Mystic Island

☼☼4☼☼

Raine

“Advance, seeker of knowledge, and ask me one question,” the girl, the Oracle of Delphi, ordered.
I gulped, and took a few steps forward. If it weren’t for the creepiest-of-voices hissing, I wouldn’t be afraid of this seemingly-kind girl, but the snaky attitude was freaking me out just a little bit to the point where I was almost shaking.
I had to say my question correctly with everything I wanted to know, otherwise I would never know. It was clear that the Oracle only cared for a single query. I took a deep breath, taking in the fresh morning mist, and said, “Oracle, where exactly is Heather, Huntress of Artemis?”
The Oracle narrowed her eyes, and in a normal, eleven-year-old voice said, “Is that all you wish to know?”
No! “Yes, Oracle,” I said.
“Well then,” the Oracle said in the girl’s tone, “if that is all.” She gestured towards the pool of rainwater that had gathered in a hollow of the ground. An image of a beautiful island developed, like a TV screen had just been turned on. It was alluring, but I also felt a little chilled, like despite the beauty, there was something dangerous, toxic about that island.
In the reptilian accent, the Oracle said:

“ Beyond the west lies an isle of splendor
Masked in shadow, moonlight, and death,
The huntress hides, her flame of life
Dimming by the darkest of witches’ breath.”

The Oracle stopped, her voice flickering back to a normal voice, “Do you understand?”
“No,” I said, my voice rising in frustration. “No, I do not understand at all. That didn’t tell me where Heather is! Just a meaningless prophecy. Can’t you explain?”
“I do not even know what I said.”
“What?” I was confused. “How can you not know what you said?”
“I am the speaker of the prophecies from Apollo,” the Oracle said. “I do not hear these prophecies, the spirit of Delphi does.”
“Oh,” I said, not fully understanding at all. “Oracle, can you at least say more? Like, more on the side of, oh, latitude and longitude? Sailing coordinates?” The Oracle shook her head. “Anything?”
“I am sorry,” the Oracle apologized. “I do not control what prophecies I utter, or anything.” My gaze deepened with gold disappointment, and the Oracle frowned. “Truly I am. Good luck.”
She turned away from me back into the mist. A serpent of green smoke curled around her, and soon, the Oracle of Delphi was gone.
I stamped my foot in annoyance. What the Oracle had said gave me nothing. Nowhere to look, nowhere to start. I felt despairing; it seemed that I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise to Artemis. Though if I didn’t, that might’ve gotten me blasted.
There was an opening of the door, and I felt a presence behind me. I turned to see a fourteen-year-old girl with blue eyes standing perfectly calm and still. “Rose,” I said. “Did you see that?”
“I watched you from a hole in the wall,” Rose said. Oh, so I guess some people did know about the looking-hole. “But I couldn’t hear. Who was that?”
“The Oracle of Delphi,” I said without any cheer.
Rose’s face lightened. “Then you know where Heather is!”
“No,” I said. “All she told me was a useless prophecy.”
“Perhaps not useless,” the daughter of Poseidon whispered. “Say it to me.” So I told her the mysterious prophecy whose words were now firmly embedded in my memory, and Rose repeated them to herself. “Well, pick it apart little by little. First line.”
“She showed me an island,” I said. “The ‘isle of splendor’. I had seen in before in my dream.”
“What dream?” Rose asked. “Tell me about what the island of your dream looked like.”
“There was a sandy beach, palm trees, blue water…typical tropical island.”
“Any buildings or human life at all?”
“Just…Heather,” I said. “And that strange voice. Or, at least that’s all I saw.”
“Okay,” Rose said. “‘Beyond the west…’. That could be like, beyond the West Coast. Beyond California. What’s beyond California?”
“A whole lot of ocean water until you reach Japan a long way away.” I frowned. “And that island was definitely not Japan.”
“There are many islands in between America and Japan,” Rose pointed out. “What about the darkest of witches’ breath? I wonder if the witch is…”
“Who’s a witch?” Kayla walked out of the wood-and-plant cabin. “Have you found out where Heather is?”
“Sort of.” I tried to go over famous witches in my head, but the only one I could think of would be the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. And I could also think of a Greek sorceress; Circe, an immortal witch from the old Greek stories; that could’ve been an option. But then again, Circe only had issues against men. She was kind of infamous for turning guys into pigs.
“We’ll go over this with Chiron,” Rose said. “Maybe he can think of what this prophecy means.”
Chiron, as old as he was (three-thousand years old), and as intelligent as he was, he did not have a good proposal as to who this witch could be. “The best suggestion I have to this would be to go west. Go to the Pacific Ocean to search for answers or the island, whichever will appear first.”
“The Pacific,” I repeated. “Like last fall.”

Brooke, Brayden, Scarlet, Belle, and Andrea had woken up, so we were having a meeting over by the stream where the naiad lived. Belle muttered, “I hate California.”
“I love it,” Andrea said cheerfully. “It’s so beautiful and warm.” She smiled, comforted by her thoughts.
“We need a quest,” Brooke said. “We need a group of heroes to go out west into the Pacific.”
“Or I’ll get killed,” I mumbled. “I’ll go.”
“And me!” Rose added. “Me too! I’d love to go out onto the ocean for days.”
“Of course you would,” Brayden snickered. “You can’t be separated from water.”
“What about you, Belle?” Rose asked, turning to her best friend. “It’ll be like old times!”
The daughter of Dionysus shook her head furiously. “No way!”
“Aw, why not?”
“I told you, I hate California!” Belle cried. “I will never step one foot in that state ever again! Count me out!”
“Wimp,” Scarlet muttered.
“Well, I’m going too,” Kayla said.
“No!” Scarlet hissed. “She is too inexperienced. You should pick someone who’s bold and has fought monsters before. Someone who is an awesome fighter.” She put a hand on her chest.
“I have fought monsters before! I fought a hellhound!” Her dark eyes were determined. “And, Raine, I told you that I would join you on your quest days ago.”
“I don’t see why you can’t come,” I said, with a glare at the Hephaestus child.
“She doesn’t have any experience!” Scarlet protested.
“Neither did you when you started the autumn quest!” Brooke retorted.
Scarlet’s green eyes flashed, but she didn’t say anything else. It was hard to have a good comeback against the Athena kid.
“Wait,” Andrea said. “If Kayla gets to go, so do I.”
“I don’t think so Andrea,” I said. “You’re new. One new girl is enough.”
“You had thirteen new people last year,” Andrea said.
I pursed my lips and gave in. “Fine. You too. We should go today, don’t you think, Brooke?”
Brooke Gray nodded. Chiron’s bay horse foreleg pawed the earth. “Alright. The rest of you must stay here to guard camp and train.” He looked the five of us going on the quest. “And I wish the best of luck to all of you.”

I was aboard Sunny’s back, riding out high above America, next to Brooke on her Owleye and Rose on Seaweed. Kayla had chosen Maddi’s old Raven, a black pegasus mare, and Andrea was riding Nichole’s horse, Starlight. The black mare twins flew side by side, and they almost looked uniform.
“I’d say by the irrigation systems below us…” Brooke began.
“What irrigation systems?” I interrupted. “All I see are circles and squares.”
“Yes, that would be them,” Brooke said, looking irritated. I remembered how she hated lack of knowledge. “Anyway, by the circles and squares below us, I’d say we are above either Oklahoma or Arkansas.”
“That’s not possible,” I said. “We were only above Maryland a few hours ago! How can we be moving so quickly?”
“The smaller the herd, the swifter the pegasi can fly,” Brooke explained. “There were a lot more winged horses last time.”
“We’ll be in California by nightfall,” Rose observed. And she was right. The sun was only beginning to sink when we descended behind the Hollywood sign.
“Gods,” I muttered. “I never wanted to come back to this horrible place.” Kayla, on the other hand, was thrilled.
“Oh my God, it’s the Hollywood sign! That’s so cool! Wow, look, the ocean! It’s so pretty!”
“Raine, please slap her,” Rose mumbled. But her eyes were the color of the sea when she gazed happily towards the ocean. They were glittering like the sun’s reflection on the dark waters.
“So…what now?” I mused. “We’re in California, okay, but we are sitting on flying horses. Not to mention the streets are packed with traffic. Anyone who sees them will have a heart attack. And the clear sky doesn’t help.”
“I was hoping to fly the pegasi out to the island,” Brooke admitted. “But it seems we won’t be able to. Rose, tell the pegasi to go back to the Appalachians.” Rose turned to the winged equines and spoke to them softly. We all dismounted, and the pegasi soared away.
“We’re going to need a ride into the ocean.” I peered out to a murky silhouette along the horizon. “What is that?” I pondered quietly, though everyone looked at me.
“What?” Brooke put her hand over her eyes like she was saluting, and squinted to where I was watching, where the sea met the sky. “Looks like the Loch Ness Monster, huh? But, Raine, focus. We need to figure out what to do next.”
“I want to see what it is,” I said, scrambling down the hill to the highway.
