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FIC: The Final Sacrifice, chpt 2
Title: The Final Sacrifice (Daughter of Wisdom 5)
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan, Thalia Grace, Charles Beckendorf/Silena Beauregard, Clarisse La Rue, Michael Yew, OCs, multiple others
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Word Count: WIP, estimated 100K+ (33 chapters planned)
Summary: The war on Olympus is heating up, and Annabeth Chase is right in the thick of it. Bad enough that she's gearing up for battle while wrestling with the emotional turmoil over two of her dearest friends that is turning her heart inside out. She doesn't need more mysterious glimpses about the Great Prophecy and how it connects to her own history. But in order to understand what lies in her future, Annabeth has to dig into the past. What she finds will shape her choices … and change the course of the final battle. An alternate PoV retelling of The Last Olympian. Part 5 of the Daughter of Wisdom series.
In this chapter
Chapter Title: I Get Some Unexpected Summer Reading
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Annabeth Chase, Silena Beauregard, Charles Beckendorf, Michael Yew, Clarisse La Rue, Percy Jackson, Will Solace
Word Count: 4,697
Chapter Summary: A long-forgotten book turns up in Annabeth's bag.
Notes: The story about the Necklace of Harmonia references events from my previous fic, The Necklace of Harmonia, and the bits about it killing Zoë and others may not make sense if you haven't read it. The diary did indeed show up then, though I'm not sure if anyone remembers. (But if you didn't, don't worry-Annabeth forgot about it, too!)
Back to Fic Content Page
I didn't get my anticipated shower straight away. The water pipes at the shower block had been blown up.
It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. The head counsellors for Ares and Apollo were having a shouting match right outside the toilets.
'It's my business when you terrorise one of my campers!' Michael Yew was two heads shorter than anyone else at camp, but the way he carried himself, you'd hardly notice. He got right up in Clarisse's face and jabbed his finger against her shoulder. This was a dangerous move, since Clarisse was known to pulverise people just for looking at her funny. Children of Ares were famous for their hair-trigger tempers.
Clarisse shoved him back. 'She's a newbie. It's a rite of passage, punk. If you hadn't interfered, it'd've been over in a flash, and the toilets would be fine!'
'Clarisse-' Chris Rodriguez tried to step in.
'Stay out of it!' Clarisse snarled. This was a bad sign, since she generally had a soft spot for Chris, having rescued him from the Labyrinth some time back. Chris grimaced and backed off. He knew better than to antagonise Clarisse further when she was in a mood.
Michael didn't seem to care. 'We're having enough trouble finding new recruits without you scaring them all away.'
Clarisse scoffed. 'Scaring them? If this makes them pee their pants, what are they gonna do when the Titan army comes marching in?'
I sighed. 'Clarisse did a swirlie again, didn't she?'
'Probably,' Silena said.
Beckendorf stuck his head into the nearest stall. 'It's not that bad. Surface pipe damage from a localised explosion. Should be a quick fix. Not like the time she tried to swirl Percy.'
The memory made me grin in spite of my annoyance. On Percy's first day at camp, Clarisse had attempted her hazing ritual ... only to have Percy turn the tables on her by exploding every pipe in the latrine and showering her (and me, incidentally) with dirty toilet water. Perks of being the son of Poseidon.
Beckendorf pulled a wrench from his pockets and started to fix the plumbing. 'Ten minutes,' he promised.
While he worked, Chris spotted us and came over. 'I don't know why she's in such a bad mood,' he said, shaking his head at Clarisse. She was now trying to grab Michael while he danced nimbly out of her reach.
'I'm gonna flush your head down the toilet next!' Clarisse screamed.
'Try it, and I'll curse your whole cabin! I've been practising some choice ones!'
Chris shook his head. 'Since last night, she's been totally hacked off.'
'More hacked off than usual, you mean?' I said.
'And she just went after Kayla-that's the new kid-today. Michael stepped in. He's taking his head counsellor role really seriously, after-well.' Chris stared guiltily at his shoes.
I nodded. Michael had taken over as head of Apollo cabin after Lee Fletcher, their former counsellor, had died in battle last summer. Chris had been with the enemy before that battle, but he'd gone insane when they sent him into the Labyrinth to scout. It was only thanks to Clarisse that he'd recovered and returned to our side.
'He shot an explosive arrow and it must've hit a pipe, and ...' Chris jerked his head at the damage.
Although Beckendorf had the pipes working again within the promised ten minutes, it took several hours, three showers, and a soak in the bathtub in the Big House-camp headquarters-before I finally stopped smelling of cow poop. The worst was my hair. My ponytail had come undone during the fight and become so snarled, I thought I might have to cut it off. Luckily, Silena intervened.
'You can't cut your hair!' she exclaimed. 'It's gorgeous!'
We sat on the porch, Silena combing out my hair like I was five. I guess she must have had some Aphrodite magic, because she managed to detangle it. I thought 'gorgeous' was probably an overstatement (especially coming from someone whose luscious black hair never had a curl out of place) but I was glad I wouldn't need to go around with a shorn head. Troublesome as my hair could be, I kind of liked it when it behaved.
While Silena combed, I re-threaded my camp necklace onto a new leather cord. Along with the eight beads I had-one for each of my summers at camp-I also had my father's gold Harvard ring and a silver skeleton key that had been a birthday present from my mother, Athena. The key was really the size of my palm, but it shrank to the size of the other beads when I threaded it onto my necklace. Instead of a round disc, an owl's head stared at me from above the shaft, as if to remind me to use it wisely. Athena had said it would unlock anything I needed-doors, codes, secrets ... but it would only work once.
'When the right time comes, you will know,' she'd promised.
I still hadn't figured out what I should use it on. The admonition that I would only get one use out of it was kind of daunting. What if I used it, and then a worse puzzle came along and I no longer had it?
