Chapter 25: My Stepmom Makes Spider Lemonade

I arrived into the worst winter storm San Francisco had seen in two hundred years. Hail pelted our plane as my dad struggled to land it. When we finally touched down, it skidded the length of Crissy Field.

Janet and the twins met us in a taxi. I wondered where my dad's Volkswagen was, then remembered guiltily that Percy, Thalia, and Zoë had wrecked it on Mount Tam.

'Get a load of that storm, eh?' our cab driver said, shaking his head as he ferried us through the ice. 'Never seen anything like it.'

I glanced out the back of the taxi, towards Marin County in the north. The clouds were thickest there, obscuring Mount Tam in swirling gloom.

My family's new house was in the suburbs of Pacific Heights, on a long, straight row of whitewashed buildings. It had the same design as its neighbours, but the bright red curtains in the front-facing windows stood out sharply from the pastel-coloured draperies of the other houses.

Janet paid the cab driver and ushered the twins quickly up the empty drive. My dad and I followed with my bag. The front door looked like it had been recently redone to match the curtains. It reminded me of the paint job on the Ares cabin. What in Zeus's had made my dad or Janet pick this colour scheme?

Janet pushed open the door and I stepped over the threshold into my new home. Inside, the walls were a soft beige. The paintings and photos from our old house in Richmond hung proudly all over them. Janet bent to pick up a few of Bobby and Matthew's toys, which had been strewn haphazardly across the hallway. She pursed her lips—there seemed to be a lecture about putting things away in the offing—and shooed them down the hall.

'Frederick, would you get them a snack?'

'I want Pop Tarts!' Bobby yelled, racing ahead to the kitchen.

I started to follow, but Janet touched my shoulder. 'Annabeth …'

We looked at each other. Neither of us seemed to know what to say. I still wasn't sure whether to believe what Percy had told me about her. Janet looked as forbidding as ever, with her tight bun and the deep crease in her forehead.

She steered me gently through an open doorway into the living room, where the garish red curtains clashed vividly with the rest of the décor. Janet gave no explanation for them. She pointed to the fireplace opposite the window.

'It took a bit of work,' she said, 'but we had it put in the old-fashioned way. Maybe you won't need to appropriate my oven at every meal now.'

I could have taken her words as an accusation or a complaint. She might not have openly voiced her disapproval for the way I burnt offerings to the gods at mealtimes, but I was sure she resented the trouble it took to accommodate my godly heritage. Yet, she was going out of her way to mention the hearth. It had traces of embers from a recently-lit fire. They'd had it specially built in where most people had electric or ornamental fireplaces these days.

This was a peace offering.

Maybe Percy had been right about her after all.

'Thanks,' I said.

Janet's arms stretched out stiffly. I hesitated, unsure if she actually meant to hug me. I probably looked just as awkward, staring at her hands and wondering if I could bring myself to embrace her.

In the end, we compromised on a handshake.

'Welcome home, Annabeth,' she said. She sounded almost as surprised as me to hear the warmth in her own voice.

In the glowing embers of the fireplace, I thought I saw the shade of Hestia flicker with approval.

OoOoO

Storms continued to batter San Francisco throughout my first week there. On New Year's Eve, my dad took me to Fort Point even though the city council had cancelled their usual fireworks display due to inclement weather. The dark peak of Mount Tam rose above the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge, glowering like an angry Titan over the entire city.

Out to the west, the waves of the Pacific crashed against the fortifications. The ocean was a churning mass that reminded me of Charybdis and her infernal whirlpool. Was Luke's ship out there now, waging war against Poseidon?

The shadow of something massive and round rose amidst the frothing waves, dipped beneath the surface, and appeared a moment later closer to the gateway bridge. It continued its undulating passage through the water into the storm-tossed bay. As it approached, the darkness over the city seemed to intensify.

Something told me it wasn't a whale, or even your average sea monster.

'It's almost time!' My dad tapped his watch, which was blinking 11:59. 'Ten … nine … eight …'

At the turn of the year, thunder crackled over Mount Tam. It sounded like the sinister laugh of Kronos. Next to it, the half-hearted cheers of the handful of people who had braved the weather to come out and celebrate sounded weak and muted.

My dad sighed and put an arm around me. 'Not the best start to the year, I guess.'

'It's okay, Dad.'

A bright flash illuminated a mountain in the east. For a moment, it appeared to be ablaze, sending flames shooting towards the sky. Then all was pitch-black again.

I pointed to it. 'What's on that side?'

'Hm.' My dad scratched his chin. 'Berkeley Hills, I believe.'

With a final boom, the storm that had plagued the city all week dissipated. Rain stopped pelting from the skies. The clouds over the south parted to reveal starry skies and a sliver of moon. But to the north and east, the towering storm front remained like a barrier over Marin County and Berkeley Hills. It was a sharp, contrasting line, like two fronts of a battle.

I imagined Luke sailing across that line, and shivered.

The next morning, we woke to find the city covered in a thick, nearly impenetrable fog. My dad was disappointed; he'd wanted to give me my first flying lesson, but all flights—commercial and private—were grounded for safety reasons. The newscaster delivering this information on the television looked as though she was bobbing in a swirling white sea.

We went to Crissy Field anyway to check on the planes. Traffic was at a standstill, since drivers could barely see ten feet ahead of them, so we walked. I didn't know if it was due to the fog, but the temperature variations were insane. One moment we'd be walking in a light winter chill, the next we'd be plunged into freezing temperatures, as if we'd crossed some invisible door into an ice box. Cross another street, and it suddenly turned balmy again.

The fog over the bay was, if possible, even thicker. Only the very tip of Mount Tam was visible, poking out from nothingness. Berkeley Hills had been entirely swallowed in white. The bay itself no longer seemed to exist.

'It does get foggy around here,' my dad said, squinting out into the bay, 'but this is the worst I've ever seen it. Is this because of those Titans of yours?'

I nodded. It was all too easy to picture the sea monster I'd seen yesterday lurking in the ocean of fog, along with a dozen monstrous friends. Maybe it was there, on the east side of California, that the Titan army was gathering in numbers. The Mist—the magical one, not the fog, though it was possible both were related—had to be working overtime to hide their presence.

Any half-bloods who lived there wouldn't stand a chance. Just peering into the fog, wondering if a monster might suddenly emerge, was nerve-wracking enough.

My dad seemed to guess what I was thinking. He patted his bulging pocket. 'I have a few more tricks up my sleeve.'

I saw what he meant soon enough. Although he'd only been here for little over a month, his new garage was already a cluttered workshop. He'd put all the bronze weapons I'd collected from the Civil War Museum to good use. Besides outfitting the guns on his fighter planes, he'd also crafted celestial bronze bullets for an antique hand pistol, which he taught me how to fire, experimented with a mace canister so that it now sprayed bronze mist, and replaced the blade of a decorative eighteenth-century broadsword that had used to hang, framed, over our mantle in Richmond.

'Wow,' I said, picking it up and giving it an experimental swing. 'I can't believe you did all this.'

My dad shrugged. 'Always, always have a plan, right?'

Startled, I nearly dropped the broadsword. His eyes were gleaming with a mixture of pride and excitement.

I started to laugh. Clearly my mom had chosen wisely when she'd picked him (not that I should ever doubt Athena's wisdom).

My dad's plans turned out to include more than just my protection. A few days later, I found myself sitting in an office while Janet argued with the principal of my new school. Bobby and Matthew had transferred into the second grade here last semester, but Laurel Academy seemed hesitant to take an eighth-grade transfer student in the middle of the school year.

'It's highly irregular, Mrs Chase.' Principal Brown was a weedy man with bushy eyebrows that moved a lot and the thickest moustache I'd ever seen. 'I know your husband wrote in, but under the circumstances …' He glanced at me and lowered his voice so that I could only hear snatches of his next words: 'Advanced curriculum … sketchy record … unsuitable … keep up …'

My cheeks heated up. Of course my school records would be found lacking. From being marked as dyslexic since kindergarten and diagnosed as ADHD in the first grade, to being held back and never officially completing the year (I'd run away before school let out) … Without the Mist to gloss things over, there was no way a fancy private school with a stellar academic record like this one was going to want me.

The sting of not being good enough pierced me like a manticore's spike, making me feel numb all over.

Janet drew herself up impressively. Her bun was tighter than ever today, the red highlights in her hair pulled into stern streaks across her head. Unlike Principal Brown, she didn't bother to keep her voice down. 'Annabeth is very advanced. We've had her home-schooled, with a concentration in Greek and Latin, specialising in architectural design.'

Principal Brown's thick eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair line. 'She's dyslexic,' he pointed out.

'Which has no bearing on her ability to learn other languages, especially those with different alphabetical systems, or her creativity and reasoning ability. And I assure you, those are off the charts!'

'Well …'

I wanted to tell Janet to forget it. Even if she got me in, I'd probably end up suspended or expelled once the monsters showed up (and they inevitably would). But then her next rebuttal floored me: 'And I have here a letter of recommendation from a teacher at her previous school.' She dug into her purse.

My head shot up. To my amazement, she produced an official-looking envelope with St Catherine's crest on the seal. Had she actually written to ask them for a reference?

Principal Brown scanned the letter. His eyebrows did another wave up and down his forehead. 'You didn't mention this before …'

'I'm mentioning it now, yes?'

I was wildly curious about the letter, but I never got to see it. Principal Brown filed it away and they moved on to completing the paperwork. Fifteen minutes later I was enrolled and due to start school the following week.

We left Laurel Academy and headed down California Street. Janet's parents lived only a few blocks down. We'd left Bobby and Matthew at their grandma's while we sorted out my school enrolment. I thought we'd go straight there to pick them up, but to my surprise, Janet paused on the corner of California and Baker.

'How would you like to get some tea?' Her eyes crinkled as she admitted, 'I'm not in a rush to pick up the twins.'

'Um … okay.' It was weird, but after she'd just gone to bat for me, I supposed it wouldn't hurt to spend some time with her.

We found a café on Pine Street. It had oriental carvings in its wall dividers and porcelain tea sets on display. Glowing lava lamps were set in every alcove, with large, anemone-shaped bubbles oozing in the fluorescent fluid. I stared at them suspiciously, but there was no evidence that they were anything more than an eccentric design choice. A light, jasmine-scented perfume wafted around the shop.

Our tea came in a silver pot with carved figures on its sides, images of armoured men fighting wild, ancient creatures. One looked suspiciously like a cynocephalus, a dog-headed man; another had the upper half of a horse.

'Persian, I think,' Janet said, studying it. She poured the tea and we sat in awkward silence.

What were we supposed to talk about? I didn't think I'd ever spent more than five minutes in her company that hadn't involved an argument. This wasn't like the comfortable quiet I shared with my dad. Every second seemed to tick by in my head, drawn out and deafening.

At last I said, 'Thanks for—well, what you said, to Principal Brown. About me being clever and all that.'

'It is true, isn't it?'

'Well, yeah, I guess …' My smile spread involuntarily across my face. Even if I knew I was smart, it was nice to hear it acknowledged. I took a long sip of tea. 'But it probably won't end well—I can't stop the monsters coming.'

'Your education is important,' Janet said briskly. 'We'll deal with … whatever happens, if it does. And this was a cinch, compared to your last school. St Catherine's Academy took a lot more convincing.'

I nearly dropped my teacup. 'You got me into St Catherine's? But I thought Chiron … or my dad …'

'Your camp instructor is not your legal guardian,' Janet reminded me. 'And your father …' She stirred her tea and laughed. 'Frederick means well, but you know him and paperwork. If I'd left him to it, he'd have had you in the wrong grade at the wrong school.'

I stared into my teacup, my face glowing as brightly as the lava lamps.

'At least this time I had your teacher's letter to back me up.'

'My teacher?'

'A Mrs Carlson? You seem to have made quite an impression on her.'

My face grew even redder. It seemed like a million years ago that I'd sat in Mrs Carlson's office while she encouraged me to pursue my dreams in architecture.

'She even emailed me a list of summer architectural programmes in the district. I haven't had the time to look into it yet, but we'll see what we can get you signed up for.' She paused and frowned, taking my stunned silence for lack of interest. 'Or not. Frederick gave me to understand you enjoyed architectural design.'

