calm.”
Ignoring Iambe, Demeter spun on her heel to walk the short length of her temple to the front doors once again. When she reached them, a sensation, like a fist wrenching at her guts, made her double over and retch. The plant essence heaved. Drawing on her power, Demeter managed to contain it, but only just. Shaking, sweating, one hand pressed to her belly, she straightened and wiped her mouth.
Through the door of her temple came the sound of a man’s laugh followed by a woman’s voice which, even muffled as it was by the temple walls, sounded angry. Demeter burst through the doors just as Persephone broke free from Hermes’s grip.
“I’ve born your touch for as long as necessary. Leave me be,” Persephone cried.
Hermes advanced on her.
Demeter flung out a hand. Lengths of stinging nettles erupted from the ground at Hermes’s feet and twined themselves about his body. He fell to the ground, gibbering and writhing as the vines coiled around him, the skin beneath their green tendrils blistering.
“Mother, stop!”
Demeter looked at Persephone in surprise, but closed her hand in a fist. The vines withered and fell away from Hermes.
Fingers scuttling over his blistered face, Hermes got up. “You dare use your power against me? I’m on an errand set by Zeus himself. In that capacity I’m sacrosanct and none may molest me.”
Demeter stalked toward him. “I answer no more to Zeus. Be gone, Hermes. Your purpose here is served.”
Face contorted with rage, Hermes strode forward. “I have a further charge to fulfill here, Demeter, as you well know. I must collect—”
Demeter flung open her fist. Hermes exploded from the ground in a fury of beating wings and flapping cape and retreated into the blue of Zeus’s heaven.
Smiling, Demeter closed her hand and turned to her daughter, finally able to look her fill. Persephone was pale, the flesh around her eyes swollen and red as though she’d been weeping. Most of her hair had straggled out its plait and she was garbed in a faded, too-large tunic with various stains splotching it from neck to hem, a particularly deep pink one at the belt. However, Persephone’s disheveled appearance couldn’t disguise the gold eddying over her skin. She had claimed her Godbody. Before Demeter stood a Goddess with strength of her own.
Demeter’s smile faltered. She steadied it, moved toward Persephone, then raised her arms, and embraced her daughter. Persephone made a small miserable sound and lifted her hands to Demeter’s shoulders. Her head tilted down as though she meant to settle it into the curve of Demeter’s neck.
Tears started in Demeter’s eyes. “Oh, Kore. Oh, my Kore.”
Persephone stiffened, paused in her movement, then raised her head and dropped her arms.
Demeter leaned back in order to see her daughter’s face. Persephone’s eyes were full of pain and an animal wariness.
“What is it, Kore?”
Persephone’s mouth worked, but she made no sound.
Demeter reached to smooth back the hair from Persephone’s forehead. Persephone jerked away from her touch and pushed back out of Demeter’s embrace.
“Kore?”
“Call me by my right name, Mother.”
Demeter stiffened, a sharp retort on her lips. She drew breath, forced it down before saying, “I know there was much unkindness in my behavior toward you when we lived in Henna but I wasn’t to blame. Unbeknownst to me, Hekate worked to—”
Persephone backed away. “Hekate told me how she tried to turn my love to her instead of you. And she told me more, Mother. She told me how you schemed and machinated and murdered to ensure my return from the Underworld.”
Demeter sucked in a breath, nostrils flaring. “Even still she works to make you hate me. Surely you must see that was her intent in telling you of those things.”
“On the contrary. She spent much of her time below exhorting me to find some pity, perhaps even love for you in my heart.”
“Pity? I have neither need nor desire for your pity. All I wanted was to show you how much I love you. Surely you can’t doubt that after all I’ve done to free you from Hades.” Demeter lifted her arms and stepped once more toward Persephone. “Now come, Ko– Persephone, let us cease this bickering and embrace.”
Persephone evaded Demeter’s hands. “You believe what you’ve done is proof of your love? All the abominations you engaged in? All the anguish you’ve caused?”
“Abominations?” Demeter narrowed her eyes. “I did what was necessary to ensure your freedom. Had Hekate not flapped her tongue to Hades, he would never have abducted you. My abominations, as you call them, wouldn’t have been required. If you wish to lay blame for this then put it at the door of the one who is truly responsible. It was Hekate who betrayed you, not me. I only ever sought your freedom.”
“If that’s truly all you desire then you’ve accomplished it. There’s no need any longer for your famine. End it, Mother.”
Demeter raised her eyebrows, her anger, so hot a moment before, now chilling into something hard and implacable. “You’ve learned to command in your time below, but I’m not one of your subjects.”
