Mari hadn't said a word in hours.
Usually, she had a lot to say, not a lot of it helpful, but she still said it. But her throat was dry and she was pretty sure that if she tried to speak she'd either start crying or dry-heaving. She'd already thrown up all over Argus (somewhere in the back of her mind she hoped his eyes were closed) when he picked her up beside Oak's body.
The Poppy was planted in a small ceramic jar of soil, a tiny Pithos, which sat on the table. She'd kept her promise and brought Oak back to camp with her. His backpack was on the floor next to her feet.
"Child, how about we find somebody to get you settled in cabin eleven?" That was Chiron, the one Oak had talked to with the IM. The one who'd said he'd see them soon.
Mari nodded, since she couldn't trust her own ability to keep a steady voice. "Great. More paperwork for me." The grumble came from a man in the corner. "What's your name, kid?" Nobody had told her who he was, but she assumed he was some kind of caretaker like Argus. A really rude version of Argus. He had hair so black it was almost purple, and his eyes were actually that colour. He was continually holding a can of Diet Coke, which she'd thought would have to run out at some point, but then he summoned another out of thin air. He slammed the can down, glaring at her. "I don't have all day, kid. Speak!"
She jumped at his voice and swallowed hard. "M... Marion. Marion Carter."
She was actually kind of impressed with herself that she'd been able to speak without crying, but the guy didn't seem to care. In fact, he didn't even seem to have listened all that clearly.
"Well, Chiron. Go take this Melanie girl to cabin eleven and out of my sight." He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and took a sip before frowning. "Do we have any ice?"
The man in the wheelchair sighed, glancing at the other man for a second before looking at her again. His eyes were trained on her with an expression she'd seen a lot when she told people she was a foster kid. Pity.
"Come, child. I'll have Lizzie show you to cabin eleven and give you a tour of camp. By then it should be time for lunch." He started rolling himself towards the door. She was actually eager to follow, seeing as her other option seemed to be spending the afternoon with the dead body of her friend and a hungover middle aged man who looked kind of like a large baby with contacts.
She slung the backpack over her shoulder and picked up the pithos with Oak inside it, making sure not to squish any of the leaves against her chest.
Chiron led her out of the big blue house before suddenly stopping. He didn't give any warning, which caused Mari to stumble to avoid crashing into his wheelchair and nearly dropping Oak.
"Ah. Sorry about that," the guy said, before getting out of the wheelchair. At first Mari was very pissed off, seeing as people who actually had disabilities often didn't get the environment they needed to properly move around. Somebody faking one for attention should be (in her opinion) punished with a heavy fine or worse, and definitely not allowed to run a summer camp for kids.
The guy had the bottom half of a horse. Of course he did. Apparently half-animal people were normal now.
"Chiron..." The name finally clicked. In the book Oak had given her, Chiron was the trainer of Achilles and Patroclus. The immortal centaur.
"Yes, child. I am Chiron, the centaur. The gods allow me to stay alive and fulfil my greatest wish. To train demigod heroes until I am no longer needed."
Mari nodded numbly and caressed a poppy leaf.
"Child...?" Chiron's voice sounded further away that it actually was. Her vision was starting to blur and at first she thought she was fainting or vomiting again or (she really hoped it wasn't this one) growing some kind of furry body part herself, but then she realised she was crying.
"Marion, it's okay. It will be fine."
Oak had said that too.
"No, no..." She shook her head, gulping. She had already made enough trouble. She just wanted to go. But where? Where did she want to go? She didn't have a home. She didn't even have Jean.
"Child, I promise you are safe here. Nothing bad will happen to you at camp," Chiron promised.
Mari shook her head.
Mari, it's going to be ok. Seriously. Trust me. I know you're scared, but you have to trust me. You're going to be fine.
"Stop, please stop!" she begged.
Chiron sighed before raising his hands in surrender. "You've been through an ordeal, child. You need rest. I'm going to take you to the infirmary. You can stay there for the rest of the day and night."
Before she could say anything, she was scooped onto his back like she didn't weigh any more than a dog - or at least a mortal one, since mythological dogs seemed to carry a little extra weight, and bloodthirstiness. She grabbed the back of his jacket with her free hand, cradling the pithos against her chest with the other, and tried not to fall off as Chiron trotted down into the rest of the valley.
She didn't see much, since she kept her head down, but she could hear what sounded like metal clashing with metal as well as laughter as Chiron took her to the infirmary. She sniffled and caught a faint whiff of strawberries. Somebody was yelling to somebody else about flying shoes and trying to cheat at some kind of lava wall. She really hoped the lava part was some kind of joke, or at least metaphorical.
"Ah, here we are," Chiron said.
Mari took that as her cue to stop holding onto his jacket for dear life and find a way to get down. "Uh..." she trailed off.
"Just lightly jump," he advised, kneeling down to lower the distance between Mari's ruined shoes and the ground.
Mari handed him the pithos and noticed that he took it tenderly. She inhaled and let go, jumping on the ground and landing on her feet.
"Chiron! Who's this?" asked a voice from behind her.
"This is Marion Carter. Her arrival here was quite... traumatic. She needs some time to process, I think." Chiron returned Oak to Mari. "Child, this is Sammy. They're a child of Apollo. Believe me, you're in good hands."
"Hi, Marion. I'm so sorry this happened to you. Why don't you come into the infirmary, get some rest, yeah?" Sammy began to guide Mari by her arm.
"I'll speak with you later, Marion. Sammy and their siblings will look after you, and somebody will bring you lunch and dinner."
Mari nodded. "Okay." she whispered.
"Come on, Marion. I'll introduce you to my brothers." Sammy led her into a building she assumed was the infirmary, but the inside wasn't how she'd imagined an infirmary would look. She'd thought it would be a clinical hospital-ish building, the kind that had blue curtains around the beds and forced you to eat food that had the consistency of thick slime and tasted vaguely of whatever fruit was lemon's disappointing cousin.
The walls were made of a light wood and the floors were covered in yellow-white tiles. The beds had curtains with slightly shiny gold patterns along the tops and bottoms. They actually looked comfy, and the quilts were also yellow. The room smelled vaguely of antiseptic mixed with sage and vanilla. There were a few kids asleep in the beds, which she thought was strange since it was afternoon, but mostly it was empty.
"This is the infirmary. I'm in charge on weekends and Lee is in charge during the week, when I watch the arts and crafts station. I'll get a new bed made. Sit here and rest for a few minutes." Sammy walked over to some drawers and dug out fresh sheets. "Fletcher, Ray! I need some help!"
Two boys walked out from behind a closed curtain. "This is Lee Fletcher, my little brother." Sammy put their hand on the shoulder of the younger boy. "And this is Mason Ray, my other little brother." Sammy elbowed this one playfully.
"What's up?" Lee asked.
"This is Marion Carter. She's new and overwhelmed. Lee, see if you can find her a shirt and jeans. Mason, get her something to eat. She looks like she's about to faint."
As Sammy started stripping the bed and changing the sheets, the boys darted off to their respective tasks, with Lee opening a cupboard and Mason heading out.
Sammy was surprisingly blunt, and Mari couldn't decide if she appreciated this or not. At the very least, she knew she wasn't being coddled. She hoped she wasn't going to be eviscerated for her next question. "Uh, Sammy... Why did Chiron keep referring to you as 'they'?" she asked.
Sammy sighed. "I don't suppose you know what agender means, do you?"
Mari shook her head. "No?"
"Well, I'm not a boy or a girl. I'm me. I don't have a gender, and I go by they/them." Sammy explained.
Mari nodded. "That makes sense. Do you get to have your own bedroom?" she asked.
Sammy shook their head. "No. If you're claimed, you'll end up with your siblings but everybody sleeps in the same cabin. We don't separate by gender. That would be dumb."
