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Unfortunately, Persephone’s mother followed them through the forest and betrayed her location to her father, Oceanus, after he explained the situation. No amount of begging changed Demeter’s mind and although she empathized with Melia not wanting to marry Inakhos, she yanked the girl from the water and brought her back home. Where she locked her in the wine cellar under the house until Oceanus retrieved her.
Both Persephone and Elektra were, of course, forbidden to attend the wedding and neither had met Inakhos or the three children she bore him. Her father sent each child somewhere else in the world, scattered across the Aegean Sea to ensure she, nor her friends, would interfere anymore than they already had.
Melia told them it doesn’t bother her, never getting to see her children or be part of their lives, but Persephone and Elektra notice her honey-sweet warmth dim a little more every year. This pool and the trek to it, always a heavy reminder of her children, and the lives they lived far away from her.
Despite the circumstances of its founding, they loved coming back to the little pool, if only for a short escape from reality and some peace, away from their overbearing families. They had made the small body of water their own with the flora they added and the medicinal plants Melia had planted at the base of some of the trees, the only shade that touched this space. Her plants covered much of the ground now, claiming the area as their own.
While most used the plant for dressing wounds and pain relief, Melia had met a Scythian princess who taught her another way: smoking it. The first time she was with the princess and everything went fine, but when she introduced Persephone and Elektra to the substance it went horribly wrong. Coughs wracked their chests and they’d burnt their throats on the smoke, Elektra had hoarsely yelled at Melia for trying to kill them while Persephone drank half the water pouring in from the streams.
4
SECLUDED WOODS
Cold hands wrapped around her ankles, jolting her from her sleep as they dragged her off the rock. She tried to scream, but water poured into her mouth and up nose as she was submerged under the surface. She kicked at the hands still grasping for her feet, the laughter reverberating through the water toward her.
“Elektra!” Persephone’s scream was gargled as she broke the surface of the pool, water pouring from her mouth.
After coughing up the rest of the water Persephone threw a small rock in Elektra’s direction, willing it to smack her in the eye. It missed, and Elektra laughed until Persephone shoved her under the water and held her there.
“I can’t—” Persephone started, Elektra’s kicking at her and shoving her way back to the surface interrupting her train of thought. She quickly pushed away from Elektra, knowing her retaliation was imminent.
“I can’t believe I fell asleep,” she continued, at the same time as Melia said, “I don’t know how anyone can sleep in this heat.”
“I don’t know how you can stay awake after smoking so much of that,” Elektra said, waving a hand toward Melia, water droplets transforming into little dots and circles as they hit the water. “You’ve had more than enough.”
Melia rolled her eyes. “You’re just mad that Persephone tried to drown you. Don’t take it out on me.”
Elektra looked like she was about to protest, but decided against it, wading to her sister. She took the glossy carved wood from Melia’s hand and sucked on it, blowing the smoke in her sister’s face. “Here,” she croaked, handing it back to Melia and turning to Persephone, jutting her chin to the other edge of the water where a small mountain of wild flowers lay. “Make me a crown. I tried twice while you snored on that rock, but they both fell apart.”
“She threw them in frustration,” Melia said, and giggled.
“Maybe that will teach them be less difficult next time.”
Persephone rolled her eyes but laughed and obliged, taking a few flowers from the pile and braiding them together. She went slowly so she could show Elektra how to tighten the knots and braids enough that they stayed together, but not so much that they lost their shape and fell apart.
After Persephone finished one, she placed it on her head for safe keeping while she started on another, keeping an eye on Elektra’s half finished, mostly destroyed one. Petals littered the water, the heads of the flowers shedding them easily in the heat, Elektra claimed. Persephone knew that her impatience with them was most likely the cause.
Melia coughed behind them. When they turned she gestured to Persephone’s head and said, “All hail Queen Persephone. Tremble at her presence and godly grandeur.”
Waving to her loyal subjects – all two of them – Persephone climbed from the pool and onto the rock again, blowing kisses to them in the water and feigning embarrassment at their praise. She spun around, flinging her arms out as her hair flew wildly around her, when that darkness appeared again.
She dropped her arms, halting abruptly enough that she stumbled, almost falling backwards onto the rock. This time she could make out a shape in the darkness of the trees, merely a darker, blurry silhouette – a person. She called out to them, anxiety burning a hole in her stomach wondering who it could be.
They lifted a hand in reply and disappeared as suddenly as they’d appeared.
“Did you see that?” She whispered without tearing her eyes from the spot in the trees that the person had stood. When they didn’t answer her, she wrenched her eyes back to them and saw they were preoccupied mixing wine, facing the opposite direction and bickering loud enough that they hadn’t heard her speak.
Ignoring the urge to look back again, Persephone sat on the edge and dragged herself into the water, swimming to her friends who handed her akylixof wine filled so high that it spilled into the water with every slight movement.
“To life-long friends.” Persephone raised her wine.
“To secluded pools.” Melia winked, the action itself nonchalant enough, but her eyes darkened at her words.
“To intoxication!” Elektra yelled, raising hers so quickly to knock them all together that she spilled half the contents onto Melia’s upturned face. Without an apology, she downed her wine in one audible gulp before the others’ had even reached their lips.
“Faster,” Elektra urged, already pouring her third cup. Impatient as ever, Elektra yanked their cups from their hands before they’d finished and started refilling them.
Seeing Melia’s questioning eyebrow, Elektra quickly said, “It’s mixed. I promise,” and kissed her sister’s cheek. It was a ruse; she grabbed the bottom of the cup and pushed it up, pouring the dark liquid all over Melia’s face and into her nose. “Now, drink!”
