Daughter of the Sea

This was the first time I’d seen Camp in Winter, and it shocked me a little. See, Camp has this magical climate control, so bad weather never gets in unless the camp director, Mr. D, allows it. I expected Camp to be warm and sunny, but instead there was a light layer of snow on the ground. I could see that the cabins and big house were decorated with small Christmas lights, except these lights seemed to be real balls of fire.

“Whoa,” Nico’s voice said from beside me. “Is that a climbing wall?”

I turned to the boy. “Yeah, it is.”

“Why is there lava flowing down it?”

“Bit of an extra challenge. You should probably go with Thalia and Piper. I’m going to…” I pointed at the other Hunters then made to follow them.

Thalia and Zoë were arguing quietly. “Hey,” I said. They stopped.

“Well, I’ll be going to see Chiron now,” Thalia said. “Have a nice day, Zoë, Percy.”

She turned on her heel and walked away.

“What the heck is her problem?” I asked.

“Among other things,” Zoë said, “you.”

“Yeah, she’s already made that clear. But she seemed to already hate you before I joined.”

Zoë nodded. “She does harbor some animosity towards me, yes. Now, come on, we should head to cabin eight.” She raised her voice. “Hunters! Follow me!”

“I can show you the way!” Grover said.

“We know the way,” Phoebe replied, an amused look on her face.

“Oh, it’s really no trouble,” Grover said. “It’s easy to get lost here if you don’t-” he tripped over a canoe and face planted in the snow. When he got up, he was still talking, “-like my daddy goat used to say, come on!”

Zoë rolled her eyes, but seemed to figure there was no getting rid of him.

As we walked towards the cabins, I heard Apollo shout, “take care, sweethearts!” I scowled to myself. He had no restraint.

Camille noticed my scowl and giggled. “You get used to it,” she said.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

---

After we arrived at cabin eight - which, on the outside, was bright silver in color, and inside resembled a normal summer camp cabin - the other Hunters set about putting down their bags next to whichever bunk they claimed. I ended up with one not far from the entrance, near where Camille was.

“You ever been here before?” I asked her.

She nodded. “Oh yeah. I’ve been with the Hunt since the eighties.” She took a sip from a water bottle. “Nice to see the chariot race track is back in use. Always had fun with that.”

“Oh it is fun,” I agreed. “As long as demon birds don’t show up.”

“Demon birds?”

“Don’t ask.”

We sat on our bunks in companionable silence.

After a bit, I remembered I should probably contact my mom.

“Hey, uh, Camille?”

“What’s up?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a gold drachma, would you?”

“Iris message?”

I nodded.

“I think Naomi has some. She’s over there.” She pointed across the cabin to a bunk where a tall white girl with blonde hair dyed with blue highlights was chatting with a shorter black girl with the hair on the sides of her head shaved really short. “The one with the highlights.”

“Thanks,” I said, before getting up and going over to the other girls. “Hi,” I said.

They stopped their discussion and turned towards me.

“Hey,” said Naomi, “I’m Naomi, this is Alice. You’re Persephone, right?”

“Uh, call me Percy. Um, Camille said you have some drachmas? I just wanted to call my mom.”

Naomi nodded. “Yeah, here’s a few. I’ve also got a prism if you need that.”

I accepted both the coins and the prism. “Thanks, Naomi.”

“No problem. We’re like sisters now. Kinda how this works.”

I blushed. “Never had a sister before…”

“Well, there you go!”

I made my way back to my bunk and held the prism up to the window, projecting a rainbow onto my bunk.

I dropped the drachma onto the sheets where the rainbow was, and instead of just resting on them, the drachma sank through, being absorbed by the rainbow.

“Oh, Iris, goddess of the rainbow. Show me Sally Jackson in, uh, Manhattan.”

An image of my mom’s kitchen shimmered into existence on top of my bedsheets, my mom sitting at the table reading a book.

“Mom!” I said.

She looked up and spotted the Iris message.

“Percy!” she exclaimed. “How are you? How did the mission go? Is everyone ok? Where’d you get the jacket?”

