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Persephone likes the cold.
She walks down the street at a brisk pace, her silk jacket billowing behind her in the cold December wind. The mortals, bundled up in their coats and mittens and scarves, look at her askance with confusion and horror. But Persephone has known cold far beyond the measurement of a thermometer, and the bite of the wind on her face is nothing compared to the bitterness she carries within.
Yet sometimes she thinks about wearing a coat, if only for the barrier it would provide between herself and that…thing that happens to the world in late December.
The twinkling lights make her head pound. The carols make her hair stand on end. The dopey smiles on the faces of mortals make her grind her teeth until her jaw aches. She feels weak and nauseous and irritable, her very essence draining away into the plastic sludge that covers the city, united in devotion to a different god.
There is no Christmas in the Underworld. There are no shimmering lights or gaudy tinsel adorning the walls of her club. There are no carols sung or presents opened on the banks of the Styx. Persephone has one Christmas tradition, and one tradition only: to lock herself in her office until the whole sorry affair is over for another year.
She closes the door to the club behind her firmly, turning the key in the lock. The sound echoes in her ears and in her mind, and in its wake, she sees Grace, standing on the other side of that locked door earlier in the day. She sighs, pushing the memory away. Grace is full of the kind of hope you only see in the young, and she has hardly seen her in these last few months. There are conversations to be had, but not at this time of year. At this time of year, Grace belongs on one side of that locked door, and Persephone, on the other.
Her heels click across the empty space, dark and chilly without the mass of bodies and lights that normally fill the room. But Persephone likes the cold. She likes the darkness, and she likes the silence, and she wants nothing more than to sink into it until the sun rises on the 26th.
She opens the door to her office and stops in her tracks.
“Calliope?” she gasps.
“Merry Christmas, Seph,” Calliope says, pushing herself off the desk.
Persephone’s lip curls with distaste. “Don’t say that word,” she says. “Not in here.”
“What, Seph?” Calliope says, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you liked that name.”
“You’re too clever to be this obtuse,” Persephone replies. She takes a step closer. Calliope is a spirit, green and translucent, and the Underworld clings to her, making the room even colder than it was before.
“Why are you here?” she asks, waving a hand through Calliope's immaterial hair. “How are you here?”
“You know what they say about this time of year,” Calliope says. “The walls between this world and the next grow thin.”
Persephone scoffs. “You can’t honestly believe that,” she says.
“No,” Calliope says. “But they do.” She gestures at the door of Persephone’s office to the world beyond. “And that’s what matters.”
“I hate this time of year,” Persephone mutters. “The Underworld is mine, not beholden to the romantic whims of mortals who’ve had a bit too much eggnog and far too much Christianity.”
Calliope gives her an enigmatic smile. Looking at it feels like pressing on a bruise.
“You only answered one of my questions,” Persephone continues. “Why are you here, Calliope?”
Calliope shrugs. “Calliope? I’m not Calliope.”
“I know that Grace has-” Persephone begins, but Calliope holds up her hand to stop her.
“Tonight, I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
Persephone stares at her. “You’re what?”
“Come on, Persephone,” Calliope says, her smile growing wider. “It’s only one of my finest works. A secular Christmas story that shifted the meaning of the season away from Christianity and towards a vague sense of goodwill and generosity?”
Persephone rolls her eyes. She knows what Calliope is referencing. Even though Christmas makes her ill, she would prefer to know the shape of the stories the mortals tell, so she can see (and avoid) the threads of devotion that litter the streets.
“Are you saying you masqueraded as a spirit outside Charles Dickens’ window?”
“Not entirely,” Calliope says. “He just needed a little push in the right direction.”
“And now you’re here to give me a push in the right direction?” Persephone asks, an edge creeping in at the corners of her voice. “Is that why you’ve come?”
“I’m here for your salvation,” Calliope says.
“I won my salvation years ago, with blood and rage,” Persephone spits, her fingers curling into her palms. “I don’t need you to give it to me.”
Calliope just shrugs. “Your welfare, then.” She holds out her hand. “Come with me.”
Persephone shakes her head. “No,” she says firmly. “You know I don’t leave this building during the holiday. I’ve seen the mortal celebration, and I want no part of it.” She closes her eyes briefly. “There’s nothing out there for me.”
