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a-hundred-jewels · 3 years ago

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cruel summer ch 12: i have these lucid dreams

Ao3 Wattpad

Summary: sabrina starr, pegasuses, and oh no! the fourth wall broke! do we have a carpenter in the audience?

Word Count: 9000 ish

Tags: Rachel Elizabeth Dare/Jane Penderwick, Rosalind Penderwick/Tommy Geiger, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jane Penderwick, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Rosalind Penderwick, Skye Penderwick, Chiron (Percy Jackson), Martin Penderwick, Elizabeth "Batty" Penderwick, Elizabeth Penderwick (senior), Iantha Aaronson-Penderwick, Ben Aaronson-Penderwick, Nico di Angelo, Will Solace, Annabeth Chase, Jeffrey Tifton-McGrath, Percy Jackson, Demeter (Percy Jackson), Apollo (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood AU, Demigods, demeter!elizabeth penderwick, demeter!rosalind (second generation), demeter!batty (second generation), apollo!alec mcgrath, apollo!jeffrey (second generation), demeter!jane (second generation), demeter!skye (second generation), all of that's in no particular order, main focus is on jane because i love her and she's so so fun to write, tomsalind is there (and stuff will happen - i can't really say what, it will really be eventful though), yes of course there's solangelo, takes place right before Penderwicks In Spring, After Trials of Apollo, more tags to come??, Minor Swearing

Notes and Full Chapter below cut:

Hello everyone and welcome back! I'll admit, this is a little later today than I'd been planning to post (was hoping to get an early start), but hey! If the Puppet History season 4 finale can be late, then so can I!

First off, a massive massive thank you to waterbottle_stickers for being the best beta reader ever. This chapter would be a mess without you. Also, if you haven't already, please check out their enola holmes fic wherever you stray, i follow it's truly wonderful.

If you've been following me on tumblr, then you'll know that, in addition to reblogging an alarming quantity of good omens fanart, I've been making some plans for fics this month. The original plan from back in august was to post every day of the month, but... ahhh.... I just don't work that fast lmao. I'll have to be content with just posting a fair amount this month. Happy october! Anyway, stay tuned.

On this fine day, we've got two lovely QUEER fanfic recommendations that I'm very excited to share. Up first is one from the tumblr blog izzielizzie (which you should all absolutely check out! especially if you're into the one of us is lying fandom!). it centers around the skye/melissa pairing and their senior prom, which Skye is said to have only gone to last minute, and also wearing a lab coat, in a passage of the penderwicks at last. featuring some oblivious lesbians and also jane. once again a massive thanks to izzielizzie, as this fic is one of my favourites!. click here to take a look! (also keep an eye on her blog in general bc her penderwicks fics are awesome!)

The second fanfic is also one I'm very fond of, as it focuses on the siblinghood of skye and jane, which is one of my favourite topics on earth. check out rolling down the ancient high street by hanchewie/ramblemadlyon (tumblr and ao3 respectively) for the sibling antics of aroace skye and bisexual jane when the latter visits the former at her college in california! and, if you like it, ramblemadlyon has two other penderwicks fics from the past couple days that look fantastic as well, and that I look forward to reading.

This chapter is dedicated to my therapist, since I've decided this will be the month of oddly specific dedications. thank you for telling me to stop referring to cruel summer as my "trash baby" and help me recognize the true worth that it holds in my life.

Disclaimer: not my characters, you know the drill. Jeanne Birdsall and Rick Riordan are lucky ducks indeed. chapter title is (obviously) from "lucid dreams" by Juice WRLD.

FROM THE POV OF JANE PENDERWICK

The woods loomed around me, seeming as tall as buildings as they invited me in further. I took another step, the sharp pain of a pinecone digging into my foot barely registered in my mind. I kept walking. A crack sounded throughout the air, and, behind me, a tree splintered round its base and fell down, only inches away from crushing me dead, and completely blocking the path out.

Frightened, I began to run, looking for a way out of the forest. But no matter which way I went, there were only trees in front of me. Where was the path? Where was the grassy hill I had walked down to get in here in the first place. Had I even walked down that hill to begin with? Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure I remembered coming here. I wasn’t sure I remembered waking up this morning, or going to bed last night, or anything besides existing in the forest. Who was I? What was I doing here? How could I get out?

Panicking, I stood in the middle of a clearing, looking frantically at the trees around me, trying to find something familiar. Nothing. I was exhausted. How long had I been here? An hour? A day? A lifetime? I collapsed at the base of a tree, sobbing as I tried to remember. Something. Anything.

Then, a voice echoed around me. “Welcome,” it said, and my mind went black.

I bolt upright in bed, a scream halfway out of my throat. I clamp it back, not wanting to wake my cabinmates. Thin light whimpers through the window--enough for me to see my white-knuckle grip on the sheets, but not enough to pass as daylight.

What time is it?

Our cell phones don’t really work here--that was one of the first things Miranda told us when we arrived, and Batty’s been gleefully lording it over us that her Mp3 player will still play music and, like, function, while our smart phones recline sadly in our duffel bags. That being said, I don’t feel quite brave enough to get out of my bed just yet and tiptoe over to the big analog clock that Rio bought at a pawn shop in Colorado. Maybe my phone will at least show the time.

I reach under my bed and fumble for my duffel, hooking my pinky through the zipper loop and yanking it out onto my floor. My phone’s in the front pocket, buried under two pairs of headphones, several gum wrappers, and some strawberry leaves (?????). A piece of gum peels off the screen as I disentangle my phone, and I mentally chide my past self for being so messy.

