The Hidden Goddess

Chapter 6: I Develop a Stabbing Pain in My Foot

They have a hard time deciding where to put me.

They know I have to stay, but they don't know where I should even sleep.

I'm not an unclaimed demigod, so not the Hermes cabin. I'm not Poseidon's daughter, so not his cabin, though Chiron does entertain that idea for a hot minute.

Eventually Sorin comes up with the winning idea: I can sleep in one of the extra bedrooms in the Big House. Chiron points me up a few staircases and around a few corners that I'm sure to forget by the next time I need to get here.

"You'll sleep there," Chiron says. "There's a bathroom across the hall."

He lets me go up, not following, because, you know, he has a half-horse body.

The room is nice, not splendiferous or anything. It has light lavender walls, a white bed in the middle, a dresser on one wall, and a desk on the other. Very simple furniture and layout. It's nice. I like it. The bathroom is similar: light blue walls, white amenities, a simple layout.

I walk back downstairs and see Chiron waiting for me.

"Is the room satisfactory?" he asks.

"Yeah. It's great," I reply, holding back a sarcastic response. I get the feeling Chiron isn't the type of person—sorry, centaur—to understand or reciprocate sarcasm.

"Splendid. Now, I'm going to have Sorin give you a brief tour. There are many fewer campers here right now than there are in the summer, because only campers who attract too many monsters or have nowhere to go stay year-round."

That's kind of sad. The idea of having nowhere to go and having to stay in this almost-empty camp sounds pretty depressing.

We make it out onto the porch and Chiron says, "Sorin, could you please take Estelle to your cabin and help with the cut on her face and the take her on a brief tour of the grounds? Get her acquainted with some of the year-rounders?"

"Yeah, sure, Chiron," Sorin says. "Follow me, Estelle."

I wonder as we walk towards the cabins whether Sorin is a year-rounder or he just needed to get me here and didn't tell his parents he was coming.

"Those are the strawberry fields," Sorin tells me, gesturing towards the plains just past the Big House. There aren't that many strawberries, but it's late spring, so some plants were in full bloom, and others looked close to that point.

We keep walking, passing more features of the camp that I've only even been told about. The lava wall, the dining pavilion, the volleyball pit. Eventually, we get to the cabins.

"If you were going to be claimed, this would be where I ask whether your mom or your dad was, uh, absent, but..." Sorin trails off.

"But I'm not special like you, so it doesn't apply. Thanks for the reminder," I mutter. My ungodly parentage has always been a bit of a sore spot for me. Of course, I love my parents and my brother. They're amazing. And it's not like Percy asked for his dad to be goddy or anything.

But sometimes I really wish I was like him. I'm never going to have anything interesting happen to me the way that "interesting" seems to be his breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yes, demigoddiness is terrible, and you could die, and blah, blah, blah. But Percy didn't. And Annabeth didn't. And most of Percy's friends are still alive. So obviously there's not, like, a 98% death rate or anything crazy like that.

I'm just sometimes a little bit jealous. Why couldn't I have been the chosen one? Why couldn't I have found my soulmate when I was twelve? Why couldn't I excel in...literally anything?