CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - I REMEMBER EVERYTHING

Even though I had read constantly about the ignorance of mortals, I never realized how much they refused to believe in magic until I was actually witnessing it myself.

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake.

This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted me, Percy, and two other adolescents in New York and brought us across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror.

Percy Jackson and Avalon Green weren't international criminals after all. They'd caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from their captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus—"Why didn't I remember him before?"). The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no child could have done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo, and notified the police. Finally, brave Percy Jackson (great, I bet this was all going to go to his head) had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach, while Avalon Green had looked on, trying to get to her friend. Police arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy Jackson, Avalon Green, and their two friends were safely in police custody.

The reporters fed us this whole story. We just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't hard), and played victimized twelve-year-olds for the cameras.

"All I want," Percy said, choking back tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again."

I held his hand and looked into the camera, muttering words of comfort in his ear. "Every time I saw him on TV," Percy continued, "calling me a delinquent punk, I knew...somehow...we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number." The police and reporters were so moved by his touching story that they passed around the hat and raised enough money for four tickets on the next plane to New York.

Now, here's the thing. As much as I'd prefer flying to a train or bus, I still cannot stand planes. Ever since I was little, I would protest as much as I possibly could whenever we would have to fly. And, getting on a plane with a son of Poseidon holding the most deadly weapon in the world? Forget about it.

Takeoff was a nightmare. It was a two-seat-per-row plane, so Annabeth and Grover sat in front, while Percy and I took the back row. My fingers were turning purple from how hard Percy was squeezing them, and my own anxiety didn't help the situation, either. I knew that it was probably a better idea that Annabeth sit with Percy and I with Grover, but Percy insisted that I be next to him. It didn't help that there was an unusual amount of turbulence during the flight, no doubt Zeus swatting us around in the sky.

By the time we touched down in La Guardia, Percy and I were both stiff with terror. When Annabeth looked back at us, she couldn't tell if we were breathing or not. We slowly uncurled our fingers from the armrests and each other's hands, and stood on shaking legs. "Never again," I whispered to Percy. He agreed with me, wholeheartedly.

The local press was waiting for us outside security, but we managed to evade them thanks to Annabeth, who lured them away using her invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yogurt! Come on!," then rejoined us at the baggage claim.

When we got to the taxi stand, Percy backed away from the three of us. "You go back to camp and tell Chiron what happened," he said. "I'll go to Olympus and give Zeus his master bolt back."

"You can't be serious, Perce," I protested. "After all of that, you want to finish this alone?"

"Av is right," Grover chimed in. "We're with you until the end, no matter what."

Percy gave each of us a small smile. "I appreciate it, guys, but the fact of the matter is, this quest needs to be completed by me, alone."

Annabeth and Grover protested some more, but eventually they got into the cab. I stood by the open door, looking at my best friend. It was crazy to see how far he had come in just a few weeks.

Percy nodded to the taxi. "You should probably—"

I cut him off by throwing my arms around him. "I'm so proud of you, Perce," I whispered into his shoulder. "So proud."

He hugged me back, just as tightly. "Thank you, for coming on this quest with me. I know that it was a lot to ask."

I pulled away, and punched his arm lightly. "You know me, Jackson. How could I ever say no to an adventure?" I turned and stepped into the cab. Before I closed the door, I leaned out and said to him, "Say hi to your mother for me."

Percy's eyes widened, and he was about to ask what I meant, but I shut the door of the taxi and told the driver to step on it.

*

When we showed up at Half-Blood Hill without Percy, Chiron almost had a heart attack. We assured him that he was okay, and were invited into the Big House to recall our quest in front of him and Mr. D. Annabeth and Grover did most of the talking, but they had me chime in whenever I was needed to tell them of my previous knowledge.

"That was an...interesting tale," Chiron said. "But no matter. We will talk more when Mr. Jackson returns. Right now, I'm sure your cabin mates would like to assess for themselves that you are okay," he pointed to me and Annabeth.

We walked out onto the porch of the big house, and found that almost the entire camp had gathered. They broke into applause once they saw us. Grover and Annabeth had huge smiles on their faces, and I couldn't help but be pretty pleased with myself, too.

The three of us parted ways at the cabins. Annabeth went to cabin six, while Grover went into the woods. He had a meeting with the Council of Cloven Elders. I gave him a quick hug and some words of encouragement, before walking up to my own, golden cabin.

When I opened the door, I was greeted with even more applause. All of my half-siblings were there, smiling so wide I thought that their faces would break. Lee shouted out, "The conquering hero returns!" and Carla and Naomi bombarded me with hugs. Will was bouncing up and down with excitement, just like he was when I was claimed.

I remembered what I had said to Annabeth in the Underworld. I don't even know half of their names. They'll never replace my family. But, looking around my cabin, with them all smiling and laughing and demanding I tell them everything that had happened, I figured, maybe this wasn't a terrible place to start.

