In The Nest
Sarah Encanter woke up in what appeared to be a nest of blankets. Her head was pounding. Reaching up Sarah felt a bandage. It's probably best to leave it on for now, she surmised. Slowly, gently, she looked around her. Sarah seemed to be outside, surrounded by short shade trees. She was just under the tops of the trees. Sarah lay back and thought. Very hard. The last thing she could remember was that she had been at school—which was a good school and a good fit for Sarah- when a police officer had walked into class. It was the sheriff. Recently, there had been a kidnapping and he had been on TV a lot. Sarah's class had watched him in social studies. The sheriff addressed the class, told them that sources had tipped him off and that someone here was a drug dealer. The man sounded like the sheriff, but his face seemed wrong, somehow. On TV, the sheriff had looked small and stocky, the man in front of the class was well above six feet tall. Strangely, when the sheriff stared down each of them in turn, it was as if he were looking at a case of steaks at a deli. He took a deep breath. He walked down the center of the class. All eyes followed him. He kept breathing slowly, like he would hyperventilate if he wasn't careful. He stopped when he was next to Sarah. With one last deep inhale, the sheriff looked down at Sarah menacingly.
"So. So you are the one who's been causing all the fuss," he winced, as if the "fuss" had been painful. "Good thing all my hard work will be worth it." The sheriff made ready to use his weird policeman-stick.
"Sheriff," Ms. Krendal said in her discipline voice. "This school has a very strict no-violence policy. I would hate to see our rules broken by a police officer." The sheriff walked back over to her. Smack! The sheriff had slapped her across the face, hard enough to knock her both out of her chair, and unconscious. He turned, ran back to Sarah, and raised his club. Voices sounded in the hall.
"Hurry! I think the monster's in there!"
"Coming. Do you think she'll be alright?"
"Only if we get in there fast!" back in the classroom, the sheriff growled. An un-humanly feral sound. Sarah looked at him, startled. What she saw made her heart miss a beat. He only had one eye! And not just like one of two eyes had been poked out, but there was only one eye socket, in the center of his forehead. The thing that had pretended to be the sheriff growled again and his stick came smashing down on Sarah's head. She had blanked out. And now she was here. Wherever here was. I should see if there is a ladder, she thought, assuming that she was in a top bunk. Sarah rolled onto her stomach and army-crawled to the edge of her nest. She stuck her head over the edge. And immediately rolled back onto her back, nauseous with vertigo. When she had first opened her eyes, Sarah had looked at her surroundings and immediately thought nest. Now she knew how true it was. The "nest" was about seventy feet in the air. And with a last thought of ohmygosh, Sarah fainted.
Sarah awoke and kept her eyes closed against the bright sunlight of high noon. There were people moving around the nest. By Sarah's reckoning, two or three. They were speaking softly. The people approached Sarah. A low female voice told the other person:
"Just keep rubbing. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to keep her attention on it." Sarah felt the other person grasp her hand and start rubbing her forearm. At the same time, the girl who had spoken began unwrapping the bandages around Sarah's head. She felt it as the girl unwrapping her bandage came to the last circle.
"Rub harder!" the girl murmured intensely. Sarah's arm got hotter as the rubbing sped up. The person pulling the bandage came to the edge of Sarah's scab. She winced, but managed to keep her eyes closed. The bandage-puller was muttering under her breath. Sarah could barely make out the words. Something about spreading or deflecting pain to ease her suffering. Wait a minute, Sarah told herself. Those words weren't in English or Spanish. How did I know what they meant? Then her thoughts were cut off by something descending on her like a cloud of mosquitos. She was under mental attack! With sheer force of will, Sarah fended off the cloud. Unbeknownst to her, the "attack" was a spell meant to make it so that Sarah wouldn't wake up when the healer ripped the bandage off of her wound. Because Sarah had defended against the spell, however, she felt the pain is full. She could not help it. Sarah screamed. When she was done screaming, she started cursing. When she was done cursing, Sarah sat curled up in a ball, glaring at what turned out to be two girls. The girl on the right sat staring at her in awe, the dirty bandage dangling from her hands. She wore jean capris, the belt of which was covered in leather pouches holding tiny vials of powder and liquid, rolls of bandages, and a box of band aids with pictures from the Disney movie Hurcules on them. She also wore a loose linen shirt tucked into her pants. Her hair was a sun-bleached light brown, pulled into a low bun. Sarah could tell that she was a healer because just looking at her made Sarah relax. The second person was also a girl, and gave off the strong aura of a leader, telling Sarah that in this girl's presence, hard work would be appreciated, but laziness would be severely punished. The girl on the left was wearing boot cut Wranglers and a Farm Girl shirt that had a picture of chicken wire across the front. Her skin was slightly- well, not Asian, but something close- and she had a strong farmers tan. The farmer recovered her composure first:
"Hello. Glad to see you're back in the world of the living and scaring us witless again," she grumbled.
