The journey back to camp was surprisingly eventless.
Mari tried to ask Argus to play Taylor Swift but Clarisse threatened to throw her out of the car. Argus stayed out of it. Secretly, Mari thought he stayed silent because he probably didn't want anyone seeing the eye on his tongue.
Argus sped past the other cars, receiving a fair few honks in return. They got to camp in fifteen minutes.
Mr. D was waiting for them, with a frown on his face and his arms crossed. "So," was the first thing he said. "You've both survived. Wonderful." From the tone of his voice, it didn't sound like he thought it was particularly wonderful.
He told Clarisse to go immediately to the tree to put the fleece on it. The older girl shoved her backpack at Mari with a growl of, "Keep it safe, or else." Mari started to follow but Mr. D stopped her.
"You, with me. I have taken the precaution of Iris Messaging Chiron about your status." He dragged her towards the big house by the back of her backpack (well, Clarisse's backpack) without another word.
Precaution didn't sound good. Was she in trouble? For surviving? That wasn't exactly her fault. Maybe the gods wouldn't see it that way, though. But she couldn't see why they'd care all that much.
When they reached the big house, Mr. D half-heartedly pushed her towards a couch, gesturing for her to sit. He poured himself a Diet Coke, then collapsed into a seat by his pinochle table as if he'd just run a half marathon.
"Uh- can I please-"
"No. Be quiet. I'm thinking."
Mari scowled. He didn't look like he was thinking. He looked like he was getting drunk. And Mari had lived with Jean, she knew what getting drunk looked like. She wasn't sure how he managed it on Diet Coke, but the drink kind of looked like it had a purple hue...
This sucked.
She'd wanted to go back to cabin seven and see if anyone was there. Or try and find Drew. Or sleep in a bed that wasn't on a guinea-pig-murder-island. The point was, she had better things to do than this. For fuck's sake, she hadn't been back at camp in five years and this was where she was stuck?! Watching the god of wine make cocktails and sitting in silence.
Mr. D slammed his non-diet Coke down, his eyes wide, as if he'd been hit with an epiphany. "I know what to do."
Mari began to stand up. Something about the look in his eyes set her instincts off. It might have also been because last time someone had been drinking alone with her in the room, it was Jean, and she'd tried to make herself toasted marshmallows on the stove and nearly set both of them on fire in the process.
"What?" Mari asked.
Mr. D raised smiled at Mari, and suddenly all she could see was red. Red, like wine. Like blood, like anger. Madness. She could hear a slimy flapping sound, which she somehow knew was a dolphin fin, hitting a wooden deck. There was also a roaring in her ears.
Mr. D stopped smiling at Mari, and everything was back to normal.
"I have decided that the best course of action is to turn you into a dolphin, and wash our hands clean of this whole mess. I'm sure Chiron will understand."
Mari racked her brains for anything she could have possibly done to piss of Mr. D, or to anger the gods in general. She came up with nothing. She'd just been part of the group to deliver the fleece back to camp, for crying out loud! Why the Hades was Mr. D mad at her?
Mr. D raised his hands in a hauntingly similar way to Circe. His eyes began glowing a strange purple colour, which didn't quite look like purple.
There wasn't any time to think. This was it. There wasn't even enough time to beg for mercy—
The door burst open.
"Is she here?! Clarisse said she was here!" Lee Fletcher stood in the doorway, his face red from running. "Oh my gods..." He looked like he'd seen a ghost. To be fair to him, she probably would have thought that she was a ghost too. And she didn't feel much better.
Last time Marion had seen her brother, he'd been just a teensy bit shorter than her and he had braces and his hair went to just below his shoulders. Now, his hair was in a tiny ponytail at the back of his head and the braces were gone. He was also two whole heads taller than her.
"Hi..." was all she could squeak out.
It didn't feel very real. One of her siblings, right there in front of her and not a mind trick by Circe when she was feeling particularly cruel. Mari's tried to take a deep breath, but it came out as more of a shallow shake of her chest, which felt tight.
"Well, now you've ruined it." Mr. D acted like a small child who'd been denied a toy. He pouted and flopped back onto his chair, pouring himself yet another drink in protest.
Lee ignored Dionysus, and walked towards her. He looked her up and down, like he was checking to see if she was still there. Then he pulled her into a hug. "Children of Apollo don't go missing from camp often. When you were gone... You have no idea how happy I am to see you." He told her.
Mari gulped. "You remember me?"
Lee let out a very shaky laugh. "Annoying kid with a British accent? You're pretty memorable. Although you sound kind of different."
Mari gulped in fear. "Do I sound... American?"
Lee shook his head. "No. Can't quite put my finger on it."
Relief flooded her system. She still had her accent. She didn't know why it was important to her. Maybe because she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to go back to Britain - how could she explain the fact she didn't appear to have aged when she went through passport control? She'd grown up there. Her accent was all she had left.
Lee put his arm over her shoulders and started walking her out of the big house.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Lee narrowed his eyes. "Taking you to the infirmary. You have two fangs buried in your hand." He spat the word fangs like they were profanities, and Mari wondered if a hatred of snakes was genetic. Well, whatever substituted for genetic with her father being a god and all.
"But Mr. D said I have to..." She clapped a hand over her mouth. Nope. She'd didn't want to spend another second alone with the god who'd been about to dolphin-ise her.
The god in question simply shrugged into his Diet Coke. "Like I said, Louis over here ruined the dramatic effect. It's a shame, though. I was trying to be nice. You'd be much more at peace if you were a dolphin. Free from the 'horror which awaits you' and all that. Honestly, you kids are so overdramatic."
Lee stared incredulously at Mr. D, before wisely steering Mari out the door and away from the big house. He led her down the hill and into the familiar little valley, pausing to let her take in the view.
It looked almost exactly the same. Clarisse must have put the fleece on Thalia's tree, since it was nothing short of paradise. The grass was so green it looked alive. There were birds chirping in the distance, and the water from the lake was clear and blue. Mari could see shimmering hands and faces pop up as the Naiads frolicked amongst themselves. The cabins still surrounded the huge hearth. It was being stoked by a little girl. Cabin seven was shining as the sun reached its peak in the sky. The air smelled of fresh strawberries.
There were a few differences, though. Mari could see the infirmary up in the distance, and from what she remembered it usually had the doors open to let the warm air in. Unless someone needed serious medical attention, like stitches. But now the doors were closed.
Weapons were propped along the sides of the cabins. Mari wouldn't have been able to see that without her demigod eyesight. Usually, Chiron made sure weapons stayed off the porches so nobody would trip into them. They were in the perfect position for campers to grab one and go if they needed to fight.
"Come on, let's get you treated before that wound gets worse. You can meet one of our brothers, too." Lee pulled her after him by her good hand.
"We have another brother? What's he like?" Mari asked as they walked.
Lee smiled. "Oh, Will is great. Little intense, though. Don't ask him about anything to do with Star Trek."
Mari frowned. "What's Star Trek?"
Lee made a cough noise, like he was trying to hold back a laugh. "Don't ask him that, either."
Mari hadn't expected how easy it would be to fall back into familiarity with Lee. She'd thought it would be awkward, or forced. Or maybe he wouldn't care at all. But it was... probably the most comforting thing that had happened to her in a long while. She hoped it would be like that with the rest of her siblings.
"Are you okay? You went quiet." Lee nudged her arm, and she looked up at him. His eyes were narrowed slightly, like he was worried about her.
"I'm fine. It's just a lot, is all," she managed to say.
He nodded. "Yeah, what was that about, by the way? Why would Mr. D want to turn you into a dolphin?"
"No idea." Mari shook her head.
Lee paused for a second, then smiled again. His eyes were tight. "Well, he was probably just trying to scare you. I'm sure it's fine."
They arrived at the infirmary a while later. Mari had thought there would be more people around, but the cabins were surprisingly empty. She realised why when she heard huge cheers and sweet music coming from the top of the hill, where Thalia's tree was. An impromptu party, then.
