prologue, part one: mugwort and birch
There are forces far mightier than the gods. Certainly, they are few and far between but – they linger and lurk from a time before creation.
Sally Jackson meets a handsome man with eyes like the fathomless sea, by her hometown in Brazil, a month before the winter equinox, the shortest day of the year. She learns that he kisses as if he were drowning.
A month later, she spends that night with him, huddled against the winter chill in her ramshackle rental cabin in Montauk. He runs far warmer than the winter sea, shows far more affection than that sea ever showed her. (or perhaps that is a cruelty; because Sally only learned to swim after the sea beat against her, down and down again until the breath was stolen from her lungs, and she forced herself to learn to swim, to fight against the tide and – Sally knows that nothing worthwhile has ever been learned through kindness and a gentle touch.) He does not kill spiders – instead, cradles them gently in his sun-weathered palms and lets them scuttle away into the night.
(as she welcomes him back into bed, Sally wonders if it was perhaps crueler to let them go; if it would have been kinder to kill them quickly, rather than let them die slowly in the unforgiving cold.)
They spend another week together. She takes him down to the boardwalk, and tells him what it would be like beneath the summer sun, when the boardwalk is packed with children and families and couples and life. When the vendors set up their wares, call for people to play their rigged games, and children beg their parents for ice cream or other extremely unhealthy treats. He nods and smiles and swivels his head to look at the desolate boardwalk, but really, Sally knows that he's watching her, always, from the corners of his eyes.
(how large she feels, having the attention of a god all for her own, how humbling to have that attention turned on her like a spotlight seeking some larger-than-life star.)
On the last day of their week together, Poseidon cups her face in his hands and says, "I have to go." There is genuine sorrow in his eyes, and Sally can feel the slight tremble in his sturdy wrists, in his hands. She has given away a part of her, but Mãe always told her daughters that love is always infinite. No matter how much she gives, Sally knows that there will always be more.
So she smiles, wry and tentatively bittersweet. "I know," Sally says. "Gods have other duties, Poseidon. I know." His true name rolls off her tongue like silk; smooth and unburdened – it feels awfully liberating to give up her pretense.
He looks so shocked, those beautiful sea-glass eyes widening for the first time since she's known him.
"How did you – "
Sally smiles, and cups his cheek in turn. "Divinity is hard to hide from those who can See, my dear." She presses a kiss to his scruffy cheek, runs a hand down the front of his Henley, smoothing wrinkles as she goes.
"Sally," he says, and it sounds reverent, like a prayer. "Come to Atlantis – come back with me."
"Ask me again later," she murmurs. "When I'm not so heartbroken from your leaving."
Poseidon looks at her, as if seeing her for the first time. He kisses her sweetly, as if she doesn't already know that this is the last time, and dives into the frigid winter sea.
He doesn't even make a splash as he goes.
( a spell for new beginnings: one young birch branch, and two bundles of mugwort. peel your birch bark, and burn the stick to cleanse the air. )
Poseidon asks her, time and time again, and time and time again, Sally says no. Maybe once she would have said yes, maybe once that lure would have caught her – but not now.
It's summer in Montauk, and Sally cradles her newborn son in her arms. He has a tuft of ink dark hair, and darling baby-blue eyes, but Sally has a feeling that once the blue fades, he'll have a sea-glass green. Just like his father.
She can already trace the places where Poseidon bleeds – will bleed – through. He's with her, in Percy's eyes and jaw and hair – but she knows that his nose is hers. The barely there freckles that threaten to pop up with the strong August sun. The color of his skin, like the dulce de leche cakes in Avozinha's bakery – those are all hers, the places where she bleeds through, in between the places that are Poseidon's, and the places that are neither him nor her.
She tucks him against her bosom, rocks him back and forth in her arms and prays to gods that are not Poseidon and his own. The monsters will come for him – this Sally knows. They will come, and try as she might, her son will not be safe.
Percy babbles in his sleep, waving a small arm around, and Sally holds him closer. Like proximity will quiet the howling divinity in his blood, so bright and golden that it blinds her.
She rocks him back and forth in her arms, and decides that it's high time she called Avozinha again.
( shred your bark, and grind your mugwort in a mortar and pestle until it forms a pulp. slowly mix in your birch bark, and cover overnight. )
Because the thing was, that Sally Jackson wasn't born into divine blood, nothing so fancy nor flashy – but the most powerful forces are hardly ever as such. Sally Jackson was born into the blood of witches, a coven as old as time itself, and then even older still.
"I knew you would return," is Avozinha's creaky greeting. She's far too old to be Sally's grandmother, but Avozinha has been Matriarch for longer than Sally or her mother, or her mother's mother. They say that she is their coven's solitary bastion, older than even the howling and roiling oceans back home in Brazil.
"A vision?" Sally asks, stitching together a sachet of vervain, cinnamon and sage. The smooth cotton is the same shade as the summer sea, rippling through sea foam and the iridescence of the sun atop the waves. "Or just a hunch?"
Avozinha snorts. In the background, Sally can hear the whirr of her stand mixer, and Cortes' high-pitched Portuguese. "Both, querida. You and I both know that the arts don't work that way."
Percy burbles in his crib, and Sally sets the sachet and her needle down, picking him up from the wooden crib. Runes, in an ancient language lost to time and the Old Ones, line the ash wood crib. Mãe had shipped it all the way from Salvador to New York City; and the costs had been enormous.
("Can't pay shipping fees with magic, neném," Mãe had laughed over the phone. "But don't worry. Avozinha and I have you covered for this time.")
"I know, I know," Sally murmurs. Percy places a chubby hand on her cheek, patting her amusedly. She tucks the phone in the crook of her neck, and blows a raspberry on his covered belly button. "Bom dia, neném," she coos, bouncing him to the tune of Avozinha's wheezing laughter. "Avozinha, look who's awake!" Sally picks up one of Percy's arms, waving at the ceiling – if Avozinha is scrying, she'll see them.
"I see, querida – Cortes! ¿Por qué diabos você está fazendo?" Avozinha screeches through the phone.
Sally laughs, and sets the phone down, reaching for the sachet. "Let's not listen to Avozinha, right, neném?"
Percy reaches for the sachet, giggling. Sally presses her head to his stomach, and sighs. Over the phone, Avozinha growls at Cortes – and Sally pities the Matriarch's apprentice.
"Neném, what am I going to do?" She asks. Percy just burbles, and gums at her hair. She sighs and pulls him closer to her – this is her son, the only son of the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and an ancient god. Danger lurks around every corner for Percy, and while Sally cannot protect him from them now, she will be able to soon.
For now, she blows another raspberry on her baby boy's clothed tummy, and holds him close as he laughs and claps. "I'll be strong enough for the both of us, neném. But you've got to stay with me, alright?"
a/n: prologue one is short, but serves it's purpose in laying down the foundations for what's to come. i am in no way an expert on portuguese culture or the language, so if you know better than me and find any errors, please let me know! i want this to be as accurate as i can get it.
otherwise, please leave me a review or a favorite if you liked this story! updates will try to be weekly (mostly on fridays, but we'll see.)
until next time, ren.