My phone does not turn on. Big clock it is.

I tiptoe across the cold tile and peer around the tree.

5:45 .

Jesus Pagan Christ.

It’s too early to wake anyone up (as I think this, Batty lets out a snore to rival any crabby Tyrannosaurus Rex), so I wrap a blanket around myself like a criminally attractive burrito, and creep out onto the porch, with my notebook and pen tucked into my shirt.

As long as I live, I will never get tired of summer mornings. There’s something deeply lovely about the soft light of the still-sleepy, pink lemonade sun, the quiet anticipation of the cool air, damp from dew and preparing for the upcoming heat. At home in Cameron, Skye’s woken me up many an early morning to go for a run or do soccer drills or for a grueling “Seven Minute Workout Except You Don’t Follow The Rules And Torture Your Sister by Making It Actually A Forty-Nine Minute Workout.” (But it’s okay, I’m not bitter). But, as delightful as those experiences have all been, I don’t think Skye really gets it. The beauty of the summer morning is not what it can do for your workout schedule, but rather in its gentle softening of an otherwise boiling day. It is to be appreciated in the way that I am now, sitting curled up on this frighteningly creaky porch (I mean, seriously, who built this?) and calling up the Sabrina Starr section of my brain to try and write away the residual panic from my nightmare.

Sabrina sighed as the plane took off. She wasn’t sure if she should have followed the voice in her head telling her to come here. Saying it out loud--even just thinking it--made it sound ridiculous. A dream, a voice in her mind. Barely more than a whim.

Worse than that, Sabrina wasn’t even sure where this whim was taking her. On a napkin in her pocket, she’d scrawled everything she remembered about the dream from the night before. The dark sky, lit only with spiderwebs of lightning, the shadowy figure huddled on a beach and soaked through with rain. The voice crying for help.

And a name. Aeaea.

After she’d woken up, Sabrina had looked up Aeaea, too tired to fully connect why the name felt familiar. Her heart had sunk further after reading the Wikipedia entry, and a breath of hopelessness had left her lips. According to the internet, Aeaea was not a real place. It had been the island prison of Circe. Fiction wasn’t new to Sabrina, and neither was mythology (she recalled an adventure spent with a ghost called Rainbow from a few years back).

Fictional places, though, were another matter. How could she get somewhere if she didn’t know where she was going? Was she trusting her gut with too much this time?

Sabrina folded up the napkin and put it back in her pocket. There was no point in worrying about that now. She’d looked at enough maps to make a guess at where Aeaea might be if it was real. When she got there, she could get more information. Sabrina Starr had survived this long in her career of rescues and whims. She could survive one more adventure. Worst case scenario, she said to herself, I spend a few days running around for nothing and have to brush up on my Greek.

She repeated it to herself like a promise. Worst case scenario, worst case scenario… Eventually, tired out from all her anxieties, and from trying desperately not to worry about what would come next, Sabrina fell asleep.

FROM THE POV OF RACHEL ELIZABETH DARE

“Okay, I give up. Tell me what’s wrong.” Annabeth’s voice startles me away from my plate of eggs, which I had been pushing around with a fork. Anxiety bubbles in my throat, just as it had been since I woke up, and food just doesn’t sound like a good idea.

“I--what?”

Annabeth waves her hand impatiently. “Don’t play dumb. I’ve been talking to you for five minutes and I don’t think you’ve looked up once. Also you’re always hungry in the mornings, so unless you, like, ate an entire cow before I got here, this ,” she gestures to my uneaten eggs, “is unusual behaviour.”

I give her a look. Sometimes, I get the feeling that Annabeth exists as a part of multiple different dimensions at once, like she’s having four other conversations that I can’t hear, and is still ten steps ahead of me in the one I’m actually a part of.

Or maybe I’m just easy to read.

“Nothing’s wrong.” I don’t want to talk about it. “I’m fine.” I’m terrified.

Annabeth sighs. “Is this about the prophecy?”

“No,” I spear another piece of egg, and don’t eat it. “Maybe. Yes.” I feel like going back to my cave and staying there for the rest of my life. Waiting with a book and some paints for the prophecy to get bored and go away. Maybe I’d take Jane with me, or Nico, for some company. That sounds nice.

My plate is pulled away from me as I aim my fork again. “I can’t pay attention when you do that,” Annabeth huffs. I think I wouldn’t invite her to stay in my cave. She’s too on the nose when I want to mope. Then again, she says the same about me.

“Fine,” I turn and face her. “Let’s talk feelings.” Connor Stoll, who had been making his way towards our table, abruptly turns around and walks the other way. I should get Chiron to hire a therapist. Gods know we need it.

Further proving my point, Annabeth’s eyes widen a little, before she remembers it is I who will be spilling. (I make a point to corner her later. It’s a routine we have). “Wow. You broke fast.”

I nod. “I’m tired and you’re annoying.” (False. We both know it. Another routine). “Like you said, I’m nervous about the prophecy.”

Annabeth nods. “And?”

I frown. “What do you mean, and ? There’s no and.”

Annabeth frowns back at me. A mirror, a mime, an annoyance. The nerve to look disappointed in me. “I thought you were spilling, Red.”

