"Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering," I said as I tossed a coin into a fountain in the camp. "Show me Percy Jackson." I waited anxiously for a response, any response.
Nothing happened. It was as if someone were blocking me off.
The other campers, who had been watching and waiting anxiously, looked absolutely crestfallen. Most of them knew Percy personally. Many of them were his friends, who'd fought beside him at one time or another.
"This doesn't have to mean anything," I said, trying to sound confident. I knew, though, that my voice was desperate, as if I were saying, 'this can't mean anything'.
"Where's Grover?" I asked anxiously.
"Checking the camp again," one of the Apollo kids called.
Just then, Grover emerged from behind some lilac bushes. He looked very discouraged. "I looked all over, again. He's not here. I couldn't even smell him at all." As a satyr, Grover could smell demigods, monsters, and mortals.
"Try your empathy link," I ordered. "Try to see where he is. Try to talk to him."
Grover concentrated, and after a few moments he shook his head in despair. "It's no use. I can't feel anything at all. It's as if someone were interfering, cutting off the link entirely." That was exactly what the Iris-message had felt like.
The empathy link had been our last resort. The tiny bit of hope that had been left in me vanished instantly. He was really gone. Maybe he was lost somewhere; maybe he was hurt and needed help. Why?
Did the gods have to do with it? Most likely, yes. They had to do with everything in our lives. Why couldn't they leave us alone? When I found out who caused this, I would never forgive them.
I stomped the ground. "No! This can't be!" I shouted.
Normally I would never lose control of myself in front of all the campers like this, but I didn't care now.
Chiron put his hand on my shoulder. "Annabeth – " he started.
"No! Leave me alone!" I shouted like a five-year-old, and took off, away from the crowd. Tears were streaming down my face, but they were tears of bitter anger. No one tried to follow me.
My dreams had tried to warn me. I had been alone in all of them. I had tried to find something that was missing, something very important. That was Percy.
I found myself at the edge of the camp, at the shore. Waves crashed onto the sand. It was winter, so the whole beach was completely deserted. Which was how I felt.
The sea, of course, with its peaceful sound and salty smell reminded me all the more of who I was missing. Memories swam in my head, of us taking long walks together here in the evening, of us jumping waves together, of sitting together on the shore watching the fireworks.
I dipped a hand into the cold, foamy water and let it wash over me. It calmed me a little. I realized that there had been so many signs of this coming trouble. Things that were unusual, not right, things that had led up to this.
The earth shaking back at school. The gods shutting off communication, and all their other forms of ignorance towards us. My dreams of being alone. Even the occasional uneasiness – I'd read somewhere in a demigod book that sometimes you could be especially empathetic towards close friends, to the extent of being able to feel not only what they were experiencing at the moment, but what was about to come.
There was no use in stressing myself out over what had happened in the past, I realized. The present was more important. But what would I do now?
I would find him. I would search all over, as long as it took. Sitting around wouldn't help anything, I scolded myself. With one last glance at the water, I prayed to Percy's dad, Poseidon, lord of the sea, to help us find his son.
I jumped up and headed back to camp. I needed to organize searching parties. If we all worked together and looked everywhere, we would find him. There was no other possible outcome.
Right now, though, like in my dreams, there was nothing left.
Word got out pretty quickly. Soon all sorts of groups started arriving at the camp, offering to help search.
Tyson and Mrs. O'Leary. Nico di Angelo. Even the Hunters of Artemis came, and they all set off later in different directions, determined to find him. I arranged everything, and tried to act calm to reassure everyone else.
The days following his disappearance seemed to be both hazy and achingly real at the same time.
I'd set off, sometimes alone, sometimes with other campers, all over the city, the state, even some other states. We searched nonstop in both mortal places and magical places, without any luck at all.
The gods continued to ignore us, and I felt like my anger towards them would burst. They take a camper away and then turn their back on us, not caring enough to give any explanation. What had we ever done to offend them?
I had tried to take my mind off it by writing my report for school, which was a very weird thing to do, but it worked a little. I included how hard any person's life could be, no matter what their job. And that an architect's life wasn't easy. In more ways than one, I thought as I remembered how Mirabelle had also had a complicated past.
