#bdrppersephone

PERSEPHONE: In one corner of town, a boy stood and peeled back the layers of the world as one would peel an orange, with just the sound of his voice. The veil curled back to reveal its spiderwebbed pathways, invisible to the eye. Across the pathway, through the tunnels, over the rivers and through the wood, the name of one spirit echoed.

Persephone Acheron. Persephone Acheron. Persephone Acheron.

The voice lit a candle. And now the spirit knew the way.

When Persephone Acheron was possessed by a ghost for the very first time, that same voice called out to her. She remembered how hard it had been to get back, just 7 years old, shivering alone in a corner of her body that was too small for her. It was a place where she did not know her name, did not remember a boy called Hades, or the colour of her mother’s eyes, or that she liked to spread honey and chocolate over toast. Only the sound of her brother’s voice (who she did not remember as her brother) stirred her from her own, self-inflicted banishment. It reached through the other spirit and plucked her, like a lucky clover, from where she could have been lost forever.

Traveling through the rings, jumping dimensions, it was an easier task if only because she did not have a body to begin with.

But she hit a wall. Or the idea of a wall, for she was an idea herself, a memory, a dream, a wish, a flicker in her brother’s heart. The wall blocked her on all sides. The wall had hands. It shoved her back.

My body now, sneered the wall, and Persephone went cascading through space with nowhere to land. Fear filled her gentle aura for she had once known of ghosts who had gotten lost here in the place between worlds. They wandered, a dying ember, breaking apart into little pieces, and then littler pieces of those little pieces. She began to break apart too.

But Hades was not the only one who was keeping Seph in his thoughts that night. The paths expanded, limitless, and one spoke her name. It was a passing thought, but it was enough. Persephone closed her eyes (or her idea of her eyes) and let herself be carried, like a message in a bottle.

When she opened her eyes, they were bright green and she was alive again. Persephone twitched her velvet nose. She could smell tea.

The clock read 9:17. It ticked like a metronome, the loudest thing in this old, familiar house. Belle Beauton was sat curled on the couch, her legs tucked underneath her, her eyes flying over the page of a book. Was she reading or was she pretending to read, lost in other thoughts-- Persephone wondered this as she pad into the room in the body of her beloved Vincent and then hopped onto the arm of the couch. She did not have time to ask. Her ties here were tenable, the flame soon to be snuffed.  

So she spoke, her eyes wide and pupils as dark and full as the void itself. “Belle-- Belle, it’s me-- Persephone.”

BELLE: Yes, Belle was thinking about Persephone. Well, she was thinking about Hades—and his plan to bring her back as she sat, alone, in their home. The house was empty, of people besides herself—of ghosts. Or, so she thought. It was just her and this sense of foreboding which hung over the house like a storm cloud. She couldn’t shake it, no matter how hard she tried to tell herself that Hades would be careful, that Howl knew what he was doing.

Belle knew the truth. She knew that Hades was not thinking clearly. He was desperate. She didn’t blame him, but it made her heart tight in her chest. It made her worry—about Hades, but also, about if she made the right decision, not being with him through this process, not standing by him. Maybe along the way she could change his mind, somewhere, somehow—find some little crack that would let her slip in. But, he wasn’t having it. She knew that nothing she said would stop him and she couldn’t—she just couldn’t support what he was doing. She believed, she really did, that there was no way to bring Persephone back.

Her mind wandered, though she tried to read, tried to focus on what she was doing. This was what happened every time Hades left the house these days. She’d watch him go, his features always set in stone and she worried until he came back, his shoulders a little slumped. In the interim she tried to read but she could never focus, though, she was too in her head to hear the tinkle of Vincent’s little bell as she jumped up onto the couch.

It wasn’t until she heard a voice—a voice she was intimately familiar with, one that she had forgotten in the way you forget when you haven’t heard something in a long, long time. She jumped slightly, her book slamming closed. Turning her head, Belle came almost nose to nose with Vincent who was staring at her intently. She felt her heartbeat race, her brows furrowing, mouth opening and closing.

