¹Pocket Full of Posies, p. jackson

vii. Lost Within Darkness

chapter seven
❛ lost within darkness ❜

━━━━━  AT THE VERY least, Camp Half-Blood was the same. Truthfully, when she was leaving, back in August, as the summer session came to an end, Posie found it hard to leave. In a way, it was surreal, finally leaving the only place she called home to head to another place that was promising to become her home — from Camp Half-Blood to the Pascual-Pereira apartment over in New York City. She wasn't leaving Camp, forced to go on a life-threatening quest; Posie was leaving Camp to forge herself another home (as that was the very thing she hoped for). The few times she had left Camp Half-Blood, it had been for quests, and in the back of her mind, she had worries that there would be no camp to come back to; however, as she left with many of the other campers in August, she had realized what Camp Half-Blood could be — the summer retreat for demigods, instead of a permanent resident. Instead of leaving with dread, she left with laughter and good memories.

        However, in the back of her mind, Posie still couldn't shake the old habit she had picked up from the summers of questing — worrying what Camp would be like upon her return. And after everything that happened on her last day at Westover Hall, she was incredibly relieved to find that Camp Half-Blood was the same.

        Despite the control of the climate and weather Mr. D held over the land Camp sat on, the God of Wine tended to allow snow to fall for the few weeks before Christmas (as it was one of the few times the god was feeling generous and in any mood besides surly and irritable). Fortunately, the snow wasn't coming down in droves; no, instead, it was falling gently from the sky — frost covered the Chariot Track and the strawberry fields. The twelve cabins were decorated with tiny, flickering lights, imitating what many mortals used for their Christmas light — however, instead of tiny bulbs, the lights were real balls of fire (courtesy of some of Hecate's children, naturally). More lights glowed in the woods, and a fire flickered in the attic window of the Big House, where the Oracle dwelt, imprisoned in an old mummified body. Posie couldn't help but wonder if the spirit of Delphi was roasting marshmallows with the bugs up there, enjoying the holidays, despite being stuck in the Big House's dusty attic.

        Truth be told, the only part of Camp that Posie disliked (despite the cold that winter brought) was the fact that her siblings tended to be scattered throughout the mortal world during the school months. They all got to go back to the mortal world while she was stuck, inside the bubble of Camp Half-Blood, waiting for them to come back — only now, during this school year, she had been in the mortal world too. Besides, Lee would be coming back in a couple of days, so he could spend some time with Posie before he had to head back to his mother in Rhode Island, attending high school for his sophomore year.

        "Whoa!" Nico gasped loudly, jumping off the bus into the cold Canoe Lake. "Is that a climbing wall?"

        Shivering in the cold water, Posie took a second to glance back at the younger boy. "Yeah," she answered, wading her way through the rest of the Canoe Lake, trying to stop her teeth from chattering together. "It's for training. It's one of the training activities here at Camp."

        "Training?" repeated Nico, giving her a bewildered look. "Why is there lava pouring down it? What kind of training is that?"

        "Lava's for a little extra challenge," Percy cut in, his tone far more curt than it needed to be (and Posie shot him a look for the callousness he was treating Nico with). "C'mon. I'll introduce you to Chiron. Zoë, have you met —?"