by elda lore
At my feet lay Curby, his three heads bowed in defeat. He’d been the one to find his master, crumbled and folded on the cavern floor, deep beneath the elevator shaft. My father must have known of my presence in the resort. The mirrors spied. I’d noticed Persephone staring at the glistening reflection, knowing what stood behind them: seven layers of sin. Her disgusted face scrutinized the reflecting glass. The idea of returning here repulsive in her expression.
I’d lost my head, knowing Veva wanted to bring us here for her celebration. The risk of entering The Emporium seized me, drawing me into old habits out of fear. Fear that I’d lose her. Fear that I’d end where I stood. I drank too much. My head abuzz with thoughts of losing Persephone, I pushed her away. I behaved so poorly toward her, and I had no one to blame but myself. I’d ruined our last hours, minutes, seconds. I took and I gave. Fingering her in the truck, forcing her pleasure to rest in the palm of my hand. Capturing each sigh on my lips with hopes of holding it for all of eternity.
Silence filled my father’s office and I assumed he awaited an answer, but I could no longer remember his question.
“This isn’t a two-way street like it is for your mother,” my father warned, stating the obvious. “She comes and she goes because of who she is, because she is not mortal.” I dipped my head, acknowledging what he said. History would not repeat, she told me. In many ways, my mother was jealous of that fact. Tricked into reigning as queen, she longed to remain permanently above ground. I like to imagine my parents loved one another once. That love produced me, but time had changed them both. Eternity was a long time.
“She won’t be returning.” The confidence I attempted to portray shook in my voice. My words were truth. I would not try to bring Persephone back through the gates. I gave her the ring to remember me. My queen. My firefly. She would glisten and burn bright until her light faded and she returned to me.
Her scream haunted me, as I thought of her. The shrill sound followed me down the shaft, cut off abruptly when the box resealed the portal and returned to its original function.
“Mother did it, didn’t she?” I sighed. Spies in the glass, I thought. My mother knew I was on the other side. The side where I did not belong, and she used her power to return me home. Home, to darkness and sin, and loneliness and quiet. If Fall marked my mother’s return, my Fate was to follow her curse.
“This is your place. The only place you’ll belong,” my father said, turning to face me. His eyes showed compassion as his brows twitched. He understood the loss of love. Regardless, the hint of pride in his tone proved he believed this was heaven. His emporium.
“I saw Zeke.” The words swirled out in spite. My father wasn’t close with his two brothers: Zeke and Idon. They each had their place among humans, interacting more often with one another than their third brother. We still had our own connection to Idon’s power through the river. My shoulders sunk. The river. It would always be a potential portal to her and yet it was one I would ignore. The temptation would be great, the ease too convenient.
“I should ban you from seeing Solis, but I find you both have a will of your own.” My father chuckled at the thought. His shoulders shook. He looked at me briefly and his yellow eyes softened.
“I recognize so much of you in me.” The only comparison I ventured to make was the pain of a broken heart and loving a woman he could never completely possess.
--
I returned to my room and fell onto the bed. My energy depleted as the sun source left me and the darkness crept back inside. I slept for days. My skin returned to its natural blue shade. Mina tried to get me to eat. She worried Persephone’s things would upset me and attempted to remove them like she had the first time. The firefly metal. The origami stars. The scent of pomegranates. I refused to bury her memory and left her things. Instead, I proceeded to drink heavily.
Days blended to form a week or more. I’d lost count even as time ticked under my chest.
“Don’t you think you should let the girl know you’re alright?” Mina admonished, her heavy smoky accent ripping through me.
“Better to let her think I’m dead.”
“She’s not stupid, child, she knows you didn’t die.” Mina was right, and I hated her for it, but I worried a sign would only drive Persephone to do something extreme. Hope springs eternal, was a dangerous path. Damn all those dead poets. The thought made me spin, achy head and all, and race for the door. I knew what sign I could send her.
Days later my fear was realized as a white mirage darted over the land, like a comet streaking the night. Persephone had gotten my final gift. The stream of white cutting through the darkness could only be one thing. My Firefly, who would not shine once and fade in defeat, raced toward the river.
The End is Missing
[Persephone]
The police investigation lasted a lifetime. The management escorted investigators to the basement where no body was found. I didn’t need to stay for a full report. Shock filled my body, naturally, and I shivered in disbelief.
Hades was gone.
The police feared my hysteria at the loss of my boyfriend, but it was more than Harris Black was dead. Hades had returned to the underworld. With me. He’d left me behind again.
Swanson and Veva stayed with me among the chaos until early in the morning hours and when we were released from questioning upon the arrival of Zeke. Zeke wrapped me in his burly arms, but he was too late. I’d closed into myself again, a protective cocoon around my heart while my body betrayed my grief. This time it was really over.
Hades was gone.
I should have grieved as if he were dead. In many ways, I did. Hades would not return to me, his time running out on the ink of his chest. Sixty days for seduction. Sixty minutes of renewed pleasure. Sixty seconds to recall his kiss. His mouth so sour on mine toward the end, and yet, I sensed he knew the end was near. His time had faded like those popping fireflies. One lit, and out it burned. Faded to black, disappeared.
We held a memorial for Harris Black, although the farce irritated me. With no body for a burial, the service was brief. We prayed for his soul to return to his Creator. Sobs racked my soul, as I knew the truth. Hades had gone home.
One day, a package arrived wrapped only in brown paper. Labelled for me, there was no return address, and mysteriously no postage. I raced to my room to open the wrapping. Rectangular in shape, the present was small and firm. My haste torn the paper down the center to reveal the most precious of gifts: a hardcover book in a deep blue color with faded etched letters for a title - Romeo and Juliet. My heart leapt as I recognized the folio we’d used to read to one another in the library. The butterfly at my wrist flickered to life, sensing its master had been near, then just as quickly dissolved to its statuary form. I raised the gift to inhale the musty fragrance, hoping for a hint of foresty pines and woodsy male. Nothing hinted of Hades.
I held the book in my left palm and flipped pages with my right fingers.
Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? I had my answer. He lived underground, in another realm, another time, another place. I flipped to the end of the book. Several pages were missing, having been ripped out of the play. I read the passage several times confirming the lines:
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again; here, here will I remain
With worms that are they chamber-maids; O here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,…
Then nothing remained. The end was missing. What happened next was gone. The death of Juliet removed. I flipped past the final pages that gave a biography of Shakespeare. Written in scribbled letters, on the inside of the back cover, I read:
Damn him, I cursed. Damn him straight to hell. My heart accelerated as the thought came to me. Hell. I dropped the book on my bed and raced for the stables.
--
I stood outside the gate and screamed his name, knowing he could hear me. An echo down the tunnel, across the Cave of Decision and up the stairs
would filter through the halls and various levels, climbing to reach him. I had faith my sound travelled, calling out to him, reaching him. My hands fisted the iron gate, rattling it with all the force I had, knowing full well I would not be able to move it, open it.
“Hades!” I yelled again.
“My love.” The instant sound of his voice stilled my rocking motion. The nearness of him startled me, as if he stood there all along while I wailed and threw my tantrum for his attention.
“Let me in,” I cried, through the square opening between the heavy metal bars. I couldn’t see him, but I felt his presence, like I had on so many occasions. He stood just outside my sight in the shadows.
“I can’t.” His voice trailed, soft and meek. A tone I’d never heard him use before filtered through the iron bars. So strong, so definitive, weakness was not part of his being.
“Yes, you can. I can’t live without you.”
His body materialized and his hands pressed through the gate, opposite mine.
“Yes you can, and you must. I won’t take this from you.” The defensive tone restored. His sound familiar once again.
“Hades, I can’t be apart from you. We can work something out.” I pleaded with him, the metal separating more than our bodies. My heart ached for him, called out for him. Stop time for us, it screamed.
“No. I will not do this to you.” His cobalt eyes met mine and held me as if I was one with the gate that separated us. I was afraid to release my hands. Afraid I’d lose him if I moved from the metal.
“I’m not asking you to do anything, but let me in.”
“There’s no life here for you,” he reminded me as he had the first time he let me go.
“There’s no life out there for me, either, if you aren’t a part of it.”
“I’ll always be with you,” he whispered. His bluish hand reaching out through the grate and pointing a talon, tipped finger at my chest. “In here.”
“It won’t be enough,” I cried, my eyes drifting shut at the near pass of his touch. “I want to hold you. I want to touch you, experience things with you. I want to keep learning and loving with you.”
“Stop it,” he barked and the sound reverberated throughout the tunnel’s stone walls. I paused and stared at his cold blue eyes. He closed them briefly and turned his face away.
“Hades,” I whispered, drawing him back to me. “Don’t do this to us.”
“I’m not doing to us. I’m doing it for us. For you. You deserve more. Better.” His eyes met mine once again and my breath stilled. He was so beautiful: blue and scarred. I couldn’t imagine life without him. He’d taught me so many things, both good and bad.
“And what if I take matters into my own hands?” I threatened soberly. My eyes narrowed at him, emphasizing my point.
“You wouldn’t do that,” he snapped. “You couldn’t do that to me.” His tone softened. “Promise me.”
“You’re my Romeo. I want to be with you.”
“Despair isn’t a sin, but desperation can lead to it, Persephone. I’ve told you this before. You are not desperate. You are not dumb. Be strong, my Juliet, and live.”
I stared in disbelief. He loved this tale. He shared it with me. The star-crossed lovers did not live, but died in the name of love. Could I do it? Could I kill myself to be with him? He answered the question for me.
“It isn’t your time, and I will not take you before it. You’ll suffer in the Cave of Decision, if you do anything foolish.” His eyes turned to thin slits, beams of bright blue streaming out at me in false warning.
“You would not do that to me,” I said. The tension released from him at the realization I was correct.
“Then don’t do anything rash.” Blue fingers covered mine over the rounded, metal bar. “My Juliet.” The endearment crushed me, and I let out a wail, as if my lover had been found dead next to me. My head lowered to rest against the gate.
