Mystic Island

☼☼3☼☼

Raine

A beating of wings heralded my faithful winged horse, Sunny. Nichole had purposely sent my pegasus and the rest of the herd away during our fall quest, but the winged horses had flown straight back to the Springfield ranch. We’d recovered them after the quest and brought them to stables we’d had to craft for them in the Appalachians (all of them, even the fallen heroes’ pegasi). It was a good move too, because now Andrea and Kayla had winged rides.
My golden stallion nuzzled my pockets to look for treats, but I shook my head. “Not now. We have to get Kayla back to camp.” I knew he didn’t really understand me, and I knew now it would’ve been helpful to bring Rose along. As a daughter of Poseidon, who had created horses out of sea foam, she could communicate with equines.
I carried Kayla onto Sunny’s back, who helped by leaning down, and then I mounted him. The flying stallion grunted from the extra weight, but shook his head, and launched into the air. Soon we were miles above the land, being able to see tons of trees clearly and a few tall Cyclopes. We dove in and out of the highest trees, weaving around with perfect grace. In a few minutes, we were back. I could see Rose practicing archery with a nymph and Brayden flying around with his Hermes replica boots. I coaxed my pegasus to the ground, and climbed off. I called out to anyone around, and when they saw Kayla, Chiron had no hesitation in gathering medical supplies. Scarlet and Brayden carried her off to a cabin while I told Chiron what had happened.
“A hellhound you say?” the centaur asked. “I haven’t seen one of those…well, not for a long time. I can only imagine how one came here though.”
“Someone must have summoned it,” I said. “Hades?”
“No,” Brooke said, and I hadn’t realized she was back. “That’s not like him to be blunt like that. He works mysteriously, not too plain and obvious.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Then maybe it just got loose.”
Chiron eyed the cabin where Kayla was resting. “Not impossible. We can figure out more of this later. Right now, you all need to get to eat dinner, then to your cabins. It’s late.”
I hadn’t realized how late it was, but the sun was practically down and I could see stars. Brooke had captured a cell phone, so we had pizza. I remarked on her great hunting skills, but she rolled her eyes and bit into an olive pizza. Her mother had created the olive tree, so the demigod basically lived on olives and olive-related food.
I had checked on Kayla before I went to the girl’s cabin. The hellhound’s assault hadn’t wounded her too badly, and she’d be up by the morning. She’d come in time, thanks to Sunny’s swift flying.
I grabbed a bluish gray sleeping bag and leaned up against the plant-and-wooden wall. The campsite in the Appalachian Mountains had been a safe place for a group of demigods, oh, a while ago. Any demigod that passed by after that (basically not that often) would rest in the mountains before moving on. So it seemed like a good place to train. I usually took a place by a hole in the wall where a loose monster had clawed through. I could see the scenery of the night for as long as I wanted, and for some reason, that always calmed me. I had never told anyone this, but…I always felt like there was a hole in me. Something not filled up, something I needed and was missing. And the night sky, the stars and the lone moon, they were my sanctuary long after others had snoozed off. And I’d never let Chiron know about the hole because he’d probably block it up or something, and if I told my friends, they’d do something about it too. If I told them why I wouldn’t want them to, they wouldn’t understand.
I sat up for a while staring out the window and looking up at the moon. For some reason, whenever I looked up at the moon, I felt like a little piece of me was returning, but when the sun came back up, that piece was lost again. And the cold moon was the last thing I was looking at before I dozed off…

I hadn’t planned on dreaming again. The last thing I needed was another unwanted visit to Erebos, and to speak the truth, I was tired of it, no pun intended (yeah, pun intended). But unless there was an island in Hades’ palace, I didn’t think I was there. I was standing on the shores of a desert island with wild palm trees and a crystal clear sea. I marveled at its beauty; it had the bluest of waters and the greenest of forests. Though I was positive it had been night when I’d fallen asleep, the sun was as bright as high-beam headlights on a car, and I knew that because I remembered when someone forgot to turn those off and I was in the other car. Ouch.
I wasn’t sure why, but I knelt down onto one knee and dug my hand into the sands. The golden grains fell through my fingers, and I stared at the way the wind swirled it around. Somehow I recognized this to be a sign of another life-form, which had to be the dumbest thing ever, but as I charged confidently towards the woods, I started to believe I had no control over my body. My mind was saying: ‘What the heck are you doing? Go back! Stop walking! I swear, stay still!’ while my body was saying: ‘No, screw you!’