I roll my head back and study the roof of the pavilion, which Annabeth designed, and slowly lean my head down to stare at the table. I really don’t want to have this conversation. I go along anyways. “I’m worried about Jane.”

Annabeth leans back, triumphant. “Ah, yes. Your girlfriend.”

Maybe if I try reeeeeeeally hard, I can activate the Oracle of Delphi and freak Annabeth out enough to make her go away. “ Not my girlfriend. You know that.”

“You called Percy my boyfriend for weeks before we actually officially decided.”

I wave my hand dissmissively. “That’s different, you guys were dancing around each other for like three years. You needed a bit of a push. Jane and I kissed once! Over a week ago! And nothing came of it.” We actually haven’t really talked about it. We’re in this sort of in-between zone where we spend a ton of time together, but don’t have a label for it. Honestly, it’s been nice.

Annabeth grins, apparently reading my thoughts. “You’ve been eating lunch with the Demeter cabin, like, every other day. I saw you doing archery together yesterday. Both of you were awful at it, but you stayed there for hours. I’ve never seen you focus on something that long outside of your paintings.”

I stare at the ceiling again. Maybe Annabeth designed it so that a single square foot of rock might fall down onto my head and relieve me from this conversation. “Yes, fine, we spend a lot of time together. But that doesn’t make us a couple, and has nothing to do with what I’m actually worried about!” I can see in her face that Annabeth is more serious now, and is about to fully listen to me, when Percy and Malcolm show up, sliding into the seats across from us, and clanging several plates of pancakes down onto the table in front of them.

“Made them ourselves! Wanna share?” Percy gives Annabeth heart eyes and a kiss on the cheek when she folds a large blue pancake into thirds and bites it like a burrito. I roll my eyes at them because they are a horrifying and disgusting couple and also I kind of want to be them when I grow up. Malcolm ignores them, instead turning to me. “Were you talking about Jane?” he asks, pushing wire rimmed glasses up his nose.

I frown. “Sort of. Why?”

He shrugs, sheepish. “You know. Just, uh, just wondering.”

I narrow my eyes at him, then Percy, who tears himself away from looking at Annabeth to sigh dramatically. “Malcolm wants to ask out Jane’s sister. You know, the blond one.”

I snort. “ Skye? Seriously?”

Malcolm looks vaguely offended. “What’s so weird about that?”

“Sorry, it’s not weird.” I reach over the table to pat him on the shoulder with my fork. “Perfectly normal teenage hormones.” He glares at me and I smile sweetly back. “I just can’t imagine Skye going out with anyone, that’s all.”

Malcolm stares down at his pancake, disappointed. “Oh. You sure?”

I nod, feeling a little more normal with my friends and less doom-related breakfast conversation. My eggs are past the threshold of “warm and appetizing” but I take a bite anyway. “Pretty sure. Jane told me that she’s aroace and, based on past occurrences, there’s a seventy percent chance she’ll punch anyone who asks her out. Anyway, why the interest? I didn’t know you guys talked.”

Malcolm shrugs. “We don’t, really. She just seems cool.”

Percy pipes in, “He’s been practically obsessed with her since she won that soccer game against the Nike kids and made them cry.”

I nod approvingly. “Well, Malcolm, at least we know you have good taste.”

Annabeth pats him on the head, ignoring his complaints that her hand is covered in blue maple syrup. “Better luck next time, brother of mine.”

Piper and Leo join us next, contributing an alarming volume of grapes and a single hardboiled egg to the breakfast display. Leo grabs a pancake and wraps it around some grapes, before taking a big bite. “I hear you’re discussing Malcolm’s romantic failures,” he says around the world’s worst breakfast burrito. Piper gasps in mock offense, then swallows the unpeeled hardboiled egg whole, like a snake. (This is a regular morning routine. She’s trying to work up to being a sword swallower, since her dad did it in a movie once and she thought it looked like fun). “ Malcolm, why didn’t you come to me? I could have given you a verdict within five minutes!”

“I wanted advice on whether I should ask out that Heaphestus boy two weeks ago and you told me to fuck off.”

Piper pouts at him. “That’s on you, you caught me at a bad time.”

Annabeth holds up a pancake with the air of a respected royal and we turn to her. “As delightful as this is, Rachel and I were initially talking about her romantic prospects and also her worries and fears, and I feel that we should get back to that before she slinks off and avoids the rest of the conversation.”

I glare at her. “Why would you bring this away from the very nice conversation we were having about everyone else’s problems? Do you hate me?” Annabeth rolls her eyes. “No, dumbass, I’m just not letting you walk away from a potential breakthrough. Now, where were we? You were saying that you’re worried about Jane but it has nothing whatsoever to do with your relationship, or lack thereof.”

I give a long suffering sigh, and try to communicate telepathically with Piper that she needs to Save Me Now, but she’s looking at me in interest with her chin resting in her hands, her long fingers adorned with rings sent to her from her Mortal girlfriend, Shel, who bought them at a vintage punk store. The traitor. Defeated, I turn back to Annabeth.

“It’s just that, whatever ends up happening with this prophecy, I don’t want it to fuck her up, in the way the quests have sometimes done to us. Like, we’re used to this by now, but it hasn’t been a smooth road. I don’t exactly like going on quests, and at first I was really worried at the prospect of being included in a prophecy, since that’s fairly abnormal, but Jane was only made aware of her heritage a couple months ago! What if this turns out like Silena or Beckendorf or-or Jason, and the prophecy destroys her, and it’s all my fault because I’m the one who pulled her into all this?”

