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“WHAT IS ASPHODEL LIKE?” I ask when the quiet becomes unsettling.
Charon looks into the far distance. He doesn’t turn at my words. If anything, he turns further away. He doesn’t answer.
I lean forward, bench digging into my thighs. “Charon?”
Another beat of quiet except for the churning water below. Then, “Agathe.”
My smile quirks into place. I scoot back on the wide bench until I’m comfortable again. A moment of dizziness—the boat bottom twisting until the curved slats become skewed slivers of wood.
A shake of my head and the boat solidifies. I stare at a tuft of his unruly hair. “What’s wrong?”
His jaw works. He inhales once, blows out a gusting exhale, and turns. His eyes flash, cool gray transforming to liquid silver.
“What’s wrong?” he mimics in a rumble.
I nod, shrinking back on the bench. A vice tightens around my chest.
His hands unclench. He doesn’t lift a hand. Doesn’t yell. My heart slows its galloping pace. He won’t hurt me. This is Charon, not Bion’s father.
The river bends to the left, the boat tilting to match, but our stares don’t waver.
“You truly don’t know,” he says, shoulders uncoiling. “Are all mortals so oblivious?”
“Are all ferrymen so ready to hide in shadow?”
Amusement flares in his expression where I expected rage to return. His mouth purses to hold in a laugh. Have I heard him laugh beyond a tiny huff?
“When they’re surrounded by powerful gods? Yes.”
I nod. “Then I suppose most mortals are quite oblivious, myself included this time.”
He ducks his head to hide a smile. “Why include me so readily in your plans to go to the Olympian Palace?”
Understanding dawns. This is Charon, a deity, and I’ve thrown him to the sharks of the Olympian court. It’s the last place he ever wants to be.
“I didn’t think.” I pause to huff. “Well, I did, but not of your wants.”
He lifts his head. “And what do you want, Agathe? I thought you would plead for a loved one’s return and be gone from Nekros. Yet you’re willing to stay. Worse, you’re willing to venture to Athansi.”
He says Athansi like a curse.
I stare at the boat bottom. The slats whirl into disarray again and I blink. Not now, I urge the sickness. Not today.
“It’d be easier to list what I don’t want,” I say. “I don’t want a meaningless life. I don’t want to watch myself wither to nothing. I don’t want to die as my mother has and her mother before her.”
I lean as far forward as the bench allows. “I’m but a tiny length in a spool of thread. It’s better to be the last than yet another woman forgotten to death and time.”
He leans forward. His breath plumes between us. “You want immortality.”
I nod. What else is there to do? He’s right and for all my carelessness towards him, I won’t lie.
“And Nyx? Did she have an influence on this?”
“No. Not at first. But after we argued...” I trail off, realizing my error too late.
The boat thunks against shore. Charon lurches back as the bridge slides into place. “You broke your promise.”
“Charon,” I say. I don’t dare look away.
No words come forth. I won’t apologize for what I’ve done. For all her power, Nyx has an odd pull. Benevolence, maybe, or a hidden warmth. She didn’t hurt me. She won’t hurt me.
“You have eleven hours remaining,” he says, gesturing to his bridge leading to the grass-lined shore. “You should get started.”
I stand, ignoring the ensuing dizziness, and take one step onto the bridge. Then another.
Opening my mouth to say gods know what, I pivot. Charon stands at the other edge of the boat, his back to me. A clear dismissal.
“Thank you.” There’s nothing more to be said. I won’t apologize when I regret nothing.
He doesn’t nod. He doesn’t acknowledge my words.
And this is how I lose my only ally.
I walk onto Asphodel’s shore and don’t look back as the waist-high grass swallows me whole.
* * *
SOON, THE MEADOWS SPRAWL in waves of flowers farther than I can see. Souls move slowly through the fields, hips swaying in a steady rhythm. Some chatter to themselves, their voices low.
The brush of cloth against plant stalks from souls wandering the fields. River splashing against the rocky shore. No cicadas or crickets. No birds. No shrieks of carefree children.
The sheer size and how far the fields stretch—I swallow around a dry throat at the thought of failing my bargain. If life as a servant doesn’t claim me quick, the sickness will.
I wander through flowers reaching past my hips. Petals scatter across my dress. My hem muddies from the soil beneath. Another layer of grime on my one bit of clothing.
I can’t count the minutes or hours trickling by without the aid of the sun or moon. Though Nekros is a usually dim place, light bathes the meadows from a golden sky above.
The shore is a distant line far down the hills when I stumble upon a fountain. Children pat at the clear water within, giggling softly. A woman sits upon the stone ledge. Her hair is the precise shade of dark brown to match mine.
Stumbling forward on aching feet, I gawk at her back. “Mother?”
The woman hums but doesn’t turn.
I reach out, stopping just short of her pale shoulder. “Mother.”
Perhaps her soul senses life. Perhaps my voice breaks through the calm haze settled upon her as it settles upon all in Asphodel. Regardless, she turns her head.
She’s wrinkled and aged. But her nose is all wrong, her mouth too generous. The sprinkling of gray in her hair is too noticeable despite the braided hairstyle knotted close to her temples. Nothing like the loose waves my mother preferred.
All wrong.
Silly girl, I chide myself. There is hope and then there is foolishness.
I stifle a sob and trudge around the fountain, then past. Soon, it’s in the distance.
The woman doesn’t call me back.
The black eating away at the edge of my vision only grows the longer I walk. I don’t stop until I reach a man toiling away over an open cooking fire just beyond the flowering fields.
“Excuse me,” I say.
Huddled beneath a plain rectangle of a building, he’s cooking an empty wooden stick. No meat or fish. The simple wood doesn’t char and the fire is free of any heat. Yet he gazes at the fire with intent, not lifting his head no matter how much I clear my throat.
“Hello,” I say. Then again in a shout echoing across the fields.
He looks up. Instead of recognition sparking in his watery eyes, he looks through me. “Who’s there?” he asks in a croak.
I cross my arms. “Me. I’m standing right in front of you.”
His scraggly gray beard wobbles. He lifts the stick, taking a bite of air. He groans as if tasting something delicious, then wipes a hand across his face.
I tap my foot in the dirt. He startles, falling off his low stool until he’s shuffling in the dirt. “Where’d you come from?”
“I’ve been standing here for minutes.” I rub a hand against my forehead, trying to stave off a brewing headache.
He hums and crawls back onto his stool, grabbing the stick from where it fell on the ground, and takes another empty bite.
“Have you seen a comb?”
He chomps again.
“It has a stone of shifting colors.”
He says nothing beyond the wet smack of him biting into nothing at all.
“A comb!” I shout.
Eyes wide, he glances around. “Who’s there?”
I throw my arms into the air, irritation swarming while heat blazes in my cheeks.
All the souls I walk past, I ask the same questions: have they seen a comb? One with a stone of shifting colors? And each time, they ignore me or act like they can barely comprehend my presence. None of them answer my questions, too lost in their tasks. Thatching a roof, piling a thin wall with mud, or stirring an empty iron pot.
At least this man sees me for a moment. Yet even now, he’s back to his not-food, oblivious to my presence once more.
I move on, ignoring the souls I pass. Sweeping a hand along the prickling top of the tall grass, I walk, lost in thought.
My mother is here. Somewhere. She’s one more oblivious soul in the unremarkable fields.
I should have saved her from this place. What was I thinking? To squander away my one chance for her back, to allow Nyx’s honeyed words to creep in—has grief twisted my mind?
“Stop thinking so loud.” A whisper in my ear, breath tickling the shell. “I could hear you all the way in Tartarus.”
I spin, stumbling. Nyx stands behind me in her shroud of shadows. At her side, a man waits. Proud from the tilt of his head to how he meets my stare directly. He, at least, doesn’t undulate like Nyx.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
With a twinkling laugh, she spins, her dress made of smoke becoming a sheet of night sky complete with glittering stars. “To help you, my dear.”
“Help?” I release my clenched fists. Blades of grass linger in my sweating palms, tickling the sensitive skin. Warmth surges in my chest beneath Nyx’s regard. “You know where the comb is?”
Another wave of dizziness hits. By the time this one vanishes, I’ve staggered backward in the grass until the stiff strands give way to petal-soft wildflowers.
Nyx tuts. “Of course I know. Hades is predictable.” She watches my shaking knees. “But Hades will void your bargain if I help with that. No, I’ll help you another way.”
Plucking a soft yellow flower, I spin it between two fingers. The man doesn’t move, his stare boring into Nyx. His hair shines white in Asphodel’s golden light.
I sigh, glad to be free of his gaze. “Hades knows you’re in his realm.”