So because of my body’s convincing persuading words, and though I was positive I was going crazy, I sprinted through the wildest forest that had to have never been touched by mankind. I was running faster than I ever thought I could have, swift as the breeze, and soon I began to notice that the terrain was shifting from soft leafy underfoot to craggy rock. I mostly noticed that because I had somehow lost my shoes, and that rock did not feel good.
But I kept running and running until I came across a cavern with a strange light. It glowed rainbow colors, changing constantly. I heard a growling noise, so I reached into my pocket for Lightning Strike, but my sword was not with me. In fact, I had no pockets. I looked down to see a Greek chiton, a short white dress, and that didn’t make me too happy, for like one split second. I had never worn a dress in my life and I wasn’t too ready to start then.
I got over it. I entered the cave, weaponless and defenseless, completely unaware of what I would find. What I found was a girl about my age (in the same weird outfit, by the way) tied to thick pole by some kind of black magic. The pole was suspended over a pit of blue flame, and there was a strong-looking set of wide wires holding the huge stick and the girl up, which was unconsciously reassuring. And then the girl turned her coffee-colored face towards me, a face so familiar and well-known by my awake-self and dream-self alike. She was usually smiling or laughing, but her face was morphed into extreme horror and desperation. She whispered something somewhat loudly, or maybe that was just the echoes of the cave, to me. “Hurry, Raine. I don’t have much time.
My dream-self obeyed in a trance, walking slowly forward with an expressionless gaze. I held out my hand for her, but when I did, something---or someone---pushed me backward a few feet…straight into a cave wall.
And just what do you think you’re doing, hero?

“Hunting?” I repeated. It was about 7 am, and seriously, I wanted to run on a wake-up-at-noon schedule. That’s how teens were supposed to spend summer. Not teen heroes though. And I hated archery. I never ever used a bow to fight an enemy, and I didn’t ever plan to. But swords weren’t allowed in the mountains by official law, and sadly, bow-and-arrows were. So here I was at early hours, climbing the leafy cliffs with a bow on my back and a determined expression on my face following Brooke and Brayden with Andrea and Kayla, who’d recovered miraculously by morning (but no swordplay or monster combat for a little while), behind me.
Brooke on the other hand was an excellent archer and cared nothing for swords. She would’ve done just as well as a daughter of Apollo, the way she loved long-ranged fighting. Before we even reached the peak of the mountain, Brooke stopped short and motioned with her hand for us to be silent. She stretched her bowstring back, and with a squeal, a young crow was brought down. Andrea knitted her eyebrows together with concern, and I muttered, “Why do we do this anyway?”
“What?” the daughter of Athena asked. “Do what?”
“Hunt,” I said. “Why do we shoot these animals?”
“Practice,” Brayden muttered. “It helps us train for shooting at monsters in the future.”
“Yeah,” I retorted. “Like I ever will be using arrows against an enemy! That’s what I have Lightning Strike for!”
“You might have to use a bow,” Andrea commented, face dark. She looked like I probably did, like she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep. She looked as if she just saw a ghost.
“Someday you might not have your sword!” Brooke remarked. “Then you’ll need archery!”
“Gods, you sound like my freaking mother!” I hissed. “I don’t need you to tell me what to do, Brooke!”
“Yes, I think you do!” Brooke growled, her gray eyes burning. “Raine, you need someone to guide you. You’re too impulsive.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ugh, you stupid Athena girl! You think you know what’s best for me. And I’m not impulsive!”
“No offense, but you’re Zeus’ daughter. So you kind of are,” the daughter of Athena said.
“Screw you, Brooke!” I said while I clenched my teeth. “I am not impulsive!” I didn’t remember it happening, but suddenly Brooke was on the ground. She had hit her head on a sharp stone sticking out of the pile of boulders facing us on her way down, so she had a welt on her forehead, painted with blood. My arms were outstretched. I couldn’t believe that I had pushed her down, and I really was impulsive. Because the next thing I noticed, I was running from the stunned demigods, pushing through the low branches and pure green leaves.
I finally got tired of running from what I’d done, so I sat down on a fallen log by a trickling creek. I was breathing hard, and I didn’t want to cry. That would be stupid, but I couldn’t believe that I had done that. I’d pushed down one of my best friends, another demigod, one of the Epic Three like me. I finally got bored of thinking and holding back tears, so I started to randomly draw shapes in the dirt. I kept up my ADD moment until the bush behind me rustled. I jumped to my feet, and waited to see whether it was a monster I’d be able to kill or one of my friends trying to find me. Sadly, it was the second category.
