The Vesta House Squad

11) The Other New Girl, Part 2

"I can read people's minds."

Actually, that wasn't technically true, as she didn't actually possess any telepathic abilities. She did however, have the ability to deduce what people were thinking based on their body language, mostly facial expressions. As a result she lied, since it was easier to do that than go through the trouble of explaining exactly how her powers worked. She had already had to do that with Chiron yesterday...

The two of them were sitting in the Big House. Katrina had just woken up a few minutes ago, after the manticore's poison caused her to black out and she had to be carried to the infirmary. Chiron had asked her fill him in on everything that had happened, since Grover was still out of commission.

"It's like this..." she said, as she struggled to find the right words. "If you see someone smile, without thinking about it, you recognize that they're happy. Maybe if you look closely you'll see their smile is strained and you can sense that they're actually uncomfortable. My power's like that, but I'm able to read even more subtle expressions and also be able to interpret more complicated thoughts from them." For example, tight now she could tell by looking at Chiron's face that he was beginning to comprehend what she was saying.

"So...you can interpret microexpressions," he said it as a statement, not as a question.

Katrina nodded. "Basically yeah."

Despite having the ability to tell what people were thinking just by looking at them, Katrina had actually led a fairly normal life up until about a few days ago, when she had been attacked by a manticore after school. She had instantly recognized from the look on its face that it had killing intent but the monster had been too fast for her. Fortunately the school guidance counselor Mr. Underwood had come to the rescue and revealed that he was a satyr who possessed magical powers.

Katrina had always suspected there was something more to Mr. Underwood than he let on. Her ability to read people's faces meant that she could also roughly estimate their mental ages. Despite looking like he was in his late twenties, Grover had the face of someone who was twice as old.. Chiron was the same too, but more. On the outside, the man part of him looked to be about in his 40s, but Katrina could tell from his face that he was actually much older. How old was he though? 100? 1000? She couldn't tell; she had never met anyone that old and therefore had no basis for comparison.

Mr. Underwood then proclaimed that Greek mythology was real and that the two of them would have to embark on a journey across America to reach a school for others like her. Any normal kid might have needed time to process such a massive information dump, but Katrina could tell Grover's face that he was telling the truth and that time was of the essence, so she quickly agreed to go along with him.

They headed east, travelling mainly by high speed rail. Evading the manticore had actually been fairly easy. Katrina quickly came to find out that Mr. Underwood's, or Grover, as she came to know him as, mild-mannered demeanor belied his true power, as he was very adept at playing the reed pipes and other forms of woodland magic. Perhaps his greatest power of all was something Katrina called "The Scream," where he would create what was best described as a wave of fear that caused mass pandemonium amongst humans and would send the manticore running off in fear...until it would wore off. Then it would pop back up again days later in whatever city they were at. This strategy worked for almost the entire trip until the very end, when the manticore had managed to catch them off guard, poisoning them both and incapacitating Grover with those deadly tail spikes. It was at this point that something new was triggered inside her: whether it was some demigod ability or just an adrenaline rush, Katrina didn't know, but somehow she found the willpower to carry an injured Grover through the forest, relying on stealth to evade the manticore, all while being poisoned. She had mostly succeeded until the very end, when the manticore caught up to them, but then luckily Peleus and the rest of camp had showed up to save them.