“Are you truly that proud, that you would force me to beg? Very well. If that’s what you need then so be it.” Persephone extended her arms, palms up and open to the sky, and bent her head to gaze at the ground. “I beg you to lift your curse from Gaia’s flesh and allow life to abound there once more. I only hope the prayer of your daughter carries more weight than those of the mortals who are perishing even now at your hand, more weight than the agony of my lover who suffers in that land below.”
Demeter lunged forward, struck Persephone’s arms down. “Cease that. You won’t beg. Not on behalf of mortals and certainly not on behalf of that man—you dare call him your lover—who stole you from me.”
“End this thing, Mother.”
Demeter looked into Persephone’s jewel-bright, stone-hard eyes and said, “All I did, I did for you.”
Persephone’s mouth spasmed. She swallowed and blinked but no words of reconciliation tumbled from her trembling lips. Instead, she said, “Why then do I feel more in bondage to you now than ever I did to him?”
Demeter closed her eyes for a moment, then, opening them, turned from Persephone and walked toward her temple.
“Mother.”
Persephone’s footsteps told Demeter her daughter followed. Demeter didn’t turn. Hands closed on Demeter’s shoulders and spun her around.
Her grip almost bruising in its force, Persephone said, “You will hear me. You will know the fullness of what you’ve done. I have strength to match your own now and I will employ it.”
Demeter arched an eyebrow. “The strength perhaps, but have you the power?”
Persephone stepped back, lowering her arms. “Strike me as you did Hermes then. For it’s the only way you’ll silence me.”
Demeter’s hand twitched. She clamped it back to her side and turned away from Persephone’s accusing eyes.
“Have you been to the fields outside the walls of this city, Mother? I have. It was my welcome to Eleusis as Hermes and I overflew it. Bodies are stacked there like cordwood, both human and animal. Carrion birds caw and call and hop about gorging themselves on tongues and eyes and guts. The stench of putrefaction hangs over it in an almost visible pall. The very air shimmers with decay.”
Demeter turned, began once more to move toward her temple. “What do I care for this?”
“If you want me to remain here with you, you’ll listen.”
Demeter stopped but didn’t turn back.
“Those that suffer above the ignominy of providing sustenance to the crows and buzzards and insects are tormented worse in that land below. They wait on the banks of Styx, sorrowing eternally for their lost lives, unable to cross for their bodies haven’t undergone the necessary rituals of burial and they haven’t the proper fare to pay Charon his due. Even had they, what awaits them on the other side of the Styx is no kind eternity, but a wiping of all their memories, an existence in the asphodel meadow, their hands working at meaningless tasks, their minds and eyes vacant, until they fade into nothingness. That’s the existence to which you sent them.”
Demeter clenched her fists and ground out, “All that is nothing to me. They’re mortals.”
“As you once were,” Persephone nearly shouted, then added more quietly, “As I believed I was.”
“We were never as they!” Demeter shrieked, rounding on Persephone. Her daughter didn’t flinch, didn’t retreat. This lack of reaction to her ire struck Demeter like a blow. She stiffened, stilled.
“You were,” Persephone said. “And had you not regained your Godhood, you would have woken from your death to find yourself on the banks of the Styx, but in better care than those mortals who have entrusted themselves to you here. You have none of the conscientiousness that dictates Hades’s actions nor any of his compassion. For all else, Mother, I might have, in time, forgiven you, but for the torment you inflict on him even now I can’t reconcile myself to you. I ask, once more, cease this famine to ease his pain and mine.”
Demeter’s mouth worked. She cleared her throat, began to speak, but couldn’t force the words past the constriction of her throat. She swallowed, tried again. “If I do, you’ll return to him.”
Persephone looked down. She drew in breath, once, twice, then raised her eyes once more. “I won’t. If you allow Gaia to give her bounty to these mortals so that no more perish, I’ll spend my Immortality at your side.”
Still, Demeter hesitated. Zeus and Hera’s image appeared in her mind as she last saw them, heads bent, cooing over the swaddled bundle in Hera’s arms.
“What more do you want, Mother?”
“Come inside, Kore. I must think on this.” Demeter turned to her temple.
“There’s no more to think on,” Persephone called after Demeter, and yet Persephone’s feet slapped against the dirt of the temple forecourt as she followed, giving the lie to her words. She would continue this negotiation.
As Demeter approached, Iambe came around the corner of the temple and disappeared inside. Demeter pursed her lips. Had the woman heard all that passed between her and Persephone? Well, if she had, it made no matter. Iambe, unlike Persephone, accepted Demeter just as she was and didn’t require bartering or coercion to stay at Demeter’s side.
