W e sit closer. His hand is only a few inches from mine on the grass. He's wearing a golden ring with that three-headed dog on it, the same snarling beast that guards his chariot. I want to trace the raised outline.

   He still hasn't touched me.

   "Why do you come here, really?" I ask.

   "You intrigue me, Persephone."

   He seemed to know my name from the start; I suppose I told it to him. When he says, "Persephone," his deep voice flows all around me, warm, like a caress.

   But do I know his name? No—and what's more, I haven't even asked him. I've had plenty of chances. Maybe I'm afraid if I say his name, reality will come crashing into this dream world where we meet. I'll keep him a dream if it means I can be with him longer.

   There's so much I don't know.

   "How far do you travel to get here?" I ask.

   "Oh, a long, long way. It's another world, really."

   "You come from the stars just to visit me?"

   He laughs and his smile is so real, so alive, I feel like the whole vale is suddenly lit up.

   "My home is in the other direction. I come from down here, beneath the earth." He smooths the long grass with his fingers, and his voice seems to resonate through the soil and the rock and the fire beneath the rock at the center of the earth. I burrow my fingers under the grass, as if I could find the path of his voice there, among the roots.

   He tilts his head, giving me a piercing look. "What do you think of that?"

   "It must be wonderful," I say. "That's where this all starts growing, after all. Down there in that rich darkness."

He looks inordinately pleased. "I'm glad to hear that."

   His fingers find an errant fold in the cloth of my chiton and they start to stroke it. Everything tingles—the air, my skin. I can feel molecules of desire floating around me, traveling up the threads in the cloth so they hug my whole body.

   "Let me tell you something," he says. "Not everyone agrees with you about my home. They like this part of existence: green leaves, fresh petals. But this soil . . ." He drops the cloth to pull up a handful of earth, letting the moist black grains sift through his fingers. "This comes from leaves and trees long past. Everything dies, and dying, returns to earth, air, water, and fire. To start again. Where I come from."

   I want his hand back on my chiton. I want it to touch me through the cloth.

   I try to keep my voice steady. "That's the problem here. Everything's green, everything's female, everything's the same. This flower . . ."

   I reach out to a stalk leaning toward me and run a finger across its bulging bud; it's so ripe, the bud splits at my touch and white petals start to unfold right in front of us with a burst of perfume. I snap its stem and take a long, deep breath.

   "Funny," I say, "I don't even know its name."

   "Narcissus."

   "This narcissus needs the earth below as much as it needs the sun."

   "I was hoping you'd say that," he says, suddenly all seriousness. There's such a coiled intensity in his gaze, I have to pull my eyes away. Then, looking only at the flower, I hold it out to him. He lifts his hand and wraps it around my hand around the stem. He starts to pull my hand toward him, starts to pull me toward him—yes, I think, yes—and then he stops.

   "Wait," he whispers, as if to himself. He unfolds his fingers and gently lifts the flower from my hand. He puts it inside the drape of his chiton, next to his skin.

   "There's something we need to talk about," he says. "But I have to leave now. Come back tomorrow." His eyes are ablaze. "Tell me you'll come."

   "Yes. I'll come."

I drag my feet back along the path. I'm as slow and heavy and full of heat as the olive trees. With every step I play his voice in my head again, the way fingers keep playing the same tune on the strings of a lyre. I'm putting his hand on my hand over and over and over.

   Talk? He knows what I want. I want him to kiss me. Why do we need to talk?

   A snake slithers off the path and disappears under some tree roots.

   At least I know something more about him. He lives underground, so he's probably a river god. I try to picture his home and I see an echoing cave, dripping with stalactites. I hear a surging river, as dark as his hair. It might be under my feet right now.

   Roses crowd the path, but I don't smell them. I smell narcissus.

   I bet that three-headed dog roams his lands, scaring off mortals who sneak in to steal gemstones and fat veins of gold.

I'll ask him tomorrow. I'll ask him his name.

   I drift around the last bend, a boat on the stream of my thoughts. The lemon trees float into view, and then the red clay roof tiles, lapping each other like waves, and the whiteplastered walls, the shutters closed against the heat.

   And my mother, pacing.

   Her short, crisp steps block the courtyard gate. Her arms are crossed as tight as prison walls. She whirls at the end of a step, and her eyes meet mine.