¹Pocket Full of Posies, p. jackson

i. In Between Seasons

chapter one
❛ in between seasons ❜

━━━━━ THERE WAS AN immediate shift Posie was witness to, but a shift she had no power to stop — Onesimus no longer spoke with her. There was a moment, immediately after the night Thalia stood from the base of the pine tree named after her, that Posie didn't think twice about his silence. Then, it became three days. Then, a week, two, four weeks, even; eventually, an entire two months had passed — no talking, no quips, no judgmental murmurs as Posie did something he disapproved of. By the gods, he didn't even poke fun at her inability to speak with Wyatt Fitzgerald for the rest of the summer break at Camp Half-Blood — and it felt like her armor had been stripped from her body, leaving her vulnerable to everyday life without his constant chattering in the back of her mind.

For many months following the quest to retrieve the stolen Master Bolt, Posie longed for the day to come for Onesimus to cease his talking. She never thought there would be a day, but now that day was hers ... she hated it. There were many moments where he had gone silent with her before, always when she was cornering him for answers (that he wasn't permitted to give, as she learned not long ago). Even then, Posie always knew he would be back, as he had started speaking to her again after many silent periods, even if all he was talking about was teasing her for how awkward and ungainly she was around Wyatt or Percy. Onesimus annoyed her to no end, but she knew she could count on him for advice if push really came to shove. Well ... beyond all the secrets he kept from her, whether of his own volition or because he swore on the River Styx to a god. It wouldn't bother Posie as much as it does (even if she knew the feelings would be based on hypocritical foundations) if she were able to keep anything a secret from him. There was nothing she could keep from him. He lived her life with her — all the Camp training, the conversations she had with others, all the time she spent in the Underworld. He even knew about her dreams — of the Pascual house with Beau, the old memories of Mrs. Hall (even the last memory of eavesdropping on her conversation with Mrs. Hall's doctor), and even the dreams of Liviana, a girl with green eyes that were the color of poison.

He saw everything to do with Posie; even still, he was an enigma to her, after many, many months of having him always in the back of her mind. He felt more like a figment of her imagination than he did as something tangible, especially as the months of silence wore on. She had no idea, really, what Onesimus was. Was he just a voice in her head? Was he truly just a figment of her imagination, conjured up by her sanity that was barely holding on? Or was he a spirit that had nestled space inside her mind? She had no idea. Given his silence after Hades spoke with her, face to face (without hiding cowardly behind visions of her father and Liviana), Posie naturally assumed Onesimus was somehow connected to the god. "The man," as she had dubbed him until she saw his face, had been speaking with her since Zeus's Master Bolt was stolen two summers ago. It all made sense now — Onesimus started speaking to Posie (repeating things she had told herself, until he became more and more human) right as Hades was being framed for the theft. She didn't know what Hades really wanted, but Posie knew he had known about her ... abilities; enough so that he believed they could somehow be beneficial for him, give him more respect than the rest of the Olympians spared him.

Through all of that, Onesimus continues to be a mystery. Posie had a strong suspicion that he was sent by Hades, who had, in some twisted manner, "recruited" her. (It was too difficult to explain, and she hardly knew how to explain it to herself with what little both Hades and Onesimus were telling her.) Onesimus spoke as if he had been alive once, but that he couldn't die; even then, he also spoke as if he wasn't human, as if he was something other than mortal — perhaps some lesser god. If that was the case, Posie didn't know what Onesimus would gain from all of this, unless he was as much under Hades's thumb as he made it out to be. His voice had changed the moment the marble ring was in her palm — a ring carved to look like an ouroboros, a snake biting down on its own tail. It came straight from the Underworld, replacing the pearl she had thrown to the ground.