The Diary of Thalia Grace

July 19, 2009

And I had to get turned into a stupid tree.

Isn't that a great way to start a diary entry? To be honest, I just changed from tree-form less than three hours ago. I can't sleep. Hippie Zeus (King of the Gods, Lord of the Sky, yada yada yada) is staring bolts of lightning at me. Figuratively, not literally. He's this 10 feet tall statue just sitting in the middle of my Cabin. He's also my dad. Zeus is. Not the statue. It's his way of saying welcome back, I suppose.

This is Luke's old diary. I was shaking out my old bedroll when this dog-eared diary just tumbled out. I had nearly forgotten about it. Halcyon gave it to Luke and told him to write in it and learn from Hal's mistakes. Since I have the journal, I guess I'll have to do the same. Write in it. Learn from Luke's mistakes this time. I can still remember him as if it was yesterday (It really does feel like yesterday. Time is weird when you're a tree): Luke, bent over the journal, scribbling feverishly in it when it was his turn to take watch and when he thought no one was looking. I can almost smell his familiar scent as I held the diary close to me and breathed in its dusty, travel-worn pages. Wow. Was that a bad idea or what? I still have tears in my eyes from all the coughing.

Holding that book in my hands, I can almost believe that the old Luke, the one didn't turn against his friends, the one that honored his promises, still existed. Almost. The last vestiges of that boy were forever removed when Luke stabbed me with that poisoned spiel. I'll never be able to do so much as snap a twig after that. I didn't know it was possible to feel so much pain, with so much clarity and detail—I wished I could lose consciousness. I could feel the poison destroying the cells of my host tree, slowly spreading though my entire being. I felt myself bending forward as my tree slumped forward. My sheer helplessness was mind-boggling—I couldn't even lift a finger to defend myself.

That hypocrite. Trying to destroy the only place we had ever found peace, food, a bed to sleep in, safety—and how? By stabbing my tree. I found a perverse pleasure in the fact that even though I had sacrificed myself for Annabeth and Luke, I would continually ensure no other demigods were killed within the camp's borders by reinforcing the monster wards with my spirit. It was all I had. And then he came. Luke. His hair was cropped short. He had a long, ugly scar down the side of his face. He had this maniacal twisted spark in his blue eyes, something that I had seen briefly cross his face only once or twice. His expression softened and the spark dimmed as he stared into the depths of my tree, as if he could see my soul. I wanted to reach out and touch him. I had to tell him…I was a coward. I'm sorry. Somewhere in the distance I could dimly register sounds coming from camp. With a look of alarm, Luke pulled out that spiel from his pocket. He said something to me.

"I'm doing this for the both of us Thalia. You're coming back."

Just like that he stabs that wretched thing into my side. And the pain begins.

Wow. I'm tired. After all, I spent the better part of seven years standing up.

I don't know when I'll write in this again. But I sure hope you, whoever you are (impressionable demigod, a monster that just defeated me, a mortal reading this for kicks), learned something.

Signing off for now

Thalia Grace