Hopeful - Luke Castellan [1]

7 ~ My Dinner Goes Up In Smoke

Word of the field incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth and Luke, who were still gaping at me. 

They showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.

Finally, we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins. "I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall." She then looked at me "you need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.

"Who?" I asked looking at Luke who looked anxious and like he would rather be talking about anything else. 

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."

I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once. I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shim-mering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend. I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.

"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."

"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."

Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Addy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?" I heard Luke snort and I smiled a bit glad that someone could take a joke and lighten the mood a bit. 

Annabeth rolled her eyes, "I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know."

I did but I really didn't want to admit it. Partially because it meant that my dad was out there but was ignoring me my entire life.  "God," I said. "Half-god."

Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Addy. He's one of the Olympians."

"That's ... crazy," but even as I spoke I knew that it wasn't. How else had I controlled the water? I had even more of a sinking feeling that I knew who my father was and if it was who I thought it was then I was in for some serious problems. 

"Is it?" Annabeth brought me out of my thoughts. "What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with
humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"

"But if all the kids here are half-gods—"

"Demigods," Luke said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your mom or dad?"

"Cabin six," Annabeth spoke as if I were to know what that would mean.

"Meaning?"

Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle." Okay, I thought. Why not?

"And my dad?" Although I wasn't fully sure that I wanted to know the answer. 

"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."

"Except my mother. She knew."

"Maybe not, Adelaide," Luke spoke up for the first time in a while. "Gods don't always reveal their identities."