Finally a high school graduate and a summa cum laude :)  I didn’t even know I was one until I got my name card (go figure).  Anyway, enjoy the chapter! 

Chapter Quote:

“Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.”

~Deborah Reber, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul

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Chapter 18: I Ride a Rainbow

Thalia left the next day.  She gave me a big hug, warned me that if I tried to take over the world again, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, and told me Annabeth was still ticked off that Thalia and I had broken up and sort of blamed me.  I understood though.  After that, for the next week, I gave Shiloh space.  Of course, it wasn’t hard considering I didn’t see her once, not even during meal times.  I was curious about it but didn’t question it.  I figured her concussion was worse than anyone thought and Chiron was keeping her on bed rest for a long time, even with ambrosia and nectar.

However, when I started asking Percy and Annabeth about it, and they always cleverly turned the subject away from her, I became suspicious.  There was obviously something they weren’t telling me, and I needed to find out what.  I tried to find Shiloh in the infirmary, but she wasn’t there.  She wasn’t in her cabin, although her stuff, albeit unusually tidy, was there.

“What are you doing, Castellan?” a girl asked.  I turned around to find Clarisse glaring suspiciously at me.

“I’m trying to find Shiloh.  Do you know where she is?”

“I do, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you.  She doesn’t want to be near you, boy.”

“I know that, thank you.  But it’s important.  I really need to talk to her.  I-I know about her curse,” I lied.  I don’t know where it came from, it sort of just slipped out.  And besides, it wasn’t an outright lie, it was just partial truth.  I did know about her curse, just not… what it entailed.

“You know about that?” Clarisse raised surprised eyebrows at me.

“You know about it?” I countered.

“Yeah.  Percy, Annabeth, Chiron, and I know.  I only know because I accidentally found out.  Why am I telling you this?”

“Because you’re a wonderful human being?”

“I am a demigod, dimwit.  Did she tell you about why Aphrodite cursed her?  Why Aphrodite won’t let her have a boyfriend?”

“No, she just told me about the curse.”

“Well, you’ll have to find her to ask her that.”

“Where is she?”

“I’m still not telling you that.  Don’t do anything stupid Castellan, and if you hurt her again, I’m going to put your head on a pike and display it in front of my cabin, got it?”

“Why do you care so much about Shiloh?”

“One, I feel bad for her.  And two, she was there for me after Silena died.  I owe her.  Now, I have some battle strategies to plan.  I’d say see you later, but I don’t want to.” Clarisse stalked off, leaving me alone.  I needed to find Percy.  He would know where she is, and this time, I wouldn’t let him change the subject.

Luck was on my side.  I found the son of Poseidon with Annabeth on the beach.  It wasn’t hard finding him.  It’s pretty easy to see a guy surfing on waves that are fifty feet tall and with no surfboard to keep him upright.

“Hey Annabeth,” I greeted, giving her a smile.

She smiled. “Hey you.  What’s up?”

“I need a straight answer from you.  Where’s Shiloh?”

Her smile faltered.  Percy suddenly showed up next to her.  I hadn’t even see him do so.  He asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I really need to know where Shiloh is, Percy.  I know about her curse.  I have to talk to her.”

“How did you find out?” He demanded.

“May’ve gotten Clarisse to tell me without realizing.  She only told me what the curse is.  Not how it happened or anything.  But please tell me where Shi is.  You two have changed the subject each time I’ve asked.  I won’t let you do it anymore.”

The couple glanced guiltily at each other before Percy said, “She’s going to kill me… all right, you want to know where Shi is?  Well she’s not here with us.”

“I noticed.”

“No, I mean here with us, meaning the campers.”

A cold pit settled into my stomach. “What do you mean?”

“Shiloh left the day she got out of the infirmary, which was the day after her injury.  She only told a few people: me, Annabeth, Clarisse, Chiron, the Stolls, and Grey.  She didn’t want people to know she was leaving.  It was hard enough for her already.”

