²Olden Crown, heroes of olympus

019.

OLDEN CROWN
━━ chapter nineteen

━━ "FRANK, YOUR BOW!" screamed Abilene. He didn't ask questions. He dropped his pack and slipped the bow off his shoulder.

Her heart raced. She should've noticed the boggy soil for what it was—muskeg. Muskeg was marshy silt and decomposed plants; that all made the surface look completely solid, but it was worse than quicksand ( and a lot more common, too ). It could easily be twenty feet deep—or more. She tried not to let herself think about the possibility of it being deeper than the length of Frank's bow.

She crept out towards the muskeg, pointing back to Frank. "Hold on to one end," she ordered him. "Don't let go. Please."

His expression flickered. "Abi—"

"I'm the best person to try and get him!" she argued before he could finish. She knew he would understand exactly what she meant; Gaea and the earth. "Hazel, if we don't—"

"I know!" The daughter of Pluto nodded.

Abilene grabbed the other end, took a deep breath, and jumped into the bog. The earth closed over her head as if she jumped into a ball pit. She hated those as a kid. As she sank deeper into the earth, she tried to remember one way or another, she had connections to the earth. Whether or not her mother was Ceres and was Gaea, she was connected to soil, to grass, to trees, even the muskeg—but it felt like this wasn't anything close to the earth. It only felt like she was swimming to her death.

Before she could sink further to find Percy, her vision clouded. A voice whispered to her like a cold wind blowing through trees: All the quest, you have looked over your shoulder.

Not now, argued Abilene. I don't want to hear from you.

Then see, replied Gaea.

Suddenly, Abilene was back in Montana. She was back at the Briar house—a blue farmhouse nestled into the hills and acres of George Briar's farmland. She sat at the oak table her grandfather ( Robert Briar ) had carved for his son, and from the windows, sunlight danced inside. She could see the amber waves of wheat growing, the rolling hills she would use for sledding in the winter.

Abilene thought she hadn't missed Montana that much, but seeing her childhood home made her throat tighten. It was a testament to a time before she learned the truth—the real truth, not the "truth" Gaea had fabricated for her. Even if George Briar was an absent father, he wasn't Gaea. He wasn't Barbara Briar, her grandmother who had known the truth from the start and only lied. He wasn't Ceres, a goddess who must've known a demigod was wrongfully going around, claiming to be her daughter. George was innocent, like how Abilene was; in many ways, he was also a pawn for Gaea.

Abilene choked back any emotions. She didn't want to let Gaea know that whatever she was trying to do was working. "Why show me this?"

From the open doorway to the living room, an old lady walked in. Her hair was bleach white, and her eyes were the same color. They were blank; void of life. This wasn't a person. Abilene started to stand up, but the elderly lady spoke; "Do not leave. There is nowhere to go."

It was Gaea's voice.

Abilene's eyes narrowed. "Who—"

"Barbara Briar," the goddess answered easily. "I needed her so I could tell you. It was never really a mortal you were talking to. It was always me."