Demeter reached the temple door, pushed it open, and entered. She looked about for Iambe, but there was no sign of the woman. Doubtless, she hid herself in the antechamber.
A gasp came from behind Demeter. She turned. Persephone stood in the open door, her gaze moving over the piles of foodstuffs in their various containers lining the walls, taking in the baskets which held precious stones and items made of gold, silver, electrum and iron; prized things that lost all value when the folk of Eleusis realized metal, no matter how precious, couldn’t fill their bellies.
Persephone’s green eyes fastened on Demeter’s face. They blazed as though Zeus’s lightning flickered in their depths. Demeter’s stomach contracted into a small, hard knot. Only with great effort of will did she keep herself from shuffling over and spreading her skirts to hide the caches of grain which spilled from the tall jars at her side.
Persephone whirled away from the door and called out. Demeter couldn’t think who her daughter was summoning. In a moment, however, the question was answered as a crowd of dust-covered, leather-skinned workmen shuffled up to the temple, eyes cast down to shield their gaze from the blaze of Persephone and Demeter’s twin Godlights.
“Who leads you?” Persephone asked.
After a moment of shifting and muttering one man pushed to the front. “I, Lady.”
“What’s your name?”
“Gorka.”
“And who among your men can you most trust to do as he is charged?”
The man pointed to one in the middle of the group. “Alastrom, there.”
“Come forward, Alastrom,” Persephone beckoned. The men parted to allow him through. When he reached her, Persephone said, “I want both of you to select a ….” She paused, surveyed the men once more, “Score of men each. Alastrom, I desire you and your men to take the food from this temple and distribute it among those in the city who are yet alive.”
The man straightened. “I will do so and with thanks, Lady.”
Persephone turned to the other man. “Gorka, to you I give a weightier task. Take your men to the fields outside the walls of this city. I charge you, as best you can, to perform funerary rites on the dead that wait there. Take those baskets of precious things.” She gestured. “And be sure each body is buried with some small token from them. Can I trust you to do this?”
Tears streaking his cheeks, he said, “I’ll go to it with a will, Lady. Though my family have been spared, many of my friends rot in the Rarian Fields.” He sniffed, scrubbed at his face. “May I have your name so we may tell all to whom they should offer their gratitude for these mercies?”
“My name?” A sour smile twisted Persephone’s lips. “Kore or Persephone. I answer to either.”
The men murmured praises and thanks as they moved into Demeter’s temple and toward those items needed to accomplish their tasks.
Demeter rushed forward as the first man laid his dirty hands on a basket overflowing with fruit. “Stop. How dare you? My food kept you alive during the famine. Is this insolence my recompense for that generosity?”
“Nay, Lady,” a man hefting one of the baskets of precious things replied. “It was our food that kept you alive during the famine.”
Demeter gave an incoherent cry of rage and surged toward him.
The man stumbled back, the basket tumbling from his hands, as he flung them up to his eyes to protect his sight from Demeter’s flaring Godlight.
Persephone stepped in front of him. “Leave him be. He’s merely doing as I instructed.”
“As you instructed. These things aren’t yours to dispense. They’re mine, and you didn’t ask my leave.”
“I’m done with asking anything of you, Mother. It’s apparent my pleas fall on deaf ears. You don’t intend to end the famine so I must do what I can to mitigate its effects.” Persephone turned, gestured the cowering man onward. “Go to.”
Men closer to the door of the temple were already departing, their hands full of foodstuffs. A tremor rippled through Demeter’s Immortal essence. This shouldn’t be happening, couldn’t be happening, for mortals could cease their worship but couldn’t take back what they’d already given. No matter its cause, however, the disturbance in her power wasn’t to be borne. She strode forward, exhorting the men to stop.
They ignored her commands and exited the temple. She burst through the doors after them and into the temple forecourt. “No. Bring that back. Bring it back. I command you!”
Demeter’s Godvoice reverberated in the still day. As one, the men halted, turned on their heels, and began to tramp back to the temple.
“No. No.” Brushing past Demeter, Persephone hurried forward. “You must do the tasks I charged you with. Go. Go on.” She shooed at the men as a farmer’s wife at heedless chickens. The men marched toward the temple, oblivious.
“Gorka.” Persephone stepped to the man’s side, touched his shoulder. The man blinked up at Persephone, then down from her Godlight, nearly dropping the basket he held. He grasped it tighter, gave his head a shake and turned once more toward Eleusis.
