It was my name, written repeatedly.
Chapter 18
I flipped maniacally through the pages, hoping that eventually there wouldn’t be a page with my name on it before growing annoyed and slamming the book shut. There was a loud scream that made me jump as I turned around, looking over my shoulder for the source of the noise before looking back down at the book.
I reluctantly opened it again, greeted with the sound of thankful murmurs. In bewilderment, I looked down at the pages that remained blank this time. Senseless noises still bubbled from it, but nothing happened. It wasn’t alive, I thought ferociously, but still little whispers crept from the pages. A mixed sense of horror and fascination had spread through me before I touched the pages again gently. The book didn’t say anything else although I knew there was something strange and magical about it.
Heaving a sigh and stepping away from the podium I turned toward the wall the judges had left through. It had reverted into being nothing more than a rocky surface and they were probably long gone. However, if there was a door there, I decided it was going to make itself known tome.
Reaching the stone, I set my hand against it and pushed. I must admit I didn’t expect it to work, pulling back in surprise as the door swung open. I marveled at my power. Although it didn’t last long though as I forced myself to walk through and into this new dark hallway. I had nowhere else to go for now, save try to follow the judges into the darkness. I hated imagining descending into the unknown once more with Gods knew what waiting for me at the bottom. I paused for a second peering thoughtfully into the shadows when I decided to try something else.
Clapping my hands, I said loudly: “light.” Floating candles suddenly illuminated the hallway and I grinned to myself. “You are still there,” I whispered to myself, knowing she could hear me. “I could use you right about now if you’re not busy.” But that wasn’t true and Persephone knew it. We were uniting. Slowly but surely, we were becoming one. I wouldn’t hear her anymore because I was her. My thoughts and ideas were hers.
I smiled to myself, feeling a confidence surge in my chest as I made my way down the path that had been lit up. I expected to hear the whispers of the judges at the end. Or at least their breathing as they had done before but I was alone. I felt the loneliness following me as I trailed through the passage and stopped outside of three wooden doors.
This was something I recognized, even without a frog or toad somewhere telling me one door would take me where I wanted and one door would bring my death, but what about the third door? I stared between the three; trying to figure out which one I was going to choose, looking for a sign of which one I needed.
Cerberus had three heads; he always bumped me with the left one first. I decided then that this was a sign, moving toward the left-hand door and pushing it open before I had time to change my own mind. Second guessing in these situations always led to trouble.
The room was bright, at least brighter than the last had been. And this time it wasn’t due to candles but natural light. My heart skipped a beat at the prospect of having found freedom. When I turned to the light source, I let out a disappointed breath when I saw it was natural light but it wasn’t all that natural. A rudimentary window had been carved on the far wall of the room. It reflected not what lay beyond the cavern, but a mother lying in a hospital bed holding her newborn child, still covered in blood and placenta.
I still smiled at the scene, taking pleasure in the woman’s happiness even though I didn’t know her. She looked up at her husband and grinned proudly at him, “we’ll call him Henry, after your father.” The father smiled, nodding his head and leaned down to kiss both mother and child on the forehead.
“Henry Phillippi!” A woman crooned from behind me, making me start in surprise. Before me were three women standing on a similar pedestal to that of the judges. One was next to a spinning wheel, like in the fairy tales, winding it quicker and quicker while the one beside her pulled the spun thread. The last one reached out with a pair of gilded scissors and cut the thread from the bundle.
I turned around to ask the significance of the babe when frantic voice filled the room: ”why isn’t he crying?!” I turned back to the window, seeing a different woman craning over the nurses and family members blocking her view, trying to see her child. She spoke again and I noted it wasn’t actually in English but then, milliseconds later I understood, “what’s wrong? Is he okay? Is Mikel okay?”
“Mikel Zakharov.” I turned quickly to the women, watching the first spin the thread, the second barely pull it and the third cut it off fast that I couldn’t tell if she had even gotten any thread.
I glanced back at the screen to see what had happened, but it had already changed. I frowned to myself and moved toward the women.
“Hello?” They stopped what they were doing, all frozen in time as they turned to stare at me. I stared in horror as I took them each in: they had holes in their forehead and only the most further one – the one with the scissors – had an eye set in the socket. They seemed bewildered that I was there, and then they seemed perplexed like I had asked something from them. I tried again, “hello?”
“Valentina MacMillan.” The spinner spun the thread and the measurer measured finally the cutter stepped up to do her job and I held up my hand.
“Stop, I don’t want to know.” I had a feeling whatever they did here was important, consequential and if my being here changed anything that had been predetermined I didn’t want to risk it.
“Griffin Kovalevsky.” But this time I watched as she spun the thread, the measurer measured, and the cutter cut. She held up the string and it certainly looked shorter than the other one she had done, even mine, which she had begun to pull. The cutter held it out it out to me and
I approached them with caution, holding my hand out to accept it.
It was a fine gold thread that slipped through my fingers before I caught it at the last second. It held an importance I could tell but of what I didn’t know. The old women were all looking down at me expectantly like I was supposed to give them something or at least go away satisfied, but I didn’t understand. What were these threads they were creating?
