The Nature of a Demigod

Lessons in Shadow Travel

[Percy's POV]

I dreamed Rachel Elizabeth Dare was throwing darts at my picture. She was standing in her room...

Okay, back up. I have to explain that Rachel doesn't have a room. She has the top floor of her family's mansion, which is a renovated brownstone in Brooklyn. Her "room" is a huge loft with industrial lighting and floor-to-ceiling windows. It's about twice as big as my mom's apartment.

Some alt rock was blaring from her paint-covered Bose docking system. As far as I could tell, Rachel's only rule about music was that no two songs on her iPod could sound the same, and they all had to be strange.

She wore a kimono, and her hair was frizzy, like she'd been sleeping. Her bed was messed up. Sheets hung over a bunch of artist's easels. Dirty clothes and old energy bar wrappers were strewn around the floor, but when you've got a room that big, the mess doesn't look so bad. Out the windows you could see the entire nighttime skyline of Manhattan.

The picture she was attacking was a painting of me standing over the giant Antaeus. Rachel had painted it a couple of months ago. My expression in the picture was fierce, disturbing, even, so it was hard to tell if I was the good guy or the bad guy, but Rachel said I'd looked just like that after the battle.

"Demigods," Rachel muttered as she threw another dart at the canvas. "And their stupid quests." Most of the darts bounced off, but a few stuck. One hung off my chin like a goatee. Someone pounded on her bedroom door.

"Rachel!" a man shouted. "What in the world are you doing? Turn off that-" Rachel scooped up her remote control and shut off the music. "Come in!" Her dad walked in, scowling and blinking from the light. He had rust-colored hair a little darker than Rachel's. It was squished on one side like he'd lost a fight with his pillow.

His blue silk pajamas had "WD" monogrammed on the pocket. Seriously, who has monogrammed pajamas? "What is going on?" he demanded. "It's three in the morning."

"Couldn't sleep," Rachel said. On the painting, a dart fell off my face. Rachel hid the rest behind her back, but Mr. Dare noticed. "So... I take it your friend isn't coming to St. Thomas?" That's what Mr. Dare called me. Never Percy. Just your friend. Or young man if he was talking to me, which he rarely did. Rachel knit her eyebrows. "I don't know."

"We leave in the morning," her dad said. "If he hasn't made up his mind yet-"

"He's probably not coming," Rachel said miserably. "Happy?"

Mr. Dare put his hands behind his back. He paced the room with a stern expression. I imagined he did that in the boardroom of his land development company and made his employees nervous. "Are you still having bad dreams?" he asked. "Headaches?"

Rachel threw her darts on the floor. "I should never have told you about that."

"I'm your father," he said. "I'm worried about you."

"Worried about the family's reputation," Rachel muttered. Her father didn't react, maybe because he'd heard that comment before, or maybe because it was true.

"We could call Dr. Arkwright," he suggested. "He helped you get through the death of your hamster."

"I was six then," she said. "And no, Dad, I don't need a therapist. I just... " She shook her head helplessly. Her father stopped in front of the windows. He gazed at the New York skyline as if he owned it,  which wasn't true. He only owned part of it.

"It will be good for you to get away," he decided. "You've had some unhealthy influences."

"I'm not going to Clarion Ladies Academy," Rachel said. "And my friends are none of you business." Mr. Dare smiled, but it wasn't a warm smile. It was more like, Someday you'll realize how silly you sound.