After All This Time...

Chapter 3

 That night, Annabeth slept without nightmares, which just made her uneasy when she woke up—like the calm before a storm.

Leo docked the ship at a pier in Charleston Harbor, right next to the seawall. Along the shore was a historical district with tall mansions, palm trees, and wrought-iron fences. Antique cannons pointed at the water.

By the time Annabeth came up on deck, Jason, Frank, and Leo had already left for the museum. According to Coach Hedge, they'd promised to be back by sunset. Piper and Hazel were ready to go, but Annabeth took a moment to lean on the starboard rail and gaze over the bay.

She took a deep breath of the salty sea air. It reminded her of the beach at Camp where the Hephaestus cabin put on a fireworks show every fourth of July. It also reminded her of Percy. She hadn't seen him since Olympus had closed, not that she had seen him much before then. Annabeth wondered how he was being affected by the whole gods with split personalities thing. She wondered if he still had the grey streaks in his hair. Over last year, while Hera had kinapped her and wiped her memories, the grey had faded from her hair. Annabeth tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Losing the grey made her feel sad. Like she had lost the last piece she had of him.

Shaking off her growing unease, she turned to Piper and Hazel. "Okay, ladies. Let's find the ghost of the Battery."

Afterward, Annabeth wished she'd just stayed behind on the ship. She even would've preferred a museum full of ghosts.

Not that she minded hanging out with Hazel and Piper. At first, they had a pretty good time walking along the Battery. According to the signs, the seaside park was called White Point Gardens. The ocean breeze swept away the muggy heat of the summer afternoon, and it was pleasantly cool under the shade of the palmetto trees. Lining the road were old Civil War cannons and bronze statues of historical figures, which made Annabeth shudder. She thought about the statues in New York City during the Titan War, which had come to life thanks to Daedalus's command sequence twenty-three. She wondered how many other statues around the country were secretly automatons, waiting to be triggered.

Charleston Harbor glittered in the sun. To the north and south, strips of land stretched out like arms enclosing the bay, and sitting in the mouth of the harbor, about a mile out, was an island with a stone fort. Annabeth had a vague memory of that fort being important in the Civil War, but she didn't spend much time thinking about it.

Mostly she breathed in the sea air and tried not to think about about Percy. She was relieved when they turned away from the seawall and explored the inland side of the gardens.

The park wasn't crowded. Annabeth imagined that most of the locals had gone on summer vacation, or were holed up at home taking a siesta. They strolled along South Battery Street, which was lined with four-story Colonial mansions. The brick walls were blanketed with ivy. The facades had soaring white columns like Roman temples. The front gardens were bursting with rosebushes, honeysuckle, and flowering bougainvillea. It looked like Demeter had set the timer on all the plants to grow several decades ago, then forgotten to come back and check on them.

"Kind of reminds me of New Rome," Hazel said. "All the big mansions and the gardens. The columns and arches."

Annabeth nodded. She remembered reading how the American South had often compared itself to Rome back before the Civil War. In the old days their society had been all about impressive architecture, honor, and codes of chivalry. And on the evil side, it had also been about slavery. Rome had slaves, some Southerners had argued, so why shouldn't we?

Annabeth shivered. She loved the architecture here. The houses and the gardens were very beautiful, very Roman. But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects.