Persephone's Porch

"Circe, for Chrissakes, put Cerberus on his leash to keep him off the porch. I don't need him dragging three sets of drooling jowls across it when the nymphs just cleaned." Persephone pulled her blonde hair back and tied it in a loose knot to keep it off her face. "I can't believe Hermes is bringing the whole famdamnily."

Sunlight fell in shafts on the polished marble of the palace porch. I found the marble porch pretentious, something like Zeus would have on Olympus, but it was necessary. The heart pine I preferred was a bit too flammable for some of the souls who called on me at home.

"I don't know how he's going to get everyone here in that raggedy-ass chariot." A smile played at the corners of Circe's mouth. "I told him he should get Hephaestus to give it a tune up, but you know how he is."

"Oh, I know how my brother is, and forget about him getting rid of it. Calypso told him she thinks it's sexy."

"Calypso thinks everything is sexy."

Okay, clearly the rivalry/jealousy between my cousins over a man who was just filling time with them was still at Nikki Minaj-Cardi B level. Oh, joy. Maybe I could keep them apart for the duration of the visit. And Aphrodite would be here, too. Good lord, the claws came out when those three were in a room together. I love Calypso, but she just doesn't get it, actually thinks she can hold a candle to Aphrodite. But I had bigger fish to fry with almost the whole pantheon coming down to visit, so I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Oh, good lord. The nymphs. The meddling, troublesome nymphs would create all kinds of mischief, and Hermes would be obnoxious with pranks when he wasn't making out with Calypso in his sexy chariot. The chassis looks like a Chevy Camaro, so with his mullet, Hermes looks more like Cleetus McFarland than a son of Zeus. Next he'll start dipping snuff and telling everyone to hold his beer.

You know how it is when the whole family comes to visit, some for the first time. There are the aunts who must be separated, the cousins who get into trouble, the uncles telling tall tales and watching (never playing) games with balls and nets. I had a hair's breadth of notice that I was hosting just about everyone with a drop of divine blood in their veins, so I put everyone to work, even Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. I had them prepare chambers for most of my cousins, aunts, uncles, half this, second that. The incest in this family has grown quite the gnarled tree--hell, I'm married to my double uncle; my mom and dad are brother and sister. We could resettle in West Virginia and fit right in, especially Hermes. I'd like to see those ICE agents try to deport Ares, who's always pissy to begin with, but some mortal questioning his right to be anywhere on this earth would most definitely provoke his temper, and he's meaner than a hydra with a hangover when his temper’s provoked.

What was that godawful racket? It could only be Hermes. I walked back onto the porch. And there was my family, tumbling out of Hermes’s chariot, which was smoking ominously. When Hecate emerged from the Hermes hotrod, I understood how he was able to fit the pantheon in a Camaro.

“Queen Persephone!” Hecate’s voice carried over the clamor of the family as she ascended the steps. She waited until she was closer, with no need to broadcast her words to everyone before she spoke again. “Are you ready for this? Athena had a side trip. She said something about Prometheus.”

I’m sure my eyes got as big as dinner plates. Athena has been mouthy as hell lately about Prometheus and how it’s total minotaurshit for Zeus to keep him on that stupid rock. I swear, when she jumped out of Zeus’s forehead, she took every smidgen of his smarts with her. Kind of like how I took Mama’s power to make the flowers bloom when I was born. It’s mine now, and wisdom is Athena’s.

“She said she’s coming to your garden.”

“I reckon Apollo and Themis could help out with getting everybody settled,” I replied. “Let’s go wait for her.”

Hecate smiled. “You’ve stepped up right nice, Persephone. Who would have thought little Kore would become the queen of the underworld, with her love of sunshine and flowers?”

