by Amelia Wilde
He jogs to a stop next to me. “Meet me here. Three days from now. At midnight.”
“I can’t.” I could. I could. I could do it just like this. I’m a human firework, and I bet he can see it. What a risk. If my mother ever caught me, she’d be apoplectic. I wouldn’t see the outside of the cottage for months. Maybe years. Maybe forever. But I want to. The train hisses behind him, another warning. He has to go. I have to go.
He catches my wrist in one free hand—the crate is nothing to him. He looks down at me, all green eyes to match his green coat and long limbs to match his playful voice. The pad of his thumb slips beneath the sleeve of my jacket. He’s warm. He’s so warm, even out here in the freezing cold. Even though he’s been waiting for me.
“Meet me. I’m not done talking to you.”
The train’s whistle howls, a siren that splits my brain and sends shivers from where he’s touching me down to the tips of my toes.
I wasn’t brave enough to leave today. Maybe I could still be brave enough to meet him—under cover of darkness, when my mother is fast asleep. When there’s nobody around to see. My muscles tense with the need to run. She’ll be keeping track, no doubt. She’ll know how long it takes to hand a package to a man and come back for the house. And though Decker’s hold on my wrist is light, practically nothing, I know it will take magic words to get free.
I’m not sure I want to get free.
“I’ll be here.”
His fingers linger on my wrist a second longer. “You will?”
He steps back toward the train.
“I will,” I call after him, like a woman out of the olden times, waving a handkerchief to a train pulling away. He reminds me of a soldier. A cute, forbidden soldier. Only I have no handkerchief, so I settle for a wave, quick and furtive. There’s no way he even sees it. Decker is already turning, jogging for the platform. At the train a man swings out of one of the cars onto the connectors and glares out at Decker. The man on the train shouts something I can’t make out over the hiss and metallic clangs of the machine. “I’ll be there.”
I leave the words in the snow like a talisman and go back into the trees. The snow feels heavy around my boots, each crunch and snap beneath my feet reminding me of the distance between here and home, where my mother waits for me. I ignore the tree branches chiding me from their place in the sky and hurry. Fast. Faster.
I barely see the snow or the field stretching out ahead of me. I’m too focused on Decker’s face. His smile. The anticipation sparkling in my veins. The delicious taste of a secret on my tongue. It’s almost as good as getting out of here. Almost. Our conversation, if it can be called a conversation, loops over and over again in my mind. I catch myself forming the words on my lips, like I’m playing out the scene for an invested audience.
It’s not until the house is in sight, the sun sinking toward the horizon behind it, that something occurs to me:
Decker never asked for my name. He already knew it.
3
Hades
On occasion, I like to get my hands dirty.
It’s not every day I go down into the mines, but today is a special case. Even a man of my wealth needs an outlet from time to time. My outlet is underground. Away from the fucking sunlight. In the mines, there is always something in need of correction.
Or someone.
It’s dusty work, mining diamonds. And bloody work, keeping people in line. I normally leave those kinds of things to Oliver. But tonight I needed to stretch my legs.
My dog, Conor, pads next to me as we resurface onto the factory floor. I don’t often walk here, either. It’s a special treat to watch all of my workers tense up as I pass. Not one of them looks up. They’ve learned well.
Heavy footsteps up ahead draw my attention away from the work at hand. Oliver, coming at a run, his mouth set in a determined line. It gets my blood up. Not enough to react to him, but enough to anticipate action. My hands are still dirty.
He comes to a stop inches in front of me and draws back, pressing a hand to his chest. The hand, I’ve come to realize over the years, is only a clever distraction. Oliver breathes normally. I’m almost certain he could run for a hundred miles without breaking a sweat.
“Mr. Hades. You have a call.” Oliver takes my phone from his pocket and puts it into my hand. I left it on the desk when I decided to go down to the mines. Some things are rather less enjoyable when I can’t give them my full focus.
