²Olden Crown, heroes of olympus

005.

OLDEN CROWN
━━ chapter five

━━ JASON WISHED ELISA had stayed. Maybe she scared him, but she was a whole lot better than a half-man, half-horse who looked at him and said, "You should be dead."

               He already didn't feel welcomed at Camp Half-Blood, and that was anything but a welcoming gift.

               Jason watched Chiron nervously as Elisa stormed away. He really didn't want to be left alone with the centaur, but it seemed like Elisa wasn't going to press the issue. Jason wished she had. The centaur trotted over to the empty wheelchair on the porch. He slipped off his quiver and bow and backed up to the chair, which opened like a magician's box. Chiron gingerly stepped into it with his back legs and began scrunching himself into a space that should've been much too small. Jason couldn't help but image the beep, beep, beep of a truck reversing as he watched the centaur's lower half disappear and the chair folded up, popping out a set of fake human legs covered in a blanket, so Chiron appeared to be a regular mortal guy in a wheelchair.

               "Follow me," he ordered, beckoning to the blond. "We have lemonade."

               The living room looked like it had been swallowed by a rainforest. Grapevines curved up the walls and across the ceiling, which Jason found a little strange. He didn't think plants grew like that inside, especially in the winter, but these were leafy green and bursting with bunches of red grapes.

               Leather couches faced a stone fireplace with a crackling fire. Wedged in one corner, an old-style Pac-Man arcade game beeped and blinked. Mounted on the walls was an assortment of masks—smiley/frowny Greek theater types, feathered Mardi Gras masks, Venetian Carnevale masks with big beaklike noses, carved wooden masks from Africa. Grapevines grew through their mouths so they seemed to have leafy tongues. Some had red grapes bulging through their eyeholes.

               But the weirdest thing was the stuffed leopard's head above the fireplace. It looked so real, its eyes seemed to follow Jason. Then it snarled, and the blond nearly leaped out of his skin.

               "Now, Seymour," Chiron chided. "Jason is a friend. Behave yourself."

               "That thing is alive!" Jason said.

               Chiron rummaged through the side pocket of his wheelchair and brought out a package of Snausages. He threw one to the leopard, who snapped it up and licked his lips.

               "You must excuse the décor," Chiron apologized. "All this was a parting gift from our old director before he was recalled to Mount Olympus. He thought it would help us to remember him. Mr. D has a strange sense of humor."

               "Mr. D," Jason said. "Dionysus? Elisa's dad?"

               Chiron hummed in approval and poured lemonade, though his hands were trembling a little. "As for Seymour, well, Mr. D liberated him from a Long Island garage sale. The leopard is Mr. D's sacred animal, you see, and Mr. D was appalled that someone would stuff such a noble creature. He decided to grant it life, on the assumption that life as a mounted head was better than no life at all. I must say it's a kinder fate than Seymour's previous owner got."

               Seymour bared his fangs and sniffed the air, as if hunting for more Snausages.

               "If he's only a head," Jason said, "where does the food go when he eats?"

               "Better not to ask," Chiron said. "Please, sit."

               Jason took some lemonade, though his stomach was churning. Chiron sat back in his wheelchair and tried for a smile, but Jason could tell it was forced. The old man's eyes were as deep and dark as caverns.