Hazel and the Phantoms

Conspiracy Theory

"How was your first day of school?" Frank asked that night at the praetor's table.

"You're gonna think I'm crazy." Hazel said, looking up from her math homework.

"Why?"

"Okay, so... I made two friends."

"What's weird about that? That's awesome!"

"What's weird is that I think that one might be a demigod. Or descended from a demigod. Something like that."

Frank blinked a couple times. "What makes you think that?"

"I saw her talking to a guy..."

"I'm confused."

Hazel rolled her eyes. "Okay, so you know that band that Percy's roommate introduced him to?"

"Are you talking about Julie and the Phantoms?"

"Yes."

"I'm aware of it." Frank said nervously. "That one song, Stand Tall? Literally our lives in song form."

"One of the friends I made was Julie."

"Julie as in Julie and the Phantoms Julie?"

"The same."

"Isn't the rest of her band a bunch of holograms or something?"

"I don't think they are holograms. I saw her talking to one at school."

"Were they doing a duet or something?"

"No. They were just talking. I got my schedule, I walked out of the office, and that's when I saw them. I looked at the boy next to me to ask who he was, and he said that he didn't know who Julie was talking to and that she was on the phone."

"So he didn't see this guy?"

"No, and then the guy poofed."

Frank gave Hazel a confused look. "He poofed?"

Hazel took a look at her plate, then looked around. "Wind spirits, I'd like more french fries please!"

One of the wind spirits, a little girl, smiled at Hazel, putting more french fries on her plate before vanishing. Hazel looked back over at Frank. "Like that, but with purple smoke being left behind."

"He poofed."

"Yes."

"That's not how holograms work..."

"And then I looked at a picture from one of their concerts, remembering that this guy had Troy Bolton from the first High School Musical esque hair. Sure enough..." Hazel pulled out her phone, showing Frank the picture she had found from when the group played at the Orpheum, zooming in on the guy in a blue suit. "He here is."

"God, his hair really does look like Troy's in High School Musical..." Frank said, shaking his head. "Wait a minute... Isn't that supposed to be one of the holograms?"

"Yeah." Hazel said, zooming back out on her phone. "Notice anything weird?"

"Why is there a yellow light coming from the guys, but not Julie?" Frank asked after staring at the picture for thirty minutes.

"Exactly! What if, and this is where you can tell me that I'm insane, the name of the band is being literal. It's Julie and some phantoms."

"You think that she's playing with ghosts?"

"It even sounds crazy when you say it."

"If that's true, that raises a lot of questions." Frank said, taking a deep breath. "Number one, why can Julie see them?"

"Number two, why is it that mortals can see them when they play with Julie?"

"Number three, can they be seen if they play without Julie, or is she mandatory?"

"Number four, can the rest of Julie's family see them?"

"Number five, if Julie is, somehow, descended from a god or goddess, which one is she descended from?"

"Number six, why aren't these guys in the Underworld?"

"Number seven, how many people who have died are like this?"

"Number eight, is Jason like this?"

That gave Frank pause. "That was something I hadn't thought of, but now I'm concerned."

"I've been thinking about this all day. It would explain why I didn't see him down there."

"True, but if that's true, then number nine, why is Jason like this?"

"Number ten, do we tell anyone this?" Hazel asked. "He's our friend, dead, alive, or reincarnated. If he's like the guys in Julie and the Phantoms, we need to help him get to Elysium. I honestly don't think that we can do that alone."

"Number eleven, what if he isn't like them?" Frank asked. "You know that I would give anything to see Jason one last time, but what if we're just looking at something that isn't true? What if we're looking for a problem where there isn't one?"

"You mean, what if I'm looking for a problem where there isn't one?" Hazel corrected.

"I did not say that-"

"You didn't have to. I'm capable of reading between the lines. I may not know anything about the 21st century, but I'm not entirely clueless." Hazel said, taking a deep breath. "Frank, I know what I'm talking about. I know what I saw. If there's a chance that Jason is in trouble from this, we have to do something."

"I know. You're right. We have to do something. We owe it to Jason." Frank said uneasily. "The only problem is: how do we do that?"

"I have no idea."

"I say that, until we know for sure, we keep this between ourselves. Once we find out for sure, then we let everyone know. Piper has a good thing going with her girlfriend, Leo finally has a stable situation, Thalia and Reyna don't need false hope, Percy and Annabeth are in their first semester of college, and Nico..."

"Dealing with Bianca was hard enough. He doesn't need to know about Jason right now." Hazel agreed. "I'll figure out something, I promise."