The Flowers Bloom Wrong

@persephone

The almond trees along the Areopagus are flowering in February, and the scent is wrong — too sweet, too heavy, like something from a hothouse rather than an Athenian hillside. Persephone stands in the middle of a patch of blooming crocuses, barefoot in the cold soil, her hands cupped around a blossom that has opened four months too soon. "You noticed too, didn't you?" she says without turning.