Scotomaphobia: Fear of Being Blind
Aurelia didn't hate the rain. Not completely.
As a kid in Puerto Rico, she loved listening to the pitter-patter of rain against her family's hacienda. The gray clouds always casted a dark daylight inside her mother's room, but it was always just enough to keep Martina sane. The lightning that often accompanied the rain would scare the ghosts that scoured the shadows of the room. The way people saw a sunny day as a beautiful opportunity to enjoy themselves was the way she saw the rain.
Now the smell of rain was bittersweet. One, it reminded her of the small moments of peace from her childhood, and it reminded her of Jason—who always smelled like a storm. But it was bitter for those same reasons because as soon as the rain cleared from the skies in Puerto Rico, the ghosts came back to play and it was the constant reminder that Jason wasn't physically with her.
But at least you know he's alive, Aurelia reminded herself. He is alive.
So as Aurelia lifted her head to feel the light drops of rain against her face, she allowed the scent of rain to fill her and place her at ease.
She definitely didn't hate the rain.
"I thought I slept heavily," Hazel commented as she finally managed to wake Percy. His small rush of confused emotions made Aurelia believe that he had been dreaming.
The Pax floated on an iron-black river through the middle of a city. Heavy clouds hung overhead. The cold rain was so light it seemed suspended in the air. On the left there were industrial buildings and railroad tracks. On the right was a small downtown area—an almost cozy looking cluster of towers between the banks of the river and a line of misty forested hills.
Percy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "How did we get here?" He noticed the way Aurelia closed her eyes and faced the sky was a certain air of peace.
Frank gave him a look like, You won't believe this. "The killer whale took us as far as the Columbia River. Then he passed the harness to a couple of twelve foot sturgeons. Anyway the sturgeons pulled us for a long time. You and Aurelia slept the entirety of it, but Hazel and I were taking turns napping. Then we hit this river—"
"The Willamette," Hazel offered.
"Right," Frank said. "After that, the boat kind of took over and navigated us here all by itself. You sleep okay?"
As the Pax gilded south, Percy began to tell them about his dreams: the warship that might be on the way to help Camp Jupiter and a friendly Cyclops and a giant dog that were looking for him. Aurelia noticed how his emotions were changing ever so slightly. She could tell there was something he wasn't saying about his dreams. And she decided not to chime in with the fact that she saw the giant warship as well.
Percy continued talking about his dreams, talking about the Roman fort on the ice—Hazel got worried when he described that.
"So Alcyoneus is on a glacier," Hazel deduced. "That doesn't narrow it down much. Alaska has hundreds of those."
Percy nodded. "Maybe this seer dude Phineas can tell us which one."
The boat docked itself at a wharf. The four demigods stared up at the buildings of drizzly downtown Portland.
Frank wiped the rain off his flat-top hair. "So now we find a blind man in the rain. Yay."
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Finding the seer was easy. The screaming and weed whacker helped.
They'd brought lightweight Polartec jackets with supplies so they bundled up against the cold rain and walked a few blocks through the mostly deserted streets. Aurelia was smart this time and brought most of her supplies from the boat. They saw some bicycle traffic and a few homeless guys huddled in doorways but the majority of Portlanders seemed to be staying indoors.
As they made their way down Glisan Street, they passed at the folks in the cafes enjoying coffee and pastries. She could feel Percy's longing for food, Hazel's unease and Frank's skepticism. She shared a mixture of all three emotions—not that you would ever tell from her relaxed posture and blank, slightly bored looking face. She didn't know what to expect. She thought about Phineas, the blind seer. She couldn't imagine having that sense taken from her—even with such a power to counteract it.
A voice began yelling down the street: "HA! TAKE THAT, STUPID CHICKENS!" followed by the revving of a small engine and a lot of squawking.
Percy glanced at his friend. "You think—"
"Probably," Frank agreed.
"That was much easier than I thought it was going to be," Aurelia murmured as they all ran towards the sound.
The next block over, they found a big open parking lot with tree-lined sidewalks and rows of trucks facing the streets on all four sides. Some were simple white metal boxes on wheels, with awning and serving counters. Others were painted blue or purple or polka-dotted, with big banners out front and colorful menu boards and tables like do-it-yourself sidewalk cafes. One advertised Korean/Brazilian fusion tacos. Another offered sushi on a stick. A third was selling deep-fried ice cream sandwiches.
Aurelia's face didn't betray her hunger, but the rumbling of her stomach did. These trucks were a major upgrade from the wheat germ they had encountered a few hours ago.
Unfortunately, it didn't take precedence over their predicament: in the center of the parking lot, behind all the food trucks, an old man in a bathrobe was running around with a weed whacker, screaming at a flock of bird-ladies who were trying to steal his food off his picnic table.
"Harpies," Hazel said. "Which means—"
"That's Phineas," Frank guessed.
"Lovely," Aurelia sighed.
They ran across the street and squeezed between the Korean/Brazilian truck and a Chinese egg roll burrito vendor. The backs of the food truck weren't nearly as appetizing as the fronts. They were cluttered with stacks of plastic buckets, overflowing garbage cans, and makeshift clotheslines hung with wet aprons and towels. The parking lot itself was nothing but a square of cracked asphalt, marbled with weeds. In the middle was a picnic table piled high with foods from all different trucks.
The guy in the bathrobe was old and fat. He was mostly bald, with scars across his forehead and a rim of stringy white hair. His bathrobe was splattered with ketchup, and he kept stumbling around in fuzzy pink bunny slippers, swinging his gas-powered weed whacker at the half-dozen harpies who were hovering over his picnic table.
He was clearly blind. His eyes were milky white, and usually he missed the harpies by a lot, but he was still doing a pretty good job fending them off.
"Back, dirty chickens!" he bellowed.
Aurelia wanted to focus on the emotions of the old man, but for some reason she focused on the overwhelming torturous feelings coming from the harpies. They were starving. Their human faces had sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. Their bodies were covered in molting feathers, and their wings were tipped with tiny, shriveled hands. They wore burlap sacks for dresses. As they dived for the good, they seemed more desperate than angry. Aurelia felt sorry for them.
WHIRRRR! The old man swung his weed wacker. He grazed one of the harpie's wings. The harpy yelped in pain and fluttered off, dropping yellow feathers as it flew.
Another harpy circled higher than the rest. She looked younger and smaller than the others, with bright red feathers. She watched carefully for an opening, and when the old man's back was turned, she made a wild dive for the table. She grabbed a burrito in her clawed feet, but before she could escape, the blind man swung his weed wacker and smacked her in the back so hard, Aurelia flinched from the pain that the harpy emitted. The red-feathered creature yelped, dropped the burrito and flew off.
"Hey, stop that!" Percy yelled.
The harpies took that the wrong way. They glanced over at the four demigods and immediately fled. Most of them fluttered away and perched in the trees around the square, staring dejectedly at the picnic table. The red-feathered one with the hurt back flew unsteadily down Glisan Street and out of sight.
"Ha!" The blind man yelled in triumph and killed the power of his weed whacker. He grinned vacantly in their direction. "Thank you, strangers! Your help is most appreciated!"
Aurelia felt Percy's anger and she sent a wave of calm towards him. He met her gaze and he took a deep breath, regaining his composure. "Uh, whatever. I'm Percy Jackson. This is—"
"Demigods!" the old man said. "I can always smell demigods."
"Hazel frowned. "Do we smell that bad?"
The old man laughed. "Of course not, my dear. But you'd be surprised how sharp my other senses became once I became blind. I'm Phineas. And you—wait, don't tell me—" He reached for Percy's face and poked him in the eyes.
"Ow!" Percy complained.
"Son of Neptune!" Phineas exclaimed. "I thought I smelled the ocean on you, Percy Jackson. I'm also a son of Neptune, you know."
"Hey ... yeah. Okay." The corner of Aurelia's mouth twitched in amusement to Percy's disdain.
Phineas turned to Hazel. "And here ... Oh my, the smell of gold and deep earth. Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto. And next to you ... how sweet and rich! Aurelia Ramirez, daughter of Pavor, blessed by Venus. Such a magical scent you carry, former handmaiden of Circe."
Aurelia's eyes glittered dangerously at the mention of her former master. Hazel and Frank both sent her a questioning glance but her eyes remained trained on the old man.
"And finally—the son of Mars," Phineas continued. "But there's more to your story, Frank Zhang—"
"Ancient blood," Frank muttered. "Prince of Pylos, blah, blah, blah."
"Periclymenus, exactly! Oh, he was a nice fellow. I loved the Argonauts!"
Frank's mouth fell open. "W-wait. Perry who?"
Phineas grinned. "Don't worry. I know about your family. That story about your great-grandfather? He didn't really destroy the camp. Now what an interesting group. Are you hungry?"
