Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“What if I wish to be reborn?” I dare to ask in a whisper.
My mother stills. I listen to the sounds of the garden around us. It is peaceful at night, like all of the parts of Olympus that rest. There are no celebrations to pour sounds and music into the garden. It is just us and the plants and the sky above in the late night.
“Why would you ever wish such a thing?” my mother asks eventually, her words quickly spoken as if rushed. “You are immortal. You are a goddess.”
“Maybe I am not.” My voice is tight and the words choked. It feels sinful to speak the words out loud, but there is no choice now. I cannot hold this burden by myself, and I cannot leave it to Beatrice to face it alone. I need my mother to know so that she can be prepared for what is to come. “Maybe I am fated to become a forest nymph.”
My mother rubs my shoulder and lets out a breath, steadying herself. “Persephone, you will not become a nymph and live in the forest. You will stay here. With me.” Her voice is strong and warm, and I want to believe her so badly. I want her to be right. “You should not worry. Worrying is for the weak,” she warns, a terse note coming into her voice. “Fate tells us the fears are not for us and to let them be, as I have taught you. As within, so without. So mote it be.”
“Then I am weak, Mother.” Tears sting my eyes, and I brush them away. My mother pulls me to her side and puts her arm around my shoulders. “I am weak, because I cannot let this fear pass me by.”
My mother’s hazel eyes shine with unshed tears as her grip on my shoulders becomes desperate. “And why not?” she asks. “Why not simply let the worry go, it is not for you. You are for the heavens and there is nothing for you to fear. I promise you that my child. If only you believe me, you will never leave my side. I promise you.”
“Because it is already here… the lore.” I lean against her and tell my mother about my faltering powers and how I cannot bring the flowers back to life and I cannot make things grow the way I should be able to. I tell her about how something is missing in me. Something has gone wrong, and I do not belong on Olympus. The Fates have told me so. I tell her I do not know how to stay.
She listens without judgment although her eyes are wide with the newly found burden, rubbing her hand up and down my arm and looking out at the small lights in the garden. They look like stars, or fireflies. Even in the dark, the garden appears perfect, like the rest of Olympus. Even in the dark, I feel I do not belong here. When I turn to look at my mother in the moonlight, there is sadness in her eyes, but still, she does not judge me.
I take another breath, all of the words spilled out of me at her feet. “If mortals in Elysium, and all that is heaven, can choose rebirth, why can we not so I may have another chance?”
My mother frowns, a crease appearing in her forehead. She turns, unwraps my hair, and wraps it again, the motion an old habit that will hopefully soothe us both. “I cannot comprehend why mortals choose rebirth. What boredom there must be to leave all that is luxury.”
“Perhaps it’s about a second chance,” I suggest. “About being able to do it all over, but with more of what you’re after.”
If I were reborn, I would never take my powers for granted. I would practice constantly to keep them at my fingertips. I would learn what they meant earlier, before I started to lose them. I would do everything I could to stay in Olympus.
My mother is silent for a little while. She rises from the bench and walks over to where a patch of flowers grows, picks several, and brings them back to weave them into my hair. This was my favorite part as a child. It made me feel like I was being crowned as a goddess, though I already knew I was one. It made me feel like a queen from one of the old stories.
“I’ve never heard you speak this way.” My mother finishes patting the flowers into place and turns my head this way and that, looking over her work. She releases my face and waves her hand, replenishing the garden with mature sunflowers. It is nothing to her. The stems thicken and grow beneath her fingertips. That is how great her power is, and I could not bring one flower back from the dead. She takes both my hands in hers. “You do not need second chances, my love. For what has happened was meant to happen, and what will be already is.”