“What do you mean?” I repeated.

“This place has been her home for years and suddenly she’s going off on her own to explore and leaving all her friends behind.  It was hard for her.”

I plopped down on the ground, letting the situation sink in.  Shiloh was gone and deep down, I knew part of the reason was me.  She’d been fed up with me.  I didn’t blame her for it.  But I had to go after her.  I had to apologize.  I had to tell her I knew about her curse.  I had to tell her I understood her fear about falling for me.  I had to tell her she didn’t have to fear it.

I had to tell her that her curse was broken.

I also had to keep her out of trouble.  I scrambled up and started walking briskly to my cabin.  Percy and Annabeth followed me.

“What are you doing?” Annabeth inquired.

“I’m going after Shiloh,” I replied, throwing the door open to my cabin and pulling out a backpack.  I started stuffing things I’d need in there.  As I zipped the backpack up, Percy grabbed my arm and forced me to turn around.

“You don’t even know where she is!” he told me.

I shouldered my backpack. “But you do.”

Percy paled. “I’m not going to betray my sister.”

“Land or sea?  Just tell me that.  I can figure it out from there.”

The son of Poseidon sighed. “Sea.  She took her boat.  She kept it in a hidden cave where the woods and Long Island sound met.  The only people who knew about it were me, Tyson, and Beckendorf.  Tyson’s been helping her finish it the past few days.  I can’t help you any more than I already have Luke.”

“That’s all I needed to know.  Thank you, Percy,” I said, clapping my hand on his shoulder.

“Just know that if you do find my sister, and you get her killed, I don’t care how much Annabeth cares about you, I will kill you.”

“You and Clarisse both.  I’ll see you two soon.  Don’t do anything stupid.”

“How can we?  You’re taking all the stupid with you,” Annabeth bantered, although I could tell just how worried she was about me.

“I can take care of myself, I promise little sis.” I kissed her on the top of her head.  She had always been like a little sister to me.  I’d die before I hurt her again.

With that, I left the two of them and bolted into the woods in search of the cabin.  I received some directions multiple times from the wood nymphs.  They were pretty reluctant to help me but after an hour and a half of searching and asking, I finally came across the cave.  The place was huge, and I wondered how no one else had found it.  Then again, it’d been wonderfully concealed.  It was obvious the last person who’d been here had been here recently, in the past week, which would match up with Percy’s story.  I walked over to a counter that contained architectural designs, spare tools, and maps.  It was the maps that caught my interest.  Each one was transparent, like those things you put on overheads to project them onto the wall.  And each one had a place circled, some had lines traveling through islands, making me wonder how she was going to drive a boat through an island.

But then it struck me.  These were transparent maps.  And they all were the same area.  I quickly started layering them on top of each other, and slowly but surely, an exact plan started to form.  From what it looked like, she was sailing from Long Island Sound down the coast of the US all the way to Cozumel, Mexico to Belize City, Belize, up to the Cayman Islands, to Haiti and the Dominican Republic, then to Puerto Rico, and finally visit Aruba, Curacao, and Bonaire off the coast of Venezuela.  I noticed she was carefully avoiding areas in the middle of the Sea of Monsters.  I didn’t blame her.  That was a hellish place.  If she had left six days ago, and considering her boat was probably top of the line with autopilot (even though she can probably just tell it where to go and it listens) and high torque and horsepower and a phenomenal engine, she was probably already halfway to Florida, meaning somewhere along the coast of Virginia.  The most sensible place was probably Virginia Beach.  Hey, I had to start somewhere.

Now I just had to figure out how I was going to get there.  I mean I could use my flying shoes but I swear those things have brains and don’t like me right now and are being finicky, so those were out of the question.

