The Particular Sadness of Pomegranate Seeds III

There was a change in the wind, a shift in the grass. The sun became harsh and the ground grew cold. Silence and stillness saturated all space and time.

"Persephone!" She called. The wind carried her voice across the expanse of her garden. The wind did not return. No giggling or rustling, no whispering or dancing. She called out once again, "Persephone!" Yet still, her call remained unanswered.

The nymphs lost track of her in the meadow. Persephone was fond of disappearing into the forests and streams—or wherever the nymphs did not follow. The flowers and trees called to her. Demeter knew that her child was independent in nature and enjoyed her counsel with the flowers. Persephone distrusted the nymphs, knowing that their loyalty was first to her and not Persephone. However, Persephone maintained the loyalty of the life in the garden, something Demeter never tried to compromise.

Regardless of Persephone's want of freedom and independence, she always returned home. She never strayed beyond the river-boundary. The winds always carried her back.

A panic seized Demeter. Something was wrong. Persephone always returned. She always returned. She searched for Persephone, running across the garden: combing the meadows, scouring the forests, and swimming the rivers.

Demeter knew Persephone was not in her garden. She had left of her own free will or she had been taken, regardless she was not where Demeter could protect her. A terror gripped Demeter's heart and she fell to the hard ground. Her baby was gone.

In that moment, her spirit shattered. A torrent of tears erupted from within her and she crawled along the grass, begging for the green stalks to yield their secrets. Perhaps the grass knew where her daughter had left, where her feet had tread. In spite of her fears and worries, the grass yielded no secrets and whispered no words to her—more silence. She cried.

She had failed to protect her child, her baby. The world was a cruel place and Persephone was so fragile. There was so little that she knew, so little that Demeter prepared her for. She was never supposed to leave the garden. She was never to know the world of Gods and men. She was supposed to live free in the garden, where she could exist without their rules, where she would not be anyone's pawn.

Demeter cradled her own body as she envisioned all the terrible ways in which they would derisively use her baby, her beautiful baby.

No. She would not let this happen. She could not. No. They would not harm Persephone. Demeter rose from the meadow, procuring a torch from her temple. She would search the earth thrice over before she allowed anything to happen to her baby.

She would go to Zeus if need be and demand her child be returned. And if any were to refuse her, she would withdraw her gifts and bounty and starve the earth before her child be lost to her or stolen or harmed. She would find Persephone and she would keep her safe once again.

Into the night, past the river, she searched the earth, ceaselessly, leaving no stone un-turned in the search for her beloved Persephone.