So good to write fanfic again! I'd almost forgotten how to write it. Sorry for the delay folks. But this chapter will not let you down. Surprises await you! So go read it now.
Disclaimer: I don't own the PJ series or the HoO series. I wish.
Chapter 8 July
After we got on the SUV driven by Argus that was supposed to take us to Manhattan, Landyn took out a typical looking Celestial Bronze sword and started examining it.
"You found a new weapon?" I asked.
"Mm-hmm," Landyn nodded, " I nearly forgot and just picked a sword randomly just before breakfast."
"It looks pretty neat." I said. Of course, I didn't know a thing about swords, but there was nothing else I could thing of to say. It would be awkward to ride the whole way down Half-blood hill in silence.
"'Suppose so. Ah, but it doesn't feel really balanced and...I still miss my revolver." Landyn murmured. What really you miss is June. I thought, but said nothing.
I tried to spit out a response but failed. Whatever reply I came up with would somehow direct the conversation to my sister. Now, that would be awkward. So I just nodded sympathetically and turned my face to the other side, pretending to look at the scenery flying past. After staring out the window in silence for a long time, my thoughts drifted to my dream last night and felt a chill down my spine.
With my head filled with fleeting images of June in the rainbow and horrible imaginations of Camp Jupiter as a cold, deserted military site, I had a hard time falling asleep; even the night-lights of the Apollo's Cabin didn't help. When I finally did, peace refused to come to my mind. In my dream, I saw a strange storage room with all sorts of strange things such as ballet costumes large enough for elephants and a variety of strange creatures in numerous cages. The place reminded me of the backstage of some sad crazy circus. But what really caught my eye, and at the same time stopped my heart was an enormous glass jar on a table. It was as tall as a person and as wide as three people holding hands to form a circle. My dream zoomed in on the jar.
Air left my windpipes as I recognized the black clothed figure curled at the bottom of the jar. The son of Hades lay on the glass, thin beyond imagination and motionless. Nico's eyes were closed and there was barely a rise and fall in his chest. In his hand, which was too frail to clench together properly, there were some red seeds.
"Nico!" I cried, my throat closing up immediately. I knew he couldn't hear me; I wasn't even really there. Sure enough, Nico continued to lie motionlessly. Just when I started to tell myself: This is just a dream, just a nightmare... A sleeping woman's face appeared, her dark hair spreading out and filling the rest of image. Her eyes and mouth remained closed but her voice rang in my head.
"Merely a dream?"
Her voice was soft but cold, sending icicles down my stomach.
"Who are you?" I said, trying not to let my voice quiver.
"But you know the answer, July Loras. Your sister and the son of Hades both know me well. I am..."
"Gaea." I whispered. I didn't know what to think. She was Mother Earth, the ultimate villainess, the goddess I had feared and hated beyond everything...
"What do you mean, June and Nico know you well?" I managed.
"They've seen me in their dreams; they had my warnings." Gaea said. "I warned them that the quest should fail. But they did not listen and the results are clear. You, my dear, are not as foolish, are you?"
"No!" I shouted. "No! I mean, yes! No...Ah, leave me alone!" I covered my ears and shut my eyes in my dream.
"You've seen what happened to those who opposed me. Your twin finds herself caged in the cove of enemy. The boy you care for so much lie alone, dying slowly. Listen to me and remember my words, July. When the time comes, let the impure blood be spilt, and you shall be spared." The goddess of earth crooned.
"NO! I will never listen to you! You caused the quest to fail! You ignited the conflict between Camp Half-blood and Camp Jupiter!" I screamed. "SHUT UP!"
For a moment, there was only absolute silence. I had almost thought Gaea really did shut up, but her voice spoke out once more and my blood froze in my veins.
"You shall regret your decision, foolish girl." Then Gaea vanished completely, face and all. But the vision of Nico remained and I watched him until I woke up at last.
Gaea had left the image on purpose, I was sure, just to let me have a taste despair and hopelessness. It worked, because when I opened my eyes in the morning, my face was wet. But the weird thing was, somehow, I knew I was not the only one Gaea visited that night.
