(8) Kelly Webber: Paved with Good Intentions
You’ve likely heard my story before – the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, a husband who rescued his wife from hell. But I suppose you’re more familiar with Orpheus and how his tale moved the Furies to tears. Meanwhile, I’m primarily known for falling into the abyss. Today, I’ll share with you what Ovid failed to tell, or perhaps didn’t know.
While Orpheus and Hades discussed my fate a few doors down, I waited in the foyer of the House of Hades with Persephone. I can only describe Persephone in contradictions. Being in a room with her felt like watching a solar eclipse, witnessing the sun and moon collide. She was beautiful, with dark locks and a comely face as delicate as a flower. At the same time, her golden eyes flickered with the ferocity of fire. She was the Goddess of Springtime and Queen of Hell, both beautiful and terrible.
“Care for some fruit?” she asked, presenting a tray of passionfruit, fig, and pomegranate.
I hadn’t eaten since entering the Underworld. “No thank you.” I silently chided myself for refusing the hospitality of a goddess. I prayed she wouldn’t take offense.
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Surely, she knew my reason for declining, but I attempted to justify my lack of manners as a guest. “I don’t want to get stuck here.”
I remembered the many winters Demeter spent lamenting her daughter’s annual voyage to the Underworld. She must understand that I needed to be with Orpheus.
She chuckled. “Darling, you are stuck here.”
“Orpheus is negotiating with Hades now,” I argued. “He’ll rescue me, and we can return home together.”
She gazed into the distance pensively. “Ah, yes. I remember waiting in this very room as my mother negotiated with Hades. And yet, here I am.”
My stomach began to rumble, and my mouth watered at the sight of fruit on the plate before me. Perhaps I could get used to this place. After all, I wasn’t burning in some pit of fire. If hell was feasting on pomegranate in the House of Hades with Persephone, did I even want to return to my old life?
“Do you ever wish you didn’t eat the fruit?” I asked. “That you didn’t have to come back here every winter?”
She took a bite of fig. “I’m not the first girl to be ripped from her garden after tasting the fruit of temptation, and I won’t be the last.”
Her nonchalance caught me off guard. I tried rephrasing my question. “Are you happy here?”
“My mother’s emotions wax and wane with the seasons. Mine are far more consistent. If I feel joy, I feel it equally in Earth’s summers and hell’s winters. A wise man once said that the mind itself can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven,” she replied.
“Pardon me for my questioning. I mean no disrespect, but it sounds as if you’re speaking in riddles.”
She tossed the fig back on the platter. “Little girl, I can tell you’re hungry. Now, are you going to eat? Or do you plan on letting the men down the hall decide your fate for you?”
I plucked a pomegranate from the platter. I examined the fruit meticulously, tracing my fingers from the sarcotesta to the seeds. I lifted it up to my lips but took a sniff rather than a bite. Its aroma was subtle but sweet and soothing as freesia. The blood-red juice taunted me, and my stomach growled ravenously.
I snapped out of my reverie at the sight of Orpheus sauntering down the hall. He made his way to the door, exiting without so much as looking back at me.
“You’re meant to follow him,” Persephone explained.
I leapt out of my seat. “I’m free to leave?”
“He is free to leave,” the goddess specified. “You may follow him, and if the two of you can reach the upper world, you may both return home safely. The one condition is that you must follow behind Orpheus, and he must not look back.”
Without so much as bidding my hostess goodbye, I ran out the door, pursuing the music of Orpheus’s lyre. Once I caught up to him, following his steps diligently, I realized I was still clutching the pomegranate.
Kelly Webber is a writer and graduate student from New Jersey. After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in English literature, she's pursuing a Master's degree in library science. She loves to read, and especially enjoys creative retellings of mythology.