Hey, guys. After a long while, I have finished with this chapter. I have a poll up on my profile that you all should vote on, about this story.
Leo
Leo's tour was going great until the tiny matter of the dragon came up.
The archer dude, Will Solace seemed pretty cool. He showed Leo around the camp, showing him things so awesome they should have been illegal. Some of them probably were. Greek warships moored at the beach that sometimes had practice fights with flaming arrows and explosives? Arts and crafts, where sculptures were made with blow torches and chain saws? Woods stocked with monsters? The camp was incredible, and Leo wanted to try everything it had to offer. He still thought that he – or maybe everyone there – was insane, but hey – might as well embrace the craziness.
"Do I get a sword?" Leo asked as they passed the sword arena. Will looked at him as if the idea disturbed him.
"You're in Cabin Nine, so you'll probably make your own. Talk to Nyssa. She'll teach you if you ask her."
"What's up with the Cabin Nine thing? Vulcan?"
"Vulcan's the Roman name for your dad," Will explained. "We don't normally call the gods by the Roman names. The original are Greek. Your dad's Hephaestus."
"Hephaestus?" Leo repeated. "Sounds like the god of, I don't know, cowboys or something."
"Blacksmiths and fire, actually," Will said.
Leo winced. God of fire...seriously? Was this some kind of joke? Some kind of really twisted joke? After what had happened to his mom, it definitely felt like it.
"What about that flaming hammer over my head?" Leo asked, changing the subject. "What was with that? Good, bad?"
"Hephaestus acknowledged you as his son." Will paused for a moment, thinking about the other part of the question. "It happened right away. That's usually good."
"Usually?" Leo repeated. "Hang on...does this have anything to do with the curse that Butch guy mentioned?"
"Um...it's nothing. It's just...since Beckendorf, Cabin Nine's last head counsellor died – "
"Died?" Leo interrupted. "How? Like, painfully?"
Will raised his hands. "Whoa, slow down. I shouldn't tell you that. That's probably better left for your bunkmates to do. They can explain it better than I can."
"Yeah, where are my home dawgs?" Leo asked. He stopped for a second. "I mean, no offence or anything. You're pretty cool and all, but shouldn't their counsellor be giving me the tour, showing me the ropes?"
"He would, but, um...he can't. You'll see why." Will hurried forward before Leo could ask any more questions.
"Curses and death," Leo mumbled to himself, setting off after Will. "Fan-freaking-tastic."
They were halfway across the green when Leo saw something that – unless he both very mistaken and the unluckiest person on the planet – was definitely not supposed to be there. He stopped dead in his tracks.
"What's the matter?" Will asked. Leo ignored him.
This was impossible. Not even his luck was this bad. Maybe it was all his bad karma from a previous life. Tia Callida – Auntie Callida as she had called herself – standing there, in front of his eyes for the first time since he was five.
She was staring at him, from the shadow of a big white cabin at the end of the green. She wore a black linen dress. Her withered, claw like hands clutched at the black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She looked ancient, but the exact same as the last time Leo had seen her, as if she'd been frozen in time for a decade.
"That old lady..." Leo said, staring. "What's she doing here?"
Will tried to follow Leo's gaze. "What old lady?"
"Dude, how many old ladies do you see over there? That lady, in black."
Will frowned, looking around. "You've had a long day, Leo. The Mist is probably still messing with your mind – there's no old lady here."
Leo wanted to object, but when he glanced back at the cabin, Tia Callida was gone. Yet, he was certain she had been there, staring at him, as if Leo's thought about his mother had brought Callida back from the past, exactly as she had been.
He really hoped not. That would be bad, seeing as Tia Callida had tried to kill him.
"Just messing with you, man." Leo pulled a few of the gears he always kept in his pocket out and started fiddling with them. He didn't want everyone to think he was crazy already. Or at least, crazier than he actually was. "Come on, let's go."
Will hesitated. "Actually, do you mind if I ask you a few questions before we go to Cabin Nine?"
"Questions?" Leo repeated, raising an eyebrow. "About what? Shouldn't I be the one with questions to ask?"
"Reyna," Will clarified. "So, you said she has amnesia?"
"I guess. She says she just woke up on the bus, with no memories," Leo paused, his brow furrowing as he frowned. "I know it was the Mist and I never actually knew her, but that's a really weird thought – I imagined my best friend?"
Will nodded sympathetically. "Yeah. It sucks, but that's our life, I guess."
Leo was glad Will had changed the subject from his psycho babysitter – Reyna was still an uncomfortable topic for him to think about, now that he knew he had never known her, but she was better than Tia Callida any day.
He had few distinct memories about Reyna, but he had been sure she had been there. He could remember the first week pretty clearly – the rest was a blur.
Leo tried to focus on his memories – it was disturbing how much he had imagined, how real the vague memories had felt before he had learned he hadn't actually experienced them. Did that mean he really was insane?
He had thought he had met Reyna a few months earlier, in August or September. She had been quietly confident, commanding respect from everyone. He had flirted with her for a while and she hadn't shown any reaction. After a while, she had gotten annoyed – the most emotion he had ever seen her display – and thrown something at him, a pair of scissors that hadn't touched him, but had gone through his shirt and pinned him to the wall behind him. He had thought they had been best friends since that first encounter, really the only one he could remember. Clearly not.
So what had he done, all these months, if Reyna hadn't been there? What had actually happened? Had he imagined the only friend he had had? How pathetic was that?
"What do you think of her?" Will asked. Leo blinked. What was that supposed to mean?
"She's wicked with a knife," Leo offered. "She killed two of those storm spirit things."
Will frowned. "She killed two? She was really lucky, then. Even our best weapons go straight through, unless we catch them by surprise. Anything else? What's she like?"
Leo thought about it. "Reyna is either insane or has pretty awesome control over her emotions. Don't know which, but nothing seems to surprise her."
He expected Will to stare, but the other boy just nodded thoughtfully. "I know a few people like that."
Will shook himself. "Come on, Leo. Let's go meet Cabin Nine."
Leo followed the older boy into one of the cabins. It looked more like an oversized RV than anything, with its shiny walls and metal slatted windows. The entrance was thick and circular. It opened with a lot of turning of brass gears and hydraulic pistons blowing smoke. It kind of reminded Leo of the first Harry Potter movie. He whistled in admiration.
The cabin seemed deserted once they walked in. Steel bunks were folded against the walls. Each had a digital control panel, blinking LEDs, glowing gems, and interlocking gears. Leo figured that each camper had a combination lock to release the bed, probably with an alcove behind it for storage. He looked around, impressed. Whoever had designed the cabin was brilliant.
The cabin was a lot bigger on the interior than it had seemed from the outside. A fire pole came down from the second floor, and a circular staircase led down into a basement. The walls were lined with shelves filled with every kind of power tool imaginable. Hanging from the walls looking almost like some of the decorations one of Leo's foster families had kept up were swords, knives, and other implements of destruction. Leo got the impression that these ones were actually used.
In the centre of the room was a workbench, large and overflowing with scrap metal and machine parts – screws, bolts, nuts, washers, rivets, gears, sprockets...Leo had to resist the urge to shove them all into his coat pockets. He loved that kind of stuff. But no, he would need a hundred coats to fit it all in.
Something about the place reminded Leo of his mom's workshop. Maybe not the weapons, but the tools, the metal, the spare parts, the smell of grease. She would have loved Cabin Nine. A lump formed in Leo's throat.
He pushed the thoughts of his mother away. He didn't like dwelling on painful memories. He had learned a valuable lesson a long time ago – keep moving. It had become almost his motto. If he kept moving forward, mentally, physically, he could keep ahead of the pain, keep ahead of the sadness.
To distract himself, he picked up a long object from the wall. "What does the god of fire want with a weedwhacker?"
"You'd be surprised," said a voice from the shadows. In the back of the room, there was one occupied bunk. A curtain of dark material retracted, revealing a guy who had been invisible a moment before. Leo couldn't guess at his age, or tell what he looked like because he was covered in a body cast. His head was wrapped in gauze, except for his face, which was bruised and puffy.
"I'm Jake Mason," the guy said. "I'd shake your hand, but..."
