𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞

Chapter 23

The book opens and the screen shown the chapter title
'The Prophecy Comes True'

|Sereia: We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated us as if we'd won some reality TV contest.|

They are having a big feast that was prepared in Annabeth's, Sereia's and Grover's honour. Everyone wears laurel wreaths.
Dionysus: Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get herself killed and now she'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday...
After the feast they go to the bonfire, where they burn the burial shrouds their cabins had made for them in their absence. Sereia looks at Annabeth's shroud.
Sereia: Your shroud is beautiful
Annabeth smiles at her grey silk with embroidered owls shroud. Sereia smiles.
Sereia: It seems a shame not to bury you in it.
She punches Sereia.
Annabeth: Shut up.

They laugh and smile at their friendship.

|Sereia: Being the daughter of Poseidon, I didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make my shroud. They'd taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X'ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle. It was fun to burn.|

As Apollo's cabin leads the sing-along and passes out toasted marshmallows, Sereia is surrounded by her old Hermes cabinmates, Annabeth's friends from Athena and Grover's satyr buddies, who are admiring the brand new searcher's licence he'd received from the Council of Cloven Elders.

|Sereia: The council had called Grover's performance on the quest 'Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past.' The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told me they'd never forgive me for disgracing their dad. That was okay with me. Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech at the feast hadn't been enough to dampen my spirits. I moved back into cabin three, but it didn't feel so lonely any more. I had my friends to train with during the day. At night, I lay awake and listened to the sea, knowing my father was out there. Maybe he wasn't quite sure about me yet, maybe he hadn't even wanted me born, but he was watching. And so far, he was proud of what I'd done. As for my aunt, she had a chance at a new life. Her letter arrived a week after I got back to camp with Hedwig. She told me Gabe had left mysteriously - disappeared off the face of the planet, in fact. She'd reported him missing to the police, but she had a funny feeling they would never find him.|

Their eyes widen. "She used the head?" Sereia smirks but doesn't answers.

|Sereia: On a completely unrelated subject, she'd sold her first life-size concrete sculpture, entitled The Poker Player, to a collector, through an art gallery in Soho. She'd got so much money for it, she'd put a deposit down on a new apartment and made a payment on her first term's tuition at NYU. The Soho gallery was clamouring for more of  her work, which they called 'a huge step forward in super-ugly neorealism'. 'But don't worry, my aunt wrote. 'I'm done with sculpture. I've disposed of that box of tools you left me. It's time for me to turn to writing.' I folded the note carefully and set it on my bedside table. Every night before I went to sleep, I read it again, and I tried to decide how to answer her.|

On the Fourth of July, the whole camp gathers at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. They anchor a barge offshore and loads it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles.