I hope everyone's doing well out there.

*Please forgive me if the Spanish isn't right. I am a French student and I did my best lol.

I locked the bunker. And skipped lunch. And left Calypso at the Big House without me to get her bump checked out. Which I felt kind of bad about, but most of my focus was fixed on the book.

It was completely impossible for the book to be in that bunker.

The last time I had seen this book was when I was just a kid, before I was even in the foster homes. My mother used to read it to me every night before I went to bed. Once upon a time, it was all I had left of her. And I had left all I had with her behind in Texas.

I sheltered myself in my room in the Hephaestus cabin, and when I was settled, flopping down on my back on the bed, I opened the cover of the book again. "Pinnochio." I couldn't even read it because of my dyslexia, but I knew that was what it said. I had read the note on the backside of the cover before, but I never paid much attention to it. What was important then was the story that my mom told me. It wasn't her handwriting. It wasn't her words. To my knowledge, my mom had never mentioned a Maria Collins Carbonell.

After mom died, it was a whirlwind of police, social workers, and Aunt Rosa. She told me from the beginning, whenever she first took me in, that she wasn't keeping me. She screamed at the social worker whenever they dropped me off for the first time. That night, she was already on the phone, beginning the process of kicking me out. I didn't need to be told twice. I ran away for the first time that night. All I had was this very book.

I remember how dark it was. I could tell it was cold, but I couldn't really feel it. At least, I didn't care. I was clutching the book so hard my hands hurt, but I couldn't drop it under any circumstances, so I just clutched harder.

I don't know how long I walked for, but I don't remember stopping. One second I was walking, the next second I was in a police cruiser again, heading right back to Tia Rose.

I shook myself from the memory.

I read the words scrawled into the book again.

My dear Hope,

May you and Sammy find happiness and light in this world. Always follow your heart and your head, no matter what anyone may tell you. You are my true hope for this world.

All my love,

Maria Collins Carbonell

Sammy could be either my grandfather or my great grandfather. Either way, I had basically no way of finding anything out about my family. I knew almost too much what it meant to be my father's son, but I knew almost nothing of what it meant to be my mother's son. The familiar ache of my mother's absence filled my stomach.

I missed my mother. I missed everyone. Jason and Piper. Percy and Annabeth. Hazel. Even Frank and Reyna. Suddenly, the lonely that was always so there, that had finally gone away since Calypso had come back to camp with me, had returned.

How long had it been since I've missed my mother so much. Suddenly I was crushed with guilt. I knew I would never stop missing my mother, but it had been a while since I really stopped and thought about her. I had already forgotten her voice. I couldn't take it if I forgot her smile too.

Maybe the book was sent as a message so that I wouldn't.

I suddenly sat up, the book dropping from my fingers. I cursed and bent down to pick it back up. What if that was it? What if my mom was really sending me a message? Was that even possible? What wasn't possible at this point?

I glanced around my room. It was dark, with just my bedside lamp switched on. Tools littered the surfaces. Wherever there weren't tools, there were clothes, stained with oil and grease that I hadn't bothered to clean up yet.

Clearing my throat, I called out into the room. "Mama?Estás allí?"

After a moment of nothing but silence I shook myself out of my trance. Stupid. What was I thinking. I knew my mom had moved on. If anything, my mother was in her own workshop in Elysium, tinkering away in her own little world.

But still, there was a nagging little thought in my mind- what if she wasn't. Part of me, as awful as it was, wished that she wasn't. That she was still here, even if I couldn't see her, to come to my side with this book.

I guess there was just no real way of knowing.

And then I remembered that I'm a demigod, and one of my buddies happened to be the son of the god of the dead. And hey, that son happens to be able to talk to any ghost that's still lurking around, or even hop right over to the underworld to have a look at any spirit he wanted.

And that at this time of day he was pretty much always in a) the sword arena sulky at a bunch of straw dummies b), in the woods sulking at a bunch of trees or something, or c), in the medical ward, sulking at the wall, pretending that he needed to be there, and he wasn't just lonely without his boyfriend. So I really could find out if I really wanted to.

Did I want to? Not really.

I got up and left for the medical ward. I was betting on option c.