Chapter 5

Piper

I knew as soon as I saw her, just as Festus landed, that she must be Calypso, that Leo had somehow beaten death, and beaten the curse and found his love. That after the gods left he was introducing her, awkwardly, as "Jennifer" meant nothing. They had their reasons for hiding who she was and that would only be my business if they told me. This wouldn't stop me from asking when the time was right of course!

I was never in my life so happy for anyone as I was for Leo.

He knew I knew. He saw me looking at her as she stared into the blinding light of the god's true form. We would talk when he was ready. Surely he remembered having told all of us on the Argo II of his love for Calypso. Why he was pretending she was someone else was beyond me, but I suppose he must have his reasons.

Breakfast became a home coming celebration for Leo. Those of us who knew, and I'm not sure who that included beyond the crew of the Argo II, would read between the lines of his story. Leo claimed that after the explosion he was unconscious, but of course some of us knew from Nico that he had died. Nico had always said though that there was something different about his death, and now we knew. Leo must have rigged Festus to give him the physicians cure to restore his life. Percy had told me that no one living had ever returned to Ogygia, and I suspected this was how Leo did it. When he approached, he wasn't living. Perhaps he had Festus delay the cure until he was near the island but probably not, it was to be administered as soon after death as possible. Leo claimed that, after meeting "Jennifer", the first person he saw when he was awakened, he was lost. He claimed that the astrolab and Festus had taken him somewhere near Guam, and it had taken a while to repair Festus and make his way back. Of course he couldn't mist us as he had no drachma. "Jennifer" agreed with all he said, claiming she was working in her garden when she heard the dragon crash, and Leo was just suddenly there.

After breakfast Chiron announced the quest, telling the camp that the gods had selected its members, but that no leader had been named. Since normally the leader is named and he or she picks the members of the quest, this time the members of the quest would select a leader using Greek and Roman ideas of democratic rule to guide them.

I guess most of us imagined either Percy or Jason would lead us, it really only made sense them being the most experienced, but neither showed any inclination and both asked that we reconsider and select someone else who had not had the opportunity. We were all comfortable with each other and each of us would have followed any one of us, so electing a leader became a minefield of making sure we didn't hurt anyone's feelings. Chiron suggested that since most of the crew would be Greek, that a Greek demi god lead. Percy and Annabeth then suggested that since most of the crew would be Greek, that a Roman should lead to show that the unity between the two camps was strong. We all agreed this was a great idea and Hazel suggested Reyna. She promptly pointed out that, while it was before our time of knowing each other, she too had led plenty of quests and like Percy and Jason thought it was someone else's turn. This led to a groan around the table until I suggested Hazel.

It was like a light went on over everyone's head. Yes! Hazel! Everyone loved her, would follow her without question, and she had yet to lead a quest. It was agreed, over Hazel's loud protests,that she would be the official leader of the quest. Hazel hated the idea and suggested that Frank was a better choice, but Frank pointed out that he led the quest to Alaska with her and Percy at Mar's instruction. After several frustrating minutes Hazel finally agreed, but I think only to change the subject. It was pretty clear we were going to be a democracy, which felt Greek and Roman enough.

We then settled in for a long day of briefings from Chiron. Unlike most quests where we know very little, often not even the objective of the quest, here we knew a lot. The gods had supplied us with an overview of magical culture in Europe, as well as a recent history of magical wars. Included were biographies of the important witches and wizards, as well as blue prints of Hogwarts itself. Annabeth was in heaven reviewing those, even though the lines on the pages moved while she studied them, and she quickly discovered areas of negative space that didn't exist but either took up room or must take up room in order for the rest of the blue prints to be right.

Hecate had also supplied "wands" which were like sticks. It was explained that most wands were made from a magically enhanced wood, with a magical core, but ours, crafted by Hephaestus and Hecate, were both magical and practical. Made from twisted strands of celestial bronze, stygian iron, silver, and imperial gold, they had the power of all the various spells Hecate's students would know programmed in, plus they were sharp enough at one end to be useful as a stabbing weapon and with the addition of the silver could effectively end the life of a werewolf. Each had a wooden part as well designed to match our strengths, Percy's was a willow for its proximity to water, mine was a Rhododendron for its beauty. I never asked Annabeth what a "wise" wood was, but I'm sure the gods had fashioned hers from it. "Jennifer's" was probably just a stick. What did she need a wand for? In any event, we could program more spells in simply by reading the instructions to the spell while holding the wand as it acted like a magical recording device for spell purposes.