“Raine! Wait…oh what’s the use! You’re too reckless to listen to me.” She followed after me, along with a confused Andrea, and amused Rose and Kayla. I crossed the streets until I was standing by the pier, toes raised, and I was leaning precariously over the waters.
“We need to get out there,” I said without taking my eyes off the creature on the seascape. “Rose, do you think you could do that?”
“Come on, Raine, this is stupid!” Andrea yelled. “We have to get to the island! Leave the shape alone!”
“I think this might get us to the island!” I replied. “I just have this feeling.” I poked the sea god’s daughter. “Rose, do you have anyway of getting us out there?”
“Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully. “I might be able to control the current so that we will be carried to the thing…no, that will take too long.”
“And that will take a lot of energy,” Brooke added.
“Wait,” Rose said. “I’ve got it.” She picked up a random seashell on the beach and put it to her mouth. She blew into it, which looked really stupid considering it wasn’t a conch shell, and no noise came out of it. She dropped the red-and-white seashell, and waited.
“Rose, what was that supposed to…” I faltered. A quintet of V shapes materialized on the water and was speeding towards us. Suddenly, five ivory horses broke through the water, shimmering fish tails waving behind them.
“Hippocampi,” I observed. “Good thinking, Rose.” I waded out into the water and mounted the hippocampus with cerulean scales. It nudged me, and then whinnied to the others. The other four demigods were aboard the hippocampi, so mine reared and plunged forward into the waves.
I was exhilarated. Riding a hippocampus was like riding the wind…only with water splashing in my face. My hippocampus galloped with thrilling speed, surfing the waves with the swiftness of a jet, and the shape of the thing I saw was getting bigger and bigger until it was ten feet tall…and I was still about twenty feet away. Though I was a bit intimidated by the titanic size of the object before me, I was disappointed.
It was a greenish-gray, like the color of a mossy rock, and that was what I was starting to think what it was. The front of it was triangular-shaped with two horizontal slits about midway and below them, on a piece of rock sticking out, two crevices the size of my entire thumb. Nothing to be afraid of and nothing worth sailing out to. I sighed.
But the hippocampi didn’t feel the same way. They were thrashing and rearing, snorting and huffing. It was clear that this was as far as they’d go. They climbed onto the sandbar, we slipped off, and they vanished into the sea before I even took another breath. I walked to the edge of the sandbar and looked down at my feet. The saltwater flooded up to about my ankles, and the skyline of Los Angeles was barely visible.
“Great,” Andrea growled. “We’re miles from the shore, completely without help, all to see a stupid rock!” She glared at me, and Rose and Kayla didn’t look too different. But Brooke had a thoughtful expression. “I have an idea,” she said. Of course she did.
“Scale the boulder,” she ordered. “Maybe we could use it like a round raft. Rose, you could control the currents in our favor.”
“Sure,” Rose said. “Raine, since you were so interested in the rock, you climb it and make sure it’s stable.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, and groaned. I waded out into the waters until I couldn’t feel the sandbar under my feet anymore, so I was treading towards the boulder. I grabbed hold of a foothold in the stone and heaved myself out of the depths. I was soaking wet, freezing, and fuming with anger at the other demigods for making me do this. I put my dripping hands on the top, shifted my weight to each side, but the rock wouldn’t budge. “See? It’s perfectly stable.”
“Great,” Brooke said. “Everyone get on.” Kayla sat on the stone, rocking back and forth, and she muttered, “This better not be a long trip.”
I turned my head to stare at her. “Why not?”
Her face was tinted green. “I get seasick. I do not like being on water.”
“Oh,” I said. “Now you tell me.” Rose was staring at the water, blue eyes lit, but nothing was happening. We weren’t moving.
“Any time now, Rose,” Andrea said.
“These things shouldn’t take so long,” Rose muttered. The radiance of her eyes intensified, but still, we were stationary. But there was a deep rumbling noise, like a motorboat.
“Hey, I think it’s starting to work,” I noticed. We were actually moving forward on neck-like granite, but in the wrong direction, “Rose, change the currents around.”
The daughter of Poseidon’s eyes were perfectly dull. “I’m not doing anything,” she disputed. “Not a single thing.”
“Then why’s the rock moving…?” I faltered, looking swiftly around. “Whoa, why are we rising?”
“Rose, do you know what you’re doing?” Andrea demanded, “Because it doesn’t seem like it.”
“I said I’m not doing anything!” Rose hissed.
“Well if you’re not moving us, who is?” Kayla asked. Brooke gulped, and she pointed with a trembling finger. Her gray eyes were frightened, and she was very pale-faced.
“I suppose I know,” Athena’s daughter whispered. “But the better term would be, ‘what’, not ‘who’.”
My topaz gaze scanned along to where she was pointing. The triangle-shaped stone had somehow shifted to face us, and the rumbling was rising in volume, so loud that it actually began to hurt my ears. No, it was not rumbling. It was growling.
The beast opened its eyes.

“Run!” Kayla screamed. She dove off of the snake’s neck into the surf. Andrea did the same, and Brooke and Rose pushed me off into the water because I was frozen in shock.
The sea serpent hissed, and bared its razor-sharp fangs the size of my hands, both fangs colored with venomous acid. The monster lunged at me, and I recovered from my shock, and sped out of harm. I scrambled onto the sandbar and whipped out Lightning Strike. The sea snake recoiled at the sight of my celestial bronze weapon, spitting at me in uncontained fury. Rose drew Cascade, and the sword of mixed ocean water was containing the image of a sea serpent, hissing at the real snake with Rose’s rage. The colossal beast returned the hiss, snapping at Rose.
“Rose, watch out!” I shrieked. I hacked Lightning Strike at the olive-colored serpent’s body, but the monster’s scales weren’t even dented. The sea snake twisted its neck around to glower at me, and its fire-colored eyes were glinting with the anticipation of a tasty prospect of eating me. Its head pounced, and with half a second to spare, I sprang away from the monster’s jaw before it grabbed me. The creature screamed, and turned and twisted at weird angles to try and snag me, but I was too nimble for it to catch me. The snake was so agile; it was difficult and tiring for me to keep running, even if demigods had more energy than the fittest human. I stabbed at its neck, but that was too risky. The sea serpent wouldn’t leave the water…maybe it was possible to get far enough on the sandbar for the creature to reach me.
Kayla was basically standing on the sandbar with a mixed gaze of confusion, fear, and desperation: the churning what-do-I-do?-look. I remembered she had no weapons; that hadn’t been the best preplanning to not arm her before we left the mountains. I had a sudden idea. The serpent was swift and twistable, yes, but we could use that to our advantage. It was incredibly dangerous and would probably get me gulped down a monster gullet. But I had to try.
“Kayla,” I yelled, “get over here!” Rose understood, and started to slice her Cascade at the monster, which turned and attacked Brooke, Rose, and Andrea.
The demigod of unknown parentage raced to my side. “What?”
“Take Lightning Strike,” I ordered. “Use it for defense.”
“What! But what about you!”
“I have my father’s power,” I said. “I’ll be fine. I have an idea. But first…” I held out my hand and there was a crack in the sky above us. A thin bolt of lightning shot down and struck the sea serpent. I was half-hoping that the bolt would stun the monster, but it only raged. Its fangs lashed at me, but instead of ducking, I leaped onto its neck.
“Raine!” someone called, probably the ever-criticizing Brooke. “What are you doing?”
“Are you crazy?” Andrea yelled. Maybe. I probably was. But I had to try. While dodging the serpent’s dagger-like teeth, I summoned down another bolt of energy, zapping the back of the monster’s neck. Before it grabbed me, I ran around its body to the other side of it, and the head followed me.
I now stood in a loop that the creature’s snake body had made while chasing me, and I stomped on its scales. “Hey, snake!” The rattle-snake head wrapped around the neck and shot through the loop. I sprang from the snake for as far as I could go, and the head followed me.
Unfortunately for the sea snake, the head got stuck when it was trying to kill, and I stood up on the wet sandbar admiring my handiwork. The sea serpent was in a thick knot, its triangle head not even past the twisted body. It was hissing and spitting venom, but it couldn’t grasp any of us. It looked like it was suffocating in the tight hold of the bond that I had made it form, and it was completely at the mercy of the heroes.
I motioned to Kayla, and the demigod wielded my sword. The weapon was clearly heavy for the new hero, unused to ever fighting with a blade. She dragged the heavy rapier to the wiggling snake, and tried raising it. This was sort of a life-or-death situation, but since the serpent was harmless now, I allowed her to take her time. The snake couldn’t hurt us.
Or…so we thought.
A gray-green tail whipped out of nowhere and lashed in my direction. I dove out of the way, safe. But the demigod behind me wasn’t so lucky. The serpent’s tail whacked Brooke to the sand, and the sea snake’s head towered over her, licking its lips with a forked tongue as it readied itself for a meal, and I yelled, “Hey!”
The snake’s snout growled in my face, but with most of its body on the sandbar, it couldn’t risk leaving the water anymore. It turned from me, and I should’ve felt relieved. But I didn’t. I was frozen from fear, irrational fear, like a phobia. I already had magusphobia, the fear of magic, and now I thought I was getting snakephobia. But while I was the unmoving demigod, Kayla was the hero.
Brooke was struggling under the snake’s tail while Rose was firing arrows skillfully but the beast’s scales were like greenish armor. The daughter of Poseidon was starting to aim for the creature’s mouth while Andrea and Kayla were side by side, and they were thinking strategically. Andrea locked her fingers together to make a lift, and Kayla stepped onto her hands to haul herself onto the snake’s body. The serpent was too pleased with itself for capturing demigod prey that it did not notice the other one on its scaly neck until Kayla was crouching on the bulk of the gray-green knot. The demonic snake hissed at Kayla and tried to eat her, but it couldn’t even get close to reaching her. It screeched in frustration and furiously lunged at Brooke with acidic teeth. Brooke screamed and seconds from the demigod from turning into snake food, Kayla pierced the serpent in its yellowy eye.
The serpent wailed, and thrashed around, trying to get the sword from its eye. It shook Kayla off, and I broke from my trance. I rushed forward to try to catch Kayla, but Rose was already causing the waves to rise to meet Kayla in the air. The geyser lowered Kayla to the ground safely while Brooke scampered from under the snake’s tail when the monster was waving it frantically to knock my sword away. I gave her a hand and helped her stand, shakily, but standing. Her gray eyes were cold with fear and she was trembling. “That was close,” she breathed.
“You’re telling me,” I said with equal relief. Brooke seemed too shaken to say anything else, but she looked to Kayla with eyes shining with gratitude. Her gaze said more than any words could, and Kayla smiled back. Andrea was looking up to the serpent, which was still alive. “I don’t think the sword was enough.”
Rose said, “I have an idea.” She stabbed Cascade downward into the sand, and the waters receded. They all swept from the bar and we were standing on dry land.
“What was that for?” I asked.
Rose didn’t reply exactly. “Zap the snake now. The water will conduct the electricity. Raine, shock it now! I can’t hold the waters back too long.”
I closed my eyes to concentrate. I imagined a bolt big enough to destroy the serpent but not enough to kill us too. I pictured a clear sky but a white claw of lightning touching ground on the snake’s scaly gray body. I heard a rumble, and my eyes shot open. A thick white bolt flashed and soon the waters were crackling with electricity. They passed up the serpent’s body and soon the lightning was overcoming it. It screamed, and was dissolving before our eyes. The smell of something burning was in the air, and the serpent was transformed into powder and was now raining on us.
Brooke was clearly calming from her near-death with the monster, and she said with hardly a tremble, “Nice, Raine. Now make it stop.”
“What?” I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“One bolt was all we needed,” Rose said, starting to frown. “Raine, stop your storm.”
I looked up to the sky, which was no longer reddish from the sunset. It was blackening, not from night, but from the storm. A crash of thunder boomed, and everyone except for me jumped. Another strike of lightning stabbed the waters on the horizon, but it was as big as the serpent that had just dissipated.
“Raine, stop!” Andrea yelled.
I-I can’t!” I said miserably and my voice was choked with fear. I felt power coursing through my body, the power fueling the thunderstorm, but before I felt as if I was holding it. Now it was slipping from my command, becoming its own force. And then it was gone. “I have no control!” I cried.
Kayla reached down and picked up a bronze sword and handed it to me. “Maybe if you use Lightning Strike…”
I shook my head, and squeezed the hilt of my weapon and put it into my pocket. I tried desperately to regain power over the fierce storm, but it never came back.
Brooke’s silvery eyes were frantic. “Raine, pray to your dad. That’s the only thing that will protect us.”
“No!” I hissed. “He doesn’t care for me and the feeling is mutual! I can…I think I can get the storm back.”
“No, you can’t!” Andrea retorted angrily. “You have no power! Do what Brooke says.
“I’m not asking Zeus for help!” I hissed again.
“Fine!” Brooke hissed back. “Watch us die!”
My fury rose, and so did the storm’s. I thought, ‘Maybe the storm will die down…’
No, it wouldn’t, not for a while. There was a sharp burst of thunder, and a striking claw of lightning blasted from the clouds and shot down to the sandbar. There was a flash of white light, and I was knocked from my feet. We were blown back by the force of the lightning, and I was losing consciousness as I flew over the water.
I gave in. I did what Brooke told me to before I couldn’t think anymore. I thought, ‘Help us, father. Please.’