One night, after another day of unsuccessful searching, I headed back to my cabin and flopped onto my bunk. It seemed like nothing would work. Winter break was ruined for the whole camp, nobody could be happy after this disaster. I prayed for better luck tomorrow.
Almost instantly after I closed my eyes, a dream grabbed me. Even before I knew what was happening, I could sense it was powerful, which meant only one thing – it was sent by the gods.
At first there was nothing, only a swirling mist of darkness. Then, a goddess's face appeared out of it – one that I knew all too well.
"Hera." So many questions were spinning inside me, but plain anger overtook all other emotions.
Hera and I weren't really the best of friends. She was the goddess of family – but she only liked perfect families. An example of that would be how she threw her son, Hephaestus, off Mount Olympus when he was a baby, because she thought that he was too ugly. Great mom, right?
She and I also had a rocky history. A few years ago she'd decided that she was my enemy, and since then, had constantly tormented me in many ways, including sending cows – one of her sacred animals – after me.
After the Titan War last summer, I had thought that she was grateful to the demigods for helping, and that maybe she and I could make peace at last.
But now, after a month of no communication from the gods, Hera, my least favorite goddess, sends me a dream. Something was definitely up. And I had a feeling it had to do with Percy's disappearance. Did she take him? It would be just like her to do that.
"What did you – " I started, but Hera cut me off.
"We don't have much time, which means I talk, and you listen," the goddess of family commanded.
"No!" I shouted. "You can't just show up out of nowhere and suddenly decide to – "
"Quiet!" Hera ordered. "I know that you're wondering why I'm here. Well, maybe if you'd let me talk, you'll find out the answers to some questions you need to know."
I started to protest again, then decided to see what she had to say for herself first, and shut my mouth.
"Much better," Hera said approvingly. "Now, I can't explain everything. But I can tell you this – I will help you to find Percy."
"Help me find – wait, so you did have something to do with him disappearing! What did you do with him?" I asked angrily.
Hera smiled. "Calm down, calm down. He's going to be fine – at least, I'm pretty sure."
"Fine? Why did you take him in the first place?" I demanded. I tried my hardest to not slap that smile right off her face.
Suddenly, Hera tensed, as if sensing something dangerous. "As I said before, time is running out," she said, all business. "This is all you need to know, and it's very important – go to the Grand Canyon skywalk tomorrow, and look for a boy with one shoe." With that, her voice and image faded away, and despite all my shouting and questions, there was no reply.
Bright light streamed through the windows as I opened my eyes. I knew that, as crazy as Hera was, she wouldn't lie when saying that going to the Grand Canyon was important. I needed to get there as soon as possible, and find the answer to what happened to Percy.
"Chiron!" I said, as I ran up to him at breakfast. "I got a dream from Hera last night. It was strange, but she told me to go to the Grand Canyon and look for a guy with one shoe. She said that it would help me find Percy."
Chiron looked surprised, but he made no comment of why Hera had sent me a message, someone who she didn't like at all, after a month of no communication from the gods. "Then we must send a group at once to the Grand Canyon," he decided. "What will you use for travel?"
"The pegasi will get us there the quickest," I told him. "I'll take Butch, he's good with controlling them." Butch, whose mom was Iris, goddess of the rainbow, was a pro with handling the independent pegasi.
Chiron nodded. He must've seen the hope on my face. "We all wish you luck," he said.
Soon Butch and I were driving a chariot pulled by pegasi to the Grand Canyon. If we had used normal mortal transportation, it would have taken us much longer, but on the flying horses, we arrived in no time.
I ordered Butch to land on the edge of the skywalk, which I hoped wouldn't break under the weight of the chariot.
I jumped out as fast as I could, grabbing my knife in case I needed it. I frantically scanned the crowd of kids for Percy. I didn't see him anywhere, and I almost exploded with rage. What was Hera trying to do now? Trick us into… into what?