Frank looked and felt like he had been run over by a truck, but Phineas had already moved on to other matters. In the nearby trees, the harpies shrieked miserably. As hungry as Aurelia was, she hated the idea of eating with those poor bird ladies watching.
"Look, I'm confused," Percy declared. "We need some information. We were told—"
"—that the harpies were keeping my food away from me," Phineas finished, "and if you helped me, I'd help you."
"Something like that," Percy admitted.
Phineas laughed. "That's old news. Do I look like I'm missing any meals?" He patted his belly, which was the size of an over inflated basketball.
"Um ... no," Percy said.
Phineas waved his weed whacker in an expansive gesture. While the three all ducked out of the wall, Aurelia caught the other end and held it so Phineas couldn't move it anymore.
"Careful," she warned, releasing it. She was still very wary of this situation—from Phineas mentioning Circe to the starving harpies that were still watching their every move.
"Forgive me," Phineas apologized. "But things have changed, my friends! When I first got the gift of prophecy, eons ago, it's true Jupiter cursed me. He sent the harpies to steal my food. You see, I had a bit of a big mouth. I gave away too many secrets that the gods wanted kept." He turned to Hazel. "For instance, you're supposed to be dead." He looked at Aurelia. "You failed your family and allowed your mother to kill herself. And you—" He turned to Frank. "Your life depends on a burned stick."
Percy was shocked. "What are you talking about?"
Hazel blinked like she'd been slapped. Frank looked like the truck had backed up and ran him over again. Aurelia was struggling to keep her expression blank—she gripped her necklace ready to kill the blind old man even though they hadn't gotten their information.
Aurelia spent much of her life blaming herself for her mother's death—believing that she could somehow have prevented it. But Aurelia knew that there was nothing she could have done for Martina. She was not going to let some overweight blind man with an unfiltered mouth tell her otherwise.
"And you," Phineas turned to Percy, "well, now, you don't even know who you are! I could tell you, of course, but ... ha! What fun would that be? And Brigid O'Shaughnessy shot Miles Archer in The Maltese Falcon. And Darth Vader is actually Luke's father. And the winner of the next Super Bowl will be—"
"We get it," Frank muttered.
Hazel, like Aurelia, gripped her sword like she was tempted to pommel whip the old man. "So you talked too much, and the gods cursed you. Why did they stop?"
"Oh, they didn't!" The old man arched his bushy eyebrows like, Can you believe it? "I had to make a deal with the Argonauts. They wanted information too, you see. Well, they drove those nasty creatures away, but Iris wouldn't let them kill the harpies. An outrage! So this time, when my patron brought me back to life—"
"Your patron?" Frank asked.
Phineas gave him a wicked grin. "Why, Gaea, of course. Who do you think opened the Doors of Death? Your girlfriend here understands. Isn't Gaea your patron?"
Hazel drew her sword. "I'm not his— I don't— Gaea is not my patron!"
Phineas was amused and that angered Aurelia, who pulled her necklace off and held Ferrum Temoris. If Phineas had heard the swords, he didn't seem too concerned. "Fine, if you want to be noble and stick with the losing side, that's your business. But Gaea is waking. She's already rewritten the rules of life and death! I'm alive again, and in exchange for my help—a prophecy here, a prophecy there—I get my fondest wish. The tables have turned, so to speak. Now I can eat all I want, all day long, and the harpies have to watch and starve."
He revved his weed whacker and the harpies wailed in the three. Aurelia wanted to shove his weed whacker straight up his ass.
"They're cursed!" the old man said. "They can only eat food from my table, and they can't leave Portland. Since the Doors of Death are open, they can't even die. It's beautiful!"
"Beautiful?" Frank protested. "They're living creatures. Why are you so mean to them?"
"They're monsters!" Phineas said. "And mean? Those feather-brained demons tormented me for years."
"But it was their duty," Percy reasoned, his emotions growing in anger just like the rest of his friends. "Jupiter ordered them to."
"Oh, I'm mad at Jupiter too," Phineas agreed. "In time, Gaea will see that the gods are properly punished. Horrible job they've done, ruling the world. But for now, I'm enjoying Portland. The mortals take no notice of me. They think I'm just a crazy old man shooing away pigeons."
Hazel advanced on the seer. "You're awful!" she told Phineas. "You belong in the Fields of Punishment!"
Phineas sneered. "One dead person to another, girlie? I wouldn't be talking. You started this whole thing! If it weren't for you, Alcyoneus wouldn't be alive!'