Everyone tenses up at the mention of Jason, but they continue to look at me with a mixture of concern and love that makes something soften inside of me. For the hundredth time, I think of how lucky I am to have these people who love me unconditionally. Even if they really, really need therapy.

“I know that I didn’t plan any of this, but we’re both tied in now, especially since both Chiron and I had the prophetic dream and I actually gave the prophecy that day in the woods, and, well, this isn’t her world yet. She’s only got a little bit of ichor in her, and she grew up knowing nothing of any of this. In a way, I did too, and I have no ichor, but I had clear sight. For me, it was ineffable, but she could technically leave any time, if it weren’t for the prophecy. She can leave, and I feel like it’s up to me to make sure that doesn’t change.”

“Oh, Rachel.” Annabeth reaches her arms out to me and I let myself be pulled into an embrace. “Jane’s going to be okay. We’ll make sure of it.”

Sabrina stood in line at the boat rental hut, her arms crossed and a frown plastered on her face. It had not been a successful afternoon. For hours, she’d been searching the coastal towns near where her plane landed, looking for some trace of Aeaea, or anything else she’d seen in her dream. She was used to working with dregs. It was normal for her to have to squint a little at the evidence, have to shuffle things together around big holes of “Maybe,” like she was working a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

But this was something else.

Sabrina had read about places where mythology shaped the culture. Places where the tourist draws were events that had supposedly happened thousands of years ago, or creatures that only existed in grainy photographs and people’s imaginations. Hell, she’d met the Loch Ness monster. Was it insane for her to have assumed she’d be able to find the same kind of thing here? All her training and years of experience had told her that, if you sniff around long enough, you’ll find a conspiracy theorist or a slightly off-the-rails guidebook.

So far, though, Sabrina had found nothing. Absolutely nothing. She hunted around, searching up library catalogs, checking every store on the street. “Aeaea,” “Circe,” even “the Odyssey.”

Nothing.

The line edged along slowly, and Sabrina ran her hands up and down her arms. The air was chilly from its proximity to the cold sea water. There were three people in front of her now. She just had to wait a little longer, then she would have a boat and be able to explore these waters herself.

Something was wrong with this place. Something was wrong with all of these places. And Sabrina was going to figure out what.

Later, Jane and I are taking our time walking to the pegasus stables to watch the riding lesson that Rosalind has reluctantly agreed to let Batty take (provided that Percy, who’s teaching today, doesn’t let her fly high enough that she’ll die if she falls off, and that Batty wears all of the necessary protective gear). Jane looks lovely, wearing a sunshine-y yellow bandana that sets off her dark curls and warm sepia skin. She has on her Camp Half-Blood shirt again, and a short green skirt, and all of it should clash horribly, but it doesn’t.

We’ve decided to cut through the strawberry fields, and I swallow a sun-warmed strawberry while Jane tells me about the dream she had last night. I think back to my conversation with Annabeth this morning when she tells me of the dark woods and the feeling of drowning, the memory warping and the echoing voice. At some point we sit down in a patch of grass, a simple circle amidst strawberry plants with a couple logs where the campers and satyrs take their breaks when they work here. Jane finishes her story and we sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, only broken by the grunts of annoyance Jane makes while trying to get her plant powers to activate again. She’s been doing that a lot.

“Well that sucks,” I say finally. “Have you been having other dreams like it?”

Jane shrugs, the neon orange fabric of her shirt wrinkling on her shoulders. “One or two, I think. Last night’s was the first one I really remembered. ” She smiles out of the corner of her mouth. “I hardly ever remember my dreams. It used to upset me. I thought I was losing potential writing material.”

I laugh. It’s such a Jane thing to think, that I can’t help it. She goes quiet, like she’s reminiscing, and I picture a tiny version of Jane, sitting crossed-legged on her summer quilt, writing. I look at her now, scrunched up nose and big brown eyes. Oh gods, she must have been an adorable child.

“My mother used to say that my imagination was the eighth wonder of the world,” Jane says. She’s looking down the hill at the cabins, plant powers temporarily forgotten, and I remember her telling me about her mother, the first Elizabeth Penderwick, who came here and was a daughter of Demeter and loved opera. The Penderwick siblings’ beloved mother who died so young.

I move closer to Jane on the log. “I can understand why she’d say that.”

Jane smiles again, a little sad this time, a little absent, but full to the brim with love.

“Bet you she’s in Elysium,” I say softly. I explained the Underworld to Jane a couple weeks ago, and she’d gotten this same absent look on her face, that I now know means she’s thinking about her mother. Jane nods, now, then turns to me. “Could we talk about something else?” Her voice is quiet, her eyes a little shiny.

“Course,” I say. “Shall I regale you with tales of dimwittery at this camp in the years past?” I told her last week about the time some Hermes kids tried to order pizza to the camp, accidently causing Chiron to think we were under attack. Jane had nearly fallen off the bench laughing.

She grins now, but shakes her head. “Tell me what it’s like being an Oracle.” I give her a look. She’s asked me before and I never really know what to say. When I give prophecies, it’s like I black out. I’m taken over by another entity who shares my body. (“Like that lady in Suicide Squad ,” Leo had said when I tried to explain it to him once, but I’d refused to be compared to such a gods-fucking-awful movie). So, in a way, I don’t know what it’s like to be the Oracle.

