I had super weird dreams full of animals and one-eyed giants trying to kill me and others with killer baseball bats. And also a goat stomping on my face.
I woke up several times, I think I was spoon-fed something creamy but tasting like buttered popcorn, in my multiple awakenings I looked to the side and saw a blonde girl saying:
"What will happen at the summer solstice?," she said.
The boy she asked sounded familiar, so he answered her, but in my exhaustion, I went right back to sleep. Again, in one of my awakenings, there was a boy, the guy with blond hair and blue eyes, the same guy who had helped me before I fainted, I saw him smile, and then I went back to sleep. Another time I saw the hedge coach at my bedside, accompanied by a guy with a surfer's look, and he was talking to him:
"This girl's a badass, haven't seen anyone like her since clarisse I tell you, a demi-goddess with high potential." He said.
I finally came to my senses for good, and when I woke up there was no blond-haired boy, no coach hedge, but still the guy with the surfer's face. He was standing and looking at me with his big blue eyes, but there weren't just two of them, there were a good dozen on my cheek, chin, hand and they were all looking at me. I shouted
Then the doors opened and Mr Brunner came in on his wheelchair.
"Calm down, Kassandra," Mr. Brunner said softly.
"W-where am I?" I asked.
"Don't worry." assured my Latin teacher, then turned to the guy with a hundred eyes.
"I see you've met Argus, he's our head of security." He said.
Argus said nothing Mr Brunner waved him off, looked at me with his eyes as if interested then left the room I got up, my head started spinning
"Here, take this." He picked up a large glass from the bedside table, which I hadn't noticed until that moment, and handed it to me. The contents looked like iced apple juice. My hand was weak, I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers on it.
"Why was it here?" I asked.
"I don't know, dear," said Mr. Brunner. "We'd asked him to keep an eye on someone else, but strangely enough, Argus chose to keep an eye on you."
"Efficient your head of security," I said wryly.
Mr. Brunner gave me a warm smile, although I could still see the worry lines around his eyes and the terrified gleam in his eyes. He helped me bring the glass of apple juice to my mouth.
As I drank it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. It wasn't apple juice. I was drinking, but it tasted like cake, the passion foam my Aunt Carmen used to make me for special occasions.
"Was it good?" asked Mr Brunner. I nodded.
"What was it?"
He looked at me and out came:
"Nectar, the drink of the gods Kassandra. But don't take too much or you'll end up reduced to ashes."
I looked at the empty glass in my hands, at the time really wondering how something so good could end up killing me.
"How are you feeling my child?"
"Much better. "I said with a smile.
In truth, I wasn't feeling much better than before, I didn't even think I could get up if I wanted to, but I didn't want to make people feel sorry for me. But Mr. Brunner seemed to see through my acting.
"What do you remember Kassandra "He moved closer to me with his wheelchair, "you were unconscious for two days."
"A goat, cyclops, and... is my uncle okay?!"
"Yes, he survived we administered first aid and get you home safely"
I was relieved, my uncle had survived.
"Do you remember anything else, Kassi?"
I tried to explain everything I remembered, omitting some fact like the change from baseball bat to sword and also the voice in my head giving me advice it seemed too far-fetched to explain.
"Mr. Brunner, where am I?"
You're at Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp for kids like... like you and call me Chiron," he said. "Right now, you're in the infirmary at the Big House, the camp headquarters. I frowned.
"What do you mean, children like me? And why did those monsters call me a half-blood, I'm not going to lie to you I find that term offensive."
My father was black and my mother was white (according to what he told me) so the term half-blood didn't really suit me.
Instead of answering my question directly, Chiron turned around in his wheelchair.
I'll explain everything, but first," he said. "There's someone I think you'd like to see. I'll just wait for you outside."
Chiron turned his wheelchair around and then went outside.
I got up albeit with some difficulty and joined Chiron who was outside on a porch the view was magnificent, trees, rivers, acres of strawberries and beautiful hills the highest where a huge, magnificent pine tree stood.
