Chapter 8: Dead leafs of a broken family tree
The house was warm. It was the house of a family I never had. The colours on the walls and furniture was very autumn like. Lot's of wood and brown colours. The living room I was sitting in was painted light brown which created a warm feeling. I couldn't remember ever being in a house with this feel. It was the kind of house you would want to grow up in. Sarah was talking to her mother in the kitchen while her brother sat next to me. I always thought the grumpy look I sometimes had came from my father but seeing this guy I realized it came from my mother's side. He didn't like me all that much, I could see that. He saw me as an intruder in his home and I hardly blamed him for that. I decided not to look him in the eye too much so I looked around the room. We were sitting around the table I saw them sitting in from outside. It was a long room which had been halved by two book cases making it look like there were two parts of the room. In the front side of the room stood two couches, a small table and the TV while the table filled the larger part of the back. There was a small cupboard in the corner filled with pictures. I got up and got closer to take closer look, the guy's gaze didn't leave me for a second. There were a lot of pictures but there were four eye catchers. One was a picture of Sarah and her brother when they were very young. Sarah looked like she was three years old give or take meaning the guy was about five years old. So was my mother still alive when this picture was taken? I figured she was. Why had she never told me about them? Why did she never go and see her sister? She must have been dealing with something horrible even then so why didn't she try to find help? It didn't make sense to me. The second picture was Will with his grandchildren. They were older there and Will looked younger than he was now. My guess was that the picture was about ten years old. If I was right it would mean that Will had not long lost one of his daughters, even if he didn't know it yet. The third picture was Susan with her children which seemed to be very recent. A year ago tops. Meaning that I was probably living on the other side of town when they took the picture. The last was one I recognized, it was the same picture Will showed me. Susan and my mother when they were younger. I picked up the frame without knowing why, the guy seemed to watch me even more now. Behind it was a picture clamped in between one of those spring frames. I unclipped it and looked at it. On the picture there was a kid. I would guess the child about a year old. He was pretty tall and was quite thin for a baby. He had pale skin and pure black hair. His eyes were the most remarkable though, they were pure black. Even though it could have been a bad quality picture I was sure that the boy's Iris's were about as dark as his pupils. This kid was it...me?
"Don't touch that!" The guy said with spite in his voice as he pushed me aside and pulled the picture from between my fingers. "Mom is precious about that photo." He said as he put it back in its original place. He looked at me with rage in his eyes. I wondered why he disliked me so much. What had I done to make him distrust me?
"Who is the kid?" I asked wondering if he could tell me. I doubted he would even if he did know. Maybe he had no idea and maybe that picture wasn't precious but he wanted an excuse to push me away from the cupboard.
"It's none of your business." I shouldn't have been surprised. Susan and Sarah came back into the room and the guy's glance changed. Obviously he didn't want his mother seeing that he was being rude to guests. Either that or he didn't want his mother to see him angry.
"Michael right?" Susan asked me. She had an intense look in her face as if she was trying to spot a lie. I just nodded. "What's your last name?" She asked and I hesitated. For a second I wanted to just say Colt. Just be done with it now. But I knew I couldn't. It would only be weird. I wasn't here to actually be a part of the family. Will asked me to protect them and that's what I was going to do. I had already gotten to close to them.
"Ford. Michael Ford." I couldn't think of a name very quickly so I went with that. Luke probably wouldn't mind me using his name. And if he did, he was never going to know.
"Well Mr. Ford. It's nice to know that we have a demigod as our guardian but really it isn't needed." She said. She walked over to the cupboard where the guy and I were standing and she opened the top part of the cupboard revealing two shelf's with bronze swords and daggers. "We have an entire armoury down in the basement, we are prepared."
"How come you know so much about this stuff?" I asked her. Sarah immediately saw the Dracanae and seemed scared but not at all surprised, this wasn't really an ordinary family.