I clap him on the shoulders and haul him along with me across the factory floor.
“You didn’t have to run on my account, Oliver. Whoever it is will wait for me.”
“It’s your brother. He said it was urgent.”
“He called the office first?”
“He called everywhere first.” Oliver’s eyes never stop scanning the factory floor, though there is no threat here. There isn’t a person around us that Conor couldn’t kill with one bite. And if they had the courage to go after me, well, I might just hire them to be Oliver’s protege. A joke, of course. No one has any hope of turning out to be anything like Oliver. That’s why he works for me. He cuts a glance down at the phone, then back to the people around us. “I didn’t want his call to take you by surprise.”
In other words, Oliver is hoping that the contents of this call don’t send me straight back into the mines for another round. He’d rather be up here, where the air is lighter.
“I’ve only been surprised once in my life. I doubt it’ll happen again from whatever my dear brother has to say.”
I catch a flash of apprehension in Oliver’s eyes, which is rare enough as it is. He doesn’t second-guess himself often. And if he does, he doesn’t let it show. I could do him a kindness and tell him that this is fine. He didn’t interrupt me in the mines for that motherfucker Zeus, which would have been a mistake. But I’m not interested in coddling the man.
My phone rings in my hand.
“Run along.” I wave Oliver off and he turns abruptly at the next workstation. He blends in with everything else in a matter of moments. I have no doubt he’ll be in position to shadow me when I reach the end of the floor. I give it a few moments before I answer the call. Let Zeus think I don’t care. The truth is, of course, that I don’t. Sometimes he has interesting news, but more often than not, he’s only calling to rehash details of the arrangement that makes all of our lives tenable. Most of all, I want to disabuse him of the impression that he can order my people around. At the last possible moment I hit the button to connect us. “There’s no use calling, Zeus. I’m not in the mood to chat.”
“Maybe if you were, you’d have more friends.” There’s a dull murmur in the background of the call—voices and silverware, a heavy glass being put down on a thick table.
“If you’re lonely, just borrow an hour from one of your girls. That would waste less of my time and you’d get a decent fuck out of it.”
Zeus laughs. “Aren’t you in a pleasant mood.”
I reach the end of the workstations on the factory floor and keep going across the wide empty space beneath my balcony. A doorway at the end of a long hallway responds to my handprint and it slides open, revealing an elevator that only goes to my public office. Well—as public as it gets.
“If you’re not calling to beg for my company, then what is it, Zeus?” Conor follows me into the elevator and sits at my feet, ears perked, waiting. I have no idea what goes through that dog’s mind as a matter of course, but I especially have no idea now. It’s not like anything is going to attack us in my private elevator. “I’m working.”
“So am I.”
“You’re sitting in the lounge of a whorehouse, watching the merchandise. I don’t think that counts as working.”
“Doesn’t it?” Ice clinks against glass in the background of the call. I could use a fucking drink. But drinks, like everything else in my life, are a balancing act. A careful balancing act that bends toward the far more delicious pleasure of denial. “I think keeping accurate inventory is an
essential part of any business.”
“Hire an accountant.” Enough of this. He’s only calling to fuck with me, as usual.
“Don’t hang up.” For the first time in this conversation I sense...urgency. It’s not on the surface with Zeus. It almost never is. But I’ve known him long enough to hear the notes behind the larger melody of his bullshit. “Are you still there?”
I give him a heavy sigh. “I only have a few more moments left to waste, so if there’s something—”
“Demeter’s...not well.”
The elevator opens and I step out into my office. The seat behind my desk welcomes me back. Conor paces around the room before he returns to me and puts his head in my lap. I scratch between his ears, but it doesn’t dispel the pinpricks at the back of my neck, the hairs rising.
“Did you hear what I said, Hades?”
“I’m trying to discern why you’re bothering with this kind of lie. Frankly, I find this kind of exercise boring.”
Now it’s his turn for an exasperated sigh. “I mean she’s sick. I’m told it’s bad enough that she’s not leaving the house.”
