Ihear their voices before I see them. Admete's high, carefree laugh floats above Kallirhoe's gentle murmur. I round the trees and Ianthe looks up from a pile of little daisies. She slits a stem with her thumbnail and slides the next one through, making a crown.

   Galaxaura holds out her hand and pulls me down next to her on the sand. "Good! Persephone's finally here."

   I jerk my hand back, afraid she'll feel how fast my pulse is beating.

   Ianthe picks up another stem, then freezes, suddenly alert. "Something else is here, too. Something new."

She closes her eyes in concentration. She looks like an

oracle, reading the future in wisps of temple smoke. Then her eyes pop open.

   "Don't you smell it? There's a new flower in the vale."

   "Is that all?" Kallirhoe lies back on the warm sand. "I thought for a second it was going to be important."

   Ianthe glares at her. "Just because you're a water nymph, you think flowers aren't important? I suppose I'm not that important, either. I'm only a violet nymph. Well, excuse me."

   "That's not what I meant, Ianthe. And I can't smell the flowers as well as you can. It's not like they're my cousins." Kallirhoe gives an exaggerated sniff. "All I smell is lavender."

   "And mint," says Admete, "from up on my mountainside. What about you, Persephone? Can you make it out?"

   I close my eyes, trying to focus, trying to be here with my friends, playing their game so they won't look at me too closely or ask where I've been. I take a deep breath.

   The flowers are all vying for attention, with my mother's roses winning the competition, as usual. But in a minute I start to tease apart the strands: Admete's mint, and Ianthe's own perfume, and— There it is. As soon as I single out the scent, I see a white flower swaying next to a golden chariot. My eyes fly open like I was pricked with a pin.

   Galaxaura laughs. "It must be pretty exciting after all. Look at Persephone, everyone!"

   Admete stands up, shaking sand from the folds of her blue chiton. "Then let's go find it. We'll follow the scent. And Ianthe can greet her long-lost cousin properly."

   Admete, with her lithe limbs and bursting energy. Admete, who wants nothing more than to sneak out of the vale and meet men. I imagine her striding right up to the man in the meadow. I imagine him looking her up and down with an appraising eye.

   "No!" My voice is too loud. Everyone stares at me. "It's too hot."

   "Too hot?" says Galaxaura. "It's not hot."

   He's long gone by now; there's nothing for them to find. Except—what if they see the broken stems where his chariot landed? Or what if they find the meadow and fall in love with it because it's beautiful and new, and they come back later, when he's there, and—

   "And I'm tired. I just got here."

   I close my eyes again, trying to look exhausted. I hear his voice; I feel it pulse in the air around me.

   When I open my eyes again, Galaxaura is staring at my face. Sometimes I hate how she seems to see right through me, the same way her breeze clears the lake and leaves it like crystal. I need to distract her.

   "No offense, Ianthe," I say, "but I think we should do something more exciting today. We're free as birds. My mother left for three days. She has some big festival, the Thesmo-something."

   "Thesmophoria!" cries Admete. "Then she's the one having all the excitement."

   "That's it. I asked if I could go. Surprise, surprise; she wouldn't let me."

   Admete laughs knowingly. "That's because it isn't for innocent little girls like you."

   Let her tease me. She's got their attention now.

   She lies back on the sand with a naughty smile. She loves it when everyone is staring at her. "No, it's definitely too much for someone of your tender sensibilities."

   "Why?" asks Kallirhoe. "What do the mortals do?"

   "What don't they do! They load up carts with enough food and bedding to camp outside town for three days. Women only, mind you, no men. Men would be too shocked to see how their sweet wives commune with Demeter to get a good harvest. That's why women lie and say it's a somber time, so men will let them go."

   No men. Why am I not surprised?

   "They must use indecent language," prods Ianthe.

   "The foulest, and they dance with total abandon, as if Dionysus himself loosed their bonds with his heady wine. It's out of control. And then there are the pigs."

   "Pigs?" Kallirhoe is incredulous. "What does that have to do with the harvest?"

   "They toss baby piglets into pits for snakes to eat, and haul back up decayed remains from the year before, and mix them with seed grain and prayers to scatter on the earth. Then there are cakes baked in unspeakable shapes, and—"

   "What unspeakable shapes?" asks Ianthe, laughing.

   "You know. It is a fertility festival, after all."

   "Wait a minute," I say. "This is my mother you're talking about. She has fits if my dress is too revealing. She won't even let me give up my dolls."

   Admete hauls herself back up to sitting and stares at me like I'm an idiot.

   "When are you going to realize your mother is one powerful goddess? You only see her here in the vale, where she's the mommy and you're her baby girl. Don't you know what she's capable of? Why do you think everyone is so careful to keep her happy?"

   "Hey, I know," says Kallirhoe, sculpting an interesting shape in the sand. "Let's do a little baking ourselves."

   Everyone howls with laughter, and I know they've forgotten all about following the new scent.

   I look at my crumpled clothes. I think I know where I put my saffron chiton for tomorrow. And my tangled hair needs combing.

   I wrap my fingers around a flat, polished stone, hiding it like a secret in the palm of my hand.