“You know my name. Can I know yours?”
“Klotho.”
“Lakhesis.”
“Aisa.”
Each one after another answered me and I nodded, noting that these names too would be quickly forgotten. What I didn’t understand though was why these women, who apparently dealt more in life than death, would live in the Underworld. Were they hidden away here because they were old and ugly? Or was there something more nefarious going on here than what I could surmise?
“Nice to meet you,” I said as politely as I could manage before throwing in a smile for good luck, “would you mind... explaining...” I held up the small thread in my fingers to them, twirling it between my digits before dropping it back to my side.
“We are the Moirai. We are the givers of fate.” Fate. They determined what happened to people in their lives.
“I’m supposed to be here then?” They stared at me for a long time, in an unnerving way that started to make me think that maybe I was wrong. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be here. That made me more worried if I wasn’t supposed to be here that could set off a chain of events like a butterfly effect.
“We delve out the lots of life.” One of them clarified for me, but it only made me more confused.
“You decide how long people’s lives are going to be?” My heart knotted as I glanced down at Griffin’s thread. “How do I tell how long this is?” I said to them, looking back up in an obvious desperation. The women didn’t say anything else to me as they looked down at their work and carried on. In the background, I heard another baby cry, its name given and one of the Moirai announced the full name to her sisters.
I swallowed hard and looked back at Griffin’s thread. It wasn’t that short... It wasn’t particularly long. I looked back up at them as they worked and decided as I watc
hed each thread be pulled and cut, that his was shorter no matter how much I wanted to try and sugarcoat it for myself.
Then that meant… how much time did he have left? How was I supposed to use this thread to figure that out? Was I supposed to save him? Maybe I should ask for my own thread.
I moved toward the women, clamping the small thread in the ball of my palm as I got closer, “what do I do with it?” I said more firmly, trying to command an answer from them. But they worked on diligently, ignoring my question and still shouting out names. I sighed, turning away and glancing around the room for what to do next when Aisa tapped my shoulder.
I turned toward her, hoping for an answer, but she held out a small bag, “when you understand you will see.” She said to me with an affirmative nod before turning back to her work: cutting and discarding, cutting and discarding. What happened to the threads once they were cut? Surely, they didn’t keep them in that massive pile for all of eternity, or however long someone’s life was deemed to be...
I stared in frustration at the bag she gave me, wanting to look at it but getting the impression she didn’t think I deserved to yet. I had to get out of here and then I could look in the bag and maybe then I could figure out Griffin’s thread. I unceremoniously stuffed the bag into my bra, the only other place I could keep it, before descending the platform and heading back for the wall I entered through. I was back in the hallway, but it was dark again, I didn’t bother to clap this time as I shouted for light and it appeared. I was exhausted; I wanted to go back to the apartment if I wasn’t ever going to get out of the Underworld.
I looked down at the thread still woven between my fingers like a tiny collection of rings and held it up to the light. It was nothing more than a simple thread someone might use to sew a shirt or linen with. I didn’t understand how something fragile and simple could be powerful. I twisted my hand around to look at it again when an image leaped out of the thread, displaying itself in midair. Before I could ever see what I was looking at, it was gone again as my hand settled.
I frowned to myself, pulling my hand back closer to my body and unwound the thread from between my fingers. Pinching it between my thumb and forefinger in both hands I started twisting the thread in the same motion as my hand had done. Just like that before my eyes images of Griffin’s life began to flash out of the thread. He was born, his first word, his first steps, his father’s alcohol problem and drunken abuse, his mother being beaten... The stories went on and on, everyone worse than the last. It felt invasive to be watching his life as if through his eyes, but it would give me an indication of how much time I had left.
He hadn’t been kidding when he told me he had softened the story for my own good. I felt sick to my stomach seeing some of the things he had endured to survive on his own. I couldn’t take it anymore, turning my head away and slowing my fingers.
I knew I had to get through it to see what happened to him, to know how much time I had left, but I couldn’t. I could barely wrap my mind around what I had already witnessed. If he were here, I would’ve hugged him. I wanted to tell him it would be okay and that he never had to go back to that life again.
It was futile, he knew that but did he know that despite everything Hades had done I still cared about him? This wasn’t his fault; none of this had been his fault. like what had happened to Savannah wasn’t his fault. I couldn’t blame him. His God on the other hand? Well, both his wife and I had some things to say about his choice of actions.
I curled the thread around my forefinger I didn’t lose it and set off again down the hallway. I had to get out of here, or at least back to the apartment somehow. I needed to find Hades and warn him that his host was in danger. That had to be important to him, without Griffin as his vessel even he couldn’t have his wife no matter where he put us.
I hiked along, trying to blink back the images of Griffin’s time on the streets, selling his body for drugs through sex. It bothered me. How could someone let himself fall that far? Why hadn’t anyone cared to help him? Even his pimp had thrown him out eventually, not even bothering to give him advice for cleaning himself up. There was no way for me to go back and change his past, but anger at Hades aside, I could help make his future better. He wanted the other Gods to accept him, maybe not Hades but at least him, and I could do that. If I got to him in time.
