"PEYTON! LILLIE!" I screeched, my lungs burning with the volume of my voice. I ran as fast as I could in my stupid toga dress. Why did the strawberry fields have to be so far away from the Big House?
I panted, my breath becoming short as I pushed my muscles to the limit, swinging my arms to gain more momentum. Suddenly, my skirt wasn't an issue. The magical toga transformed into a short jumpsuit, the fabric allowing ease of moment as I sprinted to the Big House.
"PEYTON!" I screamed again. Other campers that were dispersing from Sword Fighting and Volleyball gave me quizzical looks as I flew past them. I was used to the glares. Instead of fixating on how their eyebrows were all creased and their smiles were turned to frowns, I focused on my mission.
Let Peyton and Lillie know.
I practically tripped up the steps of the porch and charged through the door. Peyton and Lillie were sat at the kitchen counter. They both look startled when I crashed into the room, springing apart. It took me a moment to realize there had barely been a millimeter of space between them when I came in.
I flopped to the ground like I had no bones.
"Oh my gosh, Clara!" Lillie jumped off her seat and rushed over to me. She fanned my face with her hands. Her hair was mostly dry from the canoeing adventure and it tickled my face as she leant over me.
"Give her some room to breath," Peyton said, taking Lillie's shoulder and pulling her back. "Clara, what is it?" He passed me a glass of water that he'd filled from the sink. The icy liquid ran down my burning throat with ease.
"Snake eyes…" I wheezed.
Lillie flinched, probably thinking I was there to shout at her some more. Her eyes clouded with tears that threatened to spill.
"No, Lil," I said, finally getting my breath back. Gosh, I was out of shape. "I mean, there was something about your eyes. Lilac thought the same thing I did. The manic voice wasn't you. You don't want to kill us. It was a prophecy."
Peyton's eyebrows met his hairline. He sank back into one of the squishy couches in the living room. His face had blanched. "A prophecy. Clara, are you sure?"
"As sure as I am that I'm Hera's daughter," I said. Swearing on my mother seemed to be the best I could do at the moment, having momentarily lost my identity since being claimed as the Princess of Olympus.
"But aren't prophecy's normally longer than just one line?" Lillian asked, her eyes all clear. With the relief of not being a midnight murderer, she'd sobered, instantly the most serious of our trio.
"And don't they usually rhyme?" Peyton added, having found his head.
"Well, she didn't give us a couplet, so how are we meant to know it didn't rhyme?" I said, a hint of a smile in my voice.
The son of Selene smirked and I knew that I was forgiven.
"We have to talk to Chiron," Lillian said.
"Well, we have to," I said. "He still doesn't know you exist."
"Oh," Lillian chuckled, "Right, I'm still invisible."
"I don't understand," Peyton said. "I thought that the prophetic powers had been retracted since Jason and Hera?" His eyes widened. "Oh. Hera."
I nodded. "It's my mother. She must have done something….perhaps to warn us about something?"
Peyton stroked his chin. "That's all very ambiguous."
"Lillie hasn't exactly given us any specifics," I noted.
Lillian cleared her throat. "Perhaps we need to do something to entice the prophecy to return. We can't just sit here and wait for days to learn every line."
We all thought for a minute. "How about we go to Clovis?" I suggested. "Maybe you could dream the rest of the prophecy?"
Lillian squirmed. "I'm meant to be invisible to everyone. I can't exactly go and lie down in the Morpheus Cabin."
"I've got it!" Peyton clicked his fingers, just to emphasize his epiphany. "Why not go back to the attic."
Lillian and I looked at each other in fear.
"You want us to go up there again, by choice?" I gulped.
"To the attic!" Peyton declared.
"Please, you can't!" Hera cried. She'd awoken from the haze that had surrounded her body, making her feeling drowsy and light-headed.
Her attacker didn't show mercy. They pulled a large piece of black cloth from around their back and draped it across the Queen of Olympus's skin. The fibers burned her when she came into contact with it. As she wriggled from the attackers grasp, she could see the trails of burns left by the cloth.
She screamed, her wrists caught in the hands of her assailant.
Hera tried to change shape, thinking that her peacock formation would be immune to the burning fabric, but the pain made her see white sparks. It was too much effort. Instead, she shrank, her nine-foot goddess form melting away so that she was the size of a mortal.
"Please, show mercy!" she screeched, the pain radiating around her whole body, no matter what size.
The attacker didn't listen.
"I don't like this idea," I said. The three of us were standing at the bottom of the attic stairs. With Chiron out teaching Archery, we didn't have to worry about him finding out about our attic excursion.
No matter how much dissent Lillie and I gave, Peyton was determined for us to venture into the place I wish I could un-see.
"Clara, strengthen up," Peyton said.
"Sure, let me just battle a minotaur first. I think that would really help my self confidence."
Peyton sighed. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and squeezed me close to his chest. Lillie frowned a little.
"You have to stop thinking just because the only adventure you've experienced is a curly water slide at your dad's latest hotel," he said. "You're part of this prophecy too."
"Right, otherwise you'd dispose of me and run of into the sunset with Lillie," I said, with a smile on my face so that he'd know I was joking. Lillie blushed but Peyton just cleared his throat.
"Sorry," he whispered. I'd worked it out that the reason Peyton and Lillie were sat millimeters away from each other was telling of the new feelings that had blossomed between them. I wasn't one to judge on time – my dad and Hera must have only had a few weeks together when he was in New York to scout out hotel locations. But I was one to worry about abandonment, because everyone knew that three was an odd number.
"Let's get on with it then," I said, shaking his hand from my shoulder. "I'm so near losing my nerve."
Peyton nodded. "Ladies first?"