The Trials of Apollo, Book One: The Hidden Oracle Page 10

  Chiron gave him a pained smile. “An excellent question, Malcolm, but this course will not take you into the woods, which we believe is the most hazardous area. The satyrs, dryads, and I will continue to investigate the disappearances. We will not rest until our missing campers are found. In the meantime, however, this three-legged race can foster important team-building skills. It also expands our understanding of the Labyrinth.”

  The word smacked me in the face like Ares’s body odor. I turned to Austin. “The Labyrinth? As in Daedalus’s Labyrinth?”

  Austin nodded, his fingers worrying the ceramic camp beads around his neck. I had a sudden memory of his mother, Latricia—the way she used to fiddle with her cowry necklace when she lectured at Oberlin. Even I learned things from Latricia Lake’s music theory class, though I had found her distractingly beautiful.

  “During the war with Gaea,” Austin said, “the maze reopened. We’ve been trying to map it ever since.”

  “That’s impossible,” I said. “Also insane. The Labyrinth is a malevolent sentient creation! It can’t be mapped or trusted.”

  As usual, I could only draw on random bits and pieces of my memories, but I was fairly certain I spoke the truth. I remembered Daedalus. Back in the old days, the king of Crete had ordered him to build a maze to contain the monstrous Minotaur. But, oh no, a simple maze wasn’t good enough for a brilliant inventor like Daedalus. He had to make his Labyrinth self-aware and self-expanding. Over the centuries, it had honeycombed under the planet’s surface like an invasive root system.

  Stupid brilliant inventors.

  “It’s different now,” Austin told me. “Since Daedalus died…I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. Doesn’t feel so evil. Not quite as deadly.”

  “Oh, that’s hugely reassuring. So of course you decided to do three-legged races through it.”

  Will coughed. “The other thing, Dad…Nobody wants to disappoint Harley.”

  I glanced at the head table. Chiron was still holding forth about the virtues of team building while Harley bounced up and down. I could see why the other campers might adopt the boy as their unofficial mascot. He was a cute little pipsqueak, even if he was scarily buff for an eight-year-old. His grin was infectious. His enthusiasm seemed to lift the mood of the entire group. Still, I recognized the mad gleam in his eyes. It was the same look his father, Hephaestus, got whenever he invented some automaton that would later go berserk and start destroying cities.

  “Also keep in mind,” Chiron was saying, “that none of the unfortunate disappearances has been linked to the Labyrinth. Remain with your partner and you should be safe…at least, as safe as one can be in a three-legged death race.”

  “Yeah,” Harley said. “Nobody has even died yet.” He sounded disappointed, as if he wanted us to try harder.

  “In the face of a crisis,” Chiron said, “it’s important to stick to our regular activities. We must stay alert and in top condition. Our missing campers would expect no less from us. Now, as to the teams for the race, you will be allowed to choose your partner—”

  There followed a sort of piranha attack of campers lunging toward each other to grab their preferred teammate. Before I could contemplate my options, Meg McCaffrey pointed at me from across the pavilion, her expression exactly like Uncle Sam’s in the recruitment poster.

  Of course, I thought. Why should my luck improve now?

  Chiron struck his hoof against the floor. “All right, everyone, settle down! The race will be tomorrow afternoon. Thank you, Harley, for your hard work on the…um, various lethal surprises in store.”

  “BLAM!” Harley ran back to the Hephaestus table to join his older sister, Nyssa.

  “This brings us to our other news,” Chiron said. “As you may have heard, two special newcomers joined us today. First, please welcome the god Apollo!”

  Normally this was my cue to stand up, spread my arms, and grin as radiant light shone around me. The adoring crowd would applaud and toss flowers and chocolate bonbons at my feet.

  This time I received no applause—just nervous looks. I had a strange, uncharacteristic impulse to slide lower in my seat and pull my coat over my head. I restrained myself through heroic effort.

  Chiron struggled to maintain his smile. “Now, I know this is unusual,” he said, “but gods do become mortal from time to time. You should not be overly alarmed. Apollo’s presence among us could be a good omen, a chance for us to…” He seemed to lose track of his own argument. “Ah…do something good. I’m sure the best course of action will become clear in time. For now, please make Apollo feel at home. Treat him as you would any other new camper.”

  At the Hermes table, Connor Stoll raised his hand. “Does that mean the Ares cabin should stick Apollo’s head in a toilet?”

  At the Ares table, Sherman Yang snorted. “We don’t do that to everyone, Connor. Just the newbies who deserve it.”

  Sherman glanced at Meg, who was obliviously finishing her last hot dog. The wispy black whiskers at the sides of her mouth were now frosted with mustard.

  Connor Stoll grinned back at Sherman—a conspiratorial look if ever I saw one. That’s when I noticed the open backpack at Connor’s feet. Peeking from the top was something that looked like a net.

  The implication sank in: two boys whom Meg had humiliated, preparing for payback. I didn’t have to be Nemesis to understand the allure of revenge. Still…I felt an odd desire to warn Meg.

  I tried to catch her eye, but she remained focused on her dinner.

  “Thank you, Sherman,” Chiron continued. “It’s good to know you won’t be giving the god of archery a swirly. As for the rest of you, we will keep you posted on our guest’s situation. I’m sending two of our finest satyrs, Millard and Herbert”—he gestured to the satyrs on his left—“to hand-deliver a message to Rachel Dare in New York. With any luck, she will be able to join us soon and help determine how we can best assist Apollo.”

  There was some grumbling about this. I caught the words Oracle and prophecies. At a nearby table, a girl muttered to herself in Italian: The blind leading the blind.

  I glared at her, but the young lady was quite beautiful. She was perhaps two years older than I (mortally speaking), with dark pixie hair and devastatingly fierce almond eyes. I may have blushed.

  I turned back to my tablemates. “Um…yes, satyrs. Why not send that other satyr, the friend of Percy’s?”

  “Grover?” Nico asked. “He’s in California. The whole Council of Cloven Elders is out there, meeting about the drought.”

  “Oh.” My spirits fell. I remembered Grover as being quite resourceful, but if he was dealing with California’s natural disasters, he was unlikely to be back anytime in the next decade.

  “Finally,” Chiron said, “we welcome a new demigod to camp—Meg McCaffrey!”

  She wiped her mouth and stood.

  Next to her, Alice Miyazawa said, “Stand up, Meg.”

  Julia Feingold laughed.

  At the Ares table, Sherman Yang rose. “Now this one—this one deserves a special welcome. What do you think, Connor?”

  Connor reached into his backpack. “I think maybe the canoe lake.”

  I started to say, “Meg—”

  Then all Hades broke loose.

  Sherman Yang strode toward Meg. Connor Stoll pulled out a golden net and threw it over her head. Meg yelped and tried to squirm free, while some of the campers chanted, “Dunk—her! Dunk—her!” Chiron did his best to shout them down: “Now, demigods, wait a moment!”

  A guttural howl interrupted the proceedings. From the top of the colonnade, a blur of chubby flesh, leafy wings, and linen diaper hurtled downward and landed on Sherman Yang’s back, knocking him face-first into the stone floor. Peaches the karpos stood and wailed, beating his chest. His eyes glowed green with anger. He launched himself at Connor Stoll, locked his plump legs around the demigod’s neck, and began pulling out Connor’s hair with his claws.

  “Get it off!” Connor wailed, thrashing
blindly around the pavilion. “Get it off!”

  Slowly the other demigods overcame their shock. Several drew swords.

  “C’è un karpos!” yelled the Italian girl.

  “Kill it!” said Alice Miyazawa.

  “No!” I cried.

  Normally such a command from me would’ve initiated a prison lockdown situation, with all the mortals dropping to their bellies to await my further orders. Alas, now I was a mere mortal with a squeaky adolescent voice.

  I watched in horror as my own daughter Kayla nocked an arrow in her bow.

  “Peaches, get off him!” Meg screamed. She untangled herself from the net, threw it down, then ran toward Connor.

  The karpos hopped off Connor’s neck. He landed at Meg’s feet, baring his fangs and hissing at the other campers who had formed a loose semicircle with weapons drawn.

  “Meg, get out of the way,” said Nico di Angelo. “That thing is dangerous.”

  “No!” Meg’s voice was shrill. “Don’t kill him!”

  Sherman Yang rolled over, groaning. His face looked worse than it probably was—a gash on the forehead can produce a shocking amount of blood—but the sight steeled the resolve of the other campers. Kayla drew her bow. Julia Feingold unsheathed a dagger.

  “Wait!” I pleaded.

  What happened next, a lesser mind could never have processed.

  Julia charged. Kayla shot her arrow.

  Meg thrust out her hands and faint gold light flashed between her fingers. Suddenly young McCaffrey was holding two swords—each a curved blade in the old Thracian style, siccae made from Imperial gold. I had not seen such weapons since the fall of the Rome. They seemed to have appeared from nowhere, but my long experience with magic items told me they must have been summoned from the crescent rings Meg always wore.

  Both her blades whirled. Meg simultaneously sliced Kayla’s arrow out of the air and disarmed Julia, sending her dagger skittering across the floor.

  “What the Hades?” Connor demanded. His hair had been pulled out in chunks so he looked like an abused doll. “Who is this kid?”

  Peaches crouched at Meg’s side, snarling, as Meg fended off the confused and enraged demigods with her two swords.

  My vision must have been better than the average mortal’s, because I saw the glowing sign first—a light shining above Meg’s head.

  When I recognized the symbol, my heart turned to lead. I hated what I saw, but I thought I should point it out. “Look.”

  The others seemed confused. Then the glow became brighter: a holographic golden sickle with a few sheaves of wheat, rotating just above Meg McCaffrey.

  A boy in the crowd gasped. “She’s a communist!”

  A girl who’d been sitting at Cabin Four’s table gave him a disgusted sneer. “No, Damien, that’s my mom’s symbol.” Her face went slack as the truth sank in. “Uh, which means…it’s her mom’s symbol.”

  My head spun. I did not want this knowledge. I did not want to serve a demigod with Meg’s parentage. But now I understood the crescents on Meg’s rings. They were not moons; they were sickle blades. As the only Olympian present, I felt I should make her title official.

  “My friend is no longer unclaimed,” I announced.

  The other demigods knelt in respect, some more reluctantly than others.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, my voice as bitter as Chiron’s tea, “please give it up for Meg McCaffrey, daughter of Demeter.”

  You’ve got to be kid—

  Well, crud, what just happened there?

  I ran out of syl—

  NO ONE KNEW WHAT TO MAKE OF MEG.

  I couldn’t blame them.

  The girl made even less sense to me now that I knew who her mother was.

  I’d had my suspicions, yes, but I’d hoped to be proven wrong. Being right so much of the time was a terrible burden.

  Why would I dread a child of Demeter?

  Good question.

  Over the past day, I had been doing my best to piece together my remembrances of the goddess. Once Demeter had been my favorite aunt. That first generation of gods could be a stuffy bunch (I’m looking at you, Hera, Hades, Dad), but Demeter had always been a kind and loving presence—except when she was destroying mankind through pestilence and famine, but everyone has their bad days.

  Then I made the mistake of dating one of her daughters. I think her name was Chrysothemis, but you’ll have to excuse me if I’m wrong. Even when I was a god, I had trouble remembering the names of all my exes. The young woman sang a harvest song at one of my Delphic festivals. Her voice was so beautiful, I fell in love. True, I fell in love with each year’s winner and the runners-up, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for a melodious voice.

  Demeter did not approve. Ever since her daughter Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, she’d been a little touchy about her children dating gods.

  At any rate, she and I had words. We reduced a few mountains to rubble. We laid waste to a few city-states. You know how family arguments can get. Finally we settled into an uneasy truce, but ever since then I’d made a point to steer clear of Demeter’s children.

  Now here I was—a servant to Meg McCaffrey, the most ragamuffin daughter of Demeter ever to swing a sickle.

  I wondered who Meg’s father had been to attract the attention of the goddess. Demeter rarely fell in love with mortals. Meg was unusually powerful, too. Most children of Demeter could do little more than make crops grow and keep bacterial fungi at bay. Dual-wielding golden blades and summoning karpoi—that was top-shelf stuff.

  All of this went through my mind as Chiron dispersed the crowd, urging everyone to put away their weapons. Since head counselor Miranda Gardiner was missing, Chiron asked Billie Ng, the only other camper from Demeter, to escort Meg to Cabin Four. The two girls made a quick retreat, Peaches bouncing along excitedly behind them. Meg shot me a worried look.

  Not sure what else to do, I gave her two thumbs-up. “See you tomorrow!”

  She seemed less than encouraged as she disappeared in the darkness.

  Will Solace tended to Sherman Yang’s head injuries. Kayla and Austin stood over Connor, debating the need for a hair graft. This left me alone to make my way back to the Me cabin.

  I lay on my sick cot in the middle of the room and stared at the ceiling beams. I thought again about what a depressingly simple, utterly mortal place this was. How did my children stand it? Why did they not keep a blazing altar, and decorate the walls with hammered gold reliefs celebrating my glory?

  When I heard Will and the others coming back, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I could not face their questions or kindnesses, their attempts to make me feel at home when I clearly did not belong.

  As they came in the door, they got quiet.

  “Is he okay?” whispered Kayla.

  Austin said, “Would you be, if you were him?”

  A moment of silence.

  “Try to get some sleep, guys,” Will advised.

  “This is crazy weird,” Kayla said. “He looks so…human.”

  “We’ll watch out for him,” Austin said. “We’re all he’s got now.”

  I held back a sob. I couldn’t bear their concern. Not being able to reassure them, or even disagree with them, made me feel very small.

  A blanket was draped over me.

  Will said, “Sleep well, Apollo.”

  Perhaps it was his persuasive voice, or the fact that I was more exhausted than I had been in centuries. Immediately, I drifted into unconsciousness.

  Thank the remaining eleven Olympians, I had no dreams.

  I woke in the morning feeling strangely refreshed. My chest no longer hurt. My nose no longer felt like a water balloon attached to my face. With the help of my offspring (cabin mates—I will call them cabin mates), I managed to master the arcane mysteries of the shower, the toilet, and the sink. The toothbrush was a shock. The last time I was mortal, there had been no such thing. And underarm deodorant—what a ghastly idea that I should need
enchanted salve to keep my armpits from producing stench!

  When I was done with my morning ablutions and dressed in clean clothes from the camp store—sneakers, jeans, an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, and a comfy winter coat of flannel wool—I felt almost optimistic. Perhaps I could survive this human experience.

  I perked up even more when I discovered bacon.

  Oh, gods—bacon! I promised myself that once I achieved immortality again, I would assemble the Nine Muses and together we would create an ode, a hymnal to the power of bacon, which would move the heavens to tears and cause rapture across the universe.

  Bacon is good.

  Yes—that may be the title of the song: “Bacon Is Good.”

  Seating for breakfast was less formal than dinner. We filled our trays at a buffet line and were allowed to sit wherever we wished. I found this delightful. (Oh, what a sad commentary on my new mortal mind that I, who once dictated the course of nations, should get excited about open seating.) I took my tray and found Meg, who was sitting by herself on the edge of the pavilion’s retaining wall, dangling her feet over the side and watching the waves at the beach.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  Meg nibbled on a waffle. “Yeah. Great.”

  “You are a powerful demigod, daughter of Demeter.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  If I could trust my understanding of human responses, Meg did not seem thrilled.

  “Your cabin mate, Billie…Is she nice?”

  “Sure. All good.”

  “And Peaches?”

  She looked at me sideways. “Disappeared overnight. Guess he only shows up when I’m in danger.”

  “Well, that’s an appropriate time for him to show up.”

  “Ap-pro-pri-ate.” Meg touched a waffle square for each syllable. “Sherman Yang had to get seven stitches.”

  I glanced over at Sherman, who sat at a safe distance across the pavilion, glaring daggers at Meg. A nasty red zigzag ran down the side of his face.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” I told Meg. “Ares’s children like scars. Besides, Sherman wears the Frankenstein look rather well.”