Sitting in the hotel room, Seth didn’t know what to make of his second life. All he knew was that he hadn’t wanted to meet Persephone in his third life. If he met her, he would doubtless fall on the same path of destruction that he walked in his first and second lives. He didn’t want to live it again a third time.
Plus, there was so much he didn’t understand. For instance, why had she decided to take a mortal body this time? Was it just to escape Hades for a longer period of time? Why did she do it? What was going to be different about this time?
He didn’t know anything about her. Persephone was right in front of him, yet he felt like he didn’t know her.
From what he knew, each time he met her, her finest qualities were whatever he wanted at that moment. When he was Sethos and she was Stella, she was carefree, untainted by bloody memory and the exact opposite of what he had known while living with the sirens. When he met her the second time, she was hurt, everything he wanted to protect. When he met her this time, he had been a fool for her innocence in the form of Juliet.
He had thought Juliet was a new person that he loved for the first time, but he had been wrong. She was Persephone again.
Seth scratched his fang on his bottom lip and looked at the unconscious girl on the bed. Her soul was Persephone’s, but the body belonged to Juliet. He had drank her blood, so he knew things about Juliet. He didn’t know everything, but the taste of her blood unlocked her anger, her despair, her suffering, and with them the reason why she had committed suicide.
When Juliet was nine, her mother began leaving her to be watched by her best friend’s son. They lived next door. He was twelve. When the abuse started, Juliet didn’t have the courage to tell her parents. It went on for months before she finally got the idea that if he hurt her face, her parents would ask her about it. Then she would have the courage to say that he hurt her, and she wouldn’t have to take off her underpants to show what he’d actually done. So, that was what she started doing. She told him that if he touched her, she would slam her face into the wall until it bruised and then she’d blame it on him.
It worked for a while, until he figured out a way to explain it away, legitimately.
When her mother confronted her about the bruises and that the boy wasn’t to blame, Juliet was twelve. This strange deadlock between the two children had been escalating for three years without intervention from their parents. She didn’t know how to defend herself. He was outwardly perfect. His list of academic and athletic achievements was as long as his arm. Her attempts at even hinting toward his grave misconduct were swept under the carpet in the face of his latest victory.
Juliet’s mother had grown so confident in him, her neglect toward Juliet had no boundaries. One time when she was introducing him to someone, her voice was so proud and she was so busy talking about him like he was her star that she forgot to mention her daughter.
As he grew better at everything, Juliet grew worse. She slowly stopped caring about everything. It didn’t matter if she was pretty. What was being pretty worth if it didn’t protect her from the abuse? Her grades in school weren’t important. She wasn’t as smart as him on her best day, so no one paid attention to her grades until they were floundering. Skipping school gave her time away from everything, and time to sleep.
Her mother made him tutor her and then he was being paid to abuse her. Before this, her mother used to listen to Juliet’s complaints about him. They were watered down, and it was obvious that she didn’t believe her, but at least she listened. Eventually, she stopped. He was perfect.
Once the little monster realized that he could get away with anything and he would still be a star, he started bringing his friends by to ‘play’ with her.
And that was the last straw. Juliet couldn’t stand that kind of life, and she had nowhere to turn. Her lifelines had been pulled away one by one. After the bridge incident, her memories stopped, as Persephone took over.
There were two crucial details Persephone was not told when she woke up in Juliet’s body. The first one was that when Juliet threw herself off the bridge, she had tied her ankles together and then tied them to a bucket full of rocks. The second was that Juliet wasn’t really a virgin, even though memoryless Persephone assumed she was.
Seth hated calling her sinful when he drank her blood, but self-mutilation and suicide were crimes of the highest order. No matter what you’ve suffered, not even the warped God of the Underworld looks kindly on those sins. That was because it spat in the face of the Goddess of Fertility. Seth smiled wanly. How ironic.
He felt so much pity. It was actually Juliet’s memories of abuse and abandonment that moved him to rescue Persephone from Rylan that night. After all, Persephone and Juliet weren’t that different. Both of them had once been blissfully innocent and had their innocence bitterly snatched away right under their mothers’ noses. And in the end, both of them resided in the Underworld.
He couldn’t do a thing for Juliet. Her story was already over, but he could save Persephone and he was going to.
He sat in the chair and closed his eyes. Doubtless, when he awoke, he would meet a very different girl. He wondered if he would love her as much as he loved Juliet when she had no memory.
