Two ♰ Will you take a moment? Promise me this— that you'll stand by me forever.
THE TWENTY/FOUR SEVEN hallucination that ensues proves to become more than Aileth can handle.
It occurs to her once that it might be the Mist. But Aileth underestimates the magic of the veil between the mortal world and. . . the other one, so for the rest of the school year, it's like the entire campus is playing some kind of trick on her and Percy. The students act as if they're completely, irrevocably and wholly convinced that Mrs. Kerr— some perky blonde woman Aileth swears she's never seen in her entire twelve years of existence— has been their pre-algebra teacher since Christmas. (Aileth begs to differ. So does Percy, which she's glad for.)
The one thing that keeps her sane is that either Grover isn't a part of said campus-wide prank, or he's simply a bad actor. Whenever either Aileth or Percy mentioned the name Dodds to him, he hesitates, and then proceeds to claim she doesn't exist. (Gaslighting 101!) But his voice catches on Mrs. Dodds' name every time, which Aileth takes as a sign that he's lying.
Something, Percy tells her, is going on. Something had happened at the museum.
At one point, Aileth borrows her roommate Piper's phone to call her dad and tell him about the situation, but all she gets is a you know how regular mortals are, followed by you're okay now, don't worry about it. And that's the end of the phone call.
She doesn't have much time to dwell on it during the days. But in the darkness of her room at the dead of night, the hoodie in the corner looks like a ghoul's face, and she swears she can hear Mrs. Dodds screaming in the distance.
Her night vision, by the way, is not helping. (Her father says it's a side effect of having the Sight, but it doesn't make sense because he has the Sight as well, and he's had so many near death experiences coming into her room in the dark that she's fairly certain her night vision has nothing to do with it.) Sometimes at night Piper gets up to go to her bathroom, and the sight of her eyes flashing in the mirror is far too reminiscent of Mrs. Dodds for Aileth get a good night's sleep.
The freak weather carries on, which doesn't do anything to improve the bruises under her eyes. Several nights in a row, thunderstorms jolt her out of her sleep, shaking the dormitory buildings with a vengeance as blurry residues of light streaked across the grim sky. (It's almost as if the sky itself is angry.) The biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touches down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy, and one of the current events they're studying in social studies class is the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic this year.
Percy jokes that maybe another tornado will show up and wipe him out of existence, so he'll never have to return to school. (Aileth finds that there is nothing funny about a world without Percy.)
The weather calms down in the future, of course, but nothing else will be normal for her any longer, and it all starts when their English teacher Mr. Nicholl asks Percy why he hasn't been studying for his spelling tests (for the trillionth time!).
In Percy's defense, it's not his fault he's failing English— he's trying, and Aileth has been helping him, but it's just not easy to spell with his dyslexia. Which isn't his fault! And it's not like Mr. Nicholl is doing anything to make things better!
Aileth can't defend Percy calling Mr. Nicholl "an old sot with a receding hairline who would look like he was a divorced middle-aged man if it weren't for the fact that he's so boring he literally wouldn't be married in the first place", though it's not like she disagrees.
Anyways, Percy gets expelled from the school. The headmaster sends Percy's mom a letter confirming that Yancy Academy is never seeing the likes of Percy Jackson again, ever.
Percy, being Percy, isn't overly devastated by the news, but it's a lot of effort on Aileth's end to hide her own disappointment over his expulsion. Sure, it really isn't about her, and sure, they'll see each other during the holidays, and hang out together like they always do when she goes back home, but— like she said— there is nothing fun, or tolerable, about a world (school year) without Percy. Even if he's not dead.
There won't be anyone to fight her corner when Nancy Bobofit picks on her (well, there's Grover, but he spends most of the time trying to rationalize Nancy's bullying while shaking in his own corner, rendering him basically useless), no one to flunk class together with, and no one to watch the stars with at night whenever she has an especially rough day.
(Aileth briefly debates murder to get herself expelled along with Percy, and then decides that's just too overboard.)
As exam week draws closer, Aileth starts coming over to Percy's dorm more often than not to help him study, because it really wouldn't hurt if he passed at least one exam before leaving Yancy forever.
It doesn't go very well.
She jumps as Percy hurls his Cambridge's Guide to Greek Mythology across the dorm room, the book striking the tray Grover had brought up here with him (for some reason, he had an entire collection of tin cans, napkins and metal trays under his bed) with a loud clang.
