Pomegranate Juice

Persephone wandered into Hell accidentally. Stumbled, actually, her feet tripping over the entangled vines that clawed their way out of the pit, gasping for sunlight and redemption.

She stared into the void before her. The void stared back.

“This is no place for the living,” a voice called from within. The darkness had a depth to it; it looked infinite.

Persephone took a cautious step backwards.

“What is it that you seek?” the voice called again.

Persephone turned around, looking back and expecting to find the hole in which she fell into, or at the very least a pinprick of light to lead her back into the world of the living.

There was nothing. Endless, endless nothing surrounded her on all sides.

“My master wishes to see you,” the voice spoke again, less distant than before. “Come this way.”

“Which way?” she asked. She could discern no direction in the pitch black.

“This way,” the voice whispered, its cool breath tickling her ear gently.

Persephone did not scream. She did not even flinch. She was not afraid. Perhaps she ought to have been. She had heard stories of this place, cautionary tales sang to her as a child, her mother’s shrill voice warning her of the hidden, evil depths of the Underworld. She had never expected to come here.

Gods did not die, after all.

The voice placed a hand on Persephone’s back and urged her forward. She obeyed. In this place, she was blind. She could see no shapes, no light. She could not see who - or what - was leading her down; she could not even see her own feet, or her hands before her.

They walked for a while. The ground beneath her bare feet was smooth. There were no rocks; she stumbled over nothing. As they approached whatever it was they were approaching, Persephone could hear something in the distance, a faint rumble, a rush.

The river.

With it too was a dull light. Only faint, very faint, like the first inklings of the sun over the horizon, that pasty orange glow that peeps out from over the Earth’s edge.

This light was not orange; it did not bring warmth, or hope. It was pale, white light. It did not have a source.

As the unlikely pair of strangers grew ever closer to the Styx, the sound grew ever louder, the sound of that great, gushing torrent.

Persephone had liked the rivers up on Earth, the springs that leaked out eternal life, flowing onto the grasses, feeding the trees and the grain and the animals. Many a moon had Persephone drifted into tranquil sleep to the ebb and flow of rivers. They had meant peace. They had meant hope. They had meant life.

The Styx had no riverbanks. There was smooth, hard ground, briefly interrupted by the crushing tide of the river, then smooth, hard ground which stretched onwards. There must have surely been rocks beneath the surface of the water; she imagined them jutting out from the black ground, the black murky water colliding with rugged stone. It seemed both infinitely deep and curiously shallow. She stood at the river’s edge, a light spray coming off the rocks. As the caustic drops hit her arm, they fizzed and burned, but left no mark upon Persephone’s immortal skin.

The voice had left Persephone’s side. She turned around, and saw the endless blackness stretching behind her. The mystery light seemed as far away now as it did minutes prior, although its tendrils reached the shore of the Styx, illuminating the current.

Slowly, the river’s torrent ebbed. No more did the water bounce off the rocks. The noise hushed with it, until it sounded like no more than a trickle. The water flowed freely now; though it was still a dark, unwelcoming colour, it was less ferocious. This, she supposed, was the function of the Styx. Anybody trespassing, or trying to cross the Styx, would be promptly swept away by the river, into the gaping jaws of the Underworld.

Down the stream came a boat, only small, big enough for perhaps two people. It was manned by the voice - the Ferryman, who was cloaked, a hood drawn up over its head.

It came to a stop by Persephone. The Ferryman extended a hand towards her; it was all bone. Persephone ignored this gesture and seated herself in the boat. An oar splashed into the water as they began their voyage down.

The strange light followed them. As they crept downwards, deeper into the Earth’s core, a strange noise floated up to greet them. A choir of mourning, the tuneless wail of sinners reverberated through the Underworld. The screams of the dead serenaded them.

They came to an intersection in the Styx. To the right, the light extended over the calmer waters. To the left, the darkness submerged everything the water deluged once more. This is where the screams came from. The Ferryman paused momentarily before steering the boat right.