***
Persephone blinked her eyes slowly. At first all she saw were white sheets. Then brown carpet. Wait, she wasn’t her room. Where was she?
Opening her eyes fully, she saw she was in a bedroom. Seth was sleeping in an extremely uncomfortable position in an armchair. She didn’t even have to get out of bed to find the answer to this question. There was a menu on the bedside table. So, they were in a hotel.
That was right. Seth bit her neck and she fainted, causing her to remember all the pieces of her previous lives.
She stared at Seth on the other side of the room. Now all those things he said about the woman he was destined for made sense. His family had told him about her and their relationship, but from what he said, it didn’t sound like he was very happy about it. She felt wounded. She knew he didn’t remember his past lives well. It had been a consequence of the huge gaps of time between his births.
Didn’t he love her anymore?
Persephone sighed. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was just trying to end the curse.
She reached for the menu. She knew that she needed to put something warm and soft in her stomach. Her head felt heavy and her body felt weak.
Picking up the phone, she ordered room service. She tried to whisper, but it was impossible while talking to the kitchen. “Can I order a clam chowder in a bread bowl please, with a bottle of water and I know this isn’t on the menu, but would it be possible for you to bring up an unopened bottle of grenadine?”
Seth stirred and blinked to see her awake.
“Sorry,” she said immediately, when she replaced the handset. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, but I really need to eat.”
“Of course you do,” Seth said, noting the late hour.
He rubbed his eyes and leaning back, he looked into her face like he was expecting to see something different. “How are you feeling?”
“I lost a little too much blood,” she said quietly. “Thanks for saving me from Rylan. Your timing was perfect.”
“Rylan?” he asked skeptically.
“Hades,” she corrected. “I guess you’re wondering if I got all my memories back.”
Seth leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Did you?”
“Yes,” she said confidently.
“And what do you think of our situation, Persephone?” he asked, even more interested.
She looked at him strangely. “You can go on calling me Juliet, since that’s what’s most familiar to you. I don’t mind. Besides, calling me my true name sounds strange.”
“All right, Juliet. Do you think you could answer a couple questions for me?”
She winced. She had hoped for a glorious reunion with Seth since their last separation, but it felt like their last meeting was too long ago to reawaken the precious feeling they once shared.
“Ask away,” she said dully.
***
“Why did you leave me to bleed to death when Hades murdered me last time?”
She leaned back on her elbows and looked at the ceiling.
“It broke my heart that you didn’t hold me in my last seconds. Where did you go?” he asked and it was clear from his tone that he was having a difficult time controlling himself.
“I should have,” she said, her voice low. “But, I was worried. Hades didn’t know that I scoured the mouth of the river Styx for your soul. I was terrified that he would find out, so I had to find you before he did. That was all I was trying to do when I left you on Olympus.”
“You fished my soul out of the river Styx?” Seth blurted. “Aren’t there practically a million souls waiting there to be ferried over?”
“Yes. It wasn’t easy, either time I had to do it. You don’t remember, do you?”
“No. Not at all. I don’t remember anything that happened in between my lives.”
“Then,” she asked, pulling the blankets up to her chin, “you forgive me?”
Seth got up and began pacing the room. He didn’t answer her, but instead persisted in asking his second question, “So, why did you decide to be a mortal this time? Why not just stay as immortal Persephone all the time?”
“Oh. That? Well, there were a few reasons for it. For one thing, Hades has a really hard time finding me when I drink the waters of Lilium and forget my life as Persephone. That was why it took him so long to find me when I was Stella. I thought my overall plan would have a better chance at success if he wasn’t watching me every second the way he does when I’m Persephone.” She paused. “Also, I knew your memory would be bad. Things didn’t go well between us when I paired you with myself as a goddess. I wanted to have a similar amount of life experience as you, so we would match. But it’s too late for that now.”
“Do you wish I’d bitten you and returned your memory sooner?” Seth asked softly.
“No. Your timing was perfect. You don’t realize it, but the last two pieces of my plan have fallen into place in the last week. There’s only one more thing I need to confirm and then we’ll be ready to end this… forever.”
Seth looked unconvinced. “You know, I’ve never heard what your plan entails or why it was doomed to failure last time.”
“We’ll go through it, piece by piece. But first, I need to eat, so let’s wait until I have a full stomach before we talk about that. I need you to do something for me that you probably won’t like.”
***
The room service arrived and Juliet sat in bed and sipped her soup while Seth held his nose on the other side of the room. He had turned on the TV and was flipping through channels.
She thought about Seth. It seemed like he believed she was a different person. His manner had changed entirely. It was hard to believe he had repeatedly kissed her until she fainted. He thought that the girl, Juliet, was gone and only a cruel goddess that had abandoned him remained. He didn’t realize that it was her. Everything was always her. It was just that she had lived so many different lives that she was whatever she felt like being. Every woman was a little capricious, she was just more so. This was something she had already learned, until a man accepted the changeability of a woman, he could not really be in love with her.
She pushed the grenadine toward him. “I ordered this for you.”
He looked at her over his shoulder. “I don’t need it. My innards are full of your blood. I’m very satisfied.”
She let it slide and finished her food.
When she was done, she began looking around. There had to be something in the room she could cut him with, but what? She should have asked room service to bring her a steak knife. She looked in the bedside table, but all she found were company pens. Wandering into the bathroom, she found complimentary shampoo and clean water glasses with paper cups on top to keep the dust out.
She grabbed one of them and smashed it against the floor.
Seth came running. “What happened?”
She crouched on the tiles and picked out the largest shard with her fingers.
“Seth,” she said, her voice deadpan. “I want you to cut yourself.”
“What?” he asked as he took a step back. He was clearly horrified, but she couldn’t back off. She needed to show him the answer to the final question.
She picked up the unbroken glass and took the paper top off it. Then she hopped over the shattered glass and advanced toward him. “I’m serious. Cut yourself and collect the blood in this cup.”
“I don’t want to,” he said, his eyes wide with horror.
“You drained my blood without my permission earlier. At least return the favor. Besides, Raidne has done so much. At least show her the courtesy of sporting her accomplishment.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said as he removed his coat and rolled up his sleeve. He took the broken piece of glass from her and after a couple deep breaths, moved to cut the fleshy part of his palm. He grunted. “It won’t work,” he said after three tries. “It’s not sharp enough.”
He had passed the first test.
“Then bite yourself!” she hissed. Excitement was brewing inside her.
“Blood thirsty, aren’t you? What did you discover about yourself when you were asleep?” he asked, barely containing his anger.
“The truth. Bite your wrist.”
He bit down and broke the skin. Disgusted with himself, he licked his own blood off his lips and spat it on the floor, and then let the blood drip red into the glass. “How much do you need?”
“As much as you can give until it clots.”
He grimaced, but said nothing.
Soon the bottom of the glass was completely covered. “That’s enough,” she said, taking it from him and getting back into the bed. Pulling the covers over herself, she sat with the glass between her fingers studying it as though it were a petri dish.
Seth went into the bathroom and got a face cloth which he wrapped around his wrist.
When he came back, she gave him a sly smile from the bed. “I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing with this.”
“I did wonder if you were possessed,” he said drolly.
“Silly. Of course I am.” She raised the glass so she could look at the blood through the bottom of the cup. “I’ve just been thinking about you and I want to show you that you are finally everything Raidne promised me.”
“You mean everything you extorted out of her?”
“You know, you wouldn’t say that if you had a clear memory. You’re forgetting how much Hades makes me suffer. As the Goddess of Fertility, I send souls, innocent and clean, into the world knowing full well they will return to me in the form of rapists, murderers, thieves, liars, and victims to a million other vices. I want all children to be conceived beautifully and cared for carefully and instead... Do you know how often I am disappointed? My pains are those of a nursing mother and a mortician at the same time. It’s been that way for so long that I can hardly remember the time that I used to laugh while wrapping new spirits bound for this world. Now I want to weep at both ends of the cycle.”
“Too bad you don’t have to eat those souls for dinner. Maybe then you’d understand how Raidne feels,” Seth said cruelly, turning off the television with an angry flick and discarding the remote control on the bed.
Juliet took a deep breath. “You’re only ticked off because you’re forgetting the most important thing. Raidne and Teles had a choice and they made it. They could have fought off Hades, or called for help, or come down to the Underworld with me, refusing to leave their mistress. They are reaping the consequences of their choice. I never had a choice. Now there is only one thing I want and if I can get it, everything will unravel and begin again.”
“What’s that?” he asked, his voice becoming more reasonable.
“A choice. I want to choose my fate. I want to choose my role in heaven. I want to choose my mate.”
“And you’ve chosen me?”
She didn’t know how to answer this question. Back when he was Sethos, her feelings for him were so powerful, she slit her throat for him. The second time, she had loved him, but they were not equal. She decided to take on a mortal body to be the same as him. Now it felt like it hadn’t worked. He didn’t love her. He merely saw her as a means to an end.
Well, she could think of him that way, too.
“I don’t know,” she said. “After our curses are broken, then we can talk about us and what we are together. Right now, let’s just focus on getting ourselves set straight.”
A moment passed as her words sunk into Seth. That seemed more acceptable to him than anything else she’d said. “So, what do you need from me?”
“First, you could answer some questions for me.”
“I don’t think I know anything you don’t,” he scoffed.
“Well, you might. For instance, why you have a hot tub in your bedroom?”
“I already told you, sirens live in water.”
“Do they?”
“Of course they do. You’ve been to the cave we’ve lived in for centuries, so you know.”
“And that’s why sirens have wings instead of fins?”
Seth cocked his head and looked at her strangely.
She didn’t wait for him to answer and went on. “And that’s why Chas waited until after you were born to have that pool built in his home? Because he seemed to live just fine without it for fifty years before you came along.”
Seth stared at her from across the room, totally speechless.
“How long can you hold your breath under water, Seth?” she persisted. “An hour? Eight hours? Ten?”
“It gets boring to time it. I’ve never run out of breath,” he said slowly.
“You see,” she said, looking at his blood instead of his face, “the sirens from my past were not creatures of the water. It was a matter of convenience to live in the cave. Back then, sailors didn’t come home for plenty of reasons and investigating their deaths was often too complex for their families or friends to manage. Doing things that way, Raidne and Teles avoided angry mobs.”
Seth stared.
“They didn’t need water to survive, but you say you do. Actually, I don’t think you need it, but you certainly like it.” She waited for Seth to answer, but he was staring at the blood in her cup intently. “You know why, right?”
“Are you saying that my father was a water creature and not a human like Chas’ father was?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. You know, Raidne failed to procure the right kind of father for you the second time you were born. I was livid with her for taking chances with you. She needed to find you an immortal father if you were going to survive, because even after the first time you died, it was clear that was the only solution. Hades would just kill you over and over again if she didn’t get you quality paternity. I knew immediately she failed the second time because if you were immortal, you should have been able to make the dive through the water to my palace without a problem. That was very disappointing. But this time,” Persephone said holding up the cup of blood which had turned from scarlet to gold, “you’re not going to die.”
Seth looked aghast. “So, who is my real father?”
“If I’m not mistaken, you are the son of Poseidon. His wife is a nymph so I thought he might be a little more sympathetic to our cause. It seems Raidne finally convinced him.”
Across the room, Seth looked as though he had been beaten with a baseball bat. That was how shocked he was. When he finally found his voice, he said, “Why have I been drinking blood all this time if I was immortal?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Your hunger has nothing to do with your body’s needs. It has everything to do with your curse. And besides, all this had to be a secret, even from you. Have you ever even been cut before tonight? I know, your mother, though cruel, never draws your blood, does she?”
Seth shook his head.
She waited for him to speak, but he had lowered himself to the bed and now he looked like he was going to throw up.
“I know this must be a shock to you, but there’s more.”
“What else could there be?” he whispered.
“Your role in this. Do you want to hear it?”
He bowed his head slightly and she took it as a yes.
“Do you remember the first thing we talked about when I brought you to my underwater palace?”
“How I wasn’t allowed to touch you?”
She turned her face away from him. She couldn’t talk to him if he was going to act like this.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “No, I don’t remember. Please go on.”
With his repentance, she continued. “I asked you to bite me hard enough to draw blood, and you couldn’t do it. Do you remember now?”
He nodded.
“I wanted to see if you could break my skin with your fangs.”
“And I couldn’t do it. So?”
“I ate six pomegranate kernels the first night I was in the Underworld. The juice and skin are gone now and the only parts that remain are the seeds. Their curse binds me to Hades and the Underworld. They are located in different places in my body and I need you to cut them out, with your fangs.”
“But,” Seth sputtered, “I’m not a scalpel. There will be a huge mess.”
Persephone looked at him with blank eyes. She had no pity for herself in this regard and she could not understand his hesitation. Didn’t he know how long she’d been waiting for this? “That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. There is no other way. There aren’t many weapons capable of cutting a goddess. None in this world. This may seem strange, but this way is the most convenient. I do not want to take one of Zeus’ thunderbolts to my chest.”
“Are they in your stomach or where?” Seth stuttered.
She scratched her head. “I don’t know where they are, but I have a plan for finding out. I have someone I need to visit tomorrow.”