I hadn’t even noticed I was wearing the jacket. I slipped it off and dropped it on top of my bag. “Kind of a long story mom. I’ll have to tell it in order.” And so I told her, starting from me awkwardly declining to dance with Annabeth all the way up to me joining the Hunt. “So, yeah. I’m, uh, immortal now, Annabeth’s missing, and I’m at Camp.”

My mom closed her eyes and sighed. “Oh, honey.”

“I want to help her,” I said. “I just don’t know what to do. Not without a quest or something.”

My mom pursed her lips. I could tell she was holding back tears for my sake. My mom loved Annabeth. “You said Artemis will try to find her?”

“Yeah, that’s what she said.”

“And do you believe she will?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Alright. Now, immortal?”

I nodded. “Um, yeah. Also, um, is it alright if I introduce you to another Hunter?”

My mom nodded. “Of course, sweetheart.”

I gestured for Camille to join me.

“Um, hey, Mrs. Jackson,” she said.

“Mom, this is Camille. She’s, uh…”

“I’m trans too,” Camille said. “I told Percy pretty much right away. She needed to know she wasn’t the only one.” Camille shifted awkwardly.

“That’s nice. So this is a girls’ club? It's really nice that Artemis accepts girls like you two.”

“She always has, actually,” Camille said. “Also, not exactly girls, more like not boys.”

“Oh?” my mom said. “What’s the difference?”

“Ok, so. I’m guessing you don’t know what non-binary means?”

My mom shook her head. “Not a term I’ve heard before.”

“It’s like… so, gender isn’t just guys and girls, really. Most people are one of those two, but some people aren’t; they’re somewhere in between those two. That’s called non-binary. I’m not, personally, but a couple of other Hunters are.”

“So, they’re neither boys nor girls, then?”

“Yup!” Camille said. “Exactly.”

“That’s really fascinating.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it is,” I said. “First time I’m hearing about this.”

There was a knock at my mom’s door.

She looked towards it. “Oh. That’ll be my tutor. Be good, Percy! I’d tell you to stay safe, but… well, take care of yourself. I hope you find Annabeth.”

“Bye, mom.” I said.

She cut the connection and I was left looking at a rainbow on my bed.

“Your mom seems nice,” Camille said.

“She’s the best.”

“A shame she can’t join.”

“That would be a little weird for me I think.”

Camille snorted. “Hey, have you shot a bow before?”

I nodded. “Yeah, a few times. I’m not very good at it.”

Camille smirked. “Correction: you weren’t very good at it. Come on, let’s go shoot some targets for a bit.”

---

There were already a couple of other Hunters at the archery range when we arrived. I took a quick look at the targets. All bullseyes.

Could I do that now? We were here to find out.

Camille quickly recapped the proper form and stance. Before, I would have needed her to help me adjust several times.

Now, it was different.

My body knew just what to do. I fluidly slid an arrow out of my quiver, nocking it on my bowstring. I drew it back, aiming at the target.

I let the arrow fly.

It hit the bullseye.

I smiled.

“See, told you,” Camille said. “Artemis’ blessing. Of course, still takes some practice to get good at this during combat, so why don’t I run you through some drills?”

---

After running through all the drills Camille had for me - shooting while running, shooting while crouched down, like a sniper, shooting from an awkward position, et cetera, I barely felt tired. I had fumbled a few times, but overall, it felt as if my body was adapting to the task of archery a lot better than it once did.

We had worked up a sweat, though, so Camille and I headed back to cabin eight to shower.

Afterwards, I decided to try calling my brother, Tyson.

I projected a rainbow onto my bed with the prism again, then dropped another drachma into it, this time asking to see Tyson at Poseidon’s palace.

My brother shimmered into existence on the bed in front of me. He was surrounded by fire, which would have been an issue for anyone other than a cyclops. He was standing over an anvil, hammering away at a red hot sword. Behind him, there was a window giving a view out into the bottom of the ocean.

“Tyson!” I shouted.

At first, he didn’t hear me over the roaring flames.

“TYSON!” I said a bit louder.

He looked up. An enormous grin plastered itself onto his face. “Percy!” He dropped his sword and ran to try and give me a hug. The image blurred and I lurched back a bit.

