The Queen of Flowers and Roots

by Io

  “Abaste. Aetone. Meteo. Nonio Be good.”

  They rubbed their head on my shoulders and sought to burn my hair. They craned their necks to reach me on the walkway, before stepping back. They followed me along the bank, until the boat disappeared in the wall of tears, as if it was engulfed in a bank of mist. It was so dark that the boat lamp disappeared completely. This time I was awake, I breathed the salty mist, which tasted of tears. But my eyes were dry.

  I sat in the bow, far from him and at a distance from Hermes. I wrapped myself in the mantle, I hid in the veil, and I passed the time watching the infernal waters, the damned that wandered through the deep, like strange deformed fish. The Elysian fields were already behind me.

  I did not look up at the shadow of Cerberus. I just thought that he was eerily still, as if he was looking down with all three of his heads, and he didn’t know what to do. My eyes were dark, filled only by the darkness of Erebus.

  I had descended among the unburied and passed through the midst of those lost souls, which moved away as I passed. Some, those who could get into the boat and then possessed a greater awareness than those who had to wander for a hundred years, they prostrated in my shadow. I passed them all,

  without a word. What would become of them, from that moment forward, did not depend on me, but on the way they had lived.

  I climbed the slope, going step by step on the path I had descended when I arrived.

  Hermes chariot was painted in bright colors, with pure gold inlays, which I found annoying and vulgar, in the delicate atmosphere of the Avernus. I accepted his hand to help me up, not because I needed it, but because he was the only one to show me a snippet of understanding, and I wanted to return the courtesy. I did not want his comfort; when he began to say that soon I would see the situation in a better light, summer in life, winter with a husband who obviously loved me, I turned my head away.

  I sat on the floor of the chariot to look at the dark, and I did not move until I heard the galloping slow to a trot, to become a walk and finally stop.

  “We have arrived, Persephone. Your mother is waiting for you.”

  An unnecessary statement. My shadow had become so sharp that it seemed to affect the wood of the chariot, and the wood itself was so lit by all the colors I had to squint to look at him. The daylight was as strong as the hammer of Hephaestus. I was glad to be covered, that I was protected.

  Did you see me like this, in the shadows of Erebus? I was an incision in your eyes, so intense that it had become annoying?

  How is it that we loved each other so much?

  “My lady!”

  It was the scent of daffodils even more than the voice that told me who had thrown herself weeping in my arms, my first welcome back to the realm at the surface. Despite everything, despite the dark abyss of my anger that yawned, to let my pride out more than I ever believed possible to feed, smile and stroke Cyane’s light-colored hair.

  “Stop crying,” I said, hearing my voice echo with its absolute calm, “you are the nymph of the source, not the source itself. I have yet to thank you for how you defended me that day.”

  That day, when I was taken from my destiny and dragged towards it, since no one would have allowed me to go there spontaneously.

  “Thank me? Oh, my lady, I would have preferred that he had taken me, to see you disappear into that abyss was...”

  “Leave it be.”

  The very idea that Hades could have taken anyone else felt like a stab in the belly. Six months of solitude are so many. Nymphs, in the Elysian fields, there were as many on the surface. A king does not sleep alone, even though a mortal. And my king was a god.

  “Where is my mother?”

  Cyane took my hand. With the other I held tightly onto my cloak, like an old woman. I had, I don’t exaggerate, the fear that the sun would burn me, I was as afraid as I had been when I feared the shadows of the hereafter, as soon as I had arrived. To get used to it would be long and difficult.

  Do you want to pass all of existence like this: fearing the sun, fearing the shadows.

  Pride ravaged the cage of my docility, uncovered and destroyed it. Splinters were flying everywhere.

  “Persephone, Persephone oh, my little...”

  In the perfume of ripe wheat, of newly mown hay, and wildflowers, Mugwort, poppy, the cornflowers that I had compared with the flax flower as a child, to determine which blue point was more beautiful (I had never been successful), and then the dog roses, dandelion that always made me smile for the joy they spread, yellow on green meadows, violets and cyclamen, perfumes that I did not even remember anymore, at that fragrance, the scent of my mother, I discovered that I was still able to cry.

  I dropped my cloak, I let my veil slip away. I embraced my mother, sobbing, as the joy and

  the pain, and bitterness and pride, happiness to have found her the inconsolable pain of losing Hades mounted inside me, a hurricane that I had no idea of how to manage it, if not by crying all my tears.

  “How pale you are, how wan... my little one, my darling, what has that monster done to you?”

  Don’t say that, I wanted to answer, don’t talk about him like that, you don’t understand, but it’s my fault, I have not spoken about my feelings, and you reacted like any parent would after seeing their daughter kidnapped, I know, but I didn’t talk about him like this, that was my mistake, this whole situation is my fault, my mistake.

  I wanted to tell her, but I cried and I laughed and tried to regain composure while my mother kissed my face all over, and I did not speak those words, because I would have had to continue and to conclude, I would have to say that it was my mistake, and it was my responsibility to remedy the situation, and this was cruel, I did not want to say that. Not to her.

  Eventually, I wiped my tears with the veil, and whispered in her embrace:

  “I thought... I thought that you would have disowned me, for the dishonor, for...”

  “Disown you? But what are you saying, Persephone?”

  “So many gods have disowned their children for much less.”

  “Inferior gods,” Demeter said sharply, “you’re

  my daughter, my only, precious daughter, and never, I could never disown you. If I had abandoned you, who would have saved you from that horror?”

  I buried my face in her breasts, I felt the ears of wheat tickling my cheeks. My mother stroked my hair.

  “I would do anything for you, Persephone. The only thorn that torments me is to think that in the autumn you will need to go back again, but we’ll think of something. I swear my little girl, we’ll think of a way to save you.”

  Oh, Mother... I could not stop crying; they were the tears that could fall as a daughter, and I decided to stop them

  all, to the last, while the nymphs excitedly whispered around us and Hermes busied himself with his chariot, waiting to see if he could take leave or if we wanted to take advantage of a lift, to leave the entry to the Avernus.

  I cried like a child until I had exhausted all my tears. When I finished, I straightened my head.

  “I’m sweaty, mother. I’m not used to the heat of the sun.”

  I squinted while Demeter wiped my forehead with a corner of her shawl.

  “You will rediscover warmth and health, darling. You will rediscover the joy of living, and how much he,” she hissed with such hatred that I cringed, “sooner or later he will give up. There are many things that we can do as a goddess, to get rid of an importunate god.”

  “He has not bothered me. He has honored me as his queen, mother.”

  She made grimaced expressively. Clearly she thought that I was talking like this just because in six months I would return: it was not really the case that I could offend my winter owner, because I had to put myself in his hands for half the year.

  I realized that I was getting angry again. A mother would do anything for her daughter, and I understood it better than Demeter believed, but directly opposite I also understood that a daughter is unable to
exist only according to her mother, or she is reduced to being her pale copy. It’s something you accept, indeed you want, just as long as you’re a child. Now childhood was far behind me, in respect to myself.

  I said, a little rigidly,

  “He has honored me more than Pirithous, that is for certain: you would have really made me marry that hateful individual? Why, mother?”

  Demeter seemed puzzled, it was the first time she had heard me speak harshly, but she continued to keep me close to her:

  “A mortal, dear, only a mortal. Before you know, he would have been pierced, by old age or some stupid illness, and you’d have been free. It is one of the tricks I was talking about.”

  Poor Pirithous, and poor Theseus. They were pawns in a feud between gods, but to lose it had been the ambition of having married a daughter of Zeus; my mother had just given him the chance. I allowed myself to pity them for a moment, before deleting them permanently from my thoughts, and left them to the vengeance of Hades.

  “Let’s go, Persephone. We will leave this evil place. Let’s go back to my fields and your flowers: without you they have languished, and the seeds have been small and sickly. They need you.”

  I know, I thought, they all need me. You would cut me into pieces, for how much you care, if I had allowed you all.

  I had not even looked around. I raised my head to get my bearings.

  I saw the withered grass of the clearing, with the rocky ridge that looked like a cloister of tusks from a primordial beast: the threshold of Hades, a snarl of darkness that descended into the bowels of the earth. On the other side the forest began, and behind the treetops past the hills, the sky, the clouds.

  The Olympus.

  I stepped back, as if the sight had slapped me in the face. I abandoned every tear, every hesitation, every regret. All remorse.

  I freed myself from my mother’s embrace, like all children, sooner or later have to do, and I turned toward the fissure of the abyss.

  “Hades!

  Around us, the nymphs squealed in terror. My mother took me by the arm.

  “Persephone, are you out of your mind? Why do you call that name?”

  I pulled away from her contact and went towards the dry grass, death at the entrance to the Avernus. Where I placed my bare feet, the stems had straightened, strengthened, and soon there was a trail of bright green footprints, which became a grass circle, at the point where I stopped.

  “Liar!” I insulted him, in a loud, firm voice. “You lied to me, you’re a liar!”

  I heard Hermes jump off the chariot and run towards me. I turned on him like an angry cat,

  “Don’t try to touch me!”

  The psychopomp, who had already stretched out his hands, hastened to raise them. Don’t you touch a queen without her consent, especially if she can condemn you for eternity. He spoke with eloquence and with reason,

  “Persephone, accept the advice from a brother, don’t turn on your spouse like that. Soon you will have to go back to him, and the anger of lord Avernus is...”

  I turned back toward the cave, ignoring him completely.

  “You’re a liar, Hades! A liar and a coward, who has not kept a single promise!”

  I burst out laughing, a harsh laugh like his armor, just as icy.

  “The god who presides over the oaths that violates his own! You don’t even have the courage to look at me, after having chased me away like a pregnant scullery maid, after she has been used to have fun and... and...”

  My voice wavered, and I know that all those who were present thought that fear had made it tremble, while the darkness seemed to spread from the cave and fill the clearing, and turn to ash the stems regenerated by my passing. Beneath my feet, the grass was dead. They thought that terror broke me, in the end.

  They could not think otherwise. But Hades knew the truth.

  He came forward, taking off his helmet, in the name of that evil arrow that Eros had shot into his heart, not into mine, because my love for him had always existed, it was he who had watched as I climbed into Charon’s boat, and then onto Hermes’ chariot, and while I sought him with my eyes the cave had spat me out. He had always been there. Not for a moment had our eyes ceased to seek, to find, to ask for the impossible, and to deny it. I had not uttered a single word during my ascent, because I did not need words to talk to him.

  The scent of ripe wheat countered the darkness. I found myself again grasped, pulled back on the side of one of the contenders, while my mother was placed in the middle, to face the lord of the Avernus. The voice of the Earth Mother caused all the birds in the trees around to fly up into the air, and never again would they nest in those branches:

  “Do not come near, don’t you dare! You have no rights over her, now. She belongs to the surface, not to you!”

  Not to the surface, or to anyone else.

  I circled around my mother and I passed her, to go to Hades. He stood motionless, leaving his cloak to close in front of him, and he had not even looked at Demeter. It was she who was interested in him.

  “Liar,” I told him to his face, “I bet that the nymphs you use to amuse yourself will have a less unworthy leave, when you’ve had enough of them in your bed.”

  Before he returned to touch me – no one, no one could touch me – I would rebel even against my mother, and I hissed like a snake,

  “Don’t meddle, any more! This matter is between him and me, not between him and you!”

  My mother stopped, thunderstruck. On her face passed the first shadow of understanding. As opposed to the stupidly astonished faces of the nymphs, for them what

  was happening was more incomprehensible than the calculations of Archimedes, Demeter was also a goddess also in the intellect. She was too honest to reject the truth out of hand. Her expression changed, as her perspective changed.

