"Everything you can imagine is real."
-Pablo Picasso
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."
-Galileo Galilei
I can't believe Drew didn't want to tell this part, I guess she only cares about dances and dresses, and all those other girly things that I think she's now the only Aphrodite child who cares about. This part is the only exciting part of the story. Well, maybe except for the fact that I danced with Carter! Sure, he's like what, two, four years older than me? Anyway, I can say that having Drew drag me across the cobblestones in high heels and a dress was not the best experience of my life. First, let me explain my outfit. What? Stop looking at me like that! I'm a daughter of Aphrodite, I have an excuse. I was wearing a white and black dress that had ruffles on the skirt and a light pink bow around my waist; I had my hair up in a messy bun instead of my signature pigtails and wore pink ballet flats that matched the bow. I can honestly say that I liked my outfit almost as much as I liked Sadie's, but running on cobblestones with rain coming down was kind of ruining it.
Luckily, it was also ruining Drew's makeup, so some mother that we got into the taxi with made her child turn away from the girl, I guess she thought Drew was going to stop sobbing about a breakup or something, although it might've been because she didn't want her little boy to see how low cut Drew's dress was. I was suddenly very glad that I hadn't gone with the more low-cut dress I'd seen in the store. Sometimes being plain has its advantages.
When we got to Half Blood Hill, the taxi driver looked puzzled. "You sure you ladies want to be dropped off here? It's nothing but strawberry fields." Then with a wink at Drew he said more to her than me; "Is there any chance I could get your number?" Drew slapped him.
"You will not remember this incident." She started to charmspeak, I plugged my ears so I definitely would remember my dance with Carter. I only took my hands off my ears once the desperate taxi driver took off. Drew huffed, wiped her mascara onto her hand, which made her look like a Panda, and marched up the hill, her six inch Prada heels making holes in the soft ground. Fortunately, my heels were shorter, so I was actually moving faster than her; although her manicured nails gripped my arm so hard I was sure they were going to puncture my bones.
We reached the top of the hill exhausted. That was partially because every 5 seconds one of Drew's heels would get stuck again and we'd have to pull as hard as possible to keep her from sinking into the earth, I figured that having Gaea against us in this war wasn't helping a bit in the process of extracting Drew's heels. Finally, I told her she should just take off the heels. Drew looked at me as if I'd just told her to dye her hair pink (although the Stolls did do that once).
Chiron gave us a welcome, helpfully ignoring the fact that we were both in formal wear. The rest of the campers weren't so helpful. One Hermes kid whose name I couldn't remember started taking pictures of us that I was sure would "mysteriously" end up posted all around camp the next day. Piper was nice and once she saw us got us both some blankets because we were freezing and wet. Drew shook hers off, but I kept mine on; I was not going to get hypothermia on one of the best nights of my life.
"Chiron." Drew started, using the serious tone I'd never heard come from her before. " Something strange happened at the dance…" Before she could continue, a solitary figure broke through the crowd. It was Annabeth. I had kind of been avoiding her. Ever since Piper and Jason had started dating she was just pretty much a big ball of fury. Who could blame her? Annabeth took one look at us, glared at Drew and then asked; "Was it Ro̱maïkí̱?"
Jason, who was standing with his hand in Piper's, seemed to take offense at the way she said Roman in Greek. Although, he'd recently admitted that the Romans called the Greeks graecus, I didn't think he liked it when it was the other way around.
"No." Drew replied, her tone still serious. "Definitely not of this pantheon."
"Tell me." Annabeth seemed to have forgotten that there were other people around us. Her eyes bore holes into Drew as if she was trying to extract the information with her sheer willpower.
"Well, we were watching a group of people that we thought might be demigods. Lacy's friend Sadie and her brother Carter, along with a group of their friends were our main targets, although we were sure there were other demigods in the school. At the dance, we were going to corner them and ask them questions. Lacy ended up dancing with Carter. I cornered Sadie, but kind of lost my temper with her. Then this guy who at first surprisingly looked a lot like Nico but wasn't and turned into a jackal headed guy in a white kilt (who wears those things?) came up to dance with Sadie. They started dancing and her necklace started glowing. I could've sworn that I saw ghosts around them, and well, why don't I just show you?"
Drew whipped out her pink i-phone that she wasn't supposed to have and quickly pressed play on the screen. Immediately, I saw what she must've seen and I would've seen had I not been dancing with Carter…dreamy Carter…wake up Lacy! There indeed was everything, just as she'd described it. But right as Drew passed out and dropped the phone so it was just staring at the floor. I could've sworn I saw a face in the air. Chiron must've too, because he nearly fainted and some kids had to hold him up. Believe me, it is very hard to hold up a gajillion year old centaur.
"What?" Annabeth demanded, crossing her arms and cocking her hip, her eyes staring at Chiron so hard that it looked like she was trying to bore a hole through him. "What is it that you're not telling us?"
Chiron just walked over to the big house muttering something about stupid sun beetles and linen filled coffins. I didn't like where this was going. I wondered if Chiron conked his head when he fainted.
"Look," he started. "There's something I haven't told you all." Thunder rumbled, and Chiron rubbed his temples. "Oh agnoí̱sei the ancient laws, you can't expect these kids to just sit here after what they've seen!" He yelled at the sky, and then went inside the big house, all the campers who were there following.
Chiron threw ten (ten) golden drachmas into the mist that came from a sink he turned on. I wondered why he would need ten. "Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, and my beloved friend, show me Amos Kane." Kane? Kane? Wasn't that Sadie and Carter's last name?
"Are you sure you want to do that?" A pleasant but kind of hippy-sounding female voice replied out of the mist.
"Absolutely sure?"
"Yes."
"Positively sure?"
"Just make the connection!" Next thing we knew, we were all staring at a guy who looked kind of like Usher and was wearing linen. The guy, who I assumed was Amos Kane looked over at us.
"Hey Chiron! What's up? Long time no see!" I was starting to like this guy more and more with every word he said. He might've even been cool enough to have a saxophone. I looked at the wall behind him where a saxophone was propped up. Oh yes he was.
"Well Amos," Chiron started sounding tired, "One or more of your magicians or gods has been a little too not careful enough." It was then that Amos seemed to notice the twenty something campers who were standing behind Chrion, Annabeth, Drew and I at the head of them.
"Um, Chiron?" He asked. "Do they know yet?"
"No. Which is why you need to explain."
Amos started talking about Egyptian gods and Egyptian magicians and the House of Life and a giant snake who was trying to swallow the sun. Then he noticed me. "Lacy?" He asked. He obviously recognized me from the one time we'd been introduced.
"Hi." I responded timidly. This time, Amos started rubbing his temples like Chiron kept doing. I started to wonder if this was what all old people did when they were stressed.
"Look," Amos started again. "Bottom line is that two gods went to a high school ib (dance), revealed themselves to two other pantheons, and could have potentially have caused another war because of my niece."
"Sadie's your niece?" Both Drew and I asked at the same time.
"Yes." Amos said, before waving his hand and dissolving the connection. Annabeth glared at Chiron, then at the place where the message had been, then at Drew, and finally at me. I wasn't sure what I'd done wrong, but I just bit my lip and stood there while Drew huffed out of the big house to the Aphrodite cabin where she would make herself look "glamorous" again. Annabeth then glared at Jason, then Piper, and finally the poor guy who had been going to ask Nico if he knew about the Egyptian gods and who ran in panting with one message; Nico has disappeared.
At first, shock piled on top of the shock that another pantheon of gods existed filled the room. Then Annabeth stormed out of the big house to Nico's cabin where, sure enough, there was a note on his nightstand that said:
Hey all,
I know you will (especially Annabeth) be mad at me for leaving while the construction for the Argo II is still in progress. But I think I have a lead on why all the monsters and evil mortals kept coming back to life. Don't try to IM me, I'll be alright. Seriously. I mean it. DO NOT IM ME!
-Nico
Jason started smacking himself in the head which I thought was quite odd. "Ambassador of Pluto." He said to himself. "Why didn't I see that before?"
"I tried to IM him," the poor kid who Annabeth was glaring at said. "But, all that showed up was some graveyard in Brooklyn and then Iris said I am sorry. There is no Nico Di Angelo on Earth, Olympus, or the Underworld please try again later. Apparently, that was the place he was at last. We need to face it, along with Percy, Nico's gone. Except I think he actually went of his own choice."
At the comment about Percy, Annabeth clenched her fists and stood as straight as a board. I looked over at Jason who was still smacking himself in the head. Piper was trying to calm him down. I looked from Chiron, to Jason, to Annabeth, to the poor kid. Then at Drew who had come out of our cabin in silk pajamas that looked way too form-fitting for something you slept in. "There's something funny going on here." I said.
Sometimes I get so weird
I even freak myself out
I laugh myself to sleep
It's my lullaby
Sometimes I drive so fast
Just to feel the danger
I wanna scream
It makes me feel alive
- Anything But Ordinary by Avril Lavigne
Thank you Mustache Lover for inspiring me to write a sequel, if you want to know what happened to Nico, read my story "Insult to Injury" or maybe even "Greek Chiton, Roman Toga; Greek Tunic, Roman Stola" thank you for reading. Keep it up, I now have a newfound respect for Lacy, maybe if I gave her a makeover…
Smiles,
Readingqueen811