Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
🍪 - 002. the tour and pretty girl.
PIPER SOON REALIZED NEITHER VIVI'S NOR ANNABETH'S HEARTS were in the tour. Isa, yeah her name is Isa ( it's actually Louise, but the girl told Piper to call her Isa ) told the two girls to go and get a bit of rest and she'll continue Piper's tour. With a tight smile Vivi waved goodbye to Piper and told Isa she would see her later, and Annabeth followed after her best friend.
"Well," Isa smiled, "It looks like it's just us. Come on, the Camp is fun!"
Piper smiled.
Isa talked about all this amazing stuff the camp offered - magic archery, pegasus riding ( Isa's favorite ), the lava wall, fighting monsters ─ which she told Piper she had a lot of experience with and the girl didn't know if daughter of Iris was kidding or not. She pointed out the open-air dining pavilion that overlooked Long Island Sound ( yes, Long Island, New York; they'd traveled that far on the chariot ). The girl explained how Camp Half-Blood was mostly a summer camp, but some kids, like she herself, stayed here year-round, and they'd added so many campers it was always crowded now, even in winter.
Piper wondered who ran the camp, and how they'd known Piper and her friends belonged here. She wondered if she'd have to stay full-time, or if she'd be any good at the activities. Could you flunk out of monster fighting? A million questions bubbled in her head.
As they climbed a hill at the edge of camp, Piper turned and got an amazing view of the valley ─ a big stretch of woods to the northwest, a beautiful beach, the creek, the canoe lake, lush green fields, and the whole layout of the cabins ─ a bizarre assortment of buildings arranged like a Greek omega, Ω, with a loop of cabins around a central green, and two wings sticking out the bottom on either side. Piper counted twenty cabins in all. One glowed golden, another silver. One had grass on the roof. Another was bright red with barbed wire trenches. One cabin was black with fiery green torches out front.
All of it seemed like a different world from the snowy hills and fields outside. "The valley is protected from mortal eyes," Isa said. "As you can see, the weather is controlled, too. Each cabin represents a Greek god ─ a place for that god's children to live. See over there," she pointed towards the cabin with white walls covered with various rainbow-colored gems, "That's my mom's cabin, Iris. It's a lot more exciting on the inside."
"It's pretty." Piper said. "You're saying mom was a goddess."
Isa nodded. "You're taking this awfully calmly."
Piper couldn't tell her why. She couldn't admit that this just confirmed some weird feelings she'd had for years, arguments she'd had with her father about why there were no photos of mom in the house, and why dad would never tell her exactly how or why her mom had left them.
