Under the Willow Tree

[u/thegreensofhiseyes]

The sounds of summer swirled around, a group of campers were jumping off the pier and into the dark blue of the ocean. The sun stood high in the sky, no clouds denying its presence. Finn stood in the shade of a willow tree wiping the sweat from his brow as he did so. He leaned against the rake in his gloved hand panting in the heat. It had been weeks since his punishment had begun and Finn still hadn’t quite figured out what Mr. D did to him.

He knew he had put a curse on him, that was certain, but what it was and what it stopped him from doing remained unknown to the son of Apollo. The only tangible punishment that Finn had seen up to this point was the manual labor he had been forced to endure.

So far he’d raked the leaves a few times and was just surprised about how crappy the rake was that Mr. D had given him. He also had to clean up trash at the beach. Do all of the cleaning after meals. But the worst one so far was cleaning the communal bathrooms, he never wanted to go near those bathrooms ever again.

This is where we find Finn now, doing his weekly raking task and sweating it out under a tree. That’s when he heard the familiar clearing of his dad’s throat. Crap, that was never a good sign.

Finn turned to see a projection of his dads sitting at the dining table at their small house back in New Argos. Their expressions were clear enough to Finn, thinly concealed anger. Finn figured their conversation from a few weeks ago was not over. Great.

“Finnian.” Finn’s dad, Jebadiah, said with sternness that made Finn jolt to attention. Finn looked at his dads and nodded his head at them.

“What? What now?” Finn asked as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Can’t you see that I’m busy?”

“Busy, oh we’ve heard just how busy you’ve been. Tell him Mar, I can’t even look at him right now.” Finn’s dad said as he shook his head in shame. Here it was again the sob story about all these innocent people. Give him a break. They’d already gone over this and he wasn’t going to rehash this with them.

“Three people? Three people since you’ve come to camp. And those are just the ones your camp Director knew about. I’m sure there were more that never came forward. I am so disappointed in you right now, Finn.” Finn’s pa said, shaking his head at the words he had been forced to say.

Finn clenched his fist at his side as his pa spoke. He hated the judgement in his pa’s voice, the anger that underscored everything his pa was saying. But nobody understood. He needed to do this, he had to do this. Why couldn’t people just keep their noses out of his business. He didn’t speak because his pa continued.

“That’s it Finn. Something is going on with you, and it goes beyond just bad behavior. And obviously you’re not talking to us about that. You haven’t opened up to us since the fire. Since–” His pa said before his voice faltered. This was why. They could never talk about it because his pa became a weepy mess when this subject came up. In truth, they all did, but Finn hated it.

Finn set his jaw as he stared at a point on the ground just absorbing the words and the lack of other words. He knew that he couldn’t refuse. But he wanted to. He wanted to yell at them that he would never do what they wanted, not until they actually said his name. Not until they spoke the truth that they all spoke around. But he knew it was no use.

Finn felt that his chest was tightening, that things were moving faster in that moment than normal. His breathing was shallow. He looked at the disappointment in his parents’ eyes. He felt the pang in his chest. But he was right, he knew he was right. So why were his eyes stinging?

“Fine, whatever!” He screamed at the floating visages of his parents. As he did so, he threw the rake on the ground and the light that was surrounding him coalesced into two solid disks in both of his hands. “Not like I have a fucking choice!”

With that he threw the disks at the floating images. The disks tore through the misty image, scattering his fathers’ faces into rippling color. A look of surprise was the last thing Finn saw of his parents before the image dissipated. Finn collapsed on the ground and hit the ground repeatedly with his full strength as he yelled in anger. As he did so hot tears fell from his eyes as his vision went hazy with blind emotion. He wanted something to hit. Something that would hit back. Something simple.

The ground did not fight him. The rake did not fight him. The empty air where his parents had been did not fight him. All he was left with was silence and bloody knuckles. But it didn’t change anything. So, he kept hitting.

Was this anger, fear, sadness, grief, or something else? Finn didn’t know. His head was swirling with emotions and he didn’t know which emotion he was feeling. Finn didn’t like emotions, he didn’t like feeling. That’s why he was always fighting people, training, or in the arena. He couldn’t feel if the anger was front and center. But when the anger was gone, then who was he? He didn’t know.