"Our family has always had the sight. My dad has it, my sister had it and so do my kids." So that was it. I didn't even know that my mother could see through the mist. Until a while ago I didn't even know such a talent existed much less that it ran in my family. Of course whether or not I was part of the Colt family I would have had the ability to see through the mist because of being a demigod. "So who's son are you?" She asked me. Again I doubted. I knew that Will knew that I was a son of Erebus and I figured that Susan knew that her sister used to be with Erebus so saying that I was his son would give me away. Of course maybe that was the subtle way of letting her know who I was.
"I'm the son of Erebus, the only one." I added that last part to make sure there could be no mistake. For a second her look changed. First to surprise. Then to anger.
"Out!" She yelled. I wanted to ask what I had done wrong but she wouldn't let me speak. "No son of Erebus is welcome in my house! Your father murdered my little sister and his son will not stain my family. Sarah seemed shocked while a smile appeared on her brother's lips. "Leave now!" She said as she drew one of the swords from the cupboards and pointed it towards me.
"Mom! He saved my life!" Sarah said but it didn't help much. I didn't want to cause any trouble so I made my way towards the hall of the house.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know." I said. I knew it wasn't true that Erebus killed my mother. She killed herself, if anyone knew that for sure it was me. Susan followed me step by step still pointing the blade at me. She kept doing so after I left out of the door. She let out a deep sigh and lowered the blade.
"You were right to do so mom, he was nothing but trouble." The guy said. He was happy that I had left. He didn't like me from the start and now he had his mother on his side.
"I know my boy, I know." Susan walked back to the cupboard and put the sword back. Unlike the guy Sarah wasn't happy at all.
"Why did he do that!" She yelled out. "He was nice, he saved me. He didn't deserve that!" She screamed. Susan gave her a cold look.
"Go to your room Sarah, you shouldn't judge what you can't understand." Sarah ran out of the room and up the stairs furious with her mother. The guy walked out not long after. Susan leaned against the cupboard and let her gaze slide to a picture she hadn't taken a look at in a long time. She unclipped it and noticed that it had been unclipped not long ago. Who did that? She asked herself. It didn't matter. She looked at the young boy on the picture. It had been sent to her a long time ago. Almost sixteen years now. The picture was made on the boy's first birthday, July 14th. She turned the picture around looking at what had been written on the back by her sister. 'The nephew you'll miss out on meeting. I kept my part of the arrangement we made just so you know. Michael, the son of Erebus.' Susan shed a tear reading the words of her long passed sister. The words were written with so much spite. Now she had met her sisters son, and she had kicked him out of her own home just like her father had kicked out her sister. "I'm so sorry..."
I didn't go home. I couldn't. I knew Sophie wouldn't like that very much but I didn't care. oo much had happened that day. I couldn't go home and act like nothing happened, I needed to be alone. I spent the night at the shop, and the one after that, and the one after that. I didn't go out side at all. I didn't eat nor sleep, I just said there listening to the most sad and whiny albums I could find. I was depressed, I knew that for a fact. If I had any idea what was going on in the world I wouldn't have wasted my time but to me there was nothing other than the death of my boss and the finding of a family that despised me. But it was Friday morning now, I couldn't sit here any longer for a few reasons. The first one, I was expected at camp half-blood that evening. It would be the party before Luke and Maria's wedding, I couldn't miss that. Secondly...Will's funeral was that morning. I had to go there even though I wasn't invited. Well not really. An invitation had been sent to the store for any employees of Will's and I was one of those. Obviously Sarah hadn't mentioned that I was one of those employees. It was good that she hadn't, else I couldn't have been there. I could have shadow travelled there even though it was happening at day light but instead I chose to drive there. Something I started regretting when I got so stuck in traffic that I spent more time standing still than being on the move. Traffic really sucked in Los Angeles. I arrived at the graveyard when the funeral had already started. I could see Susan and her family and a few others. Some were strangers while there were others who I recognized from the store. Many people came in there occasionally and it made sense that they were invited to his funeral. I watched from afar, I didn't want Susan to see me as there was a possibility that she would kill me or at least order me to leave. I wanted to be at the funeral of my grand father whether it was close by or from a far didn't matter to me. It was a Christian funeral done by a priest and all. It didn't really matter how he got his last rites as long as he got them. I had been to the underworld and I knew that Will wasn't going anywhere good. He would stand next to my mother in the fields of Asphodel. I doubted he had done anything horrible or good enough to end up anywhere else. He was a regular guy so Asphodel was his fate like it was for so many others. If the people there believed he was going somewhere else, I didn't mind. After about half an hour of speeches the casket was brought down into the ground and the people started leaving. Susan and her kids stayed longer than the others but eventually they left. It was my time to say goodbye. I had flowers and all that, figured I was supposed to do that. I thought I was alone there, it seemed like it. I walked to the man's still open grave and looked down. Six feet under...at least he died peacefully. I knew I wouldn't have that much luck. I threw the flowers down into the grave and made a quick prayer to Hades to keep his soul and turned away. Susan stood in front of me with a destructive look.
