I forgot to say I do not own Percy Jackson. Review please!:D
Chapter 3: I think I would have preferred the madhouse…
When I arrived at home, something wasn't right. I live in Toronto, Canada, which is basically what New York for the USA is. Oh, and before you mock the Canadians, we do not live in igloos, we do not wrestle polar bears, we do not use "eh" and we are nicer than the Americans! Are you happy?
My mother, Aimee Hasting, was sitting on the sofa, an unlit cigarette between her fingers. Uh-oh, that was a bad signal. Don't get me wrong, my mum is a wonderfully nice and smiling person, but when she smokes in front of me, that mean she is very angry or very upset.
"Lanna, I think you have something to tell me…" her intonation was soft "you understand you'll have to apologize to Mark and your principal" she sighed "and find a new school too."
What could I answer? I didn't regret what I've done, but I had put my mother in a difficult position. She deserved a nice, warm daughter, someone she could be proud of, different from the violent kid I was. I lowered my head, suddenly ashamed.
She got up and patted my arm with her beautiful, thin hands. Her fingers were long and gentle and the skin was soft, a little dry, always smelling like the hospital soap. If she believed too I was a future delinquent, I was seriously conceiving to go hang myself.
I had to say something, maybe tell her how sorry I was, but sharply I remembered what the grey eyed girl ordered me:
"What's the story of my birth?"
My mother bolted away, a shocked expression on her face.
"What… What do you mean?" she tried to look confuse, but she was hiding something.
"I know what I am." I felt stupid to say this. My mother was probably going to think I was crazy. Surprisingly, she simply directed:
"Take a chair; you're going to need it."
It was the second time in one day that someone was being bossy with me. I swallowed my annoyance, and sat.
She was walking in the living room, visibly a little lost about what to reply. She took a deep breath and began:
"When you were younger, I narrated you the Greek myths, remember?" she glanced hopefully at me. I nodded. My mum being a nurse, she was often absent, so when we were together, it was our alone time. I always enjoyed it, even if it was reading about violent murders, incest, creepy gods and tragic ends… Exactly how you put a kid to sleep…
"Imagine just one second they exist…"
I started to laugh uneasily.
"Mum, they're just a bunch of legends men invented to explain how the world works… They don't exist." I heard the roaring of thunder outside. Wait, thunder in the flawless blue sky?
My mother glanced nervously at the window.
"Okay, if you don't understand like this… Lanna, do you have any scratches?"
Maybe she was going in nuts? I saw in a magazine that in those cases you had to reassure the person and obey. It was the only way not to be attacked.
She caught my perplex face.
"I'm not mad, show me one."
I indicated the cut of my wrist. She lightly touched it and hummed a prayer in ancient Greek, a prayer to Apollo. Since when did I speak Greek? Oh yeah I never, but I also met a two-headed dog. Nothing could surprise me anymore.
Of course I was wrong.
The cut disappeared as it had never existed. I think at the moment my expression was priceless, because my mother started to laugh.
"They're real, Lanna. And I'm the daughter of Asclepios." Her eyes were anxious, as she was expecting me to run away, screaming. I should probably have, but I simply thought it was pretty obvious why she was a nurse now.
"The Olympians, the monsters, everything is real. And now you're old enough to comprehend: you're a demigod Lanna, and you're not my daughter."
I now understood why she told me to sit.
Yup, poor Lanna, I think she is a little lost...^^