There was a list of about 50 basic spells we were to know by the time we arrived, but the wands already knew them, so all we had to do was learn the name and what it did, then remember to point the wand as we said it, either aloud or to ourselves as it turned out. Fortunately the list was in both Greek and Latin or a bunch of ADHD brats like us would have never gotten it. After lunch we took an hour to go outside and practice some. Frank, Percy, and Jason could cast just about anything with devastating effect. Percy tried a disarming spell on bolder and it split in half. All of us though were more powerful than we probably should be and Chiron cautioned us to learn to control this with practice as we traveled to England. Hazel, perhaps because of her learning from Hecate how to control the mist, had the best control over her spells. She could turn on a light that looked like a lightning bug, or a beam so brilliant it was blinding.

Every time travel was mentioned someone would ask if we knew how we were to get there. All that was know was that Poseidon was providing it, and Chiron had no clue beyond that. Some of us didn't want to fly, others didnt' want to travel by sea horse or shark or whatever other sea creature might come forth, but in the end we were stuck with it, what ever "it" was.

Most of the afternoon was spent on our cover. In the past, whatever the mist provided was enough, we were just high school aged kids wandering around, usually near disasters. On this quest though we would be blending in with a group of people also using the mist, so we were given a back story to explain our being there and our abilities. We were students at the Mather-Knap School of Wizardry in Danvers, Massachusetts and were part of a newly founded academic exchange program. Our school was smaller than Hogwarts, and not as well known in the wizarding world. In fact, only recently had the leaders of the major European schools learned of its existence. The headmaster at Hogwarts, a guy named "Dumbledore" had invited us to learn while our school was being rebuilt following a flood that occurred under mysterious circumstances during the freak storm on the east coast a couple of years ago. Each of us had a dossier prepared, and in each our godly parent had been replaced in our history with a witch or wizard. We were all considered "half bloods" or "mud bloods" in the on going race war that was occurring in British wizardry, which seemed silly to all of us. Since one parent was to be a witch or wizard, the other parent was our actual parent, a "muggle" or person who could not use magic. In addition there was a lengthy list of persons who could be made aware of our actual heritage at our discretion. This included Harry Potter and many of his friends, something called "the Order" and Dumbledore and his professors.

Just before we would have broken up for the day anyway, and by now we were all tired of planning since usually our plan was "go in, create chaos, kill the monster, eat breakfast", one of the folks from the Hermes' cabin came in with a note for Chiron.

"Leo, it seems your dragon has corralled several of the first year campers onto the roof of the Athena cabin and is refusing to let them down. Could you assist?" Chiron asked with a smirk.

"Ugh! Festus!" Leo shouted as he stood to go.

"Before you leave, I urge you to finish your reading as you travel to England. You will be the first demi gods north of Hadrian's wall in over a thousand years. You can expect constant monster attacks when you are not in an area magically protected, and the monsters there are different than those here. We touched on this earlier, one of your allies is a werewolf, as is one of your enemies. I urge you to think first and kill second, but by all means stay safe. We look forward to seeing you at winter break."

Outside we all followed Leo, giggling at Festus and the fun he was having.

"Leo, are you taking Festus to England?" someone asked. "Can you get him past security at the airport?"

"Sure, I'll just put him in the overhead compartment." He replied as we reached the Athena cabin. Sure enough, a dozen or so first years were on the roof and Festus, acting much like a beagle with too much caffeine, was running around the cabin doing his squeaky bark every time one tried to get down.

Festus stopped when Leo arrived and looked at him grinning.

"Okay big guy, its time for you to take a nap, you need to rest those circuits" Leo said as he took a saddle and what appeared to be a brief case from the back of Festus. He then opened a panel at the base of Festus's neck, flipped a switch, and Festus's eyes closed and he began to, was that snoring?

That Festus snored was less surprising that him beginning to fold down and compress. In just a second or two, Festus was the size of a brief case as well, and Leo picked up both.

"When did he learn that?" Annabeth asked.

"Oh, he's always known how, but after our first quest I was never able to get it to work right again. Calyp... I mean, uh, Jennifer is really good at understanding negative space and non euclidian geometry and helped me get him fixed up. Wait until you see our TARDIS."

"Your what?"

"TARDIS. Well, it doesn't actually time travel, so I guess its really just an ARDIS. Didn't you ever watch Dr. Who?"

"That British sci fi show? No, I've heard of it but,,"

"Well the TARDIS is how he travels and where he lives. It looks like an old phone booth on the outside, but inside is huge. With, uh, Jennifer's help, I've built the 'LEODIS', here, I'll show you."

Leo leaned the brief case against a pillar on the nearest end of the Poseidon house that Percy lived in, flipped the handle a couple times and it expanded up and out until it appeared to be a door.

"Right now its programmed for just myself and Cal, uh, Jennifer, but we'll get you all programmed in. I figured we could use it as the quarters for the American House at Hogwarts. Honey would you do the honors?"

