Asphodel (The Underworld Trilogy)

by Lauren Hammond

  Sometimes I think it’s odd that he pops up at the most unopportune moments and I always manage to do something clumsy in his presence. Last nine weeks he was in my art class and I accidentally dumped an entire can of red paint on him. I’m normally not like that, but around him all of my coordination dwindles away. Maybe it’s because he’s too pretty and way too nice.

  Brent McCall was the resident hottie at Klamath Falls High, with rippling muscles, a perfect Crest tooth-paste smile, and a crown of gold a top his head. Well, he was the resident hottie until Adonis arrived and stole the title. The difference between Adonis and Brent is that Brent is an ass; calling students names, shoving the smart kids in lockers, and walking around like he owns the place. And with Adonis it’s almost like he’s naïve, almost like he doesn’t know how attractive he really is.

  I inhale deep and exhale slowly. Warmth sears through me from Adonis’s touch and extinguishes the burning rage. “I don’t feel good. I need to go home.” He smirks at me flirtatiously and I look away. My heart hammers nails into my ribcage and part of me wants to stare at his beautiful smile for the rest of my immortal life, but I’m absorbed by my worries and fear to handle my emotions involving him right now. “Adonis,” I whisper, peeling his hands off my shoulders. “I have to go.”

  I brush past him, sprinting out the back exit door and I hear him yell, “Are you going to be okay?”

  What I want to tell him is no, Adonis, I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay ever again. Right now, my life is a global catastrophe, an asteroid disintegrating the planet, a tsunami wiping out an entire country. For the last five thousand years, I’ve been moved all over the world. For the last five thousand years, I’ve been lied to repeatedly. I’ve been laughed at, tortured by a voice that I was led to believe was an illusion. I’ve had to pretend to be a million different people when all I’ve really wanted to be is myself.

  But I don’t tell him any of that. I can’t tell him any of that. I just keep running and running and don’t look back.

  I run until I’m standing in front of my house. Shiny black paint fills up my gaze and I scowl at the Ferrari in my driveway. “Freakin great.” My dad is here and I’m one hundred percent sure he’s not here to wish me a happy birthday.

  In my eyes, Zeus had earned my respect, but that’s pretty much it. I don’t call him dad and we don’t have any type of father-daughter relationship. Actually, I don’t have any fond memories of him at all. He was just there, hanging around like an antique tapestry hanging on the wall in a person’s home.

  Mom had told me once that he never came around because of Hera. Everyone on Olympus knew that her jealous nature could be a vengeful bitch, but I’d always thought that was a lousy excuse, a lousy excuse because Zeus was and always will be the type of God who likes to have his cake and eat it too. As long as I’ve known him, he’s always wanted the best of both worlds. Those worlds being the mortal world and the immortal.

  Walking around to the back door, I try to keep all of my emotions in check. I try to tell myself to stay calm, but it’s impossible. Disloyalty, Fury, and ambiguity melt together inside of me and I can hear the crackle from a lit fuse. I can feel the sparks as they scorch my organs. I’m a bomb. In minutes I’m going to explode.

  I slip into the kitchen through the sliding glass door. Locking my knees in place, I try to be as quiet as possible and I strain to listen for the sound of voices. I hear nothing.

  The square country kitchen with apple wallpaper is submerged in silence. Then I raise my head, slitting my eyes when I hear movement. Floorboards above me spit out creaks and groans and the sound of footsteps thud down the steps. Panic is a fresh stream trickling through my veins, branching off at my heart. I can feel it beating in my throat.

  No…I can’t confront mom yet.

  There’s huge part of me that wants to. Confronting her and demanding answers was all I could think about on the run home, but I have a feeling that when mom and Zeus get in here they are going to be talking about what I want and need to know anyway. And what if I confront mom after Zeus leaves? Will she laugh at me again and try to convince me I’m dreaming all of this up? Will she tell me that I’m crazy and this voice is just a figment of my imagination?

  Muffled voices carry down the hall. Footsteps pound like the beat of a drum at the executioners block. I can’t let them see me. I spin around frantic. Where can I go? Where can I hide? Turning my head my eyes center on the pantry door. No… Mom checks the pantry every time she walks into the kitchen. One of the cupboards? No. There’s no way I’ll be able to pretzel my long lengthy limbs enough to fit. Laughter rings out like church bells on a Sunday.

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse the small round kitchen table with the floral table cloth hanging off the edges. It nearly touches the floor. That’s my only option. So when mom and Zeus are only feet away, I scamper toward the table and dive underneath it.

  Persephone

  Zeus flops down in the wooden chair. The legs belch out creaks and snaps as it wobbles unsteadily, and for a second I think it might break beneath his heavy body.

  Pulling my knees to my chest I suck in a lungful of air as moms’ footsteps pound behind me. Zeus stretches his legs and accidentally kicks my knee. Pain shoots up my thigh and I let out a squeak, and then clamp my hands tightly over my mouth to keep myself from crying out again.

  Zeus stiffens, alert of my presence. “What was that?” he questions suspiciously. He hunches over, gripping the edge of the table cloth and lifts up the plastic covering the slightest bit. Instinctively, I shield my face with my arms as a knot of fear ties itself to the lining of my stomach.

  The pantry door swings open and I can hear mom shuffling around in there. “Relax. It’s probably nothing,” she assures him. “This is an old house. It makes noises.” Zeus lowers the tablecloth, sitting upright and mom walks over to the table. A loud clash rumbles through the quiet room like thunder and shakes the table. “He sent her these.”

  I tuck myself into a tighter ball as mom sits down behind me, her feet eerily close to my back. He sent her these? That has to be the bowl of pomegranates I received earlier.

  “Demeter,” Zeus says. “I think you’re reading into this too much. They are only pomegranates.”

  “I love how you’re acting so casual about this,” mom scoffs sarcastically. “Only pomegranates!” Her voice hikes. “Have you been away from Olympus too long, Zeus? Have you forgotten that pomegranates are the fruit of the dead? You know what will happen if she eats one.”

  “Did she?”

  “Did she what?”

  “Eat one.”

  “No,” mom huffs, shifting in her chair. “But she would have if I wouldn’t have walked into the kitchen and stopped her. And I think we both know what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped her. She’d be half-way across the Styx by now.”

  There’s an awkward moment of silence. I hug my knees tighter as my legs start trembling. Tears swell in my eyes and I swallow hard, exhaling, rolling my head back, doing everything I can to keep my tears from spilling. Across the Styx? If I cross the Styx I know I can kiss the sunshine goodbye, I can forget the smell of wildflowers, I can forget the earth in its beauty and the living things that inhabit it. Goddess or not, I do know this; if you become one with the realm of the dead, you might as well consider yourself dead because there is a high probability that you’ll never come back.

  Zeus lets out a frustrated sigh. “Demeter, he’s going to keep coming for her. You know you can’t stop him.”

  “I can and I will, Zeus. I will not let him take my only daughter.” There’s a harsh tone of determination in mom’s voice.

  “You’ve been running from him for five thousand years. Maybe it’s time that you two struck up some sort of bargain.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” mom shrieks. “And besides, we wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you!”

  Zeus slams his fist into the center
of the table and I examine a crack as it travels from one end to the other. “I made a mistake!” he booms in a grizzly voice. “A mistake that I have regretted for the last five thousand! A mistake that you have never let me forget!”

  “You’re the God of Gods. You shouldn’t make mistakes.” Mom’s tone is cold and brutal.

  “Demeter, did I not go back on my deal with him? Have I not done everything in my power to keep you two safe? Have I not provided you with homes, hideouts, and financial stability? Have I not shielded her from him? I put up that time shield centuries ago, so he only has until midnight on her birthday to take her! And you know me, I’ve never been a God who goes back on his word. And I did that without a second thought, for you and her!”

  “Obviously you haven’t kept her safe enough or really shielded her from him at all. He comes to her, you know? He’s been coming to her since right after we left Olympus.”

  “Physically?”

  “Not physically,” mom retorts. “You know Hades. He has other ways of making his presence known. Every seventeen years, the anniversary of the day you made the deal with him—her birthday.”

  Zeus clears his throat. “So he speaks to her.”

  I drown in my own thoughts for a second. Hades has never come to me physically before, but he did today. He came to me in my dreams and that makes me curious and frightened at the same time. Curious because I don’t have any answers to the questions, popping into my head every five minutes. Yes, I know who the voice is and now I know why we’ve been running, but it doesn’t make sense that Hades would chase me for five-thousand years because of a broken agreement. And I’m frightened because instead of just his voice, he’s physically coming to me and that can only mean one thing; there’s something different about this birthday. That something swirls around in my gut like nausea after eating a bad burrito. Something telling me, that this year, on this birthday, Hades might actually succeed.

  “More like taunts her,” mom says. “He infiltrates her mind, filling her subconscious with his dark voice and it terrifies her. It started again at midnight. I rushed in her room to comfort her because she woke up screaming.”

  “Why haven’t you told me about this?” Zeus inquires in a serious tone.

  “Zeus, what are you going to do? Number one, Hades has never listened to you. You know he’s selfish and you know he will pursue what he wants at any cost. Two, you’ve chosen to be eternally absent from Persephone’s life.”

  “You know as well as I do that’s not the case,” he growls.

  Mom exhales, calming down. “Whatever. Zeus, we’re both on the same page now. We have to try and figure out a way to stop him.”

  I’m torn between my feelings of hurt, terror, and anger. I’m hurt because of the way mom has kept everything hidden from me for all this time. Deep down inside, I know she was only doing it to protect me, but there’s a part of me that feels like I’ve had a knife in my back for the last five-thousand years. And now I feel the knife being wedged in deeper and deeper. The dull metal is inches away from my spinal cord, any closer and the cool blade of destruction will paralyze me.

  Then anger trumps the hurt when I think of Zeus and how he struck up this deal with Hades. It didn’t matter that he went back on the deal. He should have never bargained with my life to begin with. Finally terror, terror is a school of hungry piranha’s, munching on my fleshy muscles, ripping the meat from my bones. It won’t be long before it eats me alive. Am I destined to live out my eternal existence in a world full of darkness and death?

  I bury my face in my lap. I’m an emotional mess, an overflowing landfill with pieces of trash scattered everywhere and a rotting stench permeating the air. Nobody will clean me up. All they’ll do is bury me. Bury me with their lies, secrets, and empty promises. I lift my head and center on Zeus’s shin. The bulky muscle in his calf bulges as he shakes his leg. Fury twists in the core of my chest and my lungs expand as I huff violently.

  I’m tired of being lied to. I’m tired of being kept in the dark. And it’s about time I let them know.

  Persephone

  Rocking onto my tailbone, I fling my leg out as hard as I can and blast Zeus with the heel of my foot in the shin. Despite putting all of my effort into kick, it doesn’t even phase him. He doesn’t even flinch. I hear the puzzled tone in Zeus’s voice. “What the?” Then he lifts the tablecloth and looks me dead in the eye. His eyes are pools of blue with puddles of green around the irises. I scowl at him, angrily.

  Mom shifts behind me. “Zeus, what is it?” The tablecloth rustles and a creak erupts from mom’s chair as she bends over. “Persephone!” she yells. “What on earth?”

  I turn my head toward her, narrow my eyes, and try to breathe. Then I scramble out from underneath the table as they both sit up. I shoot daggers between them with my eyes. I don’t know what to say to whom first. Zeus stands and bursts out in a jovial, fake laugh. “Happy Birthday, Princess!”

  “Zip it Zeus!” I shout.

  Mom flies out of her chair and her abrupt departure sends the wooden seat crashing to the floor. “Don’t you talk to your father that way! How long were you under there?”

  “For the whole damn conversation!”

  “Don’t you take that done with me, Persephone!” Mom places her fists on her hips. “You’re supposed to be in school!”

  “Well, thank the God’s I came home! If I hadn’t maybe then I would have never found out that I have liars for parents!”

  “Don’t you dare,” mom gasps. Behind her I hear Zeus breathing heavily as mom and I continue to bicker with one another. She wags her finger in my face and I fold my arms across my chest. Suddenly a hiss and a sizzle interrupts our heated discussion. I glimpse over my shoulder and Zeus’s face is crimson, his jaw clenched and sparks fly out of his fingertips. He lifts his hands slowly as ball of thin white lines flash and swirl like a cyclone. He palms the lightning bolt. “ENOUGH!” I throw my arms up over my head, prepared to duck and cover.

  Just as he raises his arm preparing chuck the bolt into the wall, mom rushes to his side and gets a firm grip on his arm. “Zeus! No!” She yanks hard on his raised arm and he slowly lowers it. “Calm down, Zeus,” she soothes him. Zeus lowers his head and meets my mother’s gaze. The bolt vanishes and he lets out a long, winded sigh.

  “I’m done with this!” I run from the kitchen, ignoring mom and Zeus.

  “Persephone! You come back here now!”

  I don’t listen.

  This is one time where I’m not going to be her naïve obedient daughter. This is one time where I’m not going to do what I’m told.

  In my room, I lock the door, and then pace back and forth in front of my bed. The contents of my room blur in my vision. Sea green walls, cherry furniture, the white throw rug, pretty soon I feel like I’m partially blind because all the color swirl together. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe my mom. Most of all, I can’t believe that I hadn’t caught on to what was going on sooner.

  The doorknob to my room turns abruptly. I stop mid-pace and glare at the brass knob as mom turns it with more force. Then she slams her first into the door. “Persephone! Open this door now!”

  I don’t even want to hear her voice right now. I need to think. And besides, I know exactly what she’s going to say. She’s going to tell me she did this to protect me. I don’t mom knows what the definition of “protect” is.

  Over the centuries she’s watched me wake up screaming—terrified. She’s watched me suffer through sleepless nights. She’s watched me live in fear of every seventeenth birthday, and the whole time she knew why the voice was coming to me. What kind of parent let’s their child suffer like that? What kind of parent watches their child in pain and keeps the secret of why their child is in pain in the first place?

  The doorknob jingles again. “I’m serious Persephone! Open this door!” Mom turns the doorknob so hard I think it might snap off.

  “No! Leave me alone!”

  “Pack your thi
ngs!” she shouts through the door. “We’re moving!”

  I grind my teeth and a lowly breath leaves my slotted lips. “I am not moving again!”

  Part of me thinks this a ruse; mom is just saying this to get me to open the door.

  “Oh yes you are!” She tries twisting the knob again. “I’ve already purchased the plane tickets.” She lowers her voice. “This time we’re moving to Vermont. Remember how much you liked it the last time we lived there?”

  “I am not moving!” I march over to the door, unlock it, and yank it open. “I refuse!”

  Mom is propped up against the frame and she smiles. “Thank you for opening the door.” She brushes past me and sits down on my bed. Heat rises filling my cheeks with warmth and I glare at her furiously. I was right; it was all a ruse to get me to open the door.

  Mom pats the spot on the bed next to her. “Sit down. We need to talk.” I ignore her and fold my arms across my chest. She shakes her head. “Quit being stubborn, Persephone.”