“Have you had too many drinks tonight? Demeter never leaves her property. She’d rather die. You know that.”
“I’m not talking about the grounds. I’m talking about the house. She’s missing deliveries now. Sending...other people in her place.”
I am not the kind of man who entertains fear. There is very little in the world that scares me at all—that makes my heart beat faster out of self-preservation. If Zeus is telling the truth—and I think he is, by the sound of his voice—then the delicate balance between the three of us is in danger of being upset.
Part of me would relish watching Zeus’ business collapse, but I’d only get to enjoy it for a short while before my own went down. He’d be able to recover, since he trades in the world’s oldest profession.
As for me?
I drum my fingers on the surface of my desk.
Without Demeter, it would be a much harder climb. Fuck—I don’t want to think about it.
“What do you want me to do, Zeus? I have someone waiting to speak to me.”
A pause. Is he being tentative? My god. “I was thinking I should send a doctor on the train. Will you let him through if I do it?”
“I’m shocked that you’d think I’d kill a doctor for sport.”
He lets out a cold, calculated laugh. “I think you’d do worse.”
“Not to our dear sister.” Conor nuzzles my hand. He’s hungry, and so am I. “If there’s nothing else, I would dearly like to end this conversation.”
“Always a pleasure,” says Zeus. “And if—”
I hang up before he can finish his sentence.
I might not entertain fear or the kind of anticipation that feels like fear, but my body does. My heart thunders in my chest. Even the small hairs on the backs of my hands leap upward.
“Come, Conor. It’s time for dinner.”
My dog follows me out of the office and stays by my side all the way to my private quarters. He’s a good dog. Well-behaved. He gives me the time I need to think.
Because of course I lied to Zeus.
Oh, I’ll let the doctor live. That was true.
But I intend on taking something much more valuable from Demeter.
In fact, I already have.
4
Persephone
I thought the fields were silent, but there is no silence compared to the one that engulfs the house. It’s a hot, close quiet, and my own breathing seems loud and ragged. I pinch my lips shut and try to even it out while I hang up my coat and step out of my boots. Nothing in the kitchen is out of place—why would it be, unless my mother had come down? But she’s not in the small living room, with its two chairs pointed at the fireplace, and the door down to the cellar where she works on her flower arrangements is locked up tight.
Back at the sink, I stare at my reflection in the mirror and try to look innocent.
I am innocent.
How could anyone be anything other than innocent in a house like this? It’s all painted to look like whitewash and polished hardwood floors, like something out of a fantasy novel. My heartbeat is loud in my ears while I climb the stairs.
I don’t hear her coughing.
I’ve spent a lifetime in this house, so I risk going silently down the hall. My mother hates when I sneak up on her, so I normally won’t do it. It’s just that the silence is so heavy it makes worry bloom at the back of my mind.
I’ve been warned before. About...something happening to her, because of me. I won’t think of it directly, because that seems like tempting fate. Instead I do the calculus of my trip to the fence. To Decker. And the extra minutes I spent there, talking to him. It couldn’t have been long, because nobody came looking for me. Still—something could have happened while I was out of earshot. Something terrible could have happened.
I put my hand on the doorframe and pull myself level with with it. My body resists looking. I don’t have time for that. I only have time to peek around into the room and see what there is to be seen.
Which is...
Nothing.
My mother is in her bed, curled on her side, facing away from me. Her shoulder rises and falls with each even breath. A tension uncurls from the center of me and falls to the floor. She’s okay. At least, I think she’s okay. And that means I don’t have to decide anything right now.
I pad across the bedroom and snug up the blanket around her shoulder, then turn off the lamp on her bedside table. A cool moonlight settles over everything, soothing my skin. It feels good to be in the dark.