As if reading my thoughts, Jane shakes her head. “Not that part. I’ve seen you all green and smokey, and I know you can’t feel it. I mean the other stuff. How did you know it was you? What did you have to do to become the Oracle? That kind of thing.” I relax a little. Jane’s asked me all sorts of weird questions about Greek mythology and the gods recently. She calls it “research for her book,” but sometimes I think she’s just nosy. It’s cute.

Jane shrugs and looks off into the distance. If you tilt your head a little you can kind of see the stables from here. We have fifteen more minutes to get there, according to my watch. I decide to take it easy. “Delphi is this weird ethereal spirit,” Jane continues, “but there’s also just everyday, Oracle you, who likes paint and denim and bagels.” At that, I laugh. “I actually don’t like bagels that much. I’m just late to breakfast so often that they’re usually the only things available.”

Jane pouts at me and plays with the bracelet tied around my wrist--the one she gave me. “You know what I mean! You know all this weird shit about me because my siblings don’t shut up at lunch, and I know stuff about you, like the denim thing, which I still think is funny by the way. But you’re also the freaking Oracle! Your dormant self lies waiting!” I laugh at her, and she rolls her eyes, but I see the corner of her mouth tilting up. “Rachel, that’s very cool!”

I give in. “Honestly, there’s not much to say, that’s why I don’t talk about it.” I pause. “Well no, it’s that a lot of the stuff beyond the obvious is actually sort of creepy and weird, and not in a good way. There’s stuff I try not to think about, is what I mean.”

The edge of her yellow bandana sticks up as Jane tilts her head at me. “That makes sense. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

I shake my head. “No, it feels okay right now.” I mean it. Now that I’ve gotten into the swing of it, I do want to talk about it. Still, a small sigh escapes me. “I like being the Oracle, because that’s what brought me to a place where I feel like I belong and I have people who love me. It’s nice to know that I’m fulfilling my purpose in life.”

Jane pulls her knees up to her chest. “But?”

“But I also get lonely.” It comes out in a rush. “There are other oracles, but I didn’t know about any of them until the Apollo thing happened, and even then, they’re all supernatural beings--I know, I know, but not in the way I am. It’s not the same. Also, there are all these weird rules. Like I have to stay an unmarried virgin my whole life.”

“That’s fucked,” Jane says softly.

“I know! Chiron won’t even tell me why, just that it’s ‘the rules’” I let out an annoyed huff. “And, like, it’s not even that the idea itself bothers me. That’s pretty much what I was planning to do with my life anyway.”

“Same.”

“But it’s the principle of the thing!” I flick a strand of hair out of my face, offhandedly noticing that the tip of my pinky finger is slightly green. I ignore it. It’s not important. “Just because I don’t want to have sex or get married doesn’t mean it’s a fair rule to impose on me! Besides, why is it always the women in these things whose identities are tied up in who they do or don’t fuck? Last I checked, Grover didn’t have to sign an ‘I shalt not fornicate’ contract when he became Lord of the Wild!”

“Exactly!” Jane raises her hands and shouts up to the sky. “Don’t you fuckers realize we’re more than that?”

“The Hunters of Artemis, too!” I’m a jack-in-the-box, and something’s winding me up. “Thalia and Reyna send me letters all the time, and they seem really happy! Which is great!” I pause to emphasize the greatness of their happiness. My pinky is completely green, now. “But, they also had to make a stupid ‘ode of chastity,’ like I did!”

“Are you kidding me?” Jane’s hair flips as she turns to me. “I thought Artemis was one of the good ones!”

My voice lowers to a husky rumble, and I stare into the distance towards you, the reader. “In a broken system, there are no good ones. Abolish the police.” I clear my throat and my voice turns back to normal. “Sorry, zoned out for a second.” My green pinky has begun to vibrate.

“Happens to the best of us,” Jane’s voice is light and nonchalant. “And yeah, I know. Pretty much all of the gods have skeletons sitting on their shoulders, but it just seems out of character for her. I thought all of Artemis’s groups were supposed to be safe havens, not oppressive structures in their own right.”

I frown. “Yeah you’re right, that is weird. I’d never thought of it much beyond the gods having weird rules, but I wonder if something bigger is at play. The gods might be fucked up in the way that regular people are, and are undoubtedly responsible for all sorts of crap. But then there's more personal things, like the ‘chastity vows’ the Hunters and I had to take, and the fact that Nico was initially outed by Eros, and the weird unexplained eye condition that Piper had during some of her quests that made her eyes a bunch of bright, Eurocentric colors, rather than their natural brown. All sorts of other stuff, too.”

“Wow!” Jane says, sitting up straight on the grass. Her hand moves from where it was resting in her lap to cover her heart. “It’s almost like a bunch of genuinely good and inspiring material, such as including prominent queer people and characters of color in fun children’s fantasy, as well as having an immortal group of warrior women who support each other and are free from the gaze of men, was taken into the hands of a cis white man armed with unchecked misogyny and a fair amount of white Twitter feminism, both of which really showed when he tried to create an inclusive and empowering book series for children! Like yeah, it had its moments, and definitely some good characters, but overall, a lack of meaningful research in certain areas really made it fall flat!” Once again, I stare through the bindings of URLs and internet coding, now joined by Jane as we lock eyes with you, the reader. This time, we hold eye contact for nearly a minute, giving you time to read and process the long tangent spat out by this fanfic’s author, who, if we’re being honest, has gone just a tad off the rails right now. Finally, Jane and I look away from you, and resume our roles as fictional characters, still shaking off that strange cloud that comes with staring into the soul of those who give you life.

“Ugh, what’s going on with me today?” Jane groans at the same time I mutter, “What’s Twitter?” We turn to each other, blinking in the sunlight, then grin. This is normal. We’re fine. Jane looks up at the sky again. “I wonder if the gods are watching us. Maybe we should make them think we suck so they’ll leave you alone.”

I laugh as she sticks her tongue out, grinning wickedly at a nearby cloud. “Better yet, make them think we’re too powerful to be messed with,” I say. Jane sees me watching her and opens her mouth, sucking the cloud in between her teeth. The sky seems bluer in the space where it had been, and Jane’s eyes glitter with mirth as she swallows. “Mmm, tastes like sugar.” I giggle, feeling a small shiver on the top of my head. When I peer up, I see another cloud has floated over to me. I open my own mouth, and take it in, just as Jane did hers. “Sugar, yes. But there’s a touch of blood, too,” I say. Jane nods sagely. “What were we talking about?”

“The inherent misogyny in much of Greek mythology and the world of Camp Half-Blood in general.”

Jane nods again. “Right. A very important topic. It makes it weird when I’m writing sometimes. You know, cause I want to bring in Circe and Zeus and Apollo and all these fascinating characters, but there’s just so much bad stuff tied up with them that comes up when I research.” She looks down at our feet, which are standing in the midst of a strawberry patch. We seem to have been walking, crushing sweet summer strawberries as we go, which is odd because I don’t remember getting up. “You know Rachel, I’m feeling a bit strange.”

I look at her, and see an odd blankness in her warm brown eyes. “Now that you mention it, Jane, so am I.”

“My thoughts and words are my own,” Jane says, “But there’s something up with my body. I can’t really feel it.”

“I agree, I’ve honestly gone a bit numb.” I try to glance down at my fingers, wondering idly if they’ve gotten any more green, but find that my neck won’t bend.

Jane’s eyebrows furrow. “Yet, at the same time, I feel as though I could do anything. Grow another grass blade. Grow a flower. Grow a tree. Bend the world to my will if I wanted to.”

“Or is it the world bending me to its will.” I grin at my own philosophical point, but find that the smile won’t go away. Pretty fucking inconvenient, since the next thing I was going to bring up was part of the whole serious misogyny conversation. I decide to go for it anyway. “And I’m not the only one with weird rules!” Jane nods, as if this is a perfectly normal segway, and the only extraneous thought that floats through my mind as we find ourselves walking down a hill is how unfair it is that she still has control over her neck and I don’t. “Remember when I told you about the Hunters of Artemis?”

“Oh yeah! Your friends Reyna and Thalia, right?”

“Yeah, them! They send me letters sometimes, and seem really happy, which is great.” I pause, meaning to add emphasis, when I’m hit with a great sensation of deja-vu. “Wait a second, we already talked about this, didn’t we?” I try to remember, but something in my mind is rapidly melting. I cannot find it. I cannot find anything.

“Jane?” My voice quivers, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Oh gods, please let this be a dream. For a moment, I try to convince myself that it’s the Oracle of Delphi taking over, just like she did the other day and generally does a couple times a year. But I know that I’m lying. This is not what that feels like. “Jane, where are you?” I can barely move my mouth to say the words. I can feel nothing but the frozen fear of paralysis, of lost control. When I open my eyes, this other thing in my body has brought me to the edge of the forest. “Jane? Jane?” She could be right beside me, unable to speak, and I wouldn’t know because I can’t turn my head, can’t move my eyes, can barely even hear right now.

It’s okay, something says.

“Jane?” It’s not her voice. It’s no one’s voice.

It’s okay. You’re home.

With every cut the wooden oars made through the choppy ocean water, Sabrina knew she was getting closer. She could feel it in her bones, in her brain, a little voice that whispered in her ear. It had been three hours. Her body was worn down, energy levels dipping dangerously low, when she felt something scrape the bottom of her boat.

A rock.

Frantically, she peered through the fog that had begun to surround her boat a mile ago. The island. Had she finally made it?

As if answering her call, a peel of thunder rang out, and Sabrina’s boat began to fill with rain that pounded down from the sky. The storm from her dream. She rowed even faster, then, fear sparking a renewed strength in her tired muscles.

Just as Sabrina was about to reach the shore, a massive wave crashed over her, and her boat capsized. She came back up, sputtering, holding her sopping wet bag above her head. Another wave swept against Sabrina’s face, and she found herself spitting out a mouthful of saltwater. Finally, she washed up on the shore, heaving breaths raking through her lungs.

Sabrina blinked, pushing herself up onto her elbows. It was real. She was here.

She had made it.

FROM THE POV OF ROSALIND PENDERWICK

It’s been a pleasant day so far. Breakfast with my siblings and some of the Demeter cabin (though Jane did seem a bit absent-minded). Miranda, Florien, and Rio convinced me to practice some plant magic with them for a couple hours and I built up to growing a small sunflower. Lunch (again with Jane seeming distracted, though Rachel ate with us this time, which appeared to help). Then, Skye and Jeffrey disappeared with some of the older campers (supposedly for a regular game of soccer, but the unsettling gleam in their eyes had me doubting that was all there was too it), Jane and Rachel went to take a walk in the strawberry fields, and Batty and I were left to prepare for a pegasus riding lesson. If it had been up to Batty, the latter could have easily taken up the entire afternoon, but changing into durable pants and finding a bandana can only take so long.

After a somewhat restless hour, during which I grew three peonies and Batty rhapsodized about the stable of unicorns that another demigod camp apparently has, Batty and I arrive at the stable. We’re ten minutes early, and she’s been talking a mile a minute the whole time, not stopping from before. I swear I now know as much about pegasuses as she does. According to Rachel, the teacher today is Percy, her friend, who’s very responsible “when he puts his mind to it.” I wasn’t sure how to tell her that’s actually not very comforting, but Batty looked so excited and I figured there will be plenty of other people there, so. Why not. She’s been spending so much time there anyway.

Needless to say, I very much regret my decision now.

The stables are modest, made of wood and painted green, and I’ve been there several times by now. There’s a long line of stalls visible when we first walk in, but Batty skips straight to the far end, where a massive pegasus the color of a carrot pokes its head over the door and nuzzles Batty’s hair. She looks up at me with a smile that could melt anyone’s heart, and pats the horse on the nose. “Rosy, this is Queen Lotus Flower. Percy said we have a impenetrable bond.”

I look at the two of them with a questioning gaze. How can they both have the exact same puppy-dog eyes? I swear to god. The gods. All of them. “Batty, sweetheart. That horse is like ten feet tall.”

She nods enthusiastically. “I know, she’s so much taller than any other horse I’ve seen. Percy says she has the biggest wingspan of any horse at camp.”

I nod, slowly, wondering why my sister picked the biggest pegasus to fall in love with. At that moment, Percy pushes the door open. “Hey Batty! Ready for your lesson?” Batty leaves her post by Queen Lotus Flower to wrap her arms around my waist and nod. I look Percy over. He’s a few inches taller than me, with brown skin and curly hair. A beaded camp necklace, orange tshirt, and jeans. Weird arm tattoo aside, he’s one of the most normal-looking people at camp. I’ve only met him a couple times before, but, my nerves over Batty flying around on massive horses aside, I do trust him. Rachel seems to have a good taste in friends. Also, Batty likes him, and she’s still shy around a good number of Skye and Jane’s friends back in Cameron.

For the next few minutes, I watch as Percy instructs Batty on buckling Queen Lotus Flower’s giant saddle and looping the bridle over her nose. Not wavering a bit from the “lesson” aspect of all this, he steps back to let her show what she’s already learned from hanging around the stables so often, only stooping in to guide her when she gets confused. As the minutes tick by, more people show up for the lesson: three other students, and a good sized crowd of people who just like watching the pegasuses. By then, I’m seated on the grass outside the stables, soaking in the blistering sun and watching as Percy (seated atop a wiry black pegasus who Batty pointed out as Blackjack) darts around the large dusty enclosure, making final preparations for the lesson.

Skye and Jeffrey show up then, and sit on either side of me. I want to ask them where Jane and Rachel are, but they’re talking non-stop about a game they just played in the woods with some of the other campers, only switching the subject when Percy and Blackjack return and they begin discussing whether or not it should be scientifically possible for a horse to fly.

Just as Batty and Queen Lotus Flower begin a gentle trot around the enclosure, I feel a tap on my shoulder, and hear the familiar sound of Tommy’s chuckle. “She’s got a weird knack for that,” he says. I nod, grinning.

It’s been good with us. We’ve had breakfast together a few times, even played a game of basketball one afternoon. Our conversations aren’t the same as they used to be, and there’s a sense of newness that feels cold and strange every so often. But it’s good. It feels right. At least for now, this feels like where we’re supposed to be.

As Percy starts demonstrating how to take flight, I look around again. Jane and Rachel still aren’t here. They promised to come. (“For moral support!” Jane had said. “Wouldn’t miss it,” Rachel had added with a smile). I try to push it out of my head. This lesson is a big deal. Batty’s going to be flying.

She leans forward on Queen Lotus Flower’s neck.

They begin to run, moving together like a single being.

Just as they burst into the air, Batty’s euphoric smile lighting up the sky, Katie grabs my shoulders from behind. I shush her so I can lean forward and watch Batty silhouetted against the pegasus’s wide orange wings.

“Rosalind. Rosalind, guys. ” Something about the panic in Katie’s voice makes me turn around. Her usually tied back hair is loose and her clothes rumpled, giving the impression that she was dragged out of bed for this. (Some part of my brain distantly remembers her saying she was going to take a nap). Skye and Jeffrey turn around, too.

“What, what’s happening?” I reach out my hands, trying to calm her as she collapses into a squat, breathing heavily.

“Billie… found me in the cabin… had been looking for you guys… been running all over the camp… lucky I remembered about the riding lesson…”

Jeffrey leans over and puts his hands on her shoulders. She stares down at the dirt while her breathing levels.

“Katie, what are you saying? Why were you and Billie looking for us?”

She looks up, and I see that her forehead is drawn into well-worn creases of worry. “Jane and Rachel have gone into the woods.”

Something was wrong. Sabrina crouched on the wet sand, straining to see through the heavy rain. In her dream there had definitely been someone else on the island. She remembered the hunched figure, the sound of sobs leaking through the rain.

But she’d circled the shore at least twice by now, and there was nobody to be found. “Am I late or something?” she wondered aloud. Somehow, she’d gotten that dream It felt like it had been sent to her. Why did it show a person when there was no one?

Sabrina sighed and began to traipse inland, tucking a knife in her pocket. It wasn’t a big island, and she might as well find some shelter aside from her boat, which was now overturned somewhere on the beach. Circe lived here, didn’t she? There must be some sort of roof, especially if this kind of weather was standard.

Or maybe this was just a random island and there was no Aeaea and Sabrina’s dream had just been the unhinged work of her unconscious mind.

There was a small grassy hill set aside from the sand, which Sabrina crawled up with the determination of a dying warrior. Something was pushing her back. An invisible force, a last crumb of survival instinct, plain old fatigue, she wasn’t sure. But something wanted her out of here, and it pushed back harder and harder as she climbed.

She let out a cry of frustration, clawing at the ground, at the air, at whatever this goddamn thing was, and found a renewed burst of strength that pulled her to the top of the hill. Once there, the force that pushed back ebbed a little, like it was giving up. Sabrina let herself relax, and simply took in the view for a moment.

The hill she lay on top of gave way to a deep valley, sprawling and green. In one corner, there was a cluster of trees that looked healthy and comfortable, despite being on a random Greek island in the middle of the ocean. A modest garden lay next to it, somehow appearing unaffected by the rain, and a narrow river wound around the whole scene.

There was also a house.

Sabrina wasn’t sure what she might have expected from the lair of an infamous Greek enchantress, but it wasn’t this.

She hauled herself up on the hill and started down, rushing through the rain onto a wide wooden porch. There was a large stone vat of something dark and crumbly, with a heavy looking staff of sorts leaning against it. The door to the house was short, and Sabrina heard it scrape on the floor when she pushed it open.

The scene awaiting her was surprisingly cozy when she stepped inside. There was a fire in the hearth and rows upon rows of little viles arranged on a set of shelves beside it. A broom leaned against the wall. Sabrina looked around, noting the way that the rain didn’t make any sound as it thrashed against the roof and window, and the almost drug-like stupor that threatened to take over her brain, whispering that everything was fine, she was safe, nothing bad could happen to her.

Sabrina had encountered hypnosis before, and it only ever made her more jittery.

There was an open hatch in the floor with stairs that lead into darkness. She followed them down, feeling the air grow cooler with every step. Sabrina was quiet, taking tiny steps on her toes, and wincing when one of the stairs creaked. She didn’t know what was down there, and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. But there were no arrows flying up from the space below, no sounds of footsteps or slashes of swords.

Sabrina stepped onto a dirt floor and let herself exhale, shuffling along until her toe hit something hard. Only seasoned reflexes made her reach for the knife in her pocket instead of crying out in fear. She knelt down and squinted in the darkness, trying to see what she’d hit.

A leg.

She frowned, shaking it until she heard a low growl. “Stop that.” She stopped.

“Who are you?” Sabrina leaned closer. If they hadn’t killed her yet she was probably safe.

Instead of answering, they reached out a hand. Sabrina could see a gold ring on the thumb that glinted in a little sliver of light that had crept down from the room above. “Pull me up,” the figure said. “I’ve been paralyzed by the witch.”

Helping the stranger sit turned out to be no simple feat. They were tall and muscular, wearing a cape and a heavy metal chest plate. “The witch?” she questioned, propping them up against one of the cellar’s dirt walls. Her eyes were beginning to adust to the dark, and she could just make out their sharp chin sticking out as their head lolled back.

The figure made a noise. “The witch, the sorceress, the woman. Whatever you want to call her. I figure she sent you down too?” They snorted. “Good luck. I told Zeus not to sent mortals, but does he ever listen? You’re gonna die.”

Sabrina tried to piece together what she could from all this. The witch must be Circe, unless she’d wound up on an entirely different island. And if Circe was going around paralyzing people, then something must be going on. She must be hiding something. As for the person in front of her, Sabrina wasn’t sure who they were. By the way they talked about Zeus, and casually said “mortals,” she’d guess some sort of god? As if that narrowed it down. She’d have to be careful.

“Why did she paralyze you?”

Another weird gutteral noise. “She didn’t like my offer. It’s not the first time this has happened.”

She was growing impatient. Why’d he have to be so vague? “What?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why he always sends me. I don’t think he trusts me. He’d rather me stay her paralysed in the basement of a witch than come back home.”

Sabrina let out an exasperated sigh. This wasn’t working and she needed answers. A whole coast of people with mythology-shaped holes in their memories awaited her. “You’re going to need to be a little more specific. I don’t think we’re on the same page.”

The figure sounded confused. “What do you mean? Don’t you know who I am?”

She leaned forward and inspected them in the darkness. “No. No I don’t.”

They slid their eyes down to her face. “I am the god Apollo. I came here for Circe and she did this to me.”

“What? Why?”

The stairs creaked behind Sabrina and she felt a long nail drag up her back. “I just want to be left alone,” said a voice as deep and powerful as the smell of red wine. “You don’t mind, do you?” Before Sabrina could grab her knife and turn around, before she could even scream, strong arms had surrounded her shoulders and a hand was clamping a damp cloth over her nose and mouth. Shock made her breath in, sharply, and she smelled the sweetness of sleeping drugs.

A heartbeat, a brief struggle, and Sabrina Starr was gone.

#cruel summer fic #cameron writes #the penderwicks #penderwicks #camp half blood #camp half-blood #rachel elizabeth dare #jane penderwick #rosalind penderwick

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