Demeter

This cannot be happening.

I don’t believe it. I refused to believe it. 

That someone could pluck my child like an iris, so casually stealing my child, my child who was protected in the most beautiful and safest place on this earth, that some cursed scoundrel who made flowers wilt with screams and terror and confusion, my child. It couldn’t be. 

It was impossible. I am Demeter. No one, absolutely no one, could harm my child on this earth. No one.

The nymphs who rushed to my temple knelt, sobbing and begging for mercy. Their hair, once braided with vines and cornflowers, was disheveled like thistles. 

White cheeks stained with tears. Small and large palms stretched toward me in supplication. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Words and sentences didn’t even enter my ears but dropped, plop, plop, near my temples.

It couldn’t be possible.

I stood like a statue. Motionless. Even if my feet had turned to roots buried in the earth’s layers, they couldn’t have been more still than I was. I didn’t cry. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t believe the nymphs. It wasn’t even worth doubting.

I am Demeter and I am that child’s mother. That is enough. There’s no need to mention who the child’s father is. When harvesting grain, does anyone ask whose hands sowed the seeds? 

Moreover, I am Demeter. Nothing happens on this earth without my knowledge. Not even the most deranged human would dare to look at my child. Any living being needing ground to stand on would never turn me into an enemy.

“Where is my child?”

I asked. The sobbing nymphs closed their mouths in unison. They must have realized I wouldn’t fall for their lies.

“What did that child beg? What convincing words did she use to seduce you? That mother wouldn’t be angry? That she’d just look around briefly and come right back? No, no, I’ve heard those words countless times over the years. She wouldn’t cause such a commotion with just that. Oh, really. Year after year, instead of maturing, she only causes more trouble. With just one child requiring so much attention, I wonder what powers mothers raising five or six children must possess.”

Eyes black like fertile soil, green like elm trees, and yellowish like buttercups looked up at me, trembling like bird eggs in a nest. I barely looked at those fragile things. 

I acted like I couldn’t even see them. Punishing them could wait. My child was growing day by day and becoming more endangered day by day. Finding her was the priority.

I stormed out of the temple. The frightened nymphs followed, scurrying behind me, almost clinging to the hem of my dress. Outside the temple, ah, it was summer. 

Everything was green, and the plants were glistening with moisture filling their veins. A flock of mallards kicked up from a golden osmanthus grove and leapt into the sky. 

On a gentle slope, a calf was throwing a tantrum, trampling the grass. Springs shimmering like silver painted the pebbles in their mouths like jewels. The sound of humans laughing. The sound of nymphs crying. I made no sound.

Where could she be hiding?

Where could she be holed up?

On which tree, under which bush might she be crouching?

Where, where did she think she had deceived her mother?

Why couldn’t she accept it?

Why couldn’t she endure it.

My baby.

The daffodil field in Enna Valley. Silent. I looked around. I could see broken flower stems and trampled leaves. But nowhere was there a black monster, a monster with horse legs breathing fire. No ground torn open revealing lava. No child of mine. I stood still.

“Lady Demeter, please believe us. Persephone was kidnapped! We all saw it, truly!”

The black-haired maiden, a nymph of the ash tree, knelt at my feet. Her short purple chiton was stained with green grass. I didn’t like it. 

I had never thought about what these creatures might be teaching my child. I worried they might have taught her games that would ruin clothes with bad dyes on the grass.

“I see. A monster with eight legs that tears the earth apart kidnapped my child, that’s what you’re saying? You, more than a dozen of you, watched it happen, no, surely you were stuck to my child’s side like a brooch, but during all that commotion, no one was harmed?”

“Lady Demeter, I swear by Lord Zeus—”

I didn’t want to hear any more nonsense. I grabbed her throat and lifted her into the air. She was light and foolish like a cosmos flower. She didn’t even dare resist. Of course. What could she possibly dare to do besides clutch my hands and beg for mercy?

“Why swear by Zeus when I’m right here in front of you? The mother of the child you lost is right here, so why bring in a floating cloud? Ah, I understand. You can’t bear to swear to me? Because of your petty tricks and deceptions? Such ungrateful creatures. Yes, with your feet on the ground, surviving on grains, you dare deceive Demeter and try to steal her child?”

“No, no, absolutely not—”

“I’ll ask once more. I hope you haven’t forgotten who lies beneath my land. My brother Hades would use fragile nymphs like you as toothpicks. Make sure I don’t pour you all into the Acherusia Cave, which happens to be close by! It would be so easy to sweep you all in, wouldn’t it?”

I am Demeter. A mother who has lost her young. A madwoman with torches in both hands. I am willing to do anything. I have the power to do anything.

Who would stop me? The nominal father, Zeus? Hera, exhausted from reining in that philanderer?

Hera would never stop me. She shouldn’t. She has a duty to protect the sacred family. And I must protect mine. She should rather be grateful that I haven’t placed blame yet. 

My family, my child, why didn’t she bless them? 

If Hera had blessed them personally, everything would have been different. If the supreme goddess had protected her, how could the Moirai have uttered such a curse against my baby’s forehead? What about Zeus? 

I wanted a child, and he was always available to anyone like a public drinking fountain. There was no other meaning.

That child was my child. My baby, mine.

No one can take a child from Demeter.

No one can make my child run away from me.

Rather than see my child die, I would split the entire earth and let the imprisoned demons crawl out.

Therefore, I was fully prepared to tie up all these foolish nymphs and throw them to Hades. No, it was more than just being prepared. I was moving with that thought alone. Yes, we are siblings in name.

Though we’ve been distant, he wouldn’t refuse my request. I shouldn’t hand them over to the judges. I should ask him to dispose of them as I wish. 

Whether they remain submerged at the bottom of Acheron forever or get mauled by the three-headed beast, ah, that would still be too lenient for them.

“Lady Demeter! Here, look here!”

Just then, a particularly young-looking hyacinth nymph hopped like a grasshopper. Her shrill scream made my head ring. 

I turned calmly, still clutching the fair neck in my grasp. Like an ostrich hunter turning at a hunting dog’s bark.

But the moment I saw the pink fabric, the ash tree nymph no longer mattered. I ran like a bull. By the edge of a small spring adjacent to the lake, I grabbed my child’s peplos, pitifully strewn about. 

I found myself suddenly sitting down. The wet soil by the water began to tremble, sensing Demeter’s despair.

Torn marks. Marks trampled by blunt hooves. The pink peplos was covered with traces of cruel violence that the nymphs, light as air, could never imitate.

I rubbed my cheek against the dirt-dampened fabric. I mumbled unintelligible words while rubbing my lips against it. I searched for any trace of my baby’s scent that might remain somewhere in the peplos, wet and stiffened with spring water.

This was not my child’s doing.

Nor was it the doing of nymphs helping my child.

No human cavalry could enter Enna Valley, and no monster could mock Demeter this way.

I screamed.

A scream that would never stop.

—

T/N: Ooohh she crazy!