I hated not knowing things. I hated it even more than eating bananas. That was saying a lot since I get sick just thinking about eating those horrible yellow fruit. But now that I got some information, nothing improved. In fact, knowing about Nico and Grover made me feel worse. What was the point of knowing that Nico was trapped in a glass jar gods-know-where, alone and dying? Was there any use to know Grover had been seen in Central Park before disappearing? What good did it do to know that June was in Camp Jupiter, surrounded by violent, mean Romans? As far as I knew, we were still where we were at the beginning. The more I thought about our situation, the more depressed I got. My eyes started heating up. Bad sign. I bit my lips hard, determined not to let my eyes well up.
Suddenly, a gentle voice brought me back to reality.
"Hey, are you ok?" Landyn asked me. I blinked rapidly several times.
"I'm fine." I said a little too quickly, refusing to turn around and face him.
"No, you're not." Landyn insisted.
"What do you know? You don't live inside my head." I snapped, suddenly annoyed. Immediately, I felt bad. What's wrong with me? It's not Landyn's fault. It isn't fair for me to get angry at him.
"I know because I can see it from your face." Landyn said calmly.
"How can you see my fa-" I started and caught sight of the reflection of my face on the window. So that's how he was reading my face. I thought. I meet Landyn's eyes in the reflection and saw him nod.
"You know, you can talk to me about it, whatever that's bothering you." He said quietly. After a few minutes of silence, I finally turned around. Landyn gave me an encouraging smile so I took a breath and told him everything.
It was hard talking about my nightmare and worries. By the time I finished, I barely could speak, and I couldn't hold my tears anymore. Landyn put his arm around me comfortingly and gave me a few minutes to calm down.
"Here you go." He said, giving me a paper tissue. "Feel better?"
I dried my eyes and nodded.
"Thanks." I muttered. I felt embarrassed for breaking down like that. I bet June was not making a cry-baby of herself in Camp Jupiter.
"Your welcome." Landyn grinned. "You know what? We might have no idea how to get things right at the moment, but we are at least on our way to do something. That's better than doing nothing, right? All problems have answers; it's just a matter of time that we find them. Right now what we have to do is focus on our task and have faith in each other."
I stared at Landyn's face and let the words sink in. I could feel my heart getting lighter.
Just at that moment, the van slowed into a stop. I looked to the front seat and found all of Argus's eyes were turned on us, indicating that the trip was over. It was still weird to all those eyes on the great man's neck, arm, and other places. Landyn and I got out of the van, shouldering our bags and watched Argus drive away. We looked around found ourselves at the gate of Central Park. It was already nearly dusk. Landyn and I exchanged glances and walked in, anticipation growing in our heart.
But as we wandered on the shady avenues and paths, the excitement faded. Why does the park have to be so damn big? I cried in my head. Why the hell are there so many trees? People around us kept throwing us suspicious or bewildered looks. Well, I couldn't blame them. One does not see two teenage kids wandering in a park calling out "Oak, are you there?" or "Is there a nymph called Oak here?" every day.
In the end, we did find Oak. Except we didn't just find one Oak. After walking around calling "Oak" for almost an hour till our throats and feet were sore, we ended up standing in a clearing in a woods a little way from the road with a dozen hamadryades in front of us. They all looked similar, with dark wavy hair, standard nymph-ish features and green or brown dresses. They giggled and whispered among themselves, examining us with interest, or at least examining Landyn.
"Now what do we do?" I asked in exasperation to Landyn.
"We'll just ask." He replied and turned to the crowd of nymphs. "Hey, sorry for calling you guys out. But uh, we're just looking for the Oak that gave Juniper the leaf message."
The nymphs looked at one another and then burst into giggling again. "A lot of us have given a lot of Junipers leaf messages." One oak dryad informed us, apparently amused.
"I mean who gave the Juniper at camp a leaf message about Grover!" Landyn said, getting a little impatient now. The tree spirits just laughed harder.