'I wish you'd let me give you a makeover.' Silena sighed, brushing out the last section of my hair. I couldn't help thinking of my last real makeover, two years ago on the sorceress Circe's island. But it wasn't my made-over mirror reflection that my mind's eye produced. It was Percy, staring at me as though I'd stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine.
These sudden fantasies about my best friend had become annoyingly frequent over the past year. They weren't precisely unwelcome-more frustrating, because I wasn't entirely certain what Percy thought about me. There had been a moment last year, when I'd thought maybe we might have something between us ... but things had gotten way complicated after that.
I wondered briefly if Athena's key could unlock the mystery of what Percy really felt about me (though I had no idea how that could possibly work), but I had a feeling this wasn't what my mom had intended it for.
'Why?'
I started at the sound of Percy's voice. He stood at the bottom of the steps with his camp duffel slung over one shoulder, looking curiously at us.
Heat flooded my cheeks. I sprang to my feet, knocking the brush out of Silena's hand.
'Hi Percy. Why what?' Silena's eyes were dancing, as if she already knew the answer.
'Why would Annabeth need a makeover?' Percy dumped his duffel at his feet and raked his fingers through his hair, the way he did whenever he was self-conscious. A sheen of sweat glistened over his forehead, like he'd run up the hill into camp, but that just made him look better. Percy had always been good-looking (not that I'd ever tell him that), but he was starting to look like a Renaissance artist had carved him in resemblance to his handsome godly father. In the months since I'd last seen him, he'd grown a couple of inches and filled out in the chest. His face was slightly thinner, making his features stand out. Even the grey streak in his hair-that matched one in my own-gave him an air of distinction.
He frowned at me. Oh gods, I was staring. I looked away quickly.
'I mean,' he said, twisting his fingers together, 'if you want one, sure. But you, uh, look okay.'
Silena giggled behind her hands. 'You guys are so cute!'
Percy picked up his duffel, carefully not looking at either of us. The tips of his ears turned as red as my face felt. 'I should, uh, go see my cabin.'
We walked across the strawberry fields to the central green. It was the typical first day of summer. Satyrs tended the plants with their woodland magic, helped by Dionysus's son Pollux. A mixed group of Hermes and Apollo kids were having a volleyball match. Beckendorf had Percy's hellhound, Mrs O'Leary, out on a leash for her walk. (She was a gift from the late inventor, Daedalus. I got his laptop; Percy got the dog. I definitely felt I'd gotten the better deal.)
Chris had finally gotten Clarisse to calm down, or at least pried her away from her argument. He was talking to her-or maybe at her-as she hammered a punching bag that swung from one of the oak trees. Clarisse kept shooting malevolent glares at Michael and the new kid, Kayla, who were deep in conversation near the art and crafts cabin. I guess it was a good sign that Clarisse wasn't actively attempting to pulverise them for now.
Percy followed my gaze. 'What's that about?'
I explained about the toilet fight. Percy winced. 'Sounds just like Clarisse.'
'Michael's right, though. Camp recruitment is suffering.' I waved my hands at the summer scene. Kids ran around everywhere, but it struck me just how few of us there were. A couple years back, we'd had over a hundred campers. Now, there couldn't have been more than fifty. 'We shouldn't be attacking each other, even if it's just a hazing ritual.'
'I don't think that was the real reason Clarisse went after Kayla,' Silena said. 'She was flirting with Chris at the campfire last night, right before she got claimed.'
I glanced at the new girl. 'She can't be more than eleven!'
'An eleven-year-old can't have a crush?'
I winced and conceded the point. I'd had some pretty embarrassing crushes myself at that age-including a big one on Luke, before he'd turned traitor and joined the Titans. It was a while since I'd thought of Luke that way, but I remembered getting quite jealous when Silena had asked him to fireworks night at the time. Judging from the strangled noise Percy made, a cross between a laugh and a cough, he remembered my dumb old crush, too.
'No wonder Clarisse wanted to pound her,' I said. 'Did Chris ...?'
'I don't think he even noticed. Boys.' Silena gave me a knowing look.
'Hey! We're not all ... uh, whatever you're trying to say.'
Silena shook her head at him. '"You look okay?" Seriously, you're all clueless.'
'Wait, what?' Percy looked confused.
'Never mind, Seaweed Brain.' I changed the subject quickly. 'So I take it they aren't actually together yet.'
'Not officially,' Silena said. 'I'm sure Clarisse wants Chris to ask her out, but she's too proud to admit it.'
We reached the cabins, which were arranged in the shape of a Greek Omega around the camp's central hearth. The hearth-tending goddess, Hestia, didn't seem to be in residence today. The flames flickered merrily on their own.
Silena left us at cabin ten. 'I'm doing inspection tomorrow morning,' she warned. 'Don't forget to get your bag cleaned, Annabeth.'
'What's wrong with your bag?' Percy asked.
I'd left it lying on the porch of my cabin. It shouldn't have been a big deal to tell Percy what had happened, but suddenly, I really didn't want him to imagine me covered in poop.
'Monsters,' I said, with a vague wave of my hand. 'You know, on the way in. Did you run into any?'
Percy shrugged. 'Nah, I got here okay. There were a couple hanging out on the main road, but Rachel spotted them before they could see us, so we just took a detour.'
'Rachel?' If I were a wolf, my hackles would have popped right up. Most mortals had no idea about the mythological stuff that went on under their noses, but Percy's schoolmate Rachel Dare was a special case. She could see through the magical Mist that concealed our world even better than most half-bloods. Last year, we'd had to recruit her to guide us through Daedalus's Labyrinth. I hated to admit it, but I wouldn't have been able to complete my quest without her help. I'd kind of hoped that would be the end of it, though.
Percy sensed the warning in my tone. 'It wasn't anything-I mean, she just came along for the ride.'
'She's a mortal. She can't come to camp.'
'I know. But she's really interested in camp and all. I didn't think it'd matter if she knew where it was. I mean, my mom knows. And she did help us avoid monsters on the way here.'
