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21 :: Daddy Issues? Don't Know her

Published: September 10, 2021
Edited: July 20, 2022
~✰~

It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality. Chiron had told me that long ago. As usual, I didn't appreciate his wisdom until much later.

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake.

This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted me when I was a newborn and later on, came for my brother and two other adolescents in New York and brought us across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror.

The poor little Jackson twins weren't  international criminals after all. They'd caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from their captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus—"Why didn't I remember him before?"). The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could've done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo, and notified the police. Finally, the brave Jackson twins (I was beginning to like these kids) had stolen a gun from their captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy and Neridia Jackson and his two friends were safely in police custody.

The reporters fed us this whole story. We just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't hard), and played victimized kids for the cameras.

"All I want," Percy whispered, choking back fake tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew...somehow...we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number." The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for four tickets on the next plane to New York.

I knew there was no choice but to fly. I hoped Zeus would cut us some slack, considering the circumstances. But it was still hard to force myself on board the flight.

Takeoff was a nightmare. Every spot of turbulence was scarier than a Greek monster. I didn't unclench my hands from the armrests and Percy's hand until we touched down safely at La Guardia. The local press was waiting for us outside security, but we managed to evade them thanks to Annabeth, who lured them away in her invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yogurt! Come on!" then rejoined us at baggage claim.

We split up at the taxi stand. Percy told Annabeth and Grover to get back to Half-Blood Hill and let Chiron know what had happened.

They protested, and it was hard to let them go after all we'd been through, but I knew we had to do this last part of the quest by ourselves. If things went wrong, if the gods didn't believe us... I wanted Annabeth and Grover to survive to tell Chiron the truth.

I hopped in a taxi with Percy and headed into Manhattan.

Thirty minutes of silence later, we walked into the lobby of the Empire State Building.

I must have looked like a homeless kid, with my tattered clothes and my scraped-up face. I hadn't slept in at least twenty-four hours.

I went up to the guard at the front desk and demanded, "Six hundredth floor."

He was reading a huge book with a picture of a wizard on the front. Ah yes, Harry Potter. A good series. The book must've been especially good, because the guard took a while to look up. 

"No such floor, kiddo."

"I need an audience with Zeus."

He gave me a vacant smile. "Sorry?" 

"You heard me."

I was about to decide this guy was just a regular mortal, and we'd better run for it before he called the straitjacket patrol, when he frowned.

"No appointment, no audience, kiddo. Lord Zeus doesn't see anyone unannounced."

"Oh, I think he'll make an exception." Percy slipped off his backpack and unzipped the top.

The guard looked inside at the metal cylinder, not getting what it was for a few seconds. Then his face went pale. "That isn't..."

"Yes, it is," Percy promised. "You want me take it out and—"

"No! No!" He scrambled out of his seat, fumbled around his desk for a key card, then handed it to me. "Insert this in the security slot. Make sure nobody else is in the elevator with you."

I did as he told me. As soon as the elevator doors closed, I slipped the key into the slot. The card disappeared and a new button appeared on the console, a red one that said 600. I pressed it and waited, and waited. Muzak played.

"Raindrops keep falling on my head...." 

"Well this is it Perce." I mumbled, tapping my fingers on the elevator walls.

"If they strike us dead, I love you little sister."

"HEY! We're twins!" I exclaimed. "But I love you too bro."

Finally, ding. The doors slid open. I stepped out and almost fell off. I was standing on a narrow stone walkway in the middle of the air. Below me was Manhattan, from the height of an airplane. In front of me, white marble steps wound up the spine of a cloud, into the sky.

From the top of the clouds rose the decapitated peak of a mountain, its summit covered with snow. Clinging to the mountainside were dozens of multileveled palaces—a city of mansions—all with white-columned porticos, gilded terraces, and bronze braziers glowing with a thousand fires.

