She regrets the high heels–awful human accessory–
as the gray snow sidewalk swallows the clicks.
The slick overcast threatens her disguise every time
she steps into the amber streetlight or a passing taxi
interrupts the liminal city.
Third alley on the block between the Narcissus
bar and the closed bodega, the neon “OPEN” sign
on the left casts red and blue shadows
on dark eyes and tight lips before she’s smothered
in brick and asphalt solitude.
A figure emerges from a dim lit doorway.
Demeter clutches her phone tight, straightening
her blazer and lifting her chin. The Barretta
in her pocket shifts–goddesses can’t be victims
to naivety without dual-razored consequences.
All the remaining heat between the snowflakes
siphons into the man crunching toward her,
sweeping blonde hair and a daylight grin, predatory
under the guise of assistance. He clicks his tongue
and stops a few feet away, hands buried in his slacks.
“Hecate sent me. Said you know where she is,”
Demeter cuts to the chase, feeling the wasted seconds
on the tips of her acrylics. “I’m aware darling,”
he purrs. “You’re not going to like my answer.
A drink might help soften the blow, my treat.”
“Now, Helios,” she scowls. He chuckles and runs
his fingers in his mane. “Yes, alright. Hades took her.
Heard he struck a deal with the big man up the mountain.
Be ready to make a bigger one if you want her back.
A catch like Persephone, well, I wouldn’t let her go either.”
Demeter shivers, hissing a frustrated breath. “You’re sure?”
“I’m quite a reliable source. By the way, my tips aren’t
free. But you can take me up on that drink sometime,”
he winks before turning his back and walking through
the doorway. Demeter turns on her heels and makes a call.
******
Hades enters alone, his presence a smog greater
than the smoke tendrils dancing off his lit cigarette.
He grips Persephone’s hair like the silken threads
of his Windsor-knotted tie and yanks her head back,
making her flinch. “Open your mouth, little goddess.”
She squeezes her tear-filled jade eyes before obeying.
Pulling pomegranate seeds from his pocket,
he drops them in the back of her throat. She gags
as she swallows them. “Now, for six months you will
go. In that time, never forget that you are mine.
I’ve allowed you and your mother a great mercy today,
something I’m not fond of doing. But to have you at all,
little goddess, is worth it.” He draws a silver blade from
his pocket and cuts the rope binding her wrists. Persephone
nods before stumbling upright, bambling
to her mother on fresh foal feet. Demeter waits
in the doorway, Baretta tense at her side, clutching
Persephone’s golden hair matted around her sunken
cheeks before whisking them topside, out of the cavernous
underworld. Clothed in the filthy remains of what she
was kidnapped in, Persephone nears transparency
in the gray landscape, skin paled in the sunless realm
of Hades bedroom. “What is this?” she chatters
as she holds out a hand to the falling ice kissing her.
Demeter stares at the dark office windows
and empty sidewalks. “This happened when you were taken.
This is what my world became without you.” She wraps her coat
around her daughter and ushers her to their penthouse.
A cloud drags past the half-moon, bathing the snow
in shimmers as it settles into the last of its fall.
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