“I love you,” I sobbed.
“And I love you, Firefly. For all of time—I have, I will, and once again, when it is your time, not mine.”
His words only made the tears pour forth harder.
“Hades,” I whimpered, my head bowed.
“Look for me each spring. I’ve left something for you along the river.” His voice was hardly a whisper. His lips brushed my hair and when the sensation passed I raised my head. Staring wide-eyed into darkness, he was gone. He may have hid in the shadows, ignoring my sobs, but the emptiness around me hinted at his disappearance. He may have raced through the blackness to escape my tears. Wherever he went, he no longer responded to me. He left me standing at the gate of Hell, pleading silently to for entrance. Pleading to let me love him.
“O Fortune, Fortune! All men call thee fickle.
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renowned for faith? Be fickle, Fortune.
For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back.”
I can’t say I was too late to love. He had loved me. I realized I was there too early, and only time would lead me back to him.
Epilogue
[Persephone]
“Look at those gorgeous flowers,” Veva said, her arm linked with mine. “That yellow is so vibrant.” Her tone twisted with excitement as we stood near the river that marked our property, dividing it from the western woods belonging to the city. A field of narcissus covered a strip of the embankment. The hardy bulbs, planted in late fall, rested beneath the ground during the winter to then broke forth from the earth, signaling the beginning of spring. Standing at attention, the teacup-shaped flowers swayed softly, bumping into one another as if a crowd longing to see someone of importance. Their perfectly sculpted ripples sang out to me, proving something I slowly accepted: flowers would be my gift to the world.
Home on spring break, I had decided to join Veva at Central State in California after all that happened last August. I changed majors to study horticulture like I once mentioned to Hades. I learned I had quite the green thumb, and could grow almost anything. Maybe this was my power, I questioned often, but some days I still felt lost. Staring at the flowers brought a slow upward curve to my lips, but a sadness pierced my heart at the gesture.
I’ve left something for you along the river. Look for me in the spring.
The death of Harris Black became my excuse for a change of scenery. Veva and I planned to share a room at Zeke’s estate over the coming summer. I didn’t have the strength to return to the farm and watch nature take its course without Hades at my side. Not to mention, the river flowed as a painful reminder of his rejection.
Yet, here was my sign. The bright sea of yellow rippled in the gentle breeze, highlighted by the glaring sun. Luminescent color rolled and waved like water in a stream. Not quite the glow and pop of fireflies in the night, this solid mass, moved as one, like butterflies in flight. Only the color reminded me of a flower that bloomed in darkness. I would blossom in the sun.
The band on my third finger twisted. It was a habit to play with the ring, reminding me we would be reunited one day, but I had life ahead of me.
“Want to jump in, for old time’s sake?” Veva teased. I laughed in response.
“I think I’ll let old times rest,” I said. “And bask in the sun instead.” Veva understood and she looped her arm with mine again. I had to move forward, not keep looking back. I loved Hades still, and subtle comfort filled me knowing he waited for me.
“Time is very slow for those who wait…but for those who love, time is eternal.”
For the longest time, I couldn’t read Shakespeare. I cursed old William and his unending love in written words, but eventually I embraced the classic tales, proving what Mr. Shakespeare wrote. Love transcends time, and so would my story with Hades.
As we turned our backs to the woods, I sensed someone watching us. Watching me. Several steps forward, the feeling wouldn’t pass, and I twisted my head to glance over my shoulder. There, hidden among the trees was a shape
. Squinting, I couldn’t make out if it was a human or my eyes playing tricks with the trees, my imagination projecting my desire. The dark trunks blended together and I dismissed the vision as trickery. Turning back for home, Veva and I fell into stride together, and a blue-black butterfly flew before me, guiding me on a new path: life and the future.
--
[Hades]
I stood and stared out the dark glass. Off in the distance a light would be on in her room. A sign that she waited for me, and yet, I could not return. I toyed with the firefly hanging off the leather strap around my neck. The metal, cool to the touch, now restored to its original function of twisted pieces of wire that kept her memory close to me.
“You knew it couldn’t last.” Solis’ words neither admonished nor comforted me. I’d made a promise— a plea— when I brought her through the Cave of Decisions. If she survived, I would return her someday. Brightness filled my life momentarily, and Solis had given me the means to experience sunshine as it should exist, out there in the wider world.
“I know,” I whispered, my breath moistening the window. Winter had been long. For miles the land had laid barren and flat once. Snow initially covered the fields in a blanket of white, cast in a beautiful blue under the pale light of the winter moon. How strange to recall that just a year ago, she curled around me, in my bed, in this room. The string of origami stars still lined my ceiling, casting a subtle glow of light in my dark days. A gentle reminder of a happy time amidst the darkness. My hand released the firefly and slipped over the inked clock. Tick-tock beat inside my chest and the days went by. Another birthday passed, but so had one for her. I smiled weakly at the memory of the presents given to me. How little she knew that nothing she gave me came in a box. It came from her heart and I untied it lovingly.