They won't tell you fairytales of how girls can be dangerous and still win. They will only tell you stories where girls are sweet and kind and reject all sin. I guess to them it's a terrifying thought, a red riding hood who knew exactly what she was doing when she invited the wild in.

- Nikita Gill

Summer was my favourite time of year. The trees always blew in sweet, warm winds, and the flowers and grasses swayed to that same song - all the world, in harmony, if for only a moment in time.

I laid in the too-long grass just out of view of my three-story plantation home, face and arms and legs bared to the sun. My dress fluttered in the breeze, and sweat beaded on my forehead. My fingers dug themselves into the warm soil. I liked to imagine I could feel seeds, deep in the earth, and that I had the power to pull them to the surface, little baby sprouts that would grow rapidly into mature plants.

"Persephone!" My mom's voice carried over the distance I'd put between us. I heard her footsteps, and tilted my head to the side, squinting against the brightness. "Persephone," she said again, parting the tall grasses with her footsteps. She cast a shadow over me, momentarily reprieving my eyes of the bright glare of the sun. Her hands rested on her hips, her blonde hair shining. "What are you doing all the way out here?"

"Well what do you think I'm doing?"

She snorted. "I think you went frocliking and fell and never bothered to get back up."

I smiled, "Something like that."

She bent low and grabbed my hand in hers. "Come on, I'll make you a grilled cheese."

I perked up at that and eagerly got to my feet as she laughed. All the time I'd been away from home this past year, I could never make one that tasted like hers did, no matter how precisely I followed her recipe.

We walked side by side back to the house, taking our time, talking to the women under my mom's employ, who helped her work and maintain the fields. All of them, it felt like, had been around since I could remember.

I kicked off my shoes at the side door that led into the kitchen. Mom put on a playlist of our combined favourite music. It was an odd, yet fitting, blend of everything from country and pop to alternative and rap. Rap, however, was one of Mom's favourites - and who would have guessed that the picket-fence, kindest woman I knew would favour Eminem and Nicki Minaj?

I poured us glasses of lemonade out of the fridge and she placed the sandwiches on a plate. At my first bite, I gave a moan. No food should be this good.

"Persephone, there's something I wanted to talk to you about," she said as she set her empty glass in the sink to be washed later.

"Sure," I said, still stuffing my face.

She stood across from me once more, reaching across the counter to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. "Well, I was thinking...maybe you could transfer to the local college this year, and you could help me run the farm." She was smiling widely, and I swallowed down my last bite of grilled cheese, suddenly like saw dust in my mouth.

"Run the farm?" I said, voice high to my own ears. I loved the farm, absolutely, but to...give up school for it? Only one year in? I'd worked my butt off in high school to get this scholarship, get into this sciences program, and she was asking me to give it up?

"I...don't know, Mom," her face fell the second the words were out and I scrambled to take them back. "What about when I'm done school?"

"That's three years away."

"I - I'll think about it."

I turned and went upstairs, feet bounding up the polished wooden steps. My bedroom door was open from earlier that morning and I went in and sat and the bed. It was small and narrow, with a flowery blanket and a metal frame. At some point in high school, I'd twined fake flowers through the headboard. Sunlight shone bright and buttery through the two long windows and I knew if I got up and looked out them I'd see the women working away in the fields. From my position, though, all I could see was the past. The year-younger girl scared to leave, scared to not know anyone in a new town, not wanting to leave the sanctum of a room she'd spent years building and layering.

I got up suddenly, standing in front of my mirror. My sundress was a musty pink with little white polka dots and big brown buttons down the front. My hair was lying about my shoulders, and green eyes blinked back at me.

I looked a lot like my mom, and no one ever hesitated to point it out. We shared an eye colour, almost the same hair colour, and facial features. Sometimes people remarked that it was as though my mother was a copier and had brought into the world an exact copy of herself. But I had a squarer jaw, a long straight nose as opposed to her delicate uptilted one; my frame was slimmer, more slight. My face was covered in freckles.