Lee looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, I have to leave. There are some younger kids who I left Michael looking after. I can't leave them alone for that long. I'm cabin counsellor."
Mari frowned. Wouldn't Mason be cabin counsellor? He was oldest, after all. She couldn't imagine he'd leave camp, seeing as he didn't have any family outside and he seemed to really enjoy taking care of the younger kids. Mari voiced her thoughts. "Shouldn't Mason be cabin counsellor?"
It was almost imperceptible, but Lee's face fell. "I- I really have to go, okay? Just tell Will I sent you. That probably needs ambrosia and stitches."
He turned back up the hill and jogged away, towards Thalia's tree.
A breeze messed up Mari's hair. She shivered. She wasn't sure if it was because of the breeze. She turned inside to the infirmary, and walked in.
The place was packed. Every bed but two was full (it was usually the other way around) and a few people were so bandaged up she couldn't make out their faces. For a situation like this, Mari would have expected loads of people helping with medical care, but she couldn't see anyone at all.
"Hello?" she called.
There was a curse in Ancient Greek from behind the supply door. "Is it serious?" a voice called.
At least a hi back would be nice, Mari thought. She glanced at her hand. She'd thought Dracaenae weren't venemous, but it was going slightly green. "Uh, no?"
"I'll be out in a sec, sorry! Who is it, by the way?"
"Marion Carter. I'm-"
She was interrupted by the door swinging open to reveal a boy around her height with shaggy blonde hair. If she squinted she could see very slight bags under his eyes. She wondered just how long he'd been looking after the infirmary on his own.
"Sorry, I just need to put these down."
The boy was balancing several crates of medical supplies in his arms, making a pile higher than his head. Mari got the feeling that one wrong step and he'd fall onto his face.
"Do you need any help?"
"Nope! I got it, thanks. Sit down, you're injured." He shook his head and miraculously managed to keep his balance.
Setting the crates down into a precarious pile by the door, he walked over to Mari. "What seems to be the problem?" For his age, he sounded remarkably like a doctor.
Mari didn't really know how to explain herself, so she just held up her hand, two fangs on display to the entire room, even though she was pretty sure that she and this boy were the only two conscious people in it.
The boy winced. "How did you manage that? I didn't hear about any Dracaena making it through the borders."
How the fuck did he recognise the monster through the fang?! That was impressive. "I was with Clarisse. The dracaena found us at the airport."
He frowned. "You definitely weren't part of the group that snuck after Clarisse..."
Mari shrugged. "It's a long story."
The boy walked over to the pile he'd just dumped at the door and started rifling through one of the boxes. "What did you say your name was? Sorry, I didn't quite catch it the first time." He sent her an apologetic smile.
"Marion Carter. Are you Will?" she asked.
The boy nodded. "Will Solace. Nice to meet you."
Mari tried to stifle a laugh, and failed spectacularly. Will looked confused and kind of offended.
"What's wrong with my name?" he asked.
Mari shook her head. "Your name is Will Soulless? I'm sorry, it's just-"
Will frowned. "Solace. S-O-L-A-C-E. Not Soulless. I have an anima, thank you very much. How did you know my name was Will, anyway?"
"Lee told me. Uh, I'm kind of your sister."
Will's frown disappeared at the news. He grinned at her, and even though Mari had never actually met Apollo, she could only imagine that he smiled the exact same way. There was no way to describe that grin other than sunny.
Will walked over and gave her a one-armed hug, carefully avoiding her bad hand. It was surprising, but not entirely unwelcome. He took out a pair of tweezers and poised them over the first fang as he began talking again. "Sorry if this hurts, by the way. We're running low of pain relief. I had to administer the last of our supply to Flora a couple hours ago. How did we never know about you, if you were on the quest with Clarisse?"
Mari swallowed. She'd only told this story once, on the boat to Percy and Annabeth, but she'd realised it was not a story she enjoyed telling. "I actually got here five years ago, but..." she trailed off. Her Palms were sweaty now, which couldn't have been helpful if she wanted these fangs out.
Will's eyes lit up (not literally) with recognition, and he gasped. "Wait, you said your name was Marion Carter?"
Mari nodded.
Will smiled at her, but it looked less sunny this time. It just looked very sad. "Lee and Michael told us about you. Sammy too, when they last visited. You don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to."
"Thanks."
Mari felt relieved, but a thought struck her. Will had said that Sammy, Lee and Michael told him and the rest of their siblings about her, right? But wouldn't Mason have been there too? If he wasn't cabin counsellor, then he'd at least talk to the new campers. He'd talked to her. Where was Mason, anyway? "Hey, Will, do you know if- OW!"
Will grimaced as he plucked the first fang out. "Sorry. OK, that's weird..." He squinted at her hand, and held it under a light.
"What's weird?" Mari asked.
Will grimaced. "Dracaena aren't poisonous, but there's a kind of toxin in the wound... it's like the dracaenae deliberately poisoned herself just to get to you..." he trailed off, before darting across the room to grab something else, leaving Mari to ponder the implications of what he'd just told her.
Sandy wasn't that persistent, right? Sure, she'd said that she'd been waiting for five years to corner her, but Mari had figured that she'd just gotten lucky and decided to sound dramatic. But to go as far as to poison herself in advance... It was very unnerving, to say the least.
Will was back in less than ten seconds, armed with a bottle of light pink liquid and a shot glass. "I think a dose of this should do the trick. If I'm right about the poison, it releases only after the tooth has been removed. Are you in any pain?" Mari shook her head. Will nodded, pouring her a shot of the pink liquid.
"This isn't going to taste like dirt, right?" she asked.
Will shook his head. "Not if it's made right. And, I'm really careful."
Mari took the shot glass and downed it like she'd seen Jean do many, many times. It tasted like the strawberries at camp. "I think you definitely made it right," she told him, glancing at her hand. Already, the green was starting to fade to a more natural-looking red.
Will plucked the other fang out, putting it into a tiny jar jar with the first. He put the lid on the jar, and then put the jar into a box he'd brought with the pink liquid.
"Why would you keep it?" Mari asked, part horrified, part fascinated.
Will took it out to show her. "See the liquid at the bottom? That's how we make the antivenom."
Sure enough, there was a dark orange liquid at the bottom of the cup, coming from the two thin, long fangs. It was bubbling slightly.
"That's disgusting," she whispered. Will's face fell. Remorse filled her. She hadn't meant to say that out loud. "But so cool," she added.
He grinned at her, his eyes shining with excitement. "I know, right?"
He stuffed the bottle back in the box, and held a piece of gauze over her hand. He wrapped a bandage around it, tying it in place once he was done.
"That should work. We have a little bit of ambrosia left, but with the poison it still should take a day to heal. Sorry about that."
A day. A boy in her year one class at primary school once swung too high and broke his hand. That took months to heal. A day was practically nothing. She'd known demigods healed fast, but she'd never gotten to really reap the benefits, what with Circe magically prolonging her wounds and all.
Will handed her a golden square of ambrosia, and she popped it into her mouth, smiling at the familiar taste of Jaffa cakes. She wondered if she could ask Chiron about having Jaffa Cakes at camp...
"How does the hand feel?" Will asked her.
Mari flexed it and frowned. "Numb."
Will nodded. "I think the antidote should be working, then. You should probably stay a few hours, to make sure you don't need another dose-"
SLAM! For the second time that day, someone barged through the door like they owned the place. Though, this person was equally welcome. Just like Lee, Drew Tanaka was also a lot taller. Well, she obviously would have been taller. It had been five years, after all. She would be twelve now.
Her face was thinner and she was wearing bright pink eyeliner. Mari didn't know much about brands, but she was pretty sure that apart form the orange shirt (which she'd made into a tank-top with ruffled sleeves) everything was designer. Even the plaster on her cheek had a little Chanel symbol on it.
Mari didn't know why, but Drew looked nervous.
"Drew! You're here!" Mari felt her face split into an ear-to-ear grin as Drew whipped around to face her.
"Mari?" Her voice was small. She walked over, her heels clacking across the wooden floorboards as she went. "You're... alive," was all she said.
Mari nodded. "It looked debatable for a second there, but yeah."
Drew threw her arms around her. "Holy Hera, Luke had no right to do that to you!" She disentangled herself from the hug, smoothing out her hair.
"Wait, Luke kidnapped you?" Will asked Mari.
Drew nodded, and answered before Mari could. "Yeah. Silena told me. She said Clarisse told her."
"Luke is a bloody prick," Mari agreed.
Will looked like he'd been hit by a car at her language.
"The bloodiest prick," Drew added, and Will pressed his lips together like he was trying to keep himself from objecting. Mari was pretty sure Drew didn't know what either of those words were actually used for, but she appreciated the thought.
"Oh! I have a present for you!" Mari gestured to where she'd set the backpack down earlier. "Will, would you mind passing that to me?"
Will frowned at the weight. Okay, so maybe she and Clarisse went a little overboard on the aeroplane contraband. Just a little. He put the backpack on one of the two empty beds, and unzipped it for Mari. Several candy packets spilled out. Will raised an eyebrow, not looking very amused at the idea of unhealthy sweets in a medical setting.
Mari shrugged. "What? Most of that was Clarisse's idea, anyway. This was mine." She pulled out one of the make-up bags, smiling as she presented it to Drew.
Drew opened it gingerly, eyes lighting up as she held a yellow tube to her face. "Lemon moisturiser! Oh gods, you have no idea how much I love lemon-scented things. This is great. Where did you even get these?" She continued to rifle through the makeup bag as she spoke.
Mari grinned, a proud feeling settling comfortably in her chest. "Promise not to tell anyone?" she whispered.
Drew nodded.
"Clarisse and I stole them from the plane."
Will snickered behind her back. "What?"
She turned towards him, frowning. She turned back when she heard very faint giggles coming from a red-faced Drew. Acute betrayal filled her. She'd gone to all the trouble of stealing a gift, and this was her thanks? How the Hades was that fair?!
"No, no. Mari, I'm not laughing at you. I- I swear... I'm not!" Drew held up a hand between giggles.
Will snorted. "I am."
Mari resisted the urge to flip him off. "Than why are you laughing?!" Her voice sounded very defensive.
"Marion... you can't steal stuff from a plane. It's all free. You could have just walked out with it and nobody would have cared."
Oh.
That made a lot more sense. Thinking about it, why would they give the same makeup products to different passengers? That would have to check off a lot of health concerns.
And they weren't laughing at her, they were just laughing.
Her face burnt up. That was bloody stupid of her. She should have realised sooner, she...
"Hey, hey. I'm sorry. Thankyou. It was sweet. And, I really like lemon scented things." Drew smiled tentatively at her.
"It was just free stuff. Nothing special." Mari grinned back.
Drew scoffed. "Yeah, well, you need all the free stuff you can get. Look at that hair! Have you even brushed it in a year?"
Mari shook her head. "Not a few days. Questing."
Drew frowned. "That's barbaric. If your ever go in another quest, I'll have to get you an Aphrodite cabin care package."
Drew stayed until her sister Silena popped her head in to call her away. Silena gave Mari a friendly wave as Drew followed her out of the infirmary.
Will checked his watch. "It's been about an hour since the bandage. If you feel any better, you can help me sort out those boxes."
Mari flexed her hand. Burning pain shot down her arm. "Ooow. I don't think that's a good idea, Will."
He shrugged. "It's fine. Chiron should be back with Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase soon anyway, then the quest will be over and people won't need to patrol the borders anymore. There will be a lot more help around here."
Mari frowned. It still didn't seem fair of him to have to take care of so many people, all on his own. Didn't someone at least switch out to let him sleep? It didn't look like it.
"How long have you been here?" Mari asked.
Will frowned. "A couple days. It doesn't matter that much. Almost everyone else is fighting off the monsters. I was one of the safest here. It's the least I can do."
Mari probably would have said the same thing, in his position. In fact, she was probably the poster child for missing sleep for stupid reasons. But coming from someone else, it didn't sound right. "That's not fair to you," she said.
Will shrugged. "It's just how it is. Ever since Mason Ray left, things have been stretched kind of thin around here. He did most of the work. But Chiron said he'd help us get a schedule going. Then... well, you probably already know what happened with Chiron."
"Well, now that he's coming back, maybe you could-"
Wait.
Ever since Mason left?
Mason... left. Why? He didn't have family outside of camp, and Mari knew that for certain because he used to keep a jar of his mother's ashes by his bed. He didn't have anywhere else to go. Was he living with Sammy? Mari remembered they were pretty close. But Mason wouldn't just leave in the middle of a crisis at camp, right? And when he heard about it, he'd come back. Why would he stay gone during the summer, anyway?
"Marion? You went quiet."
Will was still waiting for her to finish her question. What had she been asking again?
"Will, why did Mason leave?"
Will froze. "No, you were going to ask something else. What were you going to ask?" His voice was higher than it had been before.
Mari frowned. Why was he trying to avoid the question?
Lee had done the same thing, she realised. Mari had asked why he would be the cabin counsellor and he'd deflected. In fact, he hadn't just deflected. He'd walked away from the entire conversation. Why? What could possibly be so important that nobody wanted to tell her where Mason was?
"Will, will you please just tell me? Nobody is telling me."
"Marion... I don't want to upset you."
Oh fuck. He was dead. Mason was dead, wasn't he? There couldn't be anything else. Any other reason she could think of as to why Lee and Will were being so weird about mentioning Mason didn't make sense.
Had he died recently? Did anyone know how? She'd only been at camp for three weeks but she remembered the older campers talking in hushed tones about kids who never came back for the next summer. The older kids stopped whenever she, or anyone younger than her, walked in but that didn't stop people from knowing what was discussed. Was her brother just one of those whispers now?
"Will." Her voice was steadier than she expected it to be. "Tell me where Mason is. Now."
Will gulped. He nodded, very slowly, and started fiddling with a band around his wrist. Mari wondered if that was some kind of stress managing technique. "Mason... he left camp last year, at the end of summer."
Mari scowled. She was tired, but she wasn't stupid. And Will was avoiding the question, again! "I asked where he was, not when he left. Will, please, just tell me."
Will sighed. "Marion, he left. With Luke."
With Luke.
Mason... wasn't dead.
He'd just betrayed the entire camp. The camp she'd tried for five years to get back to, partly to see him. And he was gone. The fates must have a twisted sense of humour.
Will evidently took her silence as an invitation to continue.
"It was my first summer at camp, so I didn't know that much for a while. But nobody did. They all left a couple hours before Luke did. It was Mason, and a few others. A few from the other cabins, but mostly cabin eleven. I think almost half of their campers left, actually. Mostly unclaimed kids-"
"Get out."
"W-what?"
"Go away. Get out."
"But-"
"GET THE FUCK OUT!"
Will took a few steps back, like he'd been slapped across his face. "I-I can't. I have to look after the patients... and you're still injured..."
Mari shot up out of her seat and started towards the door.
"Where are you going?" Will asked her.
"If you're not leaving, I will." She was three steps from the door when he started to follow her.
She kicked over the pile he'd so carefully stacked by the door less than half an hour earlier. The boxes fell across the floor, little plastic bags of ambrosia and tubs of ointment rolling along the floorboards. Will stopped, glancing between her and the medical supplies. "Marion... I'm sorry, I didn't meant to upset you. Please don't go, your hand still hurts."
"I don't care!" She sped out of the door, avoiding the hurt look on Will's face as she left.
Mari didn't know where she was headed at first. It only dawned on her that she was in the woods when she passed what must have been the seventy-first tree. She stopped, and leaned against a tree trunk.
Had Will bothered to follow her, or was he cleaning up the medical supplies she'd dropped? She wouldn't blame him if he was. She'd been so horrible... In any case, he wasn't there. Her brother was gone.