PERI'S POV

Wow.

Just, wow.

Riding Arion was amazing on so many levels.

We were moving so fast over the lake that it turned the surface to a salty mist.

We were fast approaching an island- a line of sand so white, it might have been pure table salt. Behind that rose an expanse of grassy dunes and weathered boulders.

I sat wedged between Hazel and Leo. I held onto Hazel as she steered Arion like a pro. Leo had his arm around my waist, and I prayed to the gods he didn't fall off the magical horse.

Before we left, Percy had pulled the two of us aside to tell us Hazel's story. He made it sound like he was just doing us a favor, but there was an under tone like If you mess with my friend, I will personally feed you to a great white shark.

To be honest, I wasn't the least bit afraid of Percy, but I held my tongue for Leo's sake. The boy still seemed shaken up by earlier when Percy charged him. I know for a fact that if I didn't jump in just then, Bonnabelle would've just let Percy beat up on him. And that's not cool.

FLASHBACK

"You guys know how Hazel is a daughter of Pluto, right?" Percy asked , his green eyes flitting back and forth between Leo and I.

"Yeah, why?" Leo said.

"Well, Hazel died." He said in such a matter-of-fact way, you'd think we were discussing the weather.

I responded immediately. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I mean," he said slowly. "Hazel died in the 1940's and was brought back to life a few months ago."

Leo and I exchanged a glance.

"Well that's. . . nice," Leo muttered.

"Yeah. . . nice." I agreed. I had no idea what to say to that. The past few days have by far been the craziest days of my life, and I knew things would only get stranger.

"Yeah, Hazel is very nice,"Percy said, glaring at the two of us, "so you guys better keep an eye on her." He grunted one last time before disappearing belowdecks.

"Better?" Leo folded his arms across his chest. "That sounded like a threat."

END FLASHBACK

Arion thundered onto the beach. He stomped his hooves and whinnied triumphantly, like Coach Hedge yelling a battle cry.

We all dismounted. I stretched, glad to be off the horse and somewhere I had room to breathe. Arion pawed the sand like the dog I speculated him to be.

"He needs to eat." Hazel explained. "He likes gold, but-"

"Gold?!" Leo exclaimed, his jaw dropped in shock.

Hazel shifted on her feet awkwardly. "He can settle for grass-"

"Any kind of gold?" I asked, approaching the tan horse with new-found curiosity.

"Uh, yes, I suppose any kind of gold will do, but-"

"That's all I needed to hear." I said, a smirk playing on my lips as I cracked my knuckles.

I was still pretty new at this, now.

I held out my right hand and flicked my wrist. At the same time, I tightened my hand and found myself gripping a golden nightstick, like the ones cops are supposed to have.

Grinning, I turned back to Hazel and Leo who both looked incredibly impressed.

"Whoa," Leo breathed.

"Ta-da!" I exclaimed. I held the shining weapon out to Arion who gladly gobbled it up. He whinnied happily and nuzzled my neck in thanks.

I giggled at the tickling sensation of his soft fur on my neck. "You're welcome, you're welcome! That tickles!"

He snorted happily once again before taking off. It was completely sudden- nothing left of him but a steaming trail across the lake.

I turned back to Hazel and Leo, dusting my hands off. "OK, handled that breezily. What's next?"

"Wait a second!" Hazel said suddenly. "If Peri can make Celestial Bronze, why don't we just use that for the ship?"

I touched my chin thoughtfully. "Oh yeah."

"I already thought of that." Leo said. "Remember at breakfast when Peri went all ape shit on Tyson and Ella?"

Hazel nodded. "Yeah."

I shifted on my feet awkwardly. I was really sorry about that.

"Well," Leo continued. "the daggers she conjured disappeared when I. . . grabbed her." He hesitated a little with his word choice, and I felt my face heating up all over again.

"We couldn't use those to fix the ship, because they'd just disappear after she loses focus." He finished.

"That makes sense." I said. "So we better get to finding this stuff then."

Leo knelt down on the beach and cupped a handful of white sand. "Well. . . one problem solved, anyway. This is lime."

Hazel frowned. "The whole beach?"

