Counting Crows

X; NINE FOR THE NINE THAT WATCH FROM THE TREE

August 21st, 132 AS

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Happy Forty-second birthday, Percy. It's been a hard twenty years without you.

I quickly take a shot and wince when I feel the familiar burn of the alcohol.

"Corbin, Roisin and Acanthus want you," Kalonice says leaning into my study. She looked at the open bottle of liquor and walked out. "Quickly, please."

I put the lid on the bottle and walked out of my study. The floorboards in the hallway creaked as I walked towards the twins room. I could hear Kalonice whispering to them as I turned into their room.

"Daddy!" Roisin says, running to me. She wraps herself around my leg. "Mommy said that you'll tell us a story. Will you?"

I look at Kalonice. "Tell them the one you were told as a kid," She tells me. I can't tell that story tonight. There are only two nights a year I can't, today and the day of his death.

I look back down at Roisin and run my fingers through her pitch black hair. "Not tonight, kiddos. Maybe tomorrow. I'm not up to it tonight." Roisin sighs and goes back into her bed. "Have Mommy tell you a story."

I walk to the door frame and Kalonice stops me. "I can't tell it tonight, Kal. Any other night but today and his death. It's still too much."

"I understand. Don't drink too much, please."

"I won't drink that much." She pats my shoulder and walks back into the room. I sigh and lean against the wall as Kalonice tells the twins a story. My eyes start to water and I walk back into my study. I grab the glass bottle of liquor and take a drink. The raised designs on the glass cut into my hand, but I didn't care.

The tears fell out of my eyes as I fell into the chair by the window. The setting sun highlighted the glass bottle as I stared at it.

Why does it hurt this much? After twenty years I should still be able to do the things we did, tell my children the stories you told me, but I can't. My head can't handle the fact that you're gone. Maybe it was because I lost you when I was so young. Maybe it's because I lost four people that day.

I set down the bottle of liquor and ran out of the study. The floorboards scream underneath my feet as I go down the stairs.

"Corbin, where are you going?" Kalonice asks when I run past her in the kitchen.

"I'll be back later." I open the back door and run to the stables. Quickly, I get Zephyr's saddle on him. I'm gone in less than a minute. A trail of dust was left in my wake as I raced toward town.

Zephyr turned harshly into the cemetery and I jumped off of him. I crumpled to the ground as I sat in front of his grave. It was faded, moss starting to grow at the base of it.

Perseus Crawford.

My tears fall onto the dirt beneath me as sobs rack my body.

"Percy, why does it hurt?" I lean against his gravestone and look up at the sky. "Remember when I was a boy and you'd take me out to the sea. We'd watch the sunset over the colorful sea. You'd tell me stories and I'd fall asleep in your lap. I can't even tell my children those stories." I look down at the grass, aimlessly picking at it. "I'm thirty now. It's been twenty years. I should be used to your absence in my life, but I'm not. Why can't I stop grieving?"

I feel a hand on my shoulder. It was him, I knew it. Percy was always here when I visited him. One day I hope to bring the twins, so they can meet their Uncle.

"Uncle?" I look up and see Tempesta standing over me.

"Tempesta! What are you doing here?" I ask, quickly wiping the tears from my eyes.

"I presume we're here for the same reason." She says, adjusting the basket on her hip. She sits down next to me, moving the basket onto the ground. "I never knew my fathers, I only knew you. One day, I hoped you would tell me about them, but I never asked because I knew it hurt too much." Her voice starts to shake as she looks at the gravestone. "Why does it hurt when I never knew them? It should be easy for me, I was two when he died, but I still feel horrible every time one of their birthdays passes or the anniversary of their death." Tears start to fall from her pitch black eyes. "How can you miss someone you have never met?"

I pull her closer to me. "They are your fathers, no matter if they were dead or alive, of course you're going to miss them." I looked at the trees that surrounded the cemetery. Each one of them was tall and sturdy, their branches spread upward, reaching for the sun's light.

"I remember the day they met you." She went still, listening to what I had to say. "Percy and Elysium waited nervously outside of the room as your Aunt Zenobia gave birth to you. They were so excited to meet you. They already had a name picked out for you, Tempesta if you were a girl and Raiden if you were a boy. I'm glad you were a girl, Raiden isn't exactly a name I would've picked. When they saw you, at that moment they would give anything to keep you safe."

I paused, trying to keep myself from crying. "After you were born, all Percy could talk about was you. It was annoying at first and I was jealous. For years I had been the center of his world, then he found Elysium and then there was you. But, when he died I didn't have any choice but to take you under my wing. Percy took me under his wing after Father decided he didn't want me. You were supposed to go back to the Golding estate where you could be taken care of by your Aunt. I fought with my father to keep you. You were all that was left of my brother and I knew he would be disappointed if I didn't take you in. You were their whole world, and now you're part of mine."

Tempesta looked up at me. "Thank you, Uncle." She hugged me and stood up. "I'll see you again on Sunday. Maybe you could tell me something else about them?"

"I'll see you then." She walks away, back toward her small apartment in town. She'd go back home to her wife, where they'd spend the rest of the night reading. Not talking for hours, but cuddled up on their bed burying themselves in their beloved novels.

I sigh and look at the dark sky. "Why did you have to leave me?"

I hear a caw and I open my eyes. A crow sat next to me. It looked at the trees, staring. Eight other crows came flying out of the trees. They sit around me.

Nine crows. One for each person I lost.