After getting over the initial shock of the situation, I pocketed the letter and whistle and resumed packing. I figured that I shouldn't have been surprised at this point.
A postcard from my dead mother, delivered right to my sleeping bag in the abandoned building no one knew I was squatting in wasn't that hard to believe after my grasp on reality was already so loose. I could believe ghosts can send postcards.
With nowhere else to go, I began heading southeast in the vague direction of New York. I wasn't in much of a hurry, even if the card promised that the address would lead me somewhere safe from monsters. I was only really going because I had to keep moving anyway, and it was easier to do that when I was traveling from A to B and not just aimlessly running.
And so began the worst three months of my life.
Most days went something like this:
In the morning, I'd wake up from a nightmare at some unholy hour of the morning before trying and failing to go back to sleep. After a while of laying there, I'd get up and pack up my sleeping bag, eat something I had stolen the day before, and find the nearest public bathroom– if there were any– and wash up for the day. Then, I'd check a map to confirm my route and start walking, stealing from any unattended bags or unaware pedestrians until I had enough money to take a bus or a train.
In the afternoons, I'd eat whatever I had left in my bag for lunch, or buy something if I had the money. I'd walk as far as I could until sundown before beginning to look for a bridge or empty building to crash in for the night.
But despite my efforts to keep moving and avoid monsters, I'd sometimes get delayed long enough for something to pick up my scent, or I'd just run into one by chance. It was on a day that the bus I'd taken had broken down. They refused to refund everyone and I was too stubborn to just walk away after paying, so I stayed with the bus for a few hours before they fixed the problem.
It was because of that delay that another one of those giant dogs tracked me down and gave chase until the day's exhaustion caught up to me. I ran out of stamina too quickly and I decided to hide in a small, catholic cathedral. I'd already been shaky in my faith– I'd begun questioning everything I knew since running away– but in my exhausted delirious state, I must have figured I'd be safe since a demon wouldn't be able to enter the house of God.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn't safe in the church, and the giant dog had smashed through Mother Mary's mosaic and embedded a glass shard in my face. I was lucky not to have caught it in the eye, but the glass had pierced my nose and gotten stuck.
That night I finally had the guts and adrenaline to confirm that my whistle could indeed turn into a sword and vaporize monsters, as promised on the postcard.
I think if I went to the hospital the doctors might have said that I needed plastic surgery- or at the very least stitches- but I couldn't risk them calling the police and finding out I was on a missing persons list.
So instead, I just went back to the bridge that I was sleeping under at the time and extracted the piece of glass myself. I sat there digging it out with my knife for two hours. Desperately trying to keep the tip of my nose from falling off and praying I wouldn't slip and stab myself in the eye.
After I finally got the glass shard out, I had to go to a grocery store for some real medical supplies. The biggest problem was that a minor couldn't purchase painkillers.
So I decided on walking into a pharmacy and asking the woman behind the counter if the store had a first aid kit. The blood seeping through tissues and duct tape on my face must have scared her because she didn't take the time to ask questions before she ran off to a back room.
While she was out of sight, I slipped behind the counter and snatched a few bottles of painkillers. Then I grabbed as much gauze, bandages, and iodine as I could fit in my bag from various shelves. I was just about to leave when my conscience caught up to me and I took a second to grab a wad of stolen cash from my bag and leave it on the counter before running out of the store.
I wasn't sure if it was enough to actually pay for what I'd taken, but I hoped it would at least be seen as an act of good faith.
After that incident, I decided that I'd be rushing a little less from one place to another. That meant being more careful when stealing cash so I wouldn't have to run from angry adults and older kids, as well as prioritizing eating proper meals over catching a train or bus. That way I could save my energy for running from monsters when needed.
Not to mention, the point of my cross-country trek was to stay one step ahead of the monsters on my trail and never be in one place for too long. I didn't actually care about the destination, so there was no reason for me to rush.
The whole point of aiming for this supposed camp was to situation feel a little less hopeless. I didn't really think I was going to make it anyway, I had no idea how I was going to cross the American border. So slowing my pace was a good thing, the longer I had to figure it out or die trying, the better.
But by an incredible stroke of luck, I didn't have to die trying.
I was in Ontario by late August and the nights were getting colder and colder. I had to find somewhere indoors to sleep in case the snow decided to come early, so I broke into an empty dorm room at a French boarding school. I'd been there for just over two weeks when I got a visitor.
I was eating a tuna melt sandwich I'd bought from one of the school's troublemakers when I heard a knock at the door. I got up and grabbed my bat, just in case. I never knew when one of the few students who knew I was here and didn't speak French would either rat me out or try to blackmail me.
I peeked through the peephole in the door and saw a guy who I guessed was in his twenties wearing a baseball cap and an aviator jacket.
At first, I thought that he might be part of the school security. He was saying some stuff in French until he paused and started speaking English.
"Wait, say that again. I, uh, didn't hear you the first time?" I asked as I slightly cracked open the door, gripping my bat out of his line of sight.
Something about him seemed off. He was visibly uncomfortable talking to me and my gut was screaming that he wasn't human, but no monster had ever tried calmly approaching me like this before.
Sure, there was that one that had come to my door, all those months ago, but it had been scratching and banging. Even the few of the more humanoid ones that could talk usually only threw insults or taunts while trying to kill me, or at most only kept up a horrible attempt at acting human for a few seconds before lunging at me. Never had one initiated an actual conversation without drooling a puddle on the floor.
Still, the longer I looked up at the stranger, the more suspicious I grew.
"You're a new student, eh?" He repeated in a weird, forced accent. "No one was in this dorm a month ago. But I haven't seen you in any classes, either... Eh."
I raised an unimpressed brow while I quietly leaned my bat against the door and reached for the whistle in my pocket.
By this point I was completely convinced something was up, not to mention he hadn't clarified who he was or why he was there, which was incredibly weird since I was fairly sure this was a middle school and he was in his late teens at the youngest.
"Yeah... I just transferred here a week ago. Why are you at my dorm?" It was kind of rude, but I didn't feel the need to be polite to this guy. If I was actually a student, he'd definitely be the one in the wrong here.
He was surprised by my bluntness. "I- uh, I smelled something and just wanted to come to say hi," he answered, raising his eyebrows at me. He had an expectant look on his face like he was waiting for me to get an inside joke.
I tilted my head a bit at his expression before I processed what he'd said. 'Smelled something.' I echoed in my mind.
Literally no sane human would give that as a genuine excuse to show up at someone's door.
Barely a moment passed before my whistle was out of my pocket and in its sword form, its hooked blade angled in a guard in front of me.
If it wasn't for his bizarre change in body language, I might've killed him right then and there. He'd obviously been uncertain before, but now he didn't look the least bit scared of me or the glowing orange-gold sword in my hand. In fact, he looked more relaxed than he'd been before. Which was really unsettling.
He'd even sighed in relief, flashing a wide smile before introducing himself.
"Well, I'm Ichneutae. But call me Icky," he took his hat off and gave a dramatic bow as he said this, which gave me a good look at the small horns poking out of his curly hair. "Camp Half-Blood's best keeper, at your service."
He'd dropped the fake accent and was now speaking more naturally, which sounded more like a less dramatic version of the New Yorker or Jersey accents I'd heard on TV.
Seeing the horns on his head didn't exactly quell my nerves and the theatrics were just weird, but a monster had never taken the time to introduce itself to me before, let alone bow. All the weirdness mixed with his confusing behavior almost caused me to miss the last part of his introduction.
"Camp Half-Blood?" I asked, slightly lowering my guard. "Does that mean you work there? In Long Island?" I asked, trying not to give away my excitement.
Icky raised a brow at me.
"You're not on a quest, are you," he asked after a short pause.
"That doesn't answer my question," I said, but after a moment I dropped my guard and shook my head. "Not that I really know what that means, but no. I'm not on a mission or anything like that."
"And you definitely don't have another satyr with you or I'd be able to smell 'em. You lose your keeper or something?" He sniffed the air, and I guessed he was checking for said other 'satyr.'
"Look, I don't know what a keeper is but you mentioned Camp Half-Blood, which means I have a reason to sorta trust you. For now. Or at the very least not vaporize you. What can you tell me about the camp?" I decided that this conversation was now an investigation as I raised my sword back up. This time closer to his neck.
"Alright, fine. But at least tell me your name first, kid." Icky agreed, ignoring my obvious threat.
I hesitated a moment before deciding that there was probably nothing he could do by knowing my name. "Zoe."
Icky seemed satisfied with that and went on to explain that he was a satyr, a half-goat half-man, and his job as a Keeper was to guide "half-bloods" to Camp Half-Blood (pretty on the nose name if you asked me).
In other words, he was the perfect guy to help me get there.
But despite my nagging, Icky refused to tell me what exactly a half-blood was beyond being able to see monsters, or why the camp was the only safe place for them. He claimed that knowing would put me in more danger than I already was. I asked him how that was supposed to work and he just brushed me off with some bull crap about smelling worse or something.
