Chapter 11

I handed the steering over to Nick. Soleil was watching the water over the side of the boat. She seemed worried. I walked over next to her. I asked her what was wrong. She tried to say it was nothing, but I knew her too well to think it really was nothing. My guess was it involved one of two things: Norman or a dream. Which was more lethal? I have no idea. I was guessing that in this case the dream would probably be more lethal. The night before I had gone down below after I heard her talking to Norman and she was oddly happy. Maybe they were finally getting along.

I heard a shout from below. In a second Soleil had her bow at the ready. Nico ran above with his sword drawn. Norman followed up behind him. He looked at Soleil. "Looks like your little sea monster has arrived," he said as lightly as he could. Nick stayed at the wheel. I made my bow appear. Two silver arrows appeared. I watched as a purple scaly back went by the side of our boat.

It just passed. That was all it did. Everyone put their weapons away. Soleil still held her bow tightly. She started talking with Nico about random things while I co-captained with Nick. He looked at the map next to him. He mumbled a couple words before writing something on the map. He was looking it over with extreme concentration that I did not want to break so I did not ask him what he had just written.

I was still waiting to ask Nick what he had done when the boat rocked precariously. Well that broke his concentration. A wave splashed over the side. It drenched Soleil and Nico. Norman came above deck again. The purple sea serpent rose out of the water. Soleil shot it with three arrows at once. They buried under its scales. It still dived down. I made my bow appear. The two silver arrows appeared again. Nico managed to get a good swing at the serpent as it plunged back into the water. The boat rocked again. Soleil, Nico, and Norman fell to their knees. I tumbled sideways. Nick caught me before I fell.

The sea serpent rose again. I jumped onto the deck, next to Soleil. I shot the two arrows. They hit the serpent right in the eyes. It wailed metallically. I shot the next arrow that appeared on my string right into its mouth. It started to gag. I kept shooting the arrows as they appeared on my string. The sea serpent swayed dangerously. I shot five at its stomach. They were right in a row, like silver buttons. It began to fall.

Soleil, Nico, and Norman had already gotten off the deck and were standing near the wheel. The serpent fell right toward me. My feet felt like they were one hundred pound rocks stuck to the ground with gorilla glue. In seconds the serpent would crush me. I tried to move. All that happened was that my bow vanished. I held my hands over my head. I do not know why I did it, but at the time I guess I had a stupid idea that I could hold the serpent up.

Nick pulled me against him. He held his sword over his head with both hands. It went right through the serpent. Nick held it above him on the sword for the few seconds before it became green monster goop that fell on us. Nick was covering me enough so that he got the worst of it. I looked up at him.

"Sorry," I said.

"Why?" He flicked some monster goop off his hands.

"For making you do that. I should have moved."

He smiled. "Tess, it's fine."

"No, it's not. I mean, now we're both covered in monster…icky stuff. Especially you."

"I don't mind. It was worth it. Besides, now I can do this." He turned and held out his arms. "C'mere, bro!"

Norman pushed Soleil in front of him. Nick laughed. He went below. I heard the sound of the shower in the small bathroom start. Nick came back up less than fifteen minutes later, totally un-monster icky stuff-ified. I took a shower next. The hardest part was getting it out of my long hair.

Soleil was on the couch when I walked out. I got a bottle of water from the fridge. I sat in one of the chairs. "You knew that attack was coming, didn't you?" I asked.

"Eh," she replied. "I just had a dream about a purple sea serpent."

"That's cool that you're dreams are kind of like glimpses of the future."

She laughed. "Yeah, right! I also had a dream I kissed Norman. That, my friend, is not a glimpse of the future, but a nightmare."

I looked at the book on the table. "'Greek Myths'." I looked at Soleil. "Which one are you on?"

"The Apollo versus Python one." She looked at the book. "It was so awesome that my dad was able to kill Python. I mean, he was like really powerful. I can not even imagine what it would be like to fight that thing."

"You could probably take it on."

She shrugged. "Yeah, maybe if I trained every day of my life for the next twenty years and only ate protein drinks and used steroids I could." She laughed. "Oh, whatever. I'm just happy that things not around any more."

"Me too."

I got another bottle of water from the fridge before going above deck. Nick was steering again. Norman and Nico looked at Nick, at me, back at Nick, then went below. I handed Nick the water.

"Thanks," I said. I realized then I had not said it earlier. "I really appreciate it."

Nick shrugged. "I'd rather have you alive than squashed," he said.

"Me, too." I took a sip of my water. My stomach got butterflies before I asked, "Did you really mean it?"

"Yes, I really did mean I would rather have you alive." He laughed. "What kind of question was that?"

"You called me beautiful the other night."

"Uh, did I? Maybe you were, um, hearing things." He did not look at me.

"You suck at lying."

"I know. Look, I'm sorry, it just kind of came out. Please don't hurt me." He held his hands up.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"I promise I won't say it again and-Wait, what? You're not going to hurt me? But-…" He looked ahead again. "You confuse me, you know that?"

"That's because I'm a girl and you're a guy. If you understood me the world would start rotating in the opposite direction."

"True."

For a couple hours we talked about random things. Nick told me about his years at Camp. I told him about Furrows. He told me about his little sister, Nicolette, too. She was completely related to him. Same dad and mom. It was rare for gods to have more than one or two children with the same people. We were talking about the pegasi when Soleil came running above. She pushed Nick and me out of the way. She squinted up ahead. "Land!" she yelled. "I knew it! Norm, you owe me twenty bucks as soon as we get back to camp!" She smiled at me. "Maybe I do have glimpses of the future."

"You saw land in a dream?" I looked ahead. I could just barely make out the outline of a small island. "What's on it?"

"Nothing. Though, I think I saw some pieces of wood, which means that the missing demigods could be there." She clapped. "I need to go get my first aid kit, just in case."

I looked at Nick. He was smiling. I sat in the chair behind me. Nick made the boat go as fast as it could. We created a big wake behind us in the dark water. Everyone crowded around the wheel as we got closer. Once we got close enough Nick cut the engine. Norman, Nick, Nico, Soleil, and I pulled the boat onto the sand. We tied the ropes to some large rocks we found. We got our backpacks off the boat and began searching the whole island.

We did not see anything very unusual. It was just a deserted island. It was completely flat. There was only forest and beach. Norman and Nick walked the whole perimeter of the island. They found no wood. Soleil was disappointed by the news. I helped her set up the two tents. We created our own little fire pit. Nick fashioned his own fishing rod. He went to a pool on the other side of the island where he had seen some fish.

"We'll eat like kings, tonight, eh?" Nico said as he started the fire.

"Oh yeah," I said, rolling my eyes.

Nick came back with three fish. Nico helped him filet them. They were done cooking before it got too dark. Soleil and I had first watch. We played a game where you had to say the name of something that began with the last letter of the word the other person had just said.

"Orange," I said.

"Eggs," Soleil said.

"Sausage."

"Emus."

"Sunday."

"Yellow."

"Wall."

"Lake."

"Electric."

"Card."

"Dung."

"Gun."

"Nick."

"No names allowed."

"I meant like a scratch or a cut or something."

"Yeah, sure. It had nothing to do with the fact that he's on your mind more than you want him to be."

"Uh, no," I lied. "I really meant a scratch or cut."

"Whatever. Our time is up." She unzipped the door to the boys' tent. She stepped in. Nico yelled at her to get out. She came back out, dragging Norman by the ear. "Let any monsters near us and I'll kill you," she said seriously. She smiled broadly. "Happy guarding."

She went into the tent. Nico stumbled out of the boys' tent in a daze. He looked like he could really use a coffee. Norman smacked him on the back of the head.

"What was that for?" Nico groaned.

"You awake?" Norman asked.

"Now, yes, thank you very much."

"No problemo."

I crawled into my tent. Soleil was already asleep. Lucky duck. It would take me a couple hours before I would fall asleep. I was still awake when it was my turn to go on watch again with Nick. We talked about random things again. It was pretty fun, actually. At dawn Soleil and Nico took over. That was when I finally fell asleep.

I woke up in mid-morning. Nick and Norman were looking at a map, trying to figure out where we were. Nico was eating a fish. I took some for myself. Eating fish for breakfast felt weird, but it tasted pretty good. It was kind of bland. Needed salt. I wondered if maybe there were some spices on the island. Maybe the trees had a special sap that tasted good. They just looked like regular palm trees. In the middle of the island was a deep forest, though. I recognized a couple maple trees. It really was not the time of year to be getting syrup from maple trees. If we had come a couple months earlier, maybe we-I realized who was missing.

"Where's Sol?" I asked.

"I thought she went back into the tent after our watch," Nico said. "Isn't she sleeping?"

"It's too late for her," Norman said. He looked at Nick. "Did you see her?"

"No. You were the first one up after Nico got off watch."

We all looked at each other for a few seconds. At the same time we started running toward the beach. I yelled Soleil's name. When we made it to the beach the first thing I was the giant whirlpool.