As Calypso stepped forward and turned the knob, Annabeth said "I found a couple places on the blue prints we could take over though, if we need more room. One is called 'The Room of Requirement' and the other 'The Chamber of Secrets' and both are really big, as big as we need them to be and"

Annabeth lost her train of thought as she entered along with the rest of us. What lay before us was a huge entry foyer, and then a gigantic ball room. All the rooms had cherry and mahogany paneling, and not the kind you get at a hardware store. The floors were marble inlaid with scenes from Greek mythological history, and the ballroom floor was a world map that depicted the Argo II on its path across oceans from San Francisco to Athens and back to Long Island. Staircases spiraled along each wall of the ballroom and there were hallways left and right.

"Feel free to look around, make yourselves at home. Any friend of Leo's is welcome here." Calypso said.

We wandered for what seemed like most of an hour. There were at least 15 bedrooms, each one a suite with a bath, dressing room, sitting room, library and walk in closet. Calypso had installed a gigantic library with thousands of scrolls and books beginning thousands of years ago and up to today's best sellers and magazines. She explained that after meeting Leo she had cut a deal with the Amazons. Leo had a workshop larger and better stocked than Bunker 9, and just off from it was stables for horses, pegasi, unicorns, whatever. There was a kitchen if anyone felt like cooking, but that wasn't necessary as the dining room was could seat a few hundred and the plates and glasses filled constantly with whatever one would like. Leo explained that the kitchen was there so that Jennifer as he insisted on calling her, could occasionally make a stew that he proclaimed as the best he had ever eaten.

I realized that we were all alone, and that all of us knew who Jennifer was. It was time to broach the subject.

"Leo, can I ask you something?"

"Sure pageant queen, whatever you like"

"Uh. Thanks. Well, since Gaea, uh, have you had memory problems?"

"No, why?"

"Well, its just that you told everyone on the Argo about your love for Calypso, Hazel even drew a picture for you and everyone saw it. Why do you insist on calling Calypso 'Jennifer'? Is there something I'm missing?"

Calypso smiled. "You drew the picture Hazel? It was one of the few things that survived the destruction of the Argo II, and only because Leo saved it by secreting it in Festus. You are a talented artist Hazel. However, you didn't capture my true likeness as if you had all that saw your drawing would be blinded, go insane and probably die. This is why it was decided, by the pantheon of gods, that whenever one of us walks among the mortals for any length of time, our identities must be kept secret. Leo meant no disrespect to your trust or friendship, any of yours," she said, looking around at the party, "but I must insist on your keeping what you know to yourself if you would. Else wise I must leave and find a home on Olympus. That would be a prison for me after such a long time away from the company of other people."

"Wait, so you're a diety?" Frank asked.

"Daughter of the Titan Atlas, who I believe Annabeth has met if Leo's stories are to be believed." She smiled. "As a child of a Titan I fall into the pantheon just below the major gods, who of course were also born from the parents of the Titans. I'm like Zeus, Poseidon's and Hades niece from the side of the family that doesn't get invited to reunions."

"Of course your secret is safe with us, we're honored to have you join us, or uh, us to join you, but, uh do we need to kneel? Do you really need a wand?" Hazel giggled.

"Let's dispense with the kneeling and all that. It would be difficult to, uh, what do you call it? Maintain a cover? And no, I don't need a wand. Or a sword. I can kill with a thought." Calypso said without a bit of emotion.

Percy's eyes got wide. "Really?"

"Probably, I don't know, I've never tried it." Calypso giggled. "So, you like the house? Its larger than I've been living in, but I hope to have a lot of guests. We can always make it smaller, but I hope you will use it as a, what was it Leo?"

"TARDIS"

"Yes, a Tardis. We can put it anywhere we like inside this school, Hogwarts, and no magic can breach the door."

"Sounds great. Hey, while everyone important is here, may I say something?" Percy asked. We all looked at him.

"I'm sorry. I made the God's promise to free you, and then never checked to make sure they did. Its my fault you were on that island the last two years, and I hope you will forgive me." Percy said, his voice full of humility and shame.

"Percy, I was disappointed in you but it all happened for a reason. I was not told of the gods promise so for all I know I could have left anytime since then, but I was there to meet Leo and assist with his and your quest to defeat Gaea. That is what the Fates prescribed. If I had not been there, Leo would have never been able to leave the island himself. Two years on Ogygia is like a few moments anywhere else, and thousands of years of captivity was to punish me for who my father was, and that has taught me a great deal of forgiveness. So, though your slight was unintentional, and I know you cannot force the gods to keep a promise, for whatever relief it might bring you, you are forgiven. I bless you now as I did before, and now bless the union of you and Miss Chase. I hope you will consider naming your daughter 'Calypso'."

Percy had a tear in his eye as Calypso spoke, until her last words, when he looked at Annabeth and both of their jaws hit the floor.