  I turned to speak to Hades:

  “You cannot get rid of the queen of the Avernus in such a manner. Not even you have the right.”

  “I’ll never drive you out of the Avernus, Persephone. It belongs to you, as you belong to me.”

  I heard my mother exhale a long breath, no doubt an attempt to renege on the answer that was rising in her throat. Without being grateful, I appreciated that she understood the question did not concern her.

  “Liar,” I continued to insult him, “you are nothing but a liar. As soon as you turned your back on me, you forget me. You’re going to impregnate some nymph, to condemn some soul, and celebrate your newfound freedom. You get rid of your wife for half of life, who is better off than you are!”

  The eyelids were lowered over his eyes, as if crushed by an invisible weight. I was not insulting him; I was hurting him.

  I enjoyed this.

  I overcame the few steps there were still between us and I joined him. I grabbed his cloak, separating the flaps. Hades made no gesture, to stop or to defend himself.

  “I don’t believe you,” I growled, “I no longer believe a word of what you say.”

  He did not answer. I felt that I was touching his belt, and the horn of wealth that hung there, but he did not pay them any heed. I took his wrist, but only briefly, when I put my hand on the handle of the sword. He felt the tension of my arm, and seemed to decide that he didn’t even care about that. He let me go.

  “You should have listened to me, Hades. Among all of them, at least you should have listened to me.”

  “I’m listening now.”

  “Now is too late. The decision has been made! I returned to tighten my grip on the inlaid horn, and again Hades did not

  react. He let his hand hang down at his side, the other arm held his helmet. If I had taken all of the riches from the underworld, he would have let me do so. I was his wife, the queen of the Avernus. It was my right.

  “Persephone,” said Demeter, behind me, “Now you have to come away. You have something to tell me, true?”

  “True,” I agreed, without taking my eyes off Hades’ face, “and I have the great guilt for not ha
ving done so before, mother. Everything would be different now, and beg your forgiveness for that.”

  Demeter let out another, long sigh. She needed no further explanation, unnecessary redundancies about the obvious: she was a goddess.

  But so was I.

  “You should have listened to me, Hades.

  The nymphs, goddesses and even more so, they are fast. The only way is to take us by surprise, there is no other, unless we are not the ones who want to be captured. With the same movement with which I left the horn of wealth, I grabbed his helmet, a twist of spring air, a gust that you can’t hold back, you can’t catch hold of. Before even understanding what had happened, it was already far away, and there was no way to catch it.

  For a moment they were all a picture of perfect stillness, and I was the fourth wall, the outside observer, who from a safe distance, saw them all: Hermes, with eyes so wide open they seemed to fill his face, Cyane and the other nymphs with their hands pressed over their mouths, like a perfectly coordinated chorus. My mother, partially turned to me, her motion frozen in the moment in which

  her beautiful braids lifted and the rays passed through them, transforming them into the pure gold of ears of wheat.

  Hades, with raised hands, open. Empty.

  The helmet was cold against my swollen breasts. I hugged it hard. It was the freezing cold of the Avernus, he had always protected me from it, but now I wanted it, a desire of violent physical intensity. I embraced Hades’ helmet, hurting myself on its engravings, thrusting it into my flesh. The cold sank to my heart, and stayed there.

  And then, everything around me was in movement. The nymphs screamed, Cyane shouted my name, the snakes on Hermes’ baton stood on end, hissing and spitting. My glance was enough to make them rear back, to hide in the folds of their master’s tunic.

  My mother stepped forward, but stopped when she saw that I backed away.

  “Persephone? Are you out of your mind?”

  Her shocked voice contrasted with my calm of the Underworld:

  “I’ve never before been wiser than this, mother. In this charade of divine idiots, someone has to remember what is really important. You know what I am talking about, because you fought for me until you tore up the realm of the dead. A mother does anything to save her daughter, to take her from an unbearable fate.”