by Simon Archer
“Sometimes, that’s just how they come out, I guess.” Mom shrugged. “Where’s all this coming from, honey?”
“It’s just...” I let out a huge puff of air, unsure of myself. I’d always been honest with my mom. No matter how weird or out there that my thoughts seemed, I shared them with her. She never judged me or placated me. Mom was a good listener and often gave good advice when she could. I didn’t know why this was so difficult for me to say, probably because I didn’t really know what I was saying.
“This last song you came up with…” I said, still finding the words as I spoke. “It was… different from other ones.”
“How so?” Mom asked, intrigued.
“It was… scary?” I tested out that word, and it didn’t quite feel right. “Like you were foreshadowing something, and it wasn’t a good something.”
Mom paused in order to process what I was saying fully. She rolled her fingers around the steering wheel and moved them from the ten and two position to have one hand in her lap, and the other casually gripped the bottom of the wheel. Her lips twitched like she was trying to find her own words.
“What did I say?” Mom wondered.
“It was mostly about school and me,” I said, trying to remember the exact wording and not just how it made me feel. “How this year was going to go, something about love, an infection, stuff like that.”
“Doesn’t sound all that pleasant,” Mom said with a frown. “It also sounds like I joked about STDs, which isn’t something I normally bring up.”
“Mom!” I said, the embarrassment eeking out of my voice even when it was just the two of us in the car.
“I’ll be sorely disappointed in you if you get one of those too, okay?” she said as she pointed directly at me, giving only a sideways glance.
“Mom!” I repeated, my voice jumping an octave.
Khryseos and Argyreos perked up at once in the back, as if I had called them directly with a whistle. I spent a minute or two calming them back down and reassuring the dogs that I was fine, just annoyed. Mom giggled at their reaction and stifled a full-on laugh right when they settled back down.
“What?” I asked her.
“They just really are your guardian angels,” Mom said affectionately. “I’m so glad you have them.”
“Me too,” I said as I looked back at the two resting pups. “Do you know that according to mythology, they were originally crafted out of silver and gold by Hephaestus to guard King Alkinous’s palace?”
“I did not know that,” Mom said slowly, taking in all of the information I just dumped on her. “Well, I’m certainly glad that you didn’t get two metal robot dogs. That would have been more difficult to explain to the landlord.”
I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “It would have been less comfortable to sleep with them in the same bed too.”
“I’m sure!” Mom related. “Thank goodness your dad had enough sense to turn them mortal or at least mortal looking before sending them to the Academy.”
I paused, thinking about how to respond. One of the very few things I hadn’t told my mom about my life was about my dad’s disappearance. According to the officials on campus, Hephaestus had been missing for the last twenty or so years, right after I was born. He’d gone missing in my hometown, which seemed like too big of a coincidence to ignore.
On the one hand, I wanted to tell Mom in case she found comfort in the notion that he might not have been absent in my life by choice. Something might have happened to him, preventing him from being a part of my childhood. On the other hand, I didn’t want to worry her. Despite the fact that she was a mortal woman, and he was an immortal god, Mom really cared about Hephaestus. I could tell in the way she spoke about him. That love had never really gone away. I liked to think that he felt the same way about her. Due to his lack of recent offspring, it would seem that he hadn’t loved anyone else, at least in some time.
Ultimately, I decided against telling her. I didn’t really know the whole story, and I felt like it would be a waste of her time. What was she going to do about it, anyway? She’d moved on in her life, raised a son without him, and built a world that didn’t include him. There didn’t really seem to be a point to letting her know that she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t heard from him in twenty years.
Smartly, Mom turned on the radio, and the two of us bopped along to some oldies on a local rock radio station. It got our minds off the impending goodbye and allowed us to just be ourselves, Andrea and Cameron, one more time before I went away to the Academy.
We approached the designated spot sooner than I would have liked. It was an abandoned gas station with the price still reading something close to a dollar. The paint peeled off the walls, blown away by time and weather. Stray spray paint streaked across the windows, some of which were boarded up by large slabs of wood. The pumps themselves were coated in rust, and the hoses were disconnected.
There was no other business for miles, and the surrounding area was completely covered in cornfields. Mom and I hesitated before getting out of the car.
“Did we just walk onto the set of a horror movie?” I asked, unsure.
“I drove to where the GPS said.” Mom pointed at the phone like she was blaming it for the current predicament. “Are you sure you put it in right?”
I pulled out the letter from the Academy and scanned it. I compared the numbers in her phone and on the paper. “It’s correct.”
“Well then, we’re here,” Mom announced, though her voice held little to no celebration.
Despite our confirmation that we were in the right place, neither one of us got out of the car. Even Khryseos and Argyreos stayed put, choosing to look out the windows rather than demand to be let out. The four of us stayed put and waited for any other signs of life.
We watched a light breeze sway the corn stalks and blow up a small tornado of dust. A literal tumbleweed rolled past, out of one field and into the next.
“What time were you supposed to be here?” Mom double-checked, doubt creeping into her voice. “Are we sure this is the right day?”
“Yes, Mom,” I said, getting impatient. “I’m sure it’s right.”
