EMMELINE || l. castellan

ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 1

Percy POV:

I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.

I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blonde hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.

When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

I managed to croak, "What?" 

She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."

Somebody opened the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding. "Annabeth, what did I tell you about letting him sleep?"

The next time I woke up, I never actually managed to open my eyes. A girl was singing to me. her voice was unbelievably soothing. Her words washed over me like tendrils of warmth. I miraculously fell back into a dreamless sleep.

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than what I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, and a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stock through a maraschino cherry.

My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.

"Careful," said a familiar voice. The only familiar thing about this place.

Grover was leaning against the porch balcony, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. He held a shoe box under his arm. He was wearing blue jeans, converse high-tops, and a bright orange t-shirt that read 'CAMP HALF-BLOOD'. Just plain of Grover. Not the goat boy.

Maybe I had a nightmare. My mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we had to stop at this big house for some reason.

"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... Well, the least I could do... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

He gingerly placed the shoe box in my lap.

Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a dream.

"The Minotaur." I said.

"Percy, it isn't a good idea-"

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half-man. Half-bull."

"You've been out for two days." Grover shifted uncomfortably. "How much do you remember?"

"My mom. Is she really..."

He looked down.

I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.

My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.

»»————-　➴　————-««

The porch wrapped all the way to the farm house.

My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held onto it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.

As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.

We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked  like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen highschool–age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings. 

Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.

The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big wateryeyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels—what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's power parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my stepfather.

"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron..."

He pointed at the guy whose back was to me. 

First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard. 

"Mr. Brunner!" I cried. 

The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz andmade all the multiple choice answers B. 

"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle." 

He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."

"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr. 

"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl. 

She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy, along with another one of our campers, Daphne Emmeline. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now." 

Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron." 

She was probably my age, maybe a couple inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were startling gray, like storm clouds: pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight. 

She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. Iimagined she was going to say, You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're soawesome! or something like that. 

Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep." 

Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.

A/N

Alright guys, you know the rest. Just trying to fill up some gaps in this chapter, we'll get to meet our oc in the next one (spoiler alert: i think you're gonna like her!)