The Mechanic of Ogygia

Eli - Come at me Bro

"Ok, so now that we've got that all figured out, can someone please explain why you all know me?" The question has been itching at me since I met them. The problem was- I felt like I knew them too. Well, mostly Percy and Annabeth. Annabeth. Hearing the name, even in my head, have me his feeling. It wasn't love- it was more of a fatherly, protective feeling, which didn't make much sense, since I was only ten, and she was, what, 17? More of a brotherly feeling, I suppose. But it was mixed with a pang of regret, like I had failed at protecting her or something.

Will shifted his eyes around. "It's a long story. I couldn't do it justice. We should wait for Annabeth."

"Why?"

"Ok, I'm not going to give you any details, but you're a rebirth of a-a friend of hers."

"Like how when you die, if you're a hero, you go to Elysium, but you can try for rebirth to get into the Isles of the Blest?"

"Exactly. So tell me, are you a demigod?"

"Well, both my parents are children of Hermes. So I guess I'm a grand-child of Hermes?"

"I've always wondered how rebirth worked. Like, do you have parents, do you remember your past life, I dunno." Leo considered. "I guess I mostly wondered, since ever since I found out about the gods and how the Underworld works, I- I've been expecting to see my mom's rebirth. She was such an amazing person, of course she made it to Elysium. But she always shot for the stars, you know?"

"Maybe she stayed in Elysium so that she could meet with you some day, tell you she loves you. Then you could both try for rebirth." Will offered.

Leo blushed. "I dunno. Thanks."

"So is that all there is? Your friend died, and now I'm him? What was his name?"

"It's a little complicated. Annabeth should be the one to tell you the whole story- she knew you-him- best. And his name was Luke. Luke Castellan."

"Luke Castellan. Well, I'm Eli Lucas Duetere."

"Lucas is your middle name? Wow. Hang on. This is a really weird question, but can I see your armpit?" asked Will.

"Uh..."

"I just want to see."

I pulled my shirt sleeve to show them the birthmark on my armpit. "I was born with it." It was a small, brownish, mostly straight line.

"That's where..." Will whispered.

"What?" These peoples vague statements were staring to get on my nerves. I was starting to understand the flashbacks, the weird deja vu that I felt, the strange pains in my armpit and down my face. And they still wouldn't give me all the answers. I figured I should let them, though. Their friend had died about ten years ago, and now here I was, his rebirth.

"Look, let's just cure the Python venom and then I promise Annabeth will tell you the whole story. If you want to hear it."

"Of course I want to!"

"Alright. Then let's get working."

"What I'm confused about is the fact that my dad told me the paper had a spell, but it was just a bad haikus and a coded list of ingredients," Will complained. "Why do the gods have to be so dang vague?"

"I don't know, man. Right now we should get cracking. Didn't the poem have a bunch of crossed out stuff? We should see if the crossed out parts have anything important," Leo suggested. Will handed him the paper, shrugging. "Dang," he said, "dyslexia."

"Here," I said. He handed it to me.

I read it over. "Let's see, there's only a few words scratched out. They seem to be words from the haiku that he spelled wrong. Oh, I've got it! There was this one book I read, The Series of Unfortunate Events. There was a coded letter where every spelling mistake mixed together to form a word!" He exclaimed. "Let's see, there's coal with an A, withowt with an extra W, and lefe with an E instead of I. So far it spells... Awe? That doesn't sound like any kind of spell word." I flipped it over. "Oh, there's stuff on the back too."

Leo grabbed me a pad of pink post-it notes and a blue pen out of his tool belt. I wrote down the letters we already had.

I grabbed the piece of paper and put it on the stone floor of the abandoned building we were standing in. I smoothed it out. There were three mistakes- Mekican, rastaurant, and Stans instead of Stars.

I wrote the letters down. It spelled...

"Awekan? It sounds like a Star Wars name!" I said, throwing the pink post-it to the ground. "So that idea was a bust."

"Ah-weh-kahn? Yeah, that doesn't sound like a healing spell," Will observed.

I shrugged. "Any other ideas?"

"Maybe its the letters that it was supposed to be, instead of the ones he messed up on?"

I looked at the paper for a second and said, "Ouixer? Isn't that French? Oui is yes, right?"

"Is xer French?"

"It means be- in Catalan. It's not French," Leo said, holding up a Catalan-English dictionary that he must have pulled out of his toolbelt. That toolbelt was pretty magical- he must have been wondering what xer meant and when he pulled it out, it was a Catalan dictionary.

"So that's out. Why do the dang gods have to be so annoyingly unhelpful!" Will shouted at the stone ceiling. Thunder rumbled from the sky. "Yeah, Zeus! Come at me, bro!" He looked like he was about to pound his chest like a gorilla. "Gah!" He stomped his foot, and then shoved his face into his hands.

"Will, chill. It's gonna be ok," said a soft voice from behind us. I turned to see the girl with the flowing auburn curls. She put her hand on his back. "Nico is gonna be ok. We're gonna solve this, I promise." Will's heaving shoulders started to slow.

"Thanks," he said, pulling his face out of his hands. "We got this." He scooped up the pen and post-it notes from the floor next to his canvas shoes. "Awaken? That's the name of the spell that Lee taught me in case Kronos released a certain monster- the- the Python! That's it! I remember the spell! You had to mix certain ingredients together in a ceramic bowl- Lee didn't tell me the ingredients, but I bet its the ones that we figured out. And then you say the Awaken spell. I remember it, it was really fun to practice since it rhymed and-"

"Will? You're kind of rambling on and on," Leo mentioned.

"Right. So we feed them the mixture and I'll say the spell, and they'll wake up."

"Great! So now we go get ceramic bowls?" I asked.

Will grinned. "To Target!"