Work Text:
I have a tale to tell. I’m warning you now: it is not a happy one. But tell it I must, and tell it I will. It happened long, long ago, when gods still walked among us mortals, back before we abandoned them.
It begins with Lily, the goddess of the hunt, and the muse she fell in love with. Lily was beautiful, as all goddesses are in their own way, but she was fierce. Medusa may have killed others with her looks, but Lily’s gaze could pierce your heart just as easy as a fresh-sharpened spear. Some likened those green, green eyes to the forests she so often roamed, and others to the poison that tipped her arrows. Regardless, Lily was a huntress, and to be a huntress was often to be alone.
She was alone the day she stumbled upon Mary, the muse of poetry. Mary was sat by a stream, and she was composing. Not writing, for writing is what the rest of us do when we speak words into existence. No, Mary composed. Her poetry was spoken and yet musical all the same, as if she spoke the songs of the very mantle of the earth. The ground would seem to shake beneath your feet if you heard it, and yet you’d be rooted all the same.
Lily was struck by her: deep brown skin and soft brown eyes and curls springing from her head in a wild reflection of creation itself. Mary was soft and wild and Lily loved all things wild. Lily wanted to hunt her and consume her and pull her very essence into her being, and also wanted to sit at her feet and place gentle kisses to her thighs and stay entranced in those chanting words.
“I know you are watching me,” Mary said. Lily emerged from behind the oak she had been pressed against, hand pulling a low branch to the side.
“Don’t stop,” Lily answered. “Please.”
Mary smiled, and Lily’s eyes were drawn to her lips, and she wanted to feel the warmth and fullness of them against her own.
“And what will you do if I never speak again, Lily?”
“Don’t threaten such a horrid thing. I would have to stopper my ears, for they would never know beauty greater than your voice again, and I would want your words ringing in my mind until the end of all things.”
Mary stood from her seat, a rotting stump, a throne of mushrooms. They leaned towards Mary as she spoke once more, walking steadily towards Lily, still in the branches.
“And never hear music, the kind words of a lover, the soft splash of rain?”
Lily’s breath caught in her throat as Mary stepped close, the scent of cherry and vanilla washing over her.
“Nothing compares to you.”
“You are not as intimidating as the stories make you out to be,” Mary teased. Her smile deepened, her cheeks grew round and plump. Lily wanted to press her nose to them.
“I am the fiercest huntress that has ever been, and yet you have ensnared me with nothing but your mouth.”
“My mouth?” Mary asked, and Lily could not answer. Mary reached a hand, tugged at the cord tying Lily’s hair in a knot behind her head. It fell away easily, red waves crashed over her shoulders, and Mary the muse and Lily the goddess stayed there by the stream for a long while after.
They named their daughter Pandora. She inherited Lily’s forest eyes and ample curves, and Mary’s brown skin and curly hair. She walked in the sun so often her hair bleached blonde, and Lily would pull it into braids that ran down to her waist. But while Pandora inherited Lily’s love of the woods and the fields, she inherited Mary’s gift for creation. Where Mary composed words, Pandora composed music. Her very nature was that of rhythm and song: her footfalls were drum beats and her voice was a melody. There was a lyre in her hands as soon as she could clasp one, and she could make the strings dance in complex melodies that played with her voice, Mary’s words that she set to music.
When Pandora played, flowers sprang at her feet. The wind would brush against her face, the very stones would sing with her. She was all the beauty of a muse, all the power of a goddess. There were none who could resist her, and many fell at her feet. Nymphs and dryads and gods alike, begging for even a touch of her smallest finger, a single hair from her head. But Pandora, she would step past, without even a glance or the brush of her skirt against their awaiting fingers. As if she didn’t see them at all. When Pandora wrote, she saw only the flowers and the stones, and heard only the strings and the words. No others could capture her attention, not even the greatest of powers.
Dorcas was none of these things. Dorcas was simply a woman. She had no noble parentage, no magic granted to her, not even a great sum of money. She was practical, and lived simply. She preserved her food in the summer, and rationed it slowly in the winter. Of course, no woman is “simply a woman.” Dorcas was unafraid to work hard, to grow thick calluses on her hands and the soles of her feet. She was strong and skilled, could wield an ax to chop a tree and wind cord into thick, sturdy rope. And when she didn’t work her body, she worked her mind. She loved pouring over books that she penny pinched and traded for, sucking every bit of knowledge from them that she could. She was like that with everything: pulled every drop of substance from life, unafraid to leave dried and decaying husks in her wake. She kept to herself, and yet pulled everything in towards her.
She pulled Pandora in, without meaning to. Pandora was wandering in new woods. Spring was arriving soon. Alice, the wife of the goddess of the underworld, would be returning any day now. Pandora sought new air, a fresh piece of inspiration. She was writing a song, The Song. The one that would call Alice, and Spring, back to them at any time. It was her favorite time of year to write, the time when she yearned for Alice the most.
It was Dorcas’s least favorite time of year. She also yearned for Spring, for Alice’s return, but it was a desperate yearning. It was the time of year when stores had grown thin but the air was still cold and the food still scarce. The time of year when Dorcas was thin and hollow and her fingers shook when they struck a match. She was out hunting, her tired hands struggling to keep the arrow nocked to the bow. She sensed movement through the trees, though, and held tight.
When Pandora first saw Dorcas, it was behind the tip of her arrow. It was drawn and deadly, and yet Pandora felt no fear. It would be an honor to be destroyed by the woman standing before her. Deep dark skin and focused eyes. She was strong and determined and desperate and Pandora wanted to eat her. For the first time, Pandora was entranced by something other than music or the woods, because Dorcas was both of those things. The shake of her sturdy arms was a rhythm and her shallow breath was a bass line and the death grip on her bow was wild and her smell was earthy and natural.
Dorcas lowered her bow, still panting and flushed with cold and adrenaline. The gaze of the two women held firm, both of them assessing what was held there. Pandora saw in Dorcas naked hunger and a sharp mind, and Dorcas saw in Pandora a beauty she so often denied herself and the gift of leisure.
Pandora had never been desperate. She had not understood the way that others clung to things, to people, to ideas. Pandora found that, if she let things go, the ones that were meant to come back to her always did, and the ones that never returned were never meant to stay in the first place. Pandora’s place was right where she was, and the people she was with were the ones that were supposed to be there, and that was that.
But in that moment, stood before Dorcas, Pandora felt the inexplicable urge to cling, tightly. To hold onto Dorcas and never let go, not for a moment. She wanted Dorcas to remain in her sights, as if she only existed where Pandora could see.
“Come home with me,” Pandora said, forgetting that there were other words that should be said first, such as “hello,” or “thank you for not shooting me.”
“Come home with you?” Dorcas asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t even know my name.”
“What’s your name?”
“Dorcas.”
“Come home with me, Dorcas.”
“I don’t know yours.”
“Pandora.”
“Pandora,” Dorcas repeated, and Pandora had never heard music so sweet.
“I want to play for you,” Pandora said, and she meant it. She rarely played for people. She played in front of them, sure, but never for them. Pandora played her music for Spring, and for the wilds, and for herself, and sometimes for her mothers. But now Pandora wanted to compose for Dorcas and Dorcas alone, to sweep her into a symphony.
“I thought you wanted me to come home with you,” Dorcas said, raising a brow. A lift in the melody, a new instrument added.
“I want to play for you now, and then take you home and play for you some more. I want to keep you by my side and serenade you with the sweetest of melodies. I want to finish my song and bring Alice back to us so that we can dance in warm fields together.”
“You can summon Spring with a song?” Doubtful and wary, all hesitation in Dorcas’s lean frame.
“I will,” Pandora replied, overflowing in confidence and hoping the splash of it would settle Dorcas. “When I finish The Song, I’ll be able to.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Dorcas challenged.