'I—I do,' I said quickly. 'I mean … yeah, I'd like that. It's just that—summer, well, I have camp …'

Janet pursed her lips. 'Of course. But Annabeth, at some point, you have to think of your future. You can't go to that camp of yours forever. You need to think about college, and what you want to do with your life.'

I felt a familiar stab of annoyance. It wasn't like I hadn't thought about this before. Didn't Janet understand that it wasn't so simple? Didn't she get that if Kronos was victorious, it wouldn't matter what anyone did with their lives?

Or maybe she didn't. I had no idea how much my dad had actually shared with her about my life.

'Well, perhaps we can start with after-school programmes during term time,' Janet mused.

'Why do you care anyway?' I bit my lip as soon as the words came out, realising how rude I probably sounded. Janet's brow knit together in a stern line.

'Did you know I was your age when I came to America?'

I shook my head, not knowing what to make of this turn in the conversation. I'd thought I'd definitely be in for a lecture this time.

'Transferring schools was a nightmare,' she continued. 'I'm not dyslexic, but I may as well have been. Trying to translate Chinese characters into English alphabets was a pain. I suspect that's your real problem, isn't it?'

I nodded mutely.

'I didn't believe at first when Frederick explained it to me. It seemed like he was just excusing your behaviour. I thought you needed a firm hand.' Her mouth twisted ruefully. 'It's how I was brought up, I'm afraid. Anyway, what I'm saying is—'

She was cut off by a loud bong as a clock in the corner chimed the hour. It continued to tick loudly after that, making a weird clicking noise like the tap of an insect's pincers.

I held up my hand, listening hard. Something was very wrong. There were no other patrons left in the café. Our server had disappeared as well, leaving us sitting alone in a room surrounded by lava lamps that looked like they'd grown to double their original size.

The clicking was coming from the lamps, not the clock. And the anemone-shaped blobs inside were definitely moving.

My skin prickled. A split second before the first lava lamp exploded, I dragged Janet under the table, narrowly missing the jet of fiery, incandescent goo it shot at us. The tablecloth sizzled. Through its smoking tassels, I saw the anemone blobs leap to the floor and scuttle towards me on eight hairy legs …

A wave of cold terror engulfed me. Someone was screaming, but it wasn't Janet—her mouth was moving as though in slow motion, forming words at me.

'Get a hold of yourself, Annabeth!' Janet's voice barely registered over the screaming—my screaming. 'They're only—'

'S-sp-SPIDERS!' There were about ten of them, no bigger than my palm, but the sight made my brain freeze up. My limbs felt like they'd been injected with Myrmeke poison.

Something came shooting out of the spinnerets of the lead spider, but it wasn't silk. Sparks danced in the air around the ball of fire that sailed towards me.

CRASH!

The sound of breaking china shook me out of my paralysis. Janet had seized the tablecloth and upended the contents of our table. The teapot caught the brunt of the fireball. Being metal, it didn't ignite. It landed on the nearest spider, sending it skittering back. Our porcelain tea cups smashed around its companions.

'What in heaven's name are those things?'

I managed to stop hyperventilating long enough to gasp, 'Monsters! M-monster spiders!'

Janet hauled me to my feet. The spiders were now in a ring around us, clicking menacingly with their pincers. Panic was a fluttering bird in my chest, intent on bursting from my rib cage. I finally remembered my knife and drew it, but though the spiders hesitated at the dreaded celestial bronze, they did not retreat.

'Really!' Janet brandished a big red handkerchief from her purse. To my astonishment, the spiders actually drew back at the sight of it.

Maybe we could make a break between them. But I had no doubt they would pounce or shoot the moment we tried.

Fire-shooting spiders. Athena help me.

Out of the blue, Janet snapped, 'Lemons!' She pointed at the tea set on a neighbouring table. A dish of lemon slices had been abandoned by the last customer. I grabbed it, wondering what in Hades she meant to do with it.

Still waving her oversized handkerchief like a conquering flag, she plucked a few slices of fruit and crushed them in her hand. Juice oozed out onto the dish.

'Spiders hate lemons,' she explained.

Catching on, I took the dish of lemon juice. As if it were a discus, I spun it in my hands and flung it in a spiralling arc into the circle of spiders. Lemon juice splattered everywhere.

