Changing Fate (Book 2: We're The Same But Different)

7

BEING PRODUCTIVE. Ugh. It's such a human concept. It implies you have limited time (LOL) and have to work hard to make something happen (double LOL). I mean, perhaps  if you were laboring away for years writing an opera about the glories of Apollo, I could understand the appeal of being productive. But how can you get a sense of satisfaction and serenity from preparing food? That I did not understand. Even at Camp Half-Blood I wasn't asked to make my own meals. True, the hot dogs were questionable, and I never found out what sort of bugs were in bug juice, but at least I'd been served by a cadre of beautiful nymphs. Now I was compelled to wash lettuce, dice tomatoes, and chop onions with Emma's help. "Where does this food come from?" I asked, blinking tears from my eyes. I'm no Demeter, but even I could tell this produce was fresh from the earth, probably because of the amount of dirt I had to wash off. The thought of Demeter made me think of Meg, which might've caused me to weep even if I hadn't already been afflicted by onion fumes. Leo dumped a basket of muddy carrots in front of me. "Emmie's got a garden on the roof. Greenhouses. Year-round growing. You should see the herbs—basil, thyme, rosemary. It's amazing." Emmie smiled. "Thank you, dear. You definitely know your gardening." I sighed. Now those two were bonding. I wish Emma and I were bonding. "So Emma Dear, you never answer my question early." Emmie said.
"What question?" Emma asked. "If I remember correctly. She asked if you were my girlfriend." I told her. "I am not his girlfriend. He just wishes." Emma said teasing me. "Really" I teased her. "Huh, just kiss really!" Leo said annoyed. "Leo!" We yelled him. I wasn't going to say it but I wanted to kiss her.
Soon I would be stuck between Emmie and Emma discussing kale-growing techniques and Leo and Josephine waxing poetic about carburetors. I couldn't win. Speak of the daimon: Leo burst through the door next to the pantry, holding aloft a wheel of cheese like a victor's laurel crown. "BEHOLD THE CHEDDAR!" he announced. "ALL HAIL THE CHEESE CONQUERORS!" Josephine, chuckling good-naturedly, lumbered in behind him with a metal pail. "The cows seemed to like Leo." "Hey, abuelita," Leo said. "All da cows love Leo." He grinned at me. "And these cows are red, man. Like...bright red." That definitely made me want to weep. Red cows were my favorite. For centuries I had a herd of sacred scarlet cattle before cow-collecting went out of fashion. Josephine must have seen the miserable look on my face. "We just use their milk," she said hastily. "We don't butcher them." "I should hope not!" I cried. "Killing red cattle would be sacrilege!" Josephine didn't look properly terrified by the idea. "Yeah, but mostly it's because Emmie made me give up meat twenty years ago." "It's much better for you," Emmie chided. "You're not immortal anymore, and you need to take care of yourself." "But cheeseburgers," Jo muttered. Leo plunked the cheese wheel in front of me. "Cut me a wedge of this, my good man. Chop-chop!" I scowled at him. "Don't test me, Valdez. When I am a god again, I will make a constellation out of you. I will call it the Small Exploding Latino." "I like it!" He patted my shoulder, causing my knife to jiggle. Did no one fear the wrath of the gods anymore? "Apollo, you not scary" Emma said as she kissed my cheek which make me blush. While Emmie baked loaves of bread—which I must admit smelled incredible—I tossed a salad with carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and all manner of roof-grown plant material. Emma used fresh lemons and cane sugar to make lemonade, while humming tracks from Beyoncé's album of the same name. Leo cut the cheese. (You can interpret that any way you want.) The cheddar wheel turned out to be bright red all the way through and quite tasty. Josephine made dessert, which she said was her specialty. Today this meant fresh berries and homemade sponge cake in sweet red cream, with a meringue topping lightly toasted with a welding torch. As for the ghost Agamethus, he hovered in one corner of the kitchen, holding his Magic 8 Ball dejectedly as if it were a third-place prize from a three-person competition. Finally, we sat down to lunch. I hadn't realized how hungry I was. It had been quite a while since breakfast, and Festus's in-flight meal service left much to be desired. I shoveled my food in while Emma and Leo told our hosts about our travels west. Between bites of fresh bread with bright red butter, I added commentary as needed, since of course I had the superior storytelling skills. We explained how my ancient foe Python had retaken the original site of Delphi, cutting off access to the most powerful Oracle. We explained how the Triumvirate had sabotaged all forms of communication used by demigods and some demititans—Iris-messages, magical scrolls, ventriloquist puppets, even the arcane magic of email. With the help of Python, the three evil emperors now intended to control or destroy all the Oracles from ancient times, thus putting the very future