Prologue - In Life and In Death

A thin layer of frost covered the ground of the cemetery, the dull green grass crunching under the footsteps of people who were visiting loved ones to lay flowers or wreaths for Christmas, or worse; people who were here for the funeral. It was a crisp winter morning; Christmas Eve to be exact. Usually this morning brought excitement, but then it only brought depression.

Rows of seats were set up before a raised open coffin, people lining up to pay their respects to the dead and the dead’s family. Inside the coffin lay the body of a gorgeous 15 year old girl known by the locals as Phoebe Barnes. Her black hair lay over her shoulders in ringlets; her strange but beautiful purple eyes closed peacefully, her lids lightly covered with purple eye shadow, her lashes highlighted by black mascara. A thin coat of blush covered her cheeks and red lipstick made her lips stand out against her stark white face. If you didn’t know better you could’ve said she was sleeping.

As the funeral party, all dressed in the traditional morbid black clothes, took their allotted seats in front of the grave, the priest began to speak.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate and commemorate the life of 15 year old, Phoebe Barnes…”

Many of the people dabbed at their eyes with lace handkerchiefs, being careful not to smudge their make-up if they wore some. Others let their tears flow down their cheeks without trying to hide the fact that they were crying. The priest droned on about Phoebe’s life and how she was gone too soon. For most of the people attending, the burial service passed in a blur of tears. Soon they were lowering the coffin into the ready dug grave waiting in front of them. Everyone laid flowers around the grave, not bothering to read what was written on the grave stone past “Phoebe Barnes, 18 February 1997 – 31 March 2012, Gone too soon.”

What was written below that, half covered in snow, you ask?

“Ζήστε για πάντα και δεν έχουν ποτέ ειρήνη.”

Live forever and never have peace.