A dent appears in the metal, and Aileth might've laughed at Percy's distorted reflection in it if his frustration wasn't felt all the way across the room.
"Sorry," he mumbles, softly. "I didn't mean it."
"It's okay," Aileth says, examining her reflection in Grover's tray. "Why does he have so many with him?"
"I don't know," Percy replies absently. Her best friend slumps to the ground, burying his face in his hands. "Mr. Brunner wants me to do well in this, but it's just so hard."
"I'm sorry I can't help," she says.
"It's not your fault. I just happen to be shit at it."
"Percy—"
"Maybe I should talk to him about it," the boy says, cutting her off. "At least then I won't have to leave Yancy with him thinking I didn't even bother to try."
"Do you want me to come with you?" she offers.
He nods, and they make their way downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them are dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door is ajar. The light from his window stretches across the hallway floor.
They're three steps away from the door handle when they hear voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asks a question, and then comes a voice that definitely belongs to Grover:
". . . worried about Percy and Aileth, sir."
They both freeze. Percy grabs Aileth's hand for comfort, and inches closer.
". . . alone this summer," Grover is saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"
"We would only make matters worse by rushing Percy," Mr. Brunner says. "We need the boy to mature more. But for Aileth—"
"Percy may not have time! The summer solstice deadline―"
"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover," their Latin teacher cuts him off. "Let the children enjoy their ignorance while they still can."
"Sir, they saw her. . ."
"Their imagination," Mr. Brunner insists. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince them of that."
"Sir, I. . . I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice is choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."
"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner says kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. And about Aileth. . ."
Heart in throat, Aileth tenses. Percy, still holding her hand, squeezes it softly. I'm here.
"What about her?"
"She's not one of us," Mr. Brunner says. Aileth isn't sure what he means— are they not human? How has she never noticed?
"So she's not a half-blood, then?"
Beside her, Percy frowns. Half-blood? he mouths, a look of confusion evident on his face as he shoots Aileth a glance. That sounds kind of racist.
She shrugs, equally oblivious.
"She. . . as far as I'm aware, her mother is a mortal, but I don't think William is. He's trying to hide whatever he is, that I can see, but—" the shadow of Mr. Brunner lifts his hand, making a gesture Aileth can't quite decipher. "— the ears, Grover. The other students may not see her for what she is, and they may just brush it off as something to tease her about, but—"
Feeling Percy's stare on her ears, Aileth raises her hand to untuck her hair from behind her ear in an attempt to cover it.
Her face feels like it's on fire. She knows something is off about her ears, given that they have always been pointed and unlike the round ears everyone else sported, but she's never given it more than a second thought— again, her parents (father) claim that everything strange about her is because she had the Sight, but now that she thinks about it. . . only her father had the pointy ears and oddly pale hair, and he doesn't have the night vision or the black eyes; while her mother has none of those strange features.
Have they been lying to her?
"I know," Grover whimpers. "Sir— do you think her kind will come for her?"
Her kind?
She hears Mr. Brunner click his tongue, almost as if in disappointment. "It is inevitable. Her parents have done everything in their power, but it will never be enough. We— you must send her to camp as soon as possible."
"But she doesn't belong there," Grover says.
"No, she doesn't," Mr. Brunner responds, and Aileth gets the feeling that they are talking about different kinds of 'don't belong'. "It's our best shot, though. Zeus only knows what'll happen if the Fair Folk get their hands on her."
What was going on?
Grover swallows. "Yes, sir."
"Now let's just worry about keeping them alive until next fall, and hope that Aileth's father isn't what I think he is ―"
Percy's mythology book clatters to the ground and hit the floor with a thud. The boy's eyes are widened with fright, his face pale in the dim hallway light. Dropping her hand, he looks at her with a hint of fear in his gaze, and Aileth's heart breaks a little.
She wants to cry. Aileth silently curses their bad luck— if his book hadn't chosen that second to drop, maybe Mr. Brunner would've elaborated on what he thinks is going on with the two of them, and then maybe they would have some idea of whatever is going on.
But there is no time to dwell on it as a shadow slides across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door— the shadow of something much taller than their wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looks suspiciously like an archer's bow.
Percy doesn't hold her hand again, but rather he grabs her wrist and the mythology book, pulling them both through the nearest door that he opens.
A few seconds later, the pair hear a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside their door. A large, dark shape pauses in front of the glass.
After a moment, Percy picks up Aileth's hand again like a lifeline. The shape moves on.
Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner speaks. "Nothing," he murmurs. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."
"Mine neither," Grover says. "But I could have sworn. . ."
"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner tells him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."
"Don't remind me," Grover sighs.
The lights go out in Mr. Brunner's office. Aileth stares into the dark and the dark stares back. She wonders if Percy can hear the sound of her heart beating rapidly against her ribcage, wonders if his is doing the same.
Finally, her best friend slips back out into the hallway to check if the coast is clear, and pulls her out with him once he's certain there is no one holding a bow prancing about in the dark.
"What was that about?" Percy whispers to her as they made their way back to the dorms.
"I don't know," she mutters. "Fair Folk? My kind?"
"And keeping me alive. You think I'm gonna die?"
"Maybe they just think you're stupid enough to get yourself into every single near-death situation in the universe."
(A world without Percy is unfathomable.) "Please don't," Aileth adds as an afterthought.
"I'll try." The ghost of a smile graces his lips. Her best friend hugs her, and she vaguely registers that he smells like the ocean. "See you tomorrow?"
"'Night," she mutters, lost in her thoughts, and heads towards her room.
Piper is still awake when she enters.
"Where were you?" the girl asks, sitting in front of the vanity with a pair of scissors in hand. "I thought you promised to help me cut my hair today."
Aileth blanches. "I— I was helping Percy study for his exam, and I guess I kind of lost track of time."
"Cute." Piper smirks, and then patted the chair next to her. "Let's just get this over with."
"Sorry I forgot," Aileth tells her earnestly as she takes her seat, grabbing the pair of scissors from Piper. "I've never done this with other people, but—"
"You do it with yourself, and it looks fine," Piper points out. "Besides, I'd probably cut my hair myself if you didn't help, and you know how that turned out the last time."
Ah, yes. The good ol' days of Piper's hair looking like a train wreck for at least three weeks after her last self-inflicted haircut.
"Right," Aileth says. She checks the evenness of her cutting. "I remember. Your dad's rich, though, isn't he? Can't you just go to the salon or something?"
Her roommate laughs, a bitter sound. "He talks to me, like, three times a month and that's about it. I doubt he'd even have the time to send me the money to go to the salon."
"Oh," Aileth tries to sound sympathetic, but she just doesn't understand— as an only child, she's never had any trouble getting her parents' attention, and the closest thing she has to a rival would be her dog (read: hellhound who tried to murder her the first time they met), who doesn't even stick around that much.
"It's okay," Piper says, shoulders sagging. "I know I'm lucky."
"Sit straight," Aileth elects not to respond to her statement as she doesn't know what to say. "Don't tilt your head to the side."
Piper does as she's told, continuing to speak. "Sometimes I wish he wasn't so successful."
"Really? Who is he?" Aileth only knows from stories and offhanded mentions that Piper's dad is rich and famous, but she's stayed in the same dorm as Piper for the entire year and still doesn't even know Piper's last name, much less that of her father's.
"An actor," she replies stiffly. "He's so. . . busy now that he doesn't have the time for me anymore, and I just get shipped off to random boarding schools. It's like he doesn't even want to keep me around at all. Where did things go wrong?"
She starts crying. Aileth hands her a box of tissues awkwardly.
"It's okay," she says, trying to reassure Piper. "Maybe you could try talking to him?"
"I already said that he didn't have the time for me."
"Squeeze yourself into his schedule, then," she suggests. (Aileth is completely extemporizing. She has no idea what she's saying, but it seems to help.) "Demand attention or something, I don't know. That's what Lamia does when she thinks she's being left out."
The crying slows to a stop. Piper hiccups pathetically. "You have a sister?"
"Uh, no. Lamia's a dog."
Her roommate lets out a cut-up laugh at that. "Are you comparing me to a dog?"
"What? No, no, no," Aileth backtracks quickly. "I'm not! I just mean that ― I wasn't ― god, I'm sorry."
"S'okay," Piper says as the girl finishes cutting.
"Voila!" Aileth grins, brushing stray hairs off her (read: Percy's) jacket. "What do you think?"
"Wow." Piper mutters. (Is that a good thing or a bad thing!?) "I like it,"
"Thanks," Aileth says, relieved, putting away her scissors. She spares a glance at the floor of the dorm, covered with bits and pieces of chocolate brown hair. "And...on to cleaning up."
They make small talk while they're at it, and in all honesty, it's something Aileth is grateful for as it keeps her mind off everything that's happened earlier today.
