4. Storm
A/N: I thought the last chapter was too long so I've just split it up into another, not an update, sorry!
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Later that evening, their mom had locked herself into her work room and didn't come out, not even for dinner. Zack made them spaghetti bolognese and they ate it in front of the TV with popcorn. watching Marvel's Doctor Strange, an old favourite of theirs.
Zack got up from where he was sitting as the credits rolled. "I'm worried about your mom, what's she doing up there?"
"I dunno, but I'm gonna go upstairs," Ben answered.
"What about the mid and post-credit scenes?" Cass asked. "You love those."
"I'm not in the mood, I'm just going up there."
A look of dawning came across Cass's face. "Yeah, actually now that you say it, I have seen that clip a hundred times at least."
"Okay, but I'm gonna see what's up with your mom," Zack told them as they ran upstairs. Then he turned the movie off and ate the last of the popcorn (who doesn't like popcorn and spaghetti?), before climbing the spiralling glass staircase that led upstairs.
By this time the twins had safely hidden themselves in a cupboard just along from their mom's work room and were waiting impatiently to see how this conversation would pan out.
Zack came upstairs and knocked on her door. "Annabeth!" he called. "It's not healthy to stay in your room all evening! Come downstairs, I've made spaghetti!"
No answer.
Zack tried again. "Come on, you can't hope to work like this. You need a break, however short it may be."
Still no answer.
Zack sighed. "Okay, if you don't want me in your room, fine. The kids are playing somewhere, spaghetti's downstairs, come down and eat when you're ready." Then he left.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," Cass commented, but fell silent as their mom emerged from their room, looking ragged and shaken. "Let's just go and watch the post-credits of Doctor Strange, it's more interesting than this."
Ben smiled slightly smugly. "No it's not," he responded, pointing straight at the open door to their mom's room.
"She must be really tired, she always locks her work room," Cass said.
The two of them checked the hallway and tiptoed inside. They'd only been in here a few times before, but it was amazing. There were sketches all over the wall of various houses and buildings, as well as some of weirder things. Ships, temples, things that were floating or impossible by the laws of science.
Peppered around were photos of their mom and her friends when they were younger. A dark-haired girl with spiky hair on one, a burly Chinese boy on another, a blonde boy with a scar on his lip and another blonde with a scar over his eye were just a few scattered around. In some they were on a ship, some they were in the woods or fields or climbing wall...with lava? Okay...
But that was not the most extraordinary thing in the room. Lying on the desk was a torch with white light, shining through a prism and creating a rainbow. And in the rainbow was an image of a white palace with a fire burning in the background.
Ben and Cass inched forwards slowly. Class reached out and touched it. It rippled gently but didn't disappear.
"What is it?" Ben asked. "It's a rainbow, definitely... the white light is being dispersed but-"
"The fire is moving," Cass noticed. "Could it be a recording or a projection-?"
"Look for a projector," Ben suggested. "It would be over here..."
They turned away from the screen and started to search amongst the papers. It must be hidden well and very small...
CRASH!
The two of them whipped around. There was a person in the picture, a teenager of 18 or 19 wearing a blue toga and holding his hand out from where a mug had been. He had black hair and green eyes and was very, very pale.
"Who are you?" Ben asked. "How are you in a rainbow?"
"Ben!" Cass hissed. "Look!" She pointed past the rainbow where on the desk was the gold and bronze framed photo of the very person standing in front of them.
The man went paler. "B- Ben? Cass?"
"How do you know our names?" Cass asked with a false bravado. "How does our mom know you?"
"I- I'm," the man stuttered. "Where's Annabeth?"
"She's eating dinner," Cass answered. "Are you...are you our dad?"
"Come on, talk to us, since you haven't for twelve years!" Ben told him.
The man seemed to be shocked back into his senses and with one movement, slashed straight through his image and disappeared, leaving only a rainbow.
Cass backed away. "Let's go."
Ben joined her. "Agreed."
They ran out of the room and into Cass's, because it was bigger of the two. Cass claimed it was because she was better, but they both knew it was because she was terrified of small spaces.
"You know, we've been doing an awful lot of listening at doors recently," Ben mused in horrified fascination at the conversation they had just had,
"Yup," Cass agreed. "And what have we learned? That everyone is crazy and we are too."
Ben looked at her oddly. "We've learned more than that."
Cass put her head in her hands. "What have we learned? We know Ilana's got horns, our mom is part of this craziness, in two days we're gonna get attacked by monsters, our dad is in contact with mom but hasn't talked to us since the day we were born, quite apart from the fact he looks like only a teenager, so what does that tell us about their relationship, and have I mentioned the monsters? I think I've covered all the essentials, don't you?" she asked, breathing heavily, pupils blown wide and darting around in claustrophobic fear.
"Okay, just breathe, Cass, don't panic-"
"I'm not panicking!"
"Calm down-"
Outside, the wind picked up, her bedroom window flew open and a tree loudly fell to the ground with a carrying crack!
"What was that?" Cass cried out, wind whipping all around her but not touching her at all. "What's happening!?"
"There's a storm!" Ben shouted to her. "Calm down, hold onto something!"
Then it started raining. Fat droplets of water sloshed about everywhere, wetting everything in Cass's room, which just served to make her more panicked. Her eyes started to turn gold, wind picked up her short hair and blew it in her face as she looked around in panic. Footsteps thumped as Zack and their mom came to see what was going on.
"Holy cow!" was Zack's reaction.
Their mom's response to that was a lot calmer. "I tend to avoid holy cows, thank you very much." Then she saw her daughter. "Cass! What's going on, Ben?"
"She panicked!" Ben shouted back. "Then the storm started! Help her!"
Their mom nodded and inhaled deeply. She took a step forwards and as she entered the storm, released the breath, along with a word, softly whispered. "Cassandra." Time slowed around her as she walked towards the girl. "Cassandra. The unheeded prophetess. I'm here for you. Calm down." As their mom reached her, she wrapped her arms around her and pulled her to the ground in a hug. Immediately Cass calmed down, the storm stopped and her face resumed it's original appearance.
"What the hell!" Zack exclaimed.
Annabeth turned to him. "I think you should leave."
"No way, man! I should help you clear up, this room's a mess!"
Annabeth's grey eyes hardened like flint. She snapped her fingers. "You are tired. You are going to leave and go home."
Zack's eyes clouded over. "Yeah, leave and go home." His eyes cleared. "See you later Annabeth, Cass, Ben!" he called happily as he left the room and presumably the whole house.
'Jedi mind tricks,' Ben mouthed in fascination.
"Ben," his mom called. "Help me get Cass to your bed."
Cass was weak and shaky, tears on her face and limp from exertion. Ben came up by his mom and put his sister's arm over his shoulders and helped to pull her to her feet and stumble into his room, just next door. They lay her down in bed and then sat by her.
"Tell th'story," Cass instructed, slurring her words a bit. "Tell th'best story, 'm favourite."
On another occasion Ben would protest that they'd heard it a million times and request one about Odysseus, but at the moment Cass was the one exhausted and drained, so he made no complaint. Cass loved it because it could be applied to them, but also because it was a modern discovery, not ancient history.
"Okay," their mom agreed. "Let me tell you your favourite story... Remember that this is a sacred story, and so only three copies in the world have been discovered. One on Mount Olympus to be with the gods, one in Delphi protected by the Oracle and one in the catacombs of Rome. The story begins... Once, there lived boy of few years. He lived with his mother in a small house by Olympus. This boy was Perseus. Perseus knew not of his divine origins until he defeated a Fury that was sent after him by Hades. This was when he learned that he was a demigod son of Poseidon.
"Perseus had many adventures after he discovered he was a demigod. He fought beasts, found Zeus's lightning bolt, travelled the Sea of Monsters, held the sky, trekked the labyrinth and defeated the reborn Titan Kronos. He clashed with the Romans, journeyed Tartarus and joined with his friends to defeat Gaia and her Giant children.
"Though these stories are riveting in their own way, none is more so than the story of how he became a god. After the battle in which Gaia was defeated, Perseus and his friends stood before the gods, weary from battle and scarred from the deaths of their friends. As they stood, Zeus, the then king, proclaimed many foolish things, among which that it was all Apollo and Hera's fault, and that the demigods should thank their parents for defeating the Giants.
"In shocked fits of rage, his fellow gods turned against him, led by Aphrodite and backed up by the rest, calling for a king that would rule justly and without fault. Amongst those gathered, one name stood out: Perseus, whose fatal flaw was loyalty and who had turned down godhood for his friends." Here their mom stopped and smiled gently.
"Keep going," Ben prompted, watching as Cass fell into a steadier sleep.
"So Hestia, guardian of the hearth and family," she continued, "stepped up to Perseus, and despite his protesting, blessed him with the aid of all the gods. The assembled demigods ran out to escape the deadly godly auras, but his lover, Annabeth, stayed-"
"'S you," Cass whispered blearily. "Don' stop."
"But in fury, Zeus raised his lightning bolt and struck Hestia down, severely injuring Annabeth who was just behind. Fuelled by sorrow, Perseus fought Zeus, emerging eventually as the victor and dispersing Zeus to the Void, where dwells gods who have faded. But as Zeus drew his last breath, he cursed the new king to the life he had fought against, never to communicate by speech, sight or even written word with his demigod children, lest they suffer the sorrowful life of a hero. So alone his lover and demigod twins waited for twelve years until they could reunite with their father, who would weep every day at the mere thought of never showing his children how much he loved them. Here lies the beginning of the tale of Perseus, King of the Gods, and what he could never have."
Their mom looked up. Cass was fast asleep, but Ben was still awake, despite a tireless compulsion to yawn non-stop. She slowly stood up, placed a kiss on Cass's cheek and motioned for Ben to follow her out of the room.
As the door closed, Ben licked his lips. "Mom-"
"I think there's something you need to tell me," she stated, clearly expecting a response.
"Everything's gone crazy!" Ben exclaimed. "Ilana has horns! And she was talking to someone, and the person was talking another language, and you both said it was something to do with Mr Simmons, and you said you were going to kill him, and now I think about it, we really have had loads of English teachers and they change every few months but nobody noticed, how does that happen? And you know her-"
"I've never met Ilana before in my life," his mom corrected. "And this is all fine, but not what I want. Answer me clearly. Did you go into my work room?"
Ben bowed his head guiltily. "Yes," he confessed.
His mom nodded. "Okay, that's all I wanted. I'm not angry, it was inevitable."
"What was inevitable?"
She smiled. "Don't worry about it. You look tired. I'll tell you in the morning, I promise. For now, just sleep in the guest bedroom, okay?"
Ben nodded sleepily. "I'll hold you to that mom," he said, padding away down the corridor with a yawn.
Annabeth turned away. "The only thing I'm angry about is the fact I didn't start training you for this earlier..."