"Yeah," Leo said. "Don't get up."
The guy cracked a smile, then winced. "Welcome to Cabin Nine. Been almost a year since we had any new kids. I'm head counsellor, for now."
"So where is everyone, Jake?" Will asked.
"Down at the forges," Jake said wistfully. He looked away from Leo and Will, his eyes staring off into the distance, as if he were imagining himself elsewhere. "Working on...you know, the problem."
"Problem?" Leo asked.
"So, do you have a spare bed for Leo?" Will said, changing the subject clumsily.
Jake studied Leo, sizing him up. "So, Leo. You believe in curses? Or ghosts?"
I just saw my evil babysitter, Leo thought. She should be dead, but she looked just like when I last saw her. And I can't go a day without thinking about my mom in that fire. Don't bring up ghosts.
Aloud, he said, "Ghosts? Nah. A storm spirit threw me down the Grand Canyon, but all in a day's work, right?"
Jake nodded thoughtfully. "That's good. Because I'll give you the best bed in this cabin – Beckendorf's."
"Whoa, Jake," Will said. "You sure about that?"
"Bunk 1-A, please," Jake called.
The whole cabin rumbled. A circular section of the floor spiralled open, and a bed popped up. The bronze frame had a built-in game station at the footboard, a stereo system in the headboard, a glass-door refrigerator mounted into the base, and a whole bunch of control panels running down the side.
Leo didn't know why Jake was giving this to him – was it because no one else wanted it? But he wasn't going to question it. He jumped right in.
"It retracts into a private room below," Jake told him. Leo grinned, opening his mouth to ask which buttons he should press.
"Hold on," Will protested, interrupting him. "You guys have underground rooms?"
Jake looked like he wanted to smile.
"We've got our secrets, Will. You Apollo guys can't have all the fun, right? Our campers have been excavating the tunnel system under the cabin for decades. Anyway, Leo, if you don't mind sleeping in a dead man's bed, it's yours."
Leo sat up, careful not to touch any buttons. "The counsellor that died – this was his bed?"
"Yeah," Jake said. "Charles Beckendorf."
"He didn't...he didn't die, like, in this bed, did he?" Leo really hoped not. His imagination conjured up thoughts of saw blades coming through the mattress. To his relief, Will shook his head.
"No," Jake said. "In the Titan War, last summer.
"The Titan War?" Leo repeated. "Which has nothing to do with this bed that I am currently sitting on?"
"The Titans," Will said, like he thought Leo was an idiot. It was a familiar tone. "The big powerful guys that ruled the world before the gods. They tried to make a comeback last summer. Their leader, Kronos, built a new palace on top of Mount Tam in California. Their armies came to New York and almost destroyed Mount Olympus. A lot of demigods died trying to stop them."
"I'm guessing this wasn't on the news?" Leo said. It seemed like a fair question, but Will shook his head in disbelief.
"Where were you?" Will demanded. "You didn't hear about Mount St. Helens erupting? Or the freak storms all over the country?"
Leo shrugged. He hadn't exactly had access to the news last summer – he'd run away from another foster home. A truancy officer had caught him in New Mexico, and the court had sentenced him to the nearest correctional facility – the Wilderness School.
"You were lucky to miss it," Jake said. "The thing is, Beckendorf was one of the first casualties, and ever since then—"
"Your cabin's been cursed," Leo guessed. Jake didn't answer. The body cast was enough.
Leo's eyes darted around the cabin, noticing tiny details he hadn't seen before. An explosion mark on the wall. A stain on the floor that might have been oil...or maybe blood. Broken swords and smashed machines were kicked into corners. The place did feel unlucky.
Jake sighed halfheartedly. "Well, I should get some sleep. I hope you like it here, Leo. It used to be… really nice."
He closed his eyes, and the camouflage curtain drew itself across the bed.
"Come on, Leo," Will said. "I'll take you to the forges."
Leo looked back at his new bed as they stepped out of the door. He could almost imagine a dead counsellor sitting there, staring at him – a big guy, serious, but with a wry smile curving his mouth.
Another ghost that would never leave him alone.
Chapter question: Favourite Harry Potter character?