THE HEALER| Heroes of Olympus

II

On our way to the mess hall I told Jasper about my dream. We both didn't know what to make of it. It wasn't exactly a vision of the future..more of Gaea trying to get to me. We both didn't know who the lady I'd seen at the cliff was either. 

I had started to hate that the mess hall's walls show real-time scenes from Camp Half-Blood. The scenes from back home – the campfire sing-alongs, dinners at the pavilion, volleyball games outside the Big House – just seemed to make me sad. The further we got from Long Island,the worse it got.

 The time zones kept changing, making me feel the distance every time I looked at the walls. Here in Italy the sun had just come up. Back at Camp Half-Blood it was the middle of the night. Torches sputtered at the cabin doorways. Moonlight glittered on the waves of Long Island Sound. The beach was covered in footprints, as if a big crowd had just left.

With a start, I realized that yesterday – last night, whatever – had been the Fourth of July. We'd missed Camp Half-Blood's annual party at the beach with awesome fireworks prepared by Leo's siblings in Cabin Nine.

I remembered the images I'd seen in my dream – the camp in ruins, littered with bodies;Octavian standing at the volleyball pit, casually talking in Gaea's voice.

I stared down at my eggs and bacon. I wished I could turn off the wall videos.

"So," Jason said, "now that we're here ..."

He sat at the head of the table, kind of by default. Since we'd lost Annabeth, Jason had done his best to act as the group's leader. Having been praetor back at Camp Jupiter, he was probably used to that, but I could tell he was stressed. His eyes were more sunken than usual. His blond hair was uncharacteristically messy, like he'd forgotten to comb it.

I glanced at the others around the table. Hazel was bleary-eyed, too, but of course she'd been up all night guiding the ship through the mountains. Her curly cinnamon-colored hair was tied back in a bandanna, which gave her a commando look.

Next to her sat her boyfriend Frank Zhang, dressed in black workout pants and a Roman tourist T-shirt that said CIAO! (was that even a word?). Frank's old centurion badge was pinned to his shirt, despite the fact that the demigods of the Argo II were now Public Enemies Numbers 1 through 9 back at Camp Jupiter. His grim expression just reinforced his unfortunate resemblance to a sumo wrestler.

Then there was Hazel's half-brother, Nico di Angelo.  He sat back in his leather aviator jacket, his black T-shirt and jeans, that wicked silver skull ring on his finger and the Stygian sword at his side. His tufts of black hair stuck up in curls like baby bat wings. His eyes were sad and kind of empty, as if he'd stared into the depths of Tartarus – which he had.

Jasper sat next to me. He was about the only one who looked alert and ready..which I guess sleeping for a full day would do that. He wore a chain necklace and all his silver rings on his fingers. He had multiple earrings in his ears today..I counted four studs and one thick band that wrapped around his cartilage. He was wearing a short sleeve mahogany red t shirt that showed off his muscular arms. His arms weren't the bulky type of muscular but the lean type of muscles. The red shirt brought out his eyes and matched his dark brown hair. 

The only absent demigod was Piper, who was taking her turn at the helm with Coach Hedge, our satyr chaperone. 

I wished Piper were here. She had a way of calming things down with that Aphrodite charm of hers. After my dreams last night, I could use some calm.

On the other hand, it was probably good she was above deck chaperoning their chaperone. Now that we were in the ancient lands, we had to be constantly on guard. I was nervous about letting Coach Hedge fly solo. The satyr was a little trigger-happy, and the helm had plenty of bright, dangerous buttons that could cause the picturesque Italian villages below them to go BOOM!