by Bree Despain
“It might be easier to describe how it makes you feel.”
That hesitant, uncertain expression crosses his face. Has no one ever asked him to talk about his emotions before?
“Sad,” he says. “It’s a sad song. But optimistic, too.”
“Optimistic?”
I’d played him a song called “I Will Follow You into the Dark” from the Death Cab for Cutie album he’d picked out. It is a simple song, just a singer and a single guitar, but it seems to have had a strong impact on Haden. His inner tone beats twice as strong as before. It almost sounds hopeful.
“I don’t know if optimistic is quite the right word. But it’s about two lovers,” he says. “Yes?”
I nod.
“They’ve been together for a long time. They’ve seen many things and loved deeply. But she’s about to die. And he’s telling her not to cry or worry. Because she won’t be alone. Because he’ll follow her into the dark. He’s telling her to have hope. Yes, that’s the right word for it.”
“I guess so. But who would do that? It’s kind of a ridiculous notion, don’t you think? Can he really promise that he’s going to die right after her so she won’t be alone?”
“I think it’s less about death and more about a willingness to follow someone into the unknown. For love.”
“Maybe.”
“Would you ever do something like that? If you loved someone enough, would you follow him into the dark?” He looks at me with those jade green eyes and, for the slightest of moments, I think I see dark amber fire rings dancing around his pupils.
My impulse is to look away, but I don’t. “No,” I say. “I’m not a follower.”
“Hand in hand, then?”
I do look away now. “I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone that much.” I turn my back on him and move to the stereo.
“Even if it was your destiny?”
I give a short laugh. “Destiny? I don’t believe in all that fate mumbo jumbo.”
“How can you not believe in fate?” His question sounds like he thinks I’m being blasphemous.
“I believe in goals, and working hard for what you want. And choices. I make my own path; nobody else chooses it for me.”
Haden’s hopeful tone disappears. That sphere of silence returns, surrounding him and stretching to the corners of the booth. I can’t stand it.
I remove the disk from the stereo, and look for a new one to replace it.
“What about to save the person you loved?” he asks.
“Maybe,” I say, thinking of my mom. I’d come here to save her—in a way. Well, to save her from losing her shop and her livelihood. But it had been my choice, in the end. “Depends on the person, I guess.” I find the disk I’m looking for and put the new CD into the player. “Let’s try a modern song without lyrics this time. This is by one of my favorite bands, Stars of the Lid. Just concentrate on the music. Open yourself up to the emotion it evokes.” I press play and let the music fill the silence in the booth. “It’s a beautiful song, one of my favorite pieces of modern music, but it also reminds me of a discordant lullaby. Like something’s broken or missing in the music—but in a very deliberate way.”
My back is to Haden as the song plays, but I can feel his warm presence only inches away in the tight booth. The air grows heavy, hot, electric, and a new strain of notes fills the booth. But they’re not coming from the stereo.
I turn to Haden. His lips are partly open. A red blush paints his pale yet olive cheeks. This new sound is coming off him.
It’s the sound that sorrow makes.
“What … what is the name of this song?” he asks, with a tremor in his voice.
“ ‘Requiem for Dying Mothers.’ ”
He purses his lips. His nostrils flare. A wet sheen fills his eyes. “Turn it off. Please. Just turn it off.”
“Okay.” I turn and hit the stop button. When I look back, Haden is gone. The glass door to the booth swings shut, and I see him heading out the front of the store.
I find Haden outside. He leans against a wood railing that overlooks the beach, his face buried in his arms.
When we drove to this store, it was the first time I’d glimpsed the ocean in my life. The first time I’d heard the song of the sea. It’d been mesmerizing even through the windows of Haden’s car. Hearing it now, so close, mixed with tones of sorrow coming off Haden, it sounds like the ebb and flow of throbbing, raw pain. Like from a wound that can’t be closed.
“Haden?”
“Go away. Please,” he says. “Don’t look at me.”