We laughed in the sunshine of the underworld. Summer follows me wherever I go. The very thought of me without my sunshine is ridiculous. Hades says not to worry myself with what goes on down here when I’m busy doing Mama’s bidding to ensure a good harvest, but when I got home this year, Asphodel was damn near out of housing. Forget what you’ve heard about my husband—he’s a pushover, and he’s been so soft lately that upper Tartarus is a freaking ghost town and Asphodel is going downhill. Maybe I could get some work done down here if I divvied up some chores. What I needed to do was close Asphodel temporarily and retry all of those cases while Hades was stuck in the Olympus summit, which sounded like as much fun as a tour of the depths of Tartarus. Hmmm, I thought about having my kinfolk serve as jurors as Hecate and I went around the side porch to my garden instead of cutting through the palace.

I love my garden. My bath leads out to it, Posiedon gave me a small hot spring for it after my wedding, and the entrance through my bath is like a Brazilian rainforest, lush with ferns, coffee, orchids, banana trees, mahogany, bougainvillea, and passion flowers before it opens into the meadow, which looks like Amen Corner in the mortal world. I have azaleas, dogwood, golden bells, and camellias, forsythia, hydrangeas, lilies, gardenias, dahlias, daisies, roses, and tea olive, tall pines, live oaks, cedar, and giant magnolias, only instead of a little yellow flag, a magnificent pomegranate tree is the centerpiece of my garden.

There was a nymph in my pomegranate tree. Nymphs aren’t allowed in my garden.

“You can march your scrawny behind down to Tartarus and join Tantalus at the table.” My eyes shot lasers at her. “Then you’ll help the Danaides for a while. Hermes’ll come get you if I decide to let you out of Tartarus.”

That nymph shinnied out of my tree fast as a cat.

It’s a hell of a gear shift when I go back up and have to answer to Mama and all of her brothers and sisters when everybody answers to me down here. And don’t believe that crap about Hades kidnapping me. I would have gone anywhere with him, even Olympus, which is the tackiest place in the world. Zeus has less taste, style, and class than Donald Trump. Daddy the deadbeat serial rapist, throwing his thunderbolt tantrums and taking mortal women instead of raising his divine offspring.

I was in my tree, inspecting it for nymph damage when Circe came around the corner of the palace.

“Up here!” I hollered.

“Kore?”

“Don’t call me that!” Circe knew better—Mama is the only person I still allow to call me Kore.

“Sorry, but up in that tree, you look like you did when you were a kid.”

I don’t think I’d even let Mama call me Kore down here. Not that she ever comes down here.

All of a sudden, I heard Athena’s laugh, so I scrambled down out of the tree. Oh, shit. She really did it, she brought Prometheus, and he looked like ten miles of bad road, like he’d been rode hard and put up wet, all of that. Who wouldn’t after what he’s been through?

Oh, great. Here’s Hermes.

“Dude, you need a cold beer and a soak in Persephone's bath, pronto.”

Hmm, not surprised to see Prometheus. Hermes always knows everything.

“Man, I’m serious. Get Circe to make you a potion while you drink a cold one in the tub.” Hermes was literally pulling Prometheus toward my bath. Calling it a tub is like calling Versailles a house.

I left them to it and went to the porch to get back to my hostess duties. Apollo and Artemis were on one end of the porch, and Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Ares were on the other, and Ares had that three-headed hound dog off his leash and slobbering all over the porch. Good grief, dog drool and marble are a terrible combination. It was only a matter of time until someone busted their ass in it. Everyone else was standing in groups, talking in rocking chairs and gliders.

“Ares,” I began. In case you didn’t know, Ares has a thing for me almost as bad as his thing for Aphrodite, but it’s not mutual with me. I mean, seriously—yuck. “I see Cerberus takes to you.” Always best to begin with a little sugar. “Would you do me a favor and take him down to the yard for a bit? He has that look, and . . .”

“You don’t want a big pile of dogshit on the porch?” Ares actually grinned before taking the drool monster off my porch.

I sent Calypso to the kitchen to tell them to begin service. They can have ambrosia and honey on Olympus if they want. Down here, we’re having pomegranate punch and pimento cheese sandwiches.

My pomegranate punch may have a little bit of a punch to it, so we gods and goddesses had ourselves one hell of a happy hour while they acclimated themselves to the underworld and reclaimed themselves after being jammed like sardines into Hermes’s redneck chariot.