chapter fifty-two

─── maybe it's a child of pluto trait to gaslight people

          ℑ would like to tell you that as the big, strong, heroine of Olympus and only daughter of Poseidon, I fought my way out of the earth and won but that would be a lie. I fell unconscious pretty quickly after the earth tried to suffocate me and when I came to, it was to Frank trying to help me cough out mud.

I think I ate a lot of it but hopefully I had a healthy gut after this.

Hazel took that time to tell us about what Gaia had offered her; about the muskeg and the visions she'd seen but then she told us about Gaia's offer of a fake life, and the goddess' claim that she'd captured her brother.

The name brought back another memory to me.

"That little shit head." I spat another clump of mud from my mouth as Hazel and Frank watched me. "I'm going to kill him."

"Kill who?"

"Nico." I growled, memories of a small boy playing Monopoly with me and eating dinner with my mom coming back to me. "I knew I recognised him. I knew it!"

"You know Nico?"

"Do I know Nico? He lived with my mom for a year and a half. I had to drive his ass to school." I growled out. "When I get my hands on him...trying to gaslight me...oh that little shithead."

There was no malice in me, but instead I felt a new type of fear well up inside me. The fear for what was going to happen to Nico. I might be annoyed that he hadn't told me who I was, but the thought of him hurting or in pain was not a good one.

"She still wants us all as pawns. She knew what to say, how to get to me..." Hazel shook her head as I looked up at the sun that was high in the sky. 

"We're not going to let you die again." Frank slung his jacket over her shoulders We fell silent, before I turned back to them.

"We should get going. We're losing time." I looked down the road, hoping that my skin was returning to its normal colour instead of blue from the cold. "Any hotels or something where we could clean off, ones that accept teenagers covered in mud?"

"I'm not sure." Hazel admitted, looking at the town below us in confusion, before humming. "I might know a place actually."

"Great, let's get going then."

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Hazel led us to a house that was boarded up with a sagging roof, salt having worn down the front of it.

"Are you sure." Frank questioned as Hazel kicked a window in. "Hazel! Romy, tell her that's breaking and entering."

"Good beginner crime in my opinion."

"You are no help." He hissed as I grinned, following Hazel inside. Frank reluctantly followed as we looked around at the dusty room. There was a thick layer of grim covering everything, as if it hadn't been used in a while, and mouldering carboard boxes were stacked along the walls. "It's warmer in here at least. Guess no running water? Maybe I can go shopping, I'm not as muddy as you guys. I could find us some clothes."

"Yeah, maybe that's an idea." I agreed as Hazel continued to look around. "We still need to find a way to the glacier, and quickly."

A choked sob had both me and Frank rushing towards where Hazel was crouching, holding onto a photo tightly.

"Hazel?" We both crouched by her side as Frank gently took the photos from her hand. "Who...?"

Hazel hiccupped as I wrapped an arm around her gently, pressing a kiss to her head.

"Sorry Hazel. This must be really hard for you." Frank muttered, stopping himself from asking more questions. "Do you want some time-?"

"No." Hazel croaked, brushing her tears as I examined the rest of the photos and drawings in the alcove. She must have done them when she was younger. "It's fine."

"Is that your mother?" I pointed to one of the photos of a dark skinned woman with similar facial features to Hazel, a slight smile on her face as they posed in front of a business sign. "She's beautiful, Hazel. You look like her."

Hazel pouted, eyes welling with tears as I looked at the photo in Frank's hand before my eyes narrowed. I'd seen that face before.

"Who is that?"

"That's...that's Sammy. He was my friend from New Orleans." Hazel forced herself to look at us, her lips still trembling.

"I've seen him before." I had seen his face. When I'd seen the ship being built, he'd been there, fiddling away and talking to my cousin and the other girl.

"You couldn't have." Hazel protested. "That was in 1941. He's...He's probably dead now."

"I guess. Stil..." I huffed, before shaking my head. Telling her that I'd seen her dead friend's doppelganger was probably not going to go down well in the slightest.

"Look, we passed a store on the last block. We've got a little money left. Maybe I should go get you guys some food and clothes and something to clean off with?" Frank offered, as Hazel dragged a gold prospecting sign back over her mementos. 

"That would be great." Hazel took a deep breath, standing up. "You're the best, Frank."

"Be back soon." He nodded at me, before heading for the broken in window and jumping out of it. I groaned, standing back up as my joints all cracked. Gods, I was growing old.

Seeing a relatively comfy looking set of boxes, I laid Riptide down, before collapsing onto them with a grunt.

"Thank you, for saving me." I looked over at Hazel, who was dragging some other boxes into a makeshift bed too. "I should have made more of a deal out of that earlier."

"You would have done the same for me."

"Of course." I nodded at her, before shaking my head. "It wasn't my finest moment, I have to admit. All I could think about what Ella's prophecy, that I was drowning. Drowning in mud wouldn't have been my best way to go."

I swallowed, trying not to think of what would happen. I reached for the necklace, touching the ring on it softly as I tried to think to where I got it. That memory was still shrouded to me.

"I thought I was dead." My voice wobbled in an embarrassing sort of way as I coughed and tried not to cringe at myself. I was twenty-one. I needed to get it together.

"Romy, that prophecy might not have been complete. Frank thought Ella was remembering a burnt page." Hazel looked over at me, trying to cheer me up. "Maybe you'll drown someone else."

"You think so?" I grinned, as Hazel nodded.

"You're going to make it back home. I'm going to make you get back home, so you can see your boyfriend and your mom." Hazel said determinedly. I grinned, admiring her determination. It reminded me of someone else, someone who'd also been forced to step up into a huge responsibility at a young age.

"You're going to make it back home too, Hazel, wherever you feel home is." Hazel watched me with wide eyes. "Frank won't let anything happen to you, and I won't either."

"Nico only brought me back so that I could correct my mistake, maybe get into Elysium." She tore up some paper, hiding her eyes from me. "I don't belong in this century."

"Kid, if there's one thing I've learnt, you can't spend your entire life trusting someone else to make the decisions for you. Regardless of how you got here, you're here." I sat up, kicking her boxes gently until she looked at me. "You belong here. You belong on this quest, and you belong at camp, no matter the reasons you were brought back."

"But, I have to right a wrong. I almost ki-" She stopped herself, biting her lips.

"Hazel, you're 13." I squeezed her hand gently. It was so small in mine reminding me that whilst she tried not to act like it, she was still a child. "This isn't your fault and it's not your responsibility. You are a child. You deserve a childhood, not having to worry about fighting and getting into Elysium."

"I need to right this wrong." She muttered.

"Then we'll help you right it." I patted her head, before smiling. "But you've still got to take control over your own life. You've still got to have hope."

"Success!" Frank called, throwing the window open as our little moment disappeared. He beamed, jumping in as he showed off his prizes. He'd managed to get a new quiver of arrows, some rations and a coil of rope. "For the next time we run across muskeg."

Frank chucked us some new clothes, some water and soap as I was quick to douse my hair and change into the clean clothes. It took us a few minutes to get ourselves all together and ready for the next issue.

"So, now we find a boat to Hubbard Glacier." Hazel was trying to sound confident, sipping on some water as I wrung my hair out, plaiting it quickly behind me.

"If we're going to battle to the death, I want lunch first." Frank clambered out the window, holding a hand out to help us jump through. "I found the perfect place."

"You were only gone for like 10 minutes." I shot him a look. "Were you running everywhere?"

"No. I could just see everything. Duh." Frank pulled a face, leading us to an old railway car that had been converted into a diner. 

"Okay, order up. It's on me."

"We all share the same pot of money." Frank shot me a look as I rolled my eyes.

"It's the principle." I scowled in response as Hazel placed her order, asking for a cheeseburger and fries. 

"I'm going to go and see what I can find out about a boat." Hazel cut into our bickering. I nodded, shooting her a thumbs up as Frank and I ordered, finding a seat as we tried to devise a game plan for the giant that we were about to face.

By the time our food came out, Hazel was back.

"We're in trouble." I stopped chewing my first bite of food, looking over at her. "I tried to get a boat but...I miscalculated."

"No boats?" Frank swallowed, looking a little panicked.

"I can get a boat, but the glacier is further than I thought. Even at top speed, we wouldn't get there until tomorrow morning." Hazel sighed as a thought came to me.

"If I could make the boat go faster, that might work?"

"The captains tell me that it's a maze of channels and icebergs to navigate. You'd need to know where you were going." Hazel shot down that plane quickly.

"A plane?" Frank offered up.

"I asked about that too, but it's a tiny airfield, we'd need to have booked it two to three weeks in advance."

"Brilliant." We ate in silence after that. Despite how good the food had been, everything now tasted like ash. We were going to miss the deadline and then camp would be destroyed. Both camps.

A strangled squawk drew my attention away from my food, as we turned to look at the telephone pole.

"Are you kidding me?" Both younger kids had jumped up, staring at the gryphon that was watching us with pure malice in his eyes. Frank tried to shoot it, but it shrieked loudly in a call for reinforcements as I groaned. "Now I don't have time to finish my food. Thanks for nothing!"

I swore at the gryphon as Frank grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked me upwards and towards the docks.

"Why have you got to antagonise them?" I spun, slashing at it's feet with Riptide as it got too close. "They're already annoyed."

"I was stating the obvious. They didn't let us finish our food." We skidded to a stop beside Hazel and the end of the nearest pier. The gryphon swooped towards us as I groaned, forcing the water to abide by me as my stomach twisted into knots. There was a startled squawk, and I caught sight of the gryphon clinging to the pier, shivering and shaking.

"Nice one." Frank grunted.

"Didn't know if I could still do that in Alaska." I scanned the horizon before scowling. "Bad news though, look over there."

There was a dark cloud swirling towards us, a whole flock of gryphons as Frank nocked another arrow.

"I'm not going down without a fight."

"That's the spirit." I grinned, before Hazel shoved me out of the way. "Ow!"

"Arion! Over here!" There was a tan blur ripping down the pier, screeching to a stop and disintegrating the gryphon as he did. "Good horse! Really good horse!"

I grabbed Frank before he could fall off the end of the pier.

"How-"

"He followed me!" Hazel beamed, looking ecstatic as she patted the horse's neck. Arion looked smug. "Because he's the best horse ever! Now, get on!"

"All three of us?" I turned to her. Surely no normal horse could carry three people at once. "Can he handle it?"

Are you calling me weak? Are you saying I'm fat?

"Gods above, you jump to conclusions way too quickly." I pointed at the horse as he attempted to bite my finger. "Let's go!"

We climbed on, both Frank and I clinging tightly to each other and saying quick prayers as Arion cackled.

"Run Arion!" I sent a final prayer to my father, hoping that I wasn't going to fall off of the horse. "To Hubbard Glacier!"

The horse shot across the water, his hooves turning the top of the sea to steam.

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Hiya,

So Andi's being motherly towards the kids and her and Frank are basically another version of siblings. Andi's finally worked out that Nico's been gaslighting her and is both impressed and annoyed. Arion jumps to conclusions quicker than he runs, and I love them.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx