honor, but here we are.” At her incredulous look, Demeter shrugged. “Apparently a mother freezing the entire world just to get her daughter back has a few people feeling some sort of way.”
Right, because that was why her mother had done it. Not because she just hadn’t liked someone beating her.
Persephone kept her mouth shut on that little detail, however.
“What’s it called?” she asked as she followed her mother toward the temple.
“The Thesmophoria,” Demeter replied. “Isn’t it a lovely word?”
It was, but somehow it also made Persephone feel a little sick to her stomach. She worried what the humans had thought up as something she’d told them to do. When in reality, it was likely another human who had said to perform some strange rituals.
“Yes,” she still replied, even though her mouth now tasted like bile. “It’s a lovely word. What precisely do they do?”
“Well, I’m uncertain of the details, but I know the women abstain from any sexual intercourse with their husbands for nine complete days.” Demeter’s eyes flashed with elation. “They sleep in separate huts, eat garlic so much they sweat it out, and even drink lygos extract to encourage their menses to arrive. How lovely is that?”
It sounded like a burden, really. But at least these women were coming together in ritual. They had created a space for themselves in a world where that was rare.
Persephone lifted a brow. “No men... Really?”
“No men.”
Now that was interesting. She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to visit these women. How had they taken their own time each year to just be with each other, and not a single man said anything about it?
“Let’s go then,” Persephone said.
Demeter waved a hand, and a portal appeared. Together, they stepped through it and onto a dais built specifically for appearances from the gods. A hundred women were all digging in the earth, their loins girded, sweat and dirt on their brows.
Persephone watched as one let out a pleased shout, then hauled a rotting pig carcass out of the earth. It was dried with age, although she couldn’t guess how long it had been in there.
“Found one!” the woman shouted as she hauled it from the earth. “Who’s got the new one?”
How long had she been in the Underworld? The rituals seemed like they had been passed down for generations.
She frowned and glanced at her mother. “How long have they been doing this festival?”
“Five years,” Demeter replied. “Since you’ve been gone, actually.”
“Strange,” she replied. It hadn’t felt like that long in the Underworld. In fact, it only felt like a few months.
Demeter lifted her hand and a wave of magic passed over her body. She turned into something less glimmering, a mortal woman ready to perform her tasks in the festival. “Time passes differently here than in the land of the dead, my darling. Now cover yourself. I want to see what these women do.”
Persephone watched her stride away and then realized these women were actually honoring her. Not just Demeter, although the harvest was certainly what they were asking for. But in every movement, every shift in the way the women walked, they whispered prayers to Persephone.
“Please guide my husband to the Elysian Fields,” one asked as she walked away with pig meat. “He died an early death, but he is a good man who did not deserve to die.”
Another woman dug in the ground. Every time her shovel struck the soft earth, she muttered the same phrase. “Please kill my brother. I know his time is not soon, but he beats his wife. He killed her lover. He deserves to die.”
More and more wishes until she was overwhelmed by them all. There was nothing Persephone could do for most of them. After all, she wasn’t a goddess of death. No matter how tempting that might be.
Breathing out a low breath, she let the magic inside her pour through her skin. To anyone who looked, she would be nothing more than a passing woman. Plain. Simple. Easy to overlook, and if they tried to remember her later, they would realize they couldn’t think of any particular feature.
She strode through all the many groups of women. They laughed with each other like old friends, even though they were performing back breaking labor.
Persephone stopped by a particular group and reached for a shovel. “May I?”
The woman looked her up and down, clearly not recognizing her, but nodded. “Please.”
She spent the entire day working alongside the women. They dug. They pulled the flesh from the ground, and