A woman stepped out of the shadows. She wore a long black gown and a black crown with red jewels. Her face was pale and very beautiful.
“Queen Persephone!” said Jeremy. He bowed.
The queen smiled. She touched Jeremy’s arm. Her hands felt like ice.
Jeremy swallowed. “I’m Jeremy,” he stammered. “And this is Aristotle. Only he doesn’t remember who he is.”
“Ah,” said Queen Persephone, “the Pool of Forgetfulness.”
She laid her hands on Aristotle’s head. She sang softly. The song was strange and haunting.
Aristotle’s ears twitched. His tail stood straight up. He looked at Jeremy and blinked twice. “Isn’t it time to go back to the Enchanted Theater?”
“Queen Persephone broke the spell!” said Jeremy.
He wanted to go home too. But they still hadn’t found the six blood-red lanterns. And he wanted to learn more about this strange sad queen.
It was as if Queen Persephone had read his mind. “Sit with me, and I will tell you my story,” she said.
She led Jeremy and Aristotle to a stone bench in the shadows. “I was captured by Hades when I was a young girl picking flowers. I was brought here against my will to be his queen.”
“That’s terrible!” said Jeremy.
Queen Persephone smiled sadly. “My mother is the goddess of the harvest. When she found out that Hades had stolen me, she punished the world by making it always winter. The earth was cold and barren for twelve months of the year.” 56
“Zeus wouldn’t like that!” said Aristotle.
“He didn’t. He ordered Hades to send me home. But just when I was ready to leave the Underworld, I ate six seeds of a pomegranate.”
“The Forbidden Fruit of the Dead!” said Jeremy.
“That’s right,” said Queen Persephone. “As a punishment, I must spend six months of every year as queen of the Underworld. That’s when the earth has its winter. And when I go home to my mother for six months, the earth has summer.”
Jeremy shuddered. He had almost eaten the Forbidden Fruit of the Dead too!
He looked at the queen’s pale face. “But why do you sit here in the dark?” he said.
“The light bothers Hades,” Queen Persephone said. She sighed. “He lets me have candles in my stone wolves. The candlelight shines through their eyes like lanterns.”
She gazed longingly at Jeremy’s flashlight. “I’ve never seen such a wonderful thing as that.”
Jeremy stared at the glowing yellow eyes of the stone wolves. Queen Persephone was right.
The wolves’ eyes looked just like lanterns!
Jeremy was sure it was a clue to the riddle. He said slowly, “In the land of Hades by night and day, six blood-red lanterns light my way. Who am I?”
The six blood-red lanterns could be eyes! Six blood-red eyes! Why hadn’t he thought of that before?
Jeremy’s neck prickled. The dog that guarded the gate to Hades had three enormous heads. It had white fangs that glistened. It had huge hairy ears that flapped like wings. It had six fiery red eyes.
“I’ve solved the riddle!” he cried. “The answer is the three-headed dog!”
Aristotle jumped off the stone bench. He waved his tail. “Now we can go home,” he purred.
“It says in the Enchanted Theater Rule Book that a hero must do five brave things to return home,” said Jeremy slowly.
He counted on his fingers. “I pretended to the ferryman that I was dead. That’s one.”
He bit his lip. “I tricked the three-headed dog. That’s two!” He thought hard. “I helped the king’s daughters on the Plains of Judgment. That’s three!”
“What else?” said Aristotle. He sounded worried.
“I helped Sisyphus push the boulder over the hill!” said Jeremy. “That’s four!”
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Heavy footsteps echoed in the passageway that led to the courtyard. Jeremy and Aristotle stared at each other.
“PERSEPHONE!” bellowed a gruff voice.
“Hades is coming!” said Queen Persephone.
“Quick! I’ll show you another way out.”
She led Jeremy and Aristotle to a second passageway on the far side of the courtyard.
“Good luck,” she whispered.