"What are you doing here?" She asked with spite in her voice.
"I just came to say my goodbye's to my employer." I said. I wanted to walk away. I had to get home, I figured it was about time I did that.
"Don't you mean grandfather?" That was out of no where. So she did know who I was still I couldn't help but act surprised.
"What?" I asked. I knew that I had dropped a hint but I figured it hadn't gotten across very well. Either that or she just didn't want anything to do with her nephew.
"Don't think I'm a fool Michael. You are Sarah's son, my nephew." Sarah, my mom and now her daughter. Obviously Susan named her daughter after my mother. She wasn't dead yet when Sarah was born but they hadn't spoken in years. Maybe naming her daughter after her sister was a sign that she missed her. "I knew the moment I saw you. I just didn't know what to do with it. I have never met you and you're almost seventeen. How am I supposed to react to you?" Susan asked me. It wasn't an answer I could answer very well. I wasn't good at that sort of thing.
"Well not kicking me out of your house might be nice next time." She chuckled a bit. "But it was my fault. I shouldn't have just shown up. It wasn't the plan either but when your daughter got attacked I had to do something."
"Thanks for saving her Michael. I should have thanked you before, but better late than never." She said, I just nodded. I had nothing to say about it. "So where have you been all these years?" I knew I was going to have to lie. I couldn't tell her about my life even if I left out the killing. How could I tell my mother's sister that I spent a lot my life on the streets eating from trash can's because her sister did herself in? That wasn't an option.
"I spent many years in an orphanage called happy days. It got closed down after some years because they didn't have enough income to wage against all the money they spent to keep us in good health." Now that was the biggest lie I was going to tell her. Happy days spending money on us? Hell no! "Not long after they got closed down I was found by a son of Hermes who took me to camp. And the last year I spent living here in LA with a friend of mine. Getting a taste of the real world." I joked. I lied a lot while I was saying very little. I could see in her face that she noticed but she didn't say anything about it.
"That's good. It must have been hard growing up without your mother. It was the same for me. We hadn't seen each other for a long time, even before you were born. We were very close before that though." Susan said. She seemed sad which was understandable. She just lost her father and now I was pretty much forcing her to bring back memories of her sister.
"It was but it's a long time ago. I am sad to say that I can hardly remember her." I said. Maybe not the smartest thing but it was the truth. Other than the time I saw her in the underworld I had very few memories of her.
"You know, she sent me a picture of you when you turned one. I should have come find her then. Maybe then you could have grown up with family instead of in an orphanage." I had the same wish but what was done was done. Like Jake said, you can change the future but not the past. "Do you know why she named you Michael?" She asked me. I knew that she had named me after the angel Michael but I doubted that that's what Susan meant. "Sarah and I, we were both going to call our first sons after an angel. She would call her son Michael and I would call mine Gabriel. Both of us kept that promise even though we hadn't spoken for a while when our children were born." Susan said. I didn't actually know that her son was called Gabriel. Truth was I didn't really like it. I didn't have very good experiences with others named after Angels.
"Look Susan, I have to go soon but I'd love to come by sometime." Truth was I really needed to get to the apartment and get to camp. I still had a family there and one of my brother's in arms was getting married tomorrow. I needed to be there.
