Percy: Things Aren't Calmed Down After All

I couldn't help but feel sorry for the girl as we followed Chiron into the Big House. I still remember how I felt 3 and a half years ago when I was in her place. It was last summer when the Children of the Prophecy defeated Gaea. But I still knew how she felt. Waking up and not even knowing your name or where you are, is scary. I've been there, I wouldn't recount it now. But I knew the feeling.

Anyway, back to the problem of the girl who doesn't know her name, or age, or anything. She was pretty, nowhere near as beautiful as Annabeth (She would kill me if I said otherwise, but it is true) but still kind of pretty with a self-confident look in her eyes. Although that look wasn't exactly prominent right then.

She looked pretty confused by all this, and scared. Chiron brought us into the main sitting room, the one with the masks, vines, the leopard head from Mr. D. I still wish he would turn it back into an inanimate object, no such luck though.

"Sit down all of you," Chiron invited. Me, Annabeth, Grover, and Juniper all took chairs. The leopard was asleep. The girl stood for a minute, then took the last remaining chair. She looked extremely nervous. She probably thought she was going to get yelled at or something.

"Now," Annabeth said, "we should get down to business. So you really don't know who you are or anything?" She stared at the girl with that calculating gaze all children of Athena have. The girl held her gaze, no small feat.

"Yes!" she exclaimed.

"Now child," Chiron began, "do you feel like you ought to know something, or is it like nothing was ever there?"

She hesitated; I could see she was trying to figure out if she could trust us. "I - I feel like I should be knowing all this. But I don't. I just want to know what's happening. And what happened at the base of that hill?"

I felt really sorry for her, I wish I could've comforted her, but I still hadn't figured out how.

"What happened . . . well, that's rather hard to explain," Chiron mused.

"It was you!" Grover blurted out.

"What?" she whispered.

"It was your scent! You attracted the monsters! That's why they appeared so quickly!" Grover was getting a little excited now.

"Scent? Monsters? What?" she asked.

Chiron sighed, "Grover here is a satyr. They can smell half-bloods, which is another name for demigods, and they can smell monsters."

She gave a small nod. But it was clear she was completely lost. Annabeth caught my eye, I looked at her, and I knew what she was thinking. One thing could maybe comfort her . . . but on the other hand is might make her feel worse. Since it was all caused by unfortunate events. Apparently Chiron still reads Annabeth's thoughts, because he nodded in my direction.

I took a deep breath before attempting, "Look, don't worry, uh, it'll be okay. Everything will turn out fine." Yes, it sounded lame, but hey, I was a little nervous, I hadn't ever had to reassure someone like this before. Not exactly something you'd expect to do.

"How could you say that?" she exclaimed. Hmm, looks like she might have some anger issues . . . "I don't know anything!"

I sighed, "Well . . . I lost my memory before." She stared at me. Well, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea.

"How did that happen?" she asked. I groaned inwardly, now she was interested. Annabeth smirked at me, oh she loved this.

"Well . . . let's just say, Hera, decided to 'help' a prophecy. Which really screwed up things . . . a lot." I didn't mention I lost eight months of my life. Or that it took drinking gorgon's blood to get it back. The girl raised an eyebrow at me. Chiron cleared his throat. Thankfully turning the attention away from me.

"Back to the matter at hand. Are you sure there is nothing you can remember? Even Jason -"

"Who?"

"I'll explain later. As I was saying, before, when people have lost their memory, normally they still had something to help them out. You haven't had anything like that have you?"

The girl's eyes widened. I guessed that had been happening to her, and she was probably trying to figure out how much too say.

"Well, sometimes when you've said things . . . I sort of get a tingling . . ." she mumbled. I remember that sort of feeling, like you know something but its not there. It's really annoying.

"Tingling?" asked Chiron, "when?"

"Well . . . when you said demigod for one . . ." she replied shifting uncomfortably.

"Any other times?" Chiron pressed.

"Um . . . when I first woke up and that thing attacked . . . I thought of a name . . . but, I don't know if that's the same thing," she said.

She looked really nervous. I could tell she probably wasn't going to say any more. Her hand went up to her throat, almost as if she expected something to be there. It was some sort of instinct, or whatever you would call it. Her eyes widened suddenly.

She pulled something out from under her shirt. It was a necklace, with a long flexible leather cord that had a thin golden chain wrapped around it widely. It fell down at least partway down her torso. At the bottom was a shiny golden disk that fit snugly into the centre of her palm. She stared at the pendent in her hand.

"What is that?" Chiron frowned.

"I'm not sure," she murmured, "it says something . . ."

Annabeth piped up at that point, "I know what that is! It's known as a Soul Key! And I mean the real ones – unlike the ones from the Middle East. Not many people have them, only great heroes, or godlings. They are used to identify people, they're said to hold a small part of whomever there for's animus in them. As well as engravings dealing with the past."

"Thanks Wise Girl, I know you're trying to help, but history lesson – not needed," I muttered. Yeah, I know, rude. But I never got one, and I lost my memory and helped to saved the world, twice.

The girl said something none of us could make out. When Chiron asked her to repeat it, she looked up kind of startled; almost as if she forgot where she was.

"It – it says Cora," she told us. "I – I think that's my name."

"It does make sense," Annabeth mused.

"Yes, well, until we can find out more, I'm afraid we have reached the end of our conversation. Annabeth, Percy, you two will show her around camp. Grover, I believe earlier some satyrs were looking for you. You may want to go find them," Chiron instructed. I nearly groaned, I'm not good at the whole introduction-to-camp thing.

Since it's pointless to argue with Chiron, we all nodded in agreement. Grover wandered off somewhere, followed by Juniper. Me and Annabeth stood up, the girl, I guess now I have to call her Cora, followed us quietly as we led her out to camp.

Something about Cora was going to set things into turmoil again; this wasn't going to be the calm summer like I hoped.