"Yeah. See? The granules are perfectly round. It's not really sand. It's calcium carbonate." Leo pulled a Ziploc bag from his tool belt and dug his hand into the lime.

This is gonna be easier than I thought!

Suddenly, Leo froze.

He just sat there motionless, lime slipping between his fingers.

This is just like earlier when. . .

"Leo!" I called for him urgently.

He blinked and looked up at me, his large brown eyes filled with confused innocence.

"Y-you okay?" I asked cautiously. "You're good, right?"

"Yeah," I could see him take a shaky breath. "Yeah, fine."

He started to fill the bag. I knelt down next to him to help, and Hazel followed suit.

As we scooped the lime in the bag, out of the corner of my eye I saw Hazel staring at Leo. He stopped and looked up too, obviously uncomfortable with the situation.

"Uh, Hazel?" He questioned, his eyes wide with concern.

Hazel looked away. "Sorry. It's just, you are so much like-"

"Sammy?" Leo guessed.

She fell backward. "You know?"

"I have no idea who Sammy is. But Frank asked me if I was sure that wasn't my name."

"And. . . it isn't?"

"No! Jeez."

She fiddled with her hair nervously, grabbing at straws. "You don't have a twin brother or. . . is your family from New Orleans?"

"Nah. Houston." He said.

"Why?" I asked her. "Is this Sammy guy someone you used to know?"

"I. . . It's nothing. You just look a lot like him, Leo." She muttered.

I could tell she was too embarrassed to say anything else. But if Hazel was a girl from the past, then was Sammy from the 1940s, too? If so, then how in the world would Frank have known about the guy? And why would Hazel think Leo was Sammy, all these decades later?

All this thinking made my head hurt. We finished filling the bag in silence. Leo stuffed it in his tool belt and it vanished. My eyebrows went up in surprise, but I said nothing.

He stood and scanned the island. Bleach-white dunes, blankets of grass, and boulders encrusted with salt-like frosting spread out as far as I could see.

As he looked around, he said, "Festus said there was Celestial Bronze close by, but I'm not sure where-"

Hazel and I spoke at the same time, pointing up the beach. "That way. About 500 yards."

We looked at each other in confusion before realization hit us.

"Anastasios," Hazel mumbled.

"Pluto," I muttered.

Leo nodded his head before turning around. "Alright then, lead the way Metal Detectors!"

SOME TIME PASSES

The sun was beginning to set, and we had yet to find the Celestial Bronze. The sky turned a bizarre shade of purple and yellow. I sniffed the air periodically, sensing the precious metal ever so slowly coming closer.

"You sure this is a good idea?" Leo asked suddenly.

"We're close." Hazel and I said in unison.

We reached the top of a dune and saw a woman from afar.

She sat on a boulder in the middle of a grassy field. A black-and-chrome motorcycle was parked nearby, but each of the wheels had a big pie slice removed from the spokes and rim, resembling Pac-Man. No way was the bike drivable in that condition.

The woman had curly black hair and a bony frame. She wore black leather biker's pants, tall leather boots, and a blood-red leather jacket- a sort of Michael Jackson joins the Hell's Angels look. Around her feet, the ground was littered with what looked like broken shells. She was hunched over, pulling new ones out of a sack and cracking them open.

Shucking oysters?

Hazel and I forged ahead immediately, but I saw Leo hesitate. I turned around and frowned, mouthing You okay?

He just nodded and walked forward along with us.

As we got closer, I noticed some. . . disturbing details. Attached to the woman's belt was a curled whip. Her red-leather jacket had a subtle design to it- twisted branches of an apple tree populated with skeletal birds. The oysters she was shucking were actually fortune cookies.

A pile of broken cookies lay ankle-deep all around her. She kept pulling new ones from her sack, cracking them open, and reading the fortunes. Most she tossed aside. A few made her mutter unhappily. She would swipe her finger over the slip of paper like she was smudging it, then magically reseal the cookie and toss it into a nearby basket.

"What are you doing?" Leo asked instantly.

The woman looked up and the three of us gasped all at the same time.

"YOU!" I shrieked, my whole body filling with a burning rage.

There was no denying it. This woman looked exactly like her. She had to be her.

It was Miss. Lich, the evil social worker.