Disclaimer-I do not own the Bartimaeus Sequence, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or any related works by their respective creators. I do own my OCs, and the plot of this story - so please, no copying.

Please read, review, and enjoy!

Chapter 4:

Explanations

When Riley had woken up that morning, she hadn't expected for her father to be killed by an actual cyclops, to find out that Abby had a stuttering satyr for a stalker, see Geist kill a gigantic dog, or have a sword pointed at her best friend's neck.

Riley walked over to the boy and put her hand on the flat side of the blade. She pushed it away from Geist, giving the two boys a glare that clearly said not to mess with her or her friends.

"It's complicated," Riley started. "But before we explain our story, we want to hear yours. Why did Geist have to save the two of you from a gigantic killer dog?"

Several moments after she finished speaking, Geist added, "Also, we need an explanation for both Leif and a cyclops that we encountered earlier."

The two boys exchanged glances. "Fine," Allen finally agreed, "we'll tell you. There's a little picnic area near here with some shelter from the rain. We can talk there."

Her grip loosened. She had done this many times before, so she had no logical reason to be nervous. She let out the breath she had been holding. And then she let go.

Her eyes opened to a very rewarding sight – her arrow in the center of the archery target. With a content sigh, she retrieved her arrow. She quickly glanced at her watch. Her eyes widened in horror as she did so. It was already five o'clock, and she still needed to write that English paper and make dinner!

She hurriedly packed up her belongings and rushed out of the indoor range. Unprepared for the torrent of rain, she made due with pulling up the hood to her gray sweatshirt.

Her sneakers were thoroughly soaked by the time she reached the park. She skid to a halt once she entered the pavilion. Plopping down onto the bench of one of the tables, she greeted the wet landscape before her with a smile.

She had always considered this park her true home. It was a shame that she couldn't stay here as long as she usually did, but her paper wouldn't write itself and the thought of too dry chicken leftovers didn't sound all that appealing to her.

Just as she was about to leave, she noticed people approaching in the far off distance. It was raining too hard for her to make any distinct shapes out. She instinctively – it was a rare day when her instincts were wrong – grabbed her belongings and ducked behind a garbage can.

She heard the group walk over to one of the tables. "Explain," a boy demanded. She tried to keep her breath as quiet as possible as she continued to eavesdrop. This sounded interesting already; a threat and the need of an explanation. It sounded like the plot of a novel.

And if that was the first line, she was hooked.

"I'm not human."

She peeked around the garbage can. She managed to catch sight of scarlet hair before ducking once more.

"But he's not a monster," a girl added. The girl was older than her by several years from her voice alone. "He's what you would call a demon."

"Our cat is a demon?!" The girl, whose voice was filled with disbelief, was younger than the first's. And, from the way she was speaking, it seemed as if they might be sisters.

"We prefer the term spirits. I'm a djinni."

Carefully, she pulled out her phone from her backpack. She quickly googled it and watched the results appear. Jinn, she read in her head, knowing that reading out loud could possibly prove fatal, also romanized as djinn or anglicized as as genies, are supernatural creatures in early Arabian and later Islamic mythology and theology…inhabit an unseen world, another universe beyond the known universe.

Her heart skipped a beat. Could it be that this djinni was the key to her troubles? Could he be the one who would finally make everything make sense? Her grip around her bow tightened. She didn't dare peek, didn't dare risk discovery. This boy could be the reassurance that she had been searching for her entire life – the reassurance that she wasn't crazy.

"So you can grant wishes?"

A groan. "Everyone always assumes that. Even the kid did!"

"Well, I'm sorry," the first girl replied. "But when I first met you, I had just watched Aladdin. Trust me, it's the natural reaction."

"T-That's why y-you smelled!" a third boy exclaimed.

"I told you, Riley is the one who smells," the djinni said.

"Liar," the first girl, who had to be Riley, muttered.

"Not like that," the first boy exclaimed. "Leif is a satyr. To him, you and that girl smell like monsters."

The group fell eerily silent. Her grip tightened even more. Then suddenly, a boy with scarlet hair appeared before her in less than a second. Her eyes widened as she stared up at the goth teenager.

"You-You're one of the odd ones!"

That prompted a raised eyebrow from him. The girl rushed to her feet, clutching her bow close to her chest, as if it would protect her from any harm that he would inflict upon her.

"You're not Greek," she further explained.

He still stared at her.

"Um…" she awkwardly started, realizing that she was getting nowhere with him. "You're not from Greek mythology like most of them are. You're not from anything, really…"
The boy's eyes widened once what she said sunk in. "Let me get this straight," he said. The minute he spoke, she recognized his voice to be the one of the djinni. So did that mean those strange creatures were djinn? "I don't appear human to you?"

She started to nod. "Er, kind of. It's my instinctive reaction to check to see what someone really looks like. I can look multiple times if I want to, but I only really look that first time. So right now I'm seeing you as human."

"Do you know both of your parents?" the djinni slowly asked.

She nodded. "Yes. Both of them. Joe Acker and Claire Acker." Strangely enough, she didn't feel nervous about telling the djinni before her about her family.

He looked troubled at her response. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I look like both of them."
A boy with glasses walked over. "You can see things that normal people can't?" he asked her.

She once again nodded. "It's always been like that…I'm not crazy. I swear I'm not, even though people think that I'm going to end up in a psychiatric hospital someday. People don't believe me when I say that I see a person with only a single eye in the center of their forehead. People don't believe me when I say that the dog next to a person's legs is some sort of creature never seen before."

The boy pushed his glasses up. "You're not crazy."

"I'm not?" she asked in disbelief. People had told her that before, but it was those same people who would either make fun of her later or say it in a way that obviously showed they thought otherwise. Yet this boy seemed to mean it.

"You can see through the Mist, even though you're a mortal."
"Mortal? You say that like you're not, but you look human to me," she replied.

"I'm a demigod."
"Gods don't exist-" the djinni began to protest, but the boy raised his hand and the djinni fell silent.

"Demigod," she repeated. "So then who is your godly parent?"

"My mother is Athena."

She started to get excited. When she was younger, she had watched a show with Athena in it. The anime had been called Saint Seiya, and she had loved it. But as she thought about it, she doubted that the boy's mother was the same Athena she was thinking of.

Was the entire group assembled in the pavilion the explanation she had been looking for? She picked up her belongings and slung her backpack over her shoulder. "My name is May. May Acker," she told them with a smile. "Please tell me everything you know about spirits and demigods!"

A/N Hey there, all you wonderful Souls! No big news for this chapter. I just wanted to restate all of my accounts, and go into a little more detail about them to get you to check them out (if you haven't already).

Quotev: TheHopefulSoul

I don't have any quizzes up relating to this story, but if you've always wondered which god's chosen you would be, you can check out my one quiz. It has the gods from my story A Hero's Destiny. It does contain spoilers, so you've been warned.

DeviantArt: SoulErrorArwitch

I have the occasional picture of a character up, but for now I have a little behind the scenes type of thing for my various fanfictions, some traditional art of two of my Minecraftian gods, and one Bartimaeus Sequence fanart. If you want to find out what that fanart is, you'll have to check it out for yourself!

Tumblr: soulerrorarwitch, ask-telos-of-minecraftia, ask-geist-of-germany

soulerrorarwitch is my main blog. I usually reblog fandom-related posts (typically about Bartimaeus). But I do have some content of my own, such as my art, a headcanon about the mechanics of the Other Place, and a theory about Bartimaeus' form on the seventh plane.

ask-telos-of-minecraftia is an RP/Ask blog for Télos, god of gold, in A Hero's Destiny (mentioned earlier).

Ask-geist-of-germany is an RP/Ask blog for Geist. The one in this story. Don't worry, I don't post answers containing spoilers. But if you have, for instance, been wondering what his favorite color is, you know where to ask.

Well, have a great day/night! See you in Chapter 5~