Chapter 3: When Different is Not Always Bad

Sam was sitting in the couch of the Big House, while the Hecate cabin was discussing the matter with Chiron, Mister D and the head counsellors. For some reason there was a leopard head lying in the couch next to Sam.

'He likes to eat Cheetos,' said Cali. 'His name's Seymour.'

Sam stared at the daughter of Kymopoleia. 'This thing has a name?'

'Yes he does,' she said as she moved him to another couch. The leopard opened its eyes, but closed them again. 'He's a sacred animal of Mister D.'

'Oh, so that might explain the leopard skin shirt.'

Cali smiled. 'So, what's going to happen next?'

Sam looked at the locked door of the War Room. 'Dunno. Why aren't you in there? Aren't you the head of the Kymopoleia cabin?'

'This is major god material,' she replied as she took a seat next to Sam. 'I heard something about an ancient prophecy.'

'From the Oracle of Delphi, right? Well, the modern incarnation.'

'Correct. Rachel Dare is our current oracle. She dishes out the prophecies for our quests.'

Sam nodded as he touched his stump. The Hecate siblings had taken his leg, the pouch and letter with them. 'Guess it all fits in with the Ancient Greek thing. Campers who go out questing.'

Cali chuckled. 'Not all of us do that you know, most of us just stay at camp, practicing skills and other stuff.'

'Cool.'

Seymour the leopard yawned and Sam got startled. Cali laughed. Suddenly the door opened up and Clarisse walked out.

'Parker, we'd like to see you now.' She walked over and instructed Sam to grab her by the shoulder as she guided him towards the room.

'I'll see you later,' said Sam.

Cali nodded.

Sam took a seat while every person in the room stared at him. 'And?'

'We have strong indications that you are one of ours,' said Lou Ellen after clearing her throat. 'These symbols you've been drawing are pretty powerful sigils. These for example are used for enchanting magic.' Lou Ellen showed him a couple of interlocking circles.

'What does that mean?' asked Sam.

'It means that you have a knack for drawing magic symbols,' said Lou Ellen as she smiled which softened her stern looking features.

'Awesome.'

'Not quite,' replied a female mage with dark eyes that sent a shiver down Sam's spine. 'You've been infusing them with magic, uncontrolled magic.'

'That can be very dangerous,' said Lou Ellen with a grim look.

'What about the items?' asked a Native American girl.

'They are not magical,' said a male mage. 'Not the leg, nor the coin, the coin's a regular silver Roman coin. Same for the prosthetic leg.'

'Why do you have a Roman coin in your possession?'

'Dunno,' said Sam. 'It came with the other stuff.' He picked up the coin. 'It's a silver coin of impure silver, stamped with Caesar's image and the letters SPQR on one side and an image of Janus on the other. I guess that's because he's the two faced god and a coin has two sides.'

'Good reasoning,' said Annabeth.

'Is there going to be another test?' asked Percy.

Lou Ellen nodded. 'But it will not take that long, John if you will.'

John McMiller stepped forward and placed a stack of cards in the middle of the table. He took off seven cards and laid them in front of Sam. The stack got shuffled again and the process got repeated. Then he shuffled the fourteen cards, picked five to form a pentagram pattern on the table and handed them to Sam.

One of the Hecate siblings drew a circle around the table and motioned the others to take a step back. The others drew symbols on every compass point.

'Sam,' said Lou Ellen. 'Pick five cards from the seven cards and place them somewhere in the pattern John placed on the table. Five cards that you think ought to match. I'll give you ten minutes. Go.'

Sam looked at the cards that laid on the table and laid his seven cards open on the table. He scanned his own cards and noticed that some were black, while others were white. He sorted the cards in black and white cards. Then he took another glance at the cards and picked his cards.

He went for the opposition symmetry of black and white, but soon saw that he lacked two cards to finish off the pentagram. Sam muttered a curse.

'Five minutes remaining,' said Lou Ellen.

He closed his eyes for a moment and realized that he was sitting in a circle. Sam moved his chair and took a look at the circle and symbols that had been drawn around the table. Sam closed his eyes again and visualized both patterns. He grinned. He placed four of the cards just outside the pentagram, in line with the compass points and placed his final card dead in the centre of the pentagram.

'Are you finished? You still have two minutes left.'

'I'm done, I think.' Sam looked at the pattern he'd created. 'Yeah. It's finished.'

'Pretty impressive formation. Care to explain why you did what you did?' asked the girl that had sent a shiver down his spine. Sam noticed that she was redhead.

'Well, at first I tried to replicate the star John had placed on the table but I couldn't find the matching cards. So then I saw that you had drawn symbols on the outside of the circle on the floor and it seemed logical to me that there had to be an connection between the inner figure and the circle, so I laid the four cards there and the fifth one is in the middle because everything needs a centre point.' He looked at the Hecate siblings, they all stared at him and the formation. 'I made a mistake didn't I?'