“Well, why don’t you just check, okay?”
“Because I already checked, and it’s correct.”
“Please look again.”
“I already did!”
“Give your mother a little peace of mind.”
“Trust me, Mom, it’s right.”
“Okay, fine, let me check.”
“You don’t need to check!”
A sudden bark from the back seat broke through the heat of our impending argument. Khryseos and Argyreos rushed to the passenger side of the car, tumbling over my luggage, and barked again at the window.
“What is it, boys?” I asked the dogs, and they barked a third time in response.
Mom and I looked out the window and didn’t see anything. But we heard the rumble of something coming close. As the noise drew closer, I realized it wasn’t anything like an engine, but instead, the clomping of hooves. Lots of hooves, running quickly, straight towards us.
“Is that…” Mom turned her head to one side as if that would allow her to hear better. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Are you thinking stampede, because I’m thinking stampede?” I asked, only half kidding.
“Horses,” Mom said as she closed her eyes, focusing on the noise. “It’s definitely horses.”
“Oh god, if a herd of pegasuses round the corner, I’m freaking walking to campus,” I declared.
In our effort to rescue Hailey and some fellow soldiers, Daniella and I rode away on a pair of pegasuses. While it was an efficient ride, it was not my favorite experience. I preferred to keep my feet on the ground as much as possible, thank you very much.
But it wasn’t pegasuses that crested up the hill. Though, Mom had been right about the horses. Four beautiful, cream-colored horses, with golden manes streaming behind them, galloped into view. They rode all i
n a row, completely blocking both lanes of traffic. Behind them was a large chariot, made entirely from gold. A sun was engraved on the front while rays of flame were sculpted along the sides.
At the helm stood Hailey, looking better than Apollo himself. The wind swept her hair back from her face, and her tan skin glimmered in the extra light from the chariot. The whole thing looked like an elaborate parade float, though I knew, somewhere in the recesses of my brain, that this was a completely legitimate chariot.
Mom’s mouth hung completely open, unashamed and unabashed. Khryseos and Argyreos barked again, in reaction to Hailey’s dramatic appearance. We couldn’t do anything but watch as Hailey parked the chariot, pulling the horses to a stop as if they were casually refueling at the gas station. The soldier dismounted and waited by her vehicle, with her hands on her hips.
When neither Mom nor I made a move to get out of the car, Hailey’s eyebrows crinkled together in confusion. She sauntered over to us and bent to knock on the window.
“Hello?” Hailey said, her voice coming through the glass as if it were from underwater. “Earth to Cameron? You plan on coming back to the Academy or what?”
“Uh…” I blinked myself out of my astonishment, long enough to gather some semblance of sense. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”
I shooed Hailey away from the car door, which she did, and opened it. Next, I let Khryseos and Argyreos out of the back. The two of them bounded over to the soldier, and she crouched on one knee to welcome them with open arms. I stuck my head in the back seat to grab my stuff when I saw my mom still sitting, stunned, in the driver’s seat.
“Mom,” I called to her with a sharp voice.
“What?” She blinked and looked back at me.
“Aren’t you going to see me off?” I prompted, hoping that would be enough to break her out of her recovery.
“Oh yeah,” Mom said as she scrambled to get out of her seat. I straightened up, righted the bags on my shoulders, and turned back to Hailey, who continued to pet the dogs.
She looked elegant, even sitting on the dusty ground, making silly faces at my dogs. Her muscular body moved with grace and ease that didn’t take away from her curves and inherent softness that she eluded. She wore her uniform, a completely black ensemble with her orange Enka sash slung across her shoulder. Hailey looked up at me, tearing her gaze away from the dogs and shooting me a winning smile.
I smiled back, this was the first time I’d seen her since leaving for the summer, three whole months. I wanted to tackle her to the ground and kiss her right there, even with my mom and my dogs watching. In fact, if I thought about it, my mom would probably approve.
Instead, I stayed silent as Hailey got to her feet and brushed herself off. She looked at the ground and then at the top of my head and then back to the ground. Finally, she swallowed audibly and seemed to gather enough courage to look me in the eye.
“Hi Cameron,” she said, her voice calm.
As I caught her green eyes, I could see she was looking at me with her whole self. Hailey had a variety of sides to her and mostly stayed behind a wall built from her years working with the Academy, even during their summer classes as a child. But there were some moments I cherished when she let me beyond her guard, and I got to see her for the amazing woman she really was.
“Hi Hailey,” I said, my own voice soft.
“It’s good to see you again, daughter of Apollo,” Mom said, breaking our intense eye contact.
Part of me was relieved, and the other part was severely annoyed at my mom’s well-timed cockblock. I coughed nervously and hiked my bag up higher on my shoulder.
“It’s good to see you again, Ms. Alpin,” Hailey said politely with a little bow of her head.
“I figure you’re going to be in my life for a while. You might as well call me Andrea,” Mom informed her and I really wanted to know what she meant by “You’re going to be in my life for a while.”
“Andrea?” Hailey cocked her head to one side. “Like Andromeda, the daughter of Cassiopeia, the daughter who was chained to the rocks to sate Ceta the sea monster, the Ruler of Men, wife of Perseus?”
