Pince was never good at resisting curiosity and so, well aware of what might be ahead, she pushed through the door. The first few steps took them through flame which surprised her.
"Am I in Hell now?"
"No, this is Hades and while in your time the name was frequently interchangeable with Hell, they are not the same. Now in the boat and penny to your lips."
Pince hesitated, "Will he let me leave once I've crossed the river?"
"Sure."
Abel didn't sound convincing.
"Have you been here before?" she asked.
"No, but Hades and I have been penpals for quite some time."
With this little assurance, she quietly sat next to him on the boat and watched wide-eyed as other people boarded the small ferry. They looked tired or resigned and as Charon began collecting their fares some of them looked as if they barely noticed this wasn't their regular commute to work. When Charon reached Pince and Abel she looked down at his feet. Beneath his Greco-Roman robes he was wearing penny loafers. She gently kissed her penny before she handed it over, Charon bowed his head then walked to the back of the ferry and began to pushed them across with his pole.
The ride was quiet, nobody spoke, there was just the gentle lap of the water against the wooden boards of the ferry. In less than a minute they were at the other side and then she was following Abel across a meadow where they would stop frequently as Abel pointed out the different kinds of flowers and grasses, over the river Lethe, through the woods, and there was the raised dias where they found Hades.
Hades seemed like a normal guy, he offered them pumpernickel toast, and introduced them to Eurydice. He took them on a tour, to the three other rivers, two pools, showed them some particularly amazing stalactites, and then they went back to the meadow for a picnic. Here they discussed music, and to Pince's amazement Hades had vinyl records of early Egyptian music and an extensive collection of Elvis Costello. Because of Pince's enthusiasm, after lunch, Hades showed them his listening room. The four walls were lined with shelves of records that stretched up for miles and out of sight. Pince stared up wondering how far away the ceiling was.
"You can try to climb but you won't make it to the surface," said Hades coming up behind her. "Here, look, I have The Kinks album you were talking about."
They spent the afternoon thumbing through the shelves, playing B-sides, whole albums, EPs, favorite songs, dancing to particularly catchy tunes. A set of white albums tucked away on a bottom shelf caught Pince's eye. "Who do these belong to?"
"Uhhh..."
Pince looked up and saw that Hades was looking uncomfortable and Eurydice was concentrating very hard on the far distant ceiling.
"We don't listen to those ones, really," said Hades, "just ignore them."
Later, when the others were busy talking, Pince walked over the the white albums and peaked at what the cover said.
RECORDINGS OF ORPHEUS FROM FOREVER AGO
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