Asphodel (The Underworld Trilogy)

by Lauren Hammond

  At first, the pain felt like a mild bug bite, irritating, but tolerable. Then as it spread through her body, the pain became so excruciating, Demeter couldn’t breathe. She panted, trying to be strong, but it was no use. As Hades squeezed her wrist tighter, she felt like her limbs were being ripped from her by a pack of hungry hyenas. “Stop!” she cried. “Stop! Releasing her from his grasp, Hades backed away as Demeter hunched over, curling up into the fetal position. As the pain subsided a swirl of coldness flourished through her and her breathing returned to normal.

  She glared at Hades giving him a look full of hatred and brutality. Hades smiled, amused. “I knew you’d see things my way. Perhaps, Demeter, we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

  Demeter knew better than to bargain with the master of deceit. She struggled to pick herself up and lost her balance, slamming both of her palms into the floor. She pushed herself up again, with more force and knelt down. Then she gripped the counter and hoisted herself up, clutching the edge of the counter tightly as she steadied herself.

  “So,” said Hades as her examined his hands. “Do we have a deal then?”

  She rolled her shoulders, cracked her neck, and spun around full of so much anger that she trembled. “Never,” Demeter growled, half-rasping half-whispering.

  Hades charged toward her. “Oh, apparently I haven’t persuaded you to see things my way enough.”

  He was centimeters away, but Demeter was ready for him. She snapped her arms back and clasped her hands together as a gust of wind unfurled from her fingertips. A gust of wind so forceful that it knocked Hades backwards and blew him out the front door.

  Exhausted, Demeter crouched down against the cherry-stained wooden cabinets and slouched. She hated using her powers while living in close proximity with the mortals, but Hades gave her no choice.

  From that moment on, she knew that she hadn’t been protecting her daughter to the best of her abilities. She had to step up her game because Hades would not and probably would never take no for an answer.

  The next day she’d packed up their belongings. “Time to move,” she said, taping up a box full of dishes.

  “What no!” Persephone cried. “But we haven’t even been here a year!” She sat down with a slouch, whimpering softly.

  It broke Demeter’s heart to see her daughter so upset. She knew how much Persephone wanted normalcy. And sadly Demeter wished their situation was different, but it wasn’t. She and her daughter were who they were, immortal goddesses. Not only that, but they were immortal goddesses on the run from death himself. They weren’t a normal family and never would be.

  One minute to midnight and Demeter rose from her bed, creeping toward her bedroom door. In sixty seconds all hell would break loose like it had so many times before.

  Persephone

  “Persephone,” he hisses. “Come to me.”

  A shrill, deafening cry escapes from my lips. My lungs expand as I suck in more air and my throat is raw—chafed, flakes of dry skin being peeled away after a sun burn.

  I bolt upright in my bed as my mother bursts through the door. Hysteria washes over me. I gasp and choke on a ball of air wedged in the middle of my esophagus. Fighting. I’m fighting for the oxygen to leave my lungs.

  My mother sweeps me up into her arms and whispers comforting words into my ears. “Hush, darling. It’s all right.”

  I let out long ragged breaths, finally able to breathe. Tears matriculate in my eyes. I bite them back as beads of sweat drizzle down my forehead and my arms and legs begin to convulse.

  Mom squeezes me tighter, controlling my flailing limbs. “Calm down, sweetheart,” she consoles me. “It was only a dream.”

  But this isn’t a dream. This is a voice, life-like and real. A voice that has been coming to me on my seventeenth birthday for as long as I can remember. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, every seventeen years he comes to me, taunting me. And it’s always the same thing, Persephone. Come to me. The reality of it haunts me. This is not a figment of my imagination.

  “It feels so real,” I mumble, suddenly exhausted.

  “Sometimes dreams feel more real than not,” my mother says, tucking me underneath the covers. “Go back to sleep, love.”

  “Persephone,” he hisses again. “Come to me. Come to me. Come to me.”

  The voice blurs and fades, like a faint cry riding on the tails of the wind. I yawn and stretch, rolling over. I fold my pillow under my head and wait for the voice to return. When I hear nothing but the sound of my own breathing I allow myself to drift back into a dreamless slumber.

  ****

  “Happy Birthday!” my mother squeals. Her face inches away from mine.

  I open one eye squinting, still half asleep. “Thanks,” I grumble and roll over.

  “No way, young lady.” She rips my comforter off me. “Time to wake up.”

  “Ugh. Isn’t it supposed to be my day?” I whine. “Can’t you let me sleep a little longer?”

  She smirks, shaking her head. “Nope. You have school.”

  Hurling my legs over the side of the bed, I rise slowly and my eyes adjust to the bright lighting in my room. My mother observes me for a second then tears well up in her eyes.

  “Don’t cry, Mom.” It bothers me seeing her so emotional.

  “I can’t help it,” she sniffles. “My baby is almost an adult.”

  I roll my eyes. “Mom, do you have to do this every seventeen years? My real seventeenth birthday was like forever ago.”

  She pulls a tissue out of the pocket of her violet cardigan and blows her nose. “That’s the beauty of being immortal my dear. You never run out of seventeenth birthdays.”

  Most of the time I thought of our immortality as being more of a curse than a blessing. I imagine most humans would cherish the opportunity to never grow old. In the beginning of my life, I have to say it was fascinating. But living forever does become tiresome, when a person has been around as long as I have.

  “Get ready for school, honey,” she commands. “After you get home, I’ve got a fun day planned for us.”

  “Ugh,” I groan. “Can’t I just have a quiet, low-key birthday for once?”

  She tucks a loose piece of her auburn hair behind her ear. “Now what kind of mother would I be if we did that?”

  A mother who actually listens to what her daughter wants. “Fine,” I say, defeated. “I’ll be downstairs in a little bit.”

  She kisses my forehead gently. “Good.” Then she walks out of my room.

  At my dresser, I slide open the top drawer. The cherry stained wooden container is relatively new and the smell of fresh cedar hasn’t faded yet. I inhale deeply, filling my lungs with the musky scent and I adore it. Any scent reminding me of the outdoors is something that I’ll never get tired of. Being the Goddess of Springtime probably has something to do with that.

  Reaching into the drawer, I fumble through my assortment of underwear and inch my fingers toward the bottom. I graze my fingertips over a smooth flat object. My journal. I retrieve it and set it on top of my dresser. Another year. Another birthday. Keeping track of all of my birthdays is something I’ve done for ages. In fact, I’ve got about twenty crates in our attic reminding me of how many birthdays have accrued over the years.

  We left Greece five-thousand years ago and have never looked back.

  “Why are we leaving?” I’d once asked.

  My mother didn’t elaborate. “Don’t ask questions. Just gather your things.”

  I have it on good authority that my mother had a reason for making me flee the only home I knew. But I never asked her any questions about why we were leaving after that. I simply did as I was told.

  Flipping through the pages of my journal, I found the spot where I’d written in it last. Three more pages to go. Two more birthdays, then I’ll need a new one.

  “Hurry up in there!” Mom’s voice has a nagging tone to it. “You’re going to be late!”

  “I’m coming!”

 
; I pick up a pen off my dresser and write down the same thing I write every seventeen years.

  My Seventeenth Birthday-April 25, 2011

  Location-Klamath Falls, Oregon.

  The voice came again.

  The first time I heard the voice was shortly after we had left Greece. Back then, when it came to me, it was a soft, rhythmic, seductive voice that wrapped around me like crushed velvet, a deep tone that caressed me, making my spine tingle. I felt drawn to it. Curiosity plagued me. I knew it was a man. The all-around over-powering, voice didn’t belong to a woman.

  For centuries, the whole complexity of this situation puzzled me. Who exactly was this person? Why was he trying to reach out to me? What did he want from me?

  After hearing the voice for five seventeenth birthdays in a row, I went to my mother and told her about it. I don’t really know what I had expected from her but, it wasn’t laughter. After she contained herself, she had me convinced that I was dreaming this voice up. Until seventeen years later, it came again. And after mentioning it to her once well, her reaction made me never mention it again.

  ****

  I enter the kitchen. An incessant plunking noise echoes from the sink as droplets of water from the faucet drip into the metal basin. Other than that, it’s silent. My eyes dart around the empty, organized room. “Mom, where are you?”

  No answer.

  In the middle of the kitchen table is a bowl of fruit. A loud, rolling rumble escapes my belly. I stare at the fruit, thinking it looks vaguely familiar. The round reddish fruit resembles a plum, but slightly larger. I’m starving and it looks delicious. Pulling out a chair I plop down in front of the bowl. Buried in the center, tucked between the balls of round deliciousness is a white card. “Hmm.” I pick the card up and scan it.

  Happy Birthday.

  Love,

  H

  “H? Who is H?”

  I shrug and toss the card aside. Maybe he knows my mother. It has to be someone she knows and I think that them sending me a bowl of fruit for my birthday is an awfully kind gesture.

  After grabbing the biggest piece, I bring the plump, fruit to my lips. I open my mouth to take a bite when I hear my mom scream. I face her, my mouth still hanging open, the fruit still in my hand.

  “What are you doing?” she shrieks, races toward me, and slaps the fruit out of my hand. It hits the floor with a thud and rolls under the kitchen table. “What were you thinking?” She’s panicking, fumbling as she tries to move a chair, and mumbling incoherent words under her breath. Her face twitches and she scrambles to pick the fruit up off the floor.

  I’ve never seen her like this. I’ve never seen her so unglued. “What’s wrong with you?” I’m so confused and concerned. Why is she freaking out over a piece of fruit?

  She palms the fruit and waves it my face. “What were you trying to do with this?”

  “Trying to do with it? I was gonna eat it. I’m hungry.”

  Her eyes widen and the rosy color fades from her cheeks. “You do not eat this, you hear me!”

  I’m puzzled by her wild and crazy antics. “It’s just a piece of fruit.”

  She exhales and a calm look forms on her face. Then she places the fruit in her hand on top of the pile and carries the bowl over to the counter. “If you’re hungry I’ll make you some oatmeal.”

  Something is going on. She’s keeping something from me. “What’s going on, Mom? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “There is nothing going on, Persephone. I just don’t want you to eat the fruit, okay. We don’t know where it came from.”

  I snatch the index card from the table. “I do. Someone named H.”

  Her head turns slowly, her eyes slant. She’s silent for a moment, then her turquoise eyes widen, burning into my jade-green ones. “Who?”

  She walks toward me as I flip the card over and stare at my name. “All it says is Happy Birthday, love H.”

  A worried look appears on her face aging her youthful features in a matter of seconds. She rips the card from my hand and crumbles it in her palm.

  “Hey!” I protest. “That was mine!”

  “You’re going to be late for school.” Her tone is vacant and she stares off in a trance.

  Standing, I fling my back pack over my shoulder. She’s right. I do have to get to school, but I’m not going to just forget about what happened. And I have every intention of bringing this up again when I get home.

  Persephone

  As I walk down my porch steps, thoughts involving my mother’s erratic behavior remain constant. I just don’t understand. What’s with all the craziness? What kind of fruit was she keeping me from eating? I know I’ve seen the fruit somewhere before. But where? Ugh. I rack my brain, trying to remember, but five thousand years of memories are way too many to sort through at one time.

  What bothers me more than anything is, no matter what mom tells me, I know she’s lying to me about something.

  For the last five thousand years we’ve been on the run, moving every decade sometimes less than a decade. The shortest amount of time we’ve spent in one place is six months. In all, I’ve lived on every continent, in at least seventy five thousand cities, sometimes more than once, and all fifty states. And I’ve never known what or who we’ve been running from.

  Mom blames it on the mortals. She says we have to blend. But eventually blending isn’t enough. Then we move and begin the blending process all over again.

  Even though mom says the mortals are why we move so often I’ve always had this gut feeling that it’s more than that. There’s another reason because mom knows as well as I do that the mortals aren’t the reason why we left Greece. We left for another reason, something mom refuses to explain. Her vagueness makes me questions her methods every time we pack up and globe trot.

  Could we be running from the man behind the voice?

  I’m so involved in my theories, talking to myself, and keeping my eyes on the ground that I don’t even see him coming. Before I can stop myself, I run into him and stumble. He grabs both of my arms and steadies me. “Hey, you.” His voice is full of warmth. “You feeling okay?”

  I lift my head and gaze at him. My head spins. I’m dizzy. “Hi, Adonis,” I say and greet him with a nervous smile. “I’m fine. I’m just a little ticked at my Mom.”

  Adonis moved next door a few months ago. Him moving here was strange, almost like he blew in with the wind. I could have sworn I saw Mrs. Darwin, the kind little old lady who’d lived there her entire life out in the front yard, gardening a week before he moved in. Then one day, a few days before he showed up she was gone. But I just shrugged it off. She was old and I figured she either died or her kids put her in a home.

  Adonis is a year older than me and he usually walks with me to school in the morning. He flashes me a brilliant smile and I quietly take a deep breath. I’ve never in all my years living seen a teenage boy that looked like him. He’s too beautiful for words.

  His touch makes me sizzle and I feel like I’m starting to grow limp. He releases me and backs away. The early morning sun kisses his bronzed skin and he looks like he’s shimmering. A sinful smirk and two dimples later and I feel like I can’t breathe.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  We start walking and Adonis reaches into his book bag and hands me a piece of paper. “Happy Birthday,” he says.

  My heart flutters and my pulse races. Perspiration forms on my hands. I try to find words, but I’m flustered. As he looks away I wipe my sweaty palms on my pants. “Adonis, you didn’t have to get me anything.”

  Sometimes he does little things like this that make me wonder if he’s interested in us being more than just friends who walk to school together. One time he picked me a bouquet of wildflowers. Another time he’d sent me a get well card when I lied about being home with the flu. School isn’t that important to someone like me. I can’t even count how many times I’ve actually graduated high school. The on
ly reason I go at all is because of mom and her blending routine. So I fake being sick a lot.

  Adonis is always smiling at me and I catch him staring at me every day during lunch even though he has a dozen girls at his table swooning over him.

  On top of that, he’s a gentleman, always holding the door open for me when we leave school. He offers to carry my back pack or books or whatever I’m holding at the time and he always asks me if I want to hang out. And it rips me open inside when I have to refuse.