Mandatory Statement I do not own the following properties that are mentioned in this story: Camp Half-Blood, Piper McLean
I Get A Watch From My Dead Dad
Moments later, they all had creamy chicken and rice soup sitting in steaming black bowls in front of them.
"So… tell me about your quest," Sam's mom said.
Liz and Jamesen exchanged looks, and Liz spoke up, "We're on a quest to rescue my dad… Apollo."
Sam's mom gasped. "How did he get captured?"
"Well…" Liz hesitated. "He heard that one of the kids was in danger—well, more than usual—and he swooped in to try and help. He improved his parenting style after Zeus made him human again."
Sam's mom raised an eyebrow. "He turned human again?"
"Yeah… but he restored a lot of the forms of prophecy and made right on a few things," she continued. "But there wasn't a kid in danger, and he got trapped by some forces of evil."
Sam stayed silent, processing the whole day.
"What is your prophecy?" Sam's mom asked.
Liz closed her eyes and recounted:
"You shall walk the road of the sun,
With a humble heart, your father will win.
The child of foes will help you prevail,
Refuse the trade, and you are sure to fail."
Jamesen said, "As far as we can tell, the 'road of the sun' is the Going-to-the-Sun Road up in Glacier National Park."
"Wait a minute…" Sam interjected. "That road will be closed until at least June 1st." He recalled all the news stories about reckless hikers and bikers who ignored the warnings of professionals. "Are you sure you want to take that trail right now?"
Sam glared at her. "So… what happens if you fail? They survived without him, didn't they? Why can't they survive more? What's the worst that could happen if you fail? It's not worth risking your life! You don't even know the canyon." He honestly didn't know why he felt responsible for her safety, but he thought that if he didn't tell her about the dangers and she died, he would feel like he could have done something more. Liz rolled her eyes again, irritation flashing in her expression. "Uhhh… yeah! I'm pretty sure I want to save my frickin' dad!" She began shoveling soup into her mouth, glaring at Sam
.He felt a mix of embarrassment and annoyance, wondering why she couldn't see the danger. The tension in the room was thick.
Sam's mother piped up, breaking the invisible tug-of-war of wills happening right before her. "Sam, look at me. Now that you know your heritage, you need training. Liz doesn't need someone else to lead her quest. I'll try to start training you. But that camp is my last resort." The way she said "that camp" showed some obvious disdain for Camp Half-Blood.
Jamesen decided to change the subject. "So how long have y'all been in Great Falls?" he asked casually.
"About 13 years," Sam's mom said. "I had to finish my degree from Southern Utah University, which is where I transferred after… you know, the whole thing in Manhattan. I just went where I figured the least amount of people would be looking for me. They have a pretty solid nursing program, and once I finished, well… I got an offer up here to take up residency."
"Where are you guys from?" Sam asked. "You know, besides the Greek camp." He meant that last part as an icebreaker, but he could see everyone at the table, except for his mom, cringing to some degree. Jamesen recoiled slightly, an appalled look on his face, while Liz looked pretty much enraged at his words, her lips pursed. He felt a rush of heat to his face as he realized he might have been accidentally racist.
"I'm sorry I didn't—" Sam started.
"No need, you didn't know," his mom said. "Just try not to make jokes about camp; it's a lot of demigods' only home, so a lot get pretty defensive about it."
"Well… I'm from Texas," Jamesen said. "Just outside of Marfa, to be more specific. My dad owned a sorghum farm down there; that's where he met my mom, Demeter." A grin broke out over his face just talking about home, nostalgia obviously washing over him.
Liz spoke up, a hint of bitterness creeping into her voice. "I'm from good ol' Denver, Colorado. My mom did nothing but give birth to me, which is why my dad brought me to camp at age 8. So I prefer to not talk about it. Especially since the Broncos haven't won a single Super Bowl yet."
Sam was pretty confident that the Super Bowl had nothing to do with her anger, but he decided to drop it; he had already done enough offending for one night. Everyone seemed about done with their soup, so Sam collected everyone's bowls while his mom offered for their new friends to spend the night while Melanie recovered. Jamesen was obviously really happy to accept the offer, while Liz looked put off that she wasn't spending it in the dark alleyway that Sam had seen them in.
But they rolled out their sleeping bags while Sam went to his bedroom, his mind unwinding from the events of the night. He was apparently the son of a Titan—the Titan of Time, no less. With all the stuff he had seen, he really couldn't mark it off as just crazy people.
As he was processing it all, his mom walked in to talk to him. She was carrying a small box with her, no bigger than her fist. "Now that you know about your heritage, I have something that your father said he would give you once you were born." She held out the box to him.
Sam took it shakily, opening the lid. Inside sat a gleaming bronze watch with golden hands gliding around its face. "He never said specifically what it was supposed to do, but I assume that because it was celestial bronze, it had some magical element to it. I want you to know I wanted to tell you earlier; I just didn't want to put your life at risk. So, I'm sorry," she said.
Sam turned the watch over in his hands. "Mom, there's nothing to forgive," Sam said. "You were just trying to protect me; you were being a good mother." He held out his arms for a hug, and she embraced him. After that, she left the room, and Sam replaced the digital watch he wore with the bronze one he had just been given. Somehow, he wasn't surprised when he saw that the time was accurate on the new bronze watch. He even suspected it was right down to the second. He hit the lights, and soon enough he passed out.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
Sam woke with a jolt as he heard an ear-splitting roar outside. He checked out his window and saw what looked like a large lizard with purple and blue scales patrolling the park behind his apartment. Sam quickly changed out of his P.J.s and into some jeans and a simple gray long-sleeved shirt with a single green stripe across the chest and arms.
