For years I've been obsessed with the tale of Hades and Persephone and I have read a lot of books surrounding them. Meg Cabot's Abandon series is really good as is The Goddess Test series by Aimee Carter. This prompt was all about awkward family reunions. I was originally going to have Persephone have an affair with Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead and have their child quip about her mother and her attraction to gods of the dead but changed my mind. I wanted to use a different god and I went with Thoth, who I think suits me. He is the Egyptian god of wisdom. Andela is Greek for God's messenger. Enjoy!
"Mom," I whine, pushing away the hands that were trying to fix my halo of curls around my head. "Stop fussing."
"I'm not fussing," my mother says in her posh and queenly voice. "I just want you to look presentable for once."
I roll my eyes and scoff. She just wants to make sure Dad doesn't think she and my step-dad don't take care of me. I run my fingers through my glossy black curls to bring them back to their usual mess, eliciting a grumble of disapproval from my mother. Ignoring her, I sway with the movement of the river, letting it settle the nerves I feel rising in my stomach. Every time I go to visit my father, my mother sets me on edge.
"You don't need to come with me you know," I say to her, an edge to my voice.
Her eyes, brown as newly turned soil, slide to Charon who pointedly ignores the conversation. He's good at that, seeing as the souls of the dead prattle away at him non-stop.
"You need a proper escort to your father's," she says simply.
"For the Zeus's sake, Mother, you just want Dad to see how much you don't miss him," I snap. "You just want to rub it in."
My mother glares and I can see hellfire spark hotly in her eyes. Hmm. My adoptive father has really rubbed off on her. You would think he would have rubbed off on her sooner considering how many millennia she's been married to him. Then again, she spends six months out of the year roaming the earth while I'm sometimes left to my own devices in the Underworld.
"Old man teach you some new tricks?" I ask and grin in delight when I hear a deep, rumbling laughter echo over across the River Styx. Even Charon seems to smile briefly, just a flash of white in the darkness of his robes.
My mother huffs in frustration.
"Don't encourage her insolence, Hades," Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, says to the air.
"Leave her be, dear," Hades says, voice coming from all directions. "Have fun with your father, Andela."
"It's going to be hot," I complain.
"The Underworld can get hot," Hades reasons.
"Not as hot as Egypt," I mumble as Charon's boat scrapes against the pebbles at the edge of the river.
I feel the ghost of Hades's lips brush the top of my head.
"Don't cause too much trouble," he says as a goodbye.
My mother and I follow a stone path upwards until we see rays of sun shining and long blades of grass waving lazily in an arid wind. I stomp the last few steps, dragging my bags with me, thankful I had lathered sunscreen all over my perpetually tanned skin before leaving the Underworld. For a girl who spends 90 percent of her time in the Underworld, my skin was ridiculously dark. I wasn't about to let it get any darker. Beyond the grassy shore, I could see a grand boat floating on the sparkling Nile.
Ancient gods were obsessed with boats, I decided, jamming a pair of sunglasses on my nose to protect from the sun's glare.
"Hello, Persephone," comes a soft, whispery voice on the wind.
My mother jumps, her cheeks turning red at my father's voice. She turns and my father, Thoth, one of Ra's right hand men and god of wisdom and scribes, is standing several feet away. As always, my father addresses her, ignoring me completely.
"Thoth!" she exclaimed, her accented voice higher than normal. "You're looking well."
"As well as can be expected considering you're here, Persephone," comes a husky voice from behind me and I turn to see Ma'at, goddess of law, order, truth and justice, ambling through the grass to reach us. "Hello, Andela darling.
Ma'at gives me a brief smile before turning a stony gaze to my mother. She and my mother hate each other. Even though Ma'at and my father are married (I think), she knows he pines for my mother whenever he sees her.
"Ma'at," my mother says, voice tight and bristling at my aunt's tone.
My mother may be Queen of the Underworld but here in Egypt, she's nothing.
My mother and birth father met one of the times she was roaming the earth, free of the Underworld and Hades. She spent the summer traipsing Egypt and had a whirlwind romance with Thoth, much to the horror and surprise of Ra and the rest of the Egyptian and Greek gods. And especially my grandmother, Demeter. She was so pissed, places around the world recorded the hottest temperatures on record.
When she returned to the Underworld and Hades, she found out she was pregnant. My adoptive father was surprisingly calm about the whole thing apparently, accepting my mother's pregnancy and of me. At least that's what Charon told me. And he loved me. He didn't seem to care that I wasn't actually his. He treated me like I was a true princess of the Underworld regardless and let me do whatever I wished, much to my mother's dismay. But this summer, he was forcing me to spend months with my real father.
And it wasn't like I didn't love Thoth or Ma'at or Seshat. My Egyptian side of the family were all wonderful but very... boring. It was all work and no play which is very different from the other side of the family. Plus, my father's home was light and airy and hot. I liked the darkness and dampness of the Underworld. Anubis didn't like my hanging around all the time so I was often homesick. This would be the first time I would spend more than two weeks with my father.
Breaking her gaze from Ma'at, my mother turns back to Thoth, who finally acknowledges me with a brief nod.
"Hello to you too, Dad," I mutter darkly under my breath.
He frowns and goes to say something to me but my mother interrupts.
"Are you sure it's okay Andela stays here for all this time?" she asks as if I were a young child.
"Hades must be sick of playing babysitter constantly while you go on your walkabouts," Ma'at says with a sickly sweet smile. "Andela will be fine."
My mouth turns down at Ma'at's statement. Hades may not be my real father but he and I were as close as could be. Thoth barely knew anything about me, nor did he ever make the effort. Every time I was in Egypt, he was always too busy with Ra to pay me any mind.
Before my mother could respond, rustling in the grass along the riverbank breaks through the tenuous silence.
"Welcome back, Andela!" cries a blurred shape before it hurtles into me.
I fall back into the grass with a screech, Bast, the cat goddess, sitting on top of me.
"Gods on Olympus, get off of her, Bast," my mother snaps, reaching out a hand to push the smaller woman away and help me up.
Bast hisses and swipes viciously at my mother's hand with sharp fingernails. They scrape against my mother's skin and a line of red swells up. My mother's lips flatten into a straight line.
"You know you shouldn't be here, Persephone," Bast spits with hatred, pushing herself off of me and pulling me to my feet.
"I'm just here to make sure Andela got here safely," my mother says, wiping her bleeding hand on her dark skirt.
"You just want to rub yourself in Thoth's face!" Bast snaps, fisting her hands, now devoid of claws, on her hips.
My mother turns away from Bast, choosing to ignore her rather than engage her anger. The nerves the settled before are back with a vengeance and I can feel my insides twisting uncomfortably.
"Well, clearly I'm not wanted here," my mother quips, turning to me. She grabs me by my shoulders and quickly kisses my cheeks. "I love you, Andela. Remember to call me every once in awhile so I know you're alright."
Before I can respond, she disappears back the way we came and I'm left standing in awkward silence with my father, his wife and Bast, who I know I'm related to but not in what way. This was going to be the longest three months of my life.
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