"I'd like that Michael. We'll see you around then?" I just nodded and walked off to my car. I saw her looking at the grave of her father before walking away herself. She went home with her kids and told them that the boy that was in their home was the son of her sister. Gabriel hated it while Sarah started jumping around. Susan thought they had to know and it would make it clear why he was suddenly coming round to their place. Susan just hoped that Gabriel and I would get along. Spoiler alert, we didn't.
I hadn't been at the apartment in a few days and the truth was I was scared to go back inside. I wondered what Sophie would say. I was like me to be gone for days without word but she had no idea what had happened the last few days and I still didn't know how much I was going to tell her. I just found out about it and to tell it all in one sitting seemed a bit rough but I had to tell Sophie something. I figured I would do what I always did, improvise. I opened the door and heard it's familiar shriek. I promised to fix it ages ago but I either didn't get round to it or I'd just do something more entertaining. It was a three minute job but it was getting up and doing it that was the hard part. I wasn't going to do it now that was certain.
"Where the hell have you been?" Sophie asked me with spite in her voice. I pretty much expected that. "Luke and Maria are getting married tomorrow and you just decided to prance of for a few days?" What she said made me feel like we were some kind of old married couple. A very awkward moment. I wondered if Luke and Maria would end up being like that. More so would they ever get to be old? Given we were all demigods that chance wasn't all that big.
"Look I needed some time by myself." I said. I could run with that, probably. I never knew how much of my lies people actually bought. Probably less than I hoped. I lied a lot but it really wasn't with bad intentions. Of course a lot of bad things came from good intentions. But in my case the truth was usually more damaging than my lies.
"Seriously you're acting like you're the one getting married tomorrow. What is going on with you?" She had the right to ask that. I wasn't really acting normally of course normal and me didn't really match up. Better phrased, I was acting like a nut in a different way.
"Will he...passed Tuesday." Immediately I saw her expression change. She hadn't seen that coming. For second I wanted to stop there but maybe it was about time I stopped lying. Maybe it was time I told her the whole story for once. "Just before he died he showed me a picture of his daughters." I pulled the picture out of my pocket and showed it to Sophie. She looked at it but she didn't really know what to make out of it. I didn't look a lot like my mom nor my aunt especially not in that picture. "The one on the left is my mother." I didn't know another way to say it. How could I explain that I had a family all of the sudden? I didn't even know how I was supposed to deal with this. I had met them all but still I didn't know how to act.
"So you're saying that...?" I just nodded. She could hardly have missed what it meant so I assumed that what she was going to ask needed a yes.
"I met my mom's sister. She's got two kids and lives on the other side of town." I said as I walked around the apartment aimlessly. I couldn't sit still while talking about this. Scrap that, I have ADHD I could never sit still.
"Is that where you were all these days." I huffed and chuckled a bit. She probably didn't understand why but that didn't really matter to me.
"She kicked me out when she found out who I was. I spoke to her at the funeral though. We talked for a while, not very fun." I said. Neither me nor Susan must have liked that conversation. It was quite painful thinking about my mom so much. The entire week had been quite painful.
"So what are you going to do now?" She asked me. I asked myself the same question. I didn't know the answer yet and in my opinion it didn't need an answer yet.
"I don't know, I really don't know." I leaned against the wall with a vacant expression. Trying to think of the answer. Was I supposed to try and join in? Become part of the family? Did I even belong in that family. I mean I was a demigod with personality issues, I didn't think it was safe for them to have me around. But could I just live on as if I didn't have a family? I didn't think I could do that either. I sighed and put all of my weight back on my feet. "You ready to go then? We should be in the party mood right about now. Isn't it starting in like an hour?" I asked. Given they were a few hours ahead it was nearly time for the party there while it wasn't even evening in Los Angeles.
"You don't seem to be in the party mood." She said accusingly. I faked a big smile which made her smile, which made me smile for real. Sophie seemed capable of doing that. I was a pretty down guy or at least I always thought so but she seemed to put a smile on my face any time of the day.
"Let's go." And like that I pulled the pair of us into the darkness heading once again towards camp half-blood.