the locals for assistance. A crowd had gathered in the square. A lady with fine robes and a golden crown was making some kind of speech. Being an intelligent goddess, Demeter thought: She must be the queen.
It turned out Queen Metaneira was there with her family and her household guards, offering sacrifices to the gods in celebration of the birth of her newest son, Demophoon. (Or maybe she was there to apologize to the gods for giving her son such a dumb name.) Anyway, when Demeter walked up, Queen Metaneira was just offering a prayer to Demeter. Even in Demeter’s desperate state of mind, that must’ve been sort of a rush, hearing somebody praying to her when they didn’t know she was in the crowd.
If it were me, I’d wait until the queen said, “O great Demeter—”
Then I’d jump out with a bunch of explosions and fireworks and say, “YOU CALLED?”
Probably a good thing nobody has made me a god.
At any rate, Demeter figured this was a good omen. She waited for the queen to finish blessing her new baby, who was very cute. As the crowd broke up, Demeter made her way toward the queen; but Metaneira noticed her first.
“Old woman!” called the queen.
Demeter blinked. She looked around, wondering who Metaneira was talking to. Then she remembered she was in disguise.
“Oh, right! Yes, my queen!” Demeter said in her best old-lady voice.
The queen studied Demeter’s face and her ragged clothes. Even in disguise, Demeter must have looked weary. After ten days, she didn’t smell nearly as jasmine sweet as usual.
“I do not know you,” the queen decided. Her family and retainers gathered around.
Demeter wondered if she was going to have to turn into a hundred-foot-tall grain monster and scare them away, but the queen only smiled. “Welcome to Eleusis! We always greet strangers, because you never know when one of them might be a god in disguise, eh?”
The queen’s guards chuckled. They were probably thinking: Yeah, right. This old lady a goddess.
Demeter bowed. “Very wise, my queen. Very wise indeed.”
“Do you need a place to stay?” the queen asked. “Do you require food? How may we help you?”
Wow, Demeter thought. She’s serious.
After days of anxiety, running frantically around Greece looking for her daughter, Demeter was dumbstruck to receive such kindness. These puny mortals didn’t know her from any ordinary beggar—yet the queen herself took time to be nice to her, nicer in fact than most of Demeter’s fellow gods would have been.
Demeter felt so tired and emotionally spent that she burst into tears. “My daughter,” she sobbed. “My daughter has been stolen from me.”
The queen gasped. “What? This is an outrage!”
A handsome young man stepped forward and took Demeter’s hands. “Old woman, I am Triptolemus, the firstborn son of the queen. I pledge that I will help you find your daughter, however I can!”
Queen Metaneira nodded in agreement. “But come, dear guest. You are clearly exhausted. It won’t help your daughter if you kill yourself with weariness and hunger while trying to find her. Please stay in my palace tonight. Tell us your story. Rest and eat. In the morning, we will decide how best to help you.”
Demeter wanted to decline. She wanted to keep going. Since she was immortal, she obviously wasn’t in danger of dying. But she was tired. These people were nice. And after ten days on the road, her filthy clothes were starting to sprout types of mold and fungus even the plant goddess didn’t recognize.
She thanked the queen and accepted her hospitality.
After taking a nice hot bath and putting on some new clothes, Demeter felt much better. She joined the royal family for dinner and told them of her troubles, though she left out some minor details, such as being a goddess. She explained that her daughter had disappeared while on a day trip in the meadow with her friends. A woman who lived nearby had heard screaming, so it was clear her daughter had been kidnapped, but Demeter had no idea who had taken her or where she might be.
The royal family brainstormed some helpful suggestions: offering a reward, putting Persephone’s face on milk cartons, stapling MISSING posters around town. Finally Triptolemus had the winning idea.
“I will send riders in all four directions,” he said. “We will gather news and spread word of this abduction. Stay with us and rest a few days, honored guest. I know you are anxious, but this is the quickest way to search the countryside. When my riders