This Never Happened (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Part 9 - The weight of the world

We travel much the same way I did with Gale. One moment she is taking my hand, the next my head is light and we're somewhere else entirely. This somewhere else is the side of a mountain. She's not at all dressed for it, but she doesn't seem to mind, adjusting the light dress primly before taking my hand to guide me on.

"So we're going to see your---" because they did not make this clear.

"Father," she says.

"But who has my brother is your—"

"Technically he's my dad's cousin. Thing is I only ever lived with my father when I was little. Once I started with my witchcraft my father wanted to banish me, or kill me. Anyway my---my cousin's wife, took pity on me. She said that I could stay with them and their eldest daughter, who's also a witch. She's better than me though---anyway I've lived with them ever since so he's basically my dad. Every incarnation, everything, I always go back there," she explains.

"Incarnation?" I frown, "You um---come back?"

"Yes, every time we die. So long as we didn't do anything rotten to stay in the Underworld we get to be reborn, though we don't keep our memories."

"Reborn as someone else?"

"You mean to other parents?" she nods, knowing where this is going.

"Yeah," I'd rather my children were with someone else. No I wouldn't. Yes I would if it meant they lived. Maybe they'd be better off. Considering I killed them? Definitely.

"It depends---no not like that," she must see my expression. "No. For a mortal or someone like you who's mother was mortal, if your children, for example, were to come back, then it would be because you also had reincarnated—and the cycle was repeating itself."

"So they could have died as babies a hundred times?" I ask, clenching my fists.

"Basically—possibly. I don't know---let me explain more clearly, here," she tugs me to sit on a rock next to her. The mountain side is cold but she isn't bothered, tucking her hair behind her ear placidly.

"Okay," I say, not like I have much choice or could go anywhere anyway.

"People like, say my father----okay not like my father because he didn't do it, bad example----Okay so I'm a witch, right? Following?"

"Yeah," I nod.

"I'm a witch, when my sons were born they became a part of my cycle. So so long as I come back, they can eventually return to me if I lie with their father again," she says.

"Okay, but my wife is dead so—"

"So if you and she both returned, then again conceived children, then they would probably be the same spirits—maybe I don't know. It depends on both of you—"

"But what are the odds of us finding one another again?"

"I don't know how much you know about history, but, it tends to repeat itself."

"So it's basically irrelevant, then? My story is over before it began," I say.

"Not entirely---like you heard him say, I've been around for hundreds of years---and that's only this go around—,"

"Do you remember before?" I ask.

"No, I'd have to go the fields of Tartarus, and that's dangerous, plus the memories alone are enough to drive a person mad. A brief overview and some pertinent novels do fine. That's why I and my cousins tend to stay with older family members."

"Who can tell you who you were," I nod.

"Pretty much. Also it's not entirely safe out there," she says.