seph atwood /4 wip

Demi told me I was hatched from a rosebud–

Mother just couldn't stay. I don't remember her very much, but Demi tells me stories often. She says that she was soft, gentle, like a sigh on a field of tall grass and always holding on loose. 

We don't look the same, I asked Demi about that once. Her skin is darker than mine, her hair thick, like wool where mine is thin. I stand beside her and stare into the glass siding of the greenhouse. Our reflections are distorted but I can tell that we are not the same.

Our thumbs, she says. She holds her hand flat over mine and lines our fingers up. Our nails are both small, our fingers slim and when I curl mine into a fist, she curls her fingers over mine. She tells me not to get angry, things could be a lot worse than they are.

I remember the hungry days too though, I'm just a year younger and I remember more than she thinks I do. Sometimes that pisses me off, the way that she babies me. I know that Demi just worries, she doesn't want to lose me, but her setting me a curfew last month just made me angrier. Still I smiled at her, sweet on her always, and told her thank-you. I know that she's just looking out for me.

–she was afraid to tell me that I came from a thorn.

There's an anger in me, this brewing thing that couldn't have come from mom. Demi says she never met dad but she always has this distant look in her eyes when she lies about that. I'm getting tired of all her little white lies, created to protect me but just serving to keep me in my place.

We spend all our days in the greenhouse, protected by four walls. I don't see the sea anymore, I just smell her salt wafting over the brick walls. Anything we could want to learn is in the library and if we are hungry we eat, there's no fear anymore of going without. Trainers come in the afternoon and teach Demi and I how to fight for Po.

Each day grows longer, the sun more golden and I sit against the wall, eyes shut, letting the gold paint my skin until I am raw. Freedom is so close but so far. I could leave at any time but Demi would never forgive me so I don't dare.

And I love the flowers, I love the garden. When I cup the head of a dahlia in my hands, I remember my mother's chin resting on my shoulder, so proud of me.

I don't tell Demi that I've forgotten the colour of her eyes and the way her smile always looked like it held a secret. Sometimes I just feel like I'm praying at the altar of a dead goddess when Demi and I light the candles on her birthday and sit in the greenhouse telling stories.

My mother is gone and we are still here, remaining, living a half life.

I turn seventeen and I spend the afternoon sweeping the stone patio on the back lawn. That's when I see him striding across the grass, the sun caught behind his head like a halo.

Hades, Po greets him.

I grip the pole of the broom too tight and a splinter wedges itself into my palm. Blood beads ruby on my skin so I lift my hand to my mouth to stop the bleeding.

And the sun is turned towards me, gaze so hot that it's cold.

"Are you alright," asks Hades.

And I am again.