“You don’t need to see something to know it is there,” said Pandora. “If it’s supposed to be there, it will be there.”
Dorcas didn’t even answer, just laughed. The scoffing, disbelieving kind.
“Let me play for you,” Pandora begged. Pandora had never begged before. “It’s not The Song, but it’s beautiful all the same.”
Dorcas, bow in one hand and arrow in the other, took a step back, with a tilt in her head that suggested the answer was no. But Pandora saw a hunger in her eyes, a craving for something new, and something beautiful.
“Please,” she asked once more. “One song.”
The hunger in Dorcas’s eyes, rather than her stomach, won out. Her shoulders fell a little, and she slid her arrow into her quiver.
“One song.”
Pandora lifted her lyre, her fingers dancing over the strings to form her favorite melody, the one that made the flowers grow. She sang Mary’s words, her voice carrying the weight of magic and the thrill of potential love, blooming as steadily as the flowers that were rising from the earth. Dorcas’s eyes went wide as they sprang around her feet, and Pandora leaned closer to get a better look at their depth.
It was often said that no one could resist Pandora when she played, and it was true. All were caught in her thrall, even someone as grounded and real as Dorcas. As Pandora played and sang, and flowers grew around them, Dorcas felt an unfamiliar softness, an ease she had never known, and she knew she would follow Pandora to the edges of the Earth and back again just to feel her melodies blooming around her.
As powerful as the song was, its magic ended once the melody did. The last breath of it hung in the air between them, and Dorcas found herself looking at Pandora’s outstretched hand, a single red rose bud in the center of her palm, and she wanted to take it, replace it with her own hand.
But, but, but. Always the doubting with Dorcas. Always the hunger and the want and the need. The aching reality of her, etched into her sharp bones and sharper mind. She needed dinner tonight, and then dinner tomorrow, and it would not be easy. It wouldn’t be easy until Spring returned, Alice back from the underworld. Pandora was all ease, and Dorcas knew none of it. She yearned for it, more than she ever had.
Pandora’s hand was still before her, red rose still in the center of it. Dorcas should’ve said no, she knew she should, but Pandora was irresistible. Dorcas couldn’t say yes, but she wouldn’t say no.
“Come back tomorrow,” was her reply instead. “Play for me again.”
“Will you meet me here?” Pandora asked, the first hint of worry expressing itself in a furrowed brow, a tightened grip on the lyre.
“If I am supposed to be there, I will be there,” Dorcas answered, a playful grin on her face. Pandora lightened then, and her smile came much easier to her than Dorcas’s had.
“Then you’ll be there.”
Pandora was right. Dorcas was there, at their little meeting spot. She was there the day after that as well, and the day after. Each day Pandora played another song, one that would make the birds sing in a chorus with her, one that made the wind blow gently, one that filled the air with electricity that crackled in time with Pandora’s music. Not just the music that she played, but the music of her. The light and airy percussion of her laugh, the long phrases of her braids, the beat of her chest. Each song Pandora played, Dorcas found herself more and more entranced in it, found herself part of the symphony Pandora conducted. Each day, Dorcas lingered a little longer, after. They spoke for a few minutes more than they had the day before, and they fell a little more in love.
They touched for the first time one week later. Pandora played the flower song again, offered Dorcas that same red rose, and on that day she took it, and her fingers grazed Pandora’s palm for a moment. Pandora’s palm and Dorcas’s fingers were inexplicably warm for the rest of the day, the mere memory of each other providing heat in the dwindling winter.
Pandora shared all of this with her mothers. She shared everything with her mothers. Mary and Lily watched as Pandora fidgeted with a braid, bounced her leg, sighed repeatedly. Pandora was never anxious, but she was always anxious now. Every moment separated from Dorcas felt wrong, a waste, and it made her restless. Pandora had to move, anything to get closer to Dorcas again.
Lily sat beside Pandora, slid her hand into her daughter’s, looked at the pattern of their interlocking fingers.
“She took the rose today,” Pandora said. “She touched me, here,” and she lifted her other hand to show her mother her palm.
“You’re restless, little one,” Lily replied.
“I just want to see her. I don’t even like looking away from her, even when she’s right in front of me. Like she could just disappear.” Pandora gripped Lily’s hand tighter, as if Lily was the only thing keeping her in place.
“That’d be my fault, I fear. I never feel settled, really, not unless I’m hunting. It seems I passed the urge onto you, after all.”
“I don’t want it,” Pandora said. “My brain is all crowded, just keeps thinking of her, and how beautiful she is, and what if she’s not there tomorrow, and what if she actually hates me and she just likes me for my music, and what if-”
“Pandora,” Lily interrupted, giving their clasped hands a little shake. “She took your rose.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not your music, little one. That is your love. You offered, and she accepted.”
“Yes, but what if-”
“Pandora,” Lily interrupted again, more exasperated this time. “You can ask as many what ifs as you would like, but you’ll never have an answer. You won’t know until you live it.”
“I cannot stop them,” Pandora answered, and now it was a whisper. A tear rolled down her cheek. Lily lifted her free hand to brush it off.
“Oh, my little one,” Lily said, the softness she only showed to her wife and her daughter breaking through. “Your faith in the world has always been uncomplicated, but love is almost always complicated.”
“Dorcas is complicated,” Pandora sighed. “I want to untangle every bit of her.”
Lily laughed softly to herself.
“She has to trust you first. From what you’ve said of her, Dorcas’s life is not easy. Show her you are strong enough to lean upon.”
Alice returned the next morning. Pandora felt the rumble of the train, a rolling drum in her feet, and before she even saw it she took off running towards their meeting spot. She was early, but Dorcas was already there, as if she knew today was special.
“Alice is back,” is all Pandora said, and then they were both running in the direction of the station, panting and breathless, a thrilling symphony.
The train had already arrived by the time Pandora and Dorcas reached the station. There was a crowd gathered in the square already, a woman in the center. Her hair was black, her skin pale, her eyes big and round. The sun beat down on her, warmth radiating out from her in every direction. Pandora was far back in the crowd, but even she could see the wide set of Alice’s smile and felt the love it carried.
For Alice was the very embodiment of love. Pure, joyful love. Some believed that Alice only married the Queen of the Underworld because she was kidnapped, or tricked, but that was merely a vicious rumor started by the mother of the man Alice had been betrothed to.
No, Pandora knew the real story. The story of a lonely Queen, and of a woman lounging amongst the flowers. Pandora heard tell of the way the Queen fell in love with Alice from afar, of the way Alice loved her back, and the world that separated them. The Queen forever bound to her domain and Alice far too in love with the world to leave it behind.
And she tried, she truly did. Alice made the treacherous journey to the Underworld, gave up her life to be with the Queen, only to grow morose and cold and distant without the Overworld she so loved. The Underworld is not meant to be a place of living, of thriving. Alice was a mere shadow of herself, an echo of the woman that the Queen had seen amongst the flowers.
Thus came the construction of the train, the one that runs but twice a year. A gift on the first anniversary of their wedding day, along with an agreement. Half the year with each of Alice’s loves: her world, and her wife. A bold sacrifice, the kind only a woman knows how to make. Alice loved the Queen even more for it.
Alice returned to the Overworld to find it had grown cold and barren without her, that she was the thing that gave life to the earth. And so her trips to the Overworld grew ever more important, even as the Queen grew lonelier and lonelier in the months without her bride.
Crates were being unloaded from the train: fine wine and fresh fruit and seeds for planting. Alice’s return was always a celebration, one which gathered the whole community and lasted deep into the night. They cleared the last of the winter stores, feasted on Alice’s gifts, drank her plenty. It was Pandora’s favorite night of the year, where Mary and Lily would dance to the lively music, where games were played and prizes won, where Alice’s laughter could be heard rising above the noise. The four of them were at the center of it.
