Chapter Five:

Demeter, Goddess, Mother to a child lost, cried softly under the light of the stars.

Alone she walked in the fields, the very lands where her daughter had danced and laughed with joyous abandonment hours before.

'Daughter!' she called in anguish, 'Nymphs! Where is it that you dance now? Why do you leave my cries unanswered? Grief falls heavy upon the Goddess of the Harvests. Please, end my suffering and let me hear your fair voices rise in melodious song to answer mine!'

Long did she search, her golden brown eyes raking the land before her in fruitless pursuit. Her hands reached to the heavens in desperate plea for aid, and she moved gracefully through the long grass, passing like a ghost, only her tortured voice making her presence known.

The trees lamented with her, bowing down as she passed them, weeping for the loss of the maiden whom they too adored.

'They are gone… gone…' they whispered to her in crackling tones of grief.

'Where? Where have they gone?' Demeter asked of them, fear clear in her countenance.

'Gone they are, passing us in such grief that our sleeping hearts stirred deep within our skin of bark. "Taken!" they had cried. "A lamb tricked by the wolf… destroyed she shall be now. No longer mistress of ours." They are gone, fair Goddess, fading as if they had never been…' Demeter's sorrow brought her to her knees, and her body trembled. Immortal proud, she had not known such loss.

'Who is this one who has dared take my daughter and heart?' The trees were quiet for many moments, already drifting back into their own sleepy thoughts.

'Helios…' they finally whispered to her, voices beginning to fade into silence. 'Ask the sun, ask Helios…'