Piper looked down at the five year old in her lap, a small girl with wavy blonde hair and sea green eyes. Percy and Annabeth were out for the night to celebrate their seventh anniversary and had asked the Graces to look after their little girl. Now Samantha was staring into Piper's eyes and patiently awaiting the promised bed-time story. Next to them on the carpet was Piper's six year old son with Jason, the two attacking the 'vicious stapler' with marvel action-figures.
Taking a deep breath she began telling her story, weaving some of her charmspeak into it in order for her voice to sound smooth and calming.
"This man had a dog," she began only to be interrupted.
"You can't start a story that way!" Sammy protested, "You have to say 'Once upon a time.'"
For some reason this felt very nostalgic to Piper. Laughing she ruffled the kid's hair.
"But this is a Cherokee story. They're pretty straight forward. So anyway, this man had a dog. Every day the man took his dog to the edge of the river, and the dog would bark furiously at the lake, like he was mad at it."
"Was he?"
"Patience Samantha. Finally the man got very annoyed with his dog barking so much, and he scolded it. 'Bad dog! Stop barking at the water!" To his surprise the dog looked him in the eye and began to talk."
"Uncle Frank can talk." Sammy volunteered. "I wonder if it's because he knows how to use his voice cords-"
"Maybe." Piper didn't want a five hour prediction of the reasons Frank could speak when in animal form. "But this dog was speaking full sentences. The dog said, 'One day soon, the storms will come. The waters will rise, and everyone will drown. You can save yourself and your family by building a raft, but first you will need to sacrifice me. You must throw me into the water.'"
"That's terrible!" Samantha complained, her sea green eyes widening. "I would never drown Uncle Frank!"
"Good to know, I'm sure he'll feel much better knowing that. Back to the story, the man probably said something similar. He thought the dog was lying- I mean, once he got over the fact his dog could talk. When he protested, the dog said 'If you don't believe me, look at the scruff of my neck. I am already dead."
"That's sad! I hope you didn't tell this story to dad, or we'd be the ones drowning in salty water." Obviously Sammy didn't think Percy could stand the idea of a dog drowning.
"No I didn't tell this to your father. Anyway, the man grabbed the dog by the scruff and saw that its skin and fur were already coming apart. Underneath the dog was nothing but bones. The dog was a skeleton dog."
"Gross"
"Hey now, Small Bob is basically the same and you love that cat!" Sammy nodded slowly but uncertainly.
"So, with tears in his eyes, the man said goodbye to his annoying skeleton dog and tossed it into the water, where it promptly sank. The man built a raft, and when the flood came he and his family survived."
"Without the dog."
"Yes, without the dog. When the rains subsided, and the raft landed, the man and his family were the only one alive. The man heard sounds from the other side of the hill- like thousands of people laughing and dancing – but when he raced to the top, alas, down below he saw nothing but bones littering the ground – thousands of skeletons of all the people who had died in the flood. He realised the ghosts of the dead had been dancing. That was the sound he heard."
"And then?" Sammy waited.
"And then nothing. The end."
"You can't end it that way! Why were the ghosts dancing?"
"I don't know. Great uncle Tristan never felt the need to explain, neither did my grandfather. Maybe the ghosts were happy that one family had survived. Maybe they were enjoying the afterlife. They're ghosts. Who can say?"
Little green eyes Annabeth pouted and glared at the (Now severely damaged) stapler. Then she tilted her head and her glare softened.
"Mr Frank had probably gone to say hello to his grandma and all the ghosts where happy because Mrs Grandma was happy her grandson came."
Piper blinked.
"Ok. But anyways boys, Sammy. Of to Bed."
The trio groaned.