After a few more attempts to get the information out of him, I gave up asking. I had no choice but to trust he was telling the truth about all my questions being answered when I got to camp.
I still wasn't sure how much I could trust Icky since he was withholding so much information, and when he did provide answers they were always vague and unhelpful. But even if I didn't fully trust him, following him did prove to have some perks.
First of all, he had a part-time job in Ontario and a backup fund for when he found a half-blood. Which meant, he had money. Lots of real, not-stolen money, easily accessible in his wallet. As long as I was with him, I could eat without any guilt or stress.
He could also smell other monsters, which made avoiding them unbelievably smoother. I never thought I'd be so happy to be hanging around a monster (though he objected to me calling him that, but he wasn't human so I didn't see the difference).
Finally, when we were nearing the Canadian-American border, he somehow magicked up some paperwork that said I was an American citizen, and that we were related. He let me choose the names, so I guess I'm now legally an American citizen named Cana Dion Bacona who had an uncle named Chris Pete Bacon (I definitely wouldn't come to regret that joke in the future).
Icky insisted that he was supposed to guide me the whole way to the camp, but as impressive as magic citizenship was, I still didn't trust him enough to go with him the whole way. For all I knew, he was just waiting for the right opportunity to kill me in my sleep or something. I pointed this out to him and made it clear that if he wanted me to get to camp he'd respect my wishes and leave me alone once we were across the border.
He argued a bit but eventually agreed that once we were in New York State he'd let me get to the camp on my own and even gave me money and directions for a few bus and train tickets that would run as close as possible to camp before I'd have to go the rest of the way on foot.
Icky had left after we crossed the border, like we'd agreed. Turning right around to go back to searching the boarding school where we'd met for other half-bloods.
Now that I was alone during the long bus rides, it was difficult not to think about how absurd my life had become in the last six months.
First, I'd been chased away from home by a bunch of monsters. Then I found a postcard that was supposedly from my mom on my sleeping bag in a random old store no one knew I was staying in.
Then, a hippy-looking goat guy got me magical paperwork that said I was an American citizen named Cana Dion. Was I an illegal alien? Did magic citizenships count as fake or was I actually a legal American Citizen now? Did records of me suddenly show up in a file cabinet somewhere? Wasn't that unfair to people who fought for years to get green cards in this country?
It was also hard to keep my mind off of something else Icky said. He was asking me about my parents. He asked if I'd ever met my father and was pretty surprised when I explained that it was my mother who died when I was young. When I asked him why he expected me not to have a dad, he refused to explain as always, but he'd also let it slip that my mom wasn't dead.
I asked him how he could know that and he just insisted he couldn't tell me the details. He just reassured me all my questions would be answered when I arrived at the camp for the hundredth time.
But I still needed to take a few more trains to get there. Speaking of trains, I'd also learned something about myself on this trip: I absolutely despised the subway. I'd been on trains before, but this was my first time riding one underground. I thought it'd be a fun, new experience.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Everything about it sucked. The underground tunnels were stuffy and suffocating and the bright artificial lights had been nauseating. On top of all that, the a was the same kind of primal wrong feeling in my stomach as when I was in or near deep water and I hated it. The whole time I had to concentrate on not hyperventilating, which wasn't easy since the air itself felt like it was as thick as the dirt I knew was just outside the concrete; after that, I swore to myself that once I got to the camp, I'd never go underground again.
Finally, almost six months since I'd run away from home, I had made it to Long Island. I walked through an area filled with trees with a map in my hand. I came up to a hill and saw a big, blue house that lay next to a strawberry field. I continued forward but when I took a step past a notably large pine tree my eyes widened as the camp I had been looking for suddenly materialized at the bottom of the hill behind the strawberry fields as well as kids on the backs of horses with wings, flying in the sky above where I was. I stood there for a while staring at the camp below with a mixture of awe and dread.
On one hand, if Icky and the postcard were right, I'd be safe here and I could settle down after months of running. I could start a life with other weirdos, "half-bloods," like me. I might even be able to finally meet my mom if she really was still alive.
On the other hand, this meant that I finally had to accept that everything I'd experienced in the last six months was reality. I wasn't hallucinating or dreaming. I wasn't going to wake up back at home and eat breakfast with my family. In fact, I'd probably never see them again.
Even if it was somehow safe enough to go back to them one day, I'd never be able to explain where I've been or why I left.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I let it out as opened my eyes, taking my unsure first step to begin walking down the hill, toward my new reality.