take us back | calypso series

the tops of crags and cliffs, the air is thin
so we'll find a mountain path on down the hill


I. PERCY.

I visit Percy's meadow in the morning. The path to the meadow is all too familiar: I've learned every step, every crack in the cobblestone and bend in the road over the past five years. The meadow was once the place where we would play hide and seek when Percy was a little girl, but now it is where her ashes are scattered.

Percy's meadow is not a playground anymore. It is a graveyard.

In my hand I carry pink roses and yellow and white lilies. They are the same kind that were in Percy's hair when we burned her body alongside Atlas White's. Yellow was Percy's favorite color and lilies were her favorite flower, the ones that grew along the pond in our spot looking over the meadow.

The sun is coming up and it streaks my hair with gold as I approach the meadow. I remember how Percy's hair, golden like the wheat in the fields, would look so vibrant in the sunlight, how her big hazel eyes absorbed the color of the sun. She would laugh and twirl around in the tall grass, and in the winter we would make snow angels on the white ground.

Step.

A twig snaps beneath my foot upon taking the first step into the meadow. I take a deep breath to try to steady myself as I saunter to the clearing in the meadow's center, but then I realize that I don't have to be the leader of the Wolf Pack here, the crime lord without a heart, the feared and esteemed Black Wolf. Here I am just Calypso and I don't have to act or put on a show for anyone.

Sometimes, it's hard to remind myself that I am allowed to mourn.

The stone mask on my face falters and then is wiped away completely, giving away to droplets of tears. Gang leaders don't cry — it's a good thing that isn't what I have to be, here. My knees hit the ground and pain shoots through my legs upon the impact, but I don't wince. I've felt worse.

A sigh leaves my lungs and I stare at the slab of stone on the ground. "I'm sorry, Percy," I say. An apology from me is rare because I am often not sorry for the things that I do. I'm not sorry for stabbing the preacher's son to death, I'm not sorry for shrugging when my father died, I'm not sorry for stabbing Bloodworth through the eye after he took Xanthe. But I am, and always will be, sorry for Percy's death. Although Skully has tried to convince me otherwise, her blood is partly on my hands. I could have stopped her from volunteering, I could have trained her better. If I had taught her differently, she wouldn't have been so reckless and died to save her friends.

Percy was always so noble; she loved being the hero. But in the end, she died because of it, because of me, and because of Heathcliff Travers.

(Renee Perdris lays her blade against Achilles and then turns toward Stevie, the boy from District Six. The moment she attacks him, Percy darts toward the girl, drawing her sword.

"Stevie!" she calls for her friend. It all happens so quickly — one moment Percy is running and then the next she is plunging her sword through the girl's skull.

Skully gasps and my eyes widen, but then she says, "That's my girl, Percy!"

But then she blinks and Percy's chest is ripped open and blood is pooling on her shirt.)

The only comforting thing about it all is that Atlas pursued revenge like I would have against Percy's killer, and that Heathcliff met his end but his killer did not. That he died in vain, that he didn't die in peace. He deserved worse, I believe, but I'll take his short death over him making it out alive.

Hatred, regret, despair — those three emotions always come back to haunt me when I think of Percy, just as they do now. It takes several moments of crying before I realize that I've been gripping the stems of the roses so hard that the thorns have dug into my palms and now rivulets of blood are dripping down to my wrists.

I set the flowers down on the slab of stone. "I — I'll never understand why you volunteered. You wanted to save Ares, but no friendship is worth dying over." Percy always loved to be the hero, something I could never be, something I could never understand. I would die for family — for my sisters, for Helios, for Abraxas, for the child I carry. But never for a friend; friendships inevitably wither over time. They turn on you, they leave you. I would know — I'm usually the one holding the knife in their back.

"I just can't believe it's been two years."

Because it feels like yesterday that we were out on the ledge watching the sun go down.

meet me where the snow melt flows
it is there my dear where we'll begin again
skipping stones, braiding hair