4.
Demeter and Kore emerged from the blades of barley into a rolling grassy meadow surrounded by groves of trees, each grove sacred to a deity. Nysa was the eternal field of the gods, and Kore's home as a child. She had played with her friends here. Kore remembered Ares swinging a wooden sword against the grasses under the watchful eye of Hera. Little Apollo once brought her a fistful of larkspur and recited awkward love poetry, to her mother's great consternation. Athena and Artemis ran with her in the field and played games of knucklebones by the creek. When Kore flowered into womanhood, her mother abruptly took her from their company and she hardly ever saw them again.
"Kore!"
She heard her cousin Artemis call to her from the edge of the valley. She jogged toward them with her long, sandal-strapped legs. Artemis wore a quiver of arrows on her back, its leather strap holding her short white hunting chiton against her body. The virgin huntress's honey colored hair was short and simple, coiffed into a messy chignon at the base of her neck. She waved a hand to them as she ran.
Kore waved back, then turned to Demeter. "How long do I have to stay here?"
"Until I know for certain that you're safe. I will tend the harvest alone this time." She held Kore close and kissed her on the cheek. "They will look after you, my child. Do not leave the meadow. Do not talk to anyone or anything while I'm gone."
Kore watched her mother vanish into a rush of barley, bound for Eleusis. Nysa was the perfect place to keep her while she attended her responsibilities to the mortals. The virgin goddesses were usually here during harvest time. The humans seldom waged war during harvest, which freed Athena, and seldom hunted, which relieved Artemis of some of her responsibilities. They tended to avoid Olympus during the harvest as their divine siblings were usually bored and making mischief. Both Artemis and Athena were younger than her, but looked older, having already fully taken on their divine roles. Although she felt a faint twinge of envy, Kore was thankful to see them. Artemis, athletic and sun flecked, bounded over to Kore and gave her a hug. "Finally we get to see you again!"
"Artemis!" she embraced her back. "I wish it were under better circumstances. I feel like I'm imposing."
"Nonsense." Fair-haired Athena stood up from the grasses next to them, and quickly rolled up a short scroll before stashing it in the folds of her peplos. She adjusted the plate armor that held her flowing gown in place and joined their conversation. "We will make them better," she said. "And don't worry. Arte and I scour the plain regularly this time of year in case any troublemaking satyrs come along. Brutish creatures... You're perfectly safe here."
Kore smiled thinly to hide her feelings from Artemis and Athena. That meant the man from her dream wasn't here and would most likely never find her. She absently picked the last remains of the asphodel out of her hair. Her mother had cowed her about the flowers throughout the journey to Nysa until she had relented and plucked most of them out. "What were you doing before I arrived? Can I join you?"
"Well," Artemis said, "as soon as we heard you were coming, we started making a garland for you, because we hadn't seen you in so long. But... you know me; I'm no good with flowers."
"We hope you like it," Athena added, shyly holding it out for Kore's examination. The garland was a tidy braid of laurel and olive sprigs laced with wild celery, whose tiny white blossoms provided the only break in the greenery.
"Oh, thank you!" Kore said, accepting the gift from her cousin's calloused hands. She sat down in the soft grass and let Artemis wind her hair into a coronet.
"Your dress is still so short," Artemis said. "Do you keep it that way for the hunt?"
"No, I don't hunt like you, Arte," she said, smiling and lowering her head to hide her embarrassment.
Athena spoke. "Well, have you ever thought about letting it down?"
Kore looked at her bare knees and blushed. "Mother doesn't approve."
Athena stepped in front of Kore and pointedly looked to the right, then the left. She smiled and leaned down. "I don't see her here to disapprove. Come on! You can change it back when she gets here. We won't tell."
Kore fidgeted for a moment. "I'm— I can't do that to her. I've already put her through enough for one day."
Athena gave her a pained smile. "I understand. Sorry; I didn't mean to upset you."
"There! And beautiful, I might add." Artemis finished winding and weaving Kore's hair and placed the garland on top.
Persephone...
She froze, hearing her name on the wind.
"Who's there?" She looked at her cousins, her eyes wide. "Did... did you hear that?"
Athena and Artemis stilled and exchanged a quick glance. Artemis swallowed. "H-hear what?"
"Nothing... it must have been my imagination," she said, walking into the field.
Athena and Artemis joined her, keeping back aways as Kore explored her girlhood home. She had spent her childhood in the shadow of the sacred groves of the Olympians. As a young girl, Kore had laid a circle of river stones in the meadow and filled it with all her favorite flowers, hoping someday to have a sacred grove of her own.
"Do you remember the secret garden I planted?"
Athena smiled. "Of course I do! But it wasn't as big a secret as you thought it was. Father loved it! Said it was his favorite 'sacred grove'. I think your mother knew about it too."
"Oh," Kore blushed. "I'd wondered what happened to it. Want to visit it with me?"
"We'll finish gathering the leftover twigs from the garland. And I think I may take another pass around the meadow," Artemis said, "Can we join you later?"
"Of course!" Kore said cheerfully as she walked off into the grasses.
My queen...
the wind whispered.
Her heart thrummed in her ears. She recognized that voice and turned in its direction, a narrow grove of cypress. Kore looked back at Artemis and Athena, still bent over in the grass picking up remnants of her floral crown. They must not have heard it. She walked slowly, one foot cautiously following the other toward the cypresses, her heart beating out of her chest.
Athena looked up to see her walk away. Demeter had enlisted their protection long ago in case anyone came for Kore. She shuddered, remembering dark Aidoneus stalking through the throne room toward her father yesterday, demanding his rights to Kore as Demeter cried out against it. Athena looked back to Artemis, who was biting her lip, her eyes welling up with tears. The huntress looked away to watch Kore walk toward the cypress trees, and moved to stand up and follow after her.
"Don't," Athena whispered, clasping her sister's trembling hand. "Father told us not to interfere. It will be alright, Artemis."
* * *
Demeter planted one foot after another in the sun-warmed soil. The Eleusinian priestess had plucked a single sheaf of barley and held it aloft, signaling the start of the harvest early this morning when Demeter had returned, sight unseen to oversee them. The priestess's acolytes had wandered through the fields all afternoon pouring offerings of
kykeon
and honey on the freshly threshed earth, singing praises to Demeter and Kore, carrying their effigies before them. The wheat waved across the fields, a sea of ripe sheaves that shone in the sun like swells on the ocean. Walled Eleusis stood on the other side of the hills, a beacon of rough-hewn white stones and whipping saffron banners. Wisps of white clouds moved across the azure sky, traveling on the breeze that wafted across the Eleusinian fields. Under an oak tree by the creek, a few elder women wrapped in dark linen himations, their backed bowed with age, hobbled after naked laughing children. They nattered after them to stay in the shallows and not splash too much water at the littlest ones. A toothless man with wisps of a white beard clinging to his face shared a cup of
kykeon
and laughed with his equally ancient wife.
The villagers dressed in bright reds and golds, the women with the hems of their
peploi
gathered up into their girdles, their hair wound back with strips of linen into tight chignons. They would stoop to gather large bundles of wheat, carrying them over to the ox drawn cart, giving the beasts a few sheaves here and there to keep them content. Most of the men dressed in nothing but loincloths, their skin glistening as they labored under the bright sun, sickles flashing. The rhythmic thresh of iron blades drummed a steady beat under their gossip and laughter.
Demeter was invisible in their midst, and could barely hear them. Hades was coming for her only child and she was preparing herself to meet him directly, to protect Kore from the Lord of the Underworld at all costs. She wiped a tear from her eye. Her daughter was safe for now in Nysa, but it was only a matter of time before he learned where she had fled.
