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A mother’s eyes lie around everywhere. They watch as she walks between fields of wheat, beaded on golden inflorescence. They watch as she passes through oaks and laurels and olives, carved on the barks of trees. They watch as she sniffs flowers, butterflies carrying out her mother’s favor. They could have been her friends instead. Perhaps one day. Still, they are beautiful, and they do like to play.
Despite this, Joohyun dances around with butterflies and nymphs in one of her gardens. Her dress is the color of skin, except tinged with more pink. Perhaps still skin, just blushing. It sways in the air when she spins. Her hair falls to her waist, light brown, embraced by late sunlight. When Joohyun gets tired, the nymphs get excited. It is time for them to braid and weave her hair with violets or peonies or baby’s breath. They rest by a river.
Soon, she notices trails of white and yellow flowers. Ones she has never seen before. She points this out to her companions, and stands up. They propose to pick some on behalf of their maiden, but she says she cannot simply take what she does not yet even know the name of. The nymphs cannot offer her that, a name. They let her walk away.
Joohyun tries to talk to the flowers, her feet treading their path. She is in the woods near the river now. The petals are shy, they do not whisper back.
Soon, the voice of a woman whispers back. One she has never heard before. Narcissus, the woman offers. Then appears beside Joohyun like a shadow. Her dress is the color of evening, dark and foreboding. Her bright smile is a surprise. It disappears when she tells the story of a man that has become this flower. Right by a river, too.
Joohyun is enamored. Tell me more. The sun sets then, paints the sky with all the colors in between the colors of their dresses. The woman dares her to pick a narcissus flower first, place it in her hair among others. She does so, carefully, as the woman watches. And when she does, night falls, veiling her mother’s watchful eyes.
The woman has another offer. Walk with me. And so they walk through groves in the forest, unfamiliar and alluring. The forest still has secrets, even to me, Joohyun realizes. Secrets that are undone, one by one, by the woman. Evening primrose. Foamflowers. Tuberose. Moon flowers. Reaching but never quite touching, the woman reveals them to Joohyun: names of flowers that thrive under the moonlight, bloom perfectly in the dark.
“And your name?”
“Seulgi. And yours is Joohyun.”
“Joohyun, yes.”
When she speaks her name, a wound opens in the earth. She no longer knows how to refuse the undressing of the earth’s secrets. And so when the woman has yet another offer tonight, a hand to hold and a gate to cross, Joohyun only knows how to take. How to be taken away.
---
It is difficult to care about beauty, when beauty is the reason so many useless wars begin, so many forgettable deaths happen. Seulgi almost pities them, the hordes of human souls that come trudging in her underworld every time a goddess or another wants to be the prettiest. Mostly, she resents the effort it takes her to expand the land accordingly.
It is difficult to care about beauty, Seulgi thinks, until she stumbles upon the garden belonging to the daughter of a goddess. She does not believe in accidents. When you are a god—or a human living in the time of the gods—everything feels like fate or a terrible joke. On the way to the underworld, a soul of a lover scorned has escaped from Charon, and so Seulgi must take on the chaperone business. No soul could refuse the god supposed to hold them, provide them shelter after death.
The escapee hides under the shade of one tree. The goddess’ daughter rests under another. One moment, she eats strawberries. The next, she berates herself for tainting her dress with the red of strawberries. Then laughs. Seulgi has never heard a laugh so loud from a girl so small before. Perhaps that deserves to start a war, if only for its strangeness. Towing the renegade soul with one hand, picking a narcissus flower with the other, her amusement continues on the whole way home. As soon as she steps in the dark, the narcissus dies.
Seulgi is not forbidden from leaving her underworld, but it takes grave reason to peel her away from its comforts. Besides, she hates the way living grass wilts under her feet every time she stands over it for more than a minute. Still, she finds herself returning to the earthly garden day by day. For what reason, she does not care to think; it might sound a little too close to enjoying beauty.
Because, perhaps, it is beautiful when Joohyun—the nymphs giggle her name every day—dances. It is beautiful when the maiden picks violets and peonies and baby’s breath for her hair, lets the nymphs caress those light brown threads before weaving. When she feeds them fruits, puts a grape between one’s lips or hands out an apple from her basket. When all the laurels and olive trees in the garden seem to sing just for being graced by her presence. It is beautiful when Joohyun breathes; it is her life that paints everything with beauty. She is so, so alive. And so Seulgi keeps returning to the garden.