Roads wound crazily up to the peak, where the largest palace gleamed against the snow. Precariously perched gardens bloomed with olive trees and rosebushes. I could make out an open-air market filled with colorful tents, a stone amphitheater built on one side of the mountain, a hippodrome and a coliseum on the other. It was an Ancient Greek city, except it wasn't in ruins. It was new, and clean, and colorful, the way Athens must've looked twenty-five hundred years ago.

Our trip through Olympus was a daze. We passed some giggling wood nymphs who threw olives at me from their garden. Hawkers in the market offered to sell us ambrosia-on-a-stick, and a new shield, and a genuine glitter-weave replica of the Golden Fleece, as seen on Hephaestus-TV. The nine muses were tuning their instruments for a concert in the park while a small crowd gathered—satyrs and naiads and a bunch of good-looking teenagers who might've been minor gods and goddesses. Nobody seemed worried about an impending civil war. In fact, everybody seemed in a festive mood. Several of them turned to watch us pass, and whispered to themselves.

We climbed the main road, toward the big palace at the peak. It was a reverse copy of the palace in the Underworld.

There, everything had been black and bronze. Here, everything glittered white and silver.

I realized Hades must've built his palace to resemble this one. He wasn't welcomed in Olympus except on the winter solstice, so he'd built his own Olympus underground. Despite my bad experiences with him, I felt a little sorry for the guy. To be banished from this place seemed really unfair. It would make anybody bitter.

Steps led up to a central courtyard. Past that, the throne room. Room really isn't the right word. The place made Grand Central Station look like a broom closet. Massive columns rose to a domed ceiling, which was gilded with moving constellations.

Twelve thrones, built for beings the size of Hades, were arranged in an inverted U, just like the cabins at Camp Half-Blood.

An enormous fire crackled in the central hearth pit. The thrones were empty except for two at the end: the head throne on the right, and the one to its immediate left. I didn't have to be told who the two gods were that were sitting there, waiting for us to approach. We came toward them, my legs trembling. I held Percy's hand in my own.

The gods were in giant human form, as Hades had been, but I could barely look at them without feeling a tingle, as if my body were starting to burn. Zeus, the Lord of the Gods, wore a dark blue pinstriped suit. He sat on a simple throne of solid platinum. He had a well-trimmed beard, marbled gray and black like a storm cloud. His face was proud and handsome and grim, his eyes rainy gray.

As I got nearer to him, the air crackled and smelled of ozone.

The god sitting next to him was his brother, without a doubt, but he was dressed very differently. He reminded me of a beachcomber from Key West. He wore leather sandals, khaki Bermuda shorts, and a Tommy Bahama shirt with coconuts and parrots all over it. His skin was deeply tanned, his hands scarred like an old-time fisherman's. His hair was black, like mine. His face had that same brooding look that had always gotten me branded a rebel. But his eyes, sea-green like mine and my brother's, were surrounded by sun-crinkles that told me he smiled a lot, too.

His throne was a deep-sea fisherman's chair. It was the simple swiveling kind, with a black leather seat and a built-in holster for a fishing pole. Instead of a pole, the holster held a bronze trident, flickering with green light around the tips.

The gods weren't moving or speaking, but there was tension in the air, as if they'd just finished an argument.

We approached the fisherman's throne and knelt at his feet. 

"Father." I murmured softly. I dared not look up. My heart was racing. I could feel the energy emanating from the two gods. If I said the wrong thing, I had no doubt they could blast me into dust.

To my left, Zeus spoke. "Should you not address the master of this house first, children?"

I kept my head down, and waited.

"Peace, brother," Poseidon finally rumbled. His voice stirred my oldest memories: that warm glow I remembered as a baby, the sensation of this god's hand on my forehead. "The children defer to their father. This is only right."

"You still claim them then?" Zeus asked, menacingly. "You claim these children whom you sired against our sacred oath?"

"I have admitted my wrongdoing," Poseidon snapped. "Now I would hear them speak."

Wrongdoing.

