Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. I do, however, own a typewriter.

Rating: T, swearing

Quote: BrainyQuote website

Image: Google Images

(Yes, I'm back. :P)

Chapter Six

Hiccuping Hearts

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

-Marcus Tullius Cicero

~Evelyn~

Never once in my life had I woken to the sound of children playing.

In all the various experiences that I had witnessed, waking up in my soft comforter in New York City, I had never woken to the sound of children playing. I was an only child with a single mother, and my devotion to the world of music had left little time for playmates. My mother was an only child herself as well, with both parents dead, so even family was an absent void in my life. Even if I were to invite ten girls over to my house, my mother had little tolerance for noise. So I simply woke up each and every morning to a silent house, or, on some occasions, the noise of the coffee machine.

That morning was different. Chiron had barely had a chance to look me in the eyes before the scream rang out through the entire camp, and, as the various people present at the confronting of a man named Nico Di Angelo went off to convene in a private meeting, I was stuffed into a cabin deemed 'the Hermes cabin'.

Apparently, from the brief ninety-second 411 that I received from a Hermes camper named Jasper, the demigods were separated according to their godly parent, or, in other cases, according to their legacy heritage. When I inquired as to what exactly a legacy was, Jasper sent me a dirty look and replied that a legacy was a descendant from a demigod- somewhat like a grandchild or great-grandchild or so on of one of the Greek gods.

That had sent my mind whirling in a thousand possible directions. Hermes, being the god of travelers, took all unclaimed demigods in, but I started thinking at another angle. What if I wasn't a demigod at all, but a legacy? It would certainly make more sense, considering a vague indication of a 'claiming law at age thirteen'. My mind still hurt from all the information that had been crammed in overnight. Jasper was a fast talker.

Anyway, when I woke up to the sound of high-pitched laughter, it took me a moment to realize where I was. The motley arrangement of rag-tag blankets and an itchy wool pillow was most certainly not my comfortable bed in Manhattan, and the wooden boards of the messy cabin were most certainly not my white walls. Then I remembered the events of last night, and that set me into a whole different tizzy.

I didn't want to think about my mother. She was dead, and that was that, but I couldn't afford to think about her- not right now, at the very least. I had a heavy, sinking heart that told me the brutal reality of my situation: my mother was dead, and I had no home to return to. That in itself, just the blatant fact, was enough to nearly put me to tears.

Instead, I held my head high. When I stepped out of my bundle of blankets, I realized briefly that I was not, in fact, in my comfortable pajamas. Instead, I was in my evening gown from the previous night. By now, it was starchy and uncomfortable, the stiff taffeta chafing against my skin. Though I couldn't see it- apparently, the Hermes children weren't too concerned with their appearance, and had no mirrors in their cabin- I knew that there were probably sheet creases in the dress.

I grimaced. I wasn't a sight to look at in the first place. No one had ever directly told me so, but I knew that it was the case. I wasn't like many of the godly descendants I had seen at camp so far. Though I wasn't directly ugly, I wasn't pretty, either. I was a bit chubby, with a round face, anime brown eyes, and sun marks all over me, as well as an interspersing of freckles and pimples dotting the whole of the planes of my face.

With a grimace, I thought back to the previous night. The people around the clearing looked like they could all be from an Abercrombie commercial. There was a man, in his late thirties or early forties, with dark hair, a peppering of gray strands, a strong chin, and intensely green eyes. Then there was Caroline- the girl who had screamed. She was Will's sister, and, like Will, she was almost insanely pretty. Sharp planes to her face, violet, color-changing eyes, straight, blonde hair, and thin lips, she was all angles and all sharpness. Then there was the Goth girl. Even she was pretty, with a pixie-like physique. Nico Di Angelo looked like a fallen angel, with flawless alabaster skin, dark hair, and haunted eyes. They could all be movie characters. The rest of us were just extras, acting the part of walking around.

I massaged my temples. I didn't know anybody here. I didn't know where to go. And, most importantly, I didn't know who I was. My father was a god, or a demigod, or a legacy. One of those three, at least, which narrowed it down to a few thousand around the world. Not so hard, right?

Wrong. Oh so very wrong.

Taking a deep breath, I mustered my courage and walked out the front door. In my state, I half-expected everybody to turn around from their various activities and gasp at my tattered evening dress. The volleyball would plop onto the sand, unreturned, the climbers on the dangerous-looking climbing wall would fall into the water with a plop, swordplay would completely halt.

Of course, this wasn't an Audrey Hepburn movie. Nobody so much as noticed that I was awake. In my secret heart of hearts, I was a little disappointed. I liked attention. I was a neglected only child. I could only dream.

I had been asleep for a while. The sun was glaring down on the camp, and the sky was impossibly blue. Puckering my lips and shading my eyes, my gaze traveled from various campers. From my estimate, it looked like a few hundred were at camp. They were all doing various activities- playing volleyball, fighting what looked like monsters, canoeing; shooting magical arrows. It could have been any other camp, except for a few nuances. Though I had to blink a few times to make sure, it almost looked like the campers were nearly incinerated with lava when they didn't reach the top. I certainly wasn't in any hurry to try that.

My thoughts kept drifting back to the previous night. Will and I had shared a comfortable camaraderie in the car, and as soon as a crisis including his sister had presented itself, he had cast me away like a piece of flotsam, filing me under the mental folder labeled Finished. Though it shouldn't have stung, it did.

I looked all around the camp. My eyes were continuously drawn to a building that seemed to tower over the camp. Shooting furtive glances around me, I began to walk towards it, shading my eyes to get a better look at the structure. My heart skipped a beat when I finally realized what it was, after a five-minute walk to the other side of the camp.

It was a coliseum, similar to the models that I had seen from my history lessons on Ancient Rome and Greece. Greece, I thought. It was as if I had a few puzzle pieces click together in my brain. This camp wasn't just a place for demigods of Greek descent. It was an actual Greek representation. Sure, a few things were different: the Big House, a few minor catches in the architecture here and there, but when I looked at the swords clanging through the air, I got one of my flashbacks.

I had experienced flashbacks since I was seven years old. I wasn't sure where they came from, or why they were there, but I would always remember the first flashback that I had ever witnessed. I had been on a carousel, for the first time in my life, and while I was whooping delight, I had thought of a different time.

The memory was coated in sepia, like in old pictures or films. It also jarred from side to side, like a glitch. Suddenly, I was in Coney Island, like I was previously, but it wasn't the same Coney Island that I knew. There were no modern inventions, just empire-waist, flaring skirt dresses of the nineteenth century. People were clapping at the unveiling of an invention: a carousel. I didn't quite understand- after all, it was just a carousel- but people looked at it as if they had never seen it before.

Then the flashback was over, and I was on the grass next to the carousel, back in the twenty-first century. A man in a medic uniform was attempting to give me CPR, and my mother was standing to the side, her hands clapped over her mouth. I just sat up, blinking my eyes. The men had started, looking at me suspiciously, as if they thought I was just pranking them.

My mother called them my seizures from then on. They didn't happen often, but when they did, what seemed like seconds in the flashback was actually more like fifteen minutes. It had happened during a piano recital once. One minute, I was playing in a church, the next, I was in a grand concert hall, in a stiff waistcoat, Mozart emanating from my fingertips as a crowd dressed in nineteenth-century clothes clapped enthusiastically. That had been the worst of all of the flashbacks.

Melody had pulled me aside after the recital and gripped my wrist tightly. "This has got to stop," she told me sharply. "I have tolerated your various tricks and pranks over the years, Evelyn, but this is another matter entirely. This is your career that you're toying with. Your future. What do you think you're doing?"

I tore myself from the memory, looking back up at the coliseum. Though I tried to stop it, there wasn't much that I could do. Just looking at the Greek architecture of the building drew me into another time period.

The crowd roared around me.

I was in a chariot, the laces golden. Beside me was a girl. She had blonde hair, gray eyes, and a fierce, determined expression on her face. She didn't speak, but simply hefted a dagger in her hand, as if assessing the weight. With a start, I realized that this was not, as I had assumed, ancient times, but fairly recent. She was wearing faded jeans and an orange t-shirt similar to the ones that I had seen around camp underneath her bronze breastplate and shin guards.

Before me, two horses started, rearing and shaking their manes. They were beautiful, I thought with admiration. The reins in my hand felt meant to be. It was as if a chariot was some dormant talent that I had always been born to play- but, then again, I was a different person. I looked down at my hands. They were callused, rough, and faintly boyish.

I looked over to the girl again. A few tendrils of her curly hair escaped their ponytail, falling around her helmet and framing her pretty face. This girl was possibly one of the most beautiful women that I had ever seen. She was picturesque, though it wasn't a doll-like beauty. It was more of a fierce beauty, like Boudicca, a warrior queen that I faintly remembered from history.

Then, staring at her, a name came to me. I had no idea what the name was, or why it came to me- no name had ever come to me before. Nevertheless, the name echoed throughout my mind.

Annabeth.

I woke on the ground.

No one had even noticed that I was down. With some annoyance, I heaved myself to my feet, brushing off my jeans. Annabeth. The heartless Spanish Inquisition inside of me began to awaken. My mind spiraled out of control. Who was this girl? If I was correct, then that scene couldn't have been more than twenty or thirty years ago. That meant that this 'Annabeth' girl was fairly recent.

I pinched my lips together. 'Annabeth' wasn't a common name. Maybe if I asked somebody, they could tell me who this girl was… and what I was doing in the memory that I had just invaded on. I shook my head, massaging my temples.

Giving the coliseum a dirty look, I plowed on, right towards the center. Hopefully, there was someone there that could help me. I loved stiff, wrinkled taffeta dresses in midsummer in the middle of the day, of course- that was certainly a fashion statement- but I would prefer something a bit more comfortable.

"Whoa, there. Somebody's busy."

I jumped a bit at the sudden noise. Turning around, I came face-to-face with a girl. Unlike some of the other campers, she wasn't insanely pretty. In fact, she looked perfectly ordinary, except for her height. She could have easily been a few inches over six feet. The girl had red, spiraling tendrils of curly hair, unruly and unkempt. A bandanna kept a few of them in line, but not many. She had a sharp face, and a pert chin, peppered with more freckles than there were stars in the sky. One wrist was wrapped in gauze, and she seemed to walk with a little bit of a limp. Clear, intensely blue eyes looked back at me evenly.

"Um… hello," I said, making to stuff my hands in my pockets, and belatedly remembering that I didn't have any pockets. I cleared my throat, attempting to pass off my mistake. Mustering up my courage, I made to ask her a question, but the girl interrupted me before I had a chance.

"You know," she said, assessing my state of dress, "not that I'm not loving the clubbing dress, but why are you walking around an athletics camp barefoot in tight, strapless black dress?"

Well, somebody's blunt. "Well, not everybody has a clean pair of clothes, now do they?" I snapped, my words coming out unintentionally harsh. The girl arched her eyebrows, nearly making them disappear into the fringe of her hair. I sighed. "Sorry. It's… it's been a long night."

"So I've heard," the girl said. "I'm sorry for your loss." I stared at her, my mouth nearly hanging open. How she knew that was beyond me. Just then, her eyes flickered. It was just for a moment, but they seemed to turn green. Her hair became shorter, her jeans speckled with paint, her features more quaint, with a paintbrush stuck in her ear. It was as if I was looking at a mirror image of the girl, with just a few differences.

"Whoa," I managed. The girl narrowed her eyes ever-so-slightly at me. I cleared my throat, hoping to dispel the miniature flashback. "How do you know about my loss?" I demanded, hoping to clear the air.

A little bit of the tension went out of the girl's shoulders. "I had a vi-" she cleared her throat awkwardly. "I mean, uh, I just figured it out. I'm friends with Will and Caroline Grace, so. Y'know." She sent me a bashful grin.

"Really." It came out as a statement, not a question. "How do you know Will and Caroline Grace?" Hmm. New information. Evie the Meddler, coming up momentarily. As soon as she figured out who this enigma was, anyway.

It could have just been a trick of the light, but I thought I saw all the blood drain from her face. "N-no reason." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "I mean, uh, there's a reason. Of course there's a reason. Why wouldn't there by a reason. I mean, we're friends, aren't we?" She grinned at me toothily.

"Mm-hm," I said, crossing my arms and giving her a suspicious once-over.

She sighed. "Okay. Fine. We met back in Massachusetts, in a little town named Quincy. We went to school together. It was a private school, St. Gabriel's." She smiled briefly, though her eyes looked sad. "It was before all that business with Carrie and Will's parents. They still lived as a family. My life was a little different, too." She seemed to be handing me the abridged version of events. I knew that something was missing from that chain, but I didn't know what, exactly.

I decided to let it go for now. There were bigger questions at stake- pertaining to Will, and this new, mysterious girl. "Wait. Will doesn't live with his family anymore? Who does he live with, then?"

The girl shrugged. "Camp," she said, gesturing around her. "Will and his sister don't really have a home. They help the camp in exchange for a place to lie low. Caroline and Will are both extremely powerful legacies- they're the second most powerful that I've ever encountered." She hesitated. There it is again, I thought. That little hesitation. This girl is hiding something. "They're mixed-bloods, too, which doesn't make life easy."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "'Mixed-bloods'? Aren't most of us mixed bloods here? I thought that we were all demigods or legacies. What makes those two so special?"

"They're Greek and Roman," she explained. Briefly, I remembered Will saying something about being Cherokee, Greek, and Roman. I filed this information away, but the girl was continuing her spiel. "Jeez. You really don't know anything, do you?"

"Uh… no. No, I don't." I hung my head. "Hence the taffeta dress, scratches, and stench of liquor." I wrinkled my nose. "It's not what it looks like, I swear. Mostly. I think. I'm not really sure. Last night's kind of a blur."

She laughed. "You remind me of someone," she said, a thoughtful, albeit sad expression on her face. She set a determined look. "Well, if you don't know, then I'll teach you. Tell me, uh… 'please insert name'?"

"Evelyn Aria Cox," I said. Belatedly realizing this was my full name, I covered it up with a, "Just call me Evie, though. I'd prefer that." I smiled. This was going to take some getting used to. "What's your name?"

"Well, Evelyn Aria Cox," she said, arching an eyebrow, "how do you feel about honey and cheese crackers by the creek?"

As it turned out, honey and cheese crackers by the creek were delicious.

I had expected the worst, but things hadn't gone so badly. The girl had made me stay put, rushing off to her cabin. Though the girl knew my name and more than a few things about me, I still knew almost nothing about her, except for that she knew both William and Caroline Grace. The girl had returned with a clean pair of clothes and plastic baggie of a hodge-podge arrangement of snacks. As it turned out, revolting as it sounded, honey and cheese crackers were delicious, and the bathrooms were actually clean enough to change in.

Now, sitting by the riverside, munching on honey and cheese crackers, it seemed as if there was a silence that would never end. The girl sat there, just examining her fingernails and eating her snack. The girl. "What's your name?" I said abruptly.

"Reese," the girl said. "Reese Winters." That name sounded familiar. I wasn't sure how, or why, I just knew that it sounded familiar. She divulged no further information about herself, keeping it completely to herself. She seemed to be thinking, though, and after a while, she began to speak.

"There are two camps for demigods and legacies." Reese looked pensive. "One for Greek heritage, and one for Roman. There are even rumors of a place for an Egyptian camp, a place called a 'Nome', but, personally, I think those are just rumors." She took a deep breath.