But the solace is temporary. When Piper goes to sleep, the girl is left staring at the ceiling, drowning in her thoughts as she recalls Mr. Brunner and Grover's conversation.
The ears...
The Fair Folk...
She doesn't belong...
What is going on?
❦
Aileth, Percy, and Grover ride the same Greyhound back to Manhattan on the last day of the term.
During the ride, Grover keeps glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers apprehensively. It occurs to Aileth that he's always acted nervous and fidgety whenever they left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen every time. Before, she'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there is nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.
"Looking for Kindly Ones?" Percy asks out of nowhere.
Aileth's head snaps up in surprise, and Grover jumps several inches into the air.
"Wha— what do you mean?"
Percy's eyes, now a clear blue reflecting the river nearby, narrow at Grover.
"You're really going to pretend you don't know what we mean?"
"Well," Grover swallows visibly, "I don't think—"
"Aileth and I were there when you talked to Brunner," Percy blurts out.
"Snitch," she grumbles, but she's still watching intently to see what happens next.
"So you eavesdropped?" Grover's brows crease, though he looks more worried than angry. His eye twitches, an infinitesimal movement. "How much did you hear?"
"Oh. . . not much," Percy quips. "What's the summer solstice deadline?"
He winces. "Look, Percy. . . I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers. . ."
"Grover," begins Aileth.
"And— and I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and—"
"I saw Mrs. Dodds, too," she says, crossing her arms. "I know you're not telling the truth."
His ears turned pink. "Well, I—"
"Grover, seriously, you're a really, really bad liar," Percy interrupts, cutting him off.
Grover's ears turn even pinker. He sighs, as if in defeat, and fishes out two grubby business cards from his shirt pocket. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."
The card is in fancy script, which is very, very considerate of Aileth's dyslexic eyes, but she manages to make out something along the lines of:
Grover Underwood, Keeper
Half-Blood Hill
Long Island, New York
(800) 009-0009
Percy squints at his, no doubt trying to decipher the words as well. "What's Half—"
"Don't say it aloud!" Grover yelps. "That's my, um. . . summer address."
A summer address. Of course. Aileth thinks. Rich people.
"Okay," Percy says despondently. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."
Grover nods. "Or. . . or if you need me."
"Why would I need you?" he said, in a surprisingly cold tone.
"Percy," Aileth says, voice low in a warning tone. The ice melts off his face, just slightly, but he doesn't say anything.
Grover blushes right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, the truth is, I— I kind of have to protect you guys."
Percy and Aileth stare at him, at a loss for words.
"Grover," Percy says, slowly, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"
A huge grinding noise under their feet interrupts the conversation. Black smoke pours from the dashboard, and the whole bus is filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver curses, loudly, and limps the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.
After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announces that they'll all have to get off. The trio file outside with the rest of the passengers.
They're on a stretch of country road— no place one would notice if they didn't break down there. On their side of the highway, there is nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, is an old-fashioned fruit stand.
The stuff on sale looks pretty good to Aileth— heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There are no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks she's ever laid eyes on.
The socks are the size of sweaters, but they're clearly socks, and knitting them seems to be quite the team effort. The lady on the right knits one of them, the lady on the left knits the other, and the lady in the middle held an enormous basket of yarn. (It seems to glow in the light of the afternoon sun.)
All three women look ancient. Their pale faces have wrinkles carved in like marble, and their silver hair is tied back in bandannas. Their bony arms stick out of bleached cotton dresses, moments away from withering out of existence.
Strange thing: they all seem to be looking right at Aileth.
She looks over at Grover to ask if he'd noticed. The blood has drained from his face, Aileth realized, and his nose is twitching even more than it had been on the bus.
"Grover?" Percy's voice cuts through the muttering of the other passengers, reaching for his friend. "Hey, man—"
"Tell me they're not looking at you." Grover whimpers, turning to Aileth. "They are, aren't they?"
"They are," she says. Somehow her voice has died out. For a moment there's a ringing in her ears, like a haunting, and she can smell rain against stone and clear night skies. It disappears as quickly as it comes.
"Yeah," Percy replies. He doesn't seem to catch on to the tension in the air, despite how palpable it has become— you could taste it, chew on it, spit it out. "Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit either of us?"
"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all." He was trembling now, the pupils of his eyes becoming slits—
Wait, what?
Aileth fails to dwell on that. The old lady in the middle takes out a huge pair of scissors— gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. It catches the sunlight, sharp and lethal. Grover makes a sound like choking.
"We're getting on the bus," he tells them. "Come on."
"What?" She stares dubiously at him, as though he's lost his mind.
"It's a thousand degrees in there," Percy points out.
"Come on!'" Grover pries open the door and scrambles inside, but neither of them move to follow him.
Across the road, the old ladies are still watching Aileth. The middle one cuts the yarn, and the girl swears she can hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. The yarn, cut off from the basket, hangs limply at the end of the one of the socks like a severed lifeline. Aileth's breath is ripped out of her lungs, the cavity of her chest left hollow. Her heart stops, as if it was that of the yarn that had been cut.
Percy, frowning, taps her on the shoulder. (The air rushes back into her lungs. She remembers how to breathe again.)
"Were the socks for Sasquatch or Godzilla?" he asks.
"Bold of you to assume they'd like glowing blue socks," Aileth mutters in response.
"Hey, blue is a nice color!"
At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenches a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shudders, and the engine roars back to life. The passengers cheer.
"Darn right!" yells the driver. He slaps the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"
Aileth's head hurts, perhaps caused by the lack of oxygen from moments ago.
Once they get going, the ringing in her ears appears, intensified. Images flash behind her eyes— the candles on a funeral pyre burning lower and lower, a boy made of grief staring at the ceiling and another one, taller with one eye, hovering by a makeshift casket. The lid hangs open like an unfinished story.
Wake up, please, he is saying. My brother is waiting for you.
The world shifts. The boy staring at the ceiling is now standing up, looking younger and much less burdened. It's raining, he's standing in the middle of the field with another girl and they're laughing, knocking their elbows together in a silly little dance. He grabs her hand and spins her around, dipping her to capture her lips in a kiss once she turns back around to face him.
Promise me something? Aileth's heart wrenches at the familiarity of it, at how the voice feels like one she'd know even in death.
Anything.
Stay with me, forever. In this life and the next. His voice is rougher around the edges now, catching on the words. Please don't leave me.
Is it tears streaking down his face or is it the rain? The sky is dark in the dead of night. Aileth cannot tell.
Percy speaks and it sends her back to reality.
"Grover?" he is saying.
"Yeah?"
"What are you not telling us?"
Grover dabs his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"
"You mean the old ladies?" Percy frowns. "What is it about them, man? They're not like. . . Mrs. Dodds, are they?"
She realizes, then, that it is Percy dancing in the rain. Aileth swallows back the grief at the idea of someone else laughing with him, at the idea of him begging someone else to not leave him. It has always been Percy and Aileth, Aileth and Percy— she cannot imagine a world where he is not hers to keep, where she has to share him with someone else in any way that matters.
"Just tell me what you saw." Grover's expression is hard to read, but as she tries to shake off the remnants of what she'd just seen, Aileth gets the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies are something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds.
"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn," Percy recalls.
Grover closes his eyes and makes a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but Aileth knows it isn't. It is something else, something almost— older.
He says, "She was watching Aileth. And she cut the yarn."
"Yeah. So?" Even with Percy's insouciant tone, Aileth knows it's a big deal, and that whatever this is, she has something to do with it. (Whether she likes it or not.)
"This is not happening," Grover mumbles. He starts chewing at his thumb, terrified. "I don't want this to be like the last time."
"What last time?"
"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."
"Grover," Percy says, "What are you talking about?"
"Let me walk you guys home from the bus station." Grover's voice shakes. "Promise me."
It seems like a strange request, but they promise him regardless.
"Is this, like, a superstition or something?" Percy asks.
No answer.
"Grover," Aileth says, trying to keep her voice even, "that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"
Grover doesn't respond, but he looks at Aileth mournfully, like he is already thinking of the flowers that she would like best on her grave.
(The candles on the funeral pyre burn, lower and lower. Smoke fills the night sky.)
Author's Note ♰ updating after ONLY two months !?!?!? i deserve an award yall... ok anyways! to explain the part "percy's eyes, now a clear blue reflecting the water nearby": in this story his eyes change color to reflect the nearest body of water (son of poseidon/y/n things i guess), but aileth has gotten so used to it it just flies over her head (or her parents come up with some lame excuse about "thE sIGht" & she is convinced b/c she trusts them wholly but like pick the version you wanna go with! idrc LOL)
also guys please check out my anakin fic SKDHJFHJKD it's flopping so badly it's not even funny...
thoughts on this chapter ??