Footnotes

By: Madeline (Age: 15/ USA)

When I awoke to see a man with winged shoes in my kitchen, I thought I’d be scared. I wasn’t. I wouldn't be scared of him. So when he holds out a shining hand, I take it. Cards and roads cloud my vision. Ah.

“Hermes?” I frown as he pulls me to my feet, smelling of envelope glue and stones. “Why are you… here?”

He glances down. Following his gaze, I see a body slumped against the kitchen sink. My body - or what once was my body. I look down at my now incorporeal hands and want to cry. I must have died. When I look back at my old body, I wince at the blood leaking from its temple. I sink to my knees, feeling my body’s forehead. It’s warm, but not like a cat or dog is warm. Like a wall is warm when you rest against it. Like a drained mug.

Behind me opens a path, stones glassy and glittering like quartz. As we walk, our steps fade into something less until we skim over the diamond encrusted stones. For a moment, I thought about taking one with me. But what use would I have for it now?

When I look to my left, I am alone. I am holding onto my cheap leather wallet, not a hand. I hadn’t noticed. Ahead sits a bus stop and I slow my pace, not wanting to crash into it. As I get closer, I see an advertisement for Speed covering the thin walls. A thin, solitary road lies ahead, spanning the entire horizon.

Scattered around the landscape sit long forgotten suitcases. Sand blows around my feet, the air tepid and still. The path widens at the end, encasing the bus station in its precious stones. Nothing grows here. A smokey, dusty sunset ebbs away, but it doesn't fade. The sky is dark, but that's it. The stars' silent plea to be seen falls on cottoned ears. Sand burrows its way into my socks as I sit down on the bus stop. There are four others here. A child in its mother's arms, a teenage boy with flowing wrists and a silver-haired girl, her dark hands fisted around a purse. I stood apart from them, wishing I had Orpheus’ hand to hold. He was always there for me.

A bus bursts out of the nothingness, shades trailing behind. It stalls when it reaches its stop, lurching to a halt. The doors hiss open. I see a grinning bus driver. He motions for us to enter.

The little girl enters first, giving her purse to the bus driver. Charon, it reads on the name tag. He unhinges his jaw, swallows it whole. The teen boy is next. He digs around in his pockets before producing a couple green and white pills. The bus driver eats those too. The mother is next, fishing around in her pocket. She pulls out a handful of hryvnia and offers them to Charon.

He smiles sadly and takes them with spindly fingers. She nods, limping to the back of the bus. The baby gurgles as the mother sits down. When I look back at Charon, ink stains the corner of his mouth.

“Such a shame,” says Charon. I nod, confused, and give him my TAP card. Maybe he’ll accept it - they were meant for bus rides anyway. Besides, I don’t think he’d want my old receipts. There’s a crunch as he chews up my card and shrugs. “Good protein.”

I let out a bark of laughter, sitting close to the front. The people stare, stone-faced, at me before my smile drops and I turn away. Charon starts the bus, the landscape flowing by. Shades claw at the sides of the bus and I realize they were unable to pay the toll. Charon speeds up. The shades fall away as he pulls into a parking spot.

The door hisses open, and I follow the woman and her child out of the bus. As soon as I reach the concrete, a blue wristband is slapped onto me. I look around at the landscape. It smells of disinfectant and I watch as the girl and boy are ushered into a line. There are three such lines - golden wristbands to my left, blue wristbands in the middle, and red wristbands to my right. Each one is queued in front of a large metal detector.

Someone’s hand is on my elbow and I instinctively flinch before I realize they are leading me to the middle line - blue. Around me are shades who look like they’ve been here for months.

I wait for hours or days before I reach the front. The metal detector looms. I watch as shade after shade steps through and disappears. My hands begin to shake. They’ve never done that before. I stand alone in front of the shimmering metal detector. Someone yells what’s taking so long? behind me. I look back and begin to walk forward. The metal detector remains lifeless as I step through.

I drop straight down - I claw at air - before landing prone in a field. I struggle to my feet in a field of white flowers, my head feeling like it’s wrapped in cotton. I cannot smell a single flower. Over me towers a shining mountain, diamond encrusted towers visible from even here. The Palace of Elysium. But here, smoking pollen drifts through the air. It mirrors the shades that drift towards a town on the horizon.

I follow them before getting stopped by a tiny three headed puppy. It rolls over on itself, tail feverishly wagging. It noses at my hand as I kneel to pet one of his three heads. The rightmost one nips at my hand before licking it.

I wince, but begin to pet him as well. He leans into my hand and then runs in the opposite direction. He stops after a moment, looks back. I follow, and keep following. After what seems like weeks, we reach a palace. It is mountainous and the dog seems so happy to be here. On the door, it reads Home of Hades and Persephone. For an Audience, please enter. As the puppy bounds forward, the doors slide open to reveal an elevator. Once again, I follow. The dog noses at a button - 100 - and we shoot upwards.

I am thrown off-balance and grasp at the railings. The elevator stops. The puppy, when I look around, is gone. I am alone in Hades’ Palace. And then I hear something.

The voice of a desperate tenor - Orpheus' tenor - echoes throughout the obsidian halls. I know his voice as well as my own, from the many years I've lived with him. I begin to run towards it, suddenly aware of how silent I am. I’m not graceful by any means - I should have been making a racket as I burst through the door.

Two swollen thrones of glass rise high above an amphitheater. Hades and Persephone sit transfixed as they watch the man - my husband - in the middle of the amphitheater. Orpheus' fingertips are bloodied, hands clenched around his lyre’s strings as he sings to Hades. Heartbreak is embedded into his voice, thick. The dark-haired god of the underworld has this look on his face, gray eyes glassy and lips open. Next to him, red-haired Persephone beckons me in. Orpheus follows her gaze, breaking into a sprint as he sees me. I run down the steps to him. We plummet to the floor as we embrace, tears mixing.

“It’s you,” he cries, voice smelling of lavender.

“It’s me.”

“I came to take you home,” he whispers, hands laced through my hair. “Away from the dead.”

I smile as we turn to the gods of the underworld. Hades is frozen as Persephone whispers in his ear.

“Can we go?” Orpheus’ voice is raw.

And the King stared.

"There must be a price,” he mumbles. “And the journey will not be easy. Do not

stray from the path as you make your way home; you will have to journey through Tartarus - prison of the damned. You know this?”

I find my voice with Orpheus’ soft hand in mine. “Yes.”

“Do you trust each other?” Persephone crosses her wrists in her lap.

“We do.”

“We do,” echoes Orpheus.

“Then, you will make it through.. But–” Hades holds up a hand– “Orpheus, you

must walk in front of Eurydice on your way out. Do not look back for her, lest she is lost forever.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Orpheus squeezes my hand as I stand frozen. “Eurydice?”

“Let’s go.”

Orpheus’ hand leaves mine as we start up the steps. Hades and Persephone have already turned away. Orpheus pushes open the doors to the palace and begins to sing. Honeyed words melt into the air as flowers - for the first time in a millennia - bloom in the cracks of Hades’ Palace. They dance, weaving through the air and into a frenzied bridge. Orpheus, still humming, tiptoes down the flowered road.

Cloaked shades stare at him as we pass through a Field of Asphodel. As we near a town, they begin to hum along. Voices mount to a roar as ten, twenty, fifty shades join in. Orpheus shoulders his way through, shoulders hunching. He was listening for something - I knew that posture. I begin to sing, a low alto to join the wave of sopranos.

I’m here, I think.

His posture relaxes - it worked. The shades began to drop away. It was just us now. The dirt begins to fade to stone as Orpheus’ voice falters. I sing louder. He doesn’t finish the verse for a moment, then picks it up. His voice soars high - higher than I could reach. But I tried, and we dip low, together, for the chorus. Choking smoke begins to clog my lungs. As we walk through Tartarus, damned shades scream around us. They smell of burnt rubber and hope. When I look up, the symbol of Hades rests over us and I realize the shades could not, would not, touch us. Not with the blessing of a god.

Up ahead, a woman’s voice - one that sounds like me - sings out for Orpheus. Just off the path, in a shrub. Orpheus pauses for a moment and I begin to sing once again. He almost looks back, but stops. He shakes his head and continues walking. This time, I don’t stop singing. He holds his lyre in his hands, playing a song we both know. When it ends, he plays another. And another. I sing along, my voice hoarse and shaking.

I would make it through this. I was not dying a second time.

His fingers bleed as we pass the metal detectors. I close my eyes, voice plunging into the depths of my range. Ahead, the bus is waiting for us. Orpheus runs to it, voice strained.

Charon extends an open palm as we enter. Orpheus drops two coins in. Charon hums in delight. “Real gold. Haven't seen one of these in a while.”

“Yes, sir.” Orpheus’ voice is ragged. “I’m sorry for the noise. In advance.”

Charon waves him off as we sit down. Orpheus begins a song of quiet homecoming as the bus starts again. With every bump, his voice jolts. There is no one here but us and Charon, who begins to sing along with a voice of stone. I smile.

The bus doors open, quieter now. I follow Orpheus out and watch, frozen, as Orpheus begins to turn back, to thank Charon, then stops. Breathes.

“Go, boy.” Charon says. “You paid me.”

He’s said this before, I think out of nowhere.

Orpheus nods and begins walking. We are so close to the beginning. But we’re not out yet. I sing something without a melody, voice scratchy. Orpheus begins to turn, smiling bright as a star as tears roll down his face. There is sun on his face at last. But not on mine.

Not again, I think.

My voice cracks. He freezes. He keeps walking out, into our home. I step out into the sunlight and become whole again.