"Greek and Romans have always had a rivalry. There are alleged urban legends that this is because of the Athena Parthenos- a big statue hidden in the underground Hephaestus tunnels underground." My jaw dropped, and Reese nodded. "Trust me, Evelyn Aria Cox. This place has more secrets than you can possibly count.

"The rivalry between the two really started, though, in my opinion, and a few others', when the Roman Empire fell. Evelyn Aria Cox, what do you know about Roman history?"

"Very little," I confessed. "Mostly just what my seventh-grade history teacher taught me. Which, unfortunately, wasn't very much. From that, I don't even remember eighty percent."

"Okay." Reese took a deep breath. "I'm not really good at this kind of thing either, but this has been drilled into my brain so much that it's impossible to forget." She made a weak smile. "Basically, the gist is this: by the time the Roman Empire fell, the empire was split into two parts: the western part, and the eastern part. The eastern part was more commonly known as the Byzantine Empire. The left half fell about a thousand years before the right half." She looked up at the sky. "The Byzantine Empire. The right half." The implications were clearly supposed to sink in, but I was lost. Reese rolled her eyes. "The Greek half."

"Oh," I said. "Oh."

"Yeah," Reese said, nodding. "Greece may have fallen to the Roman Empire, but, ultimately, its overall influence lasted a millennium after Rome. That was really when the rivalry started. For a while, it went on after that, migrating." She swore. "Backing up, I'm going to talk about something completely different for a minute: Western civilization. You're probably wondering why there's a Greek camp in Long Island." I nodded, shrugging. "That's because the Greek, Roman, and, allegedly, Egyptian influences move with the height of civilization. Right now, that's America. You get it?"

I nodded. "I- I think so."

"Good. Now, back to the Greek-Roman thing. They fought for a while. France's revolutionary war was one prime example. Another example is the War of the Roses, a dynasty war fought over the throne of England. Yet another example is the feud between Mary Guise, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth the First of England. Elizabeth won, obviously. The American revolutionary war was another example. And, finally, the tipping point was the American Civil War."

"Why was that the tipping point? It kind of seems like the rivalry has made a mess of itself in the past." I frowned. "And wasn't the Civil War primarily about slavery? That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does. It was just a pretense." Reese waved her hand. "You'll find that most of what historians write down is just a pretense, actually." She tapped her chin. "Anyhow, the Civil War caused so many deaths that the gods ultimately just split the two groups up. They were at opposite ends of the country for a while- until recently, about thirty years or so ago." She frowned. "Now that's a complicated story. Which we don't have time for, so I'll just skip over it.

"Essentially, the two demigod groups were brought together. They have separate camps still, but there's a Greek and Roman guest cabin at each camp for ambassadors, guests, legacies, etcetera." She frowned. "William and Caroline are complicated. Both of their parents are extremely famous and powerful in the demigod world. In fact, Will and Caroline's father is in the top three most powerful demigods in the world right now, with a somewhat recent death." A somber cloud descended over Reese. "But, anyway. Will and Carrie's mom is Greek- she's a daughter of Aphrodite- and a little bit Cherokee, too. Will and Carrie's dad is Roman- a daughter of Jupiter, or Jove, if you prefer. Hence the complication.

"Basically, there was a huge family drama blowup about three years ago. Caroline and Will chose to leave their family behind, staying at Camp Half-Blood. Essentially, they split their family into two, and their family's friends into two warring sides. Similar to the Trojan War, actually, though I have no idea what the godly implications of that are."

"Wow," I said. "That's… a lot of history." I put my head in my hands. "Is everything always this complicated?"

"Oh, honey." Reese laughed bitterly. I rose my head, and found Reese staring fixatedly at her hand. "You have no idea how complicated things can be." She shook her head, dispelling the thought.

There was a look in her eyes at that moment. It was just for a second, but it was enough to get me thinking of another time. It was a time where, like this Reese, there was a woman, looking down at her hand.

I felt mummified.

In the flashback, I was in a room. This, at least, was ancient times. There was a servant near the side of the bed, standing near me. I looked down at myself. I was tiny, no bigger than a child, and all wrapped up. The world was seen through a blur. I felt as if my bones were slowly being compressed to dust.

"Kyría Cassandra mou," a servant said, appearing at my side. "Árchontas Aeneas échei ftásei." The words were in another language, and yet, somehow, I understood them. My Lady Cassandra. Lord Aeneas has arrived.

Where had I heard those names before?

The world shifted.

I was in modern times again.

I was in a bedroom. It was posh, to be sure, with white drywalls and a comfortable-looking bed. My heart thumped wildly, and, in my hand was a paintbrush. In front of me was an easel, and in back of the easel was a New York City skyline.

I was painting a picture of the Empire State Building, and as I watched, transfixed, there was no paint on the paintbrush. No; instead there was green smoke emanating from the paintbrush, splashing a picture onto the canvas.

Green smoke?

I was in a dark room, back in ancient times.

It was half-obscured by smoke. I squinted, unable to see, and as I watched, a beautiful, slim, pixie-like figure came forth. She was wearing various robes, her long, dark hair down in ringlets. The woman stepped forward, cupping water perfectly in her hands.

She knelt on a stone floor, and began muttering wildly in Greek. As I watched, her eyes turned completely green. Smoke came out of her mouth, and she shouted out a prediction. A prediction?

"All hail the oracle," people around me said.

That was when I realized: Reese wasn't a demigod. Not even close. She was an oracle.

~Caroline~

Before that night, I had never even heard of Nico Di Angelo.

Even after the night had long since faded into the sunshine, the inky black sky melding into a pale blue one, and the stars snuffing out, one by one, like candles, I still didn't know much about him. After the man had been identified, Nico, Chiron, and Percy had all gone back to the Big House, where a meeting had commenced. As far as I knew, Nico was in big trouble. Very big trouble. I exhaled slowly.

Right then, I was sitting on the grass, picking blades of grass. I had wanted to tell Will about Reese last night, but I couldn't find the courage. Will had just seen the round-faced girl's mother die. That was enough trauma. In truth, I was really just a big chickenshit, but I was going to have to put that issue on hold.

I looked down over Camp Half-Blood. It seemed as if problems in my life were descending on me, one by one. My family were coming to meet me in three days. That was enough on its own, but adding in the fact that Reese didn't have much longer to live, and Nico Di Angelo had just shown up, throwing the only responsible adult I knew into a fervor, it seemed as if I had no one to trust.

For one of the first times in a while, I thought back to my parents. As a child, my mother had never doted on me. In fact, for the first few years of my life, she saw me as a hindrance. I was a mistake child, and no one in my family made any effort to hide it. When my mother was nineteen, about to turn twenty, she and my father got drunk on a bottle of Tequila, and proceeded to conceive me on a college dorm room couch. My early years weren't spent at home. Instead, I went over to Uncle Percy and Aunt Annabeth's house, where I was free to be a kid. My father never paid any attention to me- he was far too busy working. About two and a half years after conceiving me, my mother decided to try for a real family. She had my brother Will, and a few years after that, my sister Janie, and a few years after that, my youngest brother Reid. Shortly before Will and I left our family, my mother became inadvertently pregnant- again. Everyone in that family but me was part of a perfect life. So I left, and, for the most part, I never looked back.

There were moments, of course, when I missed going to school like a normal kid, getting report cards, having normal friends, and having someone reliable to look up to. Percy had decided to stay at Camp Half-Blood shortly after me. At the time, he had been recuperating from the second tragedy in his life, and needed a place to stay. He became the fencing director, and though his skin remained tough, and his personality hardened by the things that he had seen and done, Percy had been the one adult that I could look up to, on occasion. Though Percy wasn't composed by any means, he was more responsible than either of my parents. Sometimes he got flashbacks of the past, and he would disappear, sometimes for days at a time at the very worst. I never knew exactly where he went, but if I had to guess, I would say back to his old town, Quincy. I had never followed him, but my gut instinct said that he was going back to St. Gabriel, or his old house. Just as Percy could never truly fill the gap of missing my parents, I could never truly fill the gap of Percy's daughter.

"Caroline," a familiar voice said above me. I looked up, shading my eyes. My stomach plummeted at the sight of my brother. "What are you doing here? You're, like, a mile from the camp."

I gave him a weak smile. "Thinking." It was true. I was thinking- about what to tell him about Reese Winters having a few weeks to live. A spark ignited in my brain. What was that Chiron had said about having a cure for Reese? Something that would tick off the gods?

"About what?" Will plopped down on the grass beside me, flashing me his trademark grin. I elbowed him in the side. Will had been the object of many a girl's attention since returning to camp. With his white teeth, smirk, flawless skin and dark shock of hair, he could have been a cover model for a magazine. He took after our mother that way. Still, I knew the two girls that were the object of Will's affection. One of them was dead, and the other was a sworn virgin by the name of Reese- who, consequently was dated to die in a few weeks. Will always fell for the wrong girls.

"Nothing much," I lied. "Just… stuff." He raised an eyebrow at me, but before he could inquire my off-beat conversation, I was already changing the subject. "So. Who was the girl that you deported last night?"

"I did not deport her," Will said. "You should probably get your facts straight. But, anyway. Her name's Evelyn." His expression darkened. "Her mother died while on my watch. It was my fault- I thought that the mother was shell-shocked. There wasn't something quite right about that woman, though…" he shook his head.

"What do you mean?"

"She had this faint feeling to her. You know the chill that you get when you're around monsters? It could have just been the Mormo, but I'm pretty sure that I felt a chill coming from her, too. Melody Cox may not be who her daughter thought she was." Will looked pensive.

"It was probably just the Mormo," I said. "Why would a human be radiating like that? It doesn't make any sense, Will. Maybe you should think this through before you go flinging any accusations."

"I'm not flinging anything. And, thing is, I don't think Evelyn's mother was entirely human. I think she was part human and part… something else." He set his jaw, his blue eyes looking out over the camp.

I pursed my lips. "You think her mother is a demigod? Roman or Greek?"

"That's it, though." Will took a deep breath. "I don't think that she's a demigod. Not even one of those Egyptian rumors." He looked down at his hands. "I think that Evelyn's mother is… well…. I think Evelyn's mother is…"

"Will! Caroline!" A shrill voice echoed up the hilltop. Both Will and I rocketed to our feet. Though Will would always be the far better fighter of the two of us, we had both been trained at demigod camp for three years. We knew when to get a fighting stance ready.

It was Reese, arriving at the top of the hilltop. Her face was white, though beads of perspiration were sliding down them. Her red hair was even more frazzled than usual. She was out of breath, and clutching her bad arm.

"What?" Will said, looking at her urgently. His eyes dropped to her wrist. "Are you hurt?" He walked over swiftly to her, taking her hand gently and trying to assess it. I bit my lip as Reese's eyes bored into me. It had been my job to tell Will, and I had failed.

Reese panted. "No. It's fine," she said, taking a huge gulp of air. "It's- it's-" she coughed into her arm, and whitened. "Oh, no." Her entire body had completely stilled. I craned my neck to look at her elbow, but Will had frozen, too.

On her elbow, amid the pale skin and abundance of freckles, there was a tiny splatter of blood, the crimson a stark contrast against her skin. And so it begins, I thought, hugging my arms to my chest and suddenly feeling cold, though it was June.

"Um." Reese tore her eyes to her elbow, wiping it off hurriedly.

Will took a step forward. Not now, you idiot. My brother loved playing Galahad. More often than not, though, it got him into trouble. I nearly slapped my forward. "Reese. Did I just see blood come out of you?" Both Reese and I were silent. "Caroline?" He turned to me, his eyes flashing. Not for the first time, I wished Will didn't have such a wicked temper. He had once attacked our 'cousin' Selene Valdez for just scorning his friend, his fist smashing into her pretty face.

"It's Evelyn," Reese cut in hurriedly. This seemed to be the one name that could distract Will, even momentarily. Reese took a moment to continue. "We were in the forest, and I was trying to explain about the whole Greek-Roman feud, and she took a look at me, and, well…" Reese looked scared. "It happened once before. She sort of… seemed to shimmer. That was a quick one, though. This time, she shimmered, and collapsed to the ground. I felt for a pulse, and I can't feel one. She keeps on twitching, though." Reese looked panicked. "Why does she keep on twitching?"

Will paled. A current death was more important than a dawning one. "Where is she?" he said. "And what do you mean, she shimmered? Is she still shimmering?"

Reese nodded fractionally. "You'll see. We have to hurry, though. I'm not sure… I'm not sure how much longer she's got if she doesn't have a pulse, or whether or not she's already dead." She looked like she was about to be sick.

"Lead us to her," I said. Without further warning, Reese took off sprinting down the hill, down towards the woods. "Oh, shit. What were they doing in the woods alone?" I looked over at Will as we were running, slipping and sliding on the dewy grass. "Is this Evelyn a fighter?"

"Not even close," he muttered distractedly. "Shimmer. Shimmer. Shimmer." He repeated this word over and over again, almost like a mantra. I rolled my eyes, having had enough of his gimmicks.

"Why are you repeating the word 'shimmer' over and over again? Will? Hello? Will?" I waved my hand in front of his face, still sprinting behind Reese, though she was a few feet ahead of us.

When we reached the fringe of the woods, Will grabbed my shirt and pulled me aside. "Caroline," he said urgently. "Think. Reese says that Evelyn seems to shimmer. Now who do we know that does that? And who only?"

I swore. "Reese." I looked at him. Will's eyes looked pained. "You don't think that Evelyn is… the replacement oracle. For when Reese is gone. Do you?"

"I think that she would be arriving when something bad happened to Reese." Will set his jaw. "Something very bad. Something that somebody should have told me. Immediately." He tore a hand through his hair, his shoulder muscles bunching together. "And, I told you. I think something is off about Evelyn. Her mother wasn't right. I'm not sure if Evelyn is entirely half-human, half-god."

"Guys!" Reese had appeared again. "Are you coming? Time is of the essence!" She looked frantic, and then I realized. Reese didn't know that she shimmered when she was about to predict the future. Reese didn't realize the similarities.

"Right!" I called. "We're coming! Definitely coming now!" I took off running before Will even had time to curse loudly. Though Will might have been the better runner, I was faster. I could outrun him any day.

Reese and Evelyn hadn't been far into the woods. I found her slumped by a stream. Reese and Will were both right: Evelyn was shimmering, her form wavering. Exactly like Reese's form when the oracle's spirit overtook her. "Shit."

Will appeared by us. "Oh, no. This isn't good." His eyes fell on Evelyn. "We're going to have to get her out of these woods and into the infirmary. There's no way that either I or Caroline can help her. We're going to need a satyr, and one of the senior ones. Grover Underwood, maybe, or Mellie- you know. The cloud nymph?"

"Mellie isn't here," I snapped. "She and Hedge are both on vacation with their kid. You know. What's-His-Face." I paced back and forth by Evelyn's shimmering figure.

"Underwood, then." Will sighed. "Let's move fast, then. We've got a life to save, and not a lot of time to do it."

Thump, thump, thump.

Every living animal or person had a heartbeat. It was a constant thrum of the blood in your veins that quickened when you sensed romance, or were in the midst of an argument or fight. It slowed or skipped a beat when you were surprised, or enchanted. I knew all of this like the back of my hand. The last high school class I ever took was science, and that was the last thing that I ever learned, in a small, cramped Catholic school classroom in Quincy, Massachusetts.

