If you were to go to a certain high-end haberdashery in London in the rough middle of the 20th Century, you might, if it has not yet sold, find a particularly elegant specimen of top hat. There are many artifacts of temporal significance within that hat-shop, but anyone with even a bit of chronal sensitivity can tell that an unusually great number of timelines converge on that piece of headgear in particular.
If you were to then take that hat to the proprietor of the shop, a warm-faced and roundly-shaped fellow, he would gently explain its history to you. He would tell you that it was once worn by a traveler of tremendous provenance, a genius and a gentleman, and after telling you something of that man he would go on to say that the man received the hat as a gift from an old friend. And then he would tell something of that old friend, and accordingly go into the tale of how she got the hat.
And this could on forever. But we have to stop somewhere, and so it is the tale of the woman who gave the hat to its last owner that concerns us today. Cast your mind back years ago, to the days before chaos ruled infinity, to the days before time and space as we know it were even born…
The blue grass swayed in the wind; the leaves of the golden trees whispered smoothly. The setting of the three suns slowly drained the light out of the sky, and the darkness of night, all-concealing and all-embracing, passed over the fields. Long shadows stretched northward over the Valley, and pyreflies, called by nocturnal instinct, began peeking their glowing heads over the azure expanse.
Walking through the line of glinting, pyrite-colored trees at the field’s edge were two young people. They held hands, which helped steady their march over the uneven plain, whose tall cobalt grasses concealed hidden rocks and the abandoned mounds of insects. It had rained only a few hours ago, and though the heat of the three suns had helped dry the brush, the grass would still stain their clothing where it was wet. Neither party cared about that, however, though they both wore rich finery. They were in love, and that distracted them from simple problems like stained clothes.
The boy’s name was Adonis. He was a handsome, broad-shouldered lad, who was wearing a long black coat of crushed velvet; his pants were black velvet too. Underneath his coat he wore a dark plum garment of woven fibers that had a plunging v-shaped neck. His physique was not unremarkable, and his skin was richly tanned from many long constitutionals under the summer suns. His green eyes sparkled from a sleek face which was covered by thick black beard and mustache. Crowning the long curls of his hair was a silk top hat with a shaggy bird’s feather protruding from the band. The hand that held his partner’s bore a variety of silver and copper rings.
Her name was Persephone—well, it wasn’t then, but it soon would be. She was a bright-faced, blonde-haired girl with hypnotic bright eyes—the gentle dimples at the corners of her mouth seemed to give her a natural smile. She was short and slight, which contrasted her greatly with her partner. She clothed herself in a white dress which bore a faint lavender pattern of paisley-shaped popplefrond flowers. Around her wrist was a band of shining metal, which had Adonis’ name etched on it, and on her feet she wore delicate black shoes with buckles on them.
There was a spot in the field where the grasses grew shorter. The two lovers had brought a blanket with them, and a basket full of food. When they set the blanket down and sat upon it, they saw that the tall grass encircled them on all sides, cutting them off from the outside world entirely. Which was exactly what they wanted.
“Oh, it’s lovely here,” Persephone said. She yawned; the walk had tired her slightly.
“I’m glad you like it,” Adonis replied. He saw that overhead the stars were starting to come out, and the pyreflies were in full display. The insects’ burning bodies would have lit the grass on fire if they didn’t emit a low-key telekinetic field as a defense mechanism.
Persephone yawned again and said, “We can pretend that the whole universe has ended, and we’re the only ones who’re left.”
“Ha! Some fantasy.” Adonis grinned widely. “It’d be awfully lonely, you know...even with you as company.”
“I’ll try not to take that personally,” she giggled.
“It’s not meant personally. I’m just an extrovert, is all.”
“Don’t go on reminding me…” Persephone’s black eyes surveyed the isolation they’d attained—there was one exception to its totality. In the far distance she could see the great towers of the palace of Adonis’ parent, Mars. Persephone knew Mars as one of the preeminent explorers of their world; she both feared and admired them.
She said, hoping to be spontaneous: “Wouldn’t it spoil the evening if urswines burst out of the grass and attacked us?”
“I think Parent’s too calculating to allow urswines to gather here,” Adonis said calmly. “The groundskeepers are paid too well. They’re too good of shots.”
“Oh, I remember,” she replied. “When we first started seeing each other, I would have no trouble climbing out of the Valley and crossing the plains, and the forests—but it was a different story when I reached the grounds. If I wanted to make it to the house I had to sneak past all those ‘good shots’ you think so highly of.” She laughed—it seemed so long ago now. “And I would still have to climb up the wall to your bedroom window before at last I was home free.”
“Parent really didn’t like that you came from the Valley. Do you know they called you a—what did they say—a hermit?”
“A hermit?!”
“That means, in their personal lingo, ‘someone with no friends who lives alone in the wilderness, on account of having no friends.’” He shook his head. “I’m glad that they changed their tune when they finally met you.”
