The Descendants Page 16

  June 19, 1996 — My Apollo Beach Nightmare

  How did I get here? I’ve been asking myself the same question for two days now. Everyone around me seems to have a family, a history, a place in this world, and I have nothing. I’m stuck in the same nightmare. Do I have a family out there? What happened to them? What happened to me? And why can’t I remember anything besides my first name? Grace. At least I think that’s my name. It’s the first word I spoke when I opened my eyes and saw Rose Summer standing above me with care and fear in her eyes. Such a strange combination, but she’s a strange woman. Her husband, George, is nice. He adores Rose. Their son Paul is another story. He hates me. He thinks I’m weird because I don’t know who I am. I wish I could look into his beautiful eyes and tell him I’m afraid. Of everyone I’ve met so far, he’s the one I want to talk to, but he won’t even look at me. Here’s to tomorrow, and the possibility of waking up full of memories of my life, my family, my home … because this place is definitely not my home.

  This is insane. Documented thoughts of my mother’s arrival in Apollo Beach? Stories from a perspective only she can share. It’s as if she’s here with me now, telling me her story. I waste no time flipping to the next entry.

  June 21, 1996 — Weird Day

  What a weird day! I had to get out of the house. The Summers are having a party and they invited all of their weird friends. Everyone had some sort of absurd costume on. Glitter, masks, the works! They said they were celebrating the summer solstice. Who on earth celebrates the first day of the season?

  Ugh. To make everything worse, there’s still no word on where I came from or who I am. I am a nobody. While I should be crying tears of abandonment, I’m just pissed off. Why isn’t anyone looking for me? I must have family or at least friends out there where I came from. Paul has a lot of friends. They all come and go as they please, as if they live here too. Paul and his friends mostly hang out on the beach, though. Sometimes I watch them from my balcony. I watch from a distance because it’s safer that way. He’s embarrassed by me. He doesn’t see me the way he sees the other girls. He doesn’t laugh or poke me like he does with them. Why do I have to like him? All the girls like him.

  June 22, 1996 — Nightmare

  Last night I had a dream I was running, terrified of a man who called to me without speaking. He slowly trod toward me with his dark eyes fixed on me. I would have kept running, but a force bigger than me caused me to lose my footing and fall hard. The dirt below me began to soften and turn to mud, gluing me to the ground. He towered above me, smiling. His smile terrified me, and he never spoke. Instead, thunder rumbled near us, followed by a strike of lightning so bright I had to cover my eyes. When I opened my eyes, the man was gone.

  I look up to see Johnny still flipping through photos. My heart is pounding. I’m glad he’s preoccupied because I’m not ready to stop reading.

  August 9, 1996 — Intruder

  It’s been a while since I last wrote. So much has happened that I’m not sure where to start. Rose has been digging into my past. The only thing she told me is that it’s a miracle I’m alive and that this pendant I wear around my neck was given to me by people who love me. She tells me it’s important to never remove it. She seems to care about me. Every night before bed, she walks me to my room and brushes my hair after I get dressed for bed. She’s always asking if there’s anything she can do to help me feel more at home. I remind her this isn’t my home. I don’t have a home. When I say things like that, I see sadness in her eyes. Does she want me to stay here forever? I’ve already intruded long enough. That’s what I feel like. An intruder.

  School starts next week and I feel as if I’m committing to this place if I actually go. Rose and George insist I attend classes until my “condition” changes. I’m a “condition!”

  August 16, 1996 — Paul!

  School isn’t so bad, especially when Paul drives me there and back. He even ate lunch with me today. Maybe he doesn’t hate me all that much anymore. On the way home he asked me what I thought of Apollo Beach. I told him the truth. I think it’s the first time I’ve told anyone here the truth about how I really feel. He laughed when I said the community makes me feel as we’re all stranded on an island, and I’m their latest prisoner. But it’s not a bad prison, not at all. It’s just that the community is so tight-knit. He opened up to me about the pressure of being a Summer and the responsibilities he’s forced to carry at sixteen years old. I’m not sure I feel bad for him, but I listened sympathetically. He’s so cute. He’s got these intense gray eyes that are halfway between a thunderstorm and a diamond. Beautiful, but incredibly intimidating. I’m not scared of him. I’m just scared of what I feel when I’m with him.

  August 17, 1996 — Another Nightmare

  This morning I cried for the first time since I lost my memory, and maybe a little of my mind. The man in my dreams feels so real sometimes that even when I wake I can’t escape him. He’s always with me, haunting me with those dark, soulless eyes. Is he someone from my past? Is he the reason I’m here? These are the only explanations I can think of as to why I keep seeing him. Who is this man who calls himself Erebus, and what does he want with me?

  I shut the journal, unable to read any more of my mother’s pain. The fact that she was having dreams of Erebus can only mean one thing. She knew him before she lost her memory. There’s so much of our lives that are connected by strange circumstance and Apollo Beach. I’m trapped in this living nightmare by my blood. Erebus’ words come back to me now: “You’ve been a part of my plan since before your birth. You’re where you are now because of me.” Is it true? Was this his plan all along?

  “What’s wrong?” Johnny has his arms around me in seconds. Suddenly I want to explode and tell him everything Erebus told me that night of the Arctic Ball. I can’t keep it to myself anymore. It’s too much, and I don’t know what to do with the information. Maybe he can help.

  “I need to tell you what really happened the night of the Arctic Ball—what happened with Erebus.”

  Johnny listens to every torturous word without interrupting and then waits a few more seconds before saying anything. I’m relieved to finally share my secret with someone, to speak aloud what Erebus wants me to do for him. Johnny must understand how hard this has been for me because he cocoons me in his arms as if he can shield me from any more evil.

  “I was afraid you were holding back. There’s a lot I haven’t told you about my trip too, but you know that. It’s just that there’s a lot I don’t understand. I’ll tell you if you promise to keep it between us for now.”

  I nod my head vigorously. I’m not sure why I think knowing more will help, but I feel as if we’re getting somewhere. Maybe I can finally start connecting the dots.

  “We’ll figure this out together, okay?” he says. “You don’t need to be scared.”

  I soak into Johnny’s arms and agree without hesitation. “Okay.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  JOHNNY – One Year and Three Months Earlier

  In the beginning I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just knew I couldn’t let Erebus get away. He has this habit of leaving destruction and heartbreak in his wake. And for some reason I wish I could call noble, I thought I would be the one to stop him from causing any more pain.

  But yes, revenge was also on my mind. The Equinox murdered my parents in cold blood, in front of my young, petrified eyes. Then they left me to live a life of rage, feeling animosity toward everyone who crossed my path, blaming everyone, resenting everyone. I didn’t know who I was anymore.

  Choosing to move to Apollo Beach was the best decision I made although I didn’t know it at the time. Leaving might have been the worst.

  It’s taken two weeks at sea for me to admit the mission I hastily scrambled to pursue was pointless. Shell Point on the Forgotten Coast is where I made plans to abandon my mission and return home. I was tired, hungry, and lonely. I missed Kat desperately. No matter how long and far I traveled, thoughts of
her constantly orbited my mind. She was my gravitational pull, the one I had to get back to. She was my moon.

  After a quick meal and a trip to the small grocery store nearest the marina, I’d be ready to head back. I could be home by nightfall if I cruised without stopping. My cart was full, but I stopped and grinned at the stand of postcards near the registers, one of which reminded me of Kat. A manatee in a seashell bra and a shiny mermaid tail grinned at me. I snatched it up, knowing she’d love it and would hopefully accept it as one of many peace offerings I planned to give her.

  As I moved toward the checkout stand, I stopped without completely understanding why. A man stood in front of me, and I examined his back and profile as he laid his items on the counter: two clear plastic tubes with wooden lids. That’s it. But the items weren’t what froze me to ice. It was his maroon and black t-shirt and baseball cap with a familiar high school logo painted between his shoulder blades: Apollo Beach Suns.

  The odds of running into someone from Apollo Beach wouldn’t be the most unlikely of situations, but it was the feeling I got from the sight of the middle-aged man with a crooked smile and well-kept appearance that irked my senses. It was an intuition that my father once warned me “to pay close attention to.” It was the sign I was waiting for, and I knew without a doubt I was staring directly at the Serpent, Erebus himself.

  My real journey began there, stalking Erebus by foot at a great distance so I would remain undetected. The GPS tracker I purchased at the last stop was already in my hands, waiting for the opportunity to plant it on his car.

  The man back at the store referred to Erebus as Mr. Davis. If my intuition wasn’t enough, his name alone was proof of who he was. Mr. Davis was Ava’s father. I recognized him; he was a regular at the Island Grille. He must have gladly offered up his body to Erebus after the brutal death of his daughter.

  I followed Mr. Davis to a gas station where he fueled his car for, what I guessed would be, a long road trip ahead. He went inside to pay, and that’s when I placed the GPS securely above his right front tire. I did it from across the lot using my refined homing and telekinetic abilities. Traveling alone created many opportunities for me to practice magic. At least it was finally proving to be beneficial.

  Back on my boat, I drifted away from the marina, studying the GPS tracker to see which direction Erebus headed. Once he got on Interstate 98 going west, I knew it was safe to guide my boat along the coast. It was when we arrived on the Emerald Coast that I knew my journey had just begun, and I wouldn’t be returning home for a long time—if at all.

  Learning where I came from filled a void I never realized existed. I began to make connections between things from my childhood, things I never understood until Arabella confirmed there was a name for what I am. If it weren’t for the insane chain of events of the past few months, I would have laughed at any Greek god reference, but it quickly started to make sense.

  When my dad taught me to anchor the boat and dive, he obviously never clued me in on the fact that he could do all these same things with magic. His lung capacity was always something I admired; he could stay underwater for an unspeakable amount of time. When I’d ask how he did it, he’d just tell me he built up to it, and one day I’d be able to do it too.

  At such a young age, making friends with the fish and all sorts of sea creatures felt magical, but I didn’t realize there really was magic involved. They swarmed to me because of my light … not because I smelled good, like my mom would always say.

  The fact that my father always had an uncanny sense for spotting injured animals and pollution finally made sense, but when I was younger and didn’t know better I secretly referred to my dad as the pool man of the sea. He kept vials filled with special solutions onboard our boat and would release a droplet at a time throughout our journeys. He said it was to keep the water balance just right.

  As I remembered this, I opened my father’s safe, which was now placed in my bedroom closet, and noticed one vial of solution remained. It was practically empty with just a single drop left. I held it up to examine it, as if it would tell me how to refill itself. That’s when I noticed the mini notepad containing handwritten scrawl that only a marine biologist could interpret—except for one section on the back of the tube that read “SEAPOL JUICE RECIPE. INGREDIENTS: ONE DROP OF ENERGY AND ONE DROP OF POSEIDON BLOOD.”

  How does one find a drop of energy? I wracked my brain, trying to remember something from my time with my father to solve this new mystery. I didn’t have to think about it long.

  Pensacola was one of the more familiar destinations for me, one my family and I visited often. It’s not a place I intended to visit again, but Erebus had other plans. I tracked him to an abandoned parking lot in an unkempt part of town. From there, he must have walked. It only took me a few hours to spot him at the energy plant near the water, standing expressionless in front of the guard gate. It was like he was waiting for something to happen, or waiting for a way in.

  That’s when I began to connect the dots between my father’s many energy plant visits and the vial burning a curious hole in my pocket. My father would bring the empty vials to the energy plants. He must have been filling them with the “sea formula,” as he sometimes referred to it. ONE DROP OF ENERGY AND ONE DROP OF POSEIDON BLOOD.

  By the time I made the connection, Erebus was long gone. I approached the chain link fence and, without thinking, used my strength to rip the lock apart. Feeling a tinge of guilt at the vandalism, I quickly used the friction of my hands to create heat and solder it back together.

  I knew what I had to do next.

  “Sir.” With a nod, security opened the main door to the plant as if he already knew me. An older man in a white lab coat that matched the color of his hair greeted me with a gleaming smile.

  “Mr. Pierce! It’s been too long. Please accept my condolences on the loss of your parents.” He shook my hand warmly. “You should know how pleased I am to see you carrying on in your father’s shoes. He’s been dearly missed.”

  I recognized him instantly: Zeke. My parents were fond of him. Sometimes my father referred to him as his business partner. “Yes, Mr… .” I didn’t recall his last name.

  “You can call me Zeke. Consider me a friend.” He tipped his head to the side. “Is this a business visit, or a casual one?”

  My mouth went dry as I looked around the busy room. It’s not people that made the plant busy, but rather pipes and machinery I couldn’t possibly understand. I knew without a doubt I was in the right place, and I would soon begin to understand my father’s role as direct descendant of Poseidon.

  “I’m not sure why I’m here, sir.” I pulled the vial from my pocket and presented it to him.

  He smiled. “Ahh, yes. Seapol juice. Looks like you’re running low.”

  “Yes, looks like it. Can you help me?” Perhaps I’ll get more information from him if he thinks I know what I’m doing.

  Zeke turned and ushered me into his office. “You know, your father was the reason this recipe was invented. A woman who works with us in Apollo Beach—she goes by many names, but we’ll refer to her as the crazy chemist—she concocted this recipe a decade ago based on your father’s request.” He held up the nearly empty vial and shook his head in admiration. “Genius.”

  I cleared my throat, uncomfortable in this chair across from a man who I should know, a man my father knew very well. “I’m not going to pretend I know what I’m doing here, Zeke.” I should have called him sir.

  Zeke sat and laid the vial down on his metal desk. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, within reason. You should be aware that I’ve already heard a great deal about you. My friends in Apollo Beach informed me of your recent discovery of your heritage.”

  He already knew everything about me, Kat, the pendant I stole from her, the encounter I had with the Equinox, and the revenge I was seeking. How could he know so much?

  Arabella. Isaac. Rose. It could have been any one of them. It angered me that
Zeke already knew so much about me while I was still figuring it all out. But I managed to contain my anger for my entire visit to the plant. Instead, I focused on my mission.

  “Can you tell me what sort of”—this was hard—”powers my father had?”

  Zeke’s eyes widened as he leaned back in his chair. “Your father was a man of many powers. His gifts for speaking to sea creatures played a big role in the progress we’ve made toward protecting sea life and beyond.”

  “What’s beyond the sea?”

  “The air we breathe, the shore we stand on. Your father had many dreams, and his determination for seeking answers led to more knowledge than we could have possibly hoped for. His ability to test and heal the waters, it’s led to great discoveries. Your father, along with our crazy chemist invented seapol juice—but so much more than that too. You name it— sensory potions, memory potions, hygienic potions—your father had a hand in most of them.” Zeke held up the vial as if in celebration.

  A pang of sorrow hit me at the thought of my parents’ death and the legacy my father left behind. I’m sure I’m expected to follow in his footsteps, but I don’t know where to start.

  I cleared my throat, focused on the mission at hand. “The recipe calls for one drop of energy and one drop of Poseidon blood. I assume if I want to make this again, I can use my blood. I’m here because I have a feeling you’ll know how to get me the energy.”

  Zeke smiled. “Yes. I can get you as much energy as you need. Is that all you would like to know?”