“Whoa. It’s an Iris message, bro. I’m not really here.”

“Oh,” he said, backing away. “Right, I knew that.”

“How are you?” I asked. “How’s the job?”

His eye lit up. “Love the job! Look! I made this!” He held up the sword.

“I can see, that’s really cool!”

“I wrote my name on it, right there.” He pointed at the base of the blade.

“That’s awesome, Tyson. Hey, uh, do you talk to dad much?”

Tyson’s smile faded. “Not much. Daddy is busy. He is worried about the war.”

“What do you mean?”

Tyson sighed, sticking the sword out the window. It made a cloud of bubbles. When Tyson brought it back inside, the metal was cool.

“Old sea gods Making trouble. Aigaios, Oceanus. Those guys.”

I had an idea of who he was talking about. The old immortals who ruled the seas before the gods took power, back during Kronos’ reign.

“That’s… not good.”

Tyson nodded. “We are arming the mermaids. They need a thousand swords by tomorrow.” He looked at his sword and sighed. “The old gods are protecting the bad boat.”

“The Princess Andromeda?” I said. “Luke’s boat?”

“Yes. They make it hard to find, protect it from daddy’s vision. Otherwise, he would smash it.”

“I think smashing it would be good,” I said.

“Smashing what?” Camille said, sitting down on her bunk, her hair still a bit damp. She’d taken much longer in the shower than I had.

“Princess Andromeda,” I said. “The cruise ship with all the monsters.”

“Oh, that. I’ve heard of that. Who you calling?”

“Oh. Hey, Tyson, this is Camille.”

Camille came into view of the message and waved. “Hey Tyson.”

“Camille, this is my brother, Tyson. He’s a cyclops.”

Camille laughed. “I mean, with that much fire around, what else could he be?”

Tyson nodded enthusiastically. “I made a sword!” He held up his sword again for Camille to see. “I put my name on it, see?”

Camille looked at it. “Oh, yeah, I see. You wrote it in Greek. Very cool.”

Tyson beamed at her.

Then he looked towards me, his eye lighting up as if he just had a great thought. “Annabeth, is she there?”

Camille glanced at me.

“Oh, uh…” my heart sank. Tyson loved Annabeth. I didn’t have the heart to tell him she was missing. “Well, no… she’s busy right now.”

“Tell her hello!” Tyson said. “Hello to Annabeth.”

“Ok.” I fought back a lump from forming in my throat.

“And, don’t worry about the bad boat. It’s going far away.”

“Away?”

“Panama Canal. Long way away.”

I frowned. Why would Luke take his ship all the way down there? Unless… he was taking it to the west coast? Why was that?

“Alright,” I said, not exactly reassured. “That’s good. We won’t need to worry about it for a bit, anyway.”

A deep voice bellowed something, and Tyson turned towards it. He shouted something back in a language I couldn’t decipher. Tyson turned back to me. “Have to get back to work. Boss will get mad. Good luck, sister!”

“Ok, Tyson. Tell dad-”

But the message cut off before I could finish.

“Why didn’t you tell him about Annabeth?” Camille asked.

“I didn’t want to upset him.”

Camille pursed her lips. “Don’t you think he’d be more upset if he found out later, knowing you lied to him?”

Oh.

I hadn’t thought of that.

I tried to fight back the tears, but they started coming.

“Oh. Oh shit, Percy.” Camille stood from her bunk then sat on mine. She put her arm around me in an attempt to comfort me.

I started sobbing.

Camille rubbed my back while I sobbed. Another Hunter sat down on my other side. I looked up to find Heidi sitting next to me. A couple of others - Naomi, Alice, and Aspen, came over as well.

“What’s wrong, Percy?” Heidi asked.

I sobbed again.

“It’s about her friend. The girl who fell. Annabeth.”

“Oh,” Heidi said. “Lady Artemis said she would find her, Percy. I believe she will.”

“But what if she doesn’t!” I exclaimed. “What if she’s already-” I cut myself off with another sob.

“Don’t think like that. She’s alive. They’ll use her as a hostage, probably knowing that you care about her so much.”

I sobbed again. “She’s my best friend… I can’t lose her.”