“The very same,” Mom confirmed with a proud nod. “My mother named me after her, in the hopes that I could give a better legacy to that name than Cassiopeia gave her daughter Andromeda. Along with the middle name Manto, to honor the daughter of Tiresias.”
“I’m sure you already have and will continue to do so, and it seems like Cameron got his love for Greek knowledge from his mother,” Hailey said, turning up the charm.
Even if Mom could see right through her compliment, she took it with a smile. “Thank you for saying so, dear. From what it looked like, you’re going to be taking my son on that?”
Mom pointed with her thumb towards the chariot as if it were a motorcycle. I wanted to scream in mortification. I loved my mother, I really did, but she was still my mother, and prone to all of those annoying things mothers did, like saying embarrassing shit like that.
“I’m sure it’s perfectly safe,” I reasoned with a casual gesture to the chariot, although the prospect of riding it made me want to hurl.
“It is,” Hailey assured the both of us.
Mom scoffed. “I liked the Land Rover better.”
“This is my father’s chariot,” Hailey said as if that would help her argument.
“Wait a second,” I said as I held up a hand in astonishment. My geek was about to show, and there was no way I could hold it back. “This is the chariot? Like Apollo’s chariot that made the sun rise every day?”
“Yes,” Hailey answered with pride.
“That should really be Helios’s because he really did all the work.”
Hailey’s face fell. “Well, technically, I mean… it’s still Apollo’s chariot.”
“And those are Aethon, Pyrois, Phlegon, and Eous?” I asked, pointing to each of the horses in turn.
Hailey’s mouth opened slightly, and she let out a scoff. “Your random knowledge of the Greek mythos never ceases to amaze me.”
“It gets annoying after a while, trust me,” Mom said as she leaned back on one hip and crossed her arms.
“Rude,” I commented, slightly offended.
“But to answer your question,” Hailey said, “yes, those are the actual horses.”
“How the hell did you get away with this?” I asked, my nerves rising by the second. “Should that be, like, in use? Or locked up in a museum somewhere?”
“It’s a tradition that all returning students come in a Grecian mode of transportation,” Hailey explained. “We only bring new students in cars because they are more familiar with it. Don’t want to shock them all at once.”
“Consider me still shocked,” I said with complete honesty.
“Even though you’ve seen centaurs, ridden a pegasus, fought a chimera and harpies, and played with Eternal Fire?” Hailey said with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes,” I said defensively. “Mainly because I know this thing can fly, and I have a sinking suspicion that we’re not going to be riding it on the ground all the way to campus.”
My nasty fear of heights was coming back to bite me in the ass. It stirred in my stomach and instantly made me want to hurl up all of the BLT I’d gotten on the ride over.
“Are you picking up any additional students?” Mom asked. “I know Jade lives around here. I’m sure Cameron’s not the only one.”
“The other two demigods in this area opted for a ride with the Vreg branch on the Argo,” Hailey said with a shrug.
“But…” I hesitated, thinking I might be asking a dumb question. “This state’s landlocked. How are they sailing anywhere?”
“They can lake jump,” Hailey said as if that was the most natural answer.
“I’m sorry,” I blinked at her. “They can what?”
“Lake jump,” Hailey repeated. “They appear in one lake, travel down and then can pop up in another lake, like the one on campus.”
“I wasn’t aware that th
e infamous Argo was a submarine,” I replied, still shocked by the physics of it all.
“It’s magic,” Hailey said by way of explanation. “I thought, because of your affinity for fire, that you would prefer this to the underwater lake jumping.”
I didn’t answer right away. Because on the one hand, Hailey was absolutely right that one of the last places I wanted to be was underwater. But I also didn’t want to be soaring through the air either.
“Can’t I just teleport there, with Khryseos and Argyreos?” I said, not bothering to hide the whine in my voice.
“Your dogs can teleport?” Mom gaped at me. “They lived with us this whole summer, and you never mentioned that they can teleport?”
“It never came up!” I defended with a shrug.
“I’m afraid that you know as well as I do that they can’t transport you when they teleport,” Hailey explained. “If you really don’t want to ride with me, then I’m sure I can get a hold of the Argo and see if they can pick you up at the nearest body of water.”
Her words snagged in my ear and gave me pause. Hailey was offering to bring me to the Academy. Just her and me. In the chariot. Completely alone.
I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but my heart leaped at the prospect of being alone with her again. My breath caught in my throat, and I licked my lips expectantly.
“I guess this will be fine,” I said as casually as I could, trying to hide my lustful excitement.
4
We tucked my bags into a hidden compartment near the helm of the chariot and made sure we gathered everything from Mom’s car. The next step was saying goodbye to Khryseos and Argyreos.
I bent down to be on their level and looked at each of them in turn. “I’ll see you on campus, okay, boys?”
Both of them nuzzled their heads under my chin, and I closed my eyes in order to relish in their warmth fully. Then, in the next instant, my arms fell down to my sides, and the heat from their bodies disappeared. When I opened my eyes, my companions had vanished.
“Holy shit,” Mom whispered to herself.
