{Chapter One: A Liberating Letter}
By the time a week was over since the Titan War, people had learned not to talk about Luke Castellan to me or even in vicinity. I slept in his old bed in the Hermes cabin, trying to remember his scent that had long since faded since he betrayed everyone and left.
During the first week, multiple people had come to say how sorry they were for me. They all stopped when I uncharacteristically lost my temper and attempted to smash my fist into Pollux's nose when he offered his sincere condolence and said he understood the depths of my pain because he lost his twin Castor a year ago. I think I had screamed something about not wanting his pity, but all I remember at the time was red pain.
No one spoke about Luke around me since then.
Luke was regarded as a traitor by some but a hero at the last minute by most. To me, he was a lover that never was. I wouldn't go as far as to compare him to the stars that shone in the night sky, or the North Star who guided wayward castaways home. I was never really the poet, but I couldn't help thinking of him every time I closed my eyes. It was so painful that I had become numb to everything around me, and Rachel constantly worried that I was slipping away.
I looked at the Celestial bronze blade he had given me when I first arrived at Camp Half-Blood every night. Forgetting about him was the easiest way to keep on living, but I might as well dip myself in the River Lethe because I couldn't forget about those blue eyes that haunted my dreams. I once considered pretending to be myself again by joking about becoming 'Bobbie' after wiping my memories at the River Lethe just like Percy erased Iapetus' once and renamed him 'Bob'. That was until I realized they were going to think I was being suicidal, so I disregarded faking it in favour of dying silently on the inside.
So I continued on like this for the entirety of the week, letting the rest of my summer drift by and wondering how I was going to continue high school in such a broken state. I was so pathetic that the old me would have laughed. Or at least I think she would have. I couldn't remember anymore through the haze of pain.
Pain was like morphine. I was feeling so much that my capacity to feel didn't work, and I was numbed. I knew that it would wear off eventually; I would be left at the mercy of overwhelming pain once again until my death day. For now, I would sit quietly in the sand dunes and watch the waves of water.
Drew Tanaka made it no easier for me. She was a vindictive type of person who always tried to bring people down no matter what was going on. At the moment, the Japanese girl was talking about how I just wanted attention and that no one could love someone that much at the measly age of sixteen. A hint of humour crept up on me; the irony of an Aphrodite girl speaking about this was not lost on me.
I didn't contradict her because I knew she wanted it. She wanted to get a rise out of me. I was sure she talked about me losing my temper on Pollux. I was sorely sorry for that and apologized to him the very next day, and he accepted my apology. We didn't talk again.
Drew's chatter faded away when she realized she couldn't get a rise out of me. Curling my arms tighter around my drawn up knees, I rested my head between them and listened to the sound of the waves and water. Though I was not technically claimed as a daughter of Poseidon, I had always associated myself with him, and he never said so otherwise.
Drew had always been the one to twist that. She said I was a daughter of Hecate, and while there was nothing wrong with that, she continued to spin tales that I was one from her darker Ancient Greek ages. I was a Medea, a woman who practiced witchcraft, came from the barbarous Black Sea, and murdered her own children for the sake of 'getting back' at her disloyal husband. The tales that she spun were absurd, but people listened.
I stopped letting it bother me the day Luke died.
I heard footsteps behind me against the sand, and I closed my eyes, knowing that someone was heading for me. Being alone was something I used to hate; being alone was something that I now craved.
"Phoenix!" It was Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the girl I got along the best with. She didn't fit in, and I didn't either. We were immediate friends, our personalities melding perfectly into each other the same way Annabeth's could have meld with her if the worry of Percy's heart didn't lie between them.
Now I was finding her presence tiresome. I liked Rachel; I truly did, but it did not excuse her from the fact that I needed time away from people and voices and emotions. I wanted to feel nothing. I wanted to be away from this place.
"Phoenix!" she said again, her voice sounding closer now. I lifted my head tiredly to see her heading over to me with a letter in her hands. She slowed her pace once she had gotten my attention. "There was a letter mailed to the Big House today. It's addressed to you. Chiron seemed surprised and wouldn't tell anyone about it, but he said it would be good for you," she said breathlessly, handing the letter over to me.
Taking the letter gingerly in my hand, I opened it without knowing what to expect. A masochist part of me said it was written by Luke before he died and mailed to the Big House, but I knew the chances of that was small the moment I saw my name in the front in curly handwriting that belonged to no one I knew. Rachel leaned over curiously, not leaving until I opened it.