1. Grave Discoveries

“Heads up!” Someone behind me called.
I turned around just in time to feel a cold, squashy, wet substance collide with my face. I wiped the snow from my face and out of my hair and saw my friend Patch doubled over, laughing. Taking advantage of this, I scooped up a handful of snow from my feet and threw it in his direction. Unfortunately, it flew straight past his head.
“You missed!” He laughed even more. “For the first time in her life, Phoebe Barnes missed!”
I narrowed my eyes at him and tackled him to the ground instead. “Didn’t miss that time,” I snapped.
“What’s got your knickers in a knot?” He asked, offended, as he dragged himself off the snowy footpath and brushed the snow out of the creases in his coat.
“I missed.” I smirked.
Patch fell in step with me and pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders, trying to fend off the cold winter weather as much as possible. “I knew you’d be pissed off about that.”
“I wouldn’t be on the A grade netball team if I couldn’t throw straight, Patch.” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but the netball season is in spring, not winter.” He pointed out. “Maybe all this cold weather is going to your head.” He drew imaginary spirals in the air beside my head.
“I do wish it would hurry up and get warm again.” I admitted. I should probably explain; Patch’s real name wasn’t actually Patch; it was Patrick, but when we were in primary school, he moved to our school and I got forced to show him around. When I asked him what his name was, he mumbled it and I thought he said Patch, and ever since, that was what I called him. We had been best friends ever since.
“See? I told you!” Patch joked as we rounded the corner and through our school gates. I looked over at the sign that said ‘Davidson High School’. Something else was written beneath it, but I couldn’t read it. Curse my dyslexia, I thought sourly.
Patch caught me looking at it, trying to decipher the scrambled letters. “Winter Wonderland Ball next Friday,” He read for me.
I looked down at the ground, embarrassed. I hated people acknowledging my dyslexia. “Thanks,” I mumbled.
“I don’t understand why you get embarrassed like that,” Patch muttered, “it’s not like you can help it. You were born with it, Phoebe.”
“I was born with a disease that makes me unable to read like a three year old.” I grumbled. “And it’s the only thing I can’t change about myself.”
“Phoebe…”
“Leave it, Patch. It’s like you said; it’s not like I can help it.” I gave him a sharp look and he knew me well enough not to argue. We walked to our roll call room in silence. When I took my seat at the back of the room next to Patch, someone threw a screwed up piece of paper onto my desk. I flattened it out on my desk and my brow furrowed in frustration as I tried to decipher the words on the page. It was written in cursive, making it even harder for me to read. My dyslexia was normally only a problem when I was reading things from a distance, but cursive was just horrible.
“What’s wrong, Phoebe?” David, one of the soccer jocks called from the front of the room. “Can’t read it?”
I screwed the piece of paper up again and threw it back at him. Thankfully, it hit him straight in the face. Maybe Patch was wrong about all this cold weather going to my head. It didn’t help, though; the rest of the jocks in the room had started laughing along with David.
“Maybe you should go back to preschool!” David laughed. “I’m sure you’d be great friends with my little sister.”
“Maybe you should go back to preschool, David,” Patch snapped. “Maybe then you’d learn to have more decency than to tease people for something they were born with. I mean, you don’t see anyone teasing you about that annoying voice of yours, do you?”
David gave me and Patch one heck of a death stare while his friends all laughed at Patch’s comment. David wasn’t used to being the one getting picked on.
“What’s wrong, David?” I asked, mimicking his tone from when he asked me the same question, “Can’t handle getting picked on yourself?”
“Hypocrite.” Patch muttered under his breath.
“Me? A hypocrite?” David asked exasperatedly. “I’ve been called a lot of things, Patrick Evans; I agree with a lot of them too, but hypocrite isn’t one of them.”
“Well maybe you should open your eyes then.” I snapped.
Just then our roll call teacher stumbled through the door of the classroom carrying a huge pile of books with our roll balanced neatly on top of them.
“Morning everyone, quiet down now, David don’t start teasing Phoebe about her dyslexia again, and Phoebe, if he already did, I apologise for getting here late and not witnessing it so I can’t give him detention.”
“Missed it again, Mr Harper.” Patch sighed.
“Sorry,” Mr Harper shrugged. “The traffic in the city today was horrible.”
“But, Sir,” One of the girls at the front said, “you live three blocks away. You don’t need to go through the city to get here.”
“I was visiting my mother, Annabelle,” Mr Harper sighed. “She isn’t well.”
“Oh.”
He sat at his desk then and called everyone’s names, marking down if they were in attendance. This was a typical day at school in my world. The kids attending were as predictable as they were stupid, so it was basically the same crap, different day; it never changed.
As always, for the rest of the day I sat next to Patch in class, copying down his work that he had copied from the board. Thankfully, he didn’t write in cursive so I could actually read it. I got picked on for my dyslexia, stared at for my strange purple eyes and complimented for my wavy black hair that everyone loved for some reason.
I sighed. Why couldn’t life be different for once?

