The Daughter of the Sky // Wattys 2016

Chapter 21

I threw up after using one of Persephone's pearls. Charming, I know.

To use them, you merely stepped on them and imagined where you wanted to go. We all agreed on Santa Barbara, partially because it was a good place to stay on the way to San Fransisco, and partly because we'd have people to stay with. My parents.

All things considered, I would've much rather taken the bus. 

The pearls nearly sucked the soul out of my body. It felt like my breath was being knocked out of my lungs, thrown back in and sucked back out again as we were consumed in a cloud of green smoke. They traveled at lightning speed before spitting me onto a pile of white sand.

I coughed and sputtered out the sand that had landed in my mouth and looked around for my friends.

    "Percy? Paris? Anyone there?"

Percy groaned, stepping out of a metal trashcan. "I hate those things. They never drop you off exactly where you want to go."

I stifled a laugh as I watched him pick a banana peel off of his shoulder.

"S-s-speak f-for y-y-yourself," Paris's teeth chattered violently. She was soaked in water from head to toe. Before Percy and I could say anything, she lifted a hand. "I don't want to hear it. Let's just go inside."

Nico and Danny were already waiting for us next to the entrance of my home. And they were completely fine. Not a single hair on their heads was out of place.

"What the hell happened to you three?" Danny laughed so hard tears began to form in his eyes.

"How come you guys aren't all...messed up?" Paris pulled a piece of seaweed from her hair and flung it on the floor in disgust.

"We shadow traveled," Nico shrugged. "It takes a while to practice but it comes in handy."

Nico wasn't really all that intimidating up close. He was pretty petite, maybe an inch or two taller than me. His light freckles made him look younger than he really was. Physically, he looked nothing like his father except for the cold expression in his eyes and pasty complexion. If I wouldn't have known Nico, I never would've guessed he was a child of Hades.

"Aren't you going to knock?" Percy asked. Everyone was impatiently waiting on me to make the next move.

"Right. Yeah."

I let out a long anxious breath as I gently knocked on the door to my house. It was well past ten o'clock, meaning my parents were already in bed. My mother was probably on her laptop reading emails while my father read some book on pop culture in the sixties or something.

The door swung open; my heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to burst any second.

"Orion?!" There she was. My beautiful, radiant mother in all her glory. 

Her red hair was in waves, cascading down her slender shoulders. Although she was wearing no makeup and had practically rolled out of bed. she still looked like a real life goddess. My mother immediately embraced me in her warm arms. I tugged at her multicolored silk robe and tried to inhale all of her perfume's rosy scent in one big breath. 

"Oh, honey! I'm so glad you're okay."

"Mom," I croaked, not being able to ignore the massive lump in my throat. Warm tears began to trickle down my face out of nowhere. For a second, I forgot everything; that my friends were standing two feet away, that I had just returned from the depths of the underworld, that I'd met my real father and that my best friend was half goat. I was never getting over that last one. "I've missed you so much."