I forced myself to calm down. He might still be here, hiding somewhere or whatever. As I looked closer, I realized that three people were grouped together not far from us. I was no satyr, but I could tell that they were demigods.
I remembered Grover telling us about three half bloods at a school for 'bad kids', who were fifteen and still not claimed. These were three kids now, and they looked to be about fifteen. Grover had said that their satyr was Gleeson Hedge. These must be the half bloods he was talking about. But I didn't see a satyr anywhere. All this rushed through my mind while I continued to look for Percy.
Finally, I addressed the three demigods. "Where is he?" I demanded. They should know where Percy was. Hera had told me that the answer was here.
One of them, a boy with blond hair and blue eyes, asked, confused, "Where's who?"
I frowned and bit back a sharp remark. I couldn't expect these demigods to know everything. They most likely didn't even know that they were demigods yet. Now that they were here, I might as well pick them up and bring them back to camp, after I found the answer to Percy's disappearance. But where was their satyr?
I turned to the other two half bloods, and asked, "What about Gleeson? Where is your protector, Gleeson Hedge?" They had to know that.
They did. One of the other demigods, a crazy-looking boy with dark, curly hair, cleared his throat and said, "He got taken by some… tornado things."
Tornado things? I would've laughed if the situation hadn't been so serious. He had to mean storm spirits.
"Venti," the first boy corrected his friend. "Storm spirits." He was right, but how did he know this, if he hadn't been claimed? And venti was Latin, not Greek.
"You mean anemoi thuellai?" I asked. "That's the Greek term. Who are you, and what happened?"
He started telling the events that had taken place earlier, which included a field trip, storm spirits in disguise, and a fall off the Grand Canyon. All through the story, though, I didn't see how it could possibly have anything to do with Percy. Finally he finished, and he hadn't answered any of my questions. Hera had promised an explanation. Well, who could trust Hera said? "No, no, no! She told me he would be here. She told me if I came here, I'd find the answer!" I said in frustration.
I hadn't even noticed that Butch had come to stand next to me, but he said, urgently, "Annabeth, check it out." He pointed to the feet of boy who had told the story. I glanced down, and caught my breath as I saw that he had only one shoe. Look for a boy with one shoe, Hera had told me.
"The guy with one shoe," Butch repeated my thoughts. "He's the answer."
That unclaimed demigod couldn't be the answer. Hera had deceived me somehow. Why would he be here, and not Percy? "No, Butch, he can't be. I was tricked." How could Hera do this to me? I glared at the sky, at Hera, high on Mount Olympus. "What do you want from me?" I shouted up at her. "What have you done with him?"
A shudder shook the skywalk, and the horses whinnied.
"Annabeth, we've got to leave," Butch insisted. "Let's get these three to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back."
We'd come to the Grand Canyon as Hera had instructed, but found only three new demigods. "Fine. We'll settle this later." I glared at the guy with one shoe. Percy should've been here, not him, I thought, as I stormed back to the chariot.
I had to calm down. I should never have expected much from Hera, anyway. Nothing made sense, which meant that the gods were definitely behind this. I realized that we would never find Percy if the gods didn't want us to. We would have to wait and hope for the best, and I hated that.
Even though it felt like there was nothing left in my life, I knew that was wrong. The camp needed me, and as unlikely as it seemed, those three new demigods had to be part of the craziness that was happening right now. Even though it seemed impossible, they were the answer. Hera had told me that, and although I completely distrusted her, I knew deep inside that they were important. I just had to figure out how. We could figure out what it all meant if we tried hard enough.
And that's the last chapter! :) Every single one of you who read this story is AMAZING! You guys are the reason that I write. I can't believe that I got this many views! I know that my writing is confusing at times, and I really apologize for that. Sometimes it's hard for me to write. For example, I typed 7 pages today while trying to get my Thomas-the-tank-engine obsessed little brother off the computer. :) SO THANK YOU FOR STICKING THROUGH WITH ME! I finished a story! YAY! LET'S CELEBRATE! :D :D :D P.D P.D P.D THANK YOU ALL AGAIN! YOU GUYS ARE ALL SO AWESOME! :D