Demeter’s ire grew as Persephone darted through the group of men, touching them, encouraging them to return to the duties she gave. One by one, the men responded to her. Behind Demeter, more men streamed from the temple burdened with baskets and jars and sacks overflowing with offerings.
As the troop of mortals, her daughter moving with them, neared the edge of the rise and the road that would lead them into Eleusis, Demeter felt a great shift in her power, not unlike one of Poseidon’s ground shakings.
Lips peeling back from her teeth in a snarl, Demeter lifted her hands and a bush sprang from the earth. Demeter snapped off a branch as thick as her forearm. Wicked thorns studded its length. She honed the tip to a point with one sweep of her fingers and hurled it at Persephone. A terrible wrenching tore at Demeter’s belly. She cried out and snatched at the air to call back the spear, but it was too late.
Persephone turned at Demeter’s cry. She brought her arms up, shielding her face, but the branch of thorns passed under them, hitting her chest instead. Persephone’s skin bubbled and blistered, but no cries of pain broke from her lips. Instead, the spear sunk into her flesh, fully consumed. Her skin rippled once over the entirety of her body.
Persephone lowered her arms, passed shaking hands down the length of her torso. Then, she looked up at Demeter, her fingers skimming the impacted spot on her chest. “You meant to punish me? As you did Hermes?”
Hands clamped over her mouth, tears welling in her eyes, Demeter shook her head.
Persephone took a step toward Demeter, then gave a murmured exclamation and looked down. Demeter followed the direction of her daughter’s gaze. Pale green shoots of grass emerged from the mud with each step Persephone took.
Brows furrowed, lips pursed, Persephone dropped to a crouch and passed a hand over the clump of grass. The blades stretched upward as though desperate for the brush of her fingers.
The same sensation of a fist twisting in her guts came again and Demeter’s stomach bulged. Green and gold wisps filtered between the lacings of her bodice. Demeter put a hand over them to prevent their escape, but they flew to Persephone, twined about her fingers, then sunk into the back of her hand. Persephone looked up, scanned Demeter, paused, then touched the barren ground at the side of the grass. As tender shoots erupted from the soil beneath Persephone’s hand, Demeter retched.
Thinking back to the golden glow that had suffused her pregnant belly on that long ago day when Hera had taken her Immortality, Demeter said. “Still Hera exacts the price of my treachery. Because she ceded you my power. I can’t use it in my defense. Not against you.”
Persephone stood, one hand rubbing again at her breastbone. “You did mean, then, to strike me down?”
Tears slid down Demeter’s cheeks. She hurried forward, gathered her daughter’s stiff, unwieldy body to her. “Oh Kore, forgive me as I forgive you for your theft of my offerings.”
Persephone’s hands settled on Demeter’s shoulders. Though Demeter struggled, Persephone, with gentle, but firm pressure still managed to push Demeter back. “The time for reconciliation is over, Mother. I no longer need you to end the famine. That, it seems, is within my ability.”
Persephone moved away. Demeter grasped one of her daughter’s hands to stop her. “It is. It is, Kore. But think before you squander it. If we combined our efforts, we could overthrow Zeus, overthrow Hera, have our recompense for those years spent in exile among the Sicani, for your abduction, for my pain at … at your loss.”
Shaking her head, Persephone said, “Nay, Mother. I’ve no wish for recompense. Despite their loathing of me, I never despised the Sicani. Indeed, I have some treasured memories from the time I thought I was nothing more and nothing less than a mortal maid, and my abduction led me to the greatest joy I’ve ever known. For your pain, I’m sorry, but it’s not mine to avenge. When I’ve made certain Gaia is bounteous once more, I intend to return to Hades.”
Speaking through clenched teeth, Demeter said, “If you do, I’ll force your return by the same method.”
Persephone tried to extract her hand from Demeter’s grasp. “Why? I take no joy in your company. You took but little in mine when we were together in Henna. Let me go.”
Demeter reached forward, grasped Persephone’s other hand and clutched at both. “I refuse to return to Henna. I can’t go back to Olympus. You’re all I have now, Kore. You must stay with me.”
Persephone tried to pull away, but each time she got one hand free, Demeter grappled on to the other. This continued, until, fingers slick with sweat, Demeter could no longer retain her grip. Panting, face wet with tears or perspiration, Demeter wasn’t sure, Persephone broke away and fled, vegetation springing from the earth with her every step.
“You will return to me!” Demeter shrieked after her. “As many famines as I must, as many deaths as I must, more agony than your husband can bear. I will make you return to me.” But the green-gold light trailing after Persephone gave the lie to Demeter’s words. It might not be possible for her to retain the power necessary to make good her vow.