The warm summer day seemed to get ten degrees colder. I should have been glad Rachel had helped Percy skip the monster traps on his ride to camp, but I couldn't squash the resentment that swelled in my gut. Keeping Percy out of trouble was supposed to be my job.
'Whatever,' I said.
'Annabeth ...'
I stepped onto my cabin porch. 'I have to wash my bag.'
Percy made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. I didn't look at him. Soon, I heard his footsteps disappear down the green.
My bag was still lying where I'd left it earlier. Leaving something out in the open when a cabin full of light-fingered Hermes kids were about wasn't the wisest idea, but either the cow poop stains were a big enough deterrent, or my last threat to castrate Travis Stoll with my dagger if he touched my stuff had been effective.
I emptied the bag of all its contents, starting with my most valuable possession: the silver laptop with Daedalus's blue Delta logo. It was designed like a MacBook Air, but this computer was way more advanced than anything Apple could ever come up with. The brilliant inventor had created it himself. Inside, it held two thousand years' worth of genius. He'd given it to me before he died, and I was still working my way through the sheer plethora of ideas within. He had design notes on just about every city in the country (maybe even in the world), from urban planning to architectural layouts to defence strategies-and he'd made them work for him, too. I'd last been perusing his plan of Philadelphia, where he'd literally created a personal home alarm system out of a national monument.
Fortunately, Daedalus's laptop was safe inside its protective cover. I set it aside and dug out the rest of my belongings: a few spare clothes, my invisibility hat, the emergency stash of golden drachmas, ambrosia, and nectar that the Hunters had given me, and a prism and flashlight for sending Iris messages. I'd learnt the hard way to carry only the basics when travelling long distances. Anything else I needed at camp was kept permanently in a trunk under my bunk.
Once my bag was empty, I gave it a shake to dislodge the poop, which was now caked into little clumps. The bag made a surprisingly solid thump against the porch rail. Puzzled, I ran my hand along its spine. There was something hard and flat wedged in the back panel.
Inside, a seam had opened up halfway down the bag. I used my knife to cut away the rest of the fabric panel. Lodged at the bottom was a green leather-bound diary.
It took me a while to remember how I'd acquired the book. Two years ago, when Thalia had joined the Hunters, she'd left the diary in my possession. Thalia had found it in a cave in Charleston-the place she'd first met Luke. She'd thought he'd left it to her as a message.
I'd never read it. Maybe I'd meant to, but shortly after receiving it, I'd gotten caught up in researching the Labyrinth and flying across the country to live with my dad. The diary must have gotten wedged in my bag's hidden panel and gone unnoticed all this time.
The book fell open to a page near the end. The paper was old and yellowed, and some of the pages were stuck together with ancient globs of candle wax. There were a few lines on the left page, scrawled in large messy letters that overlapped one another and ran haphazardly across the ruled lines, as if they'd been written on an uneven surface. Between my dyslexia, the awful handwriting, and the misspelling of half the words, it took me a while to decipher what it said.
-like my dad. It's my job to take care of them. I'm gonna hunt down every monster I can find. That's what the gods should have done for us.
I tried to turn to the previous page, but the old wax had glued several of the preceding pages together. The right page was blank, but the reverse side bore the faint imprint of letters. Those pages were stuck together, too.
Had Luke written this? It was hard to imagine him keeping a diary. I'd certainly never seen him at it, whether during our travels together or here at camp. Like the rest of us demigods, with our brains hard-wired for reading ancient Greek, Luke was dyslexic. We didn't write anything if we could help it. What could have compelled him to write down his thoughts?
I flipped to the cover. On the inset, someone had written in all-caps, PROPERTY OF HALCYON GREEN. Under that, they'd underlined the words: do not open, or I will bestow a deadly curse on you. I can do it, too. I'm a son of Apollo.
I slammed the book shut, cursing my own stupidity. Why hadn't I considered that the book might be a trap?
The smart thing to do would be to get rid of it right away, before it could hurt me or anyone else.
But it had come from Thalia. From Luke.
Even after he had betrayed us and orchestrated the Titans' rise, even going so far as to host Kronos in his own body, I couldn't kill the seed of hope inside me: what if Luke could still be redeemed? For some reason, the diary felt like the key to finding the real Luke, buried under Kronos's manipulations. If I could only figure out the secrets it held.
Something our camp director, Mr D-otherwise known as the god Dionysus-had said to me last year stirred in my head: 'If I were you, I wouldn't go in without a string. Otherwise you could lose yourself in the process.'
Did I dare to delve into Luke's past? Was this journal even about Luke's history?
Maybe I should start with this supposed curse. I'd dealt with cursed objects before. Last year, I'd been saddled with the Necklace of Harmonia, an enchanted wedding gift that had brought misfortune upon generations of owners. It had gotten a number of people killed, including Thalia's predecessor, Zoë Nightshade. But I'd eventually managed to track the curse to its source and break it.
This book didn't have the malicious aura that had surrounded the Necklace of Harmonia. I couldn't even be sure that this demigod had really cursed it, or if he was just bluffing, the way Michael had threatened Clarisse (at least, I thought Michael was bluffing). Something about 'Halcyon Green' was familiar as well, although I was pretty sure I didn't know anyone by that name.
The best place to start was probably Apollo cabin. Michael was still off with Kayla, but Will Solace, his second-in-command and our resident healer, was sitting in the middle of a stack of white cloths on his bunk, folding bandages for an emergency first-aid kit. He looked up when I stuck my head in.
'Hi Annabeth. What's up?'
'I was wondering if I could ask you about Apollo's powers.' I squinted around the golden interior (seriously, how did the Apollo kids get any sleep with these too-bright walls?) No one else was in the cabin, which meant I couldn't just waltz in. There was a strict rule against non-sibling campers of the opposite sex being in cabins alone.
Will scratched his head. 'Uh, sure,' he said. He glanced at this stack of unrolled bandages. 'I guess this can wait.'
'I'll help you with them after,' I promised. 'Can we go somewhere and talk?'
Will glanced uneasily out of his window, towards the end of the row of male god cabins. 'This doesn't have anything to do with a, um, fight with Percy, does it?'
'No! And what does Percy have to do with anything?'
Will held up his hands. 'Nothing. I just don't want him to think-you know what, never mind. Let's go to the infirmary. Help me carry the bandages, will you?'
We carted the first-aid kits over to the Big House, where Will piled them on an empty bed.
'Okay,' he said, 'what did you want to know about Apollo?'
'Well, there's this book.' I held up the diary. 'It says a son of Apollo cursed it. Does that actually work? Like, you guys can do some magic and stuff, right?'
Will considered the diary. 'It's possible. Apollo has such a diverse portfolio-almost as large as Hermes-that none of us really have the exact same powers. Sure, we're usually above average in all his basic domains ... archery, healing, music ... but we usually get one specialty.'
'Like you and healing.' Will had been the best healer at camp since he was ten. He tried to look modest, but we both knew it was true.
'Yeah, and Austin's a prodigy with the sax, and Michael's a whiz at rapper rhymes.'
'He threatened to curse Clarisse just now.'
Will laughed. 'He probably could. But it wouldn't be that serious-maybe she'd be speaking in verse for a couple of days or so. That's the extent of our magic. Little things that mostly wear off pretty quick. If you got that book within the last week, I'd worry, but if you've had it for longer, it's probably harmless by now. Magic takes energy to pull off. Like my healing-small cuts and scrapes are easy to patch up, but the big stuff, like neutralising poison, say, that's going to really tire me out. And if I tried to heal someone on the point of death, it could kill me.'
'So the book's probably safe?'
'Well, there are circumstances where it's dangerous to mess with children of Apollo,' Will said. 'Theoretically, if we had our dad's favour, we could get him to avenge our enemies. Legend has it that Apollo orchestrated Achilles's death in the Trojan War because he killed his son, Troilus.'
He paused to let the enormity of this sink in. As far as Greek heroes went, Achilles was probably second only to Heracles in terms of fame. Everyone knew the story: he'd been dipped in the River Styx as a child, gaining him invincibility from harm except in the one weak spot where his mother had anchored him during that poisonous bath. Plotting to do away with someone that protected couldn't have been easy. For a god to go to that much effort, he must have been really pissed off.
'But that was two thousand years ago. These days, Apollo hardly even says hi to us, never mind going to war over something as trivial as peeking in someone's diary.' Will held out his hand for the book. 'I don't sense anything harmful. I can usually tell if something's dangerous, and this feels normal.'
I showed him the front cover, with Halcyon Green's warning. 'Do you know who he is?'
Will shook his head. 'Never heard of him.' He furrowed his eyebrows, possibly wondering why I wanted to peruse some unknown demigod's private diary, but he didn't pry. 'But to answer your question-I think the book's probably safe.'
'Thanks.' I helped Will outfit the rest of his first-aid kits before returning to my cabin to crack open the diary again.
The first entry was just as messy as the final page, but the handwriting seemed different:
This is hell. I can't believe he did this to me. My voice, my freedom ...
I'm going to die here. I can't see any other end. Then again, I've never been able to see my own future.
Oh Cath. If only you hadn't got on that plane.
There was a break in the writing, and then:
Oh gods, it happened again. The first time, I thought it was just bad luck, demigods running into crap like I have, but now ...
Something's drawing them here.
'Your voice will only lead people to their deaths,' Apollo said. What if that's part of this curse as well?
It went on like this for several pages, with disjointed paragraphs that bemoaned events I couldn't make sense of. None of this sounded like anything Luke had ever done.
I thumbed to a spot nearer to the end, hoping a different entry might shed more light. Here, the writing was again different. It was similar in style to the opening page, but small and cramped, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes. The letters were squeezed neatly into two rows per line, as though the writer had worried about running out of space.
... tried to help them, but it was the same. It's always the same. The bars rise at sunset, and the locusts always win.
Puzzled, I squinted at the unlikely word. At last, I decided that it read leucrota. That was still an unfamiliar term, but I had the vague idea that it was some sort of monster.
At least this kid had plenty of provisions. It will keep me going for longer, which means more time before I have to lure another kid to their death.
This was even more confusing. None of this tallied with what I knew of Luke and Thalia's life before I'd met them. Like me, they'd both run away, Luke when he was nine, Thalia at ten. They'd met in a dragon's cave in Charleston and teamed up for two years before they found me. Neither had ever talked about leucrota or luring other kids to their death.
Then I noticed the date printed at the top of the page: November 3, 1980. Years before any of us had even been born.
That settled it. This diary couldn't be Luke's after all. He must have inherited it, or stolen it. But why? And why had he passed it on?
Gritting my teeth, I went back to the beginning. This was worse than summer reading homework, where I could at least flip to the end of the book and work out the plot before working my way through the actual story-starting with an overall strategy in my head before checking out the tactics, in a way. This diary was impossible-the beginning and end didn't seem to connect at all. The only way I was going to work out how it had made its way to Luke, and then Thalia, was to slog through it from beginning to end.
The disconnected entries went on for at least ten pages before I finally arrived at the first dated entry: June 21, 1978.
I think that's the date, anyway. Gods, it's been twenty years. I need to organise my thoughts. I'm going crazy stewing in them. And damn Apollo if I'm going to sit with those monsters just to talk it out to myself. Maybe if I write out the whole story, I can make sense of my whole miserable life.
I will do my best to record it as accurately as possible. Trapped here for two decades, stewing in my own thoughts, the memories are suddenly clearer than they've ever been.
I guess I should start with Cath.
Finally, I was getting somewhere. But at that moment, a loud gong rang out-the gong for dinner. Cursing, I folded down the top of my page to mark my spot. I guess it didn't matter. It probably wasn't urgent for me to get the bottom of the mysterious Halcyon Green's story. It was even possible that it wouldn't have anything to do with Luke in the end. I put the diary away and went to lead my siblings to the dining pavilion.