I ignore his request. “Did something happen to your mother?” It’s the most intrusive question I’ve ever asked him, but I have to ask it. The sound of his sorrow is too overwhelming not to. “Did she die?”
“Yes,” he says softly. “In my arms. She died in my arms. When I was seven.”
“I’m sorry.” Tears prick at the backs of my eyes. I can’t help imagining myself in his place. “I shouldn’t have played that song.…”
“You didn’t know,” he says into his arms, which cover his face. “I try not to allow myself to think about her. But that song … it sounded like … felt like … I don’t know how to describe it. It reminded me of how I felt when she died.” The tone that comes off him changes, warps from sorrow to something else. At first, I think it’s helplessness. No, I’d almost say it sounds like shame. He stands up straight now, wiping the tears from his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “You must think I’m disgusting.”
“For tearing up? No.” I reach toward his face, then stop, not sure what I was going to do. I place my hand on his shoulder instead. “It’s a perfectly human reaction.”
His face reddens slightly. “That’s the problem,” he mumbles, and places his hand over mine. His skin is hot, but it’s a welcome warmth against the breeze, which carries in the salty cool air from the ocean.
My arm tingles and I feel the hairs on my forearm stand on end as if with static electricity. Haden lets go of my hand. I look up at the darkening, cloudy sky. “I think a storm is coming. Should we go?”
“Yes. I think that would be wise.”
I head back to the store to gather my things from the booth, but as I look back at Haden before opening the door, I notice that it sounds like the storm is raging inside of him.
Haden parks behind Joe’s red Porsche in my driveway. His car is so silent, I don’t notice we’ve come to a stop until he clears his throat.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say, picking up my tote bag.
“Thank you for the education.”
“I’ll send you some more songs tomorrow. We need to settle on something for the festival.”
“We?” he asks. “So you’ll do a duet with me?”
“Yes.” I open the door. He looks at me.
“Daphne, do you have plans tonight?”
I blink. Is he asking me out? “Um. No …,” I say tentatively.
“Then if I were you, I’d take your father up on going to see that telescope.”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“I know I don’t really know your father, but it sounds to me like he’s trying to make a connection with you. Hades knows that my father has never even cared to try with me … and my mother …” He trails off heavily. His fingers tap on the steering wheel. “What I am attempting to say is that perhaps you should give your father a chance while you still can. There might come a day when the option is no longer available to you.”
chapter thirty-nine
HADEN
When Daphne is gone, a hollowness fills me that I cannot explain.
I drive. Out of Olympus Hills. Out onto the open road. Faster and faster. Trying to outrun the storm that chases me from the inside.
I don’t know where I am going until I find myself outside the music shop again. I go inside, bells jangling as I let the door slam behind me.
“Can I help you?” the man at the cash register asks, startled.
“I want it al
l,” I say. “I want to buy a copy of every album you’ve got.”
The man raises his eyebrows over his thick-rimmed glasses. “Everything?”
“Yes,” I hiss. Is this human an idiot? “That’s why I said every album.”
“Um. Okay. Uh. CD or MP3? I’m assuming MP3, since you can’t fit the whole store in your trunk. You probably don’t even have a CD player in a car like that, huh?”
I shake my head.
“We’ve got more selections on digital recording anyway. It’ll fill up half a dozen of these MP3 players,” he says, pointing at a row of devices, which look similar to my iPhone, in a display case.
“Then give me six of those, too,” I say, and set the credit card Dax gave me on top of the glass case.
“Are you sure about this, man? Your parents aren’t going to freak when they see the bill or anything, are they? And I’m going to need to see some ID.”
“I don’t live with my parents.” I set the driver’s license that says I’m twenty-one next to my credit card. “Don’t forget anything. I want every single song you’ve got.”
The man glances from the ID to the card to my luxury car, which sits in the parking lot, and then back to me. “Sweet,” he says, a huge grin overtaking his face. “You are in for one wild time, my friend.”