of the world in a stranglehold. "We freed the Grove of Dodona," I summed up. "But that Oracle simply sent us here to secure the next source of prophecy: the Cave of Trophonius." Emma pointed to my quiver, which lay against the nearest sofa. "Apollo, show them your talking arrow." Emmie's eyes gleamed with the keen interest of an archer. "Talking arrow?" I shuddered. The arrow I had retrieved from the whispering trees of Dodona had so far done me little good. Only I could hear its voice, and whenever I asked its advice, it spouted nonsense in Elizabethan English, which infected my speech patterns and left me talking like a bad Shakespearean actor for hours. This amused Emma to no end. "I will not show them my talking arrow," I said. "I will, however, share the limerick." "No!" Leo said. He dropped his fork and covered his ears unlike Emma. I recited: "There once was a god named Apollo Who plunged in a cave blue and hollow Upon a three-seater The bronze fire-eater Was forced death and madness to swallow." Around the table, an uncomfortable silence fell. Josephine glowered. "Never before has any voice dared to utter a limerick in this house, Apollo." "And let us hope no one will ever do so again," I agreed. "But such was the prophecy of Dodona that brought us here." Emmie's expression tightened, removing any lingering doubts that this was the same Hemithea I had immortalized so many centuries ago. I recognized the intensity in her eyes—the same determination that had sent her over a cliff, trusting her fate to the gods. " 'A cave blue and hollow'..." she said. "That's the Oracle of Trophonius, all right. It's located in the Bluespring Caverns, about eighty miles south of town." Leo grinned as he chewed, his mouth an avalanche of earth-toned food particles. "Easiest quest ever, then. We get Festus wake, then we look up this place on Google Maps and fly down there." "Doubtful," Josephine said. "The emperor has the surrounding countryside heavily guarded. You couldn't fly a dragon anywhere near Bluespring without getting shot out of the sky. Even if you could, the cave entrances are all way too small for a dragon to plunge into." Leo pouted. "But the limerick—" "May be deceptive," I said. "It is, after all, a limerick." Emma sat forward. She had wrapped a napkin around her formerly broken hand—perhaps because it still ached, perhaps because she was nervous. It reminded me of torch wadding—not a happy association after my last encounter with the mad emperor Nero. "What about the last line?" she asked. "Apollo will be forced death and madness to swallow." Josephine stared at her empty plate. Emmie gave her hand a quick squeeze. "The Oracle of Trophonius is dangerous," Emmie said. "Even when we had free access to it, before the emperor moved in, we would only consult the spirit in extreme emergencies with help of the oracle's priestess." She turned to me. "You must remember. You were the god of prophecy." Despite the excellent lemonade, my throat felt parched. I didn't like being reminded of what I used to be. I also didn't like the gigantic holes in my memory, filled with nothing but vague dread. "I—I remember the cave was dangerous, yes," I said. "I don't recall why." "You don't recall." Emmie's voice took on a dangerous edge. "I normally concentrated on the godly side of things," I said. "The quality of the sacrifices. What sort of incense the petitioners burned. How pleasing the hymns of praise were. I never asked what kind of trials the petitioners went through." "You never asked." I didn't like Emmie echoing my words. I had a feeling she would make an even worse Greek chorus than Emma. "I did some reading at Camp Half-Blood," I said defensively. "There wasn't much about Trophonius. Chiron couldn't help, either. Supposedly, Trophonius's prophecies were dark and scary. Sometimes they drove people insane. Perhaps his cave was a sort of haunted house? With, uh, dangling skeletons, priestesses jumping out and saying BOO?"
"No, Apollo petitioners drinking from two special springs guide be the priestess who would give the prophecy after translate it," Emma persisted. "Vanellope is current priestess of the oracle. She's the daughter Mnemosyne and the granddaughter of Hecate, and legacy of Apollo. The demititan's use that oracle too."
"Yes but Vanellope is missing. We believe they capture her after all, only Vanellope can understand the oracle without going mad." Emmie stated.
"How? The cave of Trophonius makes people go mad." I asked looking at both Emma and Emmie
"Vanellope's already insane and mad, but she's just as wise as she is unpredictable" Emma explained to me
"Well I thought swallowing death and madness might be a symbolic reference to that mess. You know, poetic license." "No," Josephine muttered. "It's not poetic license. That cave literally drove our daughter mad." A cold draft swept across my neck, as if the Waystation itself had let out a forlorn sigh. I thought about the apocalypse I'd seen crayoned on the wall of the child's now-abandoned bedroom. Emma got up and ran out. "Emma dear." Emmie. "I'll talk to her." I said the ran after her.