"Urgh! They're really getting on my nerves!" I said angrily under my breath and then called loudly: "Oak, you know we are talking about you- "
"I do?" Instantly several nymphs chorused and once again fell into a fit of laughter. What's the problem with these silly trees? I thought. The nymphs I'd met in Camp Half-blood were at least helpful.
"They are just excited that they have company. I guess they don't see many demigods here often." Landyn whispered to me and I jumped. To think back on it, it probably didn't need a great expression reader to know what I had been thinking.
I scowled and called out again: "Hey, you bunch of silly nymphs! Stop fooling us and tell us what we need, or I'll set fire to your pretty little dresses!" I guessed my threatening worked, because immediately the giggling died and the hamadryades glared at me in unison. They looked at me with as if I were a disgusting dead fish. But I sensed fear behind their murderous glare.
Landyn sighed and grimaced beside me.
"What?" I demanded. He shook his head and held up his hands as if in surrender.
"Now, if the particular Oak that has the information we need kindly come up to us." I glared at Landyn once and turned back to the group of nymphs. After a few minutes of shuffling in the group, a considerably skinny girl stumbled out and stepped up to us. Not to my surprise, she was staring daggers at me,
"I'm Oak." She said shortly.
"So we've known." I replied coolly.
Landyn said in a hurry: "Thank you so much for cooperating. We just need to ask some questions, really." He flashed her a smile and I saw Oak's anger waver. But she recovered quickly.
"Who says I'm going to cooperate?" She said, chin high.
"Oh gods, what do I have to do to get you help us?" I cried impatiently.
"You can stay and entertain us for some time." Oak said, an impish smile spreading on her heart-shaped face.
"Really? Tha-" I started to say. I was about to say That's easy. But Landyn cut me off.
"Oh I'm terribly sorry. But we don't have the time. It's really urgent; we need to find Grover fast or bad things would happen." Landyn tried reasoning.
Oak's face became stormy again, but she asked: "What bad things?"
"Without Grover, Camp Half-blood won't be able to hold off the Romans. And Grover will be of great use in the war against the Giants too." He explained.
"What does your little Camp has to do with us? I don't care if you get crushed by Romans or Giants." Oak retorted. I flared up again but Landyn put a hand on my shoulder.
"But if half-bloods fail, who will come to your woods and talk to you? I daresay Giants won't be good visitors. They'd probably step on you and snap your branches just by walking around." Landyn said. Oak frowned and tapped her chin, looking doubtful.
"Think about it?" Landyn pleaded again. "Tell us what you know about Grover and I promise we'll come back to visit after we've finished our task, ok?" He smiled his superstar smile at her once more. Oak blushed slightly and nodded at long last.
"Well, I saw Grover walking past my tree some days ago, or was it some weeks ago? You see, we tree spirits are not that sensible about time-"
"Yes, I know. Can you go back to the part that you saw Grover?" I urged. In return, I got an irritated scowl. Oak turned back to Landyn and continued to talk.
"When I saw him, he was sort of in a hurry, muttering to himself and looking around as if being chased." Oak said.
"Did you hear what he was muttering?" Landyn asked, brows furrowing.
"A bit. Something about 'wonder why he wants me to go to Brooklyn Botanic Gardens?' and 'sounds urgent'." Oak recounted.
"Another park?" I groaned.
Landyn knitted his eyebrows. "Anything else you heard, Oak?"
"Um…yeah, something about like 'hope it has nothing to do with bees'." Oak said, a strange smile playing at her lips. But when we asked if she really had nothing else to tell us, she shook her head definitely. So we thanked her and bid the dryads goodbye. They were plenty mournful to know that we were leaving, making us promise again that we'd visit again.
When we finally came out of Central Park, it was already dark. My stomach was growling and my legs were falling off. Landyn was obviously feeling the same, so we found a fast food restaurant and had some food.
"So what park are we heading to again?" I asked. We'd had our meal and were standing out by the street again.
"Brooklyn Botanic Garden." Landyn replied. "But when we get there, it'd be really late." What he said was the truth. We fell in silence.