So I keep it dark. My room is down the hall, and there’s nobody else here—nobody else for a long distance. My mother keeps her security guards at arms’ length. Or at fence’s length, I suppose. People aren’t supposed to get close, unless they’re approved to work in the fields. They’re not supposed to be close, but that doesn’t mean I’m ever alone. Except for right now.
My bedroom door swings on its hinges with the softest creak. Two steps into the bedroom and I close it—quiet, quiet, don’t wake her up—and fall against it in a burst of cold clinging to the skirt of my dress.
It’s not safe in here, even if it feels like it—not really. Nowhere in this house is truly safe from my mother. But I can’t help but close my eyes and let it all tumble through my mind again.
I met a boy at the fence. A man. And he asked me to meet him.
And I’m going to do it.
My pulse thrums hard through my veins, all the way to my fingertips and my toes, and I trace two fingers over my wrist where he touched me. He touched me. He must have known how much of a risk it was, because...he knew my name. I didn’t tell him, but he knew. I should be...terrified. I should be trembling, and I am, but not because of how afraid I am. Or not only because of how afraid I am. It’s also because nothing this exciting has happened to me in years. Ever. Not since my chance at school.
I fumble for the light switch next to the door and the room bursts into bloom around me. The walls are covered in flowers, a garden all on their own, every one of them hand-painted. I’m almost certain she had them freshened up, painted over, while I was at school. Peonies and poppies and roses crowd every inch of the walls between strips of white trim, resting on a bed of green leaves and vines.
It all looks so different now. My four-poster bed with its hard mattress sits squarely in the middle of the room, facing a low-slung dresser. If Decker stood in here, all of these things would be tiny compared to him. They look tiny to me now. Girlish. Would he still want to meet me if he knew I lived here? And slept here, in bleached-white sheets, with nothing interesting around me except the watchful eyes of a thousand flowers?
Another thought bursts from beneath the soil and sprouts into the center of my mind. Maybe he does know about the flowers.
My hand goes to my throat before I can laugh it off. Nobody gets this close to my mother’s house. Nobody would climb the w
alls to see the inside of my room. They might want to—according to her, all men are evil and will do almost anything, given the chance—but Decker? There’s no way. He was just...nice. He was interested. And I can’t ruin this—this chance, this spark—by losing my head. I squeeze my eyes shut and pretend with all my might that it’s not my garden of a room watching me, but him. If we had a moment to ourselves, he could let his e yes linger where he wanted. Maybe even his hands. We could...hold hands.
I snort a laugh at myself, because the heat in my cheeks would give me away if there were anybody else in here. Holding hands? I’m going to go to pieces over the thought of holding hands with a man I’ve met once? It’s time for a deep breath and a nightgown.
The one concession my mother has ever given me to any sort of privacy is my tiny attached bathroom. The flowers follow me in there in small bouquets, each one centered on a white bathroom tile. They swim away when I splash cold water onto my cheeks, trying to stop the excited burn. If she sees me like this, she’ll know. And I can’t risk that tonight. So I put myself back together, standing over the sink. What I want is a shower, long and hot and luxurious, but the sound of the water might wake her up if it goes on too long. Instead I brush my teeth and strip out of the dress I wore today. And then I turn the lights off in the bathroom, hit the switch in the bedroom, and walk naked in the dark to my closet.
The dark slips over my skin under the glow of the moonlight from my window and I drag my fingertips through it like the surface of a still pond. It feels so good to be in the dark. Terrifying, in its way, but cleansing, too. I especially need it tonight, when I’m trying my best to hide something from my mother.
Oh, god. It’ll never work. My lungs squeeze out the remaining air in a whoosh as I step into the pitch dark of the closet and feel for a nightgown. I recognize one by the hem of its sleeve and the fact that it’s a little softer than the rest. Worn cotton instead of linen. My heart squeezes, aching and tight with a sudden fear. It will never work. I don’t know what I was thinking. What am I going to do, just walk out of the house in the middle of the night without any excuse? Three days from now, my mother could be well enough to follow me. She could see.