𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 ― j. grace ³ ✓

twenty-five

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THIS FEELING

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
[ F R A N K ]

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FRANK WAS HOPING for fireworks.

Or at least a big sign that read: WELCOME HOME!

More than three thousand years ago, his Greek ancestor — good old Periclymenus the shapeshifter — had sailed east with the Argonauts. Centuries later, Periclymenus' descendants had served in the eastern Roman Legions. Then, through a series of misadventures, the family had ended up in China, finally emigrating to Canada in the twentieth century. Now Frank was back in Greece, which meant that the Zhang family had completely circled the globe.

That seemed like cause for celebration, but the only welcoming committee was a flock of wild, hungry Harpies who attacked the ship. Frank felt kind of bad as he and Natalia shot them down with their bows. He kept thinking of Ella, their freakishly smart Harpy friend from Portland. But these harpies weren't Ella. They gladly would have chewed Frank and Natalia's faces off. So they blasted them into clouds of dust and feathers.

The Greek landscape below was just as inhospitable. The hills were strewn with boulders and stunted cedars, all shimmering in the hazy air. The sun beat down as if trying to hammer the countryside into a Celestial Bronze shield. Even from a hundred feet up, Frank could hear the drone of cicadas buzzing in the trees — a sleepy, otherworldly sound that made his eyes heavy. Even the dueling voices of the war gods inside his head seemed to have dozed off. They had hardly bothered Frank at all since the crew had crossed into Greece.

Sweat trickled down his neck. After being frozen below deck by that crazy snow Goddess, Frank had thought he would never feel warm again; but now the back of his shirt was soaked.

"Hot and steamy!" Leo grinned at the helm. "Makes me homesick for Houston! What do you say, Hazel? All we need now are some giant mosquitoes, and it'll feel just like the Gulf Coast!"

"Thanks a lot, Leo," Hazel grumbled. "We'll probably get attacked by Ancient Greek mosquito monsters now."

Frank studied the two of them, quietly marveling how the tension between them had disappeared. Whatever had happened to Leo during his five days of exile, it had changed him. He still joked around, but Frank sensed something different about him — like a ship with a new keel. Maybe you couldn't see the keel, but you could tell it was there by the way the ship cut through the waves.