When Orpheus returned home in the morning, he stopped at a flower shop a bought a small bouquet of gardenias. It cost most of the money he had in his pocket but the possibility of making Eurydice smile again seemed more important.
Walking up to their apartment, he thought about what he was going to say to her. They hadn't been able to see each other the much over the past couple months and when they had, he had tended to avoid her. She was tired and irritable all the time and he hadn't wanted to deal with that. He didn't know how to deal with it. Damn, he was such a fool.
It was still early and Orpheus imagined that his wife might still be home. Inside the apartment, it was quiet and the lights were off. Perhaps Eurydice was still asleep? She was usually awake by now and getting ready for work. He should wake her, or else she would be late. Walking into the bedroom, he noticed the bed had already been made. Several of the drawers in the dressers were open and empty. Eurydice's things had been contained in those drawers.
A piece of paper had been left on the nightstand. Orpheus picked it up and read it. Like his own, Eurydice's education had been deficient. Her hand writing was erratic and unformed. The note read: ...Orpheus, my heart is yours, it read, Always was and will be. It's my gut I can't ignore...
Orpheus crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it on the floor. His first instinct was to rush over to Marie's apartment to see if his wife was there.
Marie appeared in the doorway wearing a peach colored rayon dressing gown.
"What do you want boy?" She demand, her arms crossed in annoyance. Her voice sounded groggy and Orpheus could tell that she was hung over.
"Is Eurydice with you?" he asked her.
"No, she's not."
"She wasn't there when I came home this morning. Do you know where she might have gone off to?"
"I haven't heard anything from her since the celebration last night. She didn't seem in the mood for celebrating."
"I'll go to the cafe, maybe they'll know where she is there."
"Go to Hell for all I care!"
Orpheus began to walk down the hallway.
"Boy!"
He turned around to look at Marie.
"My little sister always deserved better than you."
Eurydice was usually at work that time of day. Orpheus dropped by Hestia's Cafe and asked Miss Hestia if she had seen Eurydice.
"She never showed up for work today," Miss Hestia replied, she folded up her arms like Marie had, "What's the matter, can't you keep track of your wife?"
Walking out of the cafe, Orpheus was stopped by Mr. Hermes.
"Hey, the big artiste," Mr. Hermes called with a big grin on his face, "Ain't you workin' on your masterpiece?"
"Have you seen Eurydice?" Orpheus asked him.
"What do you care? You'll move on to the next muse soon enough."
Mr. Hermes began to walk away but Orpheus stopped him.
"Please, wherever she is, is where I want to go."
Mr. Hermes put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"What if I told you she's somewhere where it'll be hard to get her back?"
"Tell me the worst."
"I saw her get on the train to go to Hadestown, so Hades has her now,"
Orpheus's shoulders slumped and his jaw dropped, "She called your name before she went but I guess you weren't listening."
"No!"
Hermes stood over the boy, who had fallen to the ground.
"How far would ya go to get her back?"
"To the end of the world. To the end of time."
"Well, that's a start. Do you have money for a ticket?"
Orpheus searched around in his pockets. Finding them empty, he shook his head no.
"That's what I thought. But there's always my way."
Mr. Hermes told Orpheus that if he looked around St. Louis Cemetery late at night, he would find an old train depot. There, he should wait until the train comes, even if it seems like he'll standing there for hours. No matter how long the wait is, there's always a train coming.
It was a cloudy, starless night. The only light Orpheus saw a flickering old lantern that hung from the eves of the train depot. He stood there in the dark for what seemed like a life time but the gloom was pierced by the blinding headlight and piercing whistle of a train.
The car that closest to him was an oil tanker. Orpheus climbed up the ladder to a platform on top of the tanker, guided by the light of the lantern.
The whistle blew again and the train chugged away from the station. Orpheus recalled the advice that Hermes had given him:
Keep your head down and don't look nobody in the eye. Don't give your name, you don't got one.
He stared off into the night.
"Wait for me," he whispered, "I'm coming with you."
As the train passed through the bayous which surround New Orleans, the clouds began to clear, revealing a large yellow moon. The cypress trees with their beards of Spanish moss cast inky blue shadows and reflections across the still, glassy water of the bayou.
Though the water looked still, Orpheus could hear the sounds of rippling as a fish swam around or an insect skated across. Joining the rippling water were the buzzing of lightning bugs and the chirping of crickets. An owl hooted and a dog howled off in the distance.
Orpheus reached into his pack to pull out a barley cake divided up into four pieces.
If you're hungry, Mr. Hermes had warned him, Only eat one of these pieces. Make sure there's three of them left.
He tore off one of the pieces and put the other three back in his pack. This small hunk of barley cake only served to wet his hunger instead of satisfy it.
He reached for a small bag of sunflower seeds that was also inside his pack, but remembered that he had been told not to the eat them.
They're drugged to make who ever eats them fall asleep, were Mr. Hermes's words.
So Orpheus took a swing of bourbon from the silver flask which was the third item Mr. Hermes had given him.
To pass the time until the train reached Hadestown, Orpheus removed his guitar from where it is was strapped to his back and began to strum it. The twinkling of the fireflies guided his fingers.
The train stopped at a similar depot to the one that it had left from. Orpheus descended the oil tanker by climbing down its ladder and walked over to the depot.
He expected to the depot to be empty but someone was behind the ticket window. The light from an old fashioned lantern illuminated his face.
He was a black man with strong, sharp features and large, golden-brown eyes.
"Hello there!" Orpheus called over to him.
The man turned to glare at him.
"What you want?" He replied.
"I want to be let through."
"Do you have a ticket?"
Orpheus took the flask of bourbon out of his pack and placed it on the counter in front of the man.
Mr. Hermes told him that Charon, the ticket man at the Hadestown depot, could be bribed with alcohol.
"Here's my ticket."
Charon took the flask and shrugged his shoulders.
"Good luck."
Beyond the depot was a wall constructed from concrete bricks and grates of iron bars. It stretched as far as Orpheus could see with no end in sight. He figured that his best bet would be to climb over but the wall was completely smooth; nothing to grab onto or to put his foot on.
The silence of the night was broken by loud barking and growling. Three coonhounds approached Orpheus, ready to tear him apart.
Orpheus reached into his pack to pull out the remaining three pieces of barley cake, which he tossed to distract the three hounds.
He noticed that there was a locked grate level with the ground which appeared to block a passage way to the other side of the wall. Taking another look in his pack, he found that there was a fourth item: a small metal file.
The distraction provided by the barley cake was short lived and the hound dogs remembered that Orpheus was there. Orpheus tossed handfuls of sunflower seeds off in the distance and the hounds scurried to find them. When the hounds ate the seeds, they quickly fell asleep.
With the metal file, Orpheus sawed through the lock's shackle.
At the other side of the wall was a completely different world from the backwoods where the train had left Orpheus. An industrial city stood in front of him: grim buildings made from drab concrete and rust colored bricks and gaudy, glaring neon signs advertised bars and brothels, and dark, narrow alleys, complete with knife wielding muggers.
Somewhere among all this was Eurydice.
"Wait for me," Orpheus whispered, "I'm coming with you."