THE HEALER| Heroes of Olympus

fourteen

He stepped to the middle of the room.

Instantly, green and blue light rippled across the walls. I heard the sound of a fountain, but there was no water. There didn't seem to be any source of light except for Percy's and Jason's blades.

"Do you smell the ocean?" Percy asked.

I hadn't noticed at first. I was standing next to Percy, and he always smelled like the sea. But he was right.

The scent of salt water and storm was getting stronger, like a summer hurricane approaching.

"An illusion?" Piper asked. All of a sudden, I felt strangely thirsty.

"I don't know," Percy said. "I feel like there should be water here—lots of water. But there isn't any. I've never been in a place like this."

Jason moved to the row of niches. He touched the bottom shelf of the nearest one, which was just at his eye level.

"This stone...it's embedded with seashells. This is a nymphaeum."

My mouth was definitely getting drier. "A what?"

"We have one at Camp Jupiter," Jasper said, "on Temple Hill. It's a shrine to the nymphs."

I ran my hand along the bottom of another niche. Jason was right. The alcove was studded with cowries, conches, and scallops. The seashells seemed to dance in the watery light. They were ice-cold to the touch.I had always thought of nymphs as friendly spirits—silly and flirtatious, generally harmless. This place, though, didn't feel like the canoe lake back at Camp Half-Blood, or the streams in the woods where I normally met nymphs. This place felt unnatural, hostile, and very dry.

"I don't like this place.." I said, taking a step back and looking toward the exit. Jasper placed a hand on my shoulder. A gesture to tell me to relax.

Jason stepped back and examined the row of alcoves. "Shrines like this were all over the place in Ancient Rome. Rich people had them outside their villas to honor nymphs, to make sure the local water was always fresh. Some shrines were built around natural springs, but most were man-made."

"So...no actual nymphs lived here?" I asked hopefully.

"Not sure," Jason said. "This place where we're standing would have been a pool with a fountain. A lot of times, if the nymphaeum belonged to a demigod, he or she would invite nymphs to live there. If the spirits took up residence, that was considered good luck."

"For the owner," Percy guessed. "But it would also bind the nymphs to the new water source, which would be great if the fountain was in a nice sunny park with fresh water pumped in through the aqueducts—"

"But this place has been underground for centuries," Piper guessed. "Dry and buried. What would happen to the nymphs?"

The sound of water changed to a chorus of hissing, like ghostly snakes.

I paled. I hated snakes. If somewhere in here...

The rippling light shifted from sea blue and green to purple and sickly lime. Above us, the nine niches glowed. They were no longer empty.

Standing in each was a withered old woman, so dried up and brittle they reminded me of mummies—except mummies didn't normally move. Their eyes were dark purple, as if the clear blue water of their life source had condensed and thickened inside them. Their fine silk dresses were now tattered and faded. Their hair had once been piled in curls, arranged with jewels in the style of Roman noblewomen, but now their locks were disheveled and dry as straw. If water cannibals actually existed, I thought, this is what they looked like.