Irip off the clanking jewelry and dump it on my floor, then bury it under the cursed blue chiton. Waves. Water. Like that was going to be the solution to everything.

   I need to get out of this palace and into my garden where I can breathe again. All the way down the hall I'm swearing under my breath.

   The years my mother spent trimming my branches weren't enough for her. No, she's got to yank me up by my roots and pound me back down where she thinks I belong. How could she do this? How? Does she have any idea how many people she's killed in her little game?

   I shudder, and I don't know if it's from anger or fear.

   There's my mother, flinging her power around like thunderbolts, and there's Hades, enjoying the results, and then there's me. Me, as blind as a mole, pretending I'm making things better for mankind with my stupid little garden and my stupid little questions from the throne. As if they made a difference to anyone.

I come stomping into the garden so hard, I practically crash into the pomegranate bush, and damn if that red orb doesn't plop right off its stem and land in a cushion of mint below.

   "Well," says Melita, "look what just blew in."

   She picks up the pomegranate, sheltering it in her hands, then looks back up at me. "What happened to you?"

   "We were wrong. It's not better. Nothing's better." I crumple to the ground. The downpour, the flooded fields, whole towns slipping away—I describe it all.

   "Are you sure? Were you there in the throne room? Did they let you come in?"

   "I was there. I heard it with my own ears. What am I going to do?"

   She puts down the pomegranate and reaches for my hand. "Do? We can't do anything but pray. Me, I'll pray my family is safe in the mountains. I'll pray my husband reaches home. I'll pray the gods can save them."

   "Save them? What makes you think that's what they want to do?"

   Suddenly I need to tell her everything. Melita, with her big fat heart and her common sense. She knows me so well; maybe, just maybe, she'll still love me in spite of my immortality. She's the only one in this whole mess who listens to me. She'll help me figure out what to do.

   Or she'll leave.

   Take your pick.

   I try to open my mouth. Nothing comes. A nutshell too green to crack. A clam smothered in seaweed.

   She shakes her head at my stuttering, then stands and pulls me up. She grabs a collecting bag and a spade. "You need something to do," she says. "Keep your hands busy and you won't have time to worry. Come on, we're going collecting."

   She steers me downhill, toward the Lethe. "I saw a patch of white anemones the other day, near that pale poplar. There are plenty to spare for the garden. Come on."

   With every step I'm struggling to find my words. As we near the Lethe's undulating banks, its voice gets louder, that soft, seductive song promising a perfect embrace, calling me to step closer, closer, closer—

   "No!" I jerk to a stop. Words come out but not the ones I wanted. "I can't go any farther."

   Or I might go in.

   "Too tired?"

   "I just can't."

   "Then wait here for a minute. We're so close. I'll go dig up a few plants, and we'll head back together."

   Without waiting for an answer, she walks toward the poplar.

   "Everything can be easy," the river sings, "easy, easy."

   I sit down and clamp my hands over my ears as hard as I can.

   Melita walks past a small group of people and takes out her spade. But then she swivels around hard, staring at something.

   What is it?

   She drops the spade and throws her arms open wide. I can see her mouth opening as she calls to someone. Then she's running and clasping one of the dripping figures. The object of her embrace, a short older woman, just stands there.

   Melita takes a step back, a confused look on her face. She's yelling something. She's shaking the woman back and forth.

   I leap up and start running over as other shades pull Melita away from her sweetly bemused victim.

   Tears sheen down Melita's face. "How could you?" she's yelling, the other shades holding her back. "How could you leave her?"

   The woman is oddly, eternally smiling. She turns back to the riverbank as if Melita weren't even there, and sits, dangling her feet in the water. Bliss radiates from her face.

"Mama!" shouts Melita. "Where is she? Where's Philomena?"

   I peel her out of the strangers' hands and wrap my arms around her. "Melita, come on. We've got to get away from here."

   I steer her up the path from the river, shoving to keep her moving. The sight of her mother terrified me. She was so happy, so empty. So gone.

   "There's no point staying here," I say, talking loudly to drown out that insidious song. "Your mother can't tell us anything now. Let's go back to the garden. We'll talk there."

   "Persephone, don't you see?" She clutches my arm. "If my mother's here, who's with Philomena?"

   I try to make my voice soothing. "Your husband may be home."

   "What if he's shipwrecked? What about the flood?"

   "Then neighbors will take her in. She'll be all right, Melita."

   "Neighbors! Why should they care? It's my neighbors who left their newborn daughter on the hillside." She stops walking. Her voice hardens. "I have to go back. Everything's different now. My daughter needs me."

   She stares along the path, her eyes stopping where it disappears into the trees. "I can cross back over the way I came. I'll wait until the ferryman isn't there. The water didn't look very deep."

   "There's Cerberus, remember? If you saw his teeth, you'd know! You can't cross the Styx. No one can."

   She isn't listening. I reach up and shake her shoulders.

   "Don't even think about it," I say. "You'd die."

   "I'm already dead."

   "But not like that!"

   "Look," she says. "People might help when times are good, when everything's easy. But in times like this, only a mother will do whatever it takes to rescue her child."

   She plucks my hands off her shoulders. "My mother's gone. My husband's gone. I'm the only one who can save Philomena now."

My ears are ringing.

   I hear Melita's words over and over, but I don't see her anymore. I see my mother.

   Is that what she's trying to do? Rescue me?

   I worry the idea around like a toothless dog trying to grasp a bone.

   Impossible! She's trying to punish me. Anyone can see I don't need rescuing. What does she think I am, a kidnap victim?

   You didn't leave a note. How was she supposed to know?

   But it was obvious I wanted to leave the vale! And someone must have told her I'm fine. No, she wants to be my jailor!

   Your savior.

She doesn't care what I want!

This is about power!

   Suddenly time spirals back to the night before I left. I see my mother's palm pressed to my forehead, and her eager expression, like a traveler on a doorstep hoping to be let in. And back: now her hands are on mine at the loom, her body steadies my small body from behind as I reach from my stool to the high threads. And back: until her hand is reaching far down to mine as we stand in a field of rich earth, the vibration of her song rising in me like water pulled up a stem.

   And again I hear Melita's words: Only a mother will do whatever it takes to rescue her child.

   The voices in my head whip around like a tornado, whirling the good and the bad together so fast, all I see is the blur, and all I feel is the wind.

I open my eyes.

   No one. Grass. Weeds. Collecting bag. Trowel lying on the earth.

   How long was I gone? I swivel back toward the Lethe, scanning back and forth, panic rising in my throat.

   "Melita?"

   I don't see her by the riverbank or up ahead on the path to the garden—

   But on the road toward the Styx, a small figure is running, arms pumping.

   "Melita!"

   She's almost up to the trees, and past the trees lies the bend of that dark river, and Cerberus pacing the banks, his teeth like swords, sharp enough to slash through bone.

   I don't have any choice. I run.