Zero to Hero (Percy Jackson Fanfic)

Chapter Eighteen-Anger and Memory

Annabeth's POV

Going back into town with Thalia and Luke was a blast. It was like stepping into a whole other dimension. I'd gotten so used to seeing kids running around in a mixture of Greek and Roman armor, and T-shirts and jeans, that it was weird seeing people wearing regular clothes. 

We drove one of the delivery vans the camp used to sell their strawberries. Thalia insisted upon driving. The ice cream store was this cute little booth hiding on the corner of an intersection. The sidewalk out front was shaded with a baby-blue and white striped awning and the sticker on the window advertised a giant cone with a bright green cubed scoop of ice cream on top. I'd never had cubed shaped ice cream before, but it was delicious. 

On the way back to camp, I sat in the backseat, and Luke sat in shotgun. He kept looking at Thalia out of the corner of his eyes and bouncing his legs. 

Oh brother, I thought.

"So Thalia," he said, finally, "How long have you been going to camp again?"

"About eight years."

"Woah. No wonder you seem to have the place wired."

Luke's terrible flirting was getting a little awkward for me to watch, so I said, "How long have you known Percy?"

Luke swiveled around to look at me. "Why would you want to know that?" Then he glanced at Thalia like he was afraid she wouldn't like his tone.

I glowered at him. You have your interests, I have mine.

Thalia didn't seem to notice. "Almost as long. Percy came to camp a year after I did. And Nico came along about four years after. I guess we connected so well because all of us were put into the Big Three cabins: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Bianca, Nico's sister, and Hazel hang out with us sometimes. But Hazel's Roman," she whispered and cupped her mouth, "And we don't like Romans."

"What about Jason?" I asked with a knowing smile.

Thalia snorted, "Jason was Roman, but he can't decide what he wants. He's never been rebellious, but between us, I think he likes me too much to stay Roman."

"I thought it didn't matter whether you were Roman or Greek," Luke said, "I mean, both the Hermes and the Mercury kids sleep in the same cabin."

"Oh, Chiron would have us all believe that it's all the same thing." Thalia stepped on the gas and pulled in front of a Camry. "But Romans and Greeks have never gotten along. It goes all the way back to ancient times. We just like to carry on the tradition."

"You know," I speculated, "I'm pretty sure Malcolm told me not to get too caught up in the whole mythology thing. It's just a game."

Thalia scoffed, "Your brother! Oh, Malcolm always thinks he's the smartest one in camp. He tells everyone that because he doesn't have the imagination to make it real."

That made me laugh, "I haven't been going to camp very long, and I never really saw my brother very often, but I'm pretty sure he is no longer the smartest one in camp."

Luke had another question: "So this 'Hunter of Artemis' gig. Is that like, no men at all, or--"

"No men at all," Thalia's smile was a little too chipper.

"Can I ask you why?" I said.

It took Thalia a long time to answer, but when she did, she spoke with a sort of confused expression on her face. "There...was this boy I knew. It...must have been a long time ago because I don't even remember his name. Heh, that's weird. Anyway, he...um, I liked him. A lot. And then he betrayed me and everyone I cared about."

"What did he do?" I could sense the protectiveness edging around Luke's voice, which annoyed me just a little because he'd only known Thalia for about a week.

"You know what," Thalia said nervously, "I don't really want to talk about him right now, okay?"

When we got back to camp, I was still thinking about what Thalia had said: I don't even remember his name. 

If Thalia had really had a crush on this guy, no way would she forget his name. Especially if he'd duped her later on. Things like that tended to stay on a girl's mind. Besides, I could remember every guy I've ever had a crush on.

Heck, I even had some pretty clear memories of this guy in kindergarten. His name was Salvador--I know right. For some reason, the name didn't bother me much when I was five years old. On Valentine's Day, he gave me an artificial rose that I kept for years. I was totally in love. Until my family moved away. 

But that's beside the point. 

Either Thalia had been lying, which didn't seem right, or she had been exaggerating about how much this guy affected her, or there was something else going on. Normally I wouldn't have payed that much attention to it, but I liked Thalia. Maybe I was just expecting the paranormal after Percy's crazy water episode. Besides, even if I had dropped it, what I found in the library of the Athena cabin later that afternoon convinced me that something weird was going on. 

I was the only one in there, everyone else was off teaching or taking classes. I had the whole day off, so I decided to do some light reading. I dumped my bag on my bunk and made my way over to the rows of bookshelves. There had to be something on architecture, right?

There was a whole section, but before I could look through them, I noticed something odd. Normally, there were piles of haphazardly placed volumes stacked up on the table tops, probably with notes scribbled in the margins and crumpled up paper scattered around like someone had been practicing their pitching. Today, the area next to the architect section was completely clean except for one large tome opened to a specific page. 

I'd only been in the Athena cabin a few days, but for some reason this struck me as odd. 

Curiously I held the page and turned over the cover. In gold, Ancient Greek lettering that I had to find a cypher to translate, the title said, Ancient Figures of the Golden Age. I opened the book back to the open page and sat in a chair. 

I pulled the book over and began to read. 

Menoetius: The Ancient Greek Titan of Anger. 

Known to hold grudges for millennia. His abilities included setting his fellow Titans against each other, and giving mortals emotions to associate with their memories. 

Zeus threw him into Tartarus with the rest of the Titans. 

The book seemed to be in alphabetical order because the next Titan listed was Mnemosyne. 

Mnemosyne: The Ancient Greek Titan of Memory. 

Remembered everything. If Greeks during the Golden Age needed to remember something important, they gave supplication to Mnemosyne. Abilities include recalling lost memories, creating fake ones, and erasing them.

She was allowed to remain on Earth after the Titan war.

A coincidence that Thalia had mentioned she had forgotten an old crush's name and then I read a page about the Titan of memory?

I bent the corner of the page down and stuffed the book under my pillow. I wanted to ask Malcolm what he knew about Menoetius and Mnemosyne. I left the cabin in search of my brother.