"Just write a book" they said. "It'll be easy," they said, "Everyone gets published these days." Yeah, well, it's a little harder when your editors are gods that will turn you into a gecko and use you as a ping pong ball if you don't write them exac...
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SOMETHING WAS WRONG AT CAMP. In a weird way, one I couldn't entirely put my finger on. Like walking into a room right after something big happened that everyone is stressing about without saying anything. Like everything was just slightly off. Nothing had been removed, but just shifted just to the side of where you knew it ought to be.
If you just looked around, you wouldn't see anything different. Camp was in its place. We were currently approaching the Big House, which gave a good look of everything else. The strawberry field was thriving, which was a good sign that the entire valley wasn't poisoned (just the tree...) The collection of Greek buildings were still intact, as if they had been plucked out of history and plopped down yesterday. The cabins looked like...well, the cabins. A motley selection of buildings, each standing out as they were made uniquely to one of the Olympian gods. They were weird, but not out of the ordinary weird, you know?
The difference was in the feeling. Before, camp was a safe and happy place. Campers didn't even worry about the weather. The border split even the worst storms around the camp, leaving it nice and sunny (unless a god decided otherwise – which wasn't often.)
Things had changed. The air was tense. Usually the camp was filled with laughter as campers made games out of their training, or just played in the center area. Now they were stockpiling weapons in the tool shed. I noticed a lot of the younger kids were gone. Chiron must have contacted their parents, too, and got them to keep them at home (unlike us, I thought, and wondered when we might be able to let Mom know we were okay.) At the edge of the woods, I spotted dryads armed with boys and arrows. That was weird. They weren't fighters. When threatened, they would usually run and hide in their trees.
While the strawberry field was safe, the rest of the valley wasn't. The surrounding trees were sickly and the grass was turning a pale yellow. The fire had been put out, there was still massive burn marks.
The people were equally put off. Though I recognized some of the kids that passed us on our way to the Big House, none of them seemed to recognize me. Or if they did, they didn't say anything. The most acknowledgement we got was when people stopped to do a double-take when they spotted Tyson.
Luckily, my misery about this kept getting interrupted. Every time we passed something new, Tyson would gasp "Whasthat!" I focused on explaining everything to him. That was a lot nicer, and had the bonus of being a mini-tour for Pat.
"Those are the cabin's, for the campers," I said, after Tyson pointed to the collection of buildings. "There's one for each Olympian god or goddess. That big brown one, that's the Hermes cabin. Unclaimed kids and kids of minor gods that don't have cabins stay there as well."
Pat studied the cabin in the distance. "That's where I'm going, isn't it?"
"Yeah..."
I gave him a sympathetic look. I remembered my short stay in the Hermes cabin. They were packed, to the point that there were more kids sleeping on the floor than there were in actual beds. At least I had gotten to leave. At least most new kids could imagine that they would eventually leave, because maybe they would have a parent big and important enough to get their own cabin. A Hermes kid might be able to pull rank and get a bed at least.