At last, I bit my lips and informed: "You know what? My place is not far from the Garden. We can spend the night at my home. My mom wouldn't mind, I think." I hadn't mentioned it before because I didn't want to go home. Not without June.
"Really? If you don't want to we can just sleep on park benches like last time." Landyn asked, sensing my unwillingness.
I made a face. "And act like a homeless person again with a sore back? I think I'll go home." He laughed and so home we went.
xxx
Though we were going to my home, it was really Landyn who navigated us from Manhattan to Brooklyn by subway. I, being hopeless in finding the way, was no help until we were only a block away from the building where I lived.
"Brace yourself." I told Landyn. He nodded nervously. He had seen how my mother could go off. I turned back to the door to home. It seemed so familiar, yet so unfamiliar. It felt like months since I stood before this door, but actually it had only been barely a week. I took a breath and knocked. And knocked. After several minutes, the door opened.
"Who-" My mom started to say.
But the sight of her did it; I flung into her arms and cried: "Mom, it's me!"
She backed up a few steps from the impact but caught me firmly. "July? Oh, July, you came home!" She said in disbelief, tears welling up in her eyes. The rest after that was surprisingly smooth. We went into the apartment and Mom actually didn't scream at me. She just kept sniffing and hugging me, saying: "Oh, my baby. Look at you; you've lost weight! You must be so tired!" and "I missed you so much! I didn't expect you come back tonight though." I was a bit embarrassed by the fuss she made, but as long as she didn't start shouting, I could live with it.
When I explained why June wasn't able to come ("June accidently broke her leg when she was climbing. That's why she couldn't send you Iris messages or come back home…But really, she's fine."), her face fell. However, she nodded. Then I introduced Landyn to her. She gave me a disapproving look as if saying: Moving on so fast? I wanted slap my forehead.
Though we told her we already had supper, she made us waffles anyway, smiling contently as we wolfed it down. When it was time to sleep, Mom managed to make a bed out of our lumpy sofa for Landyn. He thanked her and went to sleep immediately.
"You should get some sleep now too, honey." Mom said to me. "Didn't you say you have work to do tomorrow?" I nodded and allowed her to kiss my forehead before going back to the room I shared with June. It was just as messy and cramped as I left it. But somehow, I never thought the room looked emptier.
The next morning, we set off after having some of my mom's awesome pancakes. Landyn looked as if he didn't sleep much, which I felt responsible for. When I apologized for letting him sleep on a sofa, he shook his head and told me that he had a dream. A dream about Grover and mangoes. But he couldn't remember much.
It didn't take long for us to get to Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It was a truly beautiful place, with a lot of trees and grass and flowers of all colors. But we wondered how we were supposed to find Grover. The entire park was huge, with several gardens. It'd take forever for us to search the whole park. But it turned out we didn't need to. We had only walked for less than five minutes in the Garden when a group of Anthousai, flower nymphs, came to us. They smiled sweetly and danced around us. Much nicer than the hamadryads, if I had to say. After being asked if they had seen a satyr called Grover, the nymphs led us through the Garden, dancing and laughing ahead of us.
Soon, we found ourselves in the Cranford Rose Garden. The Anthousai led us off the path into the woods and suddenly they were gone. We had come to a small clearing surrounded by tall trees. Through the gaps between the trees, we could see a large rose bed not far away. I noticed several hives with bees flying around them nearby. I remembered Oak's words and felt my skin crawl. Under a great birch, there was an empty white beach chair and a small wooden picnic table.
We looked around but there was no one in sight.
"Um, is Grover sitting in that chair, invisible, or are we tricked?" I asked slowly.
Landyn shrugged and called: "Grover? Is Grover here?" No reply.
"Is anyone here?" I called out too. Suddenly, I realized that the buzzing sound of bees was getting larger.
"Uh, Landyn? I'm not really fond of bees." I said in a small voice, moving closer to him. I was sure there weren't this many bees a minute ago. They buzzed and zipped around us. I could just imagine the stings on their ends finding their place in my skin. Just then, a voice came out from behind.