Persephone felt eerily peaceful. The lulling of the boat, the gentle hushing of the river, that incessant darkness - she felt sleepy. In a way, she felt already asleep. There was something dreamlike about the Underworld, as if she were on the cusp of wake and sleep, dream and reality. 

Saffron-robed Dawn seemed to emerge on the Underworld. It could not be. Eos did not touch these parts. The light still had a white complexion, but it became stronger, leaking cold light onto the bleak landscape.

Nothing grows here, Persephone noticed. There were no trees to sway in the breeze. No crops grew, although the spirits needed not the delights of food. No floral perfumes scented the air. There truly was nothing living here, except herself.

The river intersected once more. The Ferryman took the left trail; to the right, sounds of laughter bubbled along with the gentle river flow and the light grew stronger.

Persephone knew where they were going - or, more accurately, who they were going to see. 

Him. The King of the Underworld. 

Up there, nobody spoke of him - not even her father. He was feared by the mortals. Very few prayed to him, or offered him sacrifices and dedications; those who did were after petty vengeance. Persephone had yet to meet him. She knew not what he looked like, or how he spoke. She knew only what she had been told, and that was likely marred by personal vendettas, fear and hatred.

Very few of the living - be that divine or not - entered the Underworld. Hermes, of course, was permitted to come and go as he pleased, bringing with him the souls of the dead. In fact, all the gods could enter the Underworld, if they so wanted. As it happened, they seldom longed to. She knew, too, of mortals who had been granted special access, men who had entered alive and still been allowed to leave.

Persephone did not know how far down they were. They kept on rowing, and rowing still, and further still, until Persephone felt sure they would run out of river to glide across. The strange light grew stronger now, although it was still cold and a harsh, bright white. There were no landmarks; everything looked the same, although the Ferryman seemed to know exactly where they were and where they were going.

The boat came to a stop. There was a small wooden dock, black and rotten like everything else around her. The Ferryman once again extended its bone hand towards Persephone, and she once again ignored it, preferring to chance falling into the Styx and being swept away into the abyss. Once she landed on the dock, the Ferryman turned the boat around and rowed back up the river, onwards into darkness.

Persephone knew not where she was, or where she ought to be going. She stood aimlessly on the dock, but upon inspecting the rotten wood, decided she was safer on land. The strange light was still present, although there was nothing for it to illuminate save for the hard, smooth ground underfoot.

Persephone took a few steps forwards. A figure appeared, just a speck in the distance, his silhouette pressed against the horizon like a dried flower in a book. She could sense the divine presence haunting the air.

It was him.

“Who are you?” he called out. His voice was smooth like honey with an undertone of acidic lemon. Bitter hatred dripped from every word and Persephone should have been afraid, but she longed to hear more.

“I didn’t mean to come here,” she replied, self-assured despite how timid she felt.

“Follow me,” he called again, and the bitterness left his voice.

Curiosity itched inside of her, pacing up and down the cages of her ribs, aching to be freed; she started walking towards him.

Persephone quickened her pace to keep up; his strides were long, for he was tall. They walked, and walked, and walked, until Persephone could no longer hear the crashing Styx. They came to two tall, wrought iron gates, worn with age; they were tall, stretching up as far as the eye could see, the tops vanishing into the darkness beyond. No trailing vines clung to the twisted metal.

A series of howls came from behind the gates. Three, in fact. They reverberated throughout the Underworld like a mournful choir, the baritones clashing ominously with the wailing of the dead that could still be heard. The sounds echoed and echoed and echoed. Persephone would have felt a chill if her skin permitted it.

There was still some distance between them, and she almost thought he were avoiding her in some way. She followed him through the gates, down a long, smooth, winding path. For a moment, Persephone longed to hear the gushing of the Styx, if only to break the infernal silence - that, and to dampen the padding of huge paws on the ground, the breathing of more than one head. Not even the monster’s breath was warm.

The beast did not frighten her; it wasn’t as though she could die.