He ran out and saw his mom with a shotgun and Liz with a bow leaning out the twin windows in the living room. Liz's arrows seemed to be doing nothing against the beast, but the shotgun appeared to make some hits, which is when Sam noticed Greek letters glowing gold against the steel of the shotgun barrel. The lizard seemed to slink away from the apartment building and further into the park to avoid the weapons being fired at it.
While all this happened, Jamesen broke camp in the living room, packing all their bags with meticulous care. "I don't get it!" Liz said. "This whole quest—monsters seem to be pouring out the wazoo! And now a drakon?"
Sam's mom's face was tense, as if she knew something important but struggled with how to respond. "I'll hold it off," she said, steeling herself. "Liz, Melanie can't travel with you. She's too unstable. I'll get her back to camp after I deal with this." She turned to Sam, urgency in her voice. "Take the van and drive to Glacier. Give Liz and Jamesen a fighting chance on this quest!"
Liz looked like she wanted to protest, but Sam's mom rushed past him and grabbed his 72-hour kit from the coat closet in the living room, shoving it into his arms. "NOW!" she screamed.
Sam went into fight or flight mode and snatched the keys along with his water bottle from the counter as he ran to the front door, slinging his 72-hour kit over his shoulder, with Liz and Jamesen following close behind him. They tore down the stairs and exited into the parking lot, which was essentially a thick sheet of ice, Sam frantically scanning for his family's car. He heard the drakon roar once more; it was getting closer.
He finally spotted the faded blue Odyssey sitting at the far end. He could hear pounding—he wasn't sure if it was the drakon getting closer or the sound of his heartbeat. Either way, he ran as quickly as he dared over the ice, which had been polished from all the tires. He finally made it to the van, threw open the trunk, and tossed his bag in. He turned in time to see Liz and Jamesen do the same.
As he got into the car and peeled out of the parking lot, his mom fired more shots from the window, buying them just enough time to get on the road. The words of the prophecy rang in his mind: "The child of foes will help you prevail."
Soon enough, they were going north along I-15, the drakon far behind them. Although that didn't change the fact that Sam's knuckles were white against the steering wheel. "Is it always like this? Being a demigod, I mean?" he asked shakily.
Jamesen smiled like a madman from the backseat, because, well, everyone experiences adrenaline differently. "This is just a normal Saturday morning, my friend." Liz still looked pissed off in the passenger seat that her preferred quester had been replaced with someone who, 24 hours ago, didn't know that the gods existed. But hey, it's not like Sam wanted to come along either.
They continued down the road for a few miles in silence, the speedometer never exceeding the speed limit.
"You know that you can go above the speed limit, right?" Liz said grumpily, crossing her arms over her chest.
Sam may be a little unobservant, but he just noticed that Liz had put her blonde hair into braids. She was also wearing a plaid shirt; it had a red and white checkered pattern. Now, Sam did not have a crush on her, but… she looked good with this style.
"I don't want to get pulled over. I do have my license because you can drive here at 15. I seriously am not in the mood to talk to the highway patrol." They continued hurtling down the highway. The snowy fields were a blur as they went down the road at a modest 80 miles an hour.
"Okay," Sam said. "Now that we have time, roughly three hours of travel if all goes well. Tell me about this camp, and like, the gods—are they present? Just tell me anything."
Jamesen seemed more willing to talk than Liz, so he spoke first. "Camp Half-Blood is one of the safest places on Earth for demigods. We have a cabin for each god who has children…"
"Or goddess," Liz interjected.
"We have captured the flag, weapons training—basically all the things a young hero might need to survive," Jamesen continued, ignoring Liz's interruption.
"As you can see with hellhounds and drakons, though, it's not all fun and games," Liz said.
Sam flicked the indicator to get off the highway into a small town called Conrad to take the road to Glacier.
Liz continued, "We can be sent on stupid quests, or we can be sent on stuff as serious as saving the sun god. And the world is at stake."
Sam asked the question that he knew might get Liz mad at him for. "So, what's the average relationship like between a god and their child?" His mind flashed through the cacophony of Greek myths.
Liz answered her question, surprisingly with less hardness in her voice than before. "Most don't have the best relationship. But my dad, he saved me from suffering in a pretty bad home. Because of his experience as a mortal, he visits camp often, which is why I want to save him. He saved me."
Sam pulled into the Town Pump in Conrad to fill up the tank. "We're low on gas, plus the next place we can get fueled up is Browning, which is pretty far up the road."
As he put the pump in and inserted his card, Liz and Jamesen went inside to use the restroom.
While they were in there, a green pickup rolled up behind him. A Native American woman, who appeared to be in her late twenties to early thirties, hopped out. She was wearing a red and green flannel shirt, a ski vest, as well as a baseball cap that read "Norman High School Tigers". She went through the usual routine one goes through at a gas pump, but she perked up as she saw Liz come out of the station with a bow slung across her back.
Initially, she seemed to shrug it off until Jamesen emerged as well. She glanced at the three heroes, eyebrows raised, her eyes bouncing between the bow, Jamesen's celestial bronze spurs, and Sam's watch.
The woman leaned casually against her truck, watching them with a knowing smile that was more of a smirk. 'So, where's the quest this time?' she asked, her voice steady and calm as if this were all just a normal part of life.
Liz froze; alarm bells were clearly going off in her head. Sam could see the cogs turning in Jamesen's brain as well. Of course, Sam did find it suspicious that a random woman knew that they were on a quest, but she seemed friendly enough.
'What's Rachel sending you after?' She followed up when no one responded.
The woman seemed to sense their wariness, so she introduced herself. "You don't need to worry; I won't hurt you." She extended her hand. "I'm Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite."