Psyche in a Dress Read online

  had saved her as much as a mother can

  whose daughter had saved her by being born

  and then left her to save herself

  One morning I was sitting in the garden

  planning where I would plant the sweet peas

  and the tomatoes when the weather changed

  I heard someone coming up the hillside

  My heart felt the way it did when she was a baby

  and I had been away from her for a few hours

  maybe she was just napping in the next room

  but I hadn’t seen her face or heard her voice for a while

  and then she came in or called for me

  and I would fly to her

  needing her so much, missing her so much

  I didn’t try to touch her

  She came and sat next to me on the singed wicker chair

  “What happened?” I asked her. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No. But I’m afraid he will leave me.

  There are so many girls all the time.”

  “What makes you think he wants any of them?”

  “I am not a goddess,” she said. “You are.”

  This is what I told her

  I have been young too

  I have been Psyche, I have been Echo

  I have been Eurydice

  I have been Persephone, like you

  I thought I was not a goddess

  My mother was a goddess

  Now I am Demeter, like my mother

  Because of you

  My Demeter tried to save me from Hades

  That man you have is Eros too

  I let my Eros, your father, leave

  because I didn’t think I was enough

  But you must remember you are everything

  We all are

  Psyche means soul

  What more is there than that?

  Echo never stops her singing

  Maybe it was Eurydice’s choice to fade away

  when Orpheus looked back

  so she did not have to return with him

  Persephone is a goddess of the bridge between

  light and dark, day and night, death and life

  Psyche

  Psyche finished her film about a young woman’s quest. It starred her daughter, Joy, and her daughter’s boyfriend, the performance artist. Everyone at the indie festivals loved it. They called it poetry. Psyche thought, if I spend the rest of my life alone, it will be all right. I have my art and I have my daughter back. What more could a woman want? Aging is easier without having to worry about a man.

  One day Joy and her boyfriend took Psyche with them to a dance. The room was filled with people flinging their bodies around to live drums in front of an altar covered with stargazer lilies and beeswax candles. Psyche stood alone, motionless in a pale blue sheer chiffon tunic dress covered with sequins that reflected the light. She watched everyone—so young, so abandoned. In the eyes of all the men in the room she was no more visible than Echo to Narcissus. The music had no more power to stop her from getting older than Orpheus had the ability to bring Eurydice back from the dead. She watched her child rolling on the floor, doing backbends and handstands, being lifted into the air.

  “Come on, Mom,” Joy said, taking her hand.

  They danced together for a while and then Joy danced away but Psyche kept moving. It was easier than she had expected. Soon she forgot herself entirely. She forgot that she was probably the oldest woman in the room. She forgot that she hadn’t danced in years. (Even then it had been mostly alone in her room with her mother’s shadow.) After she had been in motion for a long time Psyche began to feel as if she were sixteen. She wanted to say to all the young women in the room, “When your mothers tell you to love and appreciate your body it isn’t just to get you to shut up. They know that when you are old you are going to feel exactly the same way inside that you do now. We try on different dresses, different selves, but our souls are always the same—ongoing, full of light.”

  As she was thinking this, Psyche closed her eyes. A hand was at her waist. She didn’t move but kept swaying to the music, feeling the pressure of the fingertips beneath her rib cage. She remembered how when she was Persephone, Hades had popped a rib out as if trying to get better access to her heart. What would he have done if he had actually held it in his hands? Her breath quickened and her legs lightened. All the blood moved to her chest. But her Hades had not come to claim her.

  “Eros,” she said.

  When she opened her eyes, he was standing there. Had she conjured him with her dancing? He looked older now; his hair was close-shaven, nearly all gray. There was nothing about him that screamed “ancient power of the cosmos, love god, son of Aphrodite, son of Chaos.” He was a man, getting older, her daughter’s father. He was also her first lover, her secret, her storyteller. And he was a god, yes. But she was a goddess and a storyteller too. A soul in a new dress now.

  About the Author

  Francesca Lia Block, winner of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling books, including WEETZIE BAT, DANGEROUS ANGELS: The Weetzie Bat Books, WASTELAND, GUARDING THE MOON, ECHO, THE ROSE AND THE BEAST, and VIOLET & CLAIRE, as well as I WAS A TEENAGE FAIRY, GIRL GODDESS #9, THE HANGED MAN, NECKLACE OF KISSES, and—written with Carmen Staton—RUBY. Her work is published around the world. Visit Francesca online at www.francescaliablock.com

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  ALSO BY FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK

  Weetzie Bat

  Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys

  Missing Angel Juan

  Girl Goddess #9: Nine Stories

  The Hanged Man

  Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books

  I Was a Teenage Fairy

  Violet & Claire

  The Rose and The Beast

  Echo

  Guarding the Moon

  Wasteland

  Goat Girls: Two Weetzie Bat Books

  Beautiful Boys: Two Weetzie Bat Books

  Necklace of Kisses

  Credits

  Cover art © 2006 by Greg Spalenka

  Cover design by Neil Swaab

  Copyright

  PSYCHE IN A DRESS. Copyright © 2006 by Francesca Lia Block. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  ePub edition April 2008 ISBN 9780061757020

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  About the Publisher

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  Table of Contents

  Cover


  Title Page

  Dedication

  Contents

  Psyche

  Echo

  Narcissus

  Eurydice

  Orpheus

  The Maenad

  Hades

  Persephone

  Psyche as a Dress

  Eros

  Demeter

  Psyche

  About the Author

  ALSO BY FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher