A Discordant Melody

One

One

He looked completely awful. 

It was worst this time than any of the others.  It seemed like Daddy was taking it even harder with Momma’s disappearance, even though he had a hand in it this time. 

And who was he taking it out on?

Me, that’s who. 

I sat in one of the leather chairs sitting in front of Daddy’s desk as he sat behind it, shuffling through some of the papers that he had scattered around the top.  We were at the house that we had in the mortal world just outside L.A.  The papers were regarding the various businesses that he and my uncles owned.  But it was like he wasn’t even seeing them as he looked down at the ones he’d managed to pick up.  His eyes, those blue eyes that I’d gotten from him, couldn’t focus, which meant that he wasn’t thinking about what he probably had to just then.

“Daddy?” I said quietly, leaning forward just slightly so that I could see him more properly than I was able to from my curled up position in the chair. 

Anyone who didn’t know just what we were, anyone who just walked in just as I said the word ‘daddy,’ would have thought it to be strange.  That was probably because my father only looked a few years older than I did.  In the mortal world, there was no possible way that this man, looking not much older than twenty-four, who sat in front of me could be my father.

But that was it. 

We weren’t mortal.

Because my father, no matter what people might have thought, was the Greek god of the Underworld.  I was the daughter of Hades, though he preferred to go by Damon since that was what Momma and his closest friends called him. 

His eyes immediately snapped up to my face and focused.  But when they did, I could see that pain he was trying to hide behind his expression of love that he’d always given when he looked at me.

That was because, no matter what, he would always see Momma in me since I took so much after her.  I hated that, every time he looked at me, I knew that his mind immediately went to her. 

That was why, whenever she would go missing at the hands of Persephone, the goddess of spring growth, the woman who we thought of as a friend that only turned out to be the one who was causing this pain in the past two millennia, I would stay out of his line of sight as much as possible, staying with others, going on travels. 

But this time I was staying, though I didn’t know for how much longer. 

“Are you alright?” I asked him. 

That pain in his eyes seemed to recede when I asked.  “Of course, darling,” he said, reaching over to grab one of my hands.  He gave it a quick squeeze along with a smile.  “I’ve just got a lot on my mind right now and I…I can’t seem to think straight.”

I nodded.  “Because of Momma?”

He pressed his lips into a thin line and closed his eyes.  “Zoe, darling…”

“But it is, isn’t it?” I asked, shaking his hand so that he would look at me again.  “It’s been over three months.  Why did you have Mnemosyne erase her memory of us, of all of this?  I know you’re going to say that it was because it would be the only way she could be truly safe.  But I don’t believe that.  Just let me go.  Let me go and bring her back.  Please.”

This wasn’t the first time that I’d asked him.  In fact, I’d asked him several times, all which he then shot down.

“No,” he said, withdrawing his hand from mine.  “We’ve already had this discussion and it’s not going to happen.  Now, drop it.”