Even Joohyun’s muddled reflection in the river is beautiful. One day, Seulgi catches a glimpse of herself by accident—no, never accident, but what for, then?—in the same waters. She is unsure if she sees a woman or a shadow. For a moment, Seulgi understands how beauty beds envy, holds it captive. She watches Joohyun bathe with the nymphs. Imagines herself in the same predicament—alive and radiant. Then laughs at herself to herself.
These days, with Joohyun beside her in the underworld, beauty is no longer difficult, but rather funny. When Joohyun freezes and screeches at Cerberus, Seulgi shields the smaller girl with her body, finds her panic a funny sort of pretty. When Joohyun asks for a sword to shear her dress shorter, says mud makes the hems heavy, it is difficult to dance like this, Seulgi obliges. She watches Joohyun’s eyebrows, scrunched in concentration. Even here, she breathes life.
Joohyun does not ask why she is here. Nor does she ask to leave. Instead, Seulgi takes her on a tour of the underworld. Joohyun walks with Seulgi through the fields of asphodel, the banks of somber rivers, the rows of cypresses. Such sceneries of gray are broken only by the girl’s pinkness. Her pink dress. Her pink lips. Seulgi has to know if she is scared. Joohyun smiles. “Of Cerberus, yes. But everything else here is pretty.”
Suddenly, Seulgi is scared of the girl unshaken. In front of the river of fire, she insists on the ugliness of endless gray, asks why Joohyun is not at least bothered, having grown up with all things beautiful in the garden. Joohyun points out the shades of red in the river before them, the textures and colors and sceneries she has never seen above. Says, you have pretty rivers here, too. And pretty gardens. Says she does not understand what her mother and other gods have always warned about.
The ruler of the underworld concedes. Seulgi reveals the reason she lured the girl in. Says, I envied the flowers in your garden. On your dress. In your hair. I envied the flowers under your skin. Says she wanted to test if they would still be alive in the land of the dead. And they are, still alive and pink and beautiful, as long as they are close to Joohyun. Ultimately, this: you are alive, and I am not.
Joohyun is silent. Then she takes the flowers from her hair and weaves them into a crown. She reaches and places it calmly on Seulgi’s head. Suddenly, the flowers grow thorns, turn black. If gods could feel pain, Seulgi would have felt them pierce into her head. If she could feel pain, however, it surely would have been eased by Joohyun’s fingers then, dancing from her new crown down to her necklaces. Joohyun plays with the beads of obsidian and bloodstone on her neck. Seulgi flinches. “See, I came, because you are pretty, too.”
Seulgi knows. She, too, could no longer be scared of beauty. Not of Joohyun’s, and not of her own.
---
A virtuous girl turns away. A virtuous girl would not revel in a more powerful god’s fragrance. A virtuous girl resists. A virtuous girl would not lick the pomegranate juice dripping from between the god’s lips down to her chin. A virtuous girl would not dare begin the kiss. But sometimes, Joohyun remembers, her girlhood is of a god’s too. A girl is a god, too. A god, like her, desires.
For a moment, Seulgi’s lips are softer than the pomegranate that has just graced them. Suddenly, the god stops Joohyun’s arms from snaking around her neck. Joohyun feels betrayed. Then adamant.
“You would never be as you are anymore.” Seulgi whispers on her cheek, voice light as an echo, terrifying as an omen.
“Good.” Joohyun’s voice is deeper. She continues the kiss.
This time, she could not tell whether it is Seulgi or herself that kisses harder. She slips a tongue inside the god’s mouth, having learned the way of serpents. Seulgi’s tongue traps hers there, in their in-between, wet and unempty. Joohyun imagines it, the red of the pomegranate and the dark purple of Seulgi’s mouth, staining her own. Her mouth is not only pink anymore. She imagines the rest of her skin, stained too, later on. She learns to moan.
