Underworld: Whisper

Power. Revolution. Death.

This is Chapter 2 of the serialised novel ‘Underworld’, a reimagining (not a retelling) of the myth of Persefóni.

CHAPTER 2

The next day at noon, I am foraging on the slopes below our cave when I hear voices through the trees, some way to the south. They are young voices, female, chattering in excitement and full of laughter. I make my way towards the sound. I like watching the mortals - they fascinate me. Their animated faces, their conversations that can be both sincere and meaningless, their joys and sorrows intrigue me.

These women are making their way to the nymph’s waterfall. There is a deep pool beneath it, where the water collects before spilling out into a rushing stream that feeds the river on the valley floor. They are taking Loukía to bathe in the pool - it is her wedding day, and it is one of their rituals. They believe the pool is sacred, and they aren’t wrong. I know that, somehow, all water is.

I head in the same direction, taking a route that leads me up the rocks beside the waterfall. From there, I can look down on Loukía and the other women, probably without being noticed. It isn’t that they would mind my being there, but we are not the same, and I sometimes feel that they aren’t comfortable around me. I, in turn, feel awkward around them. It isn’t like being with Ánitos - there is an imbalance between myself and the mortals. I am too aware that their lives are very different from mine. Theirs are about survival - from the screaming, tearing mess of birth, through a few short decades of finding enough food and cheating disease, to an end in pain or illness or, if they are lucky, sleep. My life is about honing my skills, sharpening myself to a finer and finer point. For me, there is no end - only immortal years stretching to eternity.

I sit on the slippery rocks, the fine spray from the waterfall prickling my skin. Before long, my hair and clothes are damp, but I don’t mind. It is another hot day. Loukía and the other women have pulled off their clothes and submerged themselves in the pool. They duck under the surface and come up laughing, hair heavy and plastered to their heads. They splash water at each other, and then became serious, drawing closer together. Their voices carry up to me, my goddess-sharp ears letting me hear them over the roar of the falls. Loukía wants to know if it will hurt, but some of the older ones who are already married tell her that it is all right, she can bear it, and it will only be the first few times. One of them, Melíta, even says she likes it, and Loukía asks her why, what is it like? I lean forward, listening as the girl struggles for the words to describe it.

“Don’t worry,” she finishes, laying a hand on Loukía’s shoulder. “Dioklís is a good man. He will do what he can not to hurt you. Anyone can see that he loves you, Loukía.”

None of them ask what love is like, and Melíta doesn’t try to describe it. They all know already, and have always known. They have felt it in their mothers’ arms from the minute they were born and seen it in their fathers’ eyes. They feel it for their siblings, for their friends. I envy them that. For all my knowledge of plants and my skills in hunting and combat, I know nothing about love.

I see the nymph coming towards me. She is inside the waterfall, walking along a ledge of rock, but the force of the water doesn't knock her off balance. When she reaches me, she crouches next to me on the rocks, half-in and half-out of the crashing column of water. She doesn’t seem to feel the pressure of it pounding on her spine as she bends towards me. She is naked, of course, her skin pale, almost translucent, so that she seems part of the waterfall. Her irises are the colour of water, too, and something is moving in their depths so that they seem to rush like her waterfall. Her wet hair, silver-grey, hangs about her face, more water running from the tips than could possibly be contained within it.

“Why do the mortals come here?” she asks me.

“That one there is getting married today,” I tell her, nodding my head in Loukía’s direction. “They wish to bathe her in your sacred waters.”

The nymph smiles in a self-satisfied way, then she frowns.

“I know this one,” she says, indicating a young woman with fair hair. “She is sad. She comes to me at every dark moon and leaves an offering. She wants a child.”

I am confused. “Why does she come to you?” I ask. “You’re a water spirit. You can’t help her.”

“Why not come to me? Do you think it would do her any more good to ask Irá? Or Dímitra? At least I hear her prayers, even if I can do nothing to grant them.” Her eyes narrow. “Can you?”

Her question takes me by surprise. I shake my head.

“Why would you think I could help her?”

“I heard a whisper in the waters,” she says, leaning closer.

“A whisper of what?”

“Power? … Revolution? … Death?” Her eyes watch intently for my reaction as she forms each word. When she encounters only blankness in my expression, she frowns again. “Perhaps I misunderstood,” she says. “It was only a whisper.”

Before I can question her further about what exactly a whisper in the waters sounds like, and why she would think it had anything to do with me, the nymph turns and dives off the rocks. She is hardly discernible from the waterfall itself as she plummets towards the surface of the pool, her body slipping seamlessly into the roiling water at the base of the falls. The mortal girls do not even turn their heads.

---

When I descend to the threshing floor with Ánitos that evening, it is already long after dark. There is a full moon, however, and our immortal eyes can see well, even on moonless nights. The gathering is visible from a long way off - an orange glow of firelight in the blackness around the site of the threshing floor. As we draw closer, the smell of roasted boar, drink and mortal sweat drifts towards us on the breeze, along with the feast-day noises of music, singing and laughter.

