P. Hoover - Solstice

Shayne surprises me. I figure he’d break it to me gently. But he starts laughing. “Do you want to leave?”

I glance back again at Charon who’s also smiling. “Maybe,” I say.

Shayne stops laughing. “Maybe.” He licks his lips and squeezes my hand. “Well then maybe you can leave. Unless we decide to keep you here forever.”

I’m not sure I’d mind. Anywhere forever with Shayne sounds like paradise. But I think of Chloe. How close she came to dying. And Shayne had saved her.

“But why Chloe?”

“It was her time.”

“No!” I push his arm off my shoulder and turn toward him. “It was not her time.”

He meets my gaze. Again, I see the red flashes in the brown of his eyes; they’ve started back up. Fire behind the darkness of Hell. “Yes. It was. Fate told you so herself.”

“Tanni? So she is real?”

Shayne nods.

“But you saved her.”

He nods and glances back at Charon. I look back, and Charon turns away. He’s avoiding the conversation.

Shayne’s voice is quiet. “I know.”

He did save her. “So what happens now? What if I choose to have Chloe live?” Which I know I will. It’s not even a choice.

“It will be an exception,” Shayne says.

What would Chloe’s sorrow have been had she died? What would she have left for the monsters to devour?

Shayne pulls me back toward him, erasing the distance I’ve put between us. “Just give the Underworld a chance, Piper. Letting Chloe die may be the better choice.”

“I doubt it.”

Shayne cocks his head. “Maybe so. But try to be open-minded.”

There’s a magnetic ball in the pit of my stomach drawing me to the Underworld. I want to see it and I want to be with Shayne. But as I sit there, something else about mythology doesn’t settle. Something I’m not sure I want to ask about or even face. Everything I know about the Underworld has made one thing clear. Hades is married to Persephone. And they rule the Underworld together.

I open my mouth, but I’m not sure how to bring it up.

“What?” Shayne says.

“It’s nothing,” I say.

“No really,” he says. “You were going to say something.”

I let out a long breath and finally let the question come. “I’ve studied mythology in school. I always thought…”

“She’s gone,” he says. “She’s gone and she’s not coming back.”

And I don’t know how to respond because whatever happened, it’s obvious he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I was, too,” he says. “But I’ve moved on.”

With the interest he’s showing in me, I have to believe he’s telling the truth. I decide I won’t question him anymore and risk him changing his mind. Maybe he’s left his sorrows here in the river, too. I settle against him and watch the feasting of the monsters, and push Shayne’s past romances out of my mind.

We travel from the dark cavern and then through a swamp so hazy and gray I can’t see the front of the boat. The haze dissipates, and we’re out into the middle of an ocean with a sky overhead that sparkles like a crystal. Two suns pound down from above, but unlike my Earth, the heat they generate finds that perfect in between space of warmth and cool. It’s like what my mom told me spring used to be like, back before the Global Heating Crisis started. She’d said autumn was a season of dying and winter brought horrible temperatures so cold people froze to death, but that each spring, life returned to the earth.

I don’t realize we’re approaching the far shore until clouds form in the crystal sky and the monsters in the water diminish. The voices weaken, as if no sorrow is permitted to reach the banks. And then I see the trees and feel the humidity. Limbs twist over the water, dripping below, and as we pass under the weeping willows, droplets rain down on me, falling in my thick hair. Far above, crows call out, talking amongst themselves, jumping from branch to branch. And when I see the cerulean blue sky complete with clouds, I know we’re no longer in a cavern but in some other world entirely.

Shayne jumps out first when the boat pushes its way through the reeds and cattails and hits up against the dock. He grabs the rope and loops it around a post. Above him, the canopy of trees holds back the light from the suns of Hell, and shadows play on the hard wooden surface. Then Shayne extends his hand toward me, and I grab it, letting him help me out.

Charon flips the gold coin which Shayne catches high in its arc. “I can’t take your money,” Charon says.

Shayne laughs and puts the coin back in his pocket. “I know.” And their exchange makes me wonder if Charon is like a father to Shayne.

“You’re going back already?” I ask.

“My work is never done. And when I say never, I do mean never.” Charon laughs, and I imagine him crossing the river thousands of times each day. The same routine over and over again.

The image of the gold coin flashes in my mind. “You must make a lot of money.”

“Not as much as you might think,” Charon says.

“Nobody buries people with money anymore,” Shayne says. “We’ve had to start a donation fund within the assembly of gods.”

“There’s an assembly of gods?” I ask. And I wonder if it’s filled with the same corruption the city council has back home. Does someone like Councilman Rendon lead it and make every decision based on his own gain?

“Everyone needs rules and government,” Shayne says. “Especially immortals.”

“And you’re on it?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Shayne says. “I’m on it.” He unties the rope and tosses it back in the boat. Charon uses the pole and turns the boat around, already pushing it through the reeds, toward the other shore, away from the overhanging branches and back into the river of sorrow.

I’m totally unprepared for what happens next. Something bounds out of a tunnel ahead of us and leaps for Shayne, knocking him flat to the ground and landing on his chest. It’s a black dog the size of a bear with three heads, all of which are licking Shayne’s face, shoving each other out of the way. One begins to growl at another, and pretty soon, Shayne’s pushing the dog off him.

“Cerberus! Be careful!” He looks to me and laughs. “One of these days, he’s going to get carried away and bite my ear off.” He stands up and reaches out with both hands, scratching two of the dog’s heads. The other head nuzzles against his arm until he scratches it behind the ears.

“You have a dog?” I know I’m stating the obvious, but it’s just such a bizarre scene, I’m not sure what else to say. And the word three-headed does not seem to be a necessary descriptor.

“Cerberus guards the entrance to the Underworld.”

Cerberus looks my way, and his tail goes into overdrive. He turns, and I know he’s going to run for me and knock me over. I imagine the three heads licking me, and my lips curl up into a smile I can’t hold back.

But Shayne moves first, grabbing the neck in the middle. “Not yet, Cerberus. Let her get acquainted first.”

Cerberus wriggles and tries to break free. He whines and pulls and tugs, but Shayne holds firm, and I see the muscles in his arms flexing, veins showing, sweat covering them.

“He likes you.”

My smile grows, and I walk toward Cerberus. “And I like him.” I scratch him behind the ears of his left head—like I’d seen Shayne do. His tail flaps back and forth, moving so hard his backside slams into Shayne, knocking him away. And then Cerberus jumps up, placing a paw on either of my shoulders, which sends me flying to the soft, muddy soil. All three heads begin a licking frenzy.