Persephone

The dead woman was trying to climb into the chariot.

Each time she put her foot on the bronze step, it passed through. She tried again, gathering a skirt that had no weight, while the horses stamped and Hermes held the reins high to keep them from tangling.

“Move aside,” he said. “You cannot ride with us.”

The woman looked at Persephone.

“You are going up.”

Persephone had one hand on the rail. Beyond the gates lay the road she had imagined so often that she could feel sunlight on her eyelids before she closed them. Her mother was at the other end of it. Hermes had said so. Her mother was waiting.

“Yes.”

“Then take me.”

The woman reached for the rail. Her fingers vanished into the gold and emerged again. She stared at them, offended by this fresh betrayal, and Persephone knew she had not been dead long.

Behind her, the palace doors stood open. Hades watched from the threshold. On the table inside lay the broken pomegranate.

Persephone could still taste it. He had given her the seed as she rose to leave; the sweet grain had been in her mouth before she understood what he was doing. She had swallowed. Now she wanted to be far enough away that she could stop feeling his eyes on her throat.

“Your name,” she said to the woman.

“Mela.”

“Who is above, Mela?”

“My daughter. She has been alone since I went for bread.”

Hermes lowered his hands. The horses settled, though one kept lifting its forefoot and setting it down.

“I told her to stay by the jar,” Mela said. “I told her I would bring something.”

Persephone stepped back onto the paving.

The Empty Jar

At first Mela spoke too quickly. There had been a little barley left, then husks, then nothing that could be ground. She had scraped the storage jar with a potsherd. Her daughter had licked the powder from the shard and cut her tongue.

Persephone asked where she lived.

“Beyond Eleusis. Near the road.”

“Which road?”

“The one with the trees.”

Mela looked towards the gates as if the trees might be visible through them. She had walked that road all her life. Having to explain it to someone was frightening her.

“A fig tree outside the house?” Persephone asked. “An olive?”

“An olive. There are two trunks. My husband used to hang the grinding basket between them.”

“Your husband?”

“Here. Somewhere. I have not looked.”

She turned back to the chariot.

“I will sit on the floor. I will not speak.”

Hermes came to stand beside Persephone. His sandals were dusty, ordinary dust from the world above. She wanted to put her hand on it.

“Her mother waits,” he told Mela.

“So does my daughter.”

The words struck with no anger in them. Mela seemed to think she had explained the difficulty and that they would now make room.

Persephone looked at Hermes.

“How long has there been no bread?”

He glanced towards the palace.

“Tell me.”

“The seed has not risen. Your mother has kept it in the earth.”

“All of it?”

“She would not listen to Zeus. Nor to anyone he sent. She said she would see you first.”

Persephone looked past him. The dim road into the palace grounds was full of people. She had thought the new arrivals always moved so slowly because they were afraid. Now she saw how many carried the shape of hunger with them: the bent back, the careful step, the hand still pressed to an empty belly.

Mela had stopped trying to board. She was watching Persephone’s face.

“Your mother,” she said.

Persephone could not find an answer that did not sound like an excuse.

“Yes.”

“Can she make it grow again?”

“Yes.”

“Then go.” Mela moved out of her way so abruptly that Persephone almost reached to steady her. “Go now.”

“What is your daughter’s name?”

“Dione.”

“Dione. The house with the divided olive.”

“The lintel is cracked. There is a stone under one end. Do not lean on it.” Mela rubbed at her skirt with the quick, worried motion of someone remembering how a house would look to a visitor. “She may hide. Tell her I sent you.”

Persephone climbed onto the step.

“Will you bring her?”

She turned.

Mela was standing very still.

“When you come back. Will you bring her to me?”

The horses’ harness creaked. From the palace came the sound of Hades crossing the threshold, but he did not speak.

Persephone understood what Mela was asking. Hunger had narrowed the woman’s world to a child in a room; death had narrowed it further. Somewhere in her longing, rescue and reunion had become the same thing.

“I will try to keep her there.”

Mela’s mouth tightened.

“She is little.”

“I know.”

“She will forget my voice.”

Persephone gripped the rail. She had spent so long guarding the sound of her own mother’s voice against this place. She had repeated things Demeter used to say until they were worn thin, until she was afraid she had begun supplying the wrong words.

“Tell me something you say to her.”

Mela shook her head.

“Something she will know.”

A long moment passed. Then Mela looked down at her hands.

“When she spills the meal, she blows on it. To make it go away. I tell her she is feeding the ants before she feeds herself.”

Persephone repeated it.

“No,” Mela said. “You have to sound cross.”

She said it again, more sharply. Mela gave one small nod.

Hermes took up the reins.

Above

Demeter was running before the chariot stopped.

Persephone caught her foot on the side and would have fallen if her mother had not caught her. Then she was held so tightly she could scarcely move. There was dust in Demeter’s hair. Her hands kept finding the same places: the back of Persephone’s head, her shoulders, her face.

For a while she could do nothing but hold on.

Her mother smelled of the earth after rain. She had forgotten that. She had remembered her face and her voice and the gold in her hair, but not this, and the return of it broke something open in her.

Demeter drew back enough to look at her.

“What did he give you?”

Persephone knew at once what she meant.

“A seed.”

Her mother’s hands stopped.

“Of what?”

“Pomegranate.”

“Did you eat it?”

“He put it in my mouth. I swallowed it.”

Demeter let go of her shoulders. For an instant Persephone felt the loss of those hands as though the chariot were taking her away again.

“Then he has kept you.”

“I am here.”

“He has kept part of you.”

Demeter turned towards Hermes. He stood by the horses, his face stripped of the easy brightness with which he had entered the underworld.

“Tell your father—”

“Mother.”

“Tell him I will not accept—”

“Mother. There is a girl.”

Demeter looked back, almost impatiently. Persephone had never had to work to hold her attention before.

“She is in a house beyond here. Her mother died looking for bread.”

“There are people who can tend to her.”

“Her mother thought so too.”

The fields below the temple were brown. Persephone could see the furrows, straight and empty, and a plough abandoned on its side. Nothing stirred in them.

Demeter followed her gaze.

“I had to bring you back.”

Persephone took her hand.

“Come with me.”

“I have only just found you.”

“Then come.”

She began to walk, holding fast. After three steps her mother came beside her.

They found the divided olive before they found the house. Its leaves were curled and grey with dust. A basket rope hung from one branch; the other end lay in the dirt.

Persephone ducked beneath the broken lintel.

“Dione?”

Something moved behind the storage jar.

She knelt. A small face watched her through the space between the jar and the wall. The child’s lower lip was split. One hand rested on a potsherd.

“Your mother sent me.”

Dione looked past her to the doorway.

“She is not there,” Persephone said.

The face withdrew.

Behind her, Demeter entered the room. She looked into the jar, then reached inside. Barley ran from her closed hand, pattering on the clay. She let it fall until it covered the bottom.

Dione lunged out. Demeter caught her wrist before she could stuff a fistful into her mouth.

“Wait. I will grind it.”

The child struck her.

Persephone moved closer, but her mother merely loosened her grip. Dione pulled away and crouched by the jar, protecting it with both arms.

“No one is taking it,” Demeter said.

She scooped a handful into the little stone mill and began to turn it. The sound filled the house: scrape, turn, scrape. Dione watched every movement.

Persephone sat on the floor where the child could see her.

“She told you to stay here.”

Dione nodded.

“She said she would bring bread.”

Another nod.

Demeter poured a little water into the meal and worked it with her fingers. Persephone saw her press her thumb into the mixture, testing its softness with the same care she had used to touch her daughter’s cheek.

“Come away from the jar,” Persephone said. “You can eat here.”

“She won’t know.”

“Who?”

“My mother. If I go.”

The child had kept the promise perfectly. She had stayed in the place where she had been left, while daylight crossed the doorway and went away again.

Persephone could have told her to wait a little longer. It would have made the next few moments easier. She could have fed her, carried her out, left the truth to someone who would not have to look into that face.

She moved the potsherd out of reach.

“Dione, your mother died.”

The child stared at her.

“She cannot come back to this house.”

“No.”

“I spoke with her. She asked me to find you.”

“No. She went for bread.”

“I know.”

Dione shoved at her. Persephone did not catch her hands. The child shoved again, then pressed both palms against Persephone’s chest and tried to drive her away with the last of her strength.

“Go away.”

Persephone stayed.

At last Dione’s arms bent. She folded forward against the goddess, her face hidden, and began to cry without enough breath to make much sound.

Demeter set down the bowl.

Neither of them hurried her.

When Dione could sit up, Persephone held the bowl while her mother offered a little of the softened meal. The child ate. On the third mouthful she spilled some onto her knee and bent to blow it away.

“You are feeding the ants before you feed yourself,” Persephone said.

Dione stopped.

She looked at Persephone properly for the first time.

“She says it louder.”

“Yes,” Persephone said. “She told me.”

The child took another mouthful.

The Return

Before they left the house, Demeter brought a woman from the next farm. She came carrying her own sleeping son, ashamed of how little she could offer, and found the barley jar full. Demeter put Dione’s bowl into her hand.

Outside, green was breaking through the furrows.

Persephone stayed beside her mother through the growing months. There were mornings when they walked without speaking and mornings when Demeter spoke so much that Persephone knew she was trying to spend none of their time in silence. Rhea brought the settlement from Zeus: two parts of each year above, one below. Her mother heard it with her hand closed around Persephone’s wrist.

When the time came, the hand opened.

Persephone went down carrying no flowers. She had learned which questions Mela would ask. She had gone back to the house, and then to the farm, and sat by the grinding stone while Dione helped to turn it.

Mela was waiting near the palace gates.

At the sight of Persephone she rose, searching behind her. Hope moved across her face, followed so quickly by horror that Persephone understood both before Mela could speak.

“She is alive.”

Mela sat down again.

“She lives at the next farm. There is a boy there who follows her everywhere. She finds him tiresome.”

“Does she eat?”

“Yes.”

“Enough?”

“She keeps a piece for later. They know to leave it where she puts it.”

Persephone sat beside her. Beyond the gates, the road was filling with new arrivals. For once she did not watch it.

“She has lost a tooth,” she said. “The one at the front. She can put her tongue through the space.”

Mela lifted a hand to her own mouth.

“Already?”

“She showed me three times.”

For a moment Mela tried to smile. Then she covered her face, and Persephone waited until she lowered her hands.

“Tell me again,” Mela said. “Start with the house.”