"My bees told me that I have visitors. Well, well, let's see what we have here." A man's voice said. I whipped around a saw a tall figure by the edge of the clearing. A bunch of flower nymphs with black wavy hair and red dresses flocked him. And of course, more bees. So many bees swarming around him that I couldn't see exactly what he looked like.
"Who are you? Where's Grover?" I demanded boldly. "Give him back and maybe we'll let you live."
The man chuckled and waved his hands. The bees flew away and revealed the mysterious man. He looked about 25, lean and fit like an athlete. He had copper colored skin and shoulder-length stringy brown hair. He wore typical white Greek clothes so I knew I was most likely dealing with an immortal…which made me regret threatening him.
"I admire your courage, daughter of Apollo. And I am not surprised if you do not know me." He said easily. "I am Aristaeus, god of cattle, fruit trees, hunting, husbandry and bee-keeping. It is me who taught humans how to keep bees in hives. It is me who taught humans how to use nets and traps in hunting. Most importantly, it is me who taught humans how to make cheese. If it wasn't for me, would you be able to enjoy cheeseburgers, cheesecakes, cheese doodles or Aussie Cheese Fries with ranch dressing?"
Before Landyn or I could say anything, he answered himself: "No, you wouldn't. Alas, but no one thinks of me when they eat honey or cheese." He fell silent at last, hung his head and sighed as if mourning himself.
"Um, I'm so sorry to hear that." Landyn said.
"Yeah," I chimed in, "it's most unfortunate. But can you please tell us where Grover is? It's pretty urgent."
"Grover…I asked him to come to me." Aristaeus said slowly, probably still thinking about how unappreciated he was.
"Where is he then?" Landyn asked anxiously.
The god lifted his head and looked at us with a strange expression. "It's better if you give up on that satyr. His fate has been decided."
"What? Give up?" I cried indignantly.
"What do you mean, 'his fate'?" Landyn asked in alarm.
"The satyr has a part to play in the Mother's plan. Small, yes, but it may speed things up." Aristaeus said, striding towards one of his bee hives and examining it closely.
I didn't understand most of what he said, but I did get something. "Gaea! You're on Gaea's order!" I said angrily, whipping out my magical hairpin. Instantly, my bow quiver appeared in my hand. Aristaeus didn't so much as flinch at the sight of the arrow pointing at his face. His amber eyes turned cold.
"That would not be wise, girl." He said icily. I suddenly realized that Landyn and I were surrounded by hundreds of angry bees. Since when did the nice flower nymphs all disappear? Not until then did I fully realize that he was a hunter. A killer.
Landyn put a hand on my arm and I lowered my bow, scowling.
"That's more like it." The god of bumble-bees said in satisfactory. He waved his hand and the tornado of bees around us thinned.
"Now, where were we?" He said, carelessly, "Oh yes. Gaea asked me to deal with the troublesome satyr. I couldn't say 'no' now, could I?"
"Gaea made me immortal thousands of years ago. I owe her my service. Besides, Mother Earth is not someone to oppose." Aristaeus said, moving on to the next bee hive.
"What did you do to Grover?" I asked in a shaky voice, dread filling my heart.
"What I did to him is not your concern. As I said, give up and go home." The god replied shortly.
Landyn stepped up and reasoned: "Please, God Aristaeus, we just want to know what happened to him. Then we'll leave immediately."
Aristaeus looked coldly into Landyn's eyes and said: "Get out of my sight before I really get angry. One bee sting might not kill you, but what about ten? Fifty, perhaps? Or a hundred?"
I could sense the bees getting agitated.
Ah, how long has it been since I last finished a chapter in a cliffhanger? Haha. I'd missed researching on Greek mythology. This chapter is longer than I expected. But that's what you like, isn't it? So how do you think? Please R&R! And stay posted; the story is getting more intense and interesting from here. We have a lot in store for you!
-Hazel
P.S. Amber posted a one shot Harry Potter fanfic about Fred and George. First one shot, first HP fanfic, check it out and tell us what you think!