Kayla whacked the thorny branches of the bus aside, and muttered, “Stupid bush.” She looked at me, and said, “Wait, don’t run.”
“Are you going to make me go back right now?”
“No, I don’t think I’d be able to do that without you kicking my butt,” Kayla said. “This is all really dumb you know, Raine. So you pushed Brooke down. She’ll live.”
“I…I know,” I said. “It’s just that I have a lot on my mind.”
“Like?”
“This dream,” I said. “I had this really weird dream last night, and I have a feeling it’s real.” I spilled the entire story to the daughter of…well, I didn’t know…and she listened to me with a thoughtful expression the entire time. When I told her what that strange voice had said, Kayla was silent for a minute. Then she looked up towards a tree a few feet away from us. “Weird bird.”
“Did you even listen to any of that?” I asked.
“What?” Kayla asked, eyes blank for a moment. “Oh, yeah! Yeah, I was listening.”
“Uh huh.”
“Sorry!” Kayla apologized, hands up in defense. “It’s just this weird bird. It’s staring at me. I think it’s actually pissed at me or something.”
“You are very strange, Kayla Cristal,” I laughed. “You’re scared of a…what?” I looked up at where she was looking, and I saw it too. A falcon the color of rain skies was perched up in the tree, and it did look like it was glaring at us. But the weird thing was, the falcon had strangely colored eyes…sure, they were yellow, but around the edges, there was a silver sheen. I had been in a light mood when Kayla had seemed crazy, but a cold claw gripped me again.
“No way,” I said. “That can’t be…” Now Kayla was looking at me weirdly.
“What? Can’t be what?” Kayla asked.
“I…I think I know that bird,” I said monotonously.
“What do you mean?” Kayla ventured. “Like, you know the breed? It’s, like, a falcon right?”
“I know that bird,” I repeated. The falcon squawked at me, cheeping constantly.
“Shut up!” Kayla laughed at the bird.
I nudged her sharply. “You shut up! Don’t talk like that to her!”
“What? It’s just a bird,” Kayla looked certain that I’d gone crazy. She started to crack up, but then she froze. The falcon dove down towards us, shedding feathers as it descended. It fluttered down to the ground, and landed in the creek about a foot away from me and Kayla. Only it wasn’t a bird when it stood in the creek. It…she…was a girl about fourteen with dark brown hair and silvery pale gold eyes. She was wearing the clothes of a huntress, gray cami and gray long skirt.
“What the…?” Kayla trailed off.
I wasn’t sure what to do, so I nodded my head. “Artemis,” I said. “Um, what beings you here?”
The goddess of the moon looked distressed, face ashen. “Raine, where is she?”
Fine. No ‘Hello. How’s your life been for the past few months?’ “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” At least she wasn’t angry about what Kayla said.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about!” Artemis hissed. She looked deadly, like she was about to kill me. “Heather! You took her! Is Hades controlling you again?” I didn’t respond; I was too shocked to. This goddess had always been kind towards me, but now she was seconds from turning me to dust.
“Hades isn’t controlling me,” I promised. “And I haven’t seen Heather since she came to me in that dream…where you ordered her to watch me…”
“I know you think I don’t trust you,” Artemis growled. Her eyes were glistening, and a tear was actually rolling down her cheek. “But what am I to think, hero? Heather went into your dream, but she never came back.”
“What?” I didn’t quite register that properly. “You mean she didn’t come back into my dream?”
Artemis rolled her eyes. “No, demigod! I mean, she did not return to life. She did not wake, and then soon, her whole self disappeared.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling stupid. “Is Heather…dead?” My heart clenched when Artemis did not respond right away. “But she was immortal! Immortals can’t die…right?”
“She is not a goddess,” Artemis said softly. “She cannot age, but she is not invulnerable.” But then again, Selene and Helios were dead.
Kayla was paler than usual, but she was bright enough to remain silent. She probably had no idea what was going on, but she wasn’t stupid. I’d have to explain to her later. “Are you sure? Heather could still be alive…”
“I do not believe that she is dead,” the moon goddess said. “No, I believe it is more likely that Heather was taken.”
“Taken? Like, kidnapped?”
Artemis nodded, her moon-eyes sad. “Who would kidnap Heather? Hades?” I suggested.
“No, I don’t think that Hades would stoop to that level.”
“Then who?”
Artemis’ eyes lit up a little, like she had an idea, but she pursed her lips. “I don’t know.” Yes, you do. “But she must be found. Though I don’t think I’ll ever find her.”
“But, you’re a goddess,” I said. “Can’t you get her? That should be easy for you.”
“She is clouded from me,” the huntress said. “I have no power to prevent magic.”
“Magic? What do you mean?”
Artemis said nothing, and I knew she knew more about Heather’s whereabouts than she was letting on. But I let that go. “Why can’t you go look for her?”
“I wish to, but…Father does not want the Olympians to be spread out across the world. He does not want Olympus unguarded, so all of the gods on our side must be in Greece by the summer solstice. Lord Hermes is the only other Olympian not on Olympus…he’s in the Underworld.”
“Isn’t that reckless and dangerous?”
“I concede the point,” Artemis said impatiently. “I would not know where to start looking. I don’t have enough time. And I fear that neither does Heather.” Her face lit up. “But you do. You could search for her!”
My eyes widened. “No! I mean, I couldn’t search for Heather! She’s my friend, but she could be anywhere!”
“Your dream about the island! That must be where she is!” Artemis exclaimed.
“A tiny island could be anywhere in the whole world! How am I supposed to find a tiny island?”
“Maybe you’ll have another dream. Consult the Oracle, ask Nereus, do something!” Artemis’ face was bright with hope and her eyes were pleading. “Please?”
I sighed. I couldn’t ignore a goddess, especially one that thought I was good (most of the time), and I wanted to know Heather was okay. “Okay. I’ll find her, Artemis. I promise.”
Artemis’ eyes shone with gratitude. “Thank you, Raine. Please, find her before it is too late…” Artemis was sparking with silver light. Her form flashed, and suddenly a slender deer took her place, springing away into the woods.
Kayla seemed stunned. She was frozen, hardly breathing, and elbowed her to ‘wake’ her up. “Hey!” she muttered indignantly.
“Oh, good, you’re alive,” I said.

We hiked back towards where the camp was in mostly silence. Kayla still was too awed to talk, so I couldn’t start up a conversation with success. I hated the silence though. I liked conversations, funny ones in particular, and everything was awkward when there were no voices. I poked Kayla in her side, and she squeaked.
“I hate when you do that!” she grumbled.
“Well then, talk! This is weird, all of this silence,” I retorted.
“I’m just thinking…” She scanned my face, and I stopped.
“What?”
“You’re not going to try to look for Heather, are you?” she accused me.
I didn’t answer right away, so Kayla muttered, “I knew it.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to try!” I cried. “Look, things are bad now for demigods, Kayla. There’s no doubt there’s going to be war, and we are going to be in the middle of it. We have to pick sides.”
“Well, I’m on the good side,” Kayla vowed, and I smiled.
“That’s what Nichole was like at first too,” I mumbled softly. Louder, I said, “It’s extremely risky for any of us to go out all around the world in search of one hunter. It’s crazy, and even Artemis said she didn’t know where Heather was.”
“But you promised Artemis you’d find her!” Kayla said.
“Things will turn out okay,” I tried to tell her, but her face was stubborn and stern.
“Heather is your friend, and she was mine too!” Kayla hissed. “I can’t believe you won’t even make an effort!” She stormed off, and I followed behind her saying, “Kayla wait.”
By an old oak tree, she turned and crossed her arms across her chest. “Why would you lie to her?”
“I wasn’t lying!” I retorted. “I…I just don’t know how I’m going to find Heather.”
“It’s far-fetched,” Kayla remarked. “But it’s possible. Ask Chiron. Or Brooke. She’s smart; maybe she’ll know how to find Heather’s location.”
I pursed my lips. I didn’t really want to see Brooke now, but this wasn’t about me. This was to save Heather’s life from…who knows? “Okay. I’ll try. But whatever happens, you’re coming with me.”
“Of course!” Kayla said. “It’ll be so cool, fighting monsters and going to a tropical island!”
“You could die.”
“Oh,” she said without much enthusiasm. “Well, I’ll take that risk.”
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go back.”
I got a lot of glares when I got back to camp. Scarlet, I had the feeling, never really liked me all that much anyway, so of course she was shooting the greasy eye at me. Brayden didn’t look at me, but his gaze was fire, his feet-wings beating furiously. Andrea kept her distance, but Rose was kind(ish). She looked upon me sadly. She was disappointed; Rose wanted the three of us to be a perfect family, though that wasn’t working out like that at the time.
