Persephone (Into Shadow, #2)

by Lev Grossman

My head hurt, one of those Advil-proof, hot-coal-in-the-skull headaches.

I didn’t have a ton of friends. Just the one, actually. I used to have more, but five years ago my dad disappeared.

He always told me I was special, that I had a gift, and I just had to wait till I grew up to find out what it was.

For some people bad things happening brings them together. We were the other kind of people.

It was like I’d become a ghost without having to go through the messy intermediate step of actually dying.

Now I was in tenth grade, and Lindsay was the only one of my friends who’d stuck around. I guess she believed in ghosts.

Boys: you could see why I’d been putting that one off.

I took all that stuff and put it in what I thought of as a mental disposal facility. I could picture it quite vividly: it was gray and metal and industrial looking, roughly riveted together, with the words CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE stenciled on it in red. It was a toxic emotional waste storage site. Its capacity was infinite.

I just wanted to be somebody else, I didn’t care who. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I was drowning in myself.

Honestly I could not have explained why I cared so much, but it was like someone had stuck a blunt sword right through my chest and was prying my ribs apart and crushing my heart. Even this, even this I could not have.

I couldn’t believe I’d thought I could pass for an actual person.

Being with him was the last time I could remember when it took no actual effort for me to believe that I was a real person.

I’m losing it, I remember thinking lucidly. I am actually losing it.

I felt like I was Anne of Green Gables, and I was at long last going to shank Gilbert Blythe’s punk ass and leave him for dead.

I felt like somewhere inside me that gray industrial canister with CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE stenciled on it was tearing open, rivets popping like gunshots. I was wrong: its capacity wasn’t infinite. I had ignored the warning label. I’d been ignoring it all my life.

It’s finally here, I thought. It’s arrived, just like Dad said, it’s right here in this room, and I don’t know what it is, bu...

It was like a bomb had gone off in the room, but it hadn’t touched me. Whatever that was, it was not a gift.

Maybe the gift was that I was bombproof.

It was dawning on me that whatever happened back there in Mr. Jenner’s classroom was my fault. That was me: I did that. But it was impossible. I never did anything, let alone whatever that was.

There was something bad inside me that should have stayed there, and I’d let it out, and now I was going to be punished for it.

Half an hour ago I might have said that I didn’t much care for my life, I found it depressing and disappointing, but now I missed it desperately. I missed it like I missed my father. I would’ve given anything to put it back like it was.

You could banter about it, but it wasn’t funny. Whatever I and this Alonzo person were in, it was deep and getting deeper every second. It was the kind of bad thing that ate funniness and spat out misery.

“I didn’t mean to hurt anybody,” I said. “I don’t know what happened, but it was an accident. I’m not a bad person!”

“And this isn’t a punishment. What happens when we get there is your choice.”

I didn’t want to figure it out; I just wanted it to go away.

I just curled up and shut down. Like Lindsay would say, it’s a basic human survival skill.

“Everything I’ve told you today has been true except for one thing: the part where I told you you had a choice.”

“Wait,” I said stupidly. “You’re saying—you’re going to keep us here?”

“We can’t let you go. I’m sorry, it just wouldn’t be the responsible thing.”

“And you’re not exactly ‘kids’ anymore. You’re not even really ‘people.’ Get used to it.”

“Don’t you get it?” He was shaking with fear and adrenaline. “We’re going to die here! They’ll never let us out!”

“Is my father here?” I got in front of Guy and stared into his wide eyes. “This is where he went. Isn’t it. He didn’t drown, you took him and put him here.”

“Your father’s dead, Persephone,” Guy said quietly. “You know that.”

“You can believe me. Your father was like you. We brought him here. Then three years ago he tried to escape, and he died.”

I felt less lonely knowing that he’d been here. Sadder, knowing he was really gone. But he’d made this journey too. We were fellow travelers.

My father was dead but part of him was still here with me.

I still didn’t know if it was a gift or a curse, I didn’t choose it, but it was mine, it was who I was. No returns. No going back.

I hadn’t chosen my gift, and I hadn’t chosen Alonzo either, but here we were.

There was so much you didn’t get to choose. The hard way was going to be very hard. It would be a long, long time before I felt safe and warm again. But I would be free, and I would be myself.

Show me those fucking pomegranate seeds, I thought. Come on. I’ll eat e...

Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.