But then I stopped walking as a new thought struck me: what if the real reason I had been let out of the apartment and gotten lost down here was because he was already dead? I felt myself grow cold at the thought of it. Surely, that made sense. Hades hadn’t been this forthcoming in the entire time I’d known him.
With no other ideas, I started running through the hallway, hoping that this would at least take me back to the judges and from there I could find my way back to Cerberus. But the hallway spun and twisted and it didn’t take long before I was thoroughly lost and completely turned around. Even if I wanted to get back to the Moirai or anywhere for that matter the Underworld seemed to have a mind of its own, it intended for me to only be where it wanted me to be.
“Persephone... What if they’re both dead? What then?” We were in the perfect place to see them, that’s for sure. Would we have to stay here because there was no one else to rule the Underworld? As infuriating as Hades was I’m sure she didn’t want him dead as much as I didn’t want Griffin dead.
“Stop being pessimistic,” I told myself firmly, running my thumb over the looped, fragile thread around my pointer finger. “If he were dead they wouldn’t have been able to give me the thread, it wouldn’t exist anymore.” I nodded to myself firmly; it was logical it had to be true. Never mind the fact that nothing about this place was logical, even the hallways weren’t linear why would the thinking of it be?
I looked away from my finger and glanced down the hallway before looking the other way. I could go either way and probably end up running in circles for hours without even knowing how long I had been in there. I didn’t even know how long I had been trapped in the Underworld; it could’ve been days or even weeks when it felt like nothing more than a few hours.
I decided then that instead of playing by the rules I would create some of my own as I turned to the wall against my back and held out my hand. Much like I had done in the lair of the judges I pushed against the stone and willed a door to appear.
I cheered with pride when it worked and wasted no time going through as it brought me back out to the river.
“Cerberus?!” I shouted, my voice echoing and carrying along the stream. I glanced down at the spirits but this time there were no faces passing by, no one was screaming out for salvation. This time the water wasn’t water but flames that licked and danced along the ravine that led toward what I hoped would be the gates.
My heart was pounding in my chest as I weighed my options. I could wait for the boat, but it might never come. If it did, I didn’t have the payment again I might be stranded once more. I could go back and remain lost in the mazelike hallways of the Underworld, or I could jump.
If I jumped I could die, I could be burnt to death, or I might be able to swim... My choices were all bleak and none of them guaranteed anything. One thing I knew was that the judges said the four rivers connected and led to them, this had to be one of them.
“What do you think Persephone?” It was stupid talking to her out loud, she couldn’t answer me or do anything anymore we were one in the same. Whatever decision I made would be both of ours. I took a deep breath, held it in my lungs and leaped.
I couldn’t stand the plunge with my eyes wide open, watching the flames dance up toward me happily ready to accept me in their grasp. I squeezed them shut and waited for the inevitable burn that should’ve come. It was the longest few seconds of my entire life, waiting for something scalding to hit my flesh and melt it away, but it didn’t come. Instead, my body was submerged entirely in surprisingly frigid cold water that enveloped me before the undercurrent pulled me down. Like icy limbs reaching out from the depths of the water, th
ey grasped at my legs pulling me deeper and deeper under while my lungs ached and burned for much needed air.
I waved my arms up and down trying to gather some momentum to fight and pull myself back up to the surface. I decided, as I fought for my life, this had been a terrible idea. I kicked my legs, my muscles burning, as I battled my way to the surface and broke through with a huge gasp of air.
I sucked in too much making my lungs hurt while I tread water, attempting to stay afloat. From this position, there was no fire on the surface of the water. In fact, there was no indication of there ever been fire on the water at all. I couldn’t have been hallucinating; I had undoubtedly seen the flames even right up until the moment when I had closed my eyes.
For now, it didn’t matter. I needed to swim and that wasn’t an easy concept to grasp while also worrying about flames. I threw my arms forward and pushed off, tugging myself forward with each dig. The current did most of the work as it drifted my body forward, giving me a chance to look around for something to float on or even if the flames were going to come back. But I was utterly alone, no salvation in sight.
The river pulled me on and on and after a while I began to wonder how bad of an idea this had been. I didn’t know for how long the river would go or if in time I would find myself exhausted and drown. As if the river had known I was considering the dangers of it, my body flipped into a rapid. It pulled me faster through it and launching me over a series of massive rocks that bounced my body off them like I was nothing more than a rag doll. Pain shot through my body, my arms ached with the effort of keeping pace with the river while trying to keep myself away from a particularly rocky spot. Then, up ahead I saw it again the flames.
For a moment I panicked, reaching out and trying to get a grip on something to stop myself but each rock I grabbed was slick and laughed at me as I was pulled away and tugged nearer to the flames. When I inevitably drew too close to it, I didn’t close my eyes this time but turned and face the flames head on.
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