Demeter advanced upon her. “If you think yourself so wise, let’s see how you do for once without my protection! Then you’ll know. Then you’ll know how hard I toil, just to keep you safe! And for what?”

Persephone shrank back until she’d reached the edge of the bed, one arm raised to shield herself against her mother’s rage. “Please, Mother. I love you. Forgive me. Forgive me!”

Demeter took Persephone’s face between her hands, her nails digging into the girl’s scalp. She bent down until her lips were almost touching Persephone’s forehead. “From now until harvest, you are no longer my daughter,” she said, her voice flat and even. She dropped her hands as if she were discarding something loathsome and wiped her palms on her chiton before turning her back on Persephone. A slight breeze picked up the hem of her chiton, the whisper of fabric almost eclipsing her next words.

“Get out.”

Persephone had not the faintest idea of what she would need to survive for even a day on her own, but there was no time to prepare. She grabbed a himation and a spare chiton from the pile of discarded clothes. She backed away toward the door, expecting her mother to turn around, to say all was forgotten, but Demeter merely stood there as if she had been struck by Medusa.

Persephone flew down the stairs, taking them two at a time in her haste to get away, her meager belongings in hand. She left out the back door and ran, with no idea where she was running to, only knowing that she had to get away; away from the rage and the silence and the weight of her guilt.

3

THE FLOWER

Demeter’s words rang in her ears, a constant refrain drowning out all other thought.

You are no longer my daughter.

Persephone ran until she could no longer see her mother’s house in the distance. By then, the long summer day was beginning to end, Helios washing the sky in hues of rose and amber.

She bent over, hands on her knees, gasping for air. She’d rolled her spare chiton inside her himation and tied it into a parcel; the bundle dropped from her shoulder as she caught her breath.

Where could she go? Her father would not turn her away, but she had no desire to incur Hera’s wrath. She could ask Hephaestus, but he had made it clear that he would not stand against Demeter’s wishes.

There were the nymphs of the forests and rivers, her friends... but they belonged to her mother’s lands, and Persephone had no intention of trespassing when she was clearly unwanted.