The sunlight warmed the skin of my arms and I stood basking in it a few moments longer before bounding back down the stairs and out the kitchen door to the fields. I dashed, barefoot through stalks of wheat and grain, eventually into those tall grasses and wildflowers, all the while not catching any sight of my mother. For all the things I'd outgrown while I was away at school, I had certainly not outgrown dancing in the sunshine.

I bent low and picked a daisy from the ground, pulling off it's petals and playing He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not. I was almost through with the poor now-deformed flower when a bark caught me off guard and I jumped up straighter than I had been.

I spun around, my dress flaring out around me, stopping at the appearance of a big black dog bounding towards me. It's tongue lolled out of its mouth and its fur was all glossy and sleek.

"Come here, 'mere 'mere' 'mere," I called, bending at the waist and snapping my fingers to draw the dog's attention. As the dog got closer, I could hear its panting breaths and stuck my hand out to smooth across his fur. I squatted down, immediately assaulted by a slobbery tongue, licking my face and hands. I laughed when the dog jumped up on me, trying to sit in my lap, knocking me over.

Suddenly there was a sharp whistle and the dog gave a high whine and sat back, though it seemed sad to do so. I sat back up and continued petting it on its head.

"I'm very sorry about that."

The voice came from the where the fields ended in big, round trees and the forest began. I sat up straighter, squinting. He was just in the shadows, striding towards me and the dog. When light fell upon him, I all but lost my breath; here was this tall, lean man with a face that...that simply couldn't exist, and he was bending down, grabbing the dog's collar and attaching a leash.

He had black hair smoothed stylishly away from his face and he moved like liquid shadows, in matching black t-shirt and jeans. "He gets very excited when he goes on walks." I was awestruck and couldn't form the words to reply to him; no man, no woman, no person, should have a jaw so sharp, a nose so perfectly defined, no eyes so lit blue with what had to be pure, unadulterated electricity.

When he stood up straight, the leash circled around one wrist, he reached down to help me up.

I smiled up at him. "Thank you," I brushed off the back of my dress, trying to make sure I wasn't accidentally flashing him. Uncomfortable and too nervous to look him in the eye any longer, I switched my gaze downwards, to the dog sitting obediently at his foot, tongue once again lolling out to the side. "What's its name?" I asked.

"Cerberus," he replied after a moment. Then he stuck out one of his hands again for me to shake. "I'm Hades."

I laughed lightly, shaking his hand. "Persephone," I told him. "Guess our moms both have a taste for the unusual."

Dark brows drew down over those bright blue eyes. "In truth," he began, "it's more of a family thing with me."

I shifted my weight. "I know what you mean," I laughed. The breeze made my dress float out a little from my legs and my hair blew into my face. I brushed it back impatiently, breathing in a gust of that nature-scented air. Hades' hair hadn't even moved, and he was regarding me seriously, almost in a contemplative manner. "Everyone in my family has ridiculous names. I'm one to talk, though." I finished with a smile and hoping my cheeks weren't as pink as I thought they were.

"Persephone!" My mother called loudly.

Hades blinked once. Another time, this time more slowly. Cerberus had hopped up, no longer stationary and obedient at Hades' heel. He was sniffing the air, ears perked.

"I'm afraid, Persephone," Hades said in his low cadence, "that I must be going. It was a pleasure to meet you."

I bent low and petted Cerberus, scratched behind his ears. He licked my hand eagerly, no longer paying such rapt attention to my mother, still calling for me. "You too," I said to Hades. "I might just steal your dog before you go, though."

"He would gladly let you, I fear," he half-smiled.

"Persephone! If you make me walk all the way over there, I swear -!"

I let an annoyed sound and whipped my head towards where her voice was coming from. "Give me a minute!" I shouted, and turned back to apologize to Hades, but he was gone.