Daughter Of Lightning - Book 1(Percy Jackson x OC fanfic)

CHAPTER 38

(Percy's POV)

We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated us as if we’d won some reality-TV contest.

According to camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence.

Nora’s shroud was so beautiful-blue silk with embroidered lightning-I told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched me & told me to shut up.

Being the son of Poseidon, I didn’t have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin volunteered to make my shroud. They’d taken an old bed sheet & painted smiley faces with X’ed-out eyes around the border, & the word LOSER painted really big in the middle. It was fun to burn.

As Apollo’s cabin led the sing-along & passed out s’mores, I was surrounded by my old Hermes cabinmates, Annabeth’s friends from Athena, Grover’s satyr buddies, who were admiring the new searcher’s license he’d received from the Council of Cloven Elders & most importantly Nora.

The council had called Grover’s performance on the quest “Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns & whiskers above anything we have seen in the past.”

The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told me they’d never forgive me for disgracing their dad. That was okay with me.

Even Dionysus’s welcome-home speech wasn’t enough to dampen my spirits.

“Yes, yes, so the little brat didn’t get himself killed and now he’ll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday….”

I moved back into cabin three, but it didn’t feel so lonely anymore. I had my friends to train with during the day. At night, I lay awake & listened to the sea, knowing my father was out there.

Maybe he wasn’t quite sure about me yet, maybe he hadn’t even wanted me born, but he was watching. And
so far, he was proud of what I’d done.

As for my mother, she had a chance at a new life. Her letter arrived a week after I got back to camp. She told me Gabe had left mysteriously-disappeared off the face of the planet, in fact.

She’d reported him missing to the police, but she had a funny feeling they would never find him.

On a completely unrelated subject, she’d sold her first life-size concrete sculpture, entitled The Poker Player, to a collector, through an art gallery in Soho. She’d gotten so much money for it, she’d put a deposit down on a new apartment & made a payment on her first semester’s tuition at NYU.

The Soho gallery was clamoring for more of her work, which they called “a huge step forward in super-ugly neorealism.”

But don’t worry, my mom wrote. I’m done with sculpture. I’ve disposed of that box of tools you left me. It’s time for me to turn to writing. At the bottom, she wrote a P.S. Percy, I’ve found a good private school here in the city. I’ve put a deposit down to hold you a spot, in case you want to enroll for seventh grade. You could live at home. But if you want to go year-round at Half-Blood Hill, I’ll understand.

I folded the note carefully and set it on my bedside table. Every night before I went to sleep, I read it again, & I tried to decide how to answer her.

On the Fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus’s kids, they weren’t going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. They’d anchored a barge offshore & loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles.

When I made it to the beach I saw Nora & Annabeth waiting for me. When I looked at Nora, I'll admit my jaw dropped slightly. She was wearing a beautiful blue sundress which matched the colour of her eyes. Her hair was also let down which added to her pretty look.

Nora, who’d seen the show before, explained that the blasts were sequenced so tightly they’d look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale would be a couple of hundred- foot-tall Spartan warriors who'd crackle to life above the ocean, fight, then explode into a million colors.

As Nora & I were spreading a picnic blanket, Annabeth stood to one side. Grover showed up to tell us good-bye.

He was dressed in his usual jeans, T-shirt & sneakers, but in the last few weeks he’d started to look older, almost high-school age. His goatee had gotten thicker. He’d put on weight. His horns had grown at least an inch, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.

“I’m off,” he said. “I just came to say...well, you know.”

I tried to feel happy for him. After all, it wasn’t every day a satyr got permission to go look for the great god Pan. But it was hard saying good-bye. I’d only known Grover a year, yet he was my oldest friend.

Annabeth & Nora gave him a hug. Nora told him to keep his fake feet on. I asked him where he was going to search first.

“Kind of a secret,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I wish you could come with me, guys, but humans & Pan...”

“We understand,” Annabeth said.

“You got enough tin cans?” Nora asked.

“Yeah.”

“And you remembered your reed pipes?”

“Jeez, Nora,” he grumbled. “You’re like an old mama goat.” But he didn’t really sound annoyed. We laughed.

He gripped his walking stick & slung a backpack over his shoulder. He looked like any hitchhiker you might see on an American highway-nothing like the little runty boy I used to defend from bullies at Yancy.

“Well,” he said, “wish me luck.”

He gave Annabeth & Nora another hug. He clapped me on the shoulder, then headed back through the dunes.

Fireworks exploded to life overhead: Hercules killing the Nemean lion, Artemis chasing the boar, George Washington (who, by the way, was a son of Athena) crossing the Delaware.

“Hey, Grover,” I called.

He turned at the edge of the woods.
“Wherever you’re going-I hope they make good enchiladas.”

Grover grinned, & then he was gone, the trees closing around him.

“We’ll see him again,” Annabeth said.

"Oh we definitely will.." Nora said slinging her arms over Annabeth & my shoulders.

I tried to believe it. The fact that no searcher had ever come back in two thousand years...well, I decide not to think about that. Grover would be the first. He had to be.

With that we returned to enjoy the celebrations with the campers...

2 more chapters to go...wow😯

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Take care my lovely readers.❤
Alice signing off.
XOXO.