'Nobody said that,' said John. 'We're just thinking about your reasoning. It's … different.'

'Oh.' Sam tried not to sound to disappointed.

'But different doesn't mean bad,' said Lou Ellen. 'It's just that there were other options you could have tried out.' She picked up one of the cards. The third white one that had to be black to make it symmetric. 'You could've just flipped it around to make it symmetric.' Her siblings smiled as she flipped the card and placed the five cards next to the cards that John had laid on the table.

'They're all double sided?' Sam flipped over some of the other cards.

'Yeah, but you could've also made a circle with the curved lines you see on the cards,' said Redhead as she rearranged some of the cards so that the curved lines on them made an incomplete circle.

'So magic works in different ways, just like these cards?' Sam picked up some of the cards and made a pentagram shaped figure by grouping cards together so that they overlapped.

'And he figures out the basic rule of magic,' said John with a laugh.

A bright light appeared in the room. Sam closed his eyes. 'Like you figured it out the first time you played with the cards, John Francis McMiller,' said a voice.

Sam opened his eyes and saw that a pale looking woman had appeared. Her golden hair was braided and she wore a white gown with silver and black symbols on them. She stared at John with a raised eyebrow. Sam thought that she was rather stern-looking.

'I apologize, mother,' said John as he stared at his feet.

'O, come here you.' She grabbed the broad shouldered mage in her arms and hugged him tightly. She gave each of her children a warm hug as she named them all. Sam learned that the other siblings were called Suzan, Ronan, Jade and Mia. When she released Lou Ellen from her grasp she turned to Sam and smiled. Her green eyes scanned him. 'Sam Parker.'

'Hecate,' replied Sam. 'Or is it Trivia?'

'There is only Hecate, my son.' The moment she spoke the words a black with blazing torches symbol appeared over his head and shimmered away.

'Mother,' said Sam as if it was a strange word. 'You're my mother, my divine mother.'

'Yes, and you are Sam Parker, the son of the late Paul Winters, adoptive son of Anne and Ryan Parker, adoptive brother to Sarah Parker. And you are my seventh child to currently reside in cabin 20.' She smiled even broader. 'It seems that you have inherited you father's brown locks of hair, but my green eyes. Unfortunately so far only Suzan has inherited my black eyes.'

'C.R, C. Roads, crossroads,' muttered Chiron. 'I should've known that.'

'Do not punish yourself too hard,' said Hecate. 'One cannot know everything.'

'Why now?' asked Sam. 'Why not earlier?'

The goddess looked at her youngest child. She stared into his green eyes. 'Sam…'

'You're the goddess of possibilities, there is even mention of possible future views. Could you have stopped it, prevented it?' Sam clenched his hands into fists.

The goddess exchanged glances with her eldest child.

'Maybe we ought to give them some privacy,' said Chiron. 'Everybody out.' Hecate nodded gratefully.

The two stared at each other until everyone but Lou Ellen had left the room.

'Lou.'

'I'm staying, he's my responsibility at this camp.'

Hecate sighed and motioned her to take a seat. She picked up the notebook and looked at several of the pages. 'To answer your question, no I could not have prevented it. The Fates have the ultimate power over that.'

Sam unclenched his fists. 'Did you love him?'

'Yes, I did. I couldn't save him, so I chose to save you. The letter you received.'

'That was you?' asked Lou Ellen.

Hecate nodded. 'Your adoptive parents are legacies themselves and I might have dropped some hints.'

Sam looked at her with amazement. So, this lady had been pulling the strings of his life for the past three years.

'You seem to have a penchant for enchantments,' said the goddess. 'These are pretty good sigils, but the power is rather raw.'

'We noticed,' said Lou Ellen. 'We'll work on that.'

'Work on what?'

'You mastering the use of magic,' said Lou Ellen. 'All of mother's children have to learn how to use magic. I and our siblings will be doing the training.'

'I want you to help him if he has any questions or problems. We can't have a mage using magic in a wrong way. I expect you to help each other.'

'Yes mother,' said Lou Ellen while rolling her eyes. Sam chuckled.

'I saw that young lady,' said Hecate. 'And you,' she said as she turned to Sam. 'I heard that you've been going around getting on the Council's bad side. You better not repeat it too often, is that understood?'

Sam nodded.

'I asked, is that understood?' The goddess looked at him with pitch black eyes.

'Yes, mother,' said Sam nervously.

'Good, then I shall depart. Sam, you'll be sleeping in cabin 20 from now on. Lou Ellen, see to it that he gets everything he needs.'

'Yes mother,' she replied.

'Lou,' said Hecate warningly. She hugged her daughter and son. Sam got his hug last. Then she departed, leaving nothing but a neatly stack deck of cards and Sam wearing his prosthetic leg.

'That's creepy,' said Sam as he touched his leg.

'She does that every time she comes to visit. Well, let's get you settled into cabin 20, little brother.

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