Maybe I could teleport myself there?  I’d teleported myself before, but I wasn’t sure if that was my own doing or the power of Backbiter… but supposedly, some children of Hermes had the ability to teleport.  My dad claimed I’d been his favorite, so maybe he’d given his favorite son special powers?  I closed my eyes and concentrated on what I remembered about Virginia Beach when I’d been there last.  I waited, and waited, and waited, feeling nothing extraordinary happen.  Opening my eyes, my surroundings were still the same.  Giving a sigh, I resigned myself to the idea that I might actually need to ask a god.  I felt bad asking anything from my dad.  Regret over my past actions still hindered my ability to ask him for things overall.  Besides, while my dad was god of travelers, my situation needed someone who was an expert on the seas.  It was stupid and it probably wouldn’t work, but I decided to pray to Poseidon.  I knelt down next to the water and stuck my hand in, thinking: Hello Poseidon, this is Luke Castellan.  You know of me, and most likely, you hate me which, seeing as how I almost brought your destruction, you have every right.  This will sound impertinent, but I need your help.  I have wronged your daughter, and I must make amends.  There is no other option for me.  I have an idea of where she has gone but I have no way of getting there.  If could you send me an idea or way to get to her, I will be forever grateful.

I pulled my hand out of the water and waited, not really expecting anything.  You can imagine my surprise when the water started to bubble in front of me.  With just recently having experienced a sea monster, I involuntarily took a few steps away from the water’s edge.  A Cyclops emerged though, rather than a sea monster, and it was one that looked familiar, although I couldn’t quite place why.  Before I could react to his presence, the Cyclops slammed his fist into my chest, sending me flying into the cave wall.  When I felt to the ground, he picked me up and pinned me roughly to the wall.

“What is daddy’s enemy doing?  Asking for daddy’s help?” the Cyclops demanded.

“I’m trying to find his daughter.  It’s urgent that I speak with her.”

“Why you search for Shiloh?” He gave me a suspicious glare.

I gulped. “We had a fight, I insulted her in every way possible when I should’ve been apologizing and I didn’t, but I need to talk to her about her curse.  I-I think it’s broken.”

“And why should Tyson help?  Why should daddy help?”

Tyson.

Percy and Shiloh’s half-brother.  Their very sweet, very protective, very strong half-brother.

“Because you, Percy, and Poseidon probably all know how much trouble is attracted to her.  I know I cause her trouble, but at least I can help her fix it… and I need her, and not just because she’s the reason I’m still her on earth.  I’ve been miserable without her, Tyson, even when I was mad at her.  Please help me get to her.  I could never hurt her, at least not knowingly.  I swear.”

Tyson stared at me accusingly. “Hurt her, I bash your head in with my club and eat peanut butter in celebration.”

“Get in line, buddy,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.

“I’m not your buddy,” he retorted.  Tyson walked back to the water and stuck his hand in.  Moments later, a beautiful sea creature emerged.

A hippocampus.

“Meet Rainbow,” the Cyclops said. “Rainbow, meet Luke.  If he mistreats you, buck him off.” Rainbow whinnied in what I guessed was agreement. “Take him to Shiloh.”

I carefully got onto the hippocampus.  It was the biggest one I’d ever seen.  I grabbed onto its mane as tight as I dared, not wanting to hurt it and have it buck me off.  Tyson handed me some sugar cubes to give the hippocampus once the journey was complete before slapping Rainbow on the butt.  He whinnied again and shot off into Long Island Sound.  I looked over at the beach for Camp Half-Blood.  Not many campers were there, but I could’ve sworn I saw a black-haired boy and blonde-haired girl waving goodbye.  I waved back.

Then I focused all my attention on the ride.  This was going to be a long trip and I had to stay awake.

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Okay!  Here’s the chapter!  Sorry I didn’t post it last night, it was a bad day (I had to put my dog down…) so I wasn’t up to writing… but here it is!  New chapter will be up soon!  Oh and I’m going on a cruise on Friday and I forget when I’ll be back but I’ll probably write chapters while on the boat so when I get back I’ll post them all :) Review!