“No,” Calliope says. “There’s nothing in here.”
“I’m in here,” Persephone says. “And that’s all I need.”
“You thought differently, once,” Calliope says. “Let’s go see.”
And before Persephone can object, she reaches out and grasps her wrist.
Whatever Calliope does, it’s no power she recognises. One minute she’s standing in her office, and the next, she’s…sliding sideways into darkness. When her vision clears, they’re still standing in her office.
“Was that supposed to impress me?” she asks.
Calliope tilts her head. “Do you hear that?”
Persephone pauses. She can hear music, and voices. It sounds like a party.
“What,” she says slowly, “have you done?” Each word is a poison dart between her teeth.
“We’ve just taken a little trip.”
“Are you leeching Hermes’ power somehow?”
“Leech?” Calliope says with mock outrage. “I’m a muse. I don’t leech - I inspire.”
“Then where-”
“The better question would be when.”
Persephone sighs. When Calliope gets her heart set on something, nothing will dissuade her. It’s the same for the rest of the Idols. You can’t ride the currents of historical change without learning how to dig your heels in.
“It could be any night in the Underworld,” she says. “It could be last week.”
Calliope rolls her eyes. “Now who’s being deliberately obtuse?”
Persephone can feel the ghost of a smile at the corner of her lips, and she banishes it before it can begin to haunt her. “I don’t hold parties at this time of year.”
“But we used to,” Calliope says, and walks back out to the club. There are people laughing and dancing to some terribly saccharine song about the gift of love. Persephone plants her feet waiting for the crowd to part around her. But instead, they go through her, as though she’s not there at all.
“They can't see or feel you,” Calliope calls over her shoulder. “These are just the shadows of your past.”
“Are you using the Styx, somehow?” Persephone says. “You shouldn’t be able to do that.”
Calliope turns around, a smile on her face.
“And don’t you dare say it’s Christmas,” Persephone says sharply, wincing at the sour taste that fills her mouth.
Calliope winks. She leads her to a booth in the corner of the room, surrounded by laughing people. And there, on the plush seating, Persephone beholds herself.
She has two wine glasses balanced in one hand. Her other hand is wrapped around Calliope’s waist, who sits on her lap, gesticulating as she talks to the devoted crowd of listeners that surround her.
Calliope had always liked Christmas. Even with its…background, she would lose herself in the art and music and poetry, glowing almost as brightly as the streets outside. She’d drag Persephone from party to party, until she’d practically forgotten why they were being held in the first place.
The mortals see devotion in the face of a baby. But Persephone knows devotion, and she sees it in front of her, in the touch of fingers on a waist and a whisper in an ear.
“Well?” Calliope asks. “Do you remember now?”
“Your bohemian friends,” Persephone says. “I never liked them.”
“You don’t like anyone.”
“I liked you,” Persephone says. The past tense burns her tongue.
“I know you did,” Calliope says.
Persephone sees her hand twitch slightly towards her and back again, a ghost of an echo of an action that has long been consigned to memory.
She looks back at the scene in front of her. Calliope sits on Persephone’s lap like it’s her throne, holding court amongst the revellers who hang on her every word. Persephone can recall centuries of history, layers upon layers of Idol and mortal memory combined, even if the outlines grow fuzzier with every year. But her memories of moments like this elude her. When she reaches for them, she finds nothing but pain and bitterness, an impact crater left behind from the disastrous end of their relationship.
“We look happy, don’t you think?” Calliope says, as though she’s read her mind. “Together, on Christmas Eve.”
“Despite Christmas Eve,” Persephone says. “Not because.”
“We wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for Christmas Eve,” Calliope says. “It’s a season of love.”
Persephone scoffs. “The only reason I look remotely happy is because you were so drunk on your own power it blocked out the mortal garbage. Like a total eclipse.”
“Of the heart,” Calliope says, and Persephone groans.
“Is this your only evidence for my welfare in December?” she asks. “You should know better than to open with such a weak hand, particularly with me.”
“Fine,” Calliope says. “Let’s go see another Christmas.”
This time, Persephone takes her hand willingly, curious to see the ace up Calliope’s sleeve.
She’s deposited from the darkness onto a darkened, wintry street. European, from the looks of the buildings, and sometime in the first half of the 20th century. The streets are oddly quiet for a Christmas Eve. There are just two figures in the distance, walking arm in arm. Persephone recognises them instantly.
“No,” she says. “Not this Christmas.” She turns to Calliope. “Please,” she says, the word falling pitifully from her mouth.
Calliope frowns and bites her lip. “I’m sorry, Seph,” she says, taking a step backwards.
Persephone clenches her fists. She wants to turn away. She wants to fling herself violently through the fabric of whatever magic Calliope’s mustered up, back to the icy solitude of her office. But she can’t seem to tear her eyes away from the two women walking towards her.
She can’t look away from the face of her mother.
“This was always one of my favourite days of the year,” Demeter says. “A day of thanks for the fruits of the harvest.”
“Haloa,” the younger version of Persephone says. “Shame you had to share it with Dionysus.”
“Yes, well,” Demeter says, a smile on her face. “The mortals cannot have food without wine.”
They come to a halt just steps away from where Persephone stands, close enough to touch. She thrusts her traitorous hands into her pockets. She can’t bear to reach for her mother and feel nothing but air.
“But that wasn’t the only reason I like this time of year.” Demeter takes both Persephone’s hands in her own. “The solstice marked the point when you would soon begin your journey, up and out to the sunlight once more.”
Persephone winces as her younger self removes her hands sharply. “I should have been there, to mark the harvest with you in Eleusis. And I would have, if not for the rest of the Chorus, content to leave me to rot like bones on the banks of the Styx.”
“Must you hold onto your anger?” Demeter says.
“My anger was the only thing keeping me warm, down in the depths of Hades.”
Demeter reaches for her again, but she shrugs out of her grasp. “And now it is keeping you there,” Demeter says. “You must ascend, as you did every year, but this time, for once and for all.”
“I have ascended,” Persephone says. “I ascended to the Throne.” She stalks away down the street.
Demeter’s face falls, and with it, so does the snow. Flakes begin to gather in her hair. Persephone watches until the streets are thick with it, sagging under the weight of her mother’s grief.
Persephone swallows and turns away from the scene. “The next time I held my mother’s hands between my own, they were covered in blood.”
“I’m sorry,” Calliope says. “I really am.”
“Then why did you bring me here?” Persephone hisses. “Have I not suffered enough in my life?”
“These are but shadows of things that have been,” Calliope says. “I’m not to blame.”
“And I am, I suppose,” Persephone snaps. “I’ve had enough of this - leave me.”
So she does, and so Persephone finds herself alone again, back in the frigid isolation of her office.
But she likes the cold. It reminds her of her mother.
Persephone sits down heavily behind her desk, closing her eyes. Her fingers shake slightly on the arms of her chair, and she curses herself and Calliope and the whole season of Christmas.
She senses movement at the door.
“Uh, Persephone? Hi.”
She sighs. “What is it, Hermes?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Hermes says. “I know you prefer to be left alone at this time of year. Or any time of year, I guess.”
Persephone glares at them over the top of her glass. “Yet here you are, bothering me.”
“Wow, it’s really cold in here, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Persephone says, her voice even colder than the temperature. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Oh, sorry-”
“Are you going to keep apologising or are you going to leave me alone?”
Hermes wrings their hands together. “I…can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“No, I really can’t,” they say. “I’m stuck here with you, because I’m the Ghost of Christmas Present.”
“Calliope,” Persephone hisses under her breath.
Hermes keeps talking. “It makes sense, when you think about it. God of transport, moving between A and B, here and there. Like the present moves you between the past and the future.”
“Who put you up to this?”
“I…really can’t say.”
Persephone narrows her eyes. “You mean you won’t,” she says again.
Hermes sighs. “Can we just skip over all the fighting and the arguing?” they say. “It’ll be a lot easier - and faster.” They tap their wrist. “I’m on the clock, you know - the future will be here soon enough.”
Persephone thinks about digging her heels in. She thinks about making herself an immovable wall, watching as everyone who tries to reach her crashes against it, like waves on the shore.
But Hermes has always had a face like an open door, and she sees something in it that she can’t bear to break.
“Fine,” she says. “Where are we going?”
“Really?” Hermes says. “I didn’t think it would be that easy. I thought for sure that you’d-”
“You said it would be fast,” Persephone says firmly.
“Right, fast,” Hermes says. “That I can do.” They hold out their hand. “Let’s go.”
And Persephone takes their hand and slides sideways into the darkness once more.
They’re standing outside another building, on another snowy street. Persephone recognises this one instantly.
She sighs.
“Welcome to Christmas morning!” Hermes says. “Actually, it might be afternoon. Which is the future, but also technically still Christmas present, I suppose. I guess it counts.”
“If you’re going to play Calliope’s game, you should at least commit to it,” Persephone says.
Hermes shrugs. “She told me just to be myself. That I’d be perfect.” They clear their throat. “So, here we are in our Christmas present, and Grace is having a party.”
“I know,” Persephone says. “I was invited.”
“Then why aren’t you there?”
Persephone doesn’t say anything.
“Oh,” Hermes says. “The whole ‘brood in your office’ thing.”
“The mortals mark this time of year in their own way, and I mark it in mine.”
“Well, let’s go see Grace’s version.” Hermes says.
They go up the stairs and Hermes walks right through the door, as immaterial as Persephone and Calliope had been.
Persephone pauses. She remembers Grace’s face when she turned down her invitation, the hope in her wide, beseeching eyes rotting away into disappointment. She had torn up that invitation, and it feels like an ill omen to appear at her door with it taped poorly together.
Hermes sticks their head back through the door. “You can come through the door - we’re not really here,” they say. “We’re ghosts, or whatever.”
Persephone knows they refer to more than just the door’s materiality. When it comes to the matter of thresholds, Hermes has always been too perceptive.
She walks through the door and into the sorry excuse for a living space that Grace and Freddie call home. The apartment looks like a dollar shop imploded within it. There are coloured lights strung from the ceiling and tinsel draped over the wardrobes and appliances. There are cartons of Chinese food on the table, with some kind of card game jostling for space around noodles and chopsticks.
But despite the clutter and clamour, Persephone’s eyes snag on the absences: no rich feasts or piles of wrapped presents, no religious icons or nauseating rituals.
And she sees her own absence, in the way that Grace’s eyes grow distant when she looks at the door, and the single wrapped gift that sits on the arm of the sofa.
Freddie leaves her bedroom with a box. “It’s time,” she says.
Kaz groans. “I can’t believe you make us do this every year just because you saw it in Doctor Who.”
“Hey!” Freddie exclaims. “You know our rule: everyone brings one of their own Christmas traditions to the group. That’s Frankenmas. I don’t have any, so I…borrowed one.”
“Besides,” Brian says, nudging Kaz in the ribs with his elbow. “You love it.”
“Okay,” Grace says, opening the box and distributing the crackers so that everyone has one in each hand. “Everyone got one?”
“One,” Freddie counts. “Two, THREE!”
The crackers explode with a burst of noise and laughter.
“Where’s my joke?” Brian says, hunting amongst the clutter on the table.
“Hats first, then jokes,” Freddie says firmly.
“Look, you got green,” Grace smiles, adjusting Freddie’s hat before putting her own red one on. “Did you do that on purpose?”
Freddie gasps in mock outrage. “Look in a Christmas cracker in advance? Sacrilege!”
“Alright, listen up,” Kaz says. “Why couldn’t the skeleton go to the Christmas Party?”
“Why?” Brian asks.
"Because he had no body to go with!”
Everyone groans, except for Freddie, who laughs delightedly. “Okay, my turn,” she says.
“So, what do you think?” Hermes says, over the sound of the party’s joy.
Persephone crosses her arms. “Of what?”
“Of Christmas!”
“You know what I think of Christmas,” Persephone mutters.
“But what do you think of this Christmas?”
Persephone isn’t going to tell Hermes what she thinks. She isn’t going to admit that she looks at Grace’s celebration and she sees family, and it feels like she’s taken a hammer to all her brittle pieces and shattered them into shards.
“Uh oh,” Hermes says.
Persephone follows Hermes’ line of sight to Grace, who is on her feet. She picks up the present in one hand and her coat in the other, and walks straight through Persephone and out the door.