Hours later, I sit in my car on the beach. Waves crash outside, and wind from the approaching storm pounds against the roof and windows. One of the MP3 players is wirelessly connected to the stereo. I play song after song, trying to open myself up to each one. To feel the emotion they evoke like I did with Daphne in the booth. Some of the songs make me cringe, but others conjure emotions I have spent most of my life trying to bury: sadness, anger, awe, fear, joy, desire.
Love?
Daphne didn’t mock me when I cried in front of her. She didn’t think I was disgusting. She didn’t tell me to stop before I embarrassed her. She seemed like she genuinely cared.
She cared about me.
The hour nears midnight, but I’ve barely burned through a fraction of the music I bought. The car’s control panel warns me that I’ve let the battery get too low. Just as the music starts to fade, I jolt the car with a burst of electricity, restoring it to full power. I turn up the volume. Louder. Louder. But no matter how high I turn up the sound, no matter how many emotions I let flood through me, I cannot drown out the thought that has clung to me since Daphne played me that last song in the booth.
I’d known it all along. Pushed way back in my mind so I wouldn’t have to think about it. But opening up to her like that—letting her see one of the rawest portions of my soul—and her not rejecting it, I cannot deny reality any longer. The truth is, if Daphne eventually agrees to come with me, if I am victorious in my quest, if I get everything I’ve ever wanted—whether she’s a regular Boon or this Cypher who the Oracle spoke of—she will die.
Just like my mother.
Just like every human who has been brought to the Underrealm—most barely making it through the first two years. Humans cannot survive without the sun.
They all die.
And so will she.
chapter forty
DAPHNE
It’s nearly midnight, but the restaurant Joe takes me to in LA is packed. Despite the cold wind and the spattering of rain, there’s a line wrapping around the side of the building. Joe leads me past the waiting crowd to the front doors. People scream his name and he stops to sign a couple of autographs. Flashbulbs go off, and reporters shoot questions at him.
“Who’s your companion?” one of them yells.
Joe wraps his arm around me. “This is my daughter!”
The camera flashes go wild. He grabs me by the hand, and the doorman lets us in without making us wait.
“Sorry about that,” Joe says to me. “You’ll get used to them. Eventually.”
We follow a hostess through the crowded restaurant, passing people I recognize from the gossip magazines. Joe hasn’t let go of my hand yet. He waves at his friends, exchanges cheek kisses, and merrily introduces me as his daughter to everyone we see.
Most respond quite diplomatically, but I can hear the tones of utter shock coming off them.
We finally find ourselves at a window booth in the back of the restaurant. It’s quieter here, but the energy of the place still buzzes around us.
The hostess puts two menus in front of us and then offers Joe the wine and beer list. He waves it away. “Chocolate milk shake. With sprinkles.” He raises his eyebrows at me.
“Make that two,” I say.
A waitress comes and takes the rest of our order. I get a Kobe beef and applewood smoked bacon cheeseburger and onion rings that cost twice as much as the fanciest steak at Ellis Grill. Joe seems to request half the menu. It’s his drummer’s restaurant, so I am assuming that running up a huge tab on opening night is the polite thing to do.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get much time with the telescope,” he says.
“It’s okay. Neither of us can control the elements,” I say, watching the rain patter against the window.
“What made you change your mind?” Joe looks a bit sheepish. “About coming tonight. I mean, I’m happy about it. You just surprised me is all.”
“Just something a friend said to me.” I shrug like it’s no big deal. “And I like the stars.”
“Me, too,” he says. “Do you remember what my favorite constellation is?”
I do. I remember him telling me once when I was a kid. But I don’t want to admit that I’ve held on to that bit of information for this long. I shake my head.
“Lyra. It’s supposed to be Orpheus’s lyre. His father gave it to him when he was a boy. They say Orpheus was so talented, he could control the elements with his music. Animals, trees, rocks, rivers, monsters—even gods were not impervious to it. He used it as a weapon against Hades.”
“A weapon?” I ask. Ms. Leeds had said that we would eventually discuss the Orpheus myth, but we’ve been mired in Homer’s Odyssey for weeks.
“So to speak. Orpheus had one great love, his wife, Eurydice. She was bitten by a snake and died, but Orpheus was undaunted. Armed only with his lyre, he traveled to the underworld and tried to get her back. He used his music to convince the boatman to take him across the river Styx, and also used it to tame Cerberus, the three-headed dog that blocked his path. But his greatest feat was playing a song so melancholy and beautiful for the god and goddess of the underworld that even Hades himself could not deny Orpheus the opportunity to save his wife.”
“So he followed her into the dark?” I ask, thinking of Haden’s words from earlier today. “To save her?”
“Well, he tried, at least.”
“He failed?”
“Hades gave Eurydice to Orpheus and told him they would be allowed to escape under one condition—that Orpheus was not allowed to look back at his wife until they had exited the underworld. He led her out, using his voice to guide her, but just when they made it to the exit, Orpheus looked back and Eurydice was lost to him forever.”
“But why did he look back? They were so close.”
“I don’t know, really. Some say it’s because he thought they’d already reached safety. Others say it’s because she cried out because something was wrong. Or perhaps he’d lost faith that she was still there. Most storytellers agree that it was Hades’s punishment—that he knew Orpheus would fail.”
“Punishment? But he’s the one who said they could go.”
“To the ancient Greeks, questioning the will of the gods—let alone acting out against it—was the ultimate sin. Orpheus’s sheer audacity in thinking he could reverse his fate—get his wife back from the clutches of the god of death—was considered wrong. It’s a morality tale. You fight destiny, and it’ll come back to bite you in the arse every time.” Beyond the noise of the restaurant and the chattering patrons at the tables that surround us, I catch the most melancholy tone wafting up from Joe. “You can’t fight your destiny. Believe me, I’ve tried.�
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I am about to ask him if he really believes in all this fate stuff or if he’s just being melodramatic for the sake of the story, but three servers appear with tray after tray of food. One of the servers asks for a picture of Joe. He poses with her and then digs into a plate of cheese fries like a man who hasn’t eaten in days. I bite into my bacon cheeseburger. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it is the best thing I’ve ever tasted—even better than the burgers we’d grill up behind the shop on Sunday afternoons. But I’d never tell my mom or Jonathan that.
“What happened to Orpheus after that?”
“Some say he died of a broken heart; others say he was torn apart by a group of crazed women because he was too sad to pay attention to them.…”
I smirk, thinking of some of Joe’s more rabid fans I’d seen on TV. It isn’t too hard to believe.
“Others say that his father, Apollo, carried him away in his sun chariot. Whatever the story was, the loss of his music was so lamented that Zeus himself threw Orpheus’s lyre into the heavens, and it became the Lyra constellation.”
I can see why it is Joe’s favorite constellation. I wouldn’t be surprised if he fancies himself a modern Orpheus. I am pretty sure he is the one who first coined his “God of Rock” nickname.
“Is that why you chose Orpheus and Eurydice for the subject of the play?”
“Among other reasons.” Joe holds up one of the burgers he ordered. “You have to try this. It’s bloody brilliant. It has a fried egg and a slice of beet in it.”
I wash down a bite of my cheeseburger with a gulp of milk shake and pull a gagging face at Joe.
“No, really. Try it.”
He waves the burger in my face, and I know he’s not going to stop until I take a bite. To my surprise, it’s even better than my burger.
“That is bloody brilliant,” I say, mimicking his accent.
“Eh, watch your mouth, girly,” he says with a cheeky smile. He takes a bite of the burger. “Bobby and I first had these in New Zealand. Told him if he ever opened his restaurant, he had to put it on the menu,” he says with his mouth full. “Eh, you should come with us sometime. On tour.”