"I'll come with you," says my mother.

I shake my head. I have to do this on my own.

   I've told her about Melita and Philomena and my only clues: a mountain valley, a river and goats, and a crag with five points like a rooster's comb. Now my mother closes her eyes, thinking so deep it looks like she's summoning information up from the earth. Her eyes snap open.

   "Yes," she says, "I saw it, when I wandered the land searching for you."

   She points to a haze of mountains rising in the distance. She asks if I want a chariot, a horse, but I have a feeling I need to go on foot, even though it will take longer.

   She takes the dark-blue cloak from her shoulders and wraps me in it to keep the brisk spring breeze at bay.

   "When the time comes to act, look inside yourself," she says. "You'll find what you need."

   Her hands lift reluctantly from my shoulders and she watches me stride away, leaving the temple far behind.

   Fields, valleys, and now mountain paths—everywhere I go, mortals are working from dawn to dusk, fighting to reclaim the land. Their strength amazes me. And everywhere I go, the earth begins to shimmer with a faint, incandescent green as the first hints of growth take hold.

   Let it mean Philomena is safe. Let me be in time.

   Now, climbing up a valley by the side of a lively stream, I see the crag with five points: Melita's cockscomb rock. My heart catches. The mountainside is dotted with small farms where women are scrubbing, men are rebuilding, and children are clearing away rocks and sticks. How will I know which of these farms is the right one?

   I see a woman vigorously spading a patch of ground just the right size for a vegetable garden. Hiding my face beneath the cloak's oversized hood, I approach and ask the way to Melita's farm. She straightens, putting a hand on her sore back.

   "She's long dead, that one," she says.

   "It's her baby I'm looking for."

   "Not such a baby anymore, is she? Poor thing." She

sighs, shaking her head. "They say an old widow moved in up there, took it over as her own. In these times, who could stop her? Says she owns it all, I hear: the farmhouse, the goat, and the child."

   "Owns her?" I ask. "You mean—"

   She nods, turning back to her plot of earth. "That's the way of it," she says. "In these times, what can you do?"

   I take off at a run on the path she showed me. The trail grows narrower and rougher. I round a bend and now the rooster rock is looming almost directly overhead. There, in a clearing near the banks of the river, stands a small house. Part of the roof has fallen in. A goat, all ribs, rummages in the mud. And in front of the house, a little girl is lugging rocks toward a big pile. They must weigh almost as much as she does.

   She lifts her head. I push back my hood a few inches so I can see her better.

   The eyes looking back at me are a deep, warm green, like olives hanging on a tree in the sun. The child's hair may be bedraggled, but it's curly and dark. And there, on her shoulder, is a birthmark shaped like a flower with four petals, the mark that made her parents call her their little blossom. It's Philomena.

   But how fast human time passes! Melita talked about a toddler on pudgy legs. This child has already been set to work, although she looks young for it and too thin. Her elbows jut out overlarge from bony arms. She's daubed with layers of dirt; she hasn't been bathed in weeks.

   "Philomena," I say softly, pushing my hood back all the way so she can see my face. I don't want her to be scared. "Your mother sent me."

   She plops her rock back down and starts to walk toward me, as if she knows me. I bend down, opening my arms toward her smile, and she rushes right into my embrace. I wrap her up close and warm, gratitude filling me from head to toe. Gratitude for having found her. For her big, warm eyes. For the way she came into my arms. Gratitude that she's Melita's daughter.

   "Get away from that brat!"

   An old woman clumps out of the house, anger darkening a face lined with cruelty.

   "You ain't takin' her," she says.

   I stand up, still holding Philomena. She wraps her arms and legs around me and burrows into me. I can feel her thin body shivering.

   "This is Melita's child, not yours," I say.

   "You ain't Melita, neither, far as I can tell," rasps the crone. She reaches down for a heavy stick. "I got food invested in this girl. I been keepin' her in line. That means she's mine, same as if I bought her."

   I look down at Philomena's skinny arms. They're black and blue and yellow with old bruises.

   My head flies back up and my eyes blaze at the woman who did this. "How dare you beat her! How dare you! She needs love, not your brutality!"

   The woman barks what's meant to be a laugh. "Love? Who's got time for that? I been feedin' her, and I'm goin' to get the work out of her. She ain't good for much yet, but in a few years she'll earn her keep. Put her down."

   She starts walking toward us, holding the stick in both hands. I tighten my arms around Philomena. Anger rumbles up through me. I never felt this determined before.

   And now I feel energy surging up from the earth, through my body, until it fills every part of me—blood, bone, skin, breath—and a huge voice roars out of me, more powerful than the voice that stopped Cerberus in his tracks.

   "You will not touch this child!"

   Her eyes widening in terror, the woman drops the stick. She plunges to her knees in the dirt.

   I look down, and down, and down. I'm as tall as a tree. A blinding light surrounds me.

   I am a goddess.

   I marshal the power swirling around me.

   "Spare me! Spare me!" shrieks the woman. "I ain't worth your anger!"

   "Go," I command, my voice ringing against the valley walls. "Depart and never return. Leave now and that will be your punishment, though you deserve worse. But if you stay . . ."

   Without waiting to hear the rest of my sentence, the crone scrambles to her feet and careens helter-skelter down the rocky path. I watch until she's out of sight. Then I look back down at Philomena.

   She's not scared. She's snuggling as deep into me as she can, and she's smiling.

I move into the little house with Philomena, and now I'm back to working with my hands again, scrubbing, clearing rocks from the garden patch, turning the soil. Philomena follows me everywhere, helping wherever she can. On a high shelf I find a round of hard cheese that somehow evaded the old woman, and I feed the hungry child as much as she'll eat. Her bruises are starting to heal.

   At night I sleep with her softness cradled in my arms. Her breath is like music. I wish Hades could hear it, too. I imagine the three of us lying here together, his arms and mine weaving a nest for a child's night breathing.

   On the seventh morning, I jolt awake from a dream that was so vivid, it felt real. I saw a man with Philomena's eyes. He was struggling to get home, but his purse was empty, and a stocky brute was demanding another year's work to pay off a debt.

   I disentangle myself from Philomena and leave her slumbering in the bed. Wrapping myself in the dark-blue cloak, I sit by the fire and close my eyes. I go deep, deep inside myself, so far it's like I'm in a different world. I summon up the dream again and put myself in it.

   I'm in the room with the two men. The man with Philomena's eyes is slouched forward on his bench, his head buried in his hands. I tiptoe up to him and whisper in his ear, "Say you'll wager your freedom on a game of dice."

   He jerks up, staring around the room and trying to find the source of my voice.

   "Do this," I say gently. "Say if he wins, you'll work for two years without complaint, but if you win, you go free, all your debts erased. I will help you. Your daughter needs you."

   He breathes in deeply, then makes the proposal. The stocky man nods and pulls a handful of dice from his clinking purse. He rolls first. A decent roll.

   Then the man with Philomena's eyes picks up the dice, and I wrap them in golden light. When he tosses them on the table I keep each one rolling until the number I want is on top.

   The big fellow slams his fist on the table. The man with Philomena's eyes grabs his cloak and runs out the door.

   I gather Philomena in my arms one more time. I tell her I'll be back again someday. She wriggles down and runs off toward the whistle. And then I'm gone.