Ms. P Jackson
Cabin #11
Camp Half-Blood
Long Island Sound
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Feeling a stir of interest that I hadn't felt in ages, I tore open the letter and read the contents while wondering if this was an elaborate joke.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Ms. Jackson,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 September.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Enclosed was a long list of books about witchcraft that I didn't even think exist. "This isn't funny," I finally said, looking up at Rachel with confusion. Had Drew really taken her little rumour one childish step forward? She didn't seem like the kind of person, and Travis and Connor Stoll would never be this cruel. I continued looking through to find an extra note showing a map of London. "So I have to be at King's Cross Station in London on September first."
I was vaguely amused. Maybe the Stolls were trying to cheer me up.
Rachel stared at it with confusion. "Chiron looked serious when he told me to deliver it to you. He doesn't joke around."
We both stared at the letter for a while, the sound of crashing waves the only noise heard in the background. Finally I said, "If it's real, then I'm glad." It was meant to be sarcastic, but the moment I said it I realized how true it was. If this was real, then I could start anew no matter how weird and mocking it sounded when Drew occasionally talked about how I was a witch instead of a demigod.
"Let's go back to the Big House and demand some answers," Rachel suggested, and I nodded numbly, clutching the letter in my hand like it was my lifeline that was attempting to pull me away from the death and devastation Luke Castellan had wrecked upon my life.
Chiron confirmed it all to be true, but he wouldn't clarify. In older days, I would have demanded until he gave in like Rachel tried to do, but I didn't have any energy. I ended up packing some of my stuff from the Hermes Cabin in a luggage to get ready to head to the airport when September neared. From there, I was to be driven to King's Cross Station by older British demigods Chiron was in contact with.
"Where are you going?" Percy asked one day when he saw my luggage. He had a concerned look on his face like he thought I was going to do something hurtful to myself. I didn't blame him; I would have been doing the exact same thing in his place.
"I don't know," I admitted. When Percy's expression tightened, I realized that it wasn't exactly the brightest thing to say to your foster brother. "Chiron's sending me somewhere in Britain," I said carefully. His eyebrows scrunched in confusion and he opened his mouth to say something before I interrupted him. "I need time away from America, Percy."
My voice fell at the end, and I realized I had voiced my true thoughts for the first time in ages. I really did need time away from this land of pain. Everywhere I looked, I saw Luke and it hurt me more than I could put into spoken words.
I had tried to talk about him to Rachel after he died, but all that came out was little gasps of air and broken sobs. That was the first and last time I cried since his death.
"All right," he finally said, though he didn't sound too happy about it. "Keep in contact, okay? Remember to IM us some time." He smiled at me, and I gave a very hesitant smile back, remembering when these smiles had come so easily.
"I will," I lied. I wasn't going to keep in contact, at least not for a long while until I found a way to heal my broken shards.
He believed me.
I found myself tugging along a sad little luggage onto the Greyhound bus in the afternoon of the last day of August. I waved an indolent goodbye at my friends before I boarded the bus with all my belongings in a faded pink luggage. "Bye," I whispered against the window when the bus began to drive away, my breath momentarily fogging up the window.
The bus drove on like it was any other day, which I suppose it was. I clutched the letter tight in my hands the entire time, watching the world I had always known disappear behind me as I stepped into another.
If I felt any freer than before, it didn't dawn on me.
A/N: I feel really bad for not updating for TWO YEARS. Well the least I can say is that my writing improved and the older version would have me rushing to rewrite it or delete it, but no fear of that (well not as much) by continuing it now. To older readers, I edited and changed the first chapter because it was horribly written in my point of view, so please read it! It's the same but different. (Yeah, just read it, please?) The plotline has also changed because by the DOLPHINS, Phoenix had such a Mary Sue potential that I nearly threw up. The fact that it was originally focused on her love square between Luke/Octavian/Draco just made it worse. I'm happy to say that has changed and this story has a real plotline now, no matter how vague. Anyway, reviews=love! All characters mentioned are canon. If you need reminders:
Iapetus/'Bob': Appears in 'The Demigod Files' and 'The House of Hades'
Drew: Appears in 'The Lost Hero'
Pollux: Appears in 'The Battle of the Labyrinth' and 'The Last Olympian'