Caleb crouched in front of the file and opened it up. Inside were a series of photographs from the second crime scene. He flipped through them, his expression determined. Expectant. And suddenly I didn’t think his theory was any theory at all. A nervous thrill shot through me at what he might’ve discovered.
From the stack he pulled out a series of photos that focused on the wooden altar.
I gave him a questioning look, but he didn’t see it.
“There,” he said, pointing to the image. It was a close up of one of the scenes carved onto the altar. Depicted on it was an image of a man carrying a woman away.
“What about it?” I asked.
Instead of answering me, he flipped to another photo of the altar and tapped on a bit of detailing between the carved images. “That’s a pomegranate.”
“It is?” I said. Huh, it looked more like a peach to me, but then again, I wasn’t exactly a botanist.
“So what?” Oliver said. He’d become our unofficial partner. Typical.
“The pomegranate has an important meaning in Greek mythology,” Caleb explained. “It symbolizes the story of Hades and Persephone.”
It took me a moment to recall the story. Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and she was unfortunate enough to catch the attention of Hades, the god of the Underworld.
The myth went something like this: One day when Persephone was frolicking in a field—or whatever it was innocent Greek girls did back in the day—Hades kidnapped her and took her to the Underworld to be his captive bride.
Meanwhile, topside, Persephone’s mother was grieving the loss of her daughter, and in her sorrow, she was causing all the earth’s crops to die. The gods took notice and tried to retrieve Persephone from Hades before the land fell into a perpetual winter. Only by that time, Persephone had eaten a couple pomegranate seeds—food of the dead—and the sustenance bound her to the Underworld. Because of this, it was no longer a simple matter of retrieval.
But to prevent the total destruction of the world, something needed to happen. So a bargain was struck: Persephone would live with her mother for a part of the year, and she’d live in the Underworld with Hades for the other part of the year.
And everybody lived happily freaking ever.
I focused on the detailed carvings again. “Holy shit,” I murmured. Looking at the pictures with the myth in mind, they fit.
I allowed myself a moment of surprise and excitement—Caleb had figured out what the altar’s images were depicting. “Do you think other investigators have figured this out?” I asked.
“Probably. We won’t know for sure until we exchange notes. But Gabrielle,” Caleb’s eyes met mine. “That’s not all.”
A wave of unease passed through me at the worry in his eyes.
“The woman at the club,” he said, “you told me that the first thing she did when you met her was kneel.”
“Uh huh,” I said, not sure where this was going.
“That’s kind of strange, isn’t it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what’s normal for a killer. She called me consort. I can only assume that she worshipped … the devil.” I furrowed my brows even as I said this. A Satanist that performed pagan rituals over an altar depicting Hades and Persephone? The religions seemed mutually exclusive.
Rather than dampening Caleb’s enthusiasm my words seemed to stoke it. “The other woman who was there called you something unusual too, didn’t she?” he said. “Something that started with a ‘P’?”
I stared at him for a moment trying to connect the dots. When I did, the blood drained from my face. I thought back to the club, to my interaction with the petite woman who’d stabbed me. “She didn’t call me Persephone, though,” I whispered.
Caleb’s determined expression didn’t change. “She goes by several names,” he said, “And at least one other starts with a ‘P’.”
“Which one?” I barely breathed as I watched Caleb.
He looked at me pityingly. “Her Roman one—Proserpine.”
“Did our suspect call you that, Gabrielle?” Caleb probed.
As soon as he’d mentioned the name, I’d remembered. Like a puzzle piece it fit with the rest of the memory.
“Sweets?” Oliver asked gently. I blinked and looked at him, then at Caleb.
“She did.” A thoughtful silence descended as we all took this in. These killers thought I was this Persephone, the daughter of the goddess of the harvest.
Harvest. My eyes snapped to Caleb. “I need to grab something,” I said, rising from my seat. Uncomfortable silence descended as I reached into my book back. If I looked up, I was sure I’d find Caleb and Oliver giving each other uneasy looks. They probably thought I’d lost it. Who knew, maybe I had.
I flipped through my bag until I pulled out what I was looking for. I laid the cream-colored slip of paper down on the coffee table. On it were five lines written in loopy handwriting. Caleb and Oliver craned their necks to read it along with me.
Daughter of wheat and grain,
Betrothed to soil and stain,
Your lifeblood drips,
The scales tip,
But will it be in vain?
Shit.
That first line—it only took a little imagination to realize that Cecilia was describing Persephone. I rubbed my forehead. It was one thing for two killers to call me Proserpine, and another for a Fate to.
“But why? Why would anyone assume I was Persephone?” I said out loud. “We’re not the same,” I said. My mother may have had the looks of a goddess, but she wasn’t one. She lived as a mortal and died just like one. “I mean, I’m dying, for crying out loud. Wasn’t Persephone all about life and fertility?” I asked, looking between Oliver and Caleb.