***

Patch and I had just stepped out of the school grounds when it started to snow. Fierce cold winds whipped around us, blowing little white tufts into our hair as we pulled our coats tighter around ourselves.
I groaned. “It’s bad enough having to walk to and from school, let alone walking in snow.”
Patch smirked. “What’s wrong? Scared of my awesome snow ball throwing skills?”
I mocked horror. “Excuse me? Did you not see this morning when I threw that paper right in David’s face?”
“Yeah, but that was paper, not snow.” Patch pointed out. “There’s quite a big difference if you hadn’t noticed already.”
“Yeah,” I smirked back, “starting with paper being a lot lighter and harder to throw on target.”
“You’re trying to steal all my glory,” Patch joked.
“Oh, I don’t need to try to do that.”
Patch looked offended and I quickly ducked down and grabbed a handful of snow from my feet before shoving it in his face.
“Better?” I asked slyly.
“You’ll pay for that.”
“Will I really?” I asked innocently, batting my eyelashes whilst giving him puppy dog eyes.
“Yes, you will, really.” He smirked.
Knowing exactly what was coming next, I ran. People stared at us as we dodged between them, Patch hot on my tail with a snow ball in his hands. Being me, I knew that his weakness was a moving target, so I ran as fast as I could, hardly staying in a straight line. I turned a corner and a crowd of people blocked my way. I spun around, about to run in the opposite direction, but Patch was too close.
I looked around frantically. My only escape was taking a short cut through the cemetery. I hoisted myself up and over the three-foot-tall black brick wall surrounding it and hit the ground running. I tried to avoid stepping on peoples’ graves because I remember hearing somewhere that apparently that was bad. I was nearly at the top of the hill when a shiver shot down my spine. My Dad used to say that happened when someone walked on your grave, but that never made sense to me, because how can you have a grave if you’re still alive?
I was near the other side of the cemetery when my foot got caught and I tripped over. Pain shot through my ankle and I clutched it tightly. Noticing I was hurt, Patch dropped the snow ball and ran over to help me.
“You ok?” He asked, crouching down next to me.
I wasn’t paying attention; I had just noticed what I had tripped over.
“Patch…” I started to say.
“Yes?”
“Look at this.” The words came out of my mouth as a whisper, so I was surprised he could hear me.
“What is it?” He asked quietly.
He followed my gaze to the gravestone I was staring at intently. Even with my dyslexia, I could read what it said perfectly:
“Phoebe Barnes, 18 February 1997 – 31 March 2012, Gone too soon.
Ζήστε για πάντα και δεν έχουν ποτέ ειρήνη.”

2. A Greek Grave

I paced back and forth behind Patch. He was sitting at his computer, typing away furiously. We had basically ran all the way back to his house; we were too freaked out to stay in that graveyard. I stopped pacing and turned to face his back.
“What does it mean?” I asked exasperatedly.
Patch opened another tab on his internet browser, typing something in the search bar before looking back at the piece of paper next to the mouse. It was a rubbing of the message on the gravestone. He supposed it was some kind of code using pictures, but he couldn’t figure anything out.
“I don’t know,” He sighed. “But there has to be something. Some rational explanation in the least.”
“All the explanations I can think of are completely irrational, Patch.” I told him. “There was a gravestone saying I died two months ago.”
“I know what it said, Phoebe.” He snapped. “But maybe we could figure out what on earth’s going on if we just figure out this code.”
“How do you even know it’s a code?” I asked sceptically.
“A hunch?” He muttered, running his hands through his already messy hair.
“What if it’s like, hieroglyphics or something?” I asked.
He shook his head almost instantly. “I studied Ancient Egypt for three years in primary school. These couldn’t be further from hieroglyphics.”
“What if it’s in a different language?” I asked him instead.
“What language would that be?” He asked.
“Ancient Greek.” I said instantly then stopped. I hadn’t even thought of saying that. It had just come out of my mouth as if someone else had said it. I’d never seen Ancient Greek writing in my life.
“Is that on Google Translate?” He asked.
“You could give it a shot.”
He typed the address in at the top of the browser and roughly wrote out the message using symbols on Microsoft Word before copying and pasting it into Google Translate. He changed the variable to Ancient Greek – English and paused before clicking the translate button.
“How do you know its Ancient Greek anyway?” He asked me.
I shrugged. “A hunch?”
He rolled his eyes at me and pressed the mouse button. We both gasped when we read the translation.
Live forever and never have peace.
“W-what?” I stuttered.
“You were right about it being Ancient Greek.” He said, his voice shaking.
“But what does it mean?” I asked.
“Oh, you can’t read it can you?” He said, knowingly.
“Yeah I—” I stopped as I realised which language I read it in.
“What?” He asked, “what’s wrong?”
“It says ‘live forever and never have peace’.” I told him.
His eyes widened happily. “Your dyslexia’s getting better? That’s great!” He said enthusiastically.
I shook my head. “I didn’t read it in the English translation.”
“You what?” His eyes widened in shock this time.
“I read it in Ancient Greek,” I said uncertainly.
“That’s ridiculous.” He told me.
“I know. Believe me, I know. It sounds crazy.” I said. I looked down at the paper with the rubbing from the gravestone on it. I snatched it off the desk and held it close to my face.
“What is it?” Patch asked in perplexity.
“There’s something else. Underneath. It’s tiny but I can read it.” I explained.
“What does it say?” He asked.
“It says, ‘I am sorry, my daughter. You died in an accident before the Fates decided your time. Being the Queen of The Underworld you’d think I’d have more power over these things, but Hades is compulsive. I had to work against him with the Fates to bring you back. A soul for a soul, you see. But I fear if he finds out, Zeus knows how much trouble we’ll both be in. For the only thing Hades hates more than people who cheat death, it’s me being with another man. I hope you can forgive me in time, Persephone, goddess of springtime.’” I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion.
“Are you sure you can read Ancient Greek or are you just making this all up in your head?” Patch asked sceptically.
“No, that’s definitely what it says. Type it in Google Translate and see for yourself.” I snapped.
He did, and it turned out I was right.
“Give me that,” He said, motioning to the rubbing. I handed it to him and he stared at it intently.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” He reassured me. “I was just checking we copied the message correctly.”
“We copied it correctly.” I insisted.
He turned back to the computer and opened up Wikipedia. He searched up Persephone.
“It says that Persephone has no demigod children,” He said.
“It says Persephone had no demigod children in Ancient times.” I pointed out.
Patch ignored my comment and continued scrolling through the information on my supposed mother.
“You have a sister and a brother, apparently,” Patch informed me.
“What happened to Persephone having no children?” I asked.
“She had no demigod children. These two are actually gods.” He explained.
“Go on then,” I pressed.
“Melinoe, the goddess of ghosts is your sister, theoretically.” He told me. “And… Dionysus is technically your brother, kind of.”
“What do you mean, kind of?” I asked sceptically.
“I mean he used to be Zagreus, son of Persephone and Zeus, who intended for Zagreus to be his heir, but Hera, Zeus’s wife persuaded the Titans to kill Zagreus. Zeus discovered their plan and turned the Titans to dust, but all they were able to recover of Zagreus was his heart. Zeus apparently implanted the still-beating heart into a mortal woman called Semele, and she later gave birth to Dionysus.”
“He’s the drunken wine god, right?” I asked.
“The god of Wine, Theatre and Ecstasy.” Patch said matter-of-factly.
“Great.” I muttered. “Even though he’s a god, I still have a crack-pot brother.” I rolled my eyes. “What about Melinoe?”
Patch clicked the link that took him to the page for my supposed goddess sister. “She’s the goddess of ghosts,” He told me. “Half her body’s black and the other’s white to signify the darkness and light in her. The people aren’t sure whether she’s the daughter of Persephone and Zeus or Persephone and Hades, but it would work both ways, I guess.”
“This explains so much.” I said, my eyes wide.
“What do you mean?” Patch narrowed his eyes.
“I feel so much better in the spring time.” I told him. “I couldn’t throw that snowball this morning but I could throw that scrunched up paper.”
“And that connects to this how?” He asked.
“Paper comes from trees.” I pointed out.
“Wait a minute.” He held up his hand in a signal for me to stop. “You’re saying you legitimately believe that you’re the daughter of Persephone? An Ancient Greek goddess that most likely doesn’t even exist?”
“Yes, Patch.” I told him. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

3. The Drunken Wine Dude

When I walked through the front door later that evening, I found Dad in the kitchen cooking dinner. It smelt excellent, but I didn’t really want to eat after discovering what Patch and I had just discovered.
“Hey Fifi, how was your day?” He asked, giving me one of his awkward, one-armed hugs.
“Getting picked on for my dyslexia, tripping over my own grave stone, finding out my mother is a goddess, you know, the usual.” I said simply.
“That’s nice, honey.” He replied. “Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Well, you know, smoking weed with Patch, skipping school and joining prostitution to get money for college, getting shot in the hip… Nope, just a normal day for me.”
He turned around and laughed. “Ok, well, unless that was a metaphor, you didn’t trip over your own grave stone because you don’t have one,—”
You really want to go there? I thought in my head sarcastically.
“—your mother died in child birth, honey, if she was a goddess she’d be immortal. Uh, you haven’t been smoking week with Patch because his mother would probably murder him and you don’t have blood-shot eyes or diluted pupils. You sure as hell better not be skipping school and joining prostitution, besides, I’m paying for your college so you won’t even need the money, and unless you mean you walked into a desk at school and felt like you got shot, you didn’t get shot in the hip because that kind of stuff just doesn’t happen in these parts.” He smiled.
I laughed a little before I spoke again. “Tell me about Mum.”
“She was beautiful, Phoebe. You look a lot like her. She was so… alluring. Like she was a magnet and I was a paper clip that got that little bit too close and couldn’t get away. When she smiled it was as if the world lit up. She loved the springtime. She revelled in it. It was almost as if she was more alive in the springtime than she was any other season. Seeing her like that… It was the greatest thing, you know? You wanted to somehow be as happy and as free as she was in that moment. She was so… free… all the time. She never had a care in the world.” He told me.
I smiled and looked down.
“When she found out she was having you… she was ecstatic, Phoebe. It was her idea to call you Phoebe, you know. It’s a Greek name, and her family was Greek, if I remember properly. She said that in Ancient Greek mythology, the name Phoebe was a reference to the Greek god, Phoebus Apollo – or something like that – who was the god of light.”
My eyes widened; he may not have realised it at the time; but he just gave me the proof I was looking for. She was Greek? She wanted to give me a Greek name that was a reference to the god of light? When she was married to the darkest god there was… I wondered if she was trying to protect me by doing that.
Dad didn’t notice a thing and continued talking. “She said that maybe if she named you after the god of light, then hopefully you wouldn’t go astray and get yourself into trouble at school, or go out drinking every weekend like normal kids do. She said it might protect you. She also said it might help protect her, but I never understood why anyone would want to hurt her in the first place; she was the loveliest woman alive.”
“Dad, I only have one friend, so I don’t get invited to those types of parties. And even if I did, I wouldn’t wanna go anyway.” I explained.
He smiled and gave me another one of his awkward one-armed hugs. “She’d be proud of you Phoebe. I know she would.”
“Why?” I whined. “I have dyslexia. Not to mention the ADHD.”
“So did she,” Dad started. “She hated it too. But I remember, when she went in to labour with you, she told me one thing. She told me to tell you that if you took after her, to tell you that one day you’ll realise that your dyslexia and ADHD were gifts rather than curses. She said that no matter how hard it gets, things will get better, and that she’d always be watching you.”
I wiped away a tear off my cheek. I hadn’t even noticed I had been crying.
“Don’t cry honey,” Dad said, leaving whatever he was cooking on the stove to walk over and put his arm around my shoulders. “She’s proud of you, ok? And she’s with you every day. In here.” He told me, pointing to my heart.
I nodded. “I know,”
He smiled. “Do you want anything or did you eat at Patrick’s?”
“Nah, I’m good; Patch’s Mum made us her homemade lasagne.” I lied.
Dad licked his lips. “Save me some next time,”
“I’ll try,” I told him, smiling, before making my way up the stairs to my bedroom.
“Don’t stay up too late!” He called out. “You still have one day left of school for the year!”
“I won’t!” I yelled back. At the time, I believed that I would be going to school the next day. How wrong I was.
***
Later that evening, I sat on my bed with my laptop on my lap, taking in and studying everything about Greek mythology I could find. I was writing it all down in a spare school book I had; writing things helped me remember things. I wondered what my Dad would think if he found this book. He’d probably send me to a mental institution. Why? I was writing it in Ancient Greek. Since Patch and I had discovered I could read the language, studying had become a lot easier. All I had to do was copy and paste everything into Google translate and translate it to Ancient Greek and then I could read it fine.
A cool breeze flew in from my window and I could faintly smell some sort of wine. I couldn’t hear any loud music, but I supposed someone must have been having a party or some type of get together. I was studying my supposed half-brother, Dionysus, when someone spoke.
“‘The drunken wine dude’?” The voice said exasperatedly. “‘The drunken wine dude’? You should really watch your mouth, little Phoebe. You’re meant to be sailing under the radar, and insulting a god does not keep you under the radar.”
I looked up in shock. There, standing in my bedroom, was Dionysus himself.
“Uhh…” I seemed unable to form a sentence. “Sorry?”
“Oh yes, how rude of me.” He shook his head. “I never introduced myself. I am—”
“Dionysus,” I finished for him, “God of wine, theatre and ecstasy.”
He nodded. “Of course, there’s also grapevines, madness and a few others to add to that list, but I do admit, that’s a lot better than ‘the drunken wine dude’.”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“It is not in my best interests to punish you for what you said when you thought you were an ignorant mortal like all the rest. But you are a demigod, nonetheless. Heed my warning, Phoebe; do not insult gods unless you are prepared to face the consequences.” He told me.
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” I said quickly.
“So,” He smirked. “You’re my half-sister that our neighbour downstairs is gonna be pissed off about when he finds you.”
“Our neighbour downstairs?” I asked in perplexity.
“Mother’s evil husband.” He explained. “When you say a god’s name they have a habit on listening to your conversation. Which is how I knew you called me ‘the drunken wine dude’.”
“Oh.” I mumbled. “So my real mother knew I was talking about her with Patch?”
“Possibly.”
“Oh my god, is Patch even allowed to know about me?!” I asked, suddenly worried. “Would he get in trouble?”
“Patch has the sight, which means he can see all of the mythological creatures properly. His mind may not make sense of it, but he can see all that you can see. For mortals without the sight, all mythological creatures from our world are obscured by what we call “The Mist”. A type of glamour, if you will. It just hides all the things that their minds would be unable to comprehend. So I don’t see any problem with your boyfriend knowing about you, no.” Dionysus told me.
“He’s not my boyfriend.” I said sharply.
“Oh, sorry, common mistake. I’m not Aphrodite, obviously. You want to know your true love? Ask her. Me? I couldn’t even tell you who you’d have a drunken one night stand with.” He babbled.
“Ok, you can stop talking now.” I said, covering my ears.
He raised an eyebrow. “Do humans not teach their young ones to respect their elders? If not you must start doing so now more than ever. Gods are incredibly easy to offend, and you cannot disrespect them.”
“I’m sorry!” I said, probably for the millionth time.
“Do not worry, sister, I’m not about to turn you into a bunch of grape vines. Would be such a waste to do that with all the trouble Persephone went through to save you.”
“Without being disrespectful or anything, but what are you really doing here, Dionysus? Shouldn’t you be at Mount Olympus supplying the Olympians with wine or something?” I asked sceptically.
“Alas, my fellow Olympians are fully unaware of my visiting you. I am simply here to warn you that things are about to change for you drastically. Now you know who you are, you will be in constant danger. Do not talk about your heritage with Patrick in public places where you can be over-heard. Monsters go to great lengths to disguise themselves from demigods. Never let your guard down, or you will not live until the Fates choose your time, and will probably spend the rest of eternity in Tartarus for cheating death, even if you were unaware at the time. Be careful, little sister. Don’t trust anyone.”
And with that, he was gone.

Impressum

Texte: Sian Webster
Bildmaterialien: Sian Webster
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 10.12.2012

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Widmung:
To Zoe, for being my greek mythology buddy