A lump welled up in my throat. Was that all I was? A wrongdoing? The result of a god's mistake?

"I have spared them once already," Zeus grumbled. "Daring to fly through my domain...pah! I should have blasted them out of the sky for their impudence."

"And risk destroying your own master bolt?" Poseidon asked calmly. "Let us hear them out, brother."

Zeus grumbled some more. "I shall listen," he decided. "Then I shall make up my mind whether or not to cast this boy and his sister down from Olympus."

"Perseus, Neridia," Poseidon said gently. "Look at me."

I did, and I wasn't sure what I saw in his face. There was no clear sign of love or approval. Nothing to encourage me. It was like looking at the ocean: some days, you could tell what mood it was in. Most days, though, it was unreadable, mysterious.

I got the feeling Poseidon really didn't know what to think of us. He didn't know whether he was happy to have us as his children or not. In a strange way, I was glad that Poseidon was so distant. If he'd tried to apologize, or told me he loved me, or even smiled, it would've felt fake. Like a human dad, making some lame excuse for not being around. I could live with that. After all, I wasn't sure about him yet, either.

"Address Lord Zeus," Poseidon told us. "Tell him your story."

So we told Zeus everything, just as it had happened. Percy took out the metal cylinder, which began sparking in the Sky God's presence, and laid it at his feet.

There was a long silence, broken only by the crackle of the hearth fire.

Zeus opened his palm. The lightning bolt flew into it. As he closed his fist, the metallic points flared with electricity, until he was holding what looked more like the classic thunderbolt, a twenty-foot javelin of arcing, hissing energy that made the hairs on my scalp rise.

"I sense they tell the truth," Zeus muttered. "But that Ares would do such a thing...it is most unlike him."

"He is proud and impulsive," Poseidon said. "It runs in the family."

"Lord?" I asked.

They both answered, "Yes?"

"Ares didn't act alone. Someone else—something else—came up with the idea."

I described my dreams, and the feeling I'd had on the beach, that momentary breath of evil that had seemed to stop the world, and made Ares back off from killing me.

"In the dreams," Percy said, "the voice told me to bring the bolt to the Underworld. Ares hinted that he'd been having dreams, too. I think he was being used, just as I was, to start a war."

"You are accusing Hades, after all?" Zeus asked, his eyebrow raised.

"No, no," I waved my hands before taking a steadying breath. "I mean, Lord Zeus, I've been in the presence of Hades. This feeling on the beach was different. It was the same thing I felt when I got close to that pit. That was the entrance to Tartarus, wasn't it? Something powerful and evil is stirring down there...something even older than the gods."

Poseidon and Zeus looked at each other. They had a quick, intense discussion in Ancient Greek. I only caught one word. Father.

Poseidon made some kind of suggestion, but Zeus cut him off. Poseidon tried to argue. Zeus held up his hand angrily. "We will speak of this no more," Zeus commanded. "I must go personally to purify this thunderbolt in the waters of Lemnos, to remove the human taint from its metal."

He rose and looked at me and Percy. His expression softened just a fraction of a degree. "You have done me a service, children. Few heroes could have accomplished as much."

"We had help, sir," Percy assured him. "Grover Underwood and Annabeth Chase—"

"To show you my thanks, I shall spare your life. I do not trust you. I do not like what your arrival means for the future of Olympus. But for the sake of peace in the family, I shall let you both live."

"Um...thank you, sir."

"Do not presume to fly again. Do not let me find you here when I return. Otherwise you shall taste this bolt. And it shall be your last sensation."

Thunder shook the palace. With a blinding flash of lightning, Zeus was gone.

We were alone in the throne room with our father.

"Your uncle," Poseidon sighed, "has always had a flair for dramatic exits. I think he would've done well as the god of theater."

An uncomfortable silence.

"Sir," Percy asked softly, "what was in that pit?"

Poseidon regarded me, despite it being Percy's question. "Have you not guessed?"

"Kronos," I whispered heavily, "The king of the Titans."