*

Percy showed up a couple of hours after we got back, and the cheering got even louder after that. We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated us as if we'd won some reality-TV contest. According to camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths to a big feast in our honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence.

Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful—gray silk with embroidered owls—Percy told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched him and told him to shut up, which made me laugh harder than I had in days.

My shroud was amazing, too. It was golden silk, with a drawn bow and arrow across a blazing sun. I could tell Percy was thinking about saying something similar, but one glare from me and he closed his mouth.

Percy actually had two shrouds to burn. Being the son of Poseidon, he didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make his shroud. However, knowing that they probably were going to make a huge joke out of it, Lee enlisted my cabin to make a second shroud for him. While the shroud from Ares's cabin was an old bedsheet, with painted smiley faces with X-ed out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle, the shroud that my siblings made was bright green, with blue waves along the bottom. I could see Percy's face burning while he took the second shroud, with Lee proclaiming loudly that his little sister's best friend wasn't going to be buried in a bedsheet.

As my siblings led the sing-along and passed out s'mores, I sat next to Percy, who was surrounded by his old Hermes cabinmates, Annabeth's friends from Athena, and Grover's satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand-new searcher's license he'd received from the Council of Cloven Elders. The council had called Grover's performance on the quest "Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past."

The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told me and Percy they'd never forgive him for disgracing their dad. Thankfully, after the bonfire, Clarisse came up to me and offered some more hand-to-hand combat lessons, which I gladly agreed to. At least she kind of liked me, now.

Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen our spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brat survived and how he'll have an even bigger head. Well, hurrah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday..."

Life at camp went back to normal. I woke with the dawn, trained with my friends, helped out in the infirmary with Will in exchange for intensive archery lessons, and I would see Percy and Annabeth throughout the day.

A week after we got back, Percy ran up to me while I was in master's archery. His face was red, and I got worried for a second, before realizing that it was because he was laughing. He thrust a letter into my hands, which was from his mother.

She said that Gabe had left mysteriously—disappeared off the face of the planet, in fact. She'd reported him missing to the police, but she had a funny feeling they would never find him.

On a completely unrelated note, she'd sold her first life-size concrete sculpture, entitled The Poker Player, to a collector, through an art gallery in Soho. She'd gotten so much money for it, she'd put a deposit down on a new apartment and made a payment on her first semester's tuition at NYU. The Soho gallery was clamoring for more of her work, which they called "a huge step forward in super-ugly neorealism."

But don't worry, Sally wrote. I'm done with sculpture. I've disposed of that box of tools you left me. It's time for me to turn to writing.

At the bottom, she wrote a P.S.: Percy, I've found a good private school here in the city. I've put a deposit down to hold you a spot, in case you want to enroll for seventh grade. You could live at home. But if you want to go year-round at Camp Half-Blood, I'll understand.

"Your mother is so sweet, Percy," I said, handing him back his letter. "Sweet and diabolical, my favorite combination."

Percy laughed, and pushed the letter back into my hands. "There's more on the back."

I looked at him, confused, because I was pretty sure that was the end of the letter in the book. But I looked on the back of the paper anyway. There was some hastily scribbled writing, like it was an afterthought. P.P.S. Tell you friend, Avalon, that I say hello. She has a good head on her shoulders, keep her around, Percy. From what you told me, she knows what will happen in the future, which means she'll know how to keep you safe.

I felt my eyes tearing up. The fact that Mrs. Jackson had remembered me was enough to make me cry, and then she added that she liked me. That felt like the ultimate compliment anyone could ever receive.

I gave Percy a bright smile, which he returned with just as much enthusiasm. Then, Chiron called me over, telling me it was my turn at the targets.

*

On the Fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus's kids, they weren't going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. They'd anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles. According to Annabeth, who'd seen the show before, the blasts would be sequenced so tightly they'd look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was supposed to be a couple of hundred-foot-tall Spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, then explode into a million colors.

As Annabeth, Percy and I were spreading a picnic blanket, Grover showed up to tell us good-bye. He was dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt and sneakers, but in the last few weeks he'd started to look older, almost high-school age. His goatee had gotten thicker. He'd put on weight. His horns had grown at least an inch, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.

"I'm off," he told us. "I just came to say...well, you know."

I gave him a sad smile and a tight hug. Even though he had only known me for a few months, I had known him half of my life. There was a tickling in the back of my brain, telling me that there was something I should tell him, but I couldn't extract the memory. I just hoped that it wasn't too important.

Annabeth gave him a hug next, and told him to keep his fake feet on.

"Where are you going to search first?" Percy asked.

"Kind of a secret," he said, looking embarrassed. "I wish you could come with me, guys, but humans and Pan..."

"We understand," Annabeth said. "You got enough tin cans for the trip?"