The marriage ceremony has already been performed before the altar at Loukía’s house, and now everyone has gathered for the feast. Loukía is seated at the centre in her peplos, and some of the other women are turning back her veil. From outside the circle of firelight and lamplight, I watch Dioklís’ face and I see that Loukía’s friend was right - he does love her. I may not know what love feels like, but I know what it means because Ánitos has explained it to me. It means he would die for her, kill for her, but mostly it means that he wants to keep her safe, to talk to her, to hold her. I can read all of this in his eyes, and his vulnerability fascinates me. To feel all those things, and to let the world read them in his face, is something I can’t comprehend.

I look at Loukía too. She is only a mortal girl, but for a moment she seems like something more. Her skin glows in the warm light of the flames and her face shines with something I can't quite define. She looks back at Dioklís in the same way, but more self-consciously, at once both shy and fierce, as if daring anyone to challenge her right to this happiness.

Ánitos strides into the crowd, clapping Dioklís heartily on the back and kissing Loukía’s hand, whereas I hang back for a moment, struck once again by my otherness. But I am drawn forwards by the longing to belong, and by the sound of the music. It is Míron, a shepherd. He has a lyre - a simple wooden frame with seven strings stretched across it - and he plays it beautifully. I am entranced. I watch his fingers draw the wooden plectrum across the strings, hear the notes in the air, and it is like magic. There are few skills I have not mastered, but I can’t make music with my hands.

I concentrate, trying to pick out each individual note, but it is like watching a waterfall cascading endlessly. I feel almost dizzy, as if I am reaching out over a precipice, further and further, but I can’t grasp what I am reaching for. I close my eyes, letting the music surround me until that is all there is. Then, amid the flow of notes, I hear something else - my name, rippling through the people dancing, eating, watching and listening. Persefóni! Get Persefóni!

They are calling me for Fílon’s wife, Dáfni. She isn’t at the feast, but labouring to give birth in her home further down the valley. I know the way, and as soon as I hear the news, I gather up the hem of my long feast-day chiton and run, knowing every second could be precious. I am fast, and in minutes I reach Fílon’s smallholding. The door of the house is already open, letting some of the cool night air into the stifling room. The hearth fire flickers, casting warm light and dense shadow over the scene.

Dáfni is squatting near the ground, her feet on two flat stones. She is naked and her skin is shining with sweat. She stares at a fixed point on the floor, whimpering quietly, her knuckles white where she is gripping the hands of two other women. The room smells of smoke and sweat - of expectation and trepidation.

This is the one thing I know that Ánitos hasn’t taught me. I have learnt over the years from the mortals and I have taught them too. The knowledge of the birthing room is sacred - it belongs only to the women, and I am honoured to count myself among them.

“How long?” I ask the others, Dáfni’s sisters and aunts.

“Since sunset,” one replies.

Dáfni raises her eyes at the sound of my voice. She doesn’t speak, but her expression is pleading. She wants respite - just a moment - it’s what they always ask me for, but I can never give it. I know, just as Dáfni does, that there will be no rest for her until the baby is born.

Another pain grips her, and she makes a sound - half-moan, half-sob. I wait until it passes before asking her gently, “How many children have you already?”

“Two at the feast,” Dáfni says breathlessly. “And one Plútonas took.”

I remember. A boy, two winters ago, the cord around his neck.

Time is short, but I wait a moment for the pain of the memory to engulf the women and ebb away. Then I ask, “Are you ready?”

Dáfni nods. The other women have checked and told her that her body has opened up - she is ready. She has come to squat on the birthing stones, she wants to push and she knows it won’t be long. And yet, at the same time, I know it feels too long and she doesn’t know if she can bear it. I watch as she feels another contraction coming, and steals herself to ride on the crest of pain. It builds to the limit of human endurance, and then builds some more. She must feel as if her body is splitting apart, but she pushes anyway. She means to be quiet, I am sure, but a sound rips from her throat that she didn’t mean to make.

Twice more she pushes, and the women wait with outstretched hands beneath her as she squats, but no baby comes. It is not unusual. Even for a woman who has already given birth three times, it would have been quick. But a feeling of dread sweeps through me, clutching at my heart, and I have learnt to trust these instincts.

“Let me see,” I say suddenly, and no one questions me. I have the wisdom of the ancestors, and of the gods - or so they believe, and I let them. Dáfni gets clumsily down from the stones, her legs unsteady like a newborn lamb. The women help her, but I think maybe they are making it worse, all of them trying to lift and carry different parts of her. She sits heavily onto the sheet covering the ground and leans back, supporting herself on arms that shake, and parts her legs for me to look between them.

I am grateful for my keen eyesight in the dim room. I have only the flickering light of the hearth fire to show me the crown of the baby’s head, and something else - the dark shape of the umbilical cord, not before the head, but next to it. I suck in a breath.

“Push now!” I say, trying to sound encouraging rather than afraid. “Push, Dáfni - now!”

But Dáfni is drained - she has nothing left to give.

“I’m tired…” she gasps. “Let me rest for a moment.”

“You can’t.” I am firm, harsh even. But Dáfni can’t see what I see - the shadow in the corner of the room, waiting. I wonder whether I should tell her, whether perhaps it will make her give up altogether, but I remind myself that women are fiercer than bears when it comes to protecting their children - even the ones they haven’t met yet. I crouch by Dáfni’s side and grab her face between my hands.

“Dáfni - push your baby out now - or it’s going to die,” I say.

I am cruel, but I am necessary.

A spasm of pure terror passes across Dáfni’s face. Her eyes fill with tears, but her expression hardens. She gathers herself and pushes again, her scream an animal sound now, raw and ragged. The women around her are with her, the muscles of their own uteruses rigid and straining. One woman leans over Dáfni’s chest, her right forearm pushing downwards.

And the baby slithers out into my arms.

It is a girl, slick with blood and mucus, her skin blue. My fingers tighten around her tiny limbs. I blow into her face, turn her upside-down. From far away, the sounds of the wedding feast echo down the valley, but among the women there is deathly quiet. My eyes flick to the shadow in the corner. He moves a step closer. Dáfni stares at the child - naked fear and a terrible, desperate hope in her eyes. I feel her emotion boring into me - her whole life up until then, and her whole life to come - it all hangs on this moment, on one single breath. I pinch the baby’s tiny thigh and, mercifully, she twitches and a pitiful wail slices through the silence. I cradle the child as her cries gather force, her bruised face folding in on itself, and we all watch as her skin changes colour in the firelight, from the cold blue of death to the pinkish-olive of life. The women are laughing, crying, falling against each other in relief, but Dáfni only has eyes for her child. She is crying too, salt tears pouring down her cheeks, and she reaches out for her baby.

I glance towards the corner of the room again, but there is no one there.

I place Dáfni’s daughter in her arms, and she immediately begins to snuffle at her mother’s breast. We all watch her fruitless search for a moment, then one of the aunts grabs Dáfni’s breast and presses the nipple to the baby’s hungry mouth. They stare and stare at her as she sucks and gulps - a tiny miracle, snatched from the hands of death.

The women began to talk. An auspicious day to be born, they said. A wedding day, a full moon. I don’t join in their chatter. I wait until Dáfni pushes the placenta out - small trouble after the pain of birth - and I place it in the bowl one of the other women holds out to me. Then, I cut the umbilical cord with my knife and swiftly knot it. Afterwards, I examine Dáfni.

Despite the rushed birth of her daughter, she hasn’t torn at all. I call for fresh water and wash her gently. I wash the baby too and wrap her in a clean sheet. Together, the women and I help Dáfni to her pallet in the next room. One by one, the others leave. They summon Fílon to meet his new daughter, and Dáfni’s father to meet his grandchild. I remain in the background, innocuous, listening to their quiet adoration of the tiny creature in Dáfni’s arms. I clean the outer room of the house, bundling up the soiled sheets and removing the birthing stones. By the time I have finished, they are all asleep; Dáfni on the pallet bed with the baby nestled in the crook of her elbow, Fílon slumped over the table in the outer room, his head resting on his arms.

Outside, I breathe in the chilly pre-dawn air, shivering slightly in my damp shift. It is soaked with sweat, and stained with blood and mucus where I held the baby to me, willing her to breathe too. My heart always swells when I witness a birth, and it always breaks when something goes wrong. Dáfni’s third child was not the only one that Plútonas has taken from my hands.

I wonder if I will ever have a child of my own, and whether my heart could stand the crushing emotion that delivering my own baby would bring. It occurs to me that, in so many ways, mortals are inferior to me, with their weak, slow bodies and their susceptibility to disease and the effects of time. But in this way, they are stronger. To compress so much intense joy and pain into so few years - to love so fiercely despite the nearness, and the inevitability, of death; some part of me admires the courage it takes to live like that.

I wonder if Ánitos loves me - and if I love him. Would I kill for him? Of course. Would I die for him? Would he die for me? We live like father and daughter, but I think love is more complicated than that.

I glance up to the mountain where he is surely sleeping by now. The sky behind the peak is beginning to lighten almost imperceptibly, the darkness leaching from it slowly, slowly. The valley is perfectly silent. The night hunters have gone back to their nests and holes, and the chattering birds are not yet awake to herald the dawn. I feel as if I am alone in the world, just for a moment.

I begin to make my way to the treeline, and up into the forest towards the cave. I meet nothing and no one on the way, and the mountainside around the cave mouth is deserted. There is no door or stone across it - no physical barrier to protect its occupants from the outside world, but the cave is protected by things even I can’t see. The same petty enchantments ensure our goats never sicken, fall or get lost, that our horses run swiftly and tire slowly. I know Ánitos has placed enchantments on me, too - I can feel them. They hide my true face and cover my body like a second skin. I asked him about them once, but he only told me it was safer that way.

I have tried to remove the enchantments, of course. I have always been curious. But Ánitos has taught me nothing about that kind of power - the power to manipulate reality - and I don’t even know where to begin. I have asked him - begged him, even - but he has refused me time and again. It is the only skill he possesses that he hasn’t taught me, and I wonder why. Is it selfishness, or pride? Or is he afraid of what I might be capable of?

To be continued …