The Little Lightning Girl

33-Just as I remember

The day I was to leave for Camp Half Blood, my mum stopped me as I went to go out the door. I turned back around and found her standing there with a badly wrapped gift box in her hands.

I put my bag on the ground and asked, "What's that, mum?"

She smiled, "I should've gotten one for you long before. I know how much it meant to you. How it connected you to your grandmother."

My eyes widened, but focused on the package as she put it in my hands, "You didn't..."

Her smile grew and she nodded, "thought it'd be fun for you to take it to camp with you."

I carefully pulled open the red paper wrapping and revealed an instrument case. Dropping the wrapping to the ground, I unzipped the case and saw a beautiful wooden ukulele, remarkably similar to the one I'd had when I was younger.

I could feel my eyes growing misty as I ran a finger over the smooth wood of the instrument. My grandmother's voice echoed through my head, just like the memory I'd used to conjure the Patronus charm all those weeks ago.

I looked back at my mum, "This means... so much. Thank you."

My mum sighed and pulled me into a hug, "Oh darling, I miss her too."

For a few moments, we shared a hug, and then when I'd deemed it enough sentimentality for one morning, I broke away. Zipping up the instrument case, I switched it to my left hand and picked up my other bag with my right.

"Be careful on your flight, don't talk to anyone strange, and have fun at Camp!"

With that, I walked out the door and hopped into the back of a taxi. To be honest, I was incredibly nervous about flying by myself. Not because of the height, no, it was because of all the strange people I'd be around for many many hours. The only reason I was going through with it and not dragging someone with me, was the fact that I was nearing sixteen years old. I'd fought monsters and survived a hell on earth, I could not be scared of airplanes. No older wizards were around to apparate me to camp and Chiron had never re-hooked up the fireplace to the Floo Network so flying was my only option. Apparently Chiron was against random wizards being able to appear in the Big House whenever they pleased, so he'd disconnected the fireplace after the last time I'd used it. I couldn't help but wonder who had made the visit that prompted Chiron's change of mind. I'd dig it out of him later.

The taxi driver took me straight to the airport and from the many times mum and I had traveled earlier in my life, I knew the order of things. Tickets, security, TSA, then wait to board. Without speaking except for when necessary to the airport employees, I navigated these obstacles with little difficulty. In fact, the only difficulty I encountered was because of my own jumpiness. Twice, a harmless person accidentally brushed me while walking past and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I got several strange looks from onlookers. They must have thought I was running away or something, just based on the amount of nerves I was sure I displayed.

But soon enough, I was sitting in an uncomfortable seat at my gate, waiting for them to start boarding the plane.

I hadn't checked either of my things, for multiple reasons. The ukulele, I wanted to keep close to me, as I'd just gotten it and it was likely quite expensive. The other bag had my wand and my swords inside, all disguised as something else. If the wrong person got ahold of that bag... I didn't want to think of the following chaos.

It was when we began boarding the plane that my true irritation showed. I wasn't sure why my mum hadn't just paid for a first class seat. We were well off, we could have afforded it. But here I was, sandwiched between two rather large, portly men. Neither of whom seemed to care about the teenage girl they were squashing. Only five minutes into the actual flight, the pilot came on and announced that the wind was in our favor and we'd lose several minutes off the flight. Of course, I could only do so much to the air surrounded the plane without it being suspicious.

The six and a half hours following had to have been some of the slowest hours of my life. I passed the time by reading a book in Russian, trying to keep up with learning the language. Of course, it was barely more than a grade school chapter book, but I was still learning. The man to my left gave me quite strange looks when he saw the book, likely because I'd already said a few words to him in English. Whatever, my business definitely wasn't his, so I didn't acknowledge his staring.

Eventually, the pilot announced we were descending into New York, and that we'd made the trip half an hour shorter than he usually did. I couldn't have imagined staying on that plane for another minute. I even managed to shove my way out before either of my two seat mates. After getting a passport stamp, I managed to snag a cab outside the airport and directed him as close to camp as I could get with a mortal taxi driver.

He certainly looked confused and- bless him- rather concerned when I asked to be dropped in front of a random strawberry field. I'd managed to convince him to leave me, but waited to walk up the hill until I saw the cab disappear back the way we came.

Camp was just as I remembered it. It was hard to believe that everyone here had gone through an entire summer without me. I wasn't sure what excuse Chiron had told anyone who'd asked about me, but I'd told all of my friends the truth, or at least a version of it. I figured I'd drop my things at my cabin before heading to tell Chiron I'd arrived. I'd left London early in the morning, so it was about dinner time here, now. It would definitely take me a bit to adjust to the time difference.

I dropped my ukulele and my bag at the foot of my bed before heading towards the Big House. Just as I was about to walk up the steps to the building, a voice from behind me stopped me where I stood.

"Alana? Is that you?"

I knew who it was without needing to see him, but I slowly turned around to find Adrian Jackson standing just a few feet away from me. Black hair windblown, stormy eyes soft as he looked at me... other than an extra inch of height, he looked just as I remembered him. I walked back down the stairs and ended up standing a foot in front of him.

He just stared at me. His grey eyes met my blue, and he stood frozen until I cracked a smile. As soon as my lips twitched up, he slid his hands out of his pockets and his arms opened, a tentative invitation. Much slower than the last time I'd greeted him over a year ago, I walked into his arms and wrapped my own around his neck, having to stand on my toes to do it. There was something different about his embrace. It wasn't a cage, he wasn't trapping me or even trying to protect me. He was just holding me close, comforting himself as much as me. I could smell the sea on him, even now. I wondered if I smelled like wind to him, or if I just smelled like the Cheetos the man on my right had eaten on the plane ride here. I hoped it was the former. But somehow, standing in his arms at Camp Half Blood, nothing else mattered except that we were both here, both alive.

And I'd never stop being grateful for that, for as long as it lasted.