"Yeah."

"And you remembered your reed pipes?" I added.

"Jeez, you two," Grover grumbled. "You're sounding like old mama goats."

But I could tell he was hiding a smile.

He gripped his walking stick and slung a backpack over his shoulder. He looked like a normal hitchhiker you might see every day along the highway—nothing like the little runty boy I met on the bus.

"Well," he said. "Wish me luck."

He gave me and Annabeth another hug, clapped Percy on the shoulder, then headed back through the dunes.

Fireworks exploded overhead: Hercules killing the Nemean Lion, Artemis chasing the boar, George Washington (who, by the way, was a son of Athena) crossing the Delaware.

"Hey, Grover," Percy called.

He turned at the edge of the woods.

"Wherever you're going—I hope they make good enchiladas."

Grover smiled, and then he was gone, the trees closing around him.

"We'll see him again," Annabeth said.

"I know we will," I said, giving my two friends a smile. Grover would be the first to come back. He had to be.

*

The rest of the summer passed in a blur, and soon it was the last night of the summer session.

The campers had one last meal together. We burned part of our dinner for the gods. At the bonfire, the senior counselors awarded the end-of-summer beads.

I got my very own leather necklace, something I had been dreaming about for years, and when I saw the bead for my first summer, my head snapped to my right, where Percy was blushing madly beside me. The design was pitch black, with a sea-green trident shimmering in the center.

"The choice was unanimous," Luke announced. "This bead commemorates the first Son of the Sea God at this camp, and the quest he undertook into the darkest part of the Underworld to stop a war!"

The entire camp got to their feet and cheered. Even Ares's cabin felt obliged to stand. Athena's cabin steered Annabeth to the front, next to me, so she could share in the applause.

Looking around at the camp, I felt a surge of happiness and comfort. They may not be my parents or my sister, but they were my family, now. I belonged here.

One thing kept eating away at me, however. Who was the real lightning thief?

*

The next morning, I woke up at dawn, as usual. My cabinmates were just stirring as well. I gathered up my clothes for the day and made a dash for the bathroom, quick to get one of the stalls before there was a stampede.

All around the camp, there were kids saying goodbye for the year. There were plenty of campers who were braving the outside world for the school year. I didn't have anywhere to go, so I would be staying at camp. Chiron was a little hesitant when I told him, but I convinced him that I already had my education from my own parallel world, so there wouldn't be a point for me doing it again.

I helped my cabinmates with cleaning the cabin for final inspection, running around with brooms and mops. Most of them would be leaving, save a few, like Lee, Will, and the twins. I knew that Annabeth was leaving. She told me last night at the bonfire. She said that Percy and I had convinced her to give her father another chance. I smiled at that.

I didn't fully know Percy's intentions. That bit of information was clouded from my memory. Stupid Fates.

I decided that I was going to find him, maybe have one last canoe ride around the lake. I walked up to his cabin, and knocked on the door. There wasn't an answer.

"Percy? It's Avalon, I thought you might want to go down to the lake." No answer. "Perce?" I slowly turned the doorknob, and pushed the door in, thinking that he might be asleep. But his bunk was empty, as was his entire cabin.

I frowned. Where could he possibly be?

I walked around the camp, looking for him. I asked any straggling campers if they had seen him, but they said no.

I ended up at the archery range. Lee was there, doing his daily target practice.

"Hey, Lee!" I called. "Have you seen Percy? I can't find him anywhere."

Lee fired another arrow before answering. "I think I saw him head into the woods."

My face paled. "Alone?" I asked. The first rule we learned about the woods—never go in there alone.

He set his bow down and handed me a cup of water, before grabbing one for himself. "No," he said. "I'm pretty sure Luke was with him."

My fingers went numb, and the water cup fell out of my hand, landing on the ground with a thud, soaking my shoes. Images raced through my brain – Luke at Olympus, taking the master bolt and Hades's helm from the throne room; Luke being confronted by Ares, somehow managing to persuade the god to let him go; Luke talking to a voice in the darkness; Luke leading Percy into the woods, a strange sword at his side and an evil glare in his eyes.

I almost fell backwards when the images shattered, but Lee caught me. "What just happened?" he demanded.

I could barely speak. The Fates finally gave me all of the answers. "The—the lightning thief...I know who it is," I stammered out.

Lee looked at me, confused. "I don't understand, I thought Ares stole the bolt."

"No!" I shouted, startling Lee. I activated my magic purse, and nocked an arrow. "It was Luke! Luke stole the bolt, he's the one behind everything! He summoned the hellhound, he was the one who left the newspaper in Percy's cabin." I turned back to my half-brother, my face hardened with rage. "Where exactly did you see them go into the woods?" I demanded.

Lee was speechless at first. Then his eyes glinted dangerously, and he grabbed his bow from the table. "It looked like they were headed to the creek."