At the end of the path rose a great palace. It was pure black, made of glass, or perhaps even ice. The spires poked the tips of the void above. No light came from within. It seemed an impenetrable fortress. Nobody appeared to be home.

The door opened as they approached, and Persephone continued to follow him. She was closer now, and could make out the dark outline of his hair, his hands that hung loosely at his sides. He walked with purpose. She had yet to look upon his face; he was teasing her.

The door opened into a grand hallway which would have been quite beautiful if it weren’t so lifeless. A chandelier hung useless, dark cobwebs stringing themselves up between crystals. The strange light from outside had not followed them inside. The cracked marble floor lay bare across an empty room.

He led her down some dark hallways, twisting left then right then left again. It seemed deserted; Persephone had yet to see another soul, living or dead. All the doors they passed were closed; it was as if the house itself were dead. Finally, he opened a door at the end of yet another dark hallway.

Persephone had not been prepared for what was inside.

A brightly lit dining hall lay before them. Warm candlelight seeped from a diamond chandelier and golden wall-sconces that adorned the red-velvet lacquered spaces in between paintings. The paintings all showed pain, cruelty, death. A table draped with white linen and lace tablecloths - big enough for all of Olympus -  was amassed with food. Delicacies from across the world lay before her; there was fish, and poultry, cheese and bread, wine, olives, green leaves and tomatoes on vines, ambrosia, fruits in bowls, as decoration, and on cakes.

And pomegranates.

Everywhere, there were pomegranates. The table was hampered with them, as a centrepiece and in bowls, the seeds sprinkled across salads, the juice squeezed into chalices.

Persephone could see him now, under the warm orange glow of the candles. She had never expected him to look like that. She had imagined scars, a scowl, blood smeared across his face like war paint. She imagined him to be tall and strong, to be physically imposing. She had expected to recoil in horror. She had never, ever expected for her breath to get caught in her throat, to want to gingerly take a step forward and cup his face in her hands.

But of course. Why shouldn’t he be beautiful? Louche, yes, but beautiful all the same, in a forbidden-fruit sort of way. She felt like Pandora; he was her secret box that she dared to open.

His hair was black as the night; the wispy tendrils just tickling the tops of his shoulders seemed to be made of shadow itself. Set against porcelain white skin that longed to see the sunlight, his eyes were a deep brown, the pupil almost blending into the iris, and they were closely guarded against his unexpected guest. His face was angular, all cheekbones and jawline, sharp as a knife and twice as beautiful. He had a slight figure, not too tall, and slim. It is true, he was imposing, but in an entirely different manner.

“What is your name?” he asked her, observing her movements; the fading flowers in her tightly curled brown hair, her shining brown eyes that had the sun trapped beneath them, the swell of her heartbeat against her delicate bronze skin.

“What is yours?” she fired back. His gentle pink lips lifted into a smirk.

“Oh, you know who I am,” he replied softly. His voice was a gentle breeze on a summer’s day, the rustling of leaves, or the quiet ebb and flow of a brook. It was tender and calm and peaceful; it was angelic.

But his words; he was cocky. Arrogant. He knew the extent of his power, the things he could do to her. He may not be able to kill her, but he could certainly make her wish she were dead. And he was right, of course; she knew exactly who he was. 

Hades.

"Your name," he said again.

"I am Persephone," she said quietly.

“Persephone,” he repeated, and she found herself unable to breathe, the soft sibilance of her name oozing from his tender mouth, and that smirk was still playing on his lips. “Have a seat.”

She waited for him to pull out a chair for her, but he instead sat himself at the head of the table. She sat near him, a silver plate edged with silver cutlery already waiting for her. He poured wine from a glass decanter.

“Pomegranate?” he asked, extending a bowl of the little rubies toward her. She reached for it, but he pulled back. He picked a seed up, the blood-red juice staining his white fingers and trickling slowly down his hand. He held the pomegranate seed up to her soft lips, and, naively, she took it from him.