Page 56 of Sunflower

Of course, with Apollo’s curse upon her, Paris didn’t believe her prophecy, and he went off, and either kidnapped Helen or they eloped. No-one is really sure now which was true. Either way, Menelaus lost his shit and decided to attack Troy to get Helen back. Agamemnon agreed wholeheartedly to help his brother, and left his wife, Clytemnestra, at home with their four children.

Thus started the decade-long siege of Troy.

As I listened to his story, I imagined the stars dancing in the sky to provide the visuals to Callum’s words, and then grinned at Callum’s turn of phrase.Lost his shit, indeed. In the stars, I saw Troy and Helen running away from Menelaus, who, when he realized what had happened, began throwing things at walls in a fit of rage. The way Callum was talking, the fall of Troy was basically the result of one hell of a temper tantrum.

In some stories, Cassandra’s twin brother, Helenus, was eventually captured by Odysseus and was forced to tell him how Menelaus and Agamemnon could capture Troy. Regardless, they sent in the Trojan horse, and just as Cassandra prophesied, the Greek soldiers hiding within it emerged and opened the gates to Troy. The Greek army slaughtered all but a select few and burned Troy to the ground.

Cassandra herself was spared from death to become Agamemnon’s slave mistress, and she bore him twin boys, Teledamus and Pelops.

When Agamemnon returned home with Cassandra and his infant twins, it was said that his furious wife, Clytemnestra, convinced her lover, Aegisthus, to murder them all.

But that wasn’t entirely the case.

As Callum teased this twist of the commonly known stories of the fall of Troy, I watched a shooting star track across the night sky, before fizzing out somewhere to the right of us. It almost felt like the gods of ancient times were blessing Callum for relaying this tale to me

In our family, it is believed that with his foresight, Helenus knew what was going to happen, and went in to save Cassandra and her twins. He was able to get Teledamus and Pelops to safety, but could not save Cassandra.

To honor his sister’s memory, he raised his nephews alongside his own son, Cestrinus.

Aw, that was nice of the brother.

Through all of this, Apollo kept a close eye on Helenus, Cassandra, and their children.

Whether it was through Apollo’s machinations or that the curse had simply run its course, Apollo’s curse on Cassandra died with her, but her powers didn’t.

Teledamus and Pelops inherited their mother’s prophetic powers, as did Cestrinus from Helenus.

For whatever purpose, Apollo allowed these inheritances, but after what had happened with the downfall of Troy, he was cautious. When eachson was born, Apollo manipulated each child’s inherited powers to keep only a portion of their parent’s own.

Because Helenus honored his promise to Apollo, he was deemed trustworthy, so his son, Cestrinus, was gifted the power of present clairvoyance, believed by all because what was spoken was easily proven.

Cassandra was deemed untrustworthy, because she broke her vow to Apollo, so her power was split between her two sons, neither of whom would ever be able to claim automatic belief by their peers, like Cestrinus would be able to.

Teledamus was gifted the power of future clairvoyance, where his power would be deemed untrustworthy until it could be proven otherwise. Pelops was gifted the power of past clairvoyance, where his power would struggle to be taken seriously as the events of his visions would have already taken place.

These three boys were the beginnings of clairvoyance as we know it today and is how the powers have been passed down in George’s family and mine.

Wait.

I sat up, struggling with the blanket still wrapped around me. “Are you telling me that your powers came from Apollo?TheApollo?”

Still completely at ease, Callum shrugged. “Is it really so hard to believe? Millions of people believe far crazier things these days. We got our abilities from somewhere. Why not from Apollo?”

Wiping my hands down my face, I stared at him and thought about what he’d said. He had a fair point in saying that weirder things were believed every single day. But if I believed this, then I had to believe in other things. Other myths... “Holy fuck, Santa is real.”

Callum’s eyebrows rose. “Okay, the fact that you made that leap of logic so quickly, terrifies and arouses me in equal measure.”

Huffing out a laugh, and, choosing for the sake of my own sanity, to ignore the fact that Callum had inadvertently admitted that Santa Claus wasactuallyout there somewhere, I waved his words off. “Never mind. Just trying to… take it all in, I guess.” I dragged my fingers through my hair and leaned on the picnic tabletop with my elbows as I thought about everything he’d just said and slotted it all in with everything I’d been told over the past couple of days. Then frowned. “What sort of powers are there?”

“Inside or outside the family lines?”

To stop my brain from imploding, I pinched the bridge of my nose, then waved my hands in the air, making the blanket flap around. “I don’t know, Callum! Either! Both!”

He chuckled. “Officially, there are five distinct ability categories all up: mental or telepathic, elemental, flight, mimicry, and other. What George, Mam, and I do all fall under the mental or telepathic ability category.” He cocked his head and scratched his chin. “Well, technically, all the powers that stemmed from Cassandra and Helenus are what make up the mental and telepathic category.”

“Okay, got it. You’re all children of Apollo,” I said blandly, rolling my eyes as I rose from my seat and stomped past him, only to hear him laugh. “I’m not going to get into the other categories now, because if I do, my brain will melt out of my ears.”

His laughter got louder.

---