literature

Cookies

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Literature Text

One stick of butter, softened. Stir.

  “Sally.”

  Too sticky. More flour.

  “Sally.”

  Three-quarters of a cup of chocolate chips. Sigh heavily. Bite your lip. Don’t cry…. Blue chocolate chips. Keep stirring.

  Paul laid a hand gently on his wife’s shoulder. “Sally,” he said again.  Slowly she fell still, weighed down by the silence.

  For a moment she breathed before resuming her baking. “Just one more batch,” she intoned, tears in her eyes. “Just one more. They have to be fresh. One more, and he’ll be home. One more.”

  Paul folded her into his arms as she collapsed into sobs. “Where is he?” she demanded, but the fight was long gone from her voice. “Where is he?”

  “Annabeth and the others are on their way to California.”

  “But he called! He called and said he was on a quest and that he’d… that he’d be home soon. And he’s not here, he’s not here. Where is he? He should be home by now, he said he would be.” She pushed away from Paul suddenly and stirred the cookie dough with renewed vigor, wiping away tears. “These have to be ready by the time he gets home. They have to be fresh.”

  Sadly, hopelessly, Paul turned this way and that in the kitchen. Everywhere his eyes landed were Tupperware containers of blue chocolate chip cookies, all perfectly baked, all looking perfectly edible. But to Sally, they weren’t fresh. They weren’t ideal. Percy liked the cookies hot out of the oven, with the chips still melting.

  One cookie for every day he was gone.

  Sally had been busy in the kitchen for nearly two weeks since she’d missed Percy’s call. And just the other day, when she had been preoccupied with the baking, Paul had been surprised by an Iris Message. Being a mortal, he didn’t know he could receive one of those, but the Mist must have been manipulated to allow him to see it.

  It had been Piper, one of Annabeth’s friends from camp. She introduced herself politely with a genuine smile, but Paul could see something in her multicolored eyes. Quickly she caught him up on all the details of their time at Camp Jupiter, that they’d found Percy and set off for the ancient lands….

  “But?” Paul had asked. Dread settled into his stomach like a two-ton weight.

  Piper bit her lip. “But… something happened in Rome. Annabeth went off on a quest on her own to this old, underground chamber. The floor was bad, you see, and by the time we got there, it was crumbling to pieces. Percy and Annabeth… the floor dropped straight down to…” Tears had formed in the young girl’s eyes.

  Paul never told Sally. He couldn’t do that to her. She deserved to know, of course; Percy was her son, but Paul just couldn’t bring himself to say it. She was fragile enough as it was.

  Fragile, he thought, like the floor of that underground chamber that pitched his stepson into the depths of Tartarus, a world darker than his mortal mind could fathom.

  His heart pounded as a lie built on his lips, but he hoped beyond hope that it wasn’t a lie. “He’ll be home soon, Sally. They’ve found him, Piper told me. They’re all just on another quest and Percy hasn’t had time to contact you.”

  She sobbed. Had she heard him? He wasn’t sure.

  She shook her head and lowered herself to the flour-covered kitchen floor. “No, something’s gone wrong. I can feel it. When… when did you hear from Piper?”

  He swallowed. “A day or two ago.”

  Sally sniffed. “What did she say?” She blinked, as if just realizing something. “And why didn’t you tell me until today?”

  When Paul hesitated, she became frantic. “Paul! What did she say? What happened?” she screamed.

  As gently as he could, he told Sally what had happened, trying to soften the details as much as possible.

  But how do you tell a mother that her only son has fallen into the darkest parts of hell?

  She screamed. Her face went from red to purple with the strain and her tears rolled off her cheeks and onto the floor in such abundance that little beads of dough began to form in the flour beneath them. Paul could only hold her. He could only try in vain to console her. He could only pray with her.

  “My son,” Sally sobbed, clinging to Paul with clawlike fingers. “My boy. Oh, Percy, my son.”

  After an hour, she’d cried herself out and locked herself in her bedroom. Silence settled over the apartment. Paul wiped away tears to answer the door when a concerned neighbor stopped by to ask if everything was alright.

  No, everything was not alright, but what could he say? No one else would understand.

  Sometimes he wondered if he was insane, that he was really locked in a mental institution somewhere, hallucinating all of this about monsters and demigods and Tartarus. But it was real, unfortunately.

  He watched the light float away with the setting sun. He didn’t mourn its loss by turning on a lamp. He sat in the darkness, unable to move.

  At some point late in the evening, Sally walked out of the bedroom on slippered feet, wearing a thick bath robe. Her dark hair was frizzy, streaked with gray as always, but sticking up in ways Paul had never seen it stick up before.

  She didn’t look around. She didn’t notice the darkness. She wandered into the kitchen and for a long time, Paul heard the sounds of dishes being cleaned and bowls of hardened dough being thrown away and flour-dusted floors being swept up. Tupperware containers were emptied and stored. The oven was turned off. Sally was done making cookies.

  But when the sun came up and Paul made himself breakfast before work, he saw that there was one batch left, one container with a red lid, filled with fresh, blue chocolate chip cookies. It sat alone in the empty kitchen, an empty tribute to an empty hope. Paul didn’t believe Percy and Annabeth would survive Tartarus. He knew they were strong, but he didn’t think anyone could survive that. He wanted to believe they would make it. He wanted to believe that more than anything, but he just couldn’t.

  In the morning silence, with a heavy chest and an empty mind, he put the plastic container of cookies in the refridgerator. They’d keep longer that way. And they might have to keep a long time.
Yes, I paralleled Luke's mother. I'm sorry. 

I want to apologize right away for any broken hearts. Seems like the only good PJO fanfic I write is murderously sad. Why am I so good at that?? Lol

Characters (c) Rick Riordan/Disney Hyperion
© 2014 - 2024 Natalia1417
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Reilienforever's avatar
More more more more more more give me gold!!!!!!!more!!!!!!!!$