She laughs, stars sliding together in her voice and dress. “Yes. The night sky gives it away, I’m afraid.” She stares upward briefly, nose wrinkling at the gilded sky above. “He likely knows I’m here now. I suppose I have my moments of predictability, too.”
She elbows the man, amusement coloring her voice.
He says nothing.
“So serious, my son,” Nyx chides.
“What can you help with?” My stare turns to the man. “And who is this?”
I’m forever grasping for answers in her presence. I’m mortal. Naive. With my stained clothing and salt-streaked hair, I’m filthier than any mortal in Kyma.
Thoughts of Bion and Cosmas swell unbidden. Are they well? How nice it would be to have Bion chattering at my side! Or Cosmas, his boundless stories offering aid in my bargain.
I shake the errant thoughts away.
“This is my son, Thanatos. Though I suppose you’d know him as the god of death.”
I don’t know a thing about him. Aunt’s stories are rich with detail, true, but there’s a set number of them. In her old age, she can’t venture ashore as easily as the younger sirens to gather more, and no one in my family is eager to take her place as family storyteller.
But I say nothing of my naivete to them. Instead, I nod, spinning the flower along my fingertips.
Nyx waves her hands. “Well, get started. She’s on a strict time limit, dear.”
What time is it? The shore and Charon are lost to the endless fields. Win or lose, I’ll need to find my way back eventually. Yet even now the echo of the river lapping against rock reaches this far. I’ll follow the sound back.
Thanatos steps forward. His expression is hard but his hands are gentle against the sides of my neck.
Flinching, I try backing away. The god of death touches me, skin on skin. Shouldn’t I be dead? But I’m alive enough for the calluses on his palms to scratch at my skin.
“Relax,” he says. “If you were meant to be dead, you would be already.”
“Hurry, darling,” Nyx says, looking at the light above.
Thanatos sighs. “Of course, Mother.”
I can’t help but crack a smile. He pulls away. His fingertips, once tan, stain inky black. Yet the longer I stare, the more the staining fades to his normal skin.
“The sickness won’t bother you any longer.” He shakes his hands, backing away to stand at Nyx’s side.
I take a step. No knees knocking together. No black lingering in my vision. No waves of dizziness. He’s rid me of the sickness cursed onto my kind by Zeus himself.
“Thank you,” I say, blatant relief coloring my voice. “How...?”
“You’re welcome. Your life will continue to diminish but you’ll feel none of the symptoms.”
My shoulders fall. Not gone, after all.
His gaze lingers on his mother while he speaks—did she ask for his help or command it? Yet I can read nothing in his fathomless black-brown eyes.
Nyx claps. “Wonderful work, dearest.”
Thanatos pulls his shoulders back, expression all haughty pride. Her attention shifts to me. He deflates, the frown stretching his mouth nearing a pout.
“Agathe.” She leans in, stroking my cheek with her hand. “I’m proud of you, my dear. You’ll attain what’s rightfully yours soon. And then we can be true equals, yes?”
I soak up the warmth in her words. My heart slows. I lean into her palm, some starved part of me finding comfort. “Yes,” I breathe.
She smiles. Flawless squares of teeth all in a row. Between each blink, she dissolves into a tight ball of shadow. Her palm becomes a tendril, then retreats to become another layer in the shifting ball.
“You will succeed,” she says.
So strong, so sure, and I can’t help but believe.
Nyx shoots upward through the warm sky, sinking through the golden light until she’s gone somewhere beyond.
When I bring my head back down, Thanatos still lingers. He holds my stare with a tilt of his head.
“Son!” Nyx shouts.
With a sigh, he fades. One blink and the next and he’s gone altogether.
The distant chattering of souls fills the ensuing quiet. I walk, edging around a mass of children playing a clapping game, and continue on.
I can’t look back any longer. I made my choice. My mother is lost to this place and lost to me. A weight lifts from my shoulders.
Nyx helped. For all the tricks the gods play, she’s been kind.
The flower in my hand stills. Tricks. In all the stories, the gods play tricks. But Hades?
Hades doesn’t.
And if Hades wants to hide an item, he’ll put it with a soul clear and obvious. So obvious I dismissed the thought before it came to fruition. He’ll do anything to ensure our bargain fair, even pry into my life. I stop, wildflowers surrounding me on all sides. The sound of clapping children echoes.
My mother is gone but she is not lost.
The flower falls to the dirt. I run back toward the children, laughing. My dress rubs smooth and clean along my skin. My hair streams in luminous curls in my wake. Nyx’s last gift.