P.C. Cast: Goddess of Light

"She is my soul mate," Apollo said.

The dark god shook his head sadly. "Then let us hope that the Fates are understanding." He touched his palm to the glowing ball. "You are welcome in my realm, Pamela."

The light quivered and then elongated. With a sound that was very much like a sigh, it took on form and features until Pamela was standing within the circle of Apollo's arms. Her body still carried a slight luminescence, but she had also taken on a surreal, transparent look—as if she was a half-finished watercolor of herself. With a sob, Apollo tightened his arms around her. She felt cool and too light. He was afraid if he loosened his hold on her, she would float away. She didn't move or speak.

"Pamela!" Apollo cried. "It's me. I have you. All will be well now."

A shiver passed through her almost insubstantial body. "Apollo?"

"Yes, my sweet!" He pressed his face into her hair.

She pulled back from him, looking around in confusion. She saw that she was standing in an enormous marble room with Apollo, a beautiful young woman, and a tall, dark man. Then her gaze went down to her body, and her face went blank with shock.

"Tell me this is a dream, Apollo. Tell me that pretty soon I'll wake up," Pamela's voice trembled.

"I can not," he said brokenly.

"Pamela," Lina's voice was like a warm, quiet pool. She touched the newly dead spirit lightly on her arm. "I am Carolina; you may call me Lina if you'd like. And this is my husband, Hades."

Pamela's eyes looked huge and round in her pale face.

"Hades?" she whispered. Woodenly, she lifted her translucent hand and stared at it. "I'm dead? And now I'm in…" Her eyes flew back to Hades, and her mouth opened, as if she wanted to scream.

"You're in Elysia," Lina told her with a gentle smile.

She took the hand Pamela still held in front of her and wrapped it in her warmth, willing the immortal powers that rested within Persephone's body to comfort her. "Specifically, you are in our palace at the edge of the Elysian Fields. The Underworld is a very beautiful place, honey. There's nothing here you need to be afraid of."

"The Underworld?" Shaking her head, Pamela looked at Apollo. "Why am I in the Greek Underworld?"

"I didn't know what else to do." Apollo's eyes pleaded with her to understand.

"No," Pamela whispered. "No, it can't be."

"You died before the sun set. I could do nothing to save you. Please forgive me. I couldn't let you go—I—I don't think I could ever let you go."

Pamela kept shaking her head and staring at him. And then she remembered. In her mind she saw the car coming towards her and knew all over again the deadly impact. With a jerky, mechanical movement, she stepped from the circle of Apollo's arms to stare wide-eyed at him.

"I don't know what we do next," he said.

"Well," Lina said matter-of-factly, "next you go with Hades and get cleaned up and into some clothes that don't have…" She paused and decided on different wording. "Clothes that aren't so dirty. And while you do that, I'll show Pamela around. Go on." She caught her husband's eye and raised her brows. "We'll be fine."

"I will not be long," Apollo told Pamela. She only gazed at him unresponsively as he and Hades left the room.

Lina still held Pamela's cool hand, and she gently led her toward a large silver-plated door on the far side of the room. Unresisting, the newly dead spirit followed her. Once through the door, they entered a wide hallway that was hung with jeweled chandeliers. Lina turned to the right and then again to the left. Huge glass doors opened without her touching them, and they walked out into an incredibly lovely courtyard filled with marble statues, a huge fountain, and flowers all different shades of white.

Even through the terrible knot of panic that seemed to choke rational thoughts from her mind, the designer within Pamela noticed the beauty that surrounded her.

"It's fantastic, isn't it?" Lina said. "I loved it from the first moment I set eyes on it."

Pamela looked at Lina and blinked rapidly, like a sleepwalker fighting to awaken.

"You're not really one of them, are you?"

"No," Lina shook her head, causing her chestnut-colored hair to ripple around her shapely waist. She smiled and pointed at her body. " This is one of them, but this" —she placed her hand over her heart—"is very mortal. I'm like you—a spirit that has been displaced from what they call the modern mortal world. Here, let's sit at this bench." Lina waited until Pamela had settled herself to continue. "I'm really a baker from Tulsa. It's a long story, but the end result is that Persephone and I made a deal. When it's spring and summer in Tulsa, her spirit is there in my body, and I'm here in the Underworld with Hades. Fall and winter in Oklahoma, I'm there and she frolics around Olympus or wherever in her goddess body." Lina grinned. "It's a pretty good deal, too. Oklahoma winters are nice—and the weather in Elysia"—she gestured around them—"is always perfect. And then, of course, there's Hades." Her eyes softened.

"I can't… I don't know if I can accept all of this." Pamela wiped a hand over her brow and then made a startled little jerk as she stared at her pale, ghostly hand. "I don't feel like me; I don't look like me."

"I know, honey, I know. It's always hard when someone dies before they're ready. And with you it's especially difficult because this isn't where you expected to end up. But I promise you that Elysia welcomes you. You'll find peace here. You don't need to be afraid. Just listen to your spirit—it knows more than you think it does."

"Peace…" Pamela repeated. She wasn't gasping for breath anymore and she didn't feel so afraid. Through the shock and the panic she could sense the edge of something that reminded her a little of Lina's voice. It was sweet and warm and comforting, like a late spring rain, or an afternoon nap, and it was in the air around her. A small breeze brushed against her spirit body, soothing her. It seemed to whisper her name like a mother welcoming a lost child into her arms.

"See what I mean?" Lina asked, studying her face.

Pamela drew a deep breath and looked down at her body again. This time her luminous skin didn't frighten her. Yes, it was still her—her arms and legs and the rest of her body. She lifted her hand again, studying it… recognizing the soul within the altered casing. The warm breeze brushed against her, caressing her with palpable acceptance and love.

"I think I'm starting to understand." Thinking, she ran her hand through her short hair, only vaguely noticing that it felt a little like passing her hand through a cool mist. She turned on the bench so that she was facing Lina. "I can believe that I can find peace here, but what about love?"

"You already know that answer, Pamela. Do you still love Apollo?"

"Of course," she said without hesitation.

Lina smiled. "That's because love is one of the few things we can actually take with us."

"But what about…" Pamela lifted her semitransparent hand again. "I'm not like I was before."

"No, you're not the same, but your spirit does have form and feelings. The rest is up to you and Apollo."

"Won't it be like loving a ghost for him?" Pamela said despondently.

Lina took her hand again. "I like to think of it more as loving the essence of a person."

"I'm dead." This time when she said it, her heart didn't shake, and she didn't feel like she needed to wake up from a nightmare. Random thoughts flitted through her mind—she worried about her brother and her parents and Vernelle—but her worry had a distant, otherworldly sense to it, as if she were remembering a sweet, reoccurring dream. It wasn't that she had forgotten them or stopped loving them. It was just that she already felt detached from the life she had known. She wondered if it was some kind of built-in defense mechanism of the soul, to keep her spirit from pining away for eternity for those left behind. Eternity… it was still incomprehensible.