When my Gramps was young- well, younger then he was now, anyway- he was a movie star. He was famous for doing historical roles throughout the film industry, and was even more famous for his dazzling smile. Coincidentally, Will wore that same smile, and he used it every day.

Before Gramps had my mother, he was the party life of Hollywood. He went to A-List parties, drank far too much, and dabbled in… well, experiments. With pharmaceuticals. Though he had done his share of rehab and sobered up by the time he had my mother, that part of his life would forever be a memory for him, distanced by years as it might be.

So, by the time Gramps was fifty, when I was at the ripe age of seven, he wasn't in the best shape. The pharmaceutical experiments he had done so many years earlier were beginning to catch up at him, and, one day, he had a heart attack.

Gramps was rushed to the hospital, and our entire family: Mom, Dad, me, Will, and baby Janie all went to the hospital too. My parents left me alone in the waiting room: Janie's diaper needed to be changed, and Will wanted a snack from one of the vending machines. So I sat there. And sat. And sat. And, with a refreshing change in events, I sat. When the analog clock on the wall told me that my family had been gone fifteen minutes, I took matters into my own hands.

I was a shrewd child. There wasn't much that got past me. I figured out that I was a mistake at five, figured out that I wasn't wanted at six and a half, and figured out that I was better off without my family at almost-sixteen (that one took a while, unfortunately). At seven, I realized which wing my grandfather was in, what room number, and what his condition was.

I tiptoed down the hallway, trying to look as confident as I could. The trick to holding authority was to be confident. The more confident you were, the less people will question you. Of course, there was a fine line between confident and a braggart, but I liked to think that I was just very confident.

At any rate, only one nurse stopped me, and she just pointed me in the right direction. When I reached Gramps's door, I stopped for a moment, my heart stilling. KA-THUMP. KA-THUMP. Taking a deep breath and mustering my courage, I walked into the room, tiptoeing gingerly.

When I walked into Gramps's room, it was completely deserted. There was just him, in a scrub, sleeping on the bed. He made it through the heart attack, luckily, with some help with a cardiologist, but at that point, it was still uncertain. Though I was a shrewd child, I hadn't the faintest idea what the machines on the wall were.

As it turned out, they were heart monitors. There was the machine with the little fluorescent line, and the miniature, jagged mountains. Every once in a while, it seemed to almost hiccup. It was beating erratically. For about twenty minutes, I just sat there, watching the machine. Beep, beep, beep…beep. Beep…beep, beep, beep. An erratic, irregular pattern.

When the nurse finally came in, she ushered me out back to my parents. My father had been frantically looking for me, and was relieved to find me safe and sound. I promptly proceeded to tell my family that Gramps's heart was hiccupping. None of them seemed to find that funny, needless to say.

In all my life, though, I had never felt a pulse as completely still as Evelyn Cox's. There was no blood rushing through her veins. It was just her shimmering figure, still and silent. Her mouth hung open, and her eyes had been open. They had stared at me, the brown irises judging cruelly. I had closed her eyelids.

I thought back to that day in the hospital. There was no hospital at Camp Half-Blood, and no jagged mountain heart monitors. It was just an infirmary, cloth bandages, duct tape, and a stockpile of ambrosia and nectar. And, at this point, I didn't know if it was going to be enough to get Evelyn out of her phase alive.

Will and I were in the infirmary currently, while Reese ran to get Chiron. With the sudden crisis at hand, Will hadn't questioned the blood that was coughed up, but I knew that it was coming, and likely very soon. At present, though, there was a life at stake, and the bright, airy, bed-filled infirmary with its wicker chairs, wooden four-post beds, white linen sheets, and wooden cabinets were the number one priority.

Grover Underwood sat on a wicker chair next to Evelyn's bed. I thanked all gods above that I had been able to find him. He and Percy had been friends, a long while ago, and though the tragedies in both of their lives had shaped them, they still remained tentative friends. That meant that I had Underwood on-call, twenty-four seven. It had its uses.

He leaned back, feeling her pulse. For the first time in memory, the grizzly satyr looked unsettled. Oh, no. "This isn't right," he muttered, looking at her. "This isn't something that panpipes, nectar, or ambrosia is going to fix. This is something else."

"What do you mean, something else?" Will said tersely. "How can nectar and ambrosia not heal anything? I thought that they were supposed to be the magic medicine. They can heal everything."

"They are the magic medicine, but this isn't an injury." Grover took a step back, looking down at Evelyn. "This is the work of the oracle. It's running through her veins right now. She's having a precognitive vision."

I wasn't surprised. I shouldn't have been, anyway. Will had more or less told me the same thing less than twenty minutes earlier. Still, hearing the words like that hit me like a full blow. "You can't be serious." I touched my throat, feeling as if I was going to choke.

"I'm not sure," Grover said honestly. He ran a hand through his curly hair. Unlike Percy, Grover had gotten his lot in life. He had a wife, a tree nymph named Juniper, and two children, Iris and Daisy: twins. He had a happy life- and yet, there were moments when I saw sad flashbacks of what his life used to be, once upon a time. This was one of those moments. Grover pushed a memory away, clearly struggling. "I've only seen this a number of times: when Rachel was having visions, and when Reese was having visions."