When they break away, Joohyun asks Seulgi to feed her a bite of the fruit. The god obliges. First, her index finger parts Joohyun’s lips, cold and sure. Then, joined by another, two fingers linger on her bottom lip, softly grazing her teeth, for a time that feels infinite. Joohyun allows her small mouth to open, and closes her eyes. She only feels Seulgi’s other hand slip the piece of pomegranate inside. She feels Seulgi watch her bite, and then swallow.
In bed, Joohyun undoes the god’s armor, lets the metal fall. Seulgi, too, undoes the girl’s dress. Seulgi’s body is all bones and sharp edges. Joohyun’s is all petals and delicate arches. The girl does not see this in the room, in the most intimate of all in the underworld; instead, she understands through fumble and stroke and grasp. They understand through touch.
In the light, Joohyun remembers, praises for her beauty are endless. She is, in truth, sick of them. As daughter, light hits her face and her mother takes pride. As maiden, light bathes her body, and both gods and humans wait to want. As goddess, her light is drunk by fruits and flowers craving nurture. In the light, she is seen, needed, desired.
In Seulgi’s darkness, Joohyun learns, there is so much more her body is capable of. In the dark with another woman, needless and naked as herself, she is not daughter, not maiden, not goddess. Just a woman desiring. Just a woman held.
---
Often, in the aftermath of heat and friction and filth, Seulgi lies on Joohyun’s lap. When Joohyun stares, she feels naked again, despite just having dressed. She is seen. For once, it is Joohyun that strokes someone’s hair. Here, it is allowed.
Sometimes, in the aftermath, they wear each other’s dresses. This, too, is allowed here. Joohyun helps Seulgi slip into the pale pink fabric, listens to her gasp. Seulgi tightens the black bodice around Joohyun’s waist, waits for her to complain. They study themselves in front of a river in the underworld. Perhaps the one of forgetfulness. They learn to laugh together. Soon, Seulgi does a pirouette. Seulgi dances.
It is a good thing that the dead do not speak. If they could, the worms and furies would already gossip. Word would reach the skies above, lightning quick. Though good as dead too, as their ruler, Seulgi knows her body is speaking when she does another twirl. Joohyun watches. It almost hurts how everything makes sense. Joohyun watches as if to say, yes, dance for me as you watch me do. As I do for you.
Though the blush in her cheeks still paints her alive, Joohyun also makes sense sitting like this, surrounded by death. She used to borrow Seulgi’s necklaces when they play dressup, wait for the god to clasp it around her neck. Today, she has been gifted her own, having woken up with a string of garnets beside the bed. Like a huge gash, it adorns her throat. She looks good in the throne.
So good that Seulgi kneels. So good that when Joohyun cradles her lover’s jaw and leans down for a kiss, they study new lilts and moans to their voices. Shallower breaths. They sound good like this. So good that Seulgi stays kneeling between Joohyun’s legs, if only to keep the music. The god worships in front of her own throne, maybe not entirely her own anymore.
Again, in the aftermath, they do not care to whisper.
“What am I here, now that I am not theirs?”
“Lover, king, queen, husband, wife, god. Whatever you want.”
---
It is only a matter of time before word reaches the gods above. Of course, Joohyun’s mother angrily scours the entire surface of the earth for her missing daughter. Of course, a nymph points to another, they consult trees and flowers—a narcissus is found to hold a maiden’s scent. Of course, her mother holds hostage months and months of the earth’s blooming while she is gone. Soon, the gods confer that she must return.
A messenger trembles at the entrance of the underworld where Seulgi receives the news. Joohyun listens from miles away. Your mother says you have been abducted. Violated. Held captive. A virtuous girl would be thankful to be saved. A virtuous girl would hurry home. But she is way past the point of seeing herself like so. Instead, when the messenger finally leaves, Joohyun and Seulgi laugh so loud the rivers ripple. They repeat the words. Abducted. Violated. Yes, they hold each other captive, but not in the way any of the gods above would understand.
Still, Joohyun worries. Not for her mother, much less the other gods. But the nymphs would weep. The violets and peonies and baby’s breath would perish. The butterflies have yet to be her friends. Returning would be for me, too. Still, Seulgi sulks. It is already dark in the underworld, but for a few hours or so, she renders everything pitch black, motionless. Joohyun says please. Where Joohyun's kiss begins, Seulgi’s sulking ends.