When we got to the other side, I was breathless.
We must have been facing the north shore of Long Island, for on this side the valley stretched all the way to the ocean, which glistened a mile or two away on the horizon. As for what I saw between us and the big blue, I simply didn't know what to make of it. The landscape was dotted with buildings whose architecture was reminiscent of ancient Greece - an open-air kiosk, an amphitheatre, a circus - with one difference: they all looked new, with their white marble columns gleaming in the sun.
Next door, on a sandy field, a dozen teenagers and satyrs were playing volleyball. Canoes glided on a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were running one after the other around a group of bungalows nestled in the woods. Others were practicing archery. Still others were riding horses along a tree-lined track, and I was either hallucinating or some of the horses were winged.
"This is Monsieur D," Chiron told me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. And of course you already know our other two companions."
He pointed to the two boys. One had curly brown hair, a Caucasian skin tone and brown eyes, while the other had tousled black hair, a Mediterranean complexion and a pair of water-green eyes.
"Percy and Grover is that you?" I said.
Both turned to me. Grover didn't look surprised to see me, in fact he looked relieved, but Percy, on the other hand, immediately frowned.
"Kassi? " he said. "Kassi you're here!" He stood up and took me in his arms I gladly returned it.
"That's right, Kassi . Percy arrived about an hour after you did," Chiron said.
"What are you doing here?" Percy and I said at the same time.
"Why don't you have a seat, dear," Chiron said.
"We now have five players for the pinochle." He offered me a chair to the right of Monsieur D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh, and to the left of Percy, who was still looking at me with furrowed brows.
"Oh, I suppose I have to say it... again. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. Here. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."
"Uh, thanks." I pulled away from him a little more because I may have grown up in a posh environment, but he looked like an ex-alcoholic who'd been weaned. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a cyclop.
"So," Percy said, still looking very confused.
"You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?
"Not Mr. Brunner," said Chiron. Then he hadn't introduced himself to Percy. "I'm afraid it's a pseudonym. You can call me Chiron."
"All right." Still totally confused, Percy looked at the director. "And Mr. D... does that mean anything?"
Mr. D stopped shuffling his cards. He looked at him as if he'd just burped loudly.
"Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just use them for no reason." It was exactly the advice coach hedge had given me two days earlier about how a name could contain power.
"Oh. Oh. Right. Sorry."
"I must say, Percy, Kassi "Chiron interrupted, "that I'm glad to see you 's been a long time since I've made a house call to potential campers. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time.
"House call?"
"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to…ah, take a leave of absence."
"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" asked Percy.
Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. But I stayed in Yancy anyway. Both because of you and but also thanks to a second call from grover, the return of a powerful demigod lost to sight the year before."
"You mean me?" I cut in. "Lost to sight you mean when my uncle changed me to another school.
"Yes, my child," Chiron said. "We contacted your uncle and Percy's mother, let them know we were keeping an eye on you both in case you were ready for Half-Blood Camp. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you got here alive, and that's always the first test. "
"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"
Grover trembled as he pulled out the fourth chair, I wondered what could possibly frighten him about a small, paunchy man in a tiger print shirt.
"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me, and Percy, warily.
"I'm afraid not," said Percy.
"I'm afraid not, sir," he said.
"Sir," Percy repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less. Monsieur D turned to me, seeming to wait for my reply. I cleared my throat.
"I'm afraid I don't know how to play either... sir."
"Well," he said, "along with gladiatorial combat and Pac-Man, it's one of the greatest games ever invented by man I'd expect every civilized young mortal to know the rules."
"I'm sure kids can learn," said Chiron.
"Please," said Percy, "what is this place? What am I doing here?"
Mr. D snorted. "I asked him the same question."
The camp director handed out the cards. Grover flinched each time one landed in his pile. Chiron smiled sympathetically at us, as he did in Latin class. He expected us to have the right answer.
"Percy, Kassi," he said. "Didn't your mother and uncle tell you anything? "
"No," I admitted.
"He never mentioned anything about this camp except that I'd be safe there. And that was the very night I arrived." Chiron nodded thoughtfully, then turned to Percy.
"She said..." he said. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even if my father had wanted me to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."
"Typical," says Mr. D. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"
"What?" asked Percy. He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, which Percy did and I felt compelled to do as well. "I'm afraid there's too much to say," said Chiron.
"I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be enough."
"Orientation film? " I asked.
"No," decided Chiron. "Well, Kassi, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr."
So Grover was a satyr just like Coach.
He pointed to the horn in the shoebox.
"that you killed the Minotaur. No mean feat, my boy and you Kassi the elimination of two Cyclops. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. The gods - the forces you call the Greek gods - are alive and well.
I looked at the others around the table and my gaze met Percy's.
I was waiting for someone to shout, "No!" But all I got was Mr. D shouting, "Oh, a royal wedding. Trick! Trick!" He chuckled, keeping score.
"Mr. D," Grover asked shyly, "if you're not going to eat it, can I have your can of Diet Coke?"
"Eh? Oh, all right."
Grover tore a huge chunk from the empty aluminum can and chewed it sadly.
"Wait a minute," I said to Chiron. ""You're telling me there's such a thing as God."
"Well, now," said Chiron. "God - capital G, God. That's another one altogether. We won't deal with metaphysics."
"Metaphysics? But you were just talking about..."
"Ah, gods, plural, as in the great beings who control the forces of nature, and interfere in human endeavors. For the rest of us, they're the immortal gods of Olympus. It's a matter of lesser importance.
"Of lesser importance!"
"Exactly so. The gods we were discussing in Latin class."
"Zeus," Percy said. "Hera. Apollo. Those are the ones you're talking about."
And it started again: a distant rumble of thunder on a cloudless day.
Young man," said Mr. D., "if I were you, I'd be very careful about throwing around names like that.
But these are stories," I protested. They're... myths, to explain lightning, the seasons, all those phenomena. That's what people believed before science came along.
That's exactly what I'd said to the hedge coach, but now I realized that the existence of these gods was no longer in question, given what had happened to me two days ago.
"Science!" sneered Mr. D." Tell me, Perseus Jackson...what will people think of your science two thousand years from now?" continued Mr. D. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals...they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."
There was something about the way he'd called us mortal... as if he himself wasn't. It was enough for a lump to form in my throat and for me to begin to understand why Grover was wisely attending to his cards, chewing his can of Coke without saying a word.
"Percy," said Chiron." It's up to you whether you believe or not, but the fact is that "immortal" means immortal. Can you imagine for a moment what that means, to never die? To never wither away? To exist, just as you are, forever?"
Percy was sure to retort, but given Chiron's tone he probably shouldn't have done that.
"You mean people believe in you or not?"
"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"
"I wouldn't like that" replied Percy "Still, I don't believe in gods"
"Oh, you'd better," whispered Mr. D. "Before one of them incinerates you."
Grover said, "Please, sir. He just lost his mother. He's in shock."
"A lucky thing, too," grumbles M. D as he plays a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe!"
He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven links between the two had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled with red wine.
Percy and I were speechless, but Chiron barely raised his head.
"Monsieur D.," he said." Your restrictions."
He looked at the glass in astonishment, pretending to see it.
"Dear me." He looked up at the sky and shouted, "Old habits! Sorry!"
There was another rumble of thunder. (Everything was coming together on this day to freak me out.)
Mr. D. waved his hand a second time and the glass of wine turned into another can of Diet Coke. He let out an unhappy sigh, popped the cap and turned his attention back to his game. Chiron winked at me:
"Mr. D. offended his father some time ago. He took a liking to a wood nymph that had been declared a forbidden zone."
"A wood nymph," Percy repeated, still staring at the Coke can as if it had popped out of space.