Chapter 3
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan, Thalia Grace, Charles Beckendorf/Silena Beauregard, Clarisse La Rue, Michael Yew, OCs, multiple others
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Word Count: WIP, estimated 100K+ (33 chapters planned)
Summary: The war on Olympus is heating up, and Annabeth Chase is right in the thick of it. Bad enough that she's gearing up for battle while wrestling with the emotional turmoil over two of her dearest friends that is turning her heart inside out. She doesn't need more mysterious glimpses about the Great Prophecy and how it connects to her own history. But in order to understand what lies in her future, Annabeth has to dig into the past. What she finds will shape her choices … and change the course of the final battle. An alternate PoV retelling of The Last Olympian. Part 5 of the Daughter of Wisdom series.
In this chapter
Chapter Title: I Get Some Unexpected Summer Reading
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Annabeth Chase, Silena Beauregard, Charles Beckendorf, Michael Yew, Clarisse La Rue, Percy Jackson, Will Solace
Word Count: 4,697
Chapter Summary: A long-forgotten book turns up in Annabeth's bag.
Notes: The story about the Necklace of Harmonia references events from my previous fic, The Necklace of Harmonia, and the bits about it killing Zoë and others may not make sense if you haven't read it. The diary did indeed show up then, though I'm not sure if anyone remembers. (But if you didn't, don't worry-Annabeth forgot about it, too!)
Back to Fic Content Page
I didn't get my anticipated shower straight away. The water pipes at the shower block had been blown up.
It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. The head counsellors for Ares and Apollo were having a shouting match right outside the toilets.
'It's my business when you terrorise one of my campers!' Michael Yew was two heads shorter than anyone else at camp, but the way he carried himself, you'd hardly notice. He got right up in Clarisse's face and jabbed his finger against her shoulder. This was a dangerous move, since Clarisse was known to pulverise people just for looking at her funny. Children of Ares were famous for their hair-trigger tempers.
Clarisse shoved him back. 'She's a newbie. It's a rite of passage, punk. If you hadn't interfered, it'd've been over in a flash, and the toilets would be fine!'
'Clarisse-' Chris Rodriguez tried to step in.
'Stay out of it!' Clarisse snarled. This was a bad sign, since she generally had a soft spot for Chris, having rescued him from the Labyrinth some time back. Chris grimaced and backed off. He knew better than to antagonise Clarisse further when she was in a mood.
Michael didn't seem to care. 'We're having enough trouble finding new recruits without you scaring them all away.'
Clarisse scoffed. 'Scaring them? If this makes them pee their pants, what are they gonna do when the Titan army comes marching in?'
I sighed. 'Clarisse did a swirlie again, didn't she?'
'Probably,' Silena said.
Beckendorf stuck his head into the nearest stall. 'It's not that bad. Surface pipe damage from a localised explosion. Should be a quick fix. Not like the time she tried to swirl Percy.'
The memory made me grin in spite of my annoyance. On Percy's first day at camp, Clarisse had attempted her hazing ritual ... only to have Percy turn the tables on her by exploding every pipe in the latrine and showering her (and me, incidentally) with dirty toilet water. Perks of being the son of Poseidon.
Beckendorf pulled a wrench from his pockets and started to fix the plumbing. 'Ten minutes,' he promised.
While he worked, Chris spotted us and came over. 'I don't know why she's in such a bad mood,' he said, shaking his head at Clarisse. She was now trying to grab Michael while he danced nimbly out of her reach.
'I'm gonna flush your head down the toilet next!' Clarisse screamed.
'Try it, and I'll curse your whole cabin! I've been practising some choice ones!'
Chris shook his head. 'Since last night, she's been totally hacked off.'
'More hacked off than usual, you mean?' I said.
'And she just went after Kayla-that's the new kid-today. Michael stepped in. He's taking his head counsellor role really seriously, after-well.' Chris stared guiltily at his shoes.
I nodded. Michael had taken over as head of Apollo cabin after Lee Fletcher, their former counsellor, had died in battle last summer. Chris had been with the enemy before that battle, but he'd gone insane when they sent him into the Labyrinth to scout. It was only thanks to Clarisse that he'd recovered and returned to our side.
'He shot an explosive arrow and it must've hit a pipe, and ...' Chris jerked his head at the damage.
Although Beckendorf had the pipes working again within the promised ten minutes, it took several hours, three showers, and a soak in the bathtub in the Big House-camp headquarters-before I finally stopped smelling of cow poop. The worst was my hair. My ponytail had come undone during the fight and become so snarled, I thought I might have to cut it off. Luckily, Silena intervened.
'You can't cut your hair!' she exclaimed. 'It's gorgeous!'
We sat on the porch, Silena combing out my hair like I was five. I guess she must have had some Aphrodite magic, because she managed to detangle it. I thought 'gorgeous' was probably an overstatement (especially coming from someone whose luscious black hair never had a curl out of place) but I was glad I wouldn't need to go around with a shorn head. Troublesome as my hair could be, I kind of liked it when it behaved.
While Silena combed, I re-threaded my camp necklace onto a new leather cord. Along with the eight beads I had-one for each of my summers at camp-I also had my father's gold Harvard ring and a silver skeleton key that had been a birthday present from my mother, Athena. The key was really the size of my palm, but it shrank to the size of the other beads when I threaded it onto my necklace. Instead of a round disc, an owl's head stared at me from above the shaft, as if to remind me to use it wisely. Athena had said it would unlock anything I needed-doors, codes, secrets ... but it would only work once.
'When the right time comes, you will know,' she'd promised.
I still hadn't figured out what I should use it on. The admonition that I would only get one use out of it was kind of daunting. What if I used it, and then a worse puzzle came along and I no longer had it?
'I wish you'd let me give you a makeover.' Silena sighed, brushing out the last section of my hair. I couldn't help thinking of my last real makeover, two years ago on the sorceress Circe's island. But it wasn't my made-over mirror reflection that my mind's eye produced. It was Percy, staring at me as though I'd stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine.
These sudden fantasies about my best friend had become annoyingly frequent over the past year. They weren't precisely unwelcome-more frustrating, because I wasn't entirely certain what Percy thought about me. There had been a moment last year, when I'd thought maybe we might have something between us ... but things had gotten way complicated after that.
I wondered briefly if Athena's key could unlock the mystery of what Percy really felt about me (though I had no idea how that could possibly work), but I had a feeling this wasn't what my mom had intended it for.
'Why?'
I started at the sound of Percy's voice. He stood at the bottom of the steps with his camp duffel slung over one shoulder, looking curiously at us.
Heat flooded my cheeks. I sprang to my feet, knocking the brush out of Silena's hand.
'Hi Percy. Why what?' Silena's eyes were dancing, as if she already knew the answer.
'Why would Annabeth need a makeover?' Percy dumped his duffel at his feet and raked his fingers through his hair, the way he did whenever he was self-conscious. A sheen of sweat glistened over his forehead, like he'd run up the hill into camp, but that just made him look better. Percy had always been good-looking (not that I'd ever tell him that), but he was starting to look like a Renaissance artist had carved him in resemblance to his handsome godly father. In the months since I'd last seen him, he'd grown a couple of inches and filled out in the chest. His face was slightly thinner, making his features stand out. Even the grey streak in his hair-that matched one in my own-gave him an air of distinction.
He frowned at me. Oh gods, I was staring. I looked away quickly.
'I mean,' he said, twisting his fingers together, 'if you want one, sure. But you, uh, look okay.'
Silena giggled behind her hands. 'You guys are so cute!'
Percy picked up his duffel, carefully not looking at either of us. The tips of his ears turned as red as my face felt. 'I should, uh, go see my cabin.'
We walked across the strawberry fields to the central green. It was the typical first day of summer. Satyrs tended the plants with their woodland magic, helped by Dionysus's son Pollux. A mixed group of Hermes and Apollo kids were having a volleyball match. Beckendorf had Percy's hellhound, Mrs O'Leary, out on a leash for her walk. (She was a gift from the late inventor, Daedalus. I got his laptop; Percy got the dog. I definitely felt I'd gotten the better deal.)
Chris had finally gotten Clarisse to calm down, or at least pried her away from her argument. He was talking to her-or maybe at her-as she hammered a punching bag that swung from one of the oak trees. Clarisse kept shooting malevolent glares at Michael and the new kid, Kayla, who were deep in conversation near the art and crafts cabin. I guess it was a good sign that Clarisse wasn't actively attempting to pulverise them for now.
Percy followed my gaze. 'What's that about?'
I explained about the toilet fight. Percy winced. 'Sounds just like Clarisse.'
'Michael's right, though. Camp recruitment is suffering.' I waved my hands at the summer scene. Kids ran around everywhere, but it struck me just how few of us there were. A couple years back, we'd had over a hundred campers. Now, there couldn't have been more than fifty. 'We shouldn't be attacking each other, even if it's just a hazing ritual.'
'I don't think that was the real reason Clarisse went after Kayla,' Silena said. 'She was flirting with Chris at the campfire last night, right before she got claimed.'
I glanced at the new girl. 'She can't be more than eleven!'
'An eleven-year-old can't have a crush?'
I winced and conceded the point. I'd had some pretty embarrassing crushes myself at that age-including a big one on Luke, before he'd turned traitor and joined the Titans. It was a while since I'd thought of Luke that way, but I remembered getting quite jealous when Silena had asked him to fireworks night at the time. Judging from the strangled noise Percy made, a cross between a laugh and a cough, he remembered my dumb old crush, too.
'No wonder Clarisse wanted to pound her,' I said. 'Did Chris ...?'
'I don't think he even noticed. Boys.' Silena gave me a knowing look.
'Hey! We're not all ... uh, whatever you're trying to say.'
Silena shook her head at him. '"You look okay?" Seriously, you're all clueless.'
'Wait, what?' Percy looked confused.
'Never mind, Seaweed Brain.' I changed the subject quickly. 'So I take it they aren't actually together yet.'
'Not officially,' Silena said. 'I'm sure Clarisse wants Chris to ask her out, but she's too proud to admit it.'
We reached the cabins, which were arranged in the shape of a Greek Omega around the camp's central hearth. The hearth-tending goddess, Hestia, didn't seem to be in residence today. The flames flickered merrily on their own.
Silena left us at cabin ten. 'I'm doing inspection tomorrow morning,' she warned. 'Don't forget to get your bag cleaned, Annabeth.'
'What's wrong with your bag?' Percy asked.
I'd left it lying on the porch of my cabin. It shouldn't have been a big deal to tell Percy what had happened, but suddenly, I really didn't want him to imagine me covered in poop.
'Monsters,' I said, with a vague wave of my hand. 'You know, on the way in. Did you run into any?'
Percy shrugged. 'Nah, I got here okay. There were a couple hanging out on the main road, but Rachel spotted them before they could see us, so we just took a detour.'
'Rachel?' If I were a wolf, my hackles would have popped right up. Most mortals had no idea about the mythological stuff that went on under their noses, but Percy's schoolmate Rachel Dare was a special case. She could see through the magical Mist that concealed our world even better than most half-bloods. Last year, we'd had to recruit her to guide us through Daedalus's Labyrinth. I hated to admit it, but I wouldn't have been able to complete my quest without her help. I'd kind of hoped that would be the end of it, though.
Percy sensed the warning in my tone. 'It wasn't anything-I mean, she just came along for the ride.'
'She's a mortal. She can't come to camp.'
'I know. But she's really interested in camp and all. I didn't think it'd matter if she knew where it was. I mean, my mom knows. And she did help us avoid monsters on the way here.'
The warm summer day seemed to get ten degrees colder. I should have been glad Rachel had helped Percy skip the monster traps on his ride to camp, but I couldn't squash the resentment that swelled in my gut. Keeping Percy out of trouble was supposed to be my job.
