His Persephone: Prologue

“Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be;
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,—Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, “My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

As a child, Eliza had been enamored by books. The tale could come from the mind of a pathetic writer or from the mind of a brilliant writer, it hadn’t mattered. She could get caught up in the tale spun about knights and dragons or tales of mad scientists, her mind had craved the knowledge that books could provide her with.

However in all the books that Eliza had read, she never had believed the story to show so much similarity to her life would be a myth left behind by the Ancient Greeks.

Eliza had read books from the lap of her father since she’d been tiny, and he had personally taught her how to read. Unlike her elder sister, Salome, who had grown up under the instruction of their mother, the nanny, or even the servants that were under the employ of their parents, she’d grown up learning from their father.

Though Eliza should have grown up as most little girls did, her father had taken it upon himself to teach her things he thought were more important to know. Where Salome had been taught to be graceful and docile, Eliza had learnt to be intelligent and brash. Her education had consisted of thousands of books on every topic imaginable, and a firsthand, up-and-personal witness account of how her father behaved and acted.

Due to her strong love of literature, whenever she received gifts hers were always the best. Her father often traveled because of his work, she’d been unaware of what he did until she was twelve years old and finally put enough pieces together to figure it out for herself. Her father organized ships to deal in trading, his cargo varied and was never important, but he was constantly away making sure things ran properly and business blossomed.

Whenever he returned home to the three ladies he left behind, he always came bearing gifts. For Eliza’s mother, he would usually present her with a beautiful dress of some kind, and an expensive piece of jewelry. For days on end her mother would brag to the other women of how spoiled and pampered she was. For Salome, he gave her porcelain dolls and paint sets and lacy dresses. She would grab them with greedy hands, and horde them away only for herself to use.

Eliza always was presented with books. Whatever he saw that looked like it was enough to gain her interest, he would buy it without question. This had been how she’d acquired books about Greek Mythology. She’d loved them, even if her mother had been appalled by what type of material the stories had written into them. A few times her books had nearly been swiped, had it not been for her father.

Greek Mythology tended to have themes of incest, abduction, war or rape written into them. Her mother had spent many hours trying to convince her father that if he was going to insist on bringing books back for her, than he should bring appropriate stories for her. She’d deemed the Greek legends improper and filthy to her young mind. Her father had argued that they were tiny blips in the story that ultimately portrayed a larger, much different, picture.

Her favourite Greek stories had been the tales of Perseus, Jason, and Hercules. She’d always enjoyed reading the stories of people who could have been just like her, but were special. Of all her battered books, they had been her most reread stories, though she never neglected her collection or the new books that were presented to her.

Eliza had assumed her life would turn out in a similar state as her sister’s. Salome had a few suitors back when she’d been Eliza’s age, and eventually their father had allowed one of the men to court Salome, and eventually marry her.

To Salome, it was a dream come true, being able to go off and live her own life in a luxurious household as some handsome man’s wife.

To Eliza, it sounded like a special kind of Hell.

She’d had suitors before, men of all ages and ethnicities come to have the chance to court her. Some she’d recognized as familiar faces, and others had just been strangers to her. Eliza had decided that no one was going to take away her ability to choose her own spouse, if she ever decided she wanted one, and every man that her father attempted to introduce her to ended up being turned away quickly.

Slowly but surely, suitors had stopped arriving. Eliza might have a beautiful face and desirable body, combated with an intelligent mind, but eventually there came a time when men decided there would be a woman that required less work, and it was far easier than trying to woo her. She hadn’t minded.

Until him.

Her life now seemed to reflect upon one of the Greek myths she’d read only a handful of times.

The Abduction of Persephone.

The story tells that Hades, the God of the Underworld, had fallen in love with the beautiful Persephone, who was the daughter of Zeus, God of the Sky, and Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest. One day, when Persephone had been gathering flowers, the earth suddenly split, and Hades took her below into his realm.

It goes on to tell the while Persephone was held beneath the earth, two things happened. Demeter, distraught at being unable to find her daughter, refused to let the earth produce anything, casting everything into a bitter winter that for the most part, was unbearable for the mortals. Below in the realm of Hades, the God of the Underworld feeds her seeds from a pomegranate.

Due to the fact she’s now tasted the fruit of the dead, Persephone is bound to the Underworld, and ultimately, bound to Hades.

Eventually, when the pleas of the mortals become too much, Zeus has a deal made between Hades and Demeter. He forces Hades to return Persephone to Demeter, and for six months of the year she will remain there with her and the living. However after the six months is up, Persephone must return down below to the Underworld and the dead to be with Hades.

In the end it is a story about the seasons, explained by the Greeks. The spring and summer months are caused by Persephone’s return to the world of the living, and Demeter allows the earth to thrive. The fall and winter months are brought on by Persephone’s return to the Underworld and Hades, in which Demeter refuses to let things grow.

As wild and unreal as the story appears to Eliza, she cannot help but chalk up similarities between her and Persephone. In principle, she is being abducted as Persephone was in the story, taken by a man who decided that he desired her for his wife.

She was hardly Persephone, but the man standing across from her at the alter could very well be Hades incarnate. Williem DuBois, a handsome and wealthy young man who’d made his fortune all on his own without the help of anyone, if you discount the fact all his money can come from profiting off the misfortune of other people. He was a glorified loan shark, with a cold glint in his eyes and cruel smile.

Eliza supposed as men went, she could have gotten much worse. When she’d had suitors willing to court her, she’d been horrified when one of her suitors had arrived and appeared to be a staggering fifty-two. She’d flat out refused to even speak with the man who was twenty years her senior. Williem was twenty-seven, and looks quite handsome, with chestnut dark hair and intense hazel eyes, and pale skin.

What he saw in her, she didn’t understand. She’d never thought she was cut out to be someone’s wife, honestly. From what she had gleamed, men seemed to like pretty women who were docile and submissive to them. Women who they could keep at home and raise a family with, but still be able to go out and pick up a mistress for some fun. She was hardly docile and submissive.

“Do you, Elizabeth Eleanor Martin, take this man, Williem, to be your lawfully wedded husband, in the eyes of these people and in the eyes of God?” The priest asked, voice gravelly, as if this were a funeral.

“I do” she responded, voice flat and cold. She hadn’t had much a choice in the matter of this marriage. Her parents had struck up a deal with Williem DuBois, and after two extensions, he’d come and declared no longer could he push back their due date, and he required something in compensation.

While her parents certainly hadn’t seen what he wanted from them coming, she felt as if she’d been preparing for something like his demand to arise. The few times he’d come to their home to talk business, he had seemed very interested in her. Not just because she was a pretty face, but he seemed to be impressed by her intelligence and wit.

“Do you, Williem Henry DuBois, take this woman, Elizabeth, to be your lawfully wedded wife, in the eyes of these people and in the eyes of God?” The priest asked. Eliza could have sworn that the priest gave flickered his eyes her way, and given her a pitying look. Her jaw tightened slightly, and she breathed silently out her nose.

“I do” he said, sounding so calm and casual about the wedding vow. He sounded as if he were talking casually with someone about making a deal, hardly the type of tone a man would take up at his own wedding. Salome’s husband, Julian, had had a small smile on his face when he’d said his vow. Williem’s eyes were simply watching her, tracing over every feature and taking her in like some specimen.

“Then you are wed” the priest said, and yes, that was defiantly a look of pity aimed for her. “You may now kiss the bride” he added, tone sounding genuinely sorry for her. She noticed the narrow-eyed look that Williem gave the priest, only for a moment, before he turned back to her.

She wanted to stomp her foot like a child, but even she was too mature for that sort of behavior. Begrudgingly she leaned forwards slightly, and Williem did the same. The kiss was surprisingly chaste, and she suspected perhaps to a passerby who didn’t give them more than two seconds, it would look sweet. She had at least expected him to demand an open mouth kiss. Apparently not.

Eliza pulled away from him, and swallowed nervously. She’d sealed the deal now, though there were hardly some silly seeds to trap her. For her, it had been as simple as a deal that left her a wife or her parents as beggars, and a wedding kiss before a priest and her parents.