Five Days Locked Away
Kore.
A scream tore me out of sleep.
It came from the flower field.
My heart dropped straight through my chest.
Caught.
I ran barefoot, no shoes, mind racing the whole way over what I might have left behind. The box under the bed. The seed trays under the brush. All that remained were those flowers, and those were going to show by morning anyway.
When I reached the field, a young nymph sat crumpled on the ground, shaking. In front of her lay yesterday’s flowers, just as they had been—necks broken, left overnight because no one had dared clear them away.
Only then did my breath ease. The scream hadn’t been for me.
I lifted the nymph into my arms and stroked her back. It’s all right. There’s nothing left to be afraid of.
She stopped crying almost at once against my chest.
Mother came running soon after.
She stopped dead in front of the scene. Her hand reached toward the dead flowers and pulled back just short of touching them. This was the woman who used to turn over wilted beds with her bare hands, who clicked her tongue and yanked out worm-eaten stalks. She couldn’t bring herself to touch her own field.
“Kore. You were here yesterday. Did you see anything? Anything at all. Even a shadow passing by.”
“...I didn’t see anything. I was just talking with Hermes. When I came to myself, it was already like this.”
I hadn’t known a lie could leave my mouth so smoothly. My voice didn’t shake. My eyes didn’t slide away.
Mother pulled me into her arms. My poor baby, you must have been so scared, she murmured, and the hand stroking my back was trembling. She smelled of wheat. When I was little, that scent alone had been enough to make everything all right.
I wasn’t entirely free of guilt. Still—I hadn’t done it on purpose. I’d only learned that power that day myself. The fault sits with the one who knows and does it anyway; I hadn’t known, so this was an accident. An accident.
Looking at those flowers over her shoulder, I finished arranging it that way in my head. Once the arrangement was done, my heart felt a little lighter.
Is a person allowed to be this simple? But I’m a god, so it’s fine.
From that day on, the fields changed.
Nymphs who had held hoes now held spears. They didn’t know how, so they gripped them like brooms, but their eyes were fierce. They set watch rotations among themselves and even made up passwords. Girls who would once have run to me first to brag now stood there claiming they were protecting me.
I couldn’t leave the fields. Even the flower beds required two nymphs at my side. When I went to wash, the two of them followed me right to the door.
This was a bit much, wasn’t it?
At night Mother slept in my room, holding my hand tight.
I’m an adult now, you know. It’s uncomfortable.
Today made five days of being locked in. Five days since I last saw Mister.
I only managed to slip out to the seed trays on the third day.
A brief gap between shifts. Round one went clean. I dragged dry brush over them for cover. I couldn’t water them—wet soil would leave tracks. I’m sorry. Hold on a little longer. If you get found too, it’s really all over.
Hermes hasn’t shown his face since that day. He seems to be circling wide of our fields. Coward. Still, it looks like he’s kept his mouth shut. If he’d talked, this uproar wouldn’t have stopped at this level.
And it is still coming and going from that palace, no doubt.
Daring to set its own flowers in the study my flowers guard. Every day I’m tied down here is pure opportunity for it.
I can picture a few of the moves it must be making by now. Because if it were me, that’s what I’d do.
Mister came on the fifth day.
Word of his arrival reached us in the morning, so Mother combed my hair and straightened my collar twice. While she brushed, I finished thinking.
Adults are gentle with a frightened child. And right now I am the child the whole world knows has lived through something terrifying. You couldn’t manufacture a chance like this if you tried.
Tremble. Just a little. Enough to show.
When the carriage sounded, I sat carefully by the window. Watching the black clothes step down from the black carriage, my heart beat twice.
Once for joy. Once for fear.
Mister went to the flower field with Mother. She led the way, pouring out words, and he matched her pace and nodded. For the first time in days, her back straightened a little.
Then Mister knelt in front of those flowers.
He laid his palm on the soil and stayed like that for a long time. Long enough for a cup of tea to go cold.
It should have been a moment for fear, but a strange feeling came first. I had never seen Mister look at anything that long. And that anything was mine.
The King of the Dead was reading a place I had made. How many things in the world have ever held that gaze for so long?
He rose and swept one hand over the dead flowers. Darkness settled and lifted, and only bare earth remained. The spot no one else had been able to clear, he cleared with a single hand.
I saw him coming. The two nymphs at the door stepped aside.
“Kore.”
Instead of answering, I slowly lifted my head. The face of someone who hadn’t slept well for days was real, so half the work was already done.
“...You came.”
I let the end of my voice tremble, just a little. Not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough for Mister to catch.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“My body is fine.”
My body. Leaving the rest empty is always best. His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Tell me what you remember from that day.”
“...I don’t know. I was just talking with Hermes. When I came to myself, they were all...”
I let the sentence trail off and clenched my hands on my knees.
“Hermes was there?”
“He left first. Said the message was urgent. So I was alone...”
Alone. At that word I saw his shoulders stiffen a fraction. Good. No—I shouldn’t be glad. I was glad.
“You must have been terrified.”
“...I’m so scared. Even now.”
That wasn’t acting. The fear was real. Only what I feared was different. That was why the acting came easy. At least half of it was true.
“What if it comes again? This time it was flowers, but next time...”
I didn’t finish. Swallowing the end would lodge deeper in his chest than saying it out loud.
Up to here, everything had gone to plan.
I had the next part set too. If you’re afraid of death, where do you go?
The one place death can’t even approach. There’s only one such place in the world. Beside Mister. I only needed those words to come out of his mouth.
I lowered my eyes and waited.
He bent one knee. Our eyes met at the same height.
“It’s all right. Whatever it was, I’ll make sure it never comes near you again.”
Here it comes. Here it is. Just say the rest. Say come with me.
“At night I’ll post two of my retainers outside the fields. They’re the kind you don’t notice, so don’t worry about them. Whatever tries to cross, they’ll know first.”
“...What?”
Wait. He’s sending retainers? And leaving me here?
“Nymphs by day, them by night, and your mother at your side. Nothing gets through that.”
No, that isn’t the point.
If death is the cause, then beside the King of the Dead is the safest place of all.
It’s the easiest answer in the world. Why is that the only answer that won’t come out?
I tried one last time.
“...What about the Underworld? Death can’t just walk in there, can it?”
“Not ‘just’—it can’t move at all. Not without my leave.”
“Then that would be the safest—”
“That’s no place for a living child.”
It was the first time he had ever cut me off.
“It’s cold and dark and there’s nothing to see. Why learn ahead of time about a place you’ll only come to after you die? You stay here in the flower fields. I’ll handle the guarding.”
Just like that, the plan collapsed. In two questions.
I’d raised the seed trays for this. Where else was I going to find a better excuse? What was so wrong with keeping a frightened niece close? Instead he refuses and sends subordinates. Locks me up here.
Irritation surged hard. It almost reached my face.
“...Yes.”
Keeping the voice of a scared child was the hardest work of the day.
“If it gets stifling, write me a letter. The messenger’s been earning his keep poorly lately—might as well give him something to do.”
A letter.
...Fine. Even that.
“I will. I’ll write often.”
“Do that.”
He stood. This time I didn’t even think of catching his sleeve. My head was too busy.
I watched the carriage dwindle from the window. Mother kept bowing until it was out of sight.
That night, after Mother fell asleep, I lowered the lamp and sat.
I went back over the day from the start. The acting had been good.
The questions hadn’t been bad either. The problem was Mister. I’d forgotten he was the kind of man who sets aside the easiest answer in the world and picks the most conscientious one instead.
Three hundred years of watching him, and I still don’t know him all the way through.
...That’s fine too, in its way.
The fields locked down tighter than before. Now even Underworld retainers kept the outer watch at night. The way out had narrowed—but a way in had opened.
Letters.
I spread the paper and sat for a long time.
The problem was that I wanted to write too much. Why did you do that today. That wasn’t the answer. Do you not want to take me with you. All of them things I couldn’t put down.
I wrote carefully, stroke by stroke.
Mister.
I’m doing well. The flower fields are safe now. It’s all thanks to you.
I miss you.
Three lines of lies in a row. I wasn’t doing well, what had become “safe” was everyone thrashing around uselessly, and as for thanks—my plan was the only thing that had been ruined.
In the fourth line I put one true thing.
I miss you.
Once the envelope was sealed, one task remained.
First thing tomorrow morning, I would call Hermes. The coward who’d spent these last days circling wide of our fields finally had a job.