Brooke wasn’t hurt too badly, to my relief. Her gray eyes were cold when she saw me, but the nymph healing her face didn’t notice any tension between us. Really, when nymphs, dryads in particular, feel any anxiety around, they are out of there. The nymph had golden hair and green eyes with a sickly-sweet aroma and a couple of bees circling her: a dryad, but a melia nymph to be accurate.
The melia patted a sticky golden liquid, honey, on the daughter of Athena’s face, and said a blessing in Greek. The gash on her face disappeared, and it looked as if a jagged stone had never smashed her forehead.
The honey nymph melted away then, leaving me with Brooke alone. “Brooke, I…”
Brooke’s eyes burned. “You’re right,” she said with angry sarcasm. “You don’t need guidance at all. You’re definitely not impulsive.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I promised. “Really. It just happened.”
“Forget it, Raine,” Brooke sighed, still hard. “I’m fine now.” She studied my face, and her eyebrows knitted together with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She gave me a wry smile. “Come on, Raine, I know you better than that. Something happened. What?”
Stupid smart people, being able to tell things like that. “In the mountains, Kayla and I saw Artemis.” I told her of what had happened in the forest, and her gray eyes widened. “Then we have to go!” she said when I had finished. “We have to save Heather!”
“But we don’t even know where to start!” I protested. “Can you think of anywhere?”
“No, but I know of someone who might know.” Brooke stood up, walked over to where Chiron was watching Rose in combat with Belle, who had apparently returned. He frowned when he saw the look on my face. “What is the matter?”
“The Oracle of Delphi,” Brooke said. “We want to know how we can talk with her.”
“Why on earth would you need to visit the Oracle, my dear?” Chiron’s bay horse hoof pawed the ground nervously. “She won’t talk to you for just anything, you know.”
“Heather,” I said. “She’s missing, and I promised Artemis I would look for her.”
“Correction.” Kayla came over to us confidently. “You promised you would find her.”
“How could you promise something as great as that?” Chiron inquired.
“I didn’t really have a choice!” I said. “Artemis can’t find her because all of the gods have to stay on Olympus. And Heather might die if we don’t get her back!”
“Yes, I heard that Lord Zeus is becoming fairly… mistrustful.” He was about to say paranoid. “The situation is terrible. I would rather you stay here, where Hades would have a harder time locating you. But if you must…” The bay centaur looked at the sky.
“It does look like there will be rain in the future,” Chiron commented. “When the rainfall is over, and the rainbow comes out, I will speak with Iris.”
“Iris?” I remembered she had been one of the minor gods at that rest stop in Nevada that had been out to kill us last fall. “But she’s on Hades’ side!” Brooke exclaimed.
“No longer,” the centaur said. “She saw that it was wiser to side with the Olympians rather than Hades. They are keeping an eye on her, just in case she changes her mind yet again, but for now, she is good.”
“Why do you need to talk to Iris?” I asked, feeling once again dumb.
“She is a messenger of the gods, as you know, but she and I have been friends for millennia. She will carry a message to the Oracle in Delphi, and perhaps the Oracle will give you the time of day.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
“Don’t worry, child,” Chiron said. “Either way, Artemis will expect you to search for Heather. Perhaps you will dream again.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Maybe.

The next day, I woke up to see the hole in the wall clouded with fog. It was still very early, but I thought I had heard someone outside. I looked though the hole, and sure enough, I could see a dark shape. It was too foggy to define it well, but it looked humanoid.
I carefully pulled the knob on the door, and the wooden door opened with a creak. I flinched, scanning the room. Kayla shuffled in her sleep, but soon she was snoring again. I sighed, and ventured outside.
The whole clearing was swathed with white mist, so thick it was hard to see anything. It had stopped raining the day before, but the sky was still a light gray. I slowly stepped forward into the clearing, not truly sure what I was doing or where I was going, but I continued on.
I could feel the cool fog like a blanket, only made of air, and it was refreshing. But I felt like someone else was watching me. I walked towards the human shape I had seen through my looking-hole until the shape was fully defined. Before me was a…girl.
She was about, oh, twelve with dirty blonde hair. She wore a night-gown-like dress, and the weird part was her eyes: glowing green. Literally glowing though; she had an aura of jade around her, tinting the fog. I felt a little bit awkward, thinking that this was either a goddess or a monster looking at me. I had no idea what to do, so I did the most rational thing. “Hello.”
The girl opened her mouth to speak, but what came out was the strangest voice. It sounded snake-like, hissing, and it sounded like it was a duet of hisses.
“I am the Oracle of Delphi.”