'Whatever,' I said.
'Annabeth ...'
I stepped onto my cabin porch. 'I have to wash my bag.'
Percy made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. I didn't look at him. Soon, I heard his footsteps disappear down the green.
My bag was still lying where I'd left it earlier. Leaving something out in the open when a cabin full of light-fingered Hermes kids were about wasn't the wisest idea, but either the cow poop stains were a big enough deterrent, or my last threat to castrate Travis Stoll with my dagger if he touched my stuff had been effective.
I emptied the bag of all its contents, starting with my most valuable possession: the silver laptop with Daedalus's blue Delta logo. It was designed like a MacBook Air, but this computer was way more advanced than anything Apple could ever come up with. The brilliant inventor had created it himself. Inside, it held two thousand years' worth of genius. He'd given it to me before he died, and I was still working my way through the sheer plethora of ideas within. He had design notes on just about every city in the country (maybe even in the world), from urban planning to architectural layouts to defence strategies-and he'd made them work for him, too. I'd last been perusing his plan of Philadelphia, where he'd literally created a personal home alarm system out of a national monument.
Fortunately, Daedalus's laptop was safe inside its protective cover. I set it aside and dug out the rest of my belongings: a few spare clothes, my invisibility hat, the emergency stash of golden drachmas, ambrosia, and nectar that the Hunters had given me, and a prism and flashlight for sending Iris messages. I'd learnt the hard way to carry only the basics when travelling long distances. Anything else I needed at camp was kept permanently in a trunk under my bunk.
Once my bag was empty, I gave it a shake to dislodge the poop, which was now caked into little clumps. The bag made a surprisingly solid thump against the porch rail. Puzzled, I ran my hand along its spine. There was something hard and flat wedged in the back panel.
Inside, a seam had opened up halfway down the bag. I used my knife to cut away the rest of the fabric panel. Lodged at the bottom was a green leather-bound diary.
It took me a while to remember how I'd acquired the book. Two years ago, when Thalia had joined the Hunters, she'd left the diary in my possession. Thalia had found it in a cave in Charleston-the place she'd first met Luke. She'd thought he'd left it to her as a message.
I'd never read it. Maybe I'd meant to, but shortly after receiving it, I'd gotten caught up in researching the Labyrinth and flying across the country to live with my dad. The diary must have gotten wedged in my bag's hidden panel and gone unnoticed all this time.
The book fell open to a page near the end. The paper was old and yellowed, and some of the pages were stuck together with ancient globs of candle wax. There were a few lines on the left page, scrawled in large messy letters that overlapped one another and ran haphazardly across the ruled lines, as if they'd been written on an uneven surface. Between my dyslexia, the awful handwriting, and the misspelling of half the words, it took me a while to decipher what it said.
-like my dad. It's my job to take care of them. I'm gonna hunt down every monster I can find. That's what the gods should have done for us.
I tried to turn to the previous page, but the old wax had glued several of the preceding pages together. The right page was blank, but the reverse side bore the faint imprint of letters. Those pages were stuck together, too.
Had Luke written this? It was hard to imagine him keeping a diary. I'd certainly never seen him at it, whether during our travels together or here at camp. Like the rest of us demigods, with our brains hard-wired for reading ancient Greek, Luke was dyslexic. We didn't write anything if we could help it. What could have compelled him to write down his thoughts?
I flipped to the cover. On the inset, someone had written in all-caps, PROPERTY OF HALCYON GREEN. Under that, they'd underlined the words: do not open, or I will bestow a deadly curse on you. I can do it, too. I'm a son of Apollo.
I slammed the book shut, cursing my own stupidity. Why hadn't I considered that the book might be a trap?
The smart thing to do would be to get rid of it right away, before it could hurt me or anyone else.
But it had come from Thalia. From Luke.
Even after he had betrayed us and orchestrated the Titans' rise, even going so far as to host Kronos in his own body, I couldn't kill the seed of hope inside me: what if Luke could still be redeemed? For some reason, the diary felt like the key to finding the real Luke, buried under Kronos's manipulations. If I could only figure out the secrets it held.
Something our camp director, Mr D-otherwise known as the god Dionysus-had said to me last year stirred in my head: 'If I were you, I wouldn't go in without a string. Otherwise you could lose yourself in the process.'
Did I dare to delve into Luke's past? Was this journal even about Luke's history?
Maybe I should start with this supposed curse. I'd dealt with cursed objects before. Last year, I'd been saddled with the Necklace of Harmonia, an enchanted wedding gift that had brought misfortune upon generations of owners. It had gotten a number of people killed, including Thalia's predecessor, Zoë Nightshade. But I'd eventually managed to track the curse to its source and break it.
This book didn't have the malicious aura that had surrounded the Necklace of Harmonia. I couldn't even be sure that this demigod had really cursed it, or if he was just bluffing, the way Michael had threatened Clarisse (at least, I thought Michael was bluffing). Something about 'Halcyon Green' was familiar as well, although I was pretty sure I didn't know anyone by that name.
The best place to start was probably Apollo cabin. Michael was still off with Kayla, but Will Solace, his second-in-command and our resident healer, was sitting in the middle of a stack of white cloths on his bunk, folding bandages for an emergency first-aid kit. He looked up when I stuck my head in.
'Hi Annabeth. What's up?'
'I was wondering if I could ask you about Apollo's powers.' I squinted around the golden interior (seriously, how did the Apollo kids get any sleep with these too-bright walls?) No one else was in the cabin, which meant I couldn't just waltz in. There was a strict rule against non-sibling campers of the opposite sex being in cabins alone.
Will scratched his head. 'Uh, sure,' he said. He glanced at this stack of unrolled bandages. 'I guess this can wait.'
'I'll help you with them after,' I promised. 'Can we go somewhere and talk?'