Even in the throne room of Olympus, far away from Tartarus, the name Kronos darkened the room, made the hearth fire seem not quite so warm on my back.

Poseidon gripped his trident. "In the First War, Neridia, Zeus cut our father Kronos into a thousand pieces, just as Kronos had done to his own father, Ouranos. Zeus cast Kronos's remains into the darkest pit of Tartarus. The Titan army was scattered, their mountain fortress on Etna destroyed, their monstrous allies driven to the farthest corners of the earth. And yet Titans cannot die, any more than we gods can. Whatever is left of Kronos is still alive in some hideous way, still conscious in his eternal pain, still hungering for power."

"He's healing," I insisted. "He's coming back."

Poseidon shook his head. "From time to time, over the eons, Kronos has stirred. He enters men's nightmares and breathes evil thoughts. He wakens restless monsters from the depths. But to suggest he could rise from the pit is another thing."

"That's what he intends, Father. That's what he said."

Poseidon was silent for a long time.

"Lord Zeus has closed discussion on this matter. He will not allow talk of Kronos. You have completed your quest. That is all you need to do."

"But—" I stopped myself. Arguing would do no good. It would very possibly anger the only god who I had on my side. "As...as you wish, Father."

A faint smile played on his lips. "Obedience does not come naturally to you, does it?"

"No...sir."

"I must take some blame for that, I suppose. The sea does not like to be restrained." He rose to his full height and took up his trident. Then he shimmered and became the size of a regular man, standing directly in front of me. "You must go, children. But first, know that your mother has returned."

I stared at him, completely stunned. "My mother?"

"You will find her at home. Hades sent her when you recovered his helm. Even the Lord of Death pays his debts."

My heart was pounding. I couldn't believe it. A mother, MY mother. 

"Do you...would you..." Percy spluttered.

Poseidon's eyes took on a little sadness. "When you return home, Percy, you must make an important choice. You will find a package waiting in your room."

"A package?"

"You will understand when you see it. No one can choose your path, Percy. You must decide."

I nodded, though I didn't know what he meant.

"Your mother is a queen among women," Poseidon reminiced wistfully. "I had not met such a mortal woman in a thousand years. Still...I am sorry you were born, small ones. I have brought you a hero's fate, and a hero's fate is never happy. It is never anything but tragic."

I tried not to feel hurt. Here was my own dad, telling me he was sorry I'd been born. "I don't mind, Father."

"Not yet, perhaps," he muttered. "Not yet. But it was an unforgivable mistake on my part."

"We'll leave you then." I bowed awkwardly. "I—I won't bother you again." We were five steps away when he called, 

"Neridia."

I turned.

"I am sorry my girl, for taking you from your mother. It was the will of the fates... but it hasn't done much good for you. I do apologize..." He trailed off. When he looked up there was a different light in his eyes, a fiery kind of pride. 

"You did well, twins. Do not misunderstand me. Whatever else you do, know that you are mine. You are true children of the Sea God."

As we walked back through the city of the gods, conversations stopped. The muses paused their concert. People and satyrs and naiads all turned toward us, their faces filled with respect and gratitude, and as we passed, they knelt, as if we were some kind of heroes.

Fifteen minutes later, still in a trance, we were back on the streets of Manhattan.

We caught a taxi to Percy's apartment, rang the doorbell, and there she was—my beautiful mother, smelling of peppermint and licorice, the weariness and worry evaporating from her face as soon as she saw Percy.

"Percy! Oh, thank goodness. Oh, my baby."

She hugged him tight and I stood there awkwardly.

She told him she'd just appeared at the apartment that morning, scaring Gabe half out of his wits. She didn't remember anything since the Minotaur, and couldn't believe it when Gabe told her Percy was a wanted criminal, traveling across the country, blowing up national monuments. She'd been going out of her mind with worry all day because she hadn't heard the news. Gabe had forced her to go into work, saying she had a month's salary to make up and she'd better get started.

"Hey mom..." Percy said hesitantly, after he had mentally sworn at Gabe with language that would make a sailor blush.

"Yes sweetie?" She asked, releasing him from the hug.

"Well, I met someone at camp... and sh-she's here to meet you." 

"A special someone eh?" Our mom teased. Percy blushed.

"N-no, she's well... Neri come here..." He coaxed me out from behind him. I stood there nervously. Mom stared, her eyes wide.

"H-hey..." I waved at her awkwardly.

"Neridia?!" She asked quietly, holding me at arms length. I nodded slowly. She crushed me in a hug. Her tears soaked my back.

"Oh my baby! Where have you been all these years!" She sobbed.

I told her my own story. I tried to make it sound less scary than it had been, but that wasn't easy. I was just getting to the fight with Ares when a voice interrupted from the living room. 

"Hey, Sally! That meat loaf done yet or what?"

She closed her eyes. "He isn't going to be happy to see you, Percy. The store got half a million phone calls today from Los Angeles...something about free appliances."

"Oh, yeah. About that..."

She managed a weak smile. "Just don't make him angrier, all right? Come on."

Garbage was ankle deep on the carpet. The sofa had been reupholstered in beer cans. Dirty socks and underwear hung off the lampshades.

Gabe and three of his big goony friends were playing poker at the table.

When Gabe saw us, his cigar dropped out of his mouth. His face got redder than lava. "You got nerve coming here, you little punk. I thought the police—"

"He's not a fugitive after all," my mom interjected. "Isn't that wonderful, Gabe?"

"Yes well who's this girl?" He asked aggressively.

"It's Neridia! You remember I told you about Percy's missing sister?"

Gabe looked back and forth between us. He didn't seem to think my homecoming was so wonderful.

"Bad enough I had to give back your life insurance money, Sally," he growled. "Get me the phone. I'll call the cops."

"Gabe, no!"

He raised his eyebrows. "Did you just say 'no' ? You think I'm gonna put up with this punk again? I can still press charges against him for ruining my Camaro."

"But—"

He raised his hand, and my mother flinched.

I realized something. Gabe had hit my mother. I didn't know when, or how much. But I was sure he'd done it.

A balloon of anger started expanding in my chest. I came toward Gabe, instinctively taking my pen out of my pocket. Percy looked just as angry as me but he grabbed my arm and held me back.

He just laughed. "What, girl? You gonna write on me? You touch me, and you are going to jail forever, you understand?"

"Hey, Gabe," his friend interrupted. "She's just a kid."

Gabe looked at him resentfully and mimicked in a falsetto voice: "Just a kid."

His other friends laughed like idiots.

"I'll be nice to you, punk." Gabe showed us his tobacco-stained teeth. "I'll give you five minutes to get your stuff and clear out. After that, I call the police."

"Gabe!" my mother pleaded.

"He ran away," Gabe told her. "Let him stay gone."

I was itching to click Whirlpool, but even if I did, the blade wouldn't hurt humans. And Gabe, by the loosest definition, was human.

My mother took Percy's arm. "Please, dears. Come on. We'll go to your room."

I let her pull us away, my hands still trembling with rage.

The room had been completely filled with Gabe's junk. There were stacks of used car batteries, a rotting bouquet of sympathy flowers with a card from somebody who'd seen his Barbara Walters interview.

"Gabe is just upset, honey," my mother told us. "I'll talk to him later. I'm sure it will work out."

"Mom, it'll never work out. Not as long as Gabe's here."

She wrung her hands nervously. "I can...I'll take you both to work with me for the rest of the summer. In the fall, maybe there's another boarding school—"

"Mom."

She lowered her eyes. "I'm trying, Percy. I just...I need some time."

A package appeared on the bed. At least, I could've sworn it hadn't been there a moment before.

