¹Pocket Full of Posies, p. jackson

iii. How to Hunt a Manticore

chapter three
❛ how to hunt a manticore ❜

━━━━━  THE NUMBER OF beads on a camper's leather necklace was supposed to represent how seasoned a demigod they were — Posie felt quite the opposite, even with four beads dangling from the leather necklace hanging from her neck. Truth be told, she still felt as inexperienced and terrified as when she was the nine-year-old fleeing D.C., with nothing but the school backpack she had emptied for clothes and snacks (which all consisted of chips and the cans of Cokes she had to smuggle from the kitchen) — that, and the last birthday present she had been given from Mrs. Hall: a golden sixteenth note. It was intended for a charm bracelet, with Mrs. Hall promising they would gather more and more over time.

        Only that never happened — Mrs. Hall had received horrible news from her doctor regarding her health, and Posie ran away after eavesdropping, all unfolding days before her tenth birthday.

        And she thought she knew fear, but the snakes crawling along the length of her bedroom floor prepared her for nothing that was Eva Slora, or as she was better known, Echidna. Posie thought she knew fear — the snakes, the nightly terrors, feeling as if she was being squeezed to death (all to be a part of a large snake's latest meal), and Beau's own "nightly terrors" (which were far more terrifying than Posie's nightmares). Then, when she learned why Mrs. Hall had become so weak, and that had caused a jolt of fear within Posie, knowing enough of cancer to know how it killed — but that all was nothing compared to seeing real-life monsters.

        Barely ten years old, Posie was frozen with fear, outside a deserted animal shelter, tucked away in some small town inside rural Pennsylvania — she was being hunted, like she was the prey, and not that she was the human. To make matters worse, what was hunting her ... It wasn't human. It pretended to be, at first, with a middle-aged woman, toting around her Yorkshire Terrier; then, as Posie was making her way through the town, following the whims of her dreams (which, now she understood, was some part of Apollo guiding her — that, or her foresight, she wasn't quite sure anymore), the woman and her Yorkshire Terrier attacked her when Posie's back was turned and there were no mortals around. And like a fool, she completely froze when she saw what the dog had turned into — the Chimera, with the head of a lion with a blood-caked mane, the body and hooves of a giant goat, and a serpent for a tail.

        Now, at thirteen years old, after her unfortunate run-in with the Sirens, she knew that stemmed from her fatal flaw — fear. It was fear so strong that she doubted herself at times. And four summers later, spending two of those summers making treks across the world under the guise of quests, she still found herself stalling when the fear began to creep back in.

        Unfortunately, Percy had an iron-like grip on her wrist, tugging her after him as he bolted toward the side door to Westover Hall's gymnasium. Even if she wanted to stop in her tracks (which she very much did want to do) and go find another person from the expedition, there wasn't much of a choice she had — Percy, one way or another, was going after the di Angelos. He was insisting that Posie would go with him, one way or another. Compared to her, he only had two beads on his leather necklace, but two summers were plenty of time to learn what was and wasn't monster-hunting etiquette. He knew that to hunt monsters, they should go in larger groups (far bigger than just a pair); he knew that more supplies were needed than just a sword and two daggers. It was wise to take flashlights, ambrosia, and nectar, along with weapons and armor. Percy knew all that, and yet, he was still hurrying his way toward the side door, dragging Posie behind him, making her an unwilling participant.