory cheeks as she fumbles through her folders. She mumbles a string of choice words under her breath and nervously brushes her curly orange hair over her shoulder. I smile amused. “You okay, Mar?”

  “Argh. I can’t find that print-out Mrs. Kirk gave us yesterday,” she whines. “I have a hard enough time in this class as it is.”

  Marisol flips through her textbook. She’s the only person I can call an acquaintance. We talk in school and sometimes we text and there have been a few times where we’ve wrote on each other’s Facebook walls, but that’s all our relationship consists of. I wish she could be my friend. I wish we could do all the things I’ve seen other girl best friends do. Have sleepovers, go shopping, and maybe even crash a few parties. But every time I think about it, a vivid picture of mom holding out two plane tickets pops into my head and I remember that I’m lucky we haven’t moved yet.

  Marisol pulls a sheet of paper out of the back of her text book. She kisses it and I laugh. “Thank the Gods,” she jokes. After she lays the paper flat on her desk, she turns toward me. “Hey! I almost forgot. Happy Birthday, P!”

  The bell rings and Mrs. Kirk’s head snaps to her left. Her beady grey eyes zoom in on Marisol. “Miss Nicholls, is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?”

  Marisol drops her head and slinks down in her seat. “No,” Marisol answers quietly.

  Her eyes flash over to mine as Mrs. Kirk faces the class. “Thank you,” I mouth with a smile.

  “Okay, class!” Mrs. Kirk announces as she reaches over her shoulder to grab a wicker basket. “Take a piece of paper from the basket and pass it to the person behind you. And do not open your paper until everyone has one.” She walks over to me and hands me the basket. I take a piece of folded up paper and pass it to the person behind me.

  Once everyone has a paper, Mrs. Kirk takes the basket back and sets it on the edge of her desk. “Alright.” She clasps her hands together excitedly. “Open your papers.”

  The rustling of paper echoes throughout the classroom. I stare down at my paper as a smug grin crawls across my lips. Marisol hangs out of her desk, straining to see the name on my paper. “Who did you get?”

  I hold up the paper so she can get a clear look. “Demeter, you?” Inside an explosion of glee travels through me. I will definitely get an A on this assignment. Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest is my mom. It’s not that I really need to focus on getting good grades; it’s that it makes me feel more normal if I do.

  Marisol falls back into her seat, slumping. “Hades,” she grumbles. “How come everyone else always gets the good ones?”

  A soft laugh leaves my t
hroat at the sight of Marisol sulking like a child. “I’m sure the God of the Dead could be interesting.”

  She rolls her eyes. “More like the God of Dread.

  “I’ll help you if you want,” I offer.

  Marisol perks up, her eyes glistening with hope. “Would you trade me?”

  “You cannot trade!” Mrs. Kirk pipes up.

  Marisol exhales and winces. “Bummer.”

  “This will be your final essay assignment,” Mrs. Kirk announces as she walks around to sit down at her desk. “It’s going to make up eighty percent of your grade.”

  I hiss softly, trying to get Marisol’s attention. I lower my hand with the paper in it, and her eyes meet mine. She drops her head slowly, finally catching on to what I’m doing. A bright smile curls on her lips and she snatches the paper from my hand and replaces it with hers. Mrs. Kirk won’t know we switched. She didn’t ask us who we’d selected. Plus she’s not paying attention at the moment.

  The small crumpled up piece of paper with Hades in black permanent marker fills my vision. Surprisingly, Hades is a God I don’t know much about. I’ve never asked about him and on top of that, mom refuses to talk about the commander of the Underworld.

  I recall one story she told me about him centuries ago.

  “Hades is the master of deception and trickery,” she’d told me. “When Zeus had problems with the mortals, Hades summoned a beast from the depths of Tartarus to teach humanity a lesson. You see he envied Zeus for giving him command of the realm of the dead. So in return he pretended to use his beast to do Zeus’s bidding, but he’d really only intended to use the Kraken for his own selfish reasons.”

  “The Kraken?” I’d questioned.

  “A monstrous beast over one hundred feet tall, with fangs as long as spears, and slimy skin with scales.” Mom lowered her voice, a frightening look on her face. “The Kraken could eat a hundred mortals with a snap of its’ jaw.”

  “That’s terrifying,” I’d gasped. “What did Zeus do?” I remember that she’d told me that story right before bed time.

  “Never you mind.” She’d kissed the top of my head. “You just go to sleep and try to dream of pleasant things.” Trying to dream of pleasant things after hearing a story like that was like asking for snow in the desert. I laid awake for half of the night, eyes wide, glued to the ceiling.

  During lunch exhaustion creeps over me and I struggle to keep my eyes open. I lay my head on the cool, hard table and close my eyes. All I want to do is sleep away my fears. Sleep right through my birthday and forget about the voice. The voice that I know will pop up randomly at any given moment throughout the rest of the day.

  As my slumber deepens, my mind slips away from me. I’m dreaming, lost in a world that I haven’t been to in five thousand years. I am outdoors. I am running and a gust of wind whips through my hair tossing up the scent of freesia. I suck in lungfuls of the smell of wildflowers, and pluck a bouquet from the earth. Shifting, I peek over my shoulder. I know where I am. I’m in one of the most cherished places of my past, in the field at Enna on the outskirts of Mount Olympus.

  Marching forward, a garden of yellow daffodils draws me closer to edge of the field. I bend over, reaching for a daffodil to add to my heaping bouquet when I hear it—the voice.

  “Persephone,” he hisses. “Come to me.” I’m perplexed and curious, but at the same time fear swallows me, digesting me like a mammal in an anaconda’s stomach. My spine stiffens. A strangled gasp sticks in my throat. My lungs clench and refuse to expand. Straightening up, my attention averts to a willow tree at the edge of the field.

  A man with dark hair stands underneath the tree watching me.

  Thick saliva coats the lining of my esophagus, sticky like warm molasses. I try to push it down with more saliva, but I can’t. On the outside I appear to be calm, but on the inside I’m a knot of hysteria. Shrieking, trembling, and sobbing. The man’s face is blurred and I can’t make out his features. He’s dressed from head to toe in black. I lurch forward fighting the better half of myself that’s screaming for me to stay put. “Who aaare you?” I stutter.

  He doesn’t answer.

  As I close the gap between us I can make out his broad, muscular build. The man tilts his head to the side and I swear I can see a set of eyes as blue as the Aegean Sea. “Are you the voice?” My own voice goes up an octave.

  I’m so close to him now that I can make out his profound jaw-line, high cheek bones, and the slightest bit of stubble on his chin. But then, when I’m only feet away he vanishes into thin air. He’s a particle of matter floating in the atmosphere. Invisible. I’m so confused. “Where did you go?” I pivot in a circle, taking in the whole field, but the mysterious man is nowhere in sight. “Where did you go?”

  A finger digs into my shoulder and I pivot again. I’m still alone. “Who’s touching me?” Then a hand clamps down on my shoulder and I’m shaking. My whole body is shaking. “Stop it!” I swat at the invisible hand frantically. “Stop touching me!” The shaking intensifies and I feel my whole body convulsing.

  “P!”

  “Stop! Get your hands off me!”

  “P! Damn it! Wake up!”

  My eyes snap open. Marisol is inches away from my face wearing a concerned look. I sit up and stifle a glance around the packed cafeteria. “Mar?”

  “Are you okay?” Marisol gasps. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Yeah,” I breathe. “I must have dozed off and had some kind of nightmare.”

  “I’ll say.”

  She gives me another apprehensive look. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I nod and relief floods through me. I’m elated to be in the safe haven of the cafeteria. The dream felt too real and my cheeks are hot, like I’d actually been basking in the warmth of the sun. “I’m fine.”

  “Good.” Marisol slides a thick book with a hard cover casing toward me.

  I stare at the cover. “Greek Myths for Beginners.”

  “I found it in the library,” she tells me. “Remember how you offered to help me?”

  “Yeah. My offer still stands.”

  “Well, I’m taking it,” she says discouragingly. “I’m terrible in mythology.”

  I smile. “Well, luckily for you, I’m not.”

  “Of course you’re not. Your name is Persephone for God’s sake. You have to have Greek in you somewhere.”

  “Some.” More than she’s aware of.

  Flipping through the book, I laugh; amused at how mortals recount the existence of the Olympians if they only knew we could actually vouch for ourselves, I’m sure this would make their literature seem silly. I turn a few more pages and freeze, stopping about half-way through the book. “Oh…” A breath is clogged in the back of my throat. “No.”

  Marisol leans over my shoulder, focusing on the image on the page. “What’s the matter?”

  I stare at a picture of the fruit I’d received as a birthday gift this morning. The thick reddish skin fills my gaze and I make a shocking discovery. “H is Hades.”

  Marisol draws her eyebrows together. “Huh?” She points to the picture, reading the paragraph beneath it. “The book says that’s a pomegranate. Supposedly, it’s the fruit of the dead.”

  A queasy feeling ripples through my stomach. “H is Hades,” I repeat robotically. Rising from the table I can feel my knees trembling. I lock them in place as Marisol follows me with her brown child-like eyes. “What’s going on P?”

  I’m numb and a feeling of betrayal surges through me. I picture mom’s panicked look when I placed the pomegranate against my lips. “She knows,” I pant as my breaths come out short and raspy. Backing away from the table, I’m hyperventilating. Shock is a brick sitting in the pit of my stomach. I want to spit it out. I want to throw it up. “I don’t feel so hot. I have to go home,” I mumble.

  “P, wait! What’s wrong?”

  “Just text me later if you still need help,” I tell her. Then I bolt from the cafeteria, sprinting to the
exit.

  Persephone

  There’s a sledgehammer in my head pounding questions through my cranium.

  Mom…. She has moved me from place to place, and she’s never explained why. She was always giving me vague answers or telling me it was because of the mortals, but it’s not. We’ve been moving because of him—because of Hades.

  As I storm toward the exit I’m a jumbled mixture of rage and uncertainty. What does Hades want from me? Why has he been chasing me for all this time?

  I glance down at the floor, so involved in my own thoughts I trip, bumping into someone. “I’m sorry,” I groan, eyes still on the floor.

  Adonis grips my shoulders. “Easy there.” I lift my head and he gives me a warm smile. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”