Before anything else could be said, Lee was by her side. "These should fit. You can change after you've rested and eaten."
Mari nodded. "Uh huh." Her pink shirt was stained with blood. Her jean jacket was ripped in several places, the left arm practically hanging off. Her jeans were scraped and scratched from when she first encountered the snake woman and tripped less than 24 hours before. Her socks were probably more red than white. She didn't even want to look at them.
Sammy was done with the bed and patted the top pillow reassuringly. "How about you have a little rest now? My sister, Amber, should be here in a few hours and Mason will be back with some food soon. Just ask if you need anything. Anything at all."
Mari nodded numbly, shrugging off her ruined jacket as she curled up on the bed, knees to her chest. "Thanks," she whispered.
Lee shuffled his feet nervously. "Sammy, should I do anything else, or..."
Sammy shook their head, smiling at their brother. "No. You're good. You can go back to the cabin to listen to music if you want."
Lee lit up. "Thanks, Sammy! You're the best!" he called as he dashed out the door.
She heard Sammy say something but didn't pay much attention. Eventually, footsteps moved away. She didn't have the blanket around her and she wasn't lying down like they probably told her to do. She couldn't. She hadn't been safe since she left that park all the way back in Britain and she couldn't feel safe now. She still felt like she was being followed by monsters. Maybe the hellhound was circling the camp, waiting to see if she left so that it could get a Mari buffet. The thought reminded Mari of Captain Hook from the storybook she used to read in one of her old foster homes. He spent his entire life in fear of the crocodile who ate his hand, and eventually went mad with his own paranoia. She hoped she wouldn't end up that way.
Mason grinned as he stepped back into the infirmary. "I'm back! I didn't know what you'd like, so I brought a little bit of bread and some onion broth. Most people like that, and it's pretty light if you feel sick."
She nodded as Mason set a tray on the small table beside her.
"I know Sammy already said my name, but I'm Mason Ray, son of Apollo." He stuck out a hand for her to shake. She didn't take it.
He held his hand out for another second before lifting it up to brush his hair out from between his eyes, like he'd been planning on doing that all along. Neither of them were fooled, but they both pretended. "Well, I... like Sammy said, if you need anything, just ask. I have other patients to look after, but we'll all be right here." He gave her a small smile before beginning to walk away.
"I'm Mari. Mari Carter."
He'd introduced himself to her, so she might as well be polite and do the same.
He gave her a slightly more genuine smile, before ducking under a curtain, probably to help another patient. Mari turned away. Chiron probably wanted her to 'think through her issues', in nice words, but she couldn't. She couldn't think. It just hurt too much. So she just stared at the wall.
In her dreams, she was running. Not from a monster, like she thought at first, but from a person. At least, she thought it was a person. Every time she looked at them, she could only focus on one blurry facial feature before she forgot what the others looked like. It was like trying to put together a puzzle but the pieces kept changing.
She eventually escaped whoever - or whatever - was chasing her, and made it into an abandoned house. There, an old man dressed in weird green clothes looked at her sadly.
"I'm so so sorry," he whispered, grief written across his face. He reached his arms out, as if to help her or ask for help, she didn't know which, but before he could get to her he dissolved into green smoke. Then, the surroundings of the house changed to her first ever foster home. It was raining outside, and she could hear the wind slamming the windows against the panes. The doorbell rang, and Andrew Rush, who had been her first ever social worker, opened up to the sound of high-pitched screaming. He gently knelt down and picked up a bundle in a hospital-issued blanket, with a note pinned to a corner. Mari knew what that note said.
Take her. I can't. Tell her it's better this way.
She wasn't even named. Carter was the last name of her first ever foster family, and Marion was a name that Andrew chose when she officially became a foster child 72 hours later. Not even that was something that was truly her own.
The cries grew louder as the scene changed again.
She was surrounded by flashing shapes and loud noises. There was the sound of a young woman screaming, a different baby crying, and slashes of the same green smoke. The same figure that had been chasing her earlier had caught up to her. Its hands wrapped around her throat, its nails dug into her skin, and its golden eyes flashed in front of her before being replaced by blue.
"This is the end," its disembodied voice growled.
She woke with a gasp.
She hadn't meant to actually fall asleep. That probably wouldn't help her jetlag. The first thing she noticed was that the snakes were gone. The snakes had never left her alone before. Not even that one time she fainted from staying awake for three days straight to try and avoid the scaly bastards. They always made sure to torment her.
The second thing she noticed was that her food was cold. She frowned as her stomach rumbled, and reached for the plate.
"Are you seriously going to eat that?" a voice called from a bed away from her.
A girl who looked to be seven or eight was lying across the covers. Her dark hair was splayed across the pillow and her face looked like it belonged on the covers of one of the magazines Jean read. She was absolutely beautiful, apart from the bruise marring her face. Mari frowned as she wondered who in their right mind would punch a seven year old. The girl grinned, misinterpreting her frown.
"I knew you had good taste. Cold food is disgusting. I'm Drew Tanaka." The girl held out her hand to shake.
Mari grasped her hand and smiled softly. "I'm Marion. Or Mari. Call me Mari. How'd you get that bruise?"
Drew looked embarrassed. "I kind of want into a panic looking for my mascara, and then fell into my bed rail trying to get it off the shelf..." Drew was biting on her bottom lip and looking at her hands.
"That doesn't sound as bad as the time I tripped over my foster brother's computer plug and into the cake my foster mother had set out for two guests," Mari tried to joke lamely.
Either Drew was a really good actress or she actually found the joke funny, since she burst out laughing. "Was the cake good?" she asked.
"I don't know, but I can confirm that cake and floor dust is a terrible combination, especially when that floor dust was peed on by a cat two days before." Mari grimaced at the memory. She'd spent three hours brushing her teeth after the incident, until her foster father was banging on the bathroom door telling her that it was eleven and she needed to sleep.
"Marion, you're awake!" Lee smiled politely at her. "Drew, sorry about making you stay for longer but we had to make sure you didn't have a concussion," he said sheepishly.
Drew glared at him. "I told you I don't, and now my hair is ruined. Hospital beds suck!" she complained.
"Yeah, well, we can't just take your word for it. Anyway you should be able to leave in a few hours as long as you don't feel dizzy, start vomiting, develop blurry vision or..."
Drew groaned in annoyance. "You told me this hours ago, Fletcher."
Mari suppressed a giggle. For a seven year old, she was kind of grumpy.
"Yeah," Lee said. "Well, as long as you don't experience any of those symptoms you can leave in a few hours. But come right back if you start to feel light-headed."
Drew scowled. "It was just a bedpost." she mumbled.
Lee turned to Mari. "How are you feeling? Good to leave? Hungry?" he asked.
Mari didn't really know how to answer that. She didn't want to tour the freaky cult camp at all and she definitely didn't want to do it without Oak looking exasperated beside her. She wasn't even American, anyway! She couldn't just live in a different country.
And it was a camp. Not a house. She'd been in a lot of foster homes, but they were all houses. She didn't know how to live in a summer camp. They didn't really have them in England. But they also had the NHS in England, so she figured small losses made up for big gains.
Drew saved her from answering.
"Please, do not leave me on my own. They don't even have hair conditioner here," she stage- whispered.
Lee stomped his foot. "Drew, I told you we have conditioner! But it's not for day patients, and you'll only be here for a few hours more."
"Well, if you won't give it to me, then it doesn't count. You may as well not have it," she retorted.
Lee buried his head in his clipboard. "Marion, are you okay to leave?" he asked.
Mari looked at Drew who was pleading at her with her eyes, and turned back to Lee, grateful for the excuse to stay. She could avoid dealing with reality for a little longer.
"I'll keep Drew company, if that's okay," she told him.
He nodded. "That's fine. You two should be let out for dinner in a few hours if Drew doesn't develop any symptoms." Lee picked up the tray of cold food and started towards a sink in the corner.
"What do you say we just leave?" Drew mock whispered.
"I heard that!" Lee called. She may have been imagining it but Mari thought he sounded kind of amused.
Drew was allowed to go right before dinner. This time Mari didn't have an excuse to stay, which was how she found herself walking to what Drew called the dining pavilion arm in arm with the girl. Well, given the height difference it was more of arm in elbow, but she wasn't about to tell Drew that.
"...you can't miss it. It's probably the loudest table, and it's always completely full," Drew told her.
"Why is it always full?" Mari asked.
Drew's smile dimmed. "I forgot nobody's told you yet. Hermes is the god of travellers. His cabin takes all the unclaimed demigods and children of minor gods who don't have cabins. So they don't have much room..."
"What does claimed mean?" Mari asked. Drew lit up, her eyes shining with pride. "Oh! When your godly parent wants to claim you as their child, they send a sign in front of everyone. Usually it's a glowing sign with a symbol of the god above your head, but some gods do it specially. Like my mom, Aphrodite. When I was claimed she fixed my hair and make-up, and doves started flying around me. But if we're older we also get a full make-over, like she puts us in an Ancient Greek dress - it's called a chiton - minus the doves."
Mari smiled. That sounded nice. Maybe her godly parent would do something cool too. She wondered if there was a god of Jaffa cakes. Probably not, since she was pretty sure they didn't have Jaffa cakes in Ancient Greece.
"Wait, what do you mean 'unclaimed'?" she asked, remembering what Drew had said before.
"Oh. Well... the gods have a lot of stuff to do. And most of them have a lot of kids. Sometimes they forget. And if they don't claim you, then you can't sleep in another cabin. Well, technically you could but you probably wouldn't wake up. So Hermes cabin takes in unclaimed demigods and children of minor gods who don't have cabins at camp," Drew explained.
Mari's heart sank. Her life had followed a very specific pattern in her ten years, and she didn't expect it to deviate now. She would end up unclaimed without any kind of family, just like always. If her parent wanted her they could have gotten her to camp a whole lot sooner. She couldn't see any reason for them to suddenly have a change of heart.
"But you still might get claimed. I mean, it usually happens. And even if you don't, so what? You're still one of us. And the Hermes cabin is cool, especially when you meet Lizzie." Drew was obviously trying to salvage the conversation, and Mari did appreciate it, even if it didn't work. And Drew was seven. She didn't want to make her feel bad.
"Thanks, Drew. You're right," she said, plastering a smile on her face and pretending to walk with a spring in her step.
Drew was right about one thing. The Hermes cabin was cool.
Well, she hadn't seen the cabin itself yet, but its inhabitants were funny. Lizzie Brooks was the head counsellor, and oldest. She would be attending college next year, if she survived that long. Mari tried not to cringe at how casually she said that.
There were also some kids who were the children of minor gods, like Blaze Morrigan, a son of Hecate, and Amelia Barnes, a daughter of Hebe. They were slightly younger than her, Blaze being only five (or five and a half, as he put it) and Amelia being eight. But Amelia was funny and sweet, and Blaze was really cute.
They laughed and joked around, but she didn't miss the put-out looks in their eyes every time they saw the other tables of kids with Olympian parents. Or the way they kept shifting uncomfortably at the little space.
Mari talked to Blaze about magic. He was still too young to learn anything higher than beginners level, but was doing really well. He used it to help the Hermes cabin hide contraband junk food.
She talked to Amelia about how her powers worked. Amelia couldn't change anybody's age, since that was her mother's power, but she could make them live in their current age for much longer. It would have probably been very useful if demigods lived over the age of twenty-five.
They didn't even judge Mari when she tried to make the cups at the table fill with Vodka. Okay, so maybe she was ten, but Jean always drank it and she was a little curious about what it actually tasted like. And why it once made Jean start singing 'I believe I can fly' out of key at three a.m. At least it had kept Mari awake and away from the snakes.
The only thing about the Hermes cabin that put her on edge was one particular camper.
Luke Castellan was fourteen years old. He wasn't in the top ten oldest but despite his lack of seniority he still sat at the middle of the table, which Mari had worked out was one of the best spots, reserved for counsellors and those in their last year at camp.
He had sandy blond hair and blue eyes, and a huge bandage across one of his cheeks. Mari had asked why, and he explained that a month earlier he'd arrived back from a quest to retrieve a golden apple from the garden of the Hesperides. The dragon guarding the tree, Ladon, had slashed him across the face.
Mari wanted to feel bad for him, and she probably did deep down, but that feeling was overwhelmed by dread. It was just like when Oak had - she forced herself to think the sentence through to the end - It was just like when Oak had died.
She didn't know how or why, but every instinct was screaming at her to put as much distance between herself and Luke Castellan as humanly possible. Or as demigodly possible.
She hoped she wasn't too obvious. She tried not to flinch when he talked to her, to not let on that whenever she answered him she felt like throwing up. She seriously couldn't explain why, but she felt like he was somehow cursed. Maybe he was going to die, or kill someone. Maybe he he had killed someone. She hoped she wasn't someone.
But Luke was... nice. He laughed at the jokes told by the really little kids, even though a lot of them were limited to 'why does the chicken cross the road?' level humour, and he even consoled her over Oak's death.
"Listen, Marion... I know how hard it is. To lose someone so close to camp. My friend, Thalia, died right outside the border. And it will get better. The pain doesn't ever go away but you learn to put into something... productive. You deal with it in your own way." His words made her feel better and terrified her at once.
Chiron never sought her out after dinner. She suspected he wanted her to forget about it and get used to camp so that she didn't have to think about Oak again, which was honestly fine by her. Exactly how Oak died was something only she and Argus knew. She didn't know if Argus could talk without choking on his eyeball tongue, but even if he could she had a feeling he'd let her keep it a secret.
Lizzie Brooks led her to the Hermes cabin once dinner was over. She skipped the campfire so that she could unpack. Or at least it was supposed to be so she could unpack. She only had Oak's old backpack and the orange shirt and jeans she'd changed into before dinner at the infirmary.
She took out Oak's sword. He'd given it to her. She didn't deserve it after getting him killed but he'd given it to her. And she didn't know what to do with it. Drew said that most demigods named their weapon, but she couldn't think of anything. It wasn't hers to name. It was Oak's.
She ran her thumb gently along the hilt. At first, she thought she was imagining that the metal grew warm and rippled. Then it grew smaller. The whole thing happened in an instant The sword was gone. She was staring at a bracelet in the palm of her hand. All she'd done was to run her thumb along the hilt. Oak's sword was now a light brown woven bracelet, threaded with strands of gold. Embedded in the centre was a celestial Bronze charm with an engraving. It was a tree. Intricately carved branches spread out from the top of the trunk, full of leaves.
It was an Oak tree.
"Drys..." she whispered to herself, before catching her own words. She guessed it was a demigod thing, but she knew that Drys meant Oak in Ancient Greek. It just felt right on her tongue.
Drys. She'd call the sword Drys. It was Oak. Well, not really. But other than the Poppy, it was all she had left of him.
She didn't know how she knew this, probably because of the freaky instincts that seemed to have followed her from Britain, but she knew to press the charm lightly to turn it back into a sword. She looked at the reflection of the moon (or Artemis, if she remembered correctly) in the polished gold. Then she turned it back into a bracelet again, clasping it around her wrist.
"Drys," she whispered again into the darkness. And for the second time that day, with the Poppy on the floor next to her, Marion Carter began to sob.