“Per—Perseph—what—how—what?” she said breathlessly and then sat up a little more, feeling tears catch in her throat. “Is it really you?”

PERSEPHONE: “Yes!” Persephone meowed, and she hopped down into Belle’s lap. She did not have time to waste, for the proverbial clock was ticking, the wax on her candle drip-drip-dripping. Even the journey to the couch in Vincent’s body made Seph’s soul grow tired, like it was full of rocks, and she was about to sink.

She held on though. She had once been the thing to hold on to, the anchor upon which souls perched. She knew how to keep balance and keep Vincent calm while she came to do what she needed to do.

She had found Belle, she knew, for a reason. Being dead had perks, you see. Where she drifted in the Wood, she drifted among the souls of everyone who had come before her and everyone who would come after. Everyone whispered their stories, as though they were talking in their sleep, murmuring and murmuring in hopes of someone hearing them, in hopes someone might try to call their name. So now Seph knew the stories of those souls as they knew her story; it was their stories that grew the trees high and crowded, that kept the wood ever expanding.

She came with answers. Seph could only explain a little though, that was the rules. The more stories she revealed, the higher the trees would grow, and their roots would pull her right back.

(What? You think ghosts wanted to be vague and unhelpful? No, it was the tether to the Underworld that determined what could be said).

“Hades summoned me. Or-- well, he tried, he-- Cassandra won’t let me in. It doesn’t matter anyway, I need to talk to you, Belle,” she meowed. “I only have so long. Hades and you-- everyone-- they’re in grave danger. This story began long ago, before we ever came to Swynlake, before Hades was the ambassador--”

She shook her head, because the words were already getting tangled. She needed to find a way to warn her. She needed to find a way.

Persephone blinked her eyes open again, round as moons. “Your fate is entwined with Urania Hesiod. Don’t trust her. Don’t let my brother be alone with her! Please, Belle! It will all fall down!”

BELLE: The book fell to the floor as Vincent—Persephone?—jumped into her lap. She startled a bit and sat up some, her brows pulled down and together in utter confusion.

As far as she was aware, this shouldn’t be possible. From everything she had ever read—bringing someone back from the dead was impossible, or very, very dark magic. The kind she hoped Hades wasn’t capable of. She hated that she was suspicious because she wanted more than anything to speak with Persephone then. This just felt like a cruel kind of joke, Persephone’s voice coming out in a purr, sounding just enough like her. It was like how Belle had sounded as the little sparrow perched on the inn balcony over a year ago (had it really been that long?)

She wanted to believe so badly. And—as the rest of Persephone’s words came out in a long, rushed string—she did believe. Because why would someone warn her of something terrible that was going to happen if they wanted that terrible thing to happen? Belle’s heart sank, her stomach twisted. This was everything she’d been afraid of. And the only question in her mind then, screaming louder than all the others—

“Hades? Is he all right?” But, as soon as that question was out, several more came tumbling from her lips. “What danger? What’s going to fall?  Who is Urania Hesiod? Is she the danger? What does she want with Hades? W-with me? How—how do I know any of this is even true?”

Finally, finally, she asked that question she’d been dreading, tears in her eyes. She wanted so badly to believe, she missed Persephone more than anything. Her death had left a hole inside of her, had left a hole inside of Hades—one that wasn’t healing, one that felt like it would never heal, like, instead, it was just getting bigger and bigger.

PERSEPHONE: Persephone wanted to answer every question, but already, the roots curled around her and she knew if she spoke too much, she’d choke. Her whiskers twitched, ears flicking back and forth. She lashed Vincent’s tail too, but none of these things helped her find a way to warn Belle properly. Down every sentence, she found nothing but dead, dead ends. And worse. She shuddered to know the endings of the story (for there were several being written even know as they spoke, the gears shifting, the pieces in place). There were some things that could not be changed. But there were some things that could.

How she wished she did not have to play this game at all. She had not gotten to say goodbye to Belle last time, there on the river bank. She remembered her crying and yelling. Seph remembered her hands reaching for her. She wished this window she crawled through could be a second chance and instead of riddles-- she could tell Belle that she missed her.