"Yes," confessed Mr. D. "The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time...well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away...the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha! Absolutely unfair Monsieur D. reminded me of a sulky six-year-old.
"And...," Percy sputtered, "your father is..."
I finally spoke up, "His father is Zeus, he's the wine dude, Percy."
He looked at me as if he didn't believe it. "You mean Dionysus."
He turned his head toward the god "You're Dionysus," he said. "The god of wine."
Mr. D. rolled his eyes. "What do they say these days, Grover? Do the Children say, 'Well, duh!'?"
"Yes, Mr. D."
"So Kassandra Jane Knight, Percy Jackson, you thought I was Aphrodite."
"Take off the Jane and I prefer Kassi." I corrected him, only my family really called me Kassandra and Chiron but because he was a teacher.
Dionysus looked me in the eye and I caught a glimpse of a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, which suggested that this grumpy, paunchy little man was only showing me a tiny part of his true nature. Then I saw images of unbelievers perishing smothered under bunches of grapes, drunken warriors driven mad by combat, sailors howling as their hands turned into flippers and their faces elongated into dolphin snouts. I realized that if I insisted. Monsieur D. would show me far worse things. I'd introduce a disease into my brain that would make me spend the rest of my life in bed, the vision that at the slightest misstep on my part he'd probably put me through the no worse equivalent of what I'd put Cyclops through. Maybe calling him the wine guy wasn't the best decision.
"You are a god."
"Yes, my child."
"A god. You."
He looked at Percy with the same intensity as me and said:
"Would you like to test me little one," he asked him calmly."
"No. No, sir."
The fire disappeared and he returned to his deck of cards.
"I think I've won."
"Not quite," replied Chiron. " This game is on me"
I thought Mr. D was going to spray Chiron from his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He stood up, and so did Grover.
"I'm tired," said Mr. D. "I think I'll take a nap before I sing in chorus tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this mission."
Grover's face beaded with sweat.
"Y-yes, sir."
Mr. D turned to Percy and me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson and Kassandra Knight. And mind your manners." He entered the farmhouse, Grover following lamely behind.
"Will Grover be all right?" I asked Chiron.
Chiron nodded, even though he looked a little troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been…ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."
"Mount Olympus. Are you telling me that there is indeed a palace there?"
"Well, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the abode of the gods, the focal point of their powers, which was indeed once on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect for ancient customs, but the palace moves, Percy, and so do the gods."
"You mean his Greek gods are here? In the United States?"
"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."
"What's that, "I asked.
"Come on, Kassandra. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has been shining for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You could even say that they are the source of it, or at least, they are so closely linked to it that they couldn't be erased unless the whole of Western civilization were wiped out. The fire began in Greece. Then, as you well know - or as I hope you know, since you've both passed my course - the heart of fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps - Jupiter for Zeus, Juno for Hera, Venus for Aphrodite and so on. - but the same forces, the same gods."
"But Chiron, Western civilization didn't start only with Greece, there were other civilizations, if what you're explaining is true, then there are other gods and how did the gods 'the greek gods' get to America?
Chiron smiled at me, "Interesting questions Kassandra, for the first, my answer would be that reality isn't exactly as you perceive it".
I understood nothing of his answer but preferred not to continue with this question, my head was already exploding.
"And to answer your second question my child the gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not...and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either...America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."
"Chiron, what am I and what are you?"
"And who am I," asked Percy.
"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now we should get you'll a bunk in cabin eleven, you'll meet new friends there. And tomorrow you'll have plenty of time for lessons. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."
And then he got up from his wheelchair. His blanket fell from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept lengthening, rising above his waist it was magic, because there was no way he could have contained it all. A leg came out, long and gnarled, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then the hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with two fake human legs attached.
Percy stared at the horse that had just jumped out of the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should have been was my Latin teacher's upper body, grafted smoothly to the horse's trunk.
"What a relief," said the centaur. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come on, Kassi Knight, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."
