LUNACY; percy jackson

prologue

[prologue]

    A four year old girl sits alone in a backyard, feeling the sun shine down on her face. She sits unaware of all that falls apart around her, her world so very close to crumbling like a sand castle built too close to the ocean. But with the sun on her face, she hears her mother's voice in her ear. 

    "When the sun is out and shining on you, it's your grandpa saying hello. To remind us that he loves us, that he keeps us safe." Gianna Storm had told her those exact words all her life, reminding her of what they meant, and what the sun, to them, meant.

    She sits oblivious to the world, oblivious to her mothers lingering eyes, and the faint click click click of something, not someone, approaching, preying on a little girl and a lone mother.

    "Dromeda!" A voice echoes around the yard, pulling the girl from her small, sunny world. The small, redheaded girl spins, jumping up to her feet. A wide smile splits her face.

    She yells, "Mama!"

    She runs. She runs and she jumps and she allows her mother to cradle the girl in her arms. She feels love—she gives love and receives love. She feels it so deeply. She may not understand it, love, but she knows that her mother loves her. Her grandfather loves her. Her father, albeit absent, loves her.

    She knows love. She knows her mothers love, but her fathers love? It is fleeting. She feels it in her dreams when he visits her, and lingers when she wakes. She sees it every time she looks in the mirror and sees his eyes that are her own. She hears it in faint whispers of, "I love you, my Dragonfly," and, "Keep talking to the stars, they always listen." She may not have felt his arms around her or his lips against her forehead. She may not know what it's like to go to the park with him like her friends do with their dads, but she knows his voice and his words and his eyes and his lunacy.

    Andromeda Storm knows the love of Dionysus.

    Gianna Storm, someone else who knows his love, guides her little girl into their home, into the place that has kept her safe. She keeps a hand on the girl's head, over her curls, a smile on her face.

    Andromeda skips into the house, up the porch steps. "Mama, what's for dinner?"

    "Fish."

    Gianna let out a laugh at the sound of her daughter's dramatic gag. The little redheaded girl climbed up onto a stool, perching her chin on her hands, watching as her mom moved around the kitchen.