In the dark, Joohyun reaches out to her and strokes her hair, like always. She speaks. If my mother and I never meet, never make the flowers bloom and the trees grow, there would be endless hunger. Even without war, souls would come rushing in here. This, too, is for you.
And so Joohyun returns. What she finds upon her ascent: part of her now undoubtedly belongs to the underworld. Humans and nymphs and those that are not gods could no longer speak her real name so easily. Thus, they need others: Kore or maiden, for her youth, daughterhood. Nestis for water, the life she brings. Hagne or pure, perhaps for her then-virginity. Never her real name anymore, for its darkness, her taintedness.
Joohyun enjoys it, the truth that a woman could wear many names. Some of them forbidden.
Soon, she finds that a woman could also call forth many seasons. When a woman learns how to desire and be desired, as if in a cycle, she teaches the fields and mountains and gardens and rivers a cycle, too. She returns to her duties, to what needs to be nurtured, and everything blooms. Then she comes home to a lover, to whom she needs, to a bed in the dark, and everything rests. This, over and over. And over and over, as she dances through the entrance between the earth and the underworld, life emerges anew.
Thousands of years later, they remain: the names of seasons invoked by the desires and pleasures of a woman and her lover. Spring and winter.
---
Is counting the dead such an impossible feat? The god of the underworld is on the brink. Seulgi tries to graft and breed whatever few and rare plants live in the underworld, as Joohyun has taught. She decorates their thrones a little more. She picks pomegranate and pomegranate flowers, attempts to distill them into perfume, but of course, it goes very wrong. Though already familiar, Joohyun’s absence still feels too long.
These days, comfort feels too close to boredom. And so, for the first time in a long time, Seulgi braves the world above. The sight that greets her at the garden is strange, and almost too beautiful to bear. The god’s lover rests under the shade of one tree, eating strawberries with the nymphs. Joohyun belongs here. Seulgi returns home quickly to comfort and boredom.
More days pass like this. Often, Seulgi is content watching Joohyun dance or weave flowers into a crown or water the grapevines. Let her dress sway in the air—not only pale pink now, sometimes a deep green or a curious purple. Seulgi witnesses, and is content. One day, Joohyun catches Seulgi watching. The goddess paints a disapproving look on her face, shakes her head. She is no longer shadow, Seulgi remembers, especially not to her lover. She is seen. She approaches.
And so, some spring afternoons, Joohyun sneaks away from her maidenly duties to be with Seulgi, even under such striking sunlight. Even in rivers more alive. And somehow Seulgi belongs here too, if only for a little while.
When it is finally right for Joohyun to usher in the winter, Seulgi sits on the throne, waiting for her to dance into descent. In time, she enters the underworld, a lover now, new and desiring once again. Yes, she renews the earth and lets it rest, and yes, she has finally come to do the same to her god. They dress and undress, wear and unwear, renew each other in the dark. Like this, winter passes.
Once, naked in bed, on the cusp of yet another change of seasons, Joohyun asks Seulgi if she wants anything from the gardens to bring home into the underworld later. But we could have them in the world above, during those sneaky afternoons, Seulgi says. But this is different, Joohyun insists. She recounts Seulgi’s curiosity when they first met. About what could be alive in the land of the dead. Now they could try again and again.
She offers: perhaps a new flower to revel at. A fruit to taste or a leaf to study. Years from then, maybe even a bird to keep as a pet. We could grow your gardens, see what lasts. If nothing does, then we keep them only for the length of winter, every winter, while I am here. It would be beautiful, too. So Joohyun insists, what flower, what fruit? Seulgi says flowers would wilt, and fruits—other than pomegranates—would become tasteless.
Joohyun chastises her, “You know they would not. Not if I bring them for you. What do you want?”
The god thinks for a second as she slips into her lover’s pink dress. Joohyun is still naked. Seulgi’s face has never shown innocence as well as she does at this moment. Much like a nymph or a maiden, her eyes widen and she says, “Strawberries.”
Both of them giggle, light enough to bring everything in the underworld and the earth to life, a minute ahead of springtime.