The effect on the spiders was electrifying. The moment it touched their hairy abdomens, they sizzled and burst into flames.

There wasn't enough juice to take care of all ten. But Janet's unorthodox solution had broken me out of my overwhelming terror. I rushed the remaining two and stabbed them with my knife. My skin seared where their fireballs hit my calf, but they crumbled into ash.

Janet hurried to me and doused the fire with her red handkerchief, leaving a painful burn. I gaped at her. 'How did you know that would work? The lemons, I mean? And—' I gestured at the red handkerchief.

'I didn't.' Janet looked a little dazed at what had just happened. 'I just thought of it because—well, it's Chinese mythology. Red scares off our mythical beasts. And we don't like lemons because they scare off spiders.'

I mentally filed away this tip for future use. I'd never particularly liked lemons myself—they smelt like mazes and deception—but if they were anathema to spiders, I'd embrace the fruit with open arms. 'Why wouldn't you want to scare off spiders?'

'They're supposed to bring good luck,' Janet said. 'In Chinese tradition, anyway.' She looked at the singed ring on the floor around us. 'Perhaps not in Greek mythology. I never did understand why you complained so much about them.'

Now that the threat had passed, my cheeks burned with embarrassment. 'I … don't deal well with spiders,' I muttered. 'They hate my mother.'

'I see.' Janet brushed herself off. 'Well, I don't suppose we have to pay now. We'd better go.'

I nodded and we hurried out of the café. At the door, our blank-faced server reappeared and intoned, 'Come again soon!'

Yeah, like that was gonna happen.

Halfway down the street, I remembered something. 'The curtains on the new house. They're red.'

'Yes,' Janet said. 'Like I said, we have traditions in China. I didn't know how effective it would be, but Frederick thought it was worth a try.' A satisfied smile played around her lips. 'Looks like it might work.'

'Thanks,' I said, still trying to reconcile this new, improved Janet with the version I'd always known before. I rubbed at my father's college ring on my camp necklace. Maybe I'd misjudged her all along. 'What were you going to say before the spiders?'

'Hm? Oh. About school. Well, I wanted to tell you I know what it's like to struggle in school. And I want to give you the chance to succeed and go to college like I did.'

'You do?'

'I know we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but we're still family.'

First my dad, now Janet. This was going to take some getting used to. But it seemed like living in San Francisco might just work out better than I'd thought after all.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

A/N: Lemons are apparently a real repellent for spiders. And Annabeth's previous aversion to lemon smells comes from an offhand mention in The Golden Fleece where I described the Cyclops mansion in Brooklyn as smelling of lemony furniture polish. Kinda had to write myself out of a possible plot-hole there … :P

The stuff about red colours in Chinese mythology is absolutely the reason why everything is red during CNY (including red packets we'd get money in as kids). All we get about Mrs Chase is that she's a pretty Asian woman with red highlights in her hair, but that in itself gave me lots to think about regarding why she would clash with Annabeth so much—a different cultural background being a potential springboard for all sorts of misunderstandings. I didn't managed to work it in here, but my headcanon had her ancestral roots in Li-Jien … the same town as Frank's ancestors.

I debated quite a bit about whether this chapter would make the cut in the whole story. On one hand, it kind of rounds off the arc on Annabeth's family relationship. On the other, it's not very important in terms of the overall plot—I have a feeling if I was being brutal, this would have to go. But then, since there was at least a fun monster adventure, and I know some of you do enjoy seeing how Annabeth gets on with her family, here it is … I just tried to keep the peripheral details as relevant as possible.

Thank you again Hello, OverLordRevan, CQ816, randomstories7777, and Athenachild101 for your continued support! Sorry if I've been a bit delayed replying to things this week (and may be again in the coming ones). I'm rushing like mad for a pilot study I need to run this Monday, right before I fly to Denmark on Tuesday for a conference, which is followed back-to-back by a week-long summer school in Austria ... whoever thinks summer is less busy for academics because no undergraduates = no teaching is woefully misinformed. But have no fear, I do set aside time to keep working on this even if I cannot manage anything else fandomly besides this fic. NoH is definitely a priority!