All three of us simultaneously turned to where Reese had been standing just moments before. Grover frowned. "This can't be right. She's not an oracle." He jutted out his jaw in thought. "I would be able to tell, I think, with my various experiences. There's a sort of smell to all oracles, and though Evelyn has a little bit of the smell right now, she's not an oracle."

"An oracle?" Our heads swiveled to the doorway to the infirmary. Chiron clopped down the hallway, the sound of his hooves echoing on the walls. He narrowed his eyes. "What happened here?"

"I don't know," Reese said, appearing beside him, her ice-blue eyes wide. "I swear, one minute, we were by the creek, and the next, she was slumping over. I thought she was dead- all the signs were there- but she kept twitching. It's not just leftover brain nerves, is it?"

"No. No, it's something more than that," Grover said, standing. He grimaced. "Chiron, can I talk to you in private for a moment, please?"

"No." Unsurprisingly, the word had come from the impulsive Will. "Whatever you have to say about Evelyn, you can say it here and now. With us. I brought her here, and we all saved her life." He crossed his arms. "We need to know, too."

Chiron sniffed the air. His eyes narrowed. He walked over to the bed, and tapped Evelyn gently on the shoulder. He turned to Grover. "Something isn't right," he said cryptically. "Grover, what are your thoughts and hypotheses?"

"This doesn't leave this room. Understand?" Grover looked anxious. We all nodded, except for Will. No one was insane enough to cross Will, unfortunately. "Evelyn's not a demigod," Grover blurted out after a long silence.

"What?" Chiron looked troubled. "You mean to say that she's a legacy? Of whom?"

"No. She's not a legacy, either." Grover looked down at his hands. "She's half-god. I can smell that much on her. But- but- she's not half-human. She's half something else." The words hung on the air, more or less exactly what Will had said. Well. The two of them certainly think alike. Two peas in a pod, those two.

Chiron stilled. "William. Who did you get the assignment to pick Evelyn up from?"

"The Council of Cloven Elders. They assigned it to me. Why?" Will said, clearly confused. He felt out of the loop, I could tell, and was beginning to get frustrated. That wasn't going to be good, I could tell. Will had a wicked temper.

"Why was this not run by me?" Chiron demanded, whirling on Grover, who put his hands up, eyes wide. Grover wasn't on the council, and I got the impression that Chiron wasn't waiting for an answer. "William. The mother of this girl who died. What was her name?"

"Uh…" Will hesitated. "Her name was Melody Cox. A world-famous pianist." As he said the words, Chiron's face drained to the color of double-burnt ashes. A somber cloud of silence descended on the room.

"Melody. Dear gods, we got rid of her mother ages ago." Chiron looked at her, frazzled. "Grover. William. Reese. Caroline." Chiron looked at all of us. "Swear on the River Styx you will not divulge the information shared outside of this room."

"I swear on the River Styx," we chorused, and thunder boomed on a cloudless sky, sealing our agreement. Though it was probably just my imagination, I thought I heard funeral bells tolling.

Chiron took a deep breath. "Grover, she didn't smell human because Evelyn isn't human. At all." The words hit me like a blow, and my hand silently went to my mouth. "Evelyn's grandmother- Melody Cox's mother- was a Siren. One of the old, immortal ones. In recent times, in the Bermuda Triangle, the Sirens got restless, back in the time of the Vietnam War. A ship full of Muses got lost in the sea, and mated with the Sirens. This produced Melody Cox. Evelyn's mother." Chiron looked to the sky. "Gods help us. Evelyn is part monster, part Muse, and part god. And I think I can probably guess which one."

All of our eyes were drawn to Evelyn. The room was so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop. "Tell me," Chiron said quietly, taking a step forward, "who is the god of the muses, exactly?"

As he said the words, a glowing lyre appeared above Evelyn's still face. "Apollo," I whispered. "Mon Dieu. Pertain merde saint," I swore in French, one of my mother's talents passed down unto me.

It was as if someone snapped their fingers, and, as we watched, the shimmering around Evelyn disappeared, melting into thin air. I sucked in a breath as Evelyn sat up, completely normal, her heart no longer hiccupping or still, just pumping blood through her veins.

"Hello," she said slowly. We all gaped at her, my jaw hanging slack. She looked at us all skeptically. "Why are you all looking at me like that?" She rubbed her temples. "Last thing I remember… oh. Gods." She widened her eyes. "I was in one of my flashbacks, wasn't I? Oh, no." She put her head in her hands. When she removed it, we were still staring at her.

"What?" she said. "Did I miss something?"

A/N: I'm back. After only a week and a half or so, I have deduced that I start writing like a madwoman when I've got a lot on my plate, and not a lot of pressure to do it. :/ Anyway, here's the chapter. I'm not promising anything, but I'd estimate updates around every 2 1/2 weeks. Thanks to all reviewers who understood my need to postpone things for a while.

Thanks go to:

To Audrey (guest): I am originally from the U.S.A, smack-dab in the middle of the country. I live in a small town, where the most interesting things to do are pick apples, go antiquing, and go to a dairy farm. (Yeah. It's that bad.) I also primarily read English literature, and I study it frequently. I write Emery's point of view with British spelling and grammar, because his underwater settlement is based off of a British aristocratic society. It's fine!

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