Aspen crouched down and gave me a hug. “You won’t. If Artemis doesn’t find her by the time she gets back, we’ll go and find her ourselves.”

---

I was still feeling pretty miserable by the time dinner rolled around. The other hunters, even Zoë, all stopped at one point or another to comfort me. As they did, they all introduced themselves to me.

Of the ones I hadn’t yet learned the names of, there was Iphigenia - who apparently was the daughter of some dickhead king who fought in the Trojan War - and Acacia, a nymph from Africa who had joined to escape some rampaging Europeans during the late eighteen hundreds.

I spotted Thalia, sitting alone at the Zeus table. I wished she could sit somewhere else so she wasn’t alone, but the Camp’s rules required campers to sit at the correct tables for their godly parent (obviously, Hunters being required to sit at the Artemis table instead).

I spotted Piper and Nico sitting at the Hermes table. Piper was sitting awkwardly at one end, keeping to herself, while the Stoll brothers seemed to be busy trying to teach Nico how to play poker. I hoped for his sake he had no money to lose.

I ended up seated between Camille and Naomi, who continued trying to lift my spirits. They succeeded a little, and by the time we got around to desert, I was smiling again.

After we finished eating, Chiron cleared his throat. “Hello, campers. As you can see, we have a couple of new campers, Piper McLean and Nico di Angelo. I hope you all make them feel welcome. As you can also see, we are currently playing host to the Hunters of Artemis.” There was some muted applause. “Of course, as is customary, this does mean that tomorrow night we will be having a game of Capture the Flag. Hunters versus Campers, as usual.” That announcement got a better reception.

I tried to work up some enthusiasm for this. I loved Capture the Flag! But I could only let out a small cheer. It just wasn’t the same without Annabeth.

---

I fell asleep easily that night. On the downside, I had a nightmare, and it was a doozy.

Annabeth was on a dark hillside, shrouded in fog. It almost seemed like the Underworld, with the heavy clouds directly above, making me feel claustrophobic.

Annabeth was struggling up the hill. The were old broken columns made of black marble scattered around the hillside.

“Thorn!” Annabeth cried. “Where are you? Why did you bring me here?” She scrambled over a section of broken wall and reached the top of the hill.

She let out a gasp.

There, crouched on the ground, struggling to rise, was Luke. The darkness seemed to be thicker around him. His clothes were ripped, and he was drenched with sweat.

“Annabeth!” He called. “Help me! Please!”

Annabeth ran towards him.

I tried to shout, don’t trust him! He’s a traitor!

But my voice wasn’t working in this dream. I was stuck as a spectator.

Annabeth had tears in her eyes. She reached out to touch Luke’s face, but she hesitated.

“What happened?” she asked.

“They left me here,” Luke said, groaning. “Please. It’s killing me.”

I couldn’t see what was wrong with him. He appeared to be struggling against some sort of invisible curse, like the fog was squeezing him to death.

“Why on Earth should I trust you?” Annabeth said, her voice full of hurt.

“You shouldn’t,” Luke said. “I’ve done terrible things. But if you don’t, I will die.”

Let him!

Then the darkness above Luke started crumbling, like a cavern collapsing. Huge chunks of black rock started falling, and Annabeth rushed to Luke’s side just as a huge chunk of the ceiling collapsed. Somehow, she held it, the massive chunk of black granite resting on her back, prevented from crushing her and Luke with nothing but her own strength. It was impossible, yet she was doing it.

Luke rolled free, letting out loud gasps. “Thanks,” he said with a strained voice.

“Help me hold it,” Annabeth groaned.

Luke caught his breath, rising unsteadily. “I knew I could count on you,” he said as he started walking away as the darkness threatened to crush Annabeth.

“HELP ME!” she yelled.

“Oh don’t worry,” Luke said. “Help is on the way. It’s all part of the plan. In the meantime, try not to die.”

The ceiling started crumbling again, pushing Annabeth against the ground.

I sat upright in bed, gasping. There was no sound except for the other Hunters sleeping. I checked the clock hanging on the wall, which showed it to be just after midnight.

It was a dream, sure, but I was sure of one thing: it was real. Annabeth was in trouble. But she was alive.