Chapter Nine
I wake up the next morning and see people gathering around Tantalus, who had replaced Chiron. He holds a letter in his hands and starts to read it. I quickly get ready and join the crowd.
"This is a letter that Jenna has wrote for us. She apparently traveled to the Underworld and is finding someone there. Ahem.
"Hello, I am currently writing from one of the many bedrooms in Hades' palace. I was traveling to the Underworld because I needed to retrieve something I had lost. I gave Charon his coin and met Persephone. She lead me to the palace. When I am finished with this letter, I will use one of the wind gods and let them transfer it to Chiron. I am extremely hungry here, but the food looks unappetizing…"
Tantalus was about to continue when someone runs down the hill and pants, "Clarisse… she has arrived with the Golden Fleece!" Everyone immediately runs up the hill to congratulate her. I notice Drew and her gang rolling their eyes and gossiping while Mark and Sherman nearly fly up the hill. When they reach the top, I hear several girly shrieks coming from their mouths.
When I reach the top, I see Chiron and other centaurs guiding Clarisse, who was holding the Fleece. And there Percy Jackson was, standing with a peculiar group consisting of a blonde, who I assumed was Athena's offspring, a satyr, and a cyclops. When I focused my attention back to the tree, the once hideous, dying tree became green and alive, and the border I had smashed through so many times became stronger and more stable. Suddenly, a teenage girl sprung from the roots of the tree, and I hear the blonde girl whisper, "Thalia?"
The strange root girl confirms this when she says, "I am Thalia, daughter of Zeus." A large, unison gasp comes from a great deal of the crowd, and people start murmuring between themselves.
"The prophecy, remember?"
"I thought Percy Jackson was going to be the prophecy."
"Which one of these people is going to be the hero?"
"I dunno. Maybe both?"
"That's not possible. Right?"
When the conversations die down, Chiron is declared innocent and rehired. Just like that, everyone goes back to their normal activities, with me lagging behind since I am mortal. It does not matter, because being Aphrodite's temporary child made an excuse for my failure.
The next six months pass by quickly. Mia had grown accustomed to Athena's cabin, so I rarely see her unless we were listening to one of Jenna's letters. Each time she sent one, they were brief and unclear. Jenna never tell us her exact goal, but would always describe the Underworld is great detail. If Jenna was a normal mortal, she could easily be a writer, for her descriptions made you feel the heat of Tartarus prickle against your skin, make you yawn with boredom when describing the Fields of Asphodel, and make you bawl your eyes out whenever she passes the River Cocytus.
When Thalia, who now fit in the camp while suffering from loneliness being the only child of Zeus (like Percy), was assigned to go fetch two demigod children, Mia pulls me aside and excitedly whispers, "Kayla, why don't we follow her and get a look at the children! We can use that strange animal you used to get to my school!"
I'm dumbfounded and say, "You saw my griffin?"
"That's what their called?" I nod.
"Well, can we use it?" Mia begs. I sigh. Mia had recently turned eleven, which was still pretty young compared to all the other demigods at the camp. She didn't know many of the dangers I had studied in Greek mythology and that some of the campers have probably faced, and I couldn't protect her very well.
"We can try," I say. Mia grins and jumps up and down, obviously pleased. I summon Cloud, and when Thalia takes off (with Percy and the blonde not far behind) we trail her through the sky.