¹Pocket Full of Posies, p. jackson

xv. Up On Mt. Olympus

chapter fifteen
❛ up on mt. olympus ❜

━━━━━  IT WAS QUITE startling to see just how easily mortals could (and would) warp the truth of it all to fit into the confines of what they could only feasibly understand. Alarming, yes, but a small part of her was also ... envious. To so easily chalk up all the crazy stuff to anything but the Greek gods and monsters — Josephine was green with envy that she couldn't do the same. She wished she could. She wished she could just see what the mortals saw and then go back to her mortal home, with her mortal family (maybe with some mortal pets, too), and live out her mortal life, perhaps mentioning the crazy fight on the beach in passing for small talk.

Yet, she couldn't. She couldn't do any of that. This — the gods, the monsters — was her life. She was no regular mortal; she was a demigod, with the blood of Apollo flowing through her body (and it was really messing with her life).

The walk from the beach to the paved ground was rather nerve-wracking — not as nerve-wracking as watching Percy fight Ares or meeting and confronting Hades when they thought he was the Master Bolt thief. (Josephine had doubts that anything could ever top those.) She just didn't know what the mortals would see or assume. Would they immediately handcuff and cart off her, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover to the L.A. police station? Would the mortals assume the four were some sort of victims of some crazy scheme, targeted by the madman Percy had just fought on the Santa Monica beach?

Somewhat.

Many mortals stared at them as the four climbed the last sand dune and made their way onto the cracked, worn sidewalks. Many others refused to look at them, perhaps too scared — maybe they were thinking the four would somehow curse them, or maybe that if they made eye contact, Percy would declare a fight with them. Josephine's skin crawled with so many eyes on her. She didn't blame the mortals any, but part of her wanted to snap at all of them. It wasn't her fault, they didn't have to be staring at her like it was! It wasn't like she asked for her father to be Apollo, or like she asked to go on this quest for the stolen Master Bolt.

She leaned over, grabbing Percy by the upper arm to whisper, "We need a way to get to the airport ..."

The son of Poseidon glanced at her from the corner of his eye. However, before he could do anything, a swarm of mortals suddenly surged forward — a woman dressed nicely, a couple of men with huge hunks of cameras slung on their shoulders, and a large microphone in the woman's hand. A news anchor and her cameraman.

The idea of being on camera, filmed, and broadcast to gods knows how many people made her skin crawl even more — but there wasn't anything she could do about it. The cameramen were already filming, skimming from each ragged face of the four as the news anchor talked at a rapid rate to the one camera pointed at her. Josephine's mind spun as she tried to listen to the story the news anchor was telling. In a matter of minutes from the Percy–Ares battle concluding, a story had already been spun — the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. The crazy kidnapper accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake. (What ironic timing ...)

Josephine silently shook her head as she listened to it all. The crazy kidnapper (Ares) was apparently also the same man who had abducted Percy all the way back in New York State. Then, somehow, the crazy kidnapper managed to grab the nameless girl from the St. Louis Arch explosion (Josephine) and the two other adolescents (Annabeth and Grover) and brought them all the way across the country — a ten-day odyssey of terror. (Which, yes, it was, but not for the reasons all those mortals think.)