Maybe Belle would read to her too, the way that she read to Vincent. How Seph wished for just a moment where they could pretend that they were together again and would not be parted. And they all live happily ever after.

But there was so little time. Aways too little. Persephone wished that she could have had just a little more, before her end.

This was not her end. This was Belle’s-- beginning.

“You just have to believe me,” Sephy said, with tears in her trembling, thin voice. “She’s coming so soon. Please, listen to me though I didn’t listen to you. I’m sorry Belle. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m sorry for everything that’s going to come and, and everything I can’t say-- tell Hades I love him.” The little cat’s body trembled now. Seph was holding on as hard as she could. “And I love you too, Belle. I know you’ll be brave.”

BELLE: Belle wanted to believe her, and the little break in Persephone’s voice, so desperate, crumbled Belle’s resolve. She was never very good at being suspicious anyways. It was how she had let a vampire into their house, it was how she had let Persephone’s death come to fruition in the first place. She was bad—very bad at keeping her suspicion in place.

And she missed Sephy dreadfully, she did. The girl was like her own little sister—if Belle knew what that was like. She would’ve—if her and Persephone had had more time. But, they hadn’t. Almost a year and that was all. But, still, her grief felt larger than herself sometimes, like if she stepped wrong, she’d fall into it and never come back out again. She missed Persephone so much, every day.

So, she brought her hands up to the little cat, whose body was trembling dreadfully, like it had when they’d come home from the snowstorm and Belle had scooped Vincent up and held her in Belle’s sweater, walking around with the cat perched there like a baby. Hades had told her she looked ridiculous, but she refused to let the little thing freeze. She didn’t want Vincent—Persephone—to tremble now. She gathered the cat up in her arms, so she was half-perched on Belle’s chest, her fingers stroking over the head and the soft fur. She hoped Persephone could feel that. She hoped it felt like a hug.

She had started crying, though, she didn’t know why or how. The tears made her eyes sting and Persephone’s words made her lips tremble. Persephone’s words made her afraid. Because she didn’t know what was coming. There was some big, nameless fear, so great that Persephone had found a way to come back from the other side to warn her about it. But, Belle didn’t know what it was, she couldn’t—prepare.

“Don’t—don’t apologize, Sephy,” Belle said, her voice trembling, her fingers rubbed at one of the cat’s ears. “I-I’m sorry there wasn’t more I could do. Hades loves you so much, you know he does. I love you too. W-we will be okay, I-I promise. We’ll—we’ll take care of each other. And we’ll—we’ll miss you every day, we already do. I-I wish you didn’t have to go.”

But, she did. Belle knew that she did. She knew the rules, but her fingers clenched a little harder in the short black fur anyway.

“You’re so loved, Persephone. So loved.” She kissed the little cat on the top of its head and closed her eyes, a few more tears squeezing out.

PERSEPHONE: Belle’s arms wrapped around her, bringing her close enough to her chest that Persephone heard her heartbeat. Seph closed her eyes and sank into that sound. It was erratic, but so, so alive. Belle smelled just like Persephone remembered. Like tea and honey and books. Tea and honey and books.

She had forgotten all these things and would forget them again. You could not carry these things into the next life. That’s what made this one as dear as it was, why ghosts hung on with all their might, why others sought a way to get back. They reached for music, for flowers and chocolate strawberries, for ticker-tape festivals and those summer rainy days, each pellet of rain like a kiss. Oh, and kisses. How Seph wished she could have given and received more kisses, and hugs, and pinches and pokes. She missed the way cool soil felt between the fingers and the taste of a ripe tomatoes.

She held all of these things as Belle held her, like Belle could keep her and these memories together for just a few more seconds. And Persephone was grateful for those seconds. She counted them. She cherished them. She purred against Belle’s chest, like a little instrument.

And then she felt the underworld call her back.

Persephone knew better than to fight and cling and cry. She did not want her last moments to be spent in such a way. So she kept her eyes closed and let Belle’s words be the ship that would carry her home. You are so loved.

“Goodbye Belle,” she whispered. “I’ll see you soon.”