Annabeth Chase and the Necklace of Harmonia

I Call Out a Goddess

I got out of the cab that had brought me away from the chaos at Columbia to camp, paid the driver and stumbled to Thalia's pine, pausing to lean against it for a second and to give Peleus a stroke. The dragon, who knew me quite well from the times I would sketch and read against the trunk of the tree, nuzzled my hand affectionately. I smiled slightly, but that quickly faded from my face when I saw who was waiting for me at the bottom of the hill. 'She wastes no time, does she?' I thought to myself sharply, as I left the shade of the tree and walked down to where the goddess of love was waiting for me.

"Did you get it?" she queried quickly, her high pitched voice that was trying to seem sickly sweet grating on my ears. My reply was to pull the necklace out of my backpack and thrust it towards her. When she saw it, her eyes widened in happiness and she clapped. "Oh, I knew you would get it. I am so proud of you, my dear!"

I just sighed and glared at her. "Before you go; King Oedipus asked me to ask you something".

The eyes of the love goddess closed slightly, almost as if she could sense what I was asking. "Be careful child. Your mother might be Athena but not all knowledge is worth knowing."

"It's only one question, what harm can it do?" I asked in mock sweetness, but her eyes only narrowed even more.

"Ask away, but whatever occurs from the question is your responsibility." Aphrodite said firmly, her eyes locked to mine.

"He wants to know why you made the nurse lie to Theseus about Hippolytus and Phaedra?" I replied in a voice just as firm as hers. "Why did you cause all that death?" Her eyes had practically turned to slits fit for an European medieval castle.

"I did not make the nurse lie, I simply took her likeness. And as for why I did it? I did it because that poor girl was 18 and Theseus was like 60. Hippolytus was a way better match for her, he was closer to her in age and wasn't a lecherous creep like his father. Plus, it would have been fun to steal one of Artemis' closest mortals, she's such a frigid cow!" Aphrodite said with implied boredom, but I could tell the question had rattled her. "And now for the consequences of your question. Now, at that moment when you face your greatest fear head on, I will make sure that it leads to problems for you and Percy. The path of true love never did run smooth, and now you've just made the road a whole lot rougher for you both. Think on me when it happens, and realise I was merciful."

She snatched the necklace from my hands and stormed off in the direction of the cabin her children live in. I sighed and headed towards my cabin to clean myself up. I just hoped that Aphrodite held up her side of the bargain, for Percy's mother's sake as well as my own. I poured some nectar on my scratches, wrapped them up in bandages and slumped back on my bed to rest. But I couldn't, not without knowing Percy was safe, so I slowly sat up, stretched and went to the Big House to see if any progress has been made with the search. Chiron told me there wasn't, especially with the increase in the number of monsters out there with the rising of Gaea. I sat down at the ping pong table and put my head in my hands. Had I ruined our chances of finding Percy by doing what Oedipus had asked of me? I began to cry until no more tears came out. I hid my face and ran back to my cabin, to the safety of my bed where no one could see how broken I was.

Somehow, the sweet emptiness of sleep enveloped me as I lay there crying, something I didn't fully realise until my brother Malcolm woke me up in the middle of the night.

"What!?!" I asked angrily, my dagger at his throat. "You should know better than to wake me in the middle of the night." I snarled heatedly at him.

"Chiron told me to," my brother choked out. "It's Ms. Jackson." My dagger lowered and my heart sank at the mention of the woman who was practically my mother-in-law already. I gathered myself and ran to the Big House to find out what had happened. Chiron passed me the phone when I got there, a serious look on his face. Ms. Jackson was crying heavily on the other end of the line, and my heart sank in fear.

"Ms. Jackson? What's happened? Is it Percy?" I ask worriedly.

"He called me!" She said in disbelief, and my heart started racing in excitement. "Percy called me!"

"What!?!" I exclaim in astonishment, my body shaking slightly with nervous anticipation. How much did he remember? Did he remember me? Does he still love me? Those thoughts and more raced through my head as she spoke on the other end of the phone.

"He's alive, but he's on a quest." She sobbed happily into the phone as she played me a voicemail message from Percy. "He's still with us. Bring him home to me. Please Annabeth."

"I will Ms. Jackson, I promise." Tears had formed in my eyes, and I was crying along with her. "I'll bring Percy back to you. But only after I've taught him never to worry us again." I had several ideas about how to knock some sense into that clump of kelp he called his head, most of them involving me flipping him.

She chuckled through the tears. "I'd have it no other way."

We spent the rest of the night crying together on the phone, longing for the Seaweed Brain we both loved.