It was a battered cardboard box about the right size to fit a basketball. The address on the mailing slip was in my own handwriting:

Tʜᴇ ɢᴏᴅs Mᴏᴜɴᴛ Oʟʏᴍᴘᴜs 600ᴛʜ Fʟᴏᴏʀ, Eᴍᴘɪʀᴇ Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Bᴜɪʟᴅɪɴɢ

Nᴇᴡ Yᴏʀᴋ, ɴʏ

Wɪᴛʜ ʙᴇsᴛ ᴡɪsʜᴇs, 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑁𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑎 𝐽𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑜𝑛

Over the top in black marker, in a man's clear, bold print, was the address of our apartment, and the words: RETURN TO SENDER.

Suddenly I understood what Poseidon had told us on Olympus.

A package. A decision.

Whatever else you do, know that you are mine. You are a true child of the Sea God.

Percy looked at our mother. 

"Mom, do you want Gabe gone?"

"Percy, it isn't that simple. I—"

"Mom, just tell me. That jerk has been hitting you. Do you want him gone or not?"

She hesitated, then nodded almost imperceptibly. "Yes, Percy. I do. And I'm trying to get up my courage to tell him. But you can't do this for me. You can't solve my problems."

I looked at the box.

We could solve her problem. I wanted to slice that package open, plop it on the poker table, and take out what was inside. We could start our very own statue garden, right there in the living room.

That's what a Greek hero would do in the stories, I thought. That's what Gabe deserves.

But a hero's story always ended in tragedy. Poseidon had told us that.

I remembered the Underworld. I thought about Gabe's spirit drifting forever in the Fields of Asphodel, or condemned to some hideous torture behind the barbed wire of the Fields of Punishment—an eternal poker game, sitting up to his waist in boiling oil listening to opera music. Did we have the right to send someone there? Even Gabe?

A month ago, I wouldn't have hesitated. Now...

"We can do it," I told my mom. "One look inside this box, and he'll never bother you again."

She glanced at the package, and seemed to understand immediately. "No, Neridia," she scolded me, stepping away. "You can't."

"Poseidon called you a queen," Percy told her. "He said he hadn't met a woman like you in a thousand years."

Her cheeks flushed. "Percy—"

"You deserve better than this, Mom. You should go to college, get your degree. You can write your novel, meet a nice guy maybe, live in a nice house. You don't need to protect me anymore by staying with Gabe. Let us get rid of him."

She wiped a tear off her cheek. "You sound so much like your father," she said. "He offered to stop the tide for me once. He offered to build me a palace at the bottom of the sea. He thought he could solve all my problems with a wave of his hand."

"What's wrong with that?"

Her multicolored eyes seemed to search inside me. "I think you know, Neri. I think you're enough like me to understand. If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself. I can't let a god take care of me...or my children. I have to...find the courage on my own. Your quest has reminded me of that."

We listened to the sound of poker chips and swearing, ESPN from the living room television.

"I'll leave the box," Percy decided. "If he threatens you..."

She looked pale, but she nodded. "Where will you go, Percy?" 

"Half-Blood Hill." I answered her.

"For the summer...or forever?"

"I guess that depends."

We locked eyes, and I sensed that we had an agreement.

We would see how things stood at the end of the summer.

She kissed my forehead. "You'll be a hero, both of you. You'll be the greatest of all."

I took one last look around the bedroom. I had a feeling I'd never see it again. Then I walked with my mother to the front door.

"Leaving so soon, punks?" Gabe called after us. "Good riddance."

I had one last twinge of doubt. How could I turn down the perfect chance to take revenge on him? I was leaving here without saving my mother.

"Hey, Sally," he yelled. "What about that meat loaf, huh?"

A steely look of anger flared in my mother's eyes, and I thought, just maybe, we were leaving her in good hands after all. Her own.

"The meat loaf is coming right up, dear," she told Gabe. "Meat loaf surprise."

She looked at us, and winked.

The last thing I saw as the door swung closed was my mother staring at Gabe, as if she were contemplating how he would look as a garden statue.

~✰~
Word Count: 4959

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