“To be fair,” Persephone laughed, “I am the only one who lives down in that Valley.”
“What about the little boy?”
Persephone nodded—yes, there was the little boy that she’d spotted around her home from time to time. He was like a tiny ghost, the little mite—he had the most frightened-looking face she’d ever seen. Every time she raced over to where he was standing, to ask him where he’d come from, he’d sprint away into the distance, running so fast she had no hope of catching him.
Weirdly enough, he sometimes seemed to have an almost reverent look on his face. And she was sure, as bashful as it made her, that that reverence was for her.
“You certainly do make it sound mysterious sometimes, that Valley,” Adonis went on. “I don’t think any of the valleys Parent owns are half as mysterious. You told me once that you met an old man who said the Valley used to have a name—and that that name was your name.” He chuckled. “It’s already weird enough, Sephy darling, that I have no idea where you really come from. You don’t need to share a name with a creepy old Valley to stand out.”
“You’re teasing me. You’re such a man,” Persephone said. “No offense at all, I love you, body and soul, but don’t you find masculinity’s little jabs tiresome after a point?”
“Is that an accusation of chauvinism?” Adonis said, with a wink. “Fine. Next time I get the chance, I’ll become another gender, just to satisfy this moment.”
He could sense she didn’t want to talk anymore about the Valley, so he moved on.
“Let’s, y’know, have some of this food we brought,” he said then. “Smoked breast of condosaur, green salad, tribeet cream dip…”
“Oh, I’m a sucker for a green salad,” Persephone said, taking a plate and wooden fork. “Thank you for packing this, Adonis.”
“Of course, my love. Anything for you…” As he got all the food ready, and dished it up for her, he looked back up into the sky. The light was fully gone now, save for that of the stars and insects.
He smiled. Tonight was the night. Everything about it was beautiful, and he knew that pyreflies in particular were her weakness.
Yes—it was the perfect night, and soon his life would meld with hers. He prayed that the happiness he would bring her would take away some of the troubles of her life. For despite her dimpled smile, Persephone’s life was troubled. Sometimes she had visitors in that Valley of hers, where she lived quietly and alone—visitors besides that ghost of a child. Visitors who brought fear to her heart. And though she had never put it in quite these terms, Adonis had always felt like she imagined some sort of destiny weighing upon her shoulder.
Adonis’ parent had once asked Persephone if she was an orphan, and she had told them she was. But Adonis knew the truth: she did have a father. His name was Iosepphus, and he was an angel.
Something like an angel, anyway. Adonis remembered his parent’s tales of the angels as fell things, howling, swooping creatures with too many eyes, relics from the unimaginable alter-physics of a previous universe. But from what Persephone had told him, Iosepphus didn’t look like one of the monsters which had given Adonis so many nightmares in his boyhood. He looked like a man, a man with a hairy face, like a barbarian, who smiled half-crazily as he stalked out from between the arboreal shadows.
Sometimes at night he would put needles in her and infuse her with a strange ichor, which made her queasy and dizzy. Every so often he would give her too much and she would faint, and have strange dreams. She had no idea what it did to her, save what Iosepphus told her, which was only that it was “preparing her.”
Adonis considered this father of hers, who she sometimes called “Grand Father,” to be an abomination. He had to liberate her from him.
Yes. After tonight, things would change. Things would be different.
The two ate in silence, enjoying the bobbing dance of the pyreflies. More and more of the glowing bugs came out as the minutes went by, and as he’d predicted, Persephone fell in love with them.
Once they were done eating, they flopped down onto the blanket on their backs, and stared up at the flickering, dazzling stars.
They stared in silence, for words were no longer needed between them. They had both spoken of what the stars awoke in them enough times that it was one of the simple truths of their love. They had found love because they, more than anyone else on their world, had yearned to touch those stars. Their eyes passed over each of them, one by one, and they silently mouthed each of their names.
A still bliss passed over them, and their fingers found each other’s.
This bliss resonated within them for what seemed like hours. It was heaven.
But slowly, as time marched on, a silent uneasiness began to come over them both.
They both knew that as their planet turned, the stars changed. But something was different tonight. They knew every inch of the night sky of their world; they had studied it, informally, for years. And so they began to notice, little by little, that some of the stars had gone missing. In fact, entire clusters of them had vanished from sight.
They knew that when the million-year-old light of a star passed by their world, then that star would fade from sight—for it had died a million years ago. Yet there was something at the back of their minds that told them that this was different. That these stars had vanished contemporaneously.
Neither of them dared to voice their observations. They each believed that the other didn’t see what they did, that this was all in their heads, and that it didn’t matter anyway.
And they were right, in a way. Their love was more important.
Just then Persephone, as she always did, laughed.
“Guess what?” she said.
“What?”
“I stole something from Grand Father on his last visit.”
Adonis shifted onto his side to look at her. “You did? What is it?”
Persephone reached into her dress pocket, and produced what looked to be a shiny piece of broken black metal.
“It’s a Witch-Queen’s gazing-glass,” she said.
Adonis felt his blood turn cold. “Why—why does Iosepphus have something like that?”
“The same reason the Witches do—to make prophecies. And to gaze back into history.”
“Does it work?”
She grinned widely. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
They both sat up, and looked down at the strange shard.
“How do you activate it?” Adonis asked.
“I think it’s like any sort of scrying-mirror, or crystal ball,” Persephone said. “You just...look into it, until it works.”
“It must take concentration. Maybe I should be quiet.”
“You could stand to open your mouth less, generally speaking...save for in certain manners of use…”
“Who’s the chauvinist now?” he snickered. “Seriously, though, I want to see you try.”
“Alright—staring commencing...now.”
She looked deep into the black glass, trying to focus on her blurred reflection.
For many minutes, nothing happened. But then, slowly, the glass began to stir. There was the spark of something in the air, and the mirror...actuated.
“It’s changing!” Adonis exclaimed.
“You can see it too?” she said.
“Yes. It’s turning into a sort of...tunnel…”
“I’m focusing on the past,” she whispered.
The glass continued to morph and shift before their eyes, forming into a tunnel, as Adonis had said.
Their reflections remained visible on the glassy walls of this tunnel as it curved outward. When it stretched backwards into space, it also seemed to stretch backwards into their memories. Images flashed onto the fluid surface, images that both the lovers recognized: their own faces, faces of shared friends. Teachers and mentors they had both known. The Castle, where they went to learn. And of course, the two of them together, as though it had always been and always would be.
But there was a point in their lives before they knew each other, and before they knew it, they rewinded past that point. Their hearts both sank when they realized that they had vanished from each other’s vision. Adonis watched as he became a child, and then an infant, until he was back at the scene of his birth in the halls of a darkened palace. He grimaced at the sight, but hope filled him. Next he expected they’d see Persephone’s origin, the beginning of her life, which was unknown even to her. He’d always hoped they’d solve the riddle together, and now seemed to be their chance.
But that’s not what he saw. Instead, he saw that when he was first born, she was the same age she was now. That seemed impossible, but it was true. She’d had friends before him, friends whose names and faces she’d now mostly forgotten. And there weren’t just one or two—there were seas of them, of every age, shape, and color. They seemed to come from everywhere, battered dagurreotypes of people who may have died long ago for all he knew.
Adonis felt something claw at his insides. He knew she was older than him, but not by this much. Suddenly he wanted to know how many of these faces had been her lovers.
“By the gods, darling...how long have you lived?”
She didn’t answer—there were too many feelings hitting her at once. She recognized herself within the images, but she didn’t remember being there for them.
Eventually even these sketchy images became blurry and indistinct, and yet still they were falling back into her past. They both began to understand that the mirror would give up no secrets of her birth, if she even had one. Instead, it would only leave more questions.
Before either of them could speak, the past was gone. The tunnel was going the other way, its fluid walls flowing back towards them now. They let out a sharp gasp as the night air shifted around them.
There were faces again; the old friends from before were back, but they were older this time. Some stayed, some went—all would run out of days in the end. All, it seemed, but Persephone herself. She remained young, while those around her felt the touch of time and death. And as time went on, and more and more stars burnt out in the nocturnal sky, she kept on living, till it seemed like she would outlive the universe itself when its fiery death came.
And again, there came a point of deviation. A point at which Adonis dropped out her world, and her life spiraled on forever without him.
A desperation overtook him, then. In an instant, his whole worldview seemed to invert. He’d always believed that he was the love of Persephone’s life—he had always relished being able to wrap her up inside him. Now it seemed he was a microscopic speck beside her. What else could be, next to one who would watch the end of the cosmos itself?
But then, the images shimmered abstractly, and he understood, with a shudder, that the end of the universe was not distant from his own time. It was near; the stars of their universe were dying, would die within his lifetime. He had not been seeing things when he saw the clusters absent from the sky. Something was taking life out of their universe, as had transpired in the reality before theirs.
He felt himself go cold. He didn’t know that he would be expected to face the apocalypse. Where was he, at the end of all things? What was his death to be?
He had always dreaded death, the Final End. He could not imagine such a horrible thing as being unable to perceive existence. He feared it so greatly that he would do anything to stave it off. That fear built upon itself—for he knew that in his terror he would sacrifice anyone, even her, to save himself from dying. And so he knew he could not trust himself—a belief that only weakened him before his fear.
He could see her now. She was standing on the lip of the death-flames with Iosepphus, understanding his grand plan at last. The old angel’s work had served its purpose; the moment had been prepared for. She was going to cross over, whether she liked it or not.
And Adonis?
He could only hear laughter within the flames—his own laughter, cruel and wicked, as all turned to darkness by his hand.
It took everything in him to keep from screaming.
Persephone, too, saw the end of the universe, but Adonis’ laughter was beyond her perception. She could only see herself fighting and struggling against her Father’s plan, wanting to die in the flames with all she had ever known. But something dragged her through from the other side, pulling her kicking and screaming into the next universe. Something that filled her with deep foreboding, a name which meant not salvation, but imprisonment: Orcus.
She lost everything when that happened, even her name. And that was when her name first became Persephone, which it was not yet.
The horror Orcus inspired in her future self was beyond her comprehension. At once she wanted to shrink into herself, to hide from the fate that awaited her.
But the glimpses kept coming. Just as her past became sketchy and worn, her future, too, was becoming indistinct, for it was still naught but a possibility. But through the fog, she glimpsed that one day she would escape the one called Orcus, and that she would walk free in her new home. She would find purpose after death—perhaps even within it. Yes, the death of her old life would give her a mission, a mandate, to protect all those within her new reality. That would put meaning back in her life…
At that moment, her future self looked back at her, as though suddenly aware her presence. She gave her past self a warm smile, one that reassured She-who-was-not-yet-Persephone in a way that was unfamiliar to her.
She saw her future self was holding onto something, carrying it with her as a memento as she sojourned throughout the stars. A reminder of the meaning of her mandate.
It was Adonis’ hat…
And then the vision broke—an appropriate verb, as it felt like someone kicked her in the head.
Adonis, whose own mocking laughter had grown louder and louder in his head, had seized the mirror and dashed it to the ground. And before Persephone could protest, he stomped his boot down on it again and again until it was crushed into a fine dust.
* * *
The couple walked back to the edge of the field, to the spot where they always parted; Adonis had to get back to his parent’s manor, while Persephone had her long walk back to the Valley. It was not a particularly safe journey for either of them, as the night held many predators, but in the hundreds of times they had made it they had never been harmed.
“This was an amazing night,” Persephone said. “Really, it was. I-I’m sorry if what you saw troubled you.”
“No, it’s fine,” Adonis assured her. “I don’t remember what I saw, if I can be honest.”
“Me neither,” she confessed. “I remember bits and pieces, but most of it is gone.”
“Whatever it was, I don’t think we have to worry,” he said. “I still don’t think the future is set in stone until we choose it to be. We have so many choices still ahead of us, and only those future moments can decide what happens to us.”
“You’re right,” she nodded. She looked away then, as she suddenly remembered something she had seen or heard. Adonis hoped that it wasn’t the sound of his laughter.
He had lied when he said he forgot what he experienced.
He felt empty inside. So much planning had gone out the window tonight. So many sleepless nights, wasted. The moment he’d sought hadn’t come.
Guilt gnawed at him. Maybe he couldn’t go through with his original plan, but he couldn’t let the night end without giving her something.
It was an awkward offering, but he took his silk hat from his head. “Here.”
She looked at it. “I don’t get it,” she said.
“Take it.”
She laughed. “You want me to take your hat?”
“I want you to have something of mine. It makes the night complete for me.”
She let out another laugh, and took the outstretched headgear. She put it on her head, and found it was just a little too big for her.
“Uh, how do I look?” she asked.
“Beautiful,” he replied.
They stepped forward to embrace each other, and they kissed.
“Thank you,” she said, running her cheek against his.
“You’re welcome.” He gave her one last squeeze before they parted. “Good night, Persephone.”
“Good night, darling…”’
She yawned and turned away and, still wearing his hat, she walked off into the dark distance.
Adonis turned back towards the great mansion where he lived, and where all his burdens lived as well. As he started the long walk back to the house, he reached in his pocket and thumbed at the ring he had placed there hours earlier.
“Another night,” he tried to tell himself. It just wasn’t the right time.
He tried not to let his temper rise up. Yes, another night—that was the best he could hope for.
* * *
Persephone kept the hat for another purpose: she could not believe that Adonis had perished with their universe. Not after seeing what he became in the final days.
Even if she could not forgive what he had turned into, she felt she had to find him. Maybe it was not too late to set things right.
In all of her travels, she kept seeking him, trying to find some trace of his survival. But as the centuries went by, she lost hope. It was only after much grief and acceptance that she was able to part with the hat. She chose its new owner well.
Of course, fate is often cruel and fickle. And so it was not long after she let go of the hat that Adonis, in his new form, found his way back to her…
But let us not worry about that now. This haberdashery has so many other hats to offer. There’s a fedora once owned by Bob Dylan, and this Stetson belonged to the Mad Hatter (the Grant Richmond one). And here is the baseball cap of Evan Extreme—now that is a tale worth telling…
THE END
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