Will glanced uneasily out of his window, towards the end of the row of male god cabins. 'This doesn't have anything to do with a, um, fight with Percy, does it?'
'No! And what does Percy have to do with anything?'
Will held up his hands. 'Nothing. I just don't want him to think-you know what, never mind. Let's go to the infirmary. Help me carry the bandages, will you?'
We carted the first-aid kits over to the Big House, where Will piled them on an empty bed.
'Okay,' he said, 'what did you want to know about Apollo?'
'Well, there's this book.' I held up the diary. 'It says a son of Apollo cursed it. Does that actually work? Like, you guys can do some magic and stuff, right?'
Will considered the diary. 'It's possible. Apollo has such a diverse portfolio-almost as large as Hermes-that none of us really have the exact same powers. Sure, we're usually above average in all his basic domains ... archery, healing, music ... but we usually get one specialty.'
'Like you and healing.' Will had been the best healer at camp since he was ten. He tried to look modest, but we both knew it was true.
'Yeah, and Austin's a prodigy with the sax, and Michael's a whiz at rapper rhymes.'
'He threatened to curse Clarisse just now.'
Will laughed. 'He probably could. But it wouldn't be that serious-maybe she'd be speaking in verse for a couple of days or so. That's the extent of our magic. Little things that mostly wear off pretty quick. If you got that book within the last week, I'd worry, but if you've had it for longer, it's probably harmless by now. Magic takes energy to pull off. Like my healing-small cuts and scrapes are easy to patch up, but the big stuff, like neutralising poison, say, that's going to really tire me out. And if I tried to heal someone on the point of death, it could kill me.'
'So the book's probably safe?'
'Well, there are circumstances where it's dangerous to mess with children of Apollo,' Will said. 'Theoretically, if we had our dad's favour, we could get him to avenge our enemies. Legend has it that Apollo orchestrated Achilles's death in the Trojan War because he killed his son, Troilus.'
He paused to let the enormity of this sink in. As far as Greek heroes went, Achilles was probably second only to Heracles in terms of fame. Everyone knew the story: he'd been dipped in the River Styx as a child, gaining him invincibility from harm except in the one weak spot where his mother had anchored him during that poisonous bath. Plotting to do away with someone that protected couldn't have been easy. For a god to go to that much effort, he must have been really pissed off.
'But that was two thousand years ago. These days, Apollo hardly even says hi to us, never mind going to war over something as trivial as peeking in someone's diary.' Will held out his hand for the book. 'I don't sense anything harmful. I can usually tell if something's dangerous, and this feels normal.'
I showed him the front cover, with Halcyon Green's warning. 'Do you know who he is?'
Will shook his head. 'Never heard of him.' He furrowed his eyebrows, possibly wondering why I wanted to peruse some unknown demigod's private diary, but he didn't pry. 'But to answer your question-I think the book's probably safe.'
'Thanks.' I helped Will outfit the rest of his first-aid kits before returning to my cabin to crack open the diary again.
The first entry was just as messy as the final page, but the handwriting seemed different:
This is hell. I can't believe he did this to me. My voice, my freedom ...
I'm going to die here. I can't see any other end. Then again, I've never been able to see my own future.
Oh Cath. If only you hadn't got on that plane.
There was a break in the writing, and then:
Oh gods, it happened again. The first time, I thought it was just bad luck, demigods running into crap like I have, but now ...
Something's drawing them here.
'Your voice will only lead people to their deaths,' Apollo said. What if that's part of this curse as well?
It went on like this for several pages, with disjointed paragraphs that bemoaned events I couldn't make sense of. None of this sounded like anything Luke had ever done.
I thumbed to a spot nearer to the end, hoping a different entry might shed more light. Here, the writing was again different. It was similar in style to the opening page, but small and cramped, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes. The letters were squeezed neatly into two rows per line, as though the writer had worried about running out of space.
... tried to help them, but it was the same. It's always the same. The bars rise at sunset, and the locusts always win.
Puzzled, I squinted at the unlikely word. At last, I decided that it read leucrota. That was still an unfamiliar term, but I had the vague idea that it was some sort of monster.
At least this kid had plenty of provisions. It will keep me going for longer, which means more time before I have to lure another kid to their death.
This was even more confusing. None of this tallied with what I knew of Luke and Thalia's life before I'd met them. Like me, they'd both run away, Luke when he was nine, Thalia at ten. They'd met in a dragon's cave in Charleston and teamed up for two years before they found me. Neither had ever talked about leucrota or luring other kids to their death.
Then I noticed the date printed at the top of the page: November 3, 1980. Years before any of us had even been born.
That settled it. This diary couldn't be Luke's after all. He must have inherited it, or stolen it. But why? And why had he passed it on?
Gritting my teeth, I went back to the beginning. This was worse than summer reading homework, where I could at least flip to the end of the book and work out the plot before working my way through the actual story-starting with an overall strategy in my head before checking out the tactics, in a way. This diary was impossible-the beginning and end didn't seem to connect at all. The only way I was going to work out how it had made its way to Luke, and then Thalia, was to slog through it from beginning to end.
The disconnected entries went on for at least ten pages before I finally arrived at the first dated entry: June 21, 1978.
I think that's the date, anyway. Gods, it's been twenty years. I need to organise my thoughts. I'm going crazy stewing in them. And damn Apollo if I'm going to sit with those monsters just to talk it out to myself. Maybe if I write out the whole story, I can make sense of my whole miserable life.
I will do my best to record it as accurately as possible. Trapped here for two decades, stewing in my own thoughts, the memories are suddenly clearer than they've ever been.
I guess I should start with Cath.
Finally, I was getting somewhere. But at that moment, a loud gong rang out-the gong for dinner. Cursing, I folded down the top of my page to mark my spot. I guess it didn't matter. It probably wasn't urgent for me to get the bottom of the mysterious Halcyon Green's story. It was even possible that it wouldn't have anything to do with Luke in the end. I put the diary away and went to lead my siblings to the dining pavilion.
Chapter 3