¹Pocket Full of Posies, p. jackson

ii. Crooked (Godly) Families

chapter two
❛ crooked families ❜

━━━━━  LEE ALWAYS TOLD Posie that she hated change too much. But of course she did. When change happened, that brought in the unknown. She didn't like the unknown. Posie liked her patterns and routines; she liked knowing what her day would be from the moment she woke up. She didn't think of that as "boring." It was what she liked. She liked the comfort and security routines gave her.

The worst kind of change was Tantalus replacing Chiron as Activities Director for Camp Half-Blood. Posie could feel the camp she had called home since she was ten changing — it was becoming a shell of what it once was, of what it was meant to be. It was like someone had stormed past the supposedly invincible boundaries, sneaking into Camp to crudely carve out the heart of the place, all to run off like a thief in the night. Which ... is essentially what had happened.

At first glance, Camp Half-Blood didn't look all that different from the previous summer session to now, just as May was ending and June was coming up. The Big House was still standing, painted a baby blue with its gabled roof and its wrap-around porch. The strawberry fields were growing, baking in the sun, as they were ready to be picked for eating. The same white-columned Greek buildings were scattered around the valley — the amphitheater, the combat arena, the dining pavilion that overlooked Long Island Sound. Nestled cozily between the woods and the creek were the same cabins that had always been there — a bizarre-looking assortment of twelve buildings, each representing a different Olympian god.

But it was palpable in the air. Posie could just sense something was off; something was wrong, and her body just knew it. And she wasn't the only one who could tell. Instead of playing volleyball in the sandpit, head counselors and satyrs were stockpiling weapons in the tool shed behind Cabin Six. Dryads were arming themselves with bows and arrows, whispering nervously to one another as they stood at the edge of the woods. The forest was the worst part, and Posie wanted to cry just looking at it — it looked on the brink of death. The grass in the meadow was this sickly, pale yellow, and with the new addition of fire marks left behind by the Colchis bulls on Half-Blood Hill, nature had its own version of ugly scars.

All Posie could do was just watch. In her dreams and visions, she watched; she watched every day, only capable of going through the motions of the routine she had at Camp. It was absolutely horrible. Last summer, Apollo had told Posie something: her ability to see beyond, and more, than what the vast majority of others could see was a gift. It was the gift of foresight, and not many possessed it. She never thought of the nightmares as a gift — she didn't then, as he was telling her this, and now, nearly a whole year later, she still doesn't view it as such. There was no such gift as being able to see horrible things happen, moving through the days with this heavy sense of déjà vu on her shoulders, with the knowledge she couldn't share (partly because many may not believe her, but also because she wasn't even sure how to understand what she was seeing). It nearly drove her mad to know that in all those dreams — the snippets of visions, stitched precariously together by an elderly woman with shaking hands — might just contact something that could help them.

Yet, Posie wouldn't — and couldn't — know for absolute certain, not until after it was all said and done.

Wyatt grabbed Posie by the arm, the two of them a few steps behind Annabeth, Percy, and Tyson. He nodded to the nook where the twelve cabins stood, and Posie looked — out in front of Cabin Eleven, she saw Connor, Travis, and Ethan carrying weapons. She only nodded back, and Wyatt ran off, leaving her to catch up with the three. They were making their way to the Big House, and Percy and Annabeth seemed to be reeling from all that was different — no summer greeting from seasoned campers, nobody was stopping to chat, and there were no "Welcome back!" to greet them. However, they did get some double-takes from shocked campers when they saw Tyson; yet, most just walked grimly past and carried on with their duties, perhaps ducking their heads a bit — running messages, toting swords to sharpen on the grinding wheel. Camp Half-Blood felt like a military school. And believe Posie, she had attended a couple before she had run away from D.C.