"And I think your mouth needs to be cleaned just as much as your head." This girl was seemed very opinionated.
"Don't be rude, Karen," the other girl chided. "That obviously hurt her a lot." She was looking puzzled and thoughtful.
"That pain relief spell should have been enough to keep a gorilla from knowing he'd been beheaded."
Sarah rolled her eyes.
"That wasn't a pain relief spell," she told them."It was a pain deflecting spell. It would have made my whole body ache instead of there being any sharp pain." The girls gaped at her.
"H-how did you know that?" the healer asked Sarah.
"Well, duh! I listened to what you said."
"But I said that in the Ancient Tone!"
"Whatever." Sarah rolled her eyes again.
"We can think about that later. Though it might be a clue as to your parentage," the farm girl obviously thought that the healer was overreacting. "Anyway, I'm Karen Maise. And this is Erica Peace."
Erica swung a leather band from her shoulder and took off a wooden cup, a leather water bottle, and a flask of something that looked remarkably like apple juice. She poured water into the cup and used a dropper to add six carefully measured drops of the gold-colored liquid. Searching, Erica pulled a few strips of bark out of a belt compartment and used them to stir the solution in the cup.
"Drink this,"Erica told Sarah, holding the cup out to her. "It will help with pain and make it easier for me to clean your head." Reluctantly, Sarah drank. It was an odd experience, slightly like the one time Sarah's school teacher had brought a glass of wine to class and let everyone have just enough to show them that it was bad, only without the burn as it goes down. Sarah felt an intense itch on her head right after she swallowed.
"What the heck was that?"she said rather loudly. Karen frowned slightly and Erica looked Sarah directly in the eye: "That," Erica told her with a freakishly intense calm. "was a mixture of water, nectar, and willow bark." Erica held up the strips of bark.
"What's nectar? Some kind of dope?"
"No. It is the drink of the gods."
"Gods. Multiple. Are you some kind of crazy Egyptian doctor?" Sarah was getting confused, but she felt that she had to keep Erica off her guard. Erica just sighed, her brows knitting a bit.
"You don't have to keep attacking my mind. And, no, I am not an Egyptian doctor. I am a Greek healer, Erica Peace, daughter of Apollo. Sarah, I know that this will seem insane, but the Greek gods are real. And just like in old times, they have a lot of affairs with mortals, which is where we come in. We- you, me, and Karen- are all half-god children that come from these affairs. And we inherit certain abilities from our godly parents. Apollo is the god of poetry, music, prophecy, archery, and medicine. And I, in my turn, prefer, if I have to use a weapon, to shoot a bow from afar, composing poetry is a side hobby of mine as well, and there's my ability to heal. Speaking of which, I need to get to work on that owie on your head. Don't try to stay away from me. If you haven't noticed, we are seventy-five feet in the air. Now just lay down, and I'll get moving." Erica pulled a sponge from one of her pouches and poured the remainder of the nectar-water onto it. She continued explaining:
"Karen is a daughter of Demeter, goddess of agriculture. She grew up on a small farm in Idaho. Her powers woke up at around ten, very early for most demigods, but the folks here didn't find her for a year or so because there were so many nature spirits around the farm. They could hardly pin-point her power at the age of twelve. Karen has the power to grow most any plant most anywhere." Erica tied off the clean bandage on Sarah's forehead. "There you go. All set. Does it feel better now?"
"Kind of. But how do you know that I am a half-god?" In answer, Erica whistled. There was a rustling in one of the trees around them. Then much to the surprise of Sarah, the indifference of Erica, and the annoyance of Karen, something came flying through the air towards them. It was yodeling like Tarzan. It landed with a thump.
"You whistled, Miz Peace?" said the cheerful voice of the strangest(and least terrifying) creature Sarah had ever seen. From the waist up, it was a boy, about ten, with very dark skin. From the waist down, however, he was a goat- brown with white spots, and from the hock down, black.
"Wha-wha-wuh," Sarah stammered. "You're a goat. There is a goat with a face in front of me!" She went into a slight mental shock.
"Aha! Newbie, eh, Erica?" the half goat winked at Sarah. "Don't worry, missy. You'll get used to me. Though I suppose I should wear pants next time we meet! Nya-he-he-nmmmm!"
"I can not believe how untactful you are, Jeremy!" huffed Karen. "Can't you keep your mouth shut for five minutes?"
"Settle down, everyone. Sarah, this is Jeremy," Jeremy bowed. "And his nose is how we found you. Jeremy is a faun, or a satyr. Either one works. He can smell both monsters and demigods." Jeremy wrinkled his nose.
