He turned. It was not my father standing there. It was his body, his Grateful Dead T-shirt, his sweatpants. But everything inside him wasn’t him. It was the song in my head. Too loud. Consuming me. Consuming my dad.
I cried out and pressed my hands over my ears, smashing Polly against one side of my face.
And then something broke and washed away. The song was gone.
It was just my daddy standing there. Just my daddy, who blinked hard, as if struggling to see me in the bright light of the kitchen lamp.
“Delaney?” he said. “Baby?”
I nodded, crying, scared of what had just happened, even though the song was gone now.
“Oh, baby,” he breathed. He was across the room in two strides, gathering me up into his strong arms and holding me tight as he carried me out of the room. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I had one arm wrapped around his neck, Polly still smooshed on my other ear.
Pretty soon we were sitting in the living room in his big chair that rocked.
His arms around me felt safe. We rocked for a long time. Long enough I stopped crying.
“What did you see?” he finally asked, his cheek tipped against the top of my head. “Did you see lights and colors?”
I shook my head, the scratch of his unshaved chin rubbing in my hair. “It was the music,” I whispered. “I heard all the music. All the voices. And the music was inside you and it was too loud and you weren’t you anymore.”
Daddy’s body had gone a little stiff. He’d stopped rocking, and then started again, exhaling.
“You hear it.” He nodded. “Okay, honey. It’s okay. Is it loud? The voices and music. Did it hurt you?”
“No.” I thought I might be acting like a baby, so I leaned back enough to show him I was okay. I was brave. “What was it?”
His blue eyes were sad, but when he smiled, laugh lines crinkled at the corners. “It’s a very special thing. A treasure that our family has the honor to protect. It’s power. God power.”
“Like Mr. Odin and Mr. Crow sometimes have?”
“Yes. And looking after it is an important duty, but sometimes it can be hard too.”
“Like being a police officer.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to be a police officer,” I said, snuggling back down against his wide chest.
“What happened to firefighter?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not a vampire, Dad.”
“It’s not just vampires who can fight fires,” he said with a chuckle.
I pulled back again. “I want to be a police officer.” I was very, very serious. “And I want to help you protect the god power song.”
He swallowed and nodded, his hand on my back warm and wide. “I think you will have to, Delaney. And I think you’ll be very good at it.”
“I will?”
“Yes. Because you always know what is right, and what is wrong, no matter how hard or sad that can be. And when something is scary or stronger than you, you face it. You will stand strong like a tree that buries its roots under stone and mountains, and nothing will stop you from sheltering others from the storm.”
“I want to do that,” I whispered. “I want to be the tree.”
“You will,” he whispered back, leaning his forehead against mine.
Fight, Delaney.
