The Sky And The Sea

I'll Hold Your Hand

We kept walking and finally we made it to the top of the island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds. Twenty foot high gates opened for us, and a road of polished purple stone led up to the main citadel, a white columned rotunda, Greek style. A cluster of satellite dishes and radio towers sat on the roof.

"That's bizarre," Piper commented.

"Guess you can't get cable on a floating island," Leo shrugged. "Dang, check this guy's front yard."

The rotunda sat in the center of a quarter mile circle. The ground was amazing in a scary way. They were divided into four sections like big pizza slices, each one representing a different season.

"One section for each of the four wind gods," Jason guessed. "Four cardinal directions."

"I'm loving this pasture." Coach Hegde licked his lips. "You guys mind-"

"Go ahead."

While the satyr went to attack springtime, we made our way down the road to the steps of the palace. We passed through the front doors into a white marble foyer.

"Hello!" a woman floated up to us. Literally floated. She was pretty in an elfish way with an ageless face that could have been sixteen or thirty. She was see-through, almost as if she was made out of fog. "Are you from Lord Zeus?" she asked, greeting us with a smile. "We've been expecting you."

"Are you a ghost?" Jason burst out and I slapped the back of his head.

Her smile turned into a pout. "I'm an aura, sir. A wind nymph, as you might expect, working for the lord of the winds. My name is Mellie. We don't have ghosts."

Piper came to the rescue. "No, of course you don't! My friend simply mistook you for Helen of Troy, the most beautiful mortal of all time. Easy mistake."

Wow, she is good. The compliment seemed to make Mellie the aura blush. "Oh . . . well, then. So you are from Zeus?"

"I'm the son of Zeus."

"Excellent! Please, right this way." She led us through some security doors into another lobby, consulting her tablet as she floated. "We're out of prime time now, so that's good. I fit you in right before his 11:12 spot."

"Um, okay."

The lobby was pretty distracting. Winds blasted around us, it felt like I was being pushed through an invisible crowd. Doors blew open and slammed by themselves. Paper airplanes of all different sizes and shapes sped around, and the other wind nymphs, aurai, would occasionally pluck them out of the air, unfold and read them, then toss them back into the air, where the planes would refold themselves and keep flying.

"Not an aura?" Jason asked Mellie as a harpy flew by. It was even uglier than the ones at Camp Half-Blood.

Mellie laughed. "That's a harpy, of course. Our, ah, ugly stepsisters, I suppose you would say. Don't you have harpies on Olympus? They're spirits of violent gusts, unlike us aurai. We're all gentle breezes." She batted her eyelashes at Jason.

"So," I prompted, "you were taking us to see Aeolus?"

Mellie led us through a set of doors like an airlock. Above the interior door, a green light blinked.

"We have a few minutes before he starts," the aura said cheerfully. "He probably won't kill you if we go in now. Come along." We followed her.

The central section of Aeolus' fortress was as big as a cathedral, with a soaring domed roof covered in silver. Television equipment floated randomly through the air, camera, spotlights, set pieces, potted plants. And there was no floor. Leo and I almost fell into the chasm before Jason pulled us back.