Dorcas was never at the center. She existed on the fringes, taking a little more than her share of food, perhaps collecting a book or two, and then disappearing into the night and sleeping easier than she had in months. But on this night, Pandora had clasped her hand tightly in Dorcas’s, was pulling her through the crowd into the very heart of it, and Dorcas could do nothing but cling tightly to Pandora, follow closely in her wake. Pandora kept glancing back, as if to make sure Dorcas was still there, and of course she was. Dorcas would always follow where Pandora led.
Pandora only let go when she reached Alice herself, flung her arms around her neck.
“I’ve missed you!” she exclaimed.
“You could have called me,” Alice answered.
“The Song isn’t finished yet. But it will be, soon.” The look that Alice gave told Dorcas that she had heard this many times before, and didn’t really believe Pandora, but wasn’t going to argue the issue.
Two women approached them, women that between them shared bits and pieces of Pandora: her skin, her eyes, her roundness.
“You’ve brought a friend,” said one, her voice like poetry and her hair like creation.
“Oh, I haven’t introduced her! Dorcas, I’d like you to meet my mothers, Mary and Lily.” The two women, hand in hand, smiled at Dorcas, but she found she could only gape open mouthed back.
For this was Mary, the muse of poetry, whose words had kept Dorcas company through many lonely nights, and this, this was Lily. The Goddess of the Hunt, to whom Dorcas prayed every morning and night, with her fire hair and forest eyes. And they were Pandora’s mothers, the women that made music and gave it a name.
Dorcas felt the urge to fall to her knees, sing praises, but the pair merely swept Dorcas in their arms, spoke of how often they had heard of her, how lovely it was to meet her, pressed wine into her hands and urged her dance.
The evening was a whirlwind. Dorcas had never stayed long in years past, never joined in beyond feeding her own hunger, but now she was dancing with Pandora and singing with Pandora and laughing with Pandora. Their hands stayed clasped, a fire they both tended, and Dorcas felt the knowing eyes of Mary and Lily on them all evening.
At one point a cry rose in the crowd, “Pandora, Pandora, play us a song!” Dorcas had never stayed long enough to see, to know it was tradition. Pandora finally let go of her hand, a lyre presented to her. She hopped up on a table to cheers and applause and then a rapid silence, a great hush.
In that moment, that tense anticipation and collective breath, Dorcas gave in. Really gave in. She’d been hopelessly smitten with Pandora for a while, perhaps even from their first meeting, and had accepted the love Pandora gave her. But now, staring up at her, long blonde braids and wine-stained lips, Dorcas accepted the love she felt.
Pandora gestured her arms, pointing to one part of the crowd, began to hum. The crowd matched her note, knowing what to do. She turned to the next section, humming a note higher. They followed, a harmony. Twice more she did this, a droning chord, one that sank into the ground beneath their feet. Pandora lifted her arms then, readied the crowd, pointed upwards, and with her hands the crowd followed, up in tone. She settled her hands again, and they fell back to the original chord.
Then Pandora lifted her lyre, began to play and sing to the crowd's accompaniment. Her voice, though only one, floated above them all, a dancing light above their heads that twinkled as bright as the emerging stars. She bent her knees, lifted her body, the crowd rose in that beautiful note, falling again. Pandora sang of love, of beauty. She sang of desperation and hunger and Dorcas felt the words in her very soul. They spoke to the core of her, or maybe it was just the way that Pandora’s eyes hadn’t left hers once, since she began to sing. Her song floated above the singing crowd, a unity the likes of which Dorcas had never known, and she wanted to stay right where she was for all of time.
Until, of course, Pandora stopped playing the lyre, held out her hand to Dorcas, still singing. This time her hand was empty: a question, an offer, a beg. Dorcas had no hesitation now. She grasped Pandora’s hand, like stepping over the threshold of home after being away for too long, and she let herself be pulled onto the table.
Pandora’s hand brushed a lock behind Dorcas’s ear, her voice fading out gently, leaving only the singing crowd. Pandora didn’t remove her hand after that, let it linger on Dorcas’s jawbone, fingers trailing down towards her chin. Suddenly, Dorcas feared she would let go, that the fire-touch would go out, and Dorcas leaned in to keep Pandora’s fingers on her. Pandora leaned in too, and suddenly they were an inch apart. Dorcas felt light, her hand floating up, and there was Pandora’s waist, pillowy soft beneath Dorcas’s palm. Pandora was a soft place to land after a hard existence, and Dorcas wanted to rest.
Their lips met, a simple thing. But one filled with the wonders of the universe. They were watched by the stars above and the earth below and a literal choir sung their beauty. Dorcas was sharp and Pandora was ease, and they met somewhere in the middle. Pandora clung to Dorcas’s face, pulling her ever closer, and Dorcas wrapped her arm around Pandora’s neck, desperate for comfort and rest and for her.
Somewhere the humming stopped, was replaced with whoops and cheers that Pandora and Dorcas were barely conscious of until they separated. The world felt different now, even though it was the same one that they had been in before. But now the colors were brighter, the air sweeter, and here they were at the center of it.
They didn’t stay at the party long after that. Something had broken between them, opened them wide, and the flood was rushing in, pounding against them, battering them in feeling and desire and want and hunger, always the hunger with Dorcas, and now with Pandora too. Pandora had never felt hunger like this. She pulled Dorcas away into the night, leading instinctually, but always looking back. Making sure Dorcas was there. She always was, every time, but Pandora checked anyways.
Dorcas led from their meeting place, down paths familiar to her and unknown to Pandora, until they came across the little cottage, worn with time and love, so overgrown it blended into the trees and underbrush that surrounded it. The night hid most of the details, and Pandora wasn’t looking for them anyways. She was looking at Dorcas, always looking at Dorcas.
They were through the threshold, Dorcas leading Pandora around unseen obstacles in the pitch black, back to a little alcove where Pandora could see the outline of a bed. Dorcas stopped, here, and Pandora could feel Dorcas’s palm go slightly sweaty in hers, could hear her breathing increase slightly.
Dorcas turned, and her eyes glimmered in the moonlight that streamed in through the window.
“Stay with me,” she said.
Pandora kissed her, and stayed.
**
Spring moved into Summer quickly that year, it seemed. Time was losing its normal flow. Dorcas wondered what it was: the Queen of the Underworld calling for her bride, or her own new normal, changing the very fabric of the world around them. After all, the love of Pandora was so earth-shattering, ground-breaking, all-powerful that surely it was ripping apart the very thread of the universe.
From the outside her days looked rather simple, hardly unchanged from her life before. She still awoke in the morning, had her breakfast and coffee, and set out for her day. Hunting, tending to her plants, maintaining her little home. She came home in the evenings, ate a simple dinner and read from a book, and then did it all over again the next day. The difference was Pandora. She’d be by her side when Dorcas awoke, and make Dorcas’s coffee for her with just the right amount of sugar. She was near the cottage while Dorcas was out, and she’d come home to lovely gifts: a dinner Pandora had prepared, a song she had written, a new book she had brought from her mothers. Some nights Dorcas would read her book and Pandora would strum her lyre, and some nights Dorcas read Pandora and Pandora strummed Dorcas in return.
It wasn’t long before Dorcas found her time away from the cottage growing short, her hours spent in Pandora’s radius growing long. It was easy to give into Pandora’s pleas to stay, especially when Dorcas’s need to consume, to know, was entirely directed at Pandora. Summer’s heat made Dorcas relax, and Pandora’s made her glow, and times were slow and easy. The cool river called her name, soothed her aching feet while Pandora sang the reeds into softness, making their brushes feel like tender kisses on Dorcas’s arms, almost as sweet as the ones Pandora gave.
“How is The Song?” Dorcas would ask, happily.
“It’ll be done soon, I think,” Pandora would answer, and that answer was enough for Dorcas.
But the summer stretched ever onward, and Dorcas began to feel the familiar worry seep into her bones. Her stores were lighter this year, what with spending less time hunting and feeding twice as many stomachs. And Spring had moved so fast, the end of Summer was threatening, and Winter promised to be long and cold and bitter. And as Dorcas felt a greater urge to pull away, to gather and prepare, Pandora’s pleas grew fiercer, a note of desperation. Dorcas did not spend as much time as she wished hunting, and Pandora did not spend as much time as she wished with Dorcas. The heat was sweltering, the river biting, the reeds overwhelming.
“How is The Song?” Dorcas would ask, hesitantly.
“It’ll be done soon, I think,” Pandora would answer, but it was no longer reassuring.
Alice visited Pandora frequently. They’d walk by the riverside, or lounge in the fields, and talk aimlessly. They knew each other, in a way far deeper and complex than Dorcas could ever hope to understand. And yet, when Alice would stay for dinner, and she would help prepare the food and clean up after, Dorcas found she did not feel left out, but like a grounding force to Alice and Pandora’s fancies, or a co-conspirator with Alice’s mischievous nature.
Still, most of Alice’s time was spent with Pandora, and as the summer progressed the visits felt more urgent. Dorcas came home one day to find them leaned up against a tree trunk, not knowing she was approaching. She was about to call out until she heard her name and stopped short.
“…Dorcas to be happy. She’s all I think about, all day. I can’t think of writing when she’s away, because my head is so filled with her. And then, when she’s around the only melody I hear is hers, not yours. That’s what I write down, not The Song. Her Song.” Dorcas felt icy and hot all at once. Pandora was madly in love with her, a love Dorcas returned wholly and completely and yet…without The Song…
“Oh, Pandora,” Alice was sighing, a reprimand in her voice. “My summers with you are growing shorter. My wife calls for me earlier and earlier each year, and until you finish your song I only return with her blessing.” That icy feeling grew in Dorcas’s chest, the cold misery of anxiety, clutching at her throat. Pandora, however, seemed oblivious to Alice’s warning, gazing off into the brush.
“Pandora,” Alice said again, growing agitated. Pandora looked back at her, wide eyes blank. “What will you do when I leave? What will you do for Dorcas?”
“I’ll write The Song, I’ll bring you back. Whenever the stores get low I’ll bring you back. I promised her I would, so that’s what I’ll do.”
“Then you need to get writing, dove,” Alice answered. Pandora hummed in a way that was not nearly committal enough for Dorcas, and she turned around to hunt until the sun sank low into the horizon.
Alice was called back to the Underworld a mere three days later, the train an unwelcome sight to all. Even Alice, normally an eager bounce in her step at the station, looked sorrowful as she clutched her bags as the train slowed. Pandora stood with her, to see her off, and Dorcas beside, for support.
“Will you be okay? Are winters harsh, there?” Pandora asked. Alice scoffed.
“There are no winters in the Underworld, no barren seasons. There is always enough, just enough, to survive. No more, but no less.” Alice sounded bitter to Dorcas, but she could not comprehend why. A place where she always had just what she needed? No need to scrimp and save, always trusting that she’d have enough the next day?
The train was nearly stopped, and Alice reached over to hug Pandora one more time.
“Get writing, little dove,” she whispered. Pandora nodded into her shoulder, and when she pulled back there were teardrops on her cheeks. Alice gave Dorcas a sympathetic squeeze of the shoulder, loving cheek kisses to Mary and Lily, and then the train doors opened.
“You’re early,” she said into the carriage. Dorcas was too far to the side to make out who waited on the other side of the door.
“I missed you,” came the reply. It dripped down the back of Dorcas’s back, an ice cube, unpleasant and thrilling all the same. Dorcas found herself leaning over, trying to get a glimpse of the speaker, but all she saw was a flash of blonde hair before Alice was already in the carriage, and the door was already closed, and the train was already pulling away.
“I need to write,” said Pandora.
And she did.
In many ways the routine was the same. Get up and have breakfast, go out for food and firewood, return home for supper and quiet evenings and bed again. And Pandora was still there, but she also…wasn’t. She was wrapped in her writing, a new focus entering her. The sharpness of winter, well-worn in Dorcas, did not suit Pandora. In some ways it was better, this new determination. It was the hope Dorcas clung too, that Pandora really would finish it. But when the stores were running low, and The Song remained unfinished, Dorcas felt the cold within her grow.
“Pandora,” she would call, and Pandora would not answer. When Pandora wrote, she saw only the flowers and the stones and the words blooming before her, did not even heed the call of her name.
“Pandora,” Dorcas would call, “I’m going out for food.” She would receive a hum in response, and she did not know if it was in answer to her question or the next note of the song that Dorcas prayed was The Song.
“How is The Song?” Dorcas would ask over dinner, between little phrases Pandora hummed to herself.
“Done soon,” Pandora would answer, but Dorcas would feel no reassurance.
Dorcas spent longer and longer away from the cottage, desperate for food and fire. But the longer she stayed away, the less there was, both out in the world and back in her cottage. For Pandora, her beautiful, lovely, naive Pandora, could not fill her belly, or keep the chill out of the air. Her fire-touch did not warm her through, not when the chill sank even into her blankets. Dorcas thought of Alice, thought of the security of enough, just enough.
What Dorcas wouldn’t give to have just enough.
“Pandora,” Dorcas called, once again. “I’m going for firewood.”
A hum.
“It might storm.”
Silence.
“I’ll come back, my love,” Dorcas called. She walked out of the door, Pandora unmoved from her spot at the desk.
The air was biting, as if it were hungry too. There was a damp to the air, one which kept the forest lush but the wood hard to light, and smoky. Drying it proved to be a challenge, especially with the night freezes, and Dorcas was desperate for wood she could burn immediately, that very night. The wind picked up, and she tightened her cloak.
She came upon their meeting place, and that lovely time felt an age away. She pulled out the red rose, the one Pandora conjured for her and that she always kept in her pocket, watched it shake and shiver in the wind, and Dorcas thought of the songs Pandora sang her. She’d give the memories of them back in exchange for a clean fire, a full stomach. She gripped Pandora’s rose tighter, clung to her love with desperation. She’s writing The Song for me. Always the thought Dorcas held close to. She’s writing The Song for me, and I won’t have to be hungry-
“Hello, little bird,” came a voice from behind. Dorcas startled, her hand grabbed an arrow automatically as she turned.
“Hey, hey,” said the voice again, as if she were speaking to a cornered animal, and Dorcas saw the voice was attached to a woman. Bright blonde hair, tall, chiseled cheekbones and narrow cheeks. She would be beautiful if she wasn’t so haunting, like she didn’t quite fit the space that she filled, was actually somewhere else.
“Who are you?” but as soon as she said it, Dorcas felt the answer. For it was the flash of blonde hair from the train, and that voice dripped down her spine the same way it had the day Alice left.
“My name is Narcissa,” the Queen said, and had Dorcas once described her voice as ice? Now it felt like heat, relaxing its way down Dorcas’s back, loosening her muscles. “Alice has spoken highly of you, little bird.”
“Why are you here?” Dorcas was not one to exchange pleasantries, even with the Queen of the Underworld.
“To make you an offer,” Narcissa answered. “The train usually travels but twice a year, though for you I will manage a third. Come see what I have built, little bird.”
“Why me?” Dorcas asked. Dorcas had no lineage or magic or money, and the Queen knew it.
“Because you will appreciate it. A place to sleep that is not cold, and food to eat that is just enough.”
It was all that Dorcas wanted. Warmth, and food. It was everything except for Pandora. She was still gripping the rose in her hand, the one that gave her no warmth or food.
Dorcas wanted to stay with Pandora, wanted her soft touch and drumming feet and melodic laughter. But Dorcas also wanted food, and she could not deny the reality of her own body. And Pandora would be sad if Dorcas left, but…
But, but, but. Always the doubting with Dorcas. How sad would Pandora be really? She would be for a bit, would go home to her mothers and write sad songs. And then Alice would return, and Alice would make her feel better, and she would move on. Because that’s what Pandora does, she moves on. She moves forward. She doesn’t look back, doesn’t hesitate. If something is meant to come back to her it will, and she lives in that certainty all her days. Pandora would miss her for a while, and then move on, and they would both be happier in the end.
The thought gave Dorcas a new kind of ache.
Her grip loosened on the flower, enough so that the next gust of wind, even stronger than before, pulled it from her grasp. It fell to the ground, a spot of red marring the brown of the forest floor. Her eyes didn’t leave it as Narcissa slid a ticket into her hand.
“The train leaves tonight. If you miss it, you don’t get another chance. If you ride it, you don’t get to go back.”
And then Narcissa was gone, just as quickly as she had appeared, and Dorcas was still staring at the rose. Another gust of wind, gnawing at her exposed wrists and ankles, tumbling the rose a little ways away.
Dorcas did not pick it up.
**
Pandora noticed Dorcas wasn’t back yet when she noticed her leg bouncing. Her heart rate had picked up, even though she was in the same spot she had been in all day, hardly moving apart from her fingers over the strings of the lyre, her pen moving over the paper. But then she noticed her leg was bouncing, and it only ever did that if Dorcas was gone too long.
Pandora looked up. It was dark, and windy, and the trees danced. There was the faintest melody in it, a little whistle forming a gentle tune. Pandora wanted to play it but…no, only The Song. She had to finish The Song. For Dorcas. Her leg was bouncing. Where was Dorcas?
The storm was picking up, the night was already full dark. The cottage was cold, when did it get so cold? Pandora opened the front door, into the night, and called, as loud as she could, but the wind drowned her out. The leaves laughed at her as they danced in the symphony, the rocks of the pavement mocked her call.
She didn’t think, just stepped out in the storm, rain lashing at her face. Her braids knocked against her face, try as she might to pull them behind her, but the wind would change direction and snap them against her again. She moved to the meeting place on instinct, because that’s where she always went to find Dorcas.
There, on the ground, was the rose, stem caught under a rock, keeping it in place. It was smaller than Pandora remembered, as if petals had been ripped off of it. Pandora untangled it, held it close to her chest, staring out in the storm, unseeing, feeling only cold and wet and pain, deep pain.
Somewhere, not too far away, a train pulled out of the station, and Pandora knew that Dorcas was gone.
**
It was an easy decision, to go after Dorcas. Pandora made it as soon as she realized that her lover was gone, made it before she was even conscious that she had done so. It was a foregone conclusion, inevitable. It felt like what she was always meant to do: keep Dorcas in her sights.
The decision was the easy part; finding her was not. Pandora hardly knew where to begin. All she had was the red rose at their meeting place and her memories of the past few months. They were filled with snippets of song and brief glimmers of Dorcas, looking thinner and farther away even when they lay close together in bed. A sharp feeling of fear rose in Pandora at the thought, and she grew even more determined to find Dorcas.
Determination alone would not suffice. Pandora needed information. She went to the only people she could think to help, her forever support system, her mothers.
Pandora had never felt nervous to go to Mary and Lily before, had always shared anything. Now she was sick with fear, because somehow, this all felt like her fault. That Pandora let Dorcas slip away somehow.
“I have a poem for lost things,” Mary said, once Pandora had managed to choke out that Dorcas was gone. “Set it to music, and think of Dorcas, and it should lead you to her.”
“Pandora, love,” she added, before Pandora was pulled away into the haze of creation. Mary gave her a look, the kind that sank into the very soul of Pandora, that made her feel like she couldn’t hide. “Consider also whether she wants to be found.”
“She does,” Pandora answered, filled with more confidence than she felt. “She left her home, her books. She’d never leave her books.” She’d never leave me, Pandora thought, praying and not quite believing she was correct.
Pandora played, finding the music in Mary’s words, thinking only of Dorcas, Dorcas, Dorcas, and her sturdy shoulders and callused hands and sharp bones, and a path was laid out before her. It was in the breeze pressed to her back, bidding her move, and the subtle greening of the grass she should step upon, and a gradual settling of her stomach when she moved.
She set out immediately, not thinking of food or supplies, which could have gone very poorly. Luckily (or, as it turns out, not so luckily) for Pandora, she didn’t have to walk long. Her song led her on a well-trod path, the one that led to the train station, led directly onto the platform that the train, the only one that ever passed through, always departed from.
The train only comes twice a year, for Alice, but here was Pandora, led here by her magic. Pandora sat where the path ended, right at the edge of the platform, huddled her knees close to her body. She sat there and dug, dug through patchy memories of the winter months and Dorcas’s constant questioning, “Is The Song finished?” Dorcas’s smaller and smaller food portions amidst her growing hunger.
And then Pandora thought of the last time she was at the train station, and Dorcas’s face when Alice had said there was always enough, just enough, in the Underworld. It was that hunger again, that naked need.
As Pandora sat there, at the train station, and thought of that hunger, she felt that this was somehow her fault. That all her devotion and love wasn’t enough, that she had come up short somehow, that for all she was, it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough. She was single-minded and powerful and the daughter of a fucking goddess and she had fallen short.
“Show her you are strong enough to lean upon,” Lily had told her. Pandora had not listened.
“Finish The Song,” Alice had told her. Pandora had not listened.
“I’m hungry,” Dorcas had told her, over and over again, even when she didn’t use those words. Pandora had not listened.
Pandora knew where Dorcas was, the one place where Pandora could not follow her.
No.
This was not acceptable to Pandora. She would follow Dorcas anywhere and everywhere, even into the very mouth of Death, without hesitation. It was the only way to redeem herself, to show Dorcas how strong she was. So the train wouldn’t come again for months. She would just have to go to the Underworld a different way.
“There is another way,” Lily said when Pandora returned, heavy with apprehension and sadness. “It’s long, and dangerous. You may not be able to come back.”
“I have to go,” Pandora answered. “I have to.”
“I know. You’re just like me, love.” Lily had tears in her eyes. She didn’t cry a lot, and it broke Pandora’s heart. Still, it would break her heart harder if she stayed. And so, with one last hug for Mary and Lily, she set off, to follow the old road to the Underworld, the one no living creature is supposed to take.
“Wait for me,” Pandora begged, hoping beyond hope that Dorcas was listening. “I’m coming.”
**
The Underworld wasn’t really what Dorcas expected. She had always imagined somewhere dark and dingy, purple cave walls and dripping ceilings and cold. It wasn’t the opposite of that either, it was just kind of…there. There was a lingering gray-ness to everything, as if Dorcas were peering at the world through a mirror, or like some of the color had been sucked out of everything. It wasn’t cold, but it also wasn’t warm either. Dorcas certainly wasn’t uncomfortable but she wasn’t exactly comfortable either. It was some awkward in-between that she’d never known before. Or perhaps she had, but her body had only known it in passing, and now she existed in it. Like lingering on a bridge, a state of suspended liminality.
It was miserable.
Dorcas now understood the bitterness of Alice’s face when she had said “just enough,” all those months ago. That bitter taste now lived on her tongue, so faint as to be barely there. Just enough, it turns out, was not enough, not really. It was enough to keep her from the terror of starving, the misery of cold, but it wasn’t enough for even a drop of joy. It just, was. It was fading nothingness.
It turns out that you can’t have the joys in life without the sorrows, the peaks without the valleys. Instead Dorcas was hanging somewhere in the middle with no way up or down. Falling or climbing would be equally welcome, or even to sink into oblivion and exist no more. But this…this was existence at its most bare, its least inspired. And Dorcas fucking chose this.
She thought of going back to Narcissa, of begging to end her contract even though she was very clear when she had said “no turning back.” She thought of finding Alice, begging her to speak on her behalf. But Alice was nowhere to be found, probably because it would make Dorcas feel something. And besides, would Alice even do something like that for Dorcas anyways? After all, Dorcas was the one that abandoned Pandora, without a word.
Pandora…where was she now? How long had it taken her to realize that Dorcas was gone? How long did she wait in the cottage, cold and quiet, before she knew Dorcas wouldn’t come back?
Had she finished The Song? If she had, Dorcas left for nothing. If she hadn’t, Dorcas was cursed to this existence from the start.
She didn’t know which answer was worse.
**
Pandora didn’t know how long she’d been walking. She had no conception of where she was. Over or Under or somewhere In Between. The road was bleak, and she could only see the path directly in front of her, even with her Song for Lost Things. Still, she moved steadily onward, not even looking behind her, thinking only of Dorcas, Dorcas, Dorcas.
Doubt was her only companion. The void felt endless. The path did not turn or change or rise up or move downhill. What if this was all there was? Pandora could be stationary, could have hardly moved at all, and she wouldn’t know it. This could be her curse, to move forever and go nowhere. To never see Dorcas again.
Even so, she had no other choice but to move forward. No use in turning back, whether cursed or not. She’d walk forever for the merest chance of seeing Dorcas again, even for a moment. Even just a glimpse.
And so the doubt came for Pandora, but she let it move through and past her, thinking only of Dorcas, Dorcas, Dorcas.
She never did know how long she walked, and when she came upon a door, rather suddenly, she somehow felt wide awake and exhausted all at once. As if she had arrived back in her body after dissociating, and was completely fresh and yet so achingly tired.
And now, the door. She briefly considered just opening it, but that felt rude, somehow, and so she knocked.
It swung open, and she stepped through into an unknown world.
**
They saw each other again from a distance.
Dorcas was in a kind of town square, milling about aimlessly with other souls she had never seen before and likely wouldn’t see again. No one had friends here, relationships, connections. There was just yourself, and others. And even your own sense of self could get lost sometimes.
Dorcas was losing herself. Without her books and her cottage and her life, who was she? Without her forest and her bow and her Pandora… Pandora, Pandora, Pandora.
Pandora.
There she was, all of a sudden. Sunlight braids and forest eyes and music embodied. She was up on the hill, the one the others say leads to The Path, the one that goes one way. Alice rides the train that cuts into the hill, but everyone else walks in on The Path, and they never go back the other way.
Gods, even demigods like Pandora, don’t come here, don’t walk The Path. And yet, here she was. Surely a cruel trick, some new torture just for Dorcas, the divine justice she deserved for her heartless foolishness.
No, there was no torture in the Underworld. The nothingness was torture enough, the lack of lack as well as abundance. And for all that the distance pained Dorcas, the sight of Pandora would always overwhelm that pain. She was a beacon of everything in a nothing existence, a breath of air in a vacuum, a flash of color in a world of gray.
Pandora came up over a hill, took her first sight of The City, the only one in the Underworld. It was concrete and asphalt, the sort of place you pass through without staying, and yet all of these souls roamed the streets, staying in a place not meant for the task. Like a huntress honing in on her prey, Pandora’s eyes managed to find Dorcas. She was just one in a million souls, but she was the first of all of them to Pandora.
She doesn’t belong here, is all Pandora can think as she takes in the sight of her lover. Even from a distance, Pandora can tell that Dorcas is…less. Not noticeably smaller, or weaker, or anything of the sort. In fact, she looks like she’s had enough to eat, a sight Pandora hasn’t seen in months. No, she just looks diminished in some way, some intangible spark has gone out. Like the things that made Dorcas Dorcas have fled.
Even so, it’s still Dorcas. She is sharp boned and sharp willed and sharp minded, and all of that is still there when her eyes meet Pandora’s, and the recognition hits. And that unrelenting force that Pandora has been feeling, ever since she discovered Dorcas gone, rises to a peak before crashing over her, overwhelming her and subsiding all in the same moment. Pandora can be at rest, finally, because there is Dorcas, before Pandora’s very eyes.
She never wants Dorcas out of her sights again.
In the first moment they were all stillness, a snapshot in a gently-moving place, still rocks in a stream. In the next, they were movement. Rapid, frantic movement, the rushing of water and the crashing of wind through leaves. Dorcas stumbling through bodies and Pandora stumbling over her own feet, desperately putting the other in their collision course. Dorcas hadn’t experienced such desperate want since she had signed her contract, and Pandora had felt nothing but desperate want since Dorcas left, and now their needs were pulling them closer and closer.
They didn’t reach each other. Death Eaters reached them first, grabbing hold of Pandora’s arms and Dorcas’s waist. Dorcas feared Narcissa’s enforcers for what they could do, eat a soul out of existence. At first, she feared them because they could, then she feared them because she thought she might want them too. Now, she was scared they would, just moments before she could put her hands on Pandora again. They were both still reaching for each other, a clawing need, an ache only soothed by proximity, their fingers curling and tensing and grasping for any slip of air that could pull them further towards each other.
But they were useless against the Death Eaters, who carried each of them easily, out of arms’ reach, and towards a building that Dorcas had only visited once, when she first arrived.
Narcissa’s manor, the sturdy center of The City, always loomed over, wherever Dorcas went. It wasn’t even particularly tall, but seemed to always be on the horizon anyways, swamping anything around it. The manor felt the same way Narcissa did: shockingly beautiful and terrifyingly cold all at once. Dorcas couldn’t help but look at it, and yet she felt sadder every time she did.
They were walking through the gates now, and the whole property gave the feeling of decrepit grandeur, decaying grace, cold brilliance.
Pandora wanted to speak, had a million words in her head, and yet not a single one could emerge. What could she say? After all the times she had let them fall apart, that she had let Dorcas down, what could she do now? The rush of seeing Dorcas again was subsiding, her thoughts were clearing, and the thing that was left was naked doubt.
Pandora simply hadn’t thought this far ahead. She hadn’t planned what she would say, so determined to just be near Dorcas once again. Now she was faced with it, even while they were being forced through the winding passageways of the large manor and in the midst of these cruel, masked captors, because she knew she should say something, anything. But an apology felt like not enough, and too much to say aloud as well, and the words I love you were falling short of her tongue.
Dorcas was simply staring, and Pandora couldn’t read her. As much of a mystery as she always was, maybe more after their winter of neglect, Dorcas’s diminishing in the Underworld. Maybe they were already strangers to each other, after living such different lives, walking such different paths. And, even more terrifying, would Dorcas even want her anymore? She had run for Pandora, but now she was just staring, unreadable and unwavering, and also saying nothing. Doubts, doubts, doubts, filling Pandora’s head, and she was not brave enough to voice any of them.
And so they were brought closer and closer to Narcissa, and Pandora grew ever more doubtful.
**
Alice rarely paid attention to the daily goings on in the Underworld. Enamored as she was with Narcissa, the details of ruling a realm of existence weren’t really of interest to her. People, they were interesting. Alice cared about the souls she met, the stories they held, at least before they diminished. It was the worst part of her Underworld winters, even worse than the chilling of feelings and the distance from the life of the Overworld. It was the way she’d inevitably meet someone and learn all of who they were, their life and their loves and their triumphs and their losses and their pains, and then the way she’d watch them lose it all, diminish.
Because you don’t stay yourself forever, in the Underworld. It is not a place for living, it is a place of slow decay, a place for your soul to sink into the universe and feed the new life happening without you.
Narcissa would hold her at night, when Alice’s new friends began to forget. She would pull Alice’s head to her chest, feel Alice’s warm tears on her cold chest, and tell Alice that it was the way of the world, that it must go on, that energy cannot be created or transferred but it also cannot exist in stasis, it must move. And Narcissa would warn Alice of doing so again in the future, would remind her of the heartbreak and the pain and would wish she did not have to see her wife so distraught, but it was not in Alice’s nature to be separate from people. And so Alice continued to break her own heart, and Narcissa held the pieces together as best she could.
Even though Alice didn’t keep up with the more technical aspects of ruling the Underworld, she did hear the news that passed amongst the newer souls, the ones that still retained some sense of identity, had enough cares left to gossip. And the news of the arrival of a woman, godlike in appearance, and the struggle in the square, reached her quickly.
Disturbances happen in the Underworld, it’s why Narcissa has her Death Eaters, the ones that expedite the diminishment for unruly souls. Some souls are not ready to settle, but Narcissa insists they must, even if by force. And so disturbances occur, and the souls are dealt with, and no one cares for very long. It’s common enough that Alice is not normally so intrigued, but this story is different.
The godlike woman, the sunlight hair, she’s like music, the soul had said. And there was only one person that could match such a description, and there is only one person she would make her way here for, and Alice found herself, for the first time, at Narcissa’s side for an audience.
Narcissa, though obviously surprised by Alice’s presence, chose not to comment on it, rightly assuming she’d have an explanation soon enough. She was in her element, quietly commanding and in control of the situation. It was what always drew Alice to her, beyond her striking beauty. Narcissa was power and a challenge.
Of course, Narcissa had never faced a challenge like Pandora and Dorcas before. In they were swept, the silent and masked Death Eaters leading them each by the forearms, though they faced no resistance. The pair of them seemed barely aware of their surroundings, eyes boring into each other’s like they could speak through them. Pandora was too radiant for this cold, distant place, and Dorcas was too faded in comparison to the brilliance she’d held when Alice had last seen her. The cruelty of the Underworld, in sharp relief.
“Why are you here?” Narcissa asked, a characteristic boredom in her tone. Dorcas startled a little, and turned to face the Queen, but Pandora continued to stare at Dorcas.
“Pandora is here,” Dorcas answered, saying Pandora’s name like a prayer, some secret thing only she could speak.
“Yes, but why,” Narcissa asked again, maintaining the boredom with a little more effort.
“I’m here for Dorcas,” came Pandora’s reply. Her voice rang clear and confident, though her brows furrowed as she continued to stare at her (former?) partner. “I’m here to bring her home.”
“This is her home now.” A bare statement of fact, and yet it felt like a falsehood. Nothing about this place could be home for Dorcas. She was being ground into dust before their eyes, decaying into nothing, and what a cruelty it was. Home is not the place that tears you down.
“It’s not where she belongs,” Pandora answered with ferocity, her voice carrying a hint of her unique magic. “She should be above, with her forest and her cottage and her books and-” Pandora stopped speaking suddenly, that brow furrow deepening and eyes growing pained, an uncharacteristic pain in them.
“With me,” she finished, swallowing. Dorcas was still looking up at Narcissa and Alice, and so they got a full view of the hope that crossed her features, one that Pandora could only glimpse.
The hope did not last for long, because Narcissa laughed. Full-throated, head back laughter that made her eyes crinkle and cheeks blush, the most human she ever looked. How horrible it came with such cruelty, the most human she ever acted.
“No one leaves, Pandora,” she said, through continuing gasps of laughter. “You know this, everyone knows this. No one leaves, oh, you foolish girl,” and she had to stop speaking again to regain control of her breath. Pandora’s face was falling, the pain expanding, and it broke Alice’s heart the same way it always did.
“Dove,” Alice said, and this is what finally broke Pandora’s gaze. There was so much in Pandora’s eyes, grief and fear and hope and doubt, but most of all, guilt. A deep guilt that colored her skin and caked her body and exuded from her in all of its ugliness.
“Oh, dove, what did you do?” is all Alice could think to say.
“Not enough,” she answered, the ugliest music she’d ever made. It was a clash of instruments and discordant harmony, painful to hear but even more painful to create. Dorcas's eyes flickered towards Pandora’s, once.
“What she’s done is come all this way for nothing,” Narcissa stepped in, breath settling.
“Not for nothing,” Pandora interrupted. “For Dorcas.”
“Oh?” Narcissa replied, and Alice knew the look on her face. The look of a cat that’s cornered a mouse. “And what have you done for Dorcas? Oh, you’ve loved her,” she said quickly, seeing Pandora’s mouth open again. “You’ve loved her like an object to be admired, a piece of art to mount on the wall and sigh over from time to time, but what did you do for her, little Pandora?”
Apprehension crossed Pandora’s face as Narcissa continued speaking. “Did you write her a song? Many songs? That’s lovely, dear, truly adorable. Did that feed her? Did that keep her warm? For all of your admiration, you drove her away, drove her to Hell, and now you want to bring her back again?” Narcissa was mocking now, sweeping down from her pedestal to approach Pandora, whose lip was quavering.
“I love her, I love her,” Narcissa nearly sung, a surprisingly accurate recreation of Pandora’s lilting tone, before dropping back to her usual register. “No, you just love the idea of her, you love the way she makes you feel. You’re so in your head that you didn’t even notice the suffering she was enduring before your very eyes.”
“And now look,” Narcissa gestured to Dorcas, and Pandora’s eyes snapped back to her like a starved woman. “She is fed, and she is not unhappy, and she will fade into peace as all mortals must do.” Pandora was crying, big tears that rolled down her cheeks and splashed onto her chest, but this did not phase Narcissa. This was the moment she went for the throat.
“And you are foolish to think that you are so special that I would break the laws of both of our worlds for your silly infatuation.”
And this, this is what was too much for Pandora, what pushed her from hurt and sad over into anger. Narcissa lunged for her throat and Pandora decided she would respond in kind.
“Oh, as if you can speak of love,” she cried, her voice echoing through the chamber like a ringing bell. “You, who keep your wife imprisoned for longer and longer each year for your own selfish needs, even though it kills her!”
“You dare-” Narcissa began, but Pandora would not stop.
“She’s miserable here, she hates it, it’s not meant for her, but you drag her back anyways. You drag her away from her people every year, so utterly selfish you can’t see the suffering of your own wife. You think it’s so horrible that I want to break the rules for Dorcas’s happiness? You break the rules for Alice’s misery.”
“Alice loves me.”
“Do you love her?”
“Of course, you pathetic-”
“Enough,” Alice interrupted, a rare note of command. “You are being ridiculous, the both of you.”
“But-” they each tried to answer.
“No,” Alice said with finality, and then, “Narcissa, a word.”
Two conversations happened then, in parallel. One of them frantic, and quiet, and hurried.
“I’m sorry, Dorcas. I’m so sorry. There isn’t enough time to tell you how sorry I am but just know-”
“Pandora.”
“-that I’ll be better, you have to believe me. It really is almost done, but even if it never is-”
“Pandora.”
“I’ll do more, I’ll be more. I’ll be anything for you. Please, I’m so sorry-”
“Pandora.”
A silence followed. One filled with desperation and need and anxiety, but relief as well.
“I love you, Pandora.”
“I love you too. It’s why I’m asking for one more chance. Just one more chance, Dorcas.”
The other, across the room, tenser and quiet.
“You’re clinging, my dearest.”
“I’m not-”
“You are. You’re unforgiving, demand perfection at every turn, and when you make a decision you cling to it no matter how foolish. You cling to what you love.”
Narcissa knew the implications of Alice’s words.
“I can’t just let her go, love. Sending a soul Above again? No repercussions?”
“You let me go.”
“That’s different.”
“Less and less, though. You cling.”
“This isn’t about us-”
“Isn’t it?”
A silence then, although a lot was said. More through looks and body language than with words, the kind of knowledge only gained through years of mutual love and attention. But still desperate and needy, in its own way. The silence broke once.
“You don’t need to simply let them go. I’m just asking you to give them one more chance. One more chance, Narcissa.”
“One more chance,” Narcissa said, returning to Pandora and Dorcas and interrupting their frantic whispers. “That’s what I will give you. Not for you, Pandora, or you, Dorcas, or for me, but for my wife.”
Tears welled up in both Pandora and Dorcas’s eyes, both of them opening their mouths to spill gratitudes, but Narcissa held up a hand to stop them.
“But I cannot, in good conscience, let you each just walk out of here. No, your happy ending is dependent on you, and you alone.” The other women watched Narcissa, apprehensive.
“You will be allowed to walk the path back to the Overworld, but not side-by-side. Pandora, you will walk in front, and Dorcas, you will walk behind. If Pandora turns, even once, before she is back in the Overworld, Dorcas will return, forever.”
Dorcas’s face remained lit up, but Pandora’s fell in horror.
“What sort of cruel trick is this?” she asked. Narcissa laughed.
“No trick, little Pandora. It’s a trial. A test, to prove you love her as you say you do.”
“What does this prove?”
“That you trust her. Not to follow, no. You trust her to make her own choice. You see, you will not know whether she has come with you until it is too late to return. Do you love her enough to let her make that choice for herself? For you to not know the answer?”
“Because you see, Pandora,” Narcissa said, as she stepped ever closer, voice lowering and softening, “that is what I do, every Spring, when I send Alice back. She never has to return, and I never know if she will. But I let her go anyways, knowing she may make the choice to never return to me. I have faith that she will come back to me.”
The thought was deeply chilling in a way Pandora had never before experienced. Turning around and Dorcas not being there. The empty cottage, the unread books. The sheer loneliness of it all. A chill went down her spine.
Doubt, doubt, doubt.
“Easy,” Dorcas spoke, with more confidence than Pandora felt. “I will always follow where she leads.”
“Will you?” Narcissa asked, eyebrow raising. “You’ve left her before.”
“I’ll follow,” Dorcas repeated, and Pandora prayed she imagined the quaver in it.
There was no time for discussion, or reassurances. There was not even time for Alice to run over and give one last hug, to ask Pandora if The Song was finished. The Death Eaters seized them once more, Pandora craning her neck to keep looking at Dorcas, like it was the last time she ever would see her. The doors clanged shut behind them, the silence echoing in Narcissa’s chamber.
“My love,” Narcissa began, an apology creeping into her voice.
“Don’t apologize for making the right decision, dearest,” Alice interrupted, wrapping her wife in her arms.
Perhaps it was cruel of Alice, but Narcissa’s decision felt right. Whatever happened to Pandora and Dorcas up there, it echoed the fears Alice always held for Pandora. That her love would be too ungrounded, too presentational, too shallow for someone as real and practical as Dorcas, as good as they were for each other. Some faith in each other, some dedication to a shared future, and some security in their love. That’s what this would bring them. Perhaps it would bring the same for her and Narcissa.
And if there was anything Pandora could do, it was have faith.
**
They were rushed to the Path, as quickly and out of sight of the other souls as could be managed. Pandora spent the entire walk looking at Dorcas as desperately as she could, in case she never saw her again, in case Dorcas left.
Because she had left before, hadn’t she?
There was little chance to exchange words as they were yanked along by the Death Eaters. Pandora could only manage a desperate “I love you,” because she didn’t know what else to say, really. Dorcas managed more, as they crested the hill.
“You don’t need to see something to know it is there. If it’s supposed to be there, it will be there.”
They were at the entrance quickly, panting and out of breath, and Pandora wanted a moment, just one moment, to simply hug Dorcas, feel her skin beneath her palm and smell that familiar woody scent, but the Death Eaters merely shoved her onto the Path, and Pandora was too terrified to turn.
She set off walking, unable to hear whether Dorcas was following. Back on the Path she had just trod, but now it was completely different. It was the same stretch of nothing, and she was still anxious, but all she could think of was what lay behind her, how desperately she wanted to turn. Dorcas’s words echoed in her head, Pandora’s own words spoken back to her. What was Dorcas telling her? That she was meant to be with Pandora? Or that she was meant to stay behind? Pandora had no choice but to walk on, and wonder if Dorcas was following.
Dorcas followed. Of course she followed. It was the most faith she had in anything, her faith in Pandora. Pandora, who had come back for her, who promised to try and who looked like music and who made her feel. Pandora, who’s falling footsteps sounded like drums and panting breath sounded like the gasp before a tune. Anticipation upon anticipation, and endless faith. Pandora was faithful, and Pandora would trust that if Dorcas was meant to be there, she would be.
Wait for me, Dorcas thought. I’m coming.
Pandora tried desperately to think of something other than turning around, of seeing Dorcas’s face, of the silence behind her, of her last words to Pandora. She missed her lyre, though no song fit the moment, not really. She thought of Mary’s poetry, of Lily’s power. She thought of the Song, the stupid, wretched, incomplete Song. Almost finished but missing something. She thought of Alice’s life split in two, of the way she always returned to her wife. She thought of Narcissa’s words.
“I have faith that she will return to me.”
Faith, that’s what her song needed. Pure and utter faith, different from the faith she’d felt before, that uncomplicated, unchallenged kind. This was stronger because it flew in the face of every doubt she held, every fear that clung to her. Pandora was sure, despite Narcissa’s words, that this was a trick, but ahead she walked. Pandora doubted and doubted that Dorcas was there but she walked forward anyways, and that was the purest distillation of faith she could find.
The reassurance reached her at the same time as the light of the Overworld.
The Song finished then, just like that. The entirety of it in Pandora’s head like a truth she had always known. Alice could be called back whenever Pandora wanted, just as Dorcas was behind her, following like she promised. And soon they would be together, in the Overworld steadily growing from a pinprick of light into a little sun into a sky and a ground and a tree, up ahead. The beat of Pandora’s steps drew her forward, the Song there in her head ready to be shared.
Dorcas would love it, she would be so happy, Dorcas has to know what the Song sounds like, and then. And then. She’d never need to leave again, never be driven away by Pandora’s foolishness or mad drive of creation or of a stark needy hunger. Mary and Lily were up ahead, waving her forward, and Pandora could cry. They would be so proud of her, and Dorcas would never be hungry again, and Pandora turned to tell Dorcas the good news and-
Oh.
Oh.
“Pandora.”
“Dorcas.”
Dorcas pulled away from Pandora as if in slow motion. As Dorcas sank into shadows Pandora watched her vision of the future fade as quickly as it had come, torn from her by her own foolishness. The cottage of life replaced with one of cold emptiness, the plenty surrounding her growing rotten with unuse, her days silent and barren without her love. Pandora’s last glimpse of Dorcas was of her calling for Pandora, the pain of betrayal sharp in her eyes, as sharp as Dorcas ever was.
Two pairs of hands reached for each other, even as their owners were pulled apart. Useless and desperate.
**
Dorcas faded. For all of her draw, her thirst for life, her strength, and her skills, she was just a woman, no noble parentage, no magic, and no great sums of money that could stop it. And so, like all souls do, she faded.
Pandora did too, in a way. Her music was rarer, and sadder, and hardly stirred a breeze. She never sang The Song, even though it was completed, even though Alice begged for it. She never sang for others anymore, or her mothers, or the fields or the forests, or even herself. She only ever sang for Dorcas, still. She never returned to the cottage, and in some ways she never returned to Mary and Lily either. She stayed with them, after, and accepted meals and a bed and even company, but struggled to accept their love. And every year, when the train came for Alice, Pandora tried to board it, and every year Narcissa stopped her, a frown on her face and her hand clutching Alice.
As Pandora watched the train roll away from the station, the clack of the wheels sounded like drumming.