"Speaking of that, do you guys mind staying away from each other. I can hardly handle it when Karen and Erica are together. With all three of you smelly ladies together, it's just nnna-ah-asty." Karen muttered something under her breath. It probably wasn't rated G. Then, for some reason, a twig from the side of the nest-bed had a growth spurt, wrapping branches around Jeremy's mouth. It became apparent to Sarah that Karen had made that happen. Sarah couldn't help mentally giving Karen a pat on the back for silencing the talkative goat-boy. Karen smirked.
"Well, see you later. Gotta go back to my own tree now. It's almost time for Advanced Agility." Karen smirked, waved her hand at a plant clinging to the side of the tree, grabbed the vine that had just grown out of it, and swung out of sight.
The branches curled away from Jeremy and back into the twig that they came from. Erica sighed.
"I have to get going soon as well," Erica said heavily. "I'm scheduled to take the U-10's from the Apollo tree on a scavenger hunt to restock the apothecary. I'll get someone to show you around. Jeremy-". But Jeremy, apparently fed up with "smelly ladies," had ran off.
When Sarah woke again, it was late afternoon. She kept her eyes closed for a moment, remembering the conversation from earlier. Organizing her mind, filing the information she now knew, Sarah took several deep breaths. Let's see... Greek mythology: gods: Hades(Pluto in Rome), Zues(Jupiter), Posiedon(Neptune), Hermes(Roman equivalent unknown), Hera(Juno), Apollo, Ares(Mars), Demeter, Aphrodite(Venus), Artemis(Diana), and countless minor gods. Demigods: me, Erica, Karen: abilities from our godly parents(i.e. Erica: healing, Karen: vine, tree from twig). Jeremy: faun/satyr: half goat, ability: smell demigods.
Sarah had always been able to do this, to take large amounts of information and turn them into neat and tidy files in her brain. But now, a deep male voice intercepted her work:
"I know that your awake. And your frown looks a bit silly with your eyes closed."
She promptly opened her eyes. Lounging in front of her, the boy was, in a motion, every girl's jaw sitting on the floor. Although his dreamy golden hair was little more than a buzz cut, the curls in it were distinctive. With his skin tone, he was definitely Mediterranean, and he didn't mind to show it, as all he was wearing were loose jeans, cut off above the knees. At his waist, he wore a belt made of about two dozen strands of leather, knotted and braided in a way so that you could pull some of it out to attach things to it. He had several knife sheaths on both sides and one long scabbard that suggested a sword on his left hip. Most of them were empty.
"Hey. Karen told me you were a piece of work. I'm Daniel Gosman. Your Sarah Encanter, right? Erica sent me to show you around if you're up to it."
"Ummmm... sure?" Sarah was momentarily inarticulate.
"Before we go, you might want to eat something. I sneaked a bit of ambrosia out of the mess tree, just in case. Want some?" Daniel had now burrowed into his jeans pocket and come up with an abused looking Ziploc bag containing an even more abused looking blond brownie. Without an answer, he pried part of it out of the bag and tossed the brownie in a lob at Sarah. She unconsciously tilted her head and opened her mouth to catch it. Daniel gave a little chuckle with his eyebrows up.
"Sorry, you didn't expect that. But I have my ways of judging people, and you just passed with flying colors."
"I see. And what does your rubric look like?" Sarah recovered just enough to banter a bit with this boy. He had an aura of power that was astonishing, but Sarah felt that it put them on more even ground somehow.
"At the bottom is probably a flailing lunge at it that results in a big splat down there," Daniel pointed down the side of the nest."Just watching it fall would most likely be next. If you caught it with your hand, you would have passed, but I have seen very few people catch it in their mouths. Though, Maise grew a branch out of the tree we were next to to grab it. The day she came to camp was a very interesting day for all of us. Karen had things growing all over the place!"
Sarah swallowed the last of the flying food, and shuddered as a fiery warmth spread, itching around her forehead, from her toes to her scalp. The sensation was somewhat like the one she had gotten from the liquid Erica had given her, but multiplied by at least five. Sarah remembered that the nectar had been diluted with water. She gave a pleading look to Daniel. Mutely, he handed over another part of the baked goods. The taste was oddly of chocolate, despite the color, with just the right hints of butterscotch and mint. Still chewing, Sarah's forehead creased, and she spoke, muffled by the food in her mouth:
"So what, exactly, is this stuff that I'm eating?"
"It's delicious isn't it? It tastes like whatever you think tastes best. It's called ambrosia, the food of the gods. As half-gods, you can eat some of it, but if a regular mortal eats it, they basically spontaneously combust. You are half-human, too, so you can't eat all that much of it without the same thing happening to you. It also speeds healing tons, so your head should be fine in under a week, when normally that would take at least a month to heal."
"Wait a moment," Sarah had caught onto a small detail that needed explanation."You spoke of demigods in the third person. Are you not one? And if you aren't a demigod why did you have ambrosia in your pocket? Wouldn't it kill you?"
"Ah, well, that's kind of complicated. It'll take a while to explain," Daniel suddenly looked nervous.
"I'm not exactly going anywhere any time soon," Sarah was determined to get an explanation. She crossed her arms and pouted at him. He sighed.
"Okay, then. I don't suppose you know about how Ares and Aphrodite have had a thing for the last few thousand years, do you? Well, Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus, but he's kind of ugly. That's what got him thrown off of Olympus. So, Aphrodite and Ares got together and there was a big to-do about it a long time ago, and as history repeats itself, that has happened a couple of times. And obviously, Ares likes Aphrodite's type. So, my mom was a demigod, daughter of Aphrodite. Neither she, or anyone else knew it, though, because she didn't have much power. And she caught the eye of Ares. I was the result. It happens all the time, that's how most of us got here, but I am the only one I know of who is three-quarters god. I could actually eat more ambrosia than you without disintegrating, but I try to save it for emergencies." Sarah blinked.
"Um, okay. Thanks. So, now can you explain about where exactly I am, what I'm doing here, and everything else that I don't know about what has happened in the last few days?"
Daniel smiled timidly. Sarah liked his smile. It made you want to take care of him, be friends with him, and let him take care of you, all at once.
"You seem a bit too calm about all this. What's up?"
"I don't really know. I guess it all just fits with what I know about myself and all the weird things I have seen that don't fit into what other people, mortals, told me," Sarah frowned. "I've always seen creepy things, like cheerleaders with flaming hair and fangs at away basketball games, and once, I saw a seal on a beach that had the head of a Rottweiler. Now that a probable solution for those things has been given, I keep remembering more and more freaky occurrences, and it all just works."
Hmmm... I need some real food. And maybe some aspirin, for my head, Sarah thought. The area around her head wound was starting to pound. Nice as it is to get this all straight, Daniel said he was going to show me where I am. I need to see what's around. Out loud, she said:
"Daniel? Can we get going now? I'm really hungry, and my head hurts, and I want to see where on Earth I am." Daniel nodded, reached an arm down, and pulled a rope from a hidden compartment in the side of the nest. Daniel winked, shouted: "Look out below!" and tossed it down. The rope was longer than it seemed. Cautiously, Sarah peered down, over the edge, and saw an amazing sight. Below her by about twenty feet, was another platform, though it looked more like a boardwalk, circling the tree. There were a number of people on the walkway, talking and laughing like it was perfectly normal to live fifty feet up a tree. If she looked closely, Sarah could see houses in all the nearby trees, as well as a series of rope bridges, zip lines, and walkways, such as the one directly below her, connecting everything together.
"Encanter? You all right?" Daniel's concerned voice betrayed a sense of smug satisfaction at her reaction. "Quite a sight, isn't it? Been my home for most of my life. Erica was on the run monsters in northern Texas, found me a bit south. She stayed at my house a few days, then we decided to cross the border, find others like us, and provide a safe place for them. She's got a big motherly instinct. At that time, she was seven, I was eight."
"So, we are in Mexico?"
"Yeah, in a bit of unexplored jungle. Erica and I found a set of twins, son and daughter of Demeter, near Mexico City, and they helped us build this place. Community Demi. It's grown tons since then, and now we have the fauns to find demigods that are loose in Mexico, southern US, and northern South America."
"Are the twins here?" Daniels expression choked.
"No. They got killed when a wandering fire-breathing hydra found the Community. We were lucky to have anything to put under a shroud, the hydra almost ate them."
"That's terrible! I'm sorry." Daniel shrugged.
"The best thing we can do in their memory is keep this place, the place they died protecting, safe and alive. We do that by taking in people like you and training them to take care of themselves."
"Hey, Daniel! Stop stalling and get down here! We all want to meet the new girl. Sarah, right? Hi! Come on, Danny!"
Under his breath, Daniel muttered: "Why does she call me that? I hate it." Out loud he shouted down:
"Yeah, yeah, Christy! Gotta give Encanter here a minute to absorb the sights." His face flushed, Daniel showed Sarah a little leather pouch with a loop of rope attached to it that was hanging from the top of the rope.
"This is a slider, or ascender, depending on which way you're going. What you are going to do is hold on to the loop; so long as your weight is pulling on the leather bit, it won't fall down. It makes climbing down and up ropes much easier. Think you can do that?" Sarah closed her eyes, concentrating on what her body was feeling. She was sore, tired, and fatigued, but she thought she could climb a rope with the help of the little leather contraption. Sarah nodded.
"Okay. I'll help you down."