Persephone exchanges a glance with Hermes. They both know where she’s going. Hermes holds out their hand, and Persephone takes it with a sigh.
Hermes and Persephone stand by the Underworld's dumpster.
“Why do you have this here?” Hermes says. “You’ll get racoons.”
“Are you offering to ferry my trash elsewhere, Hermes?”
“No,” they say instantly. “Shh, here comes Grace.”
“She can’t hear us,” Persephone says, but she stops talking.
Grace tries the door of the club. It’s locked tightly. Persephone fastened those locks herself, just a few hours ago.
“Persephone?” Grace calls. She bangs her fist on the door. “I know you’re in there.”
“Brooding,” Hermes says.
Grace rattles the door again. “Look, I know you said that you wanted to be left alone, but it’s Christmas- well, it’s…it’s today, and no one should be alone today. Not at the darkest point of the year.”
No one answers and Grace sighs. She turns her back to the door and slides down against it, until she’s practically sitting on the cold ground. The gift slides out of her grasp.
Persephone’s heart twists at the sight. It's very quiet. She has known many different silences in her life: silences of rage, of disdain, of abandonment. Inside her club, the silence is just empty, and it had suited her perfectly. When an empty silence breaks, there will be no collateral damage.
Or so she had thought. Now she sees otherwise.
She steps out from behind the dumpster, and somehow, Grace looks at her. “Persephone,” she says, her eyes lighting up.
“Oh boy,” Hermes says. “Calliope’s going to be so mad at me.”
“What are you doing here?” Grace asks.
“I believe I live here,” Persephone says.
“But what are you doing out here? I thought you said you never left your office at…this time of year.”
“I don’t,” Persephone says. “But I heard what you said, and you’re right. You shouldn’t be alone.”
She holds out her hand, and Grace takes it, letting herself be pulled to her feet. She stumbles a little on the ice, and Persephone catches her, pulling her against her to steady her footing.
“Oh, so that’s how you’re doing this,” Hermes says. “I get it now.”
“What’s going on?” Grace says. She hasn’t moved away from her place in Persephone’s arms.
“Nothing,” Hermes says. “Just the Christmas miracle of love.”
Persephone growls, low her in throat. Or at least, she attempts to, but it comes out rather strangled. “Hermes,” she hisses.
Grace gives her a playful nudge. “Speaking of Christmas miracles,” she says, reaching down to retrieve the present she’d dropped. “I finally figured out what to get you.”
Persephone takes the package. “I don’t have anything for you,” she says.
“You’re out here, instead of being in your office.” Grace says. “That’s more than enough. Now open it!”
Persephone slides her nails under the tape. It has been a very long time since anyone has given her a wrapped gift. Not since she was Chastity, she thinks.
She pulls out a soft bundle and holds it up. It’s a soft knitted jumper, in a deep crimson red.
“You know I don’t need jumpers at this time of year,” she begins, but Grace interrupts.
“It’s not about what you need,” she says firmly. “It’s about what you want.”
Persephone sees that familiar expression in her wide brown eyes - careful, precious, delicate hope. She knows exactly how to break it, if she wanted to. But she doesn’t.
“It is the hungry point of the year,” she says, taking a step closer. Grace raises her head to follow her eyes. “I suppose it is a time for wanting.”
She cups Grace’s chin in her hand, and is about to lean in when she feels a tap on her shoulder.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Hermes says. “But we’re on the clock.”
“Hermes!”
“Ghost of Christmas Present, remember?” they say. “Gotta leave them wanting more.”
They grab Persephone by the wrist with one hand and open a portal with the other. “We’ll be back!” they call to Grace.
“Come by the apartment for Frankenmas!” Grace calls in return, as they disappear into the portal. “Bring a tradition!”
On the other side of the portal, Persephone shakes her hand free. “What was that for?”
“My time is almost over,” Hermes says. “I mean, the present. The ghosting. The…Christmas thing. Not my life.” They wring their hands together. “Um, I hope.”
“I hope so too,” Persephone says.
“You do?” Hermes says, frowning. “That’s great! I mean, that’s cool. Are…are we friends now?”
“Don’t push it,” Persephone says, but there’s a smile on her face. “Thank you for showing me Grace’s celebration.”
“Hey, just doing my job,” they say. “And now I’m handing you over for the next bit.” They point to a familiar shipping container.
“Of course,” Persephone says, shaking her head. “Who else would it be?”
“Tell Hecate I said hi,” Hermes says. “Gotta run.”
Alone in the alley, Persephone takes a deep breath. She could go back to her office, and put an end to this for once and for all.
But she thinks of the warmth in Grace’s smile, and the heat of her hands where they grasped her own. She thinks of the crowded apartment, full to the brim with knick-knacks and stale pizza, but somehow even fuller with laughter. And suddenly, her office’s icy fortress no longer seems like a haven, but a cold, empty shrine to something that no longer needs tending.
So she opens the door of the shipping container, and enters the Reliquary.
“Persephone,” Hecate says. “What brings you here?”
“Christmas, I believe,” Persephone says.
“Oh,” Hecate says. “So soon?” She turns to the table behind her. “I can offer you tea, or, if you would prefer, I believe mulled wine is more appropriate.”
Persephone raises an eyebrow.
“Asterion acquired a taste for it at the local market,” Hecate adds.
“How - actually, never mind.” Questions about Asterion always lead to more than she bargained for.
Hecate hands her a mug of wine and gestures to a chair. Persephone stays standing.
“So,” she says, eyeing Hecate over the top of her mug. “Are you here to warn me of my future?”
“Warn? I do not warn.” Hecate places her hand on top of the book on the table. “I am the caretaker of fate, not its catalyst.”
“Then you’re not the Ghost of Christmas Future, I take it?”
“I have read the book you speak of,” Hecate says. “It is fanciful to separate out time into a tripartite classification, let alone embody it in three separate spirits.”
“Hmm,” Persephone says. She’s inclined to agree - her own life has only ever been a series of befores and afters, neat lines dividing her life into either side of a series of cataclysmic events. Hades. Demeter. Calliope. Grace. Life and death, death and life, over and over again.
“Calliope is too fond of the mortal ways,” Hecate says.
“Was,” Persephone corrects.
Hecate shakes her head. “I did not misspeak.”
“Then she was here,” Persephone says. “Or do you mean Grace?”
Hecate puts her teacup on the table. “I have something for you,” she says. She walks to her shelves and runs her fingers along the spines, returning with a large book. It looks like it has never been opened.
Persephone takes it from her. It is bound in crimson leather, and it feels cool in her hands. She knows what it is without having to ask.
She opens it to the middle, and reads.
The anger claws in your throat. It burns in your belly. It courses through your blood like a raging sea. You knew the source of it, once, but no longer. Now, you only have a fire relit from its own ashes. You carry it with you like your eidolon. You have forgotten the source of that, too. Mirrors of mirrors, echoes of echoes, passed down through the ages.
Persephone slams the book closed. “What,” she says firmly, “is this?”
“You know what it is,” Hecate replies.
She opens to another page.
The disappointment falls across her face. You knew it was coming yet it still catches you by surprise. Her hands fall from your grasp, or perhaps yours are the first to move away. It is not important. What is important is this: you walk away from one another and the space between you sours and spoils. Nothing will be planted there again.
“When is this, Hecate?” Persephone snaps. “Is this my past, or my future?”
“I told you,” Hecate says. “I am the caretaker of fate. I am not its translator, nor its teacher.”
Persephone flips towards the end of the book.
Stone crumbles in your hand. Bone cracks, and wood splinters. You have learned how to rend, but repair comes harder. You don’t notice. Maybe you don’t care. Yet when you are ready to learn, there will be no one left to teach you. When you have turned your world to ashes, you will turn inwards, to the one thing left to tear down.
Persephone throws the book to the table. “There’s one thing I know about Christmas,” she says. “It only works if you believe in it.”
Hecate’s deadpan expression doesn’t so much as flicker.
“I don’t believe in Christmas, and I don’t believe in these…prophecies. My future is my own to write.”
Hecate takes a step towards her, and places her hand on her shoulder. “Then it will be written,” she says, and pushes her into the darkness.
When Persephone opens her eyes, she’s back at her desk, head on her arms as though she’s been sleeping. But she knows it wasn’t a dream. Morpheus has his own games to play, and knows better than to trouble her.
Her elbow brushes something soft as she props herself up. It’s the jumper Grace had gifted her. Persephone runs her fingers across the soft wool, and when she lifts her hand, warmth clings to her fingertips.
She kicks her chair back as she stands, sliding her silk jacket off her shoulders and onto the back of the chair. She picks up the jumper and unlocks her office door, striding out into the club.
Medusa sits at a stool at the bar, and jerks backwards at the sight of her.
“Medusa,” Persephone says. “What day is it?”
Medusa blinks at her. “It’s your least favourite day of the year.”
“Good,” she says. “I haven’t missed it, then.”
Medusa’s snakes flatten against her head. “You said I was released from work. That I could have a…‘day off.’”
“How would you like to join me for a little party instead?”
“A party?” Medusa asks. “Not for the idolatrous baby.”
Persephone laughs, openly and freely. Medusa looks at her like she’s been possessed.
“Not for the baby,” she says. “Go and find Hermes, and the two of you will meet me at Grace’s apartment.”
“But where are you going?”
Persephone pulls the jumper over her head. “I have an errand to run first.”
Persephone climbs the stairs to Grace’s apartment, a paper-wrapped package in her hands. She can hear the apartment’s laughter and chatter through the walls of the building. Hermes and Medusa are at the top of the stairs, their arms full of bags of popcorn.
“We’re making popcorn garlands,” Hermes says.
“I have extra helpers,” Medusa adds. Her snakes sway in excited agreement.
Persephone smiles and shakes her head. “Are you sure you have enough popcorn?”
“Oh no,” Hermes sighs. “I knew I should have brought those extra packets.”
“You’re fine, Hermes,” Persephone says. “Let’s go.”
She knocks on the door. The raucous sound from within pauses, then starts up again almost instantly.
Freddie flings open the door. “Grace!” she calls. “Your present’s here!”
“My what?” Grace leans back on her chair to peer into the hallway, and her cheeks flush. “Persephone!” she says.“You came.”
“I was invited,” Persephone replies.
“Come in, come in,” Freddie says, and ushers the three of them into the apartment.
Grace stands and reaches out a hand to touch Persephone’s arm. “You’re wearing the jumper,” she says. “Wait, I thought-“ She turns to look at the sofa behind her.
“You gave it to me yesterday,” Persephone says quickly. “When you invited me. Don’t you remember?”
Grace narrows her eyes.
“Here,” Persephone says, holding out the package to distract her. “A tradition. For your…Frankenmas.”
Grace tears into the paper. “It’s a plant,” she says, looking up at Persephone with a quizzical expression.
“It’s a tree,” Persephone says. “Pomegranate, to be exact.”
Grace’s face softens.
“We would plant the tree in the winter, and tend it through the cold weeks. A symbol of hope, and new life, and the promise that spring would return.” Persephone gestures towards the window. “I thought we could find a place to plant it, together, after your celebration.”
“Persephone,” Grace says softly. “That’s a beautiful tradition. Mine is just finding the Christmas pickle.”
“I…never mind,” Persephone says. “Surprise me.”
Grace laughs. “Speaking of surprises, I had the strangest dream last night.”
“Oh?”
“It was Christmas Day, and I went to find you at the Underworld. Hermes was the Ghost of Christmas Present, for some reason. But I gave you that jumper - the one I had in the apartment, just in case you turned up.” She squints at her again. “Know anything about that?”
“I’m not the god of dreams,” Persephone says.
“So you’re not going to tell me that you will honour Christmas in your heart, and try to keep it all the year?”
Persephone snorts. “Absolutely not,” she says.
“I didn’t think so,” Grace says. “I knew-”
The words die in her throat as Persephone takes her hands in her own.
“But I will hold you in my heart, all through the years,” Persephone says. “If you’ll have me.”
“Oh,” Grace says, a little breathlessly. “I think that could be arranged.”
Persephone likes the cold. She likes the darkness, and the silence. But as Grace’s warm lips meet her own, in an apartment full of cacophonous laughter and twinkling lights, she feels her heart turn towards the warmth and the light and the noise, like it’s on the ascent from the Underworld.
A pomegranate tree bears the sweetest fruit after the bitterest cold.