Dreams of Demigods

Chapter 15

Allison's POV 15

The dining pavilion was huge. There were 12 benches in all, each for a cabin. There was no roof to cover the tables, and no walls, so it was easy to enter and exit. Cherry and I walked over to the Hermes table, where Travis and Connor were saving us seats. I sat next to Connor, and Cherry sat on my other side. I had a feeling she wasn't a big fan of the Stolls at the moment, because of the toilet water incident.

"So," I said, "what's for dinner?"

"You'll see," replied Travis with a smirk.

I looked at Connor for an answer, but he just smiled and didn't say anything. I was worried. What did everyone eat here at camp? Were they cannibals or something? Connor said the food was good, so it must not have been something disgusting. I pushed my creepy thoughts to the back of my head, cause they were starting to freak me out. Then I smelled something like steak, and my creepy thoughts came back to me. Did they roast the people before they ate them? Before I could get more nervous, I saw girls bringing platters of food. But they didn't look like regular girls. Their skin had a greenish tint to it, and they had flowers in their hair.

"Connor," I whispered, "who are those girls?"

"Dryads," he responded, and then noticed the confused look on my face, "they're tree nymphs."

"Okaaaay..." I said, even though it still didn't make any sense.

The dryads put down their platters, and I saw... regular food. There was barbecue food, bread, cheese, fruit, and other healthy foods. I breathed a sigh of relief. These people weren't cannibals after all. I put some food on my plate and was about to take a bite when Connor said, "Wait."

"What?" I asked.

"Before we eat, we sacrifice some of our food to the gods," Connor told Cherry and I. I looked over to what seemed like a giant bronze bathtub. Campers were scraping part of their food into the fire burning in the bathtub thing. "When the food burns, the smell pleases the gods. You can also say a prayer to your godly parent, or any god I guess, cause the gods like to be honored and all," Connor explained, smirking with pride.

"That's weird," Cherry said, "but I can roll with it."

"What's that bathtub thing called?" I asked.

"Oh, it's a brazier," Connor answered with a laugh. I guess it was kinda dumb of me to call it a bathtub, but at least now I knew.

"Come on everyone," Luke said. Everyone from the Hermes table walked over to the brazier and scraped a part of their meal into the fire, one by one. When I got to the front of the line, I scraped a part of my barbecue into the fire and prayed to my mom.

"Please mom, whoever you are, claim me soon." And because I didn't want to be rude I added, "Have a nice day." I walked away from the brazier, went back to my seat at the table, where no one was eating yet. As we waited for all the other campers to sit down, I looked at my empty glass.

"Connor, how do we get our drinks?" I whispered.

"Just think of whatever non-alcoholic drink you want, and it'll appear in the cup," he whispered back. I imagined my glass filling up with water, and a few seconds later, the cup had water in it. Woah, I thought.

I was going to ask someone if we could eat yet because I was pretty hungry, but a man in a leopard print shirt stood up. Connor had told me earlier that this guy was Dionysus, the god of wine, but the campers called him Mr. D. Apparently, Mr. D hated the kids here and tried to make their lives miserable.

"Hello everyone," Mr. D said, "I have been informed that we have two new campers, Alexis McCoy and Casey Davidson."

Last time I checked, my name was not Alexis McCoy.