Hazel stumbled back and Aurelia immediately held onto her, trying to keep her calm and placate her rage. It was hard—Aurelia shared Hazel's rage towards the old man. It would have been so satisfying to stab him straight in his disgustingly round gut.
"Hazel?" Frank's eyes were as round as quarters. "What's he talking about?"
"Ha!" Phineas said. "You'll find out soon enough, Frank Zhang. Then we'll see if you're still sweet on your girlfriend. But that's not what you're here about, is it? You want to find Thanatos. He's being kept at Alcyoneus's lair. I can tell you where that is. Of course I can. But you'll have to do me a favor."
"Forget it," Hazel snapped. "You're working for the enemy. We should send you back to the Underworld ourselves."
"You could try," Phineas smiled. "But I doubt I'd stay dead for very long. You see, Gaea has shown me the easy way back. And with Thanatos in chains, there's no one to keep me down! Besides, if you kill me, you won't get any of my secrets."
For the sake of her friends, Aurelia continued to control her emotions. They couldn't see her seething rage or her unquenching urge to kill the seer. But her friends all felt the same and as much as she wished this situation could be black and white, it wasn't. As much as they all wanted to pummel Phineas, they needed his information.
Camp Jupiter, she reminded herself. Think of your camp. Think of Reyna. You are doing this for them.
Out of the four of them, Aurelia was the only one capable of keeping her voice even. "What is the favor?"
Phineas licked his lips greedily. "There's one harpy who's quicker than the rest."
"The red one," Percy guessed.
"I'm blind! I don't know colors!" the old man groused. "At any rate, she's the one I have trouble with. She's wily, that one. Always does her own thing, never roosts with the others. She gave me these." He pointed at the scars on his forehead. "Capture that harpy. Bring her to me. I want her tied up where I can keep an eye on her ... ah, so to speak. Harpies hate being tied up. It causes them extreme pain. Yes, I'll enjoy that. Maybe I'll even feed her so that she lasts longer."
Aurelia stared hard at the seer. She came into this expecting to pity him—she did not expect to loathe him with every fiber of her being. It reminded her of Octavian, in a way. Phineas reminded her of Octavian. In a way, she could imagine Octavian turning into a mirror of this man: bitter, angry, still power-hungry, and only finding pleasure in the pain of others.
Aurelia met the eyes of her friends and they all came to a silent agreement: they would never help this man. On the other hand, they had to get his information. They needed a plan B.
"Oh, go talk among yourselves," Phineas said, breezily. "I don't care. Just remember that without my help, your quest will fail. And everyone you love in the world will die. Now, off with you! Bring me a harpy!"
"We'll need some of your food," Percy grumbled, snatching stuff off the old man's picnic table: a covered bowl of Thai noodles in mac and cheese sauce, and a tubular pastry that looked like a combination burrito and cinnamon roll. "Come on guys." He led his friends out of the parking lot.
They stopped across the street and Aurelia sent a strong wave of emotion to calm them down. The rain helped—it cooled her off.
"That man ..." Hazel smacked the side of a bus stop bench. "He needs to die. Again." It was hard to tell in the rain, but she seemed to be blinking back tears. Her long curly hair was plastered down the sides of her face. In the gray light, her gold eyes looked more like tin. Her emotions were a swirl of anger and guilt with some underlying fear. Aurelia didn't need to touch her hand to see what the fear was—she feared that Phineas was right.
It seemed as though the secrets were slowly spilling out. For all of them.
"We will get him," Percy promised. "He's nothing like you, Hazel. I don't care what he says."
"None of us do," Aurelia added.
She shook her head. "You don't know the whole story. I should have been sent to Punishment. I—I'm just as bad—"
"No, you're not!" Frank balled his fists. He looked around like he was searching for anybody who might disagree with him—enemies he could hit for Hazel's sake. "She's a good person!" he yelled across the street. A few harpies squawked in the trees, but no one else paid them any attention.
Hazel's sadness became her strongest emotion as she reached tentatively for Frank's hand, almost afraid that if she did so he would evaporate. "Frank ..." She stammered. "I—I don't—"
Unfortunately, Frank seemed wrapped up in his own thoughts. He slung his spear off his back and grabbed it uneasily. "I could intimidate the old man," he offered, "maybe scare him—"
"Shh," Aurelia murmured softly. She was the voice of reason out of the four of them—it was her job to make them feel better. Her job is to keep her emotions far away from her decisions. "If anything I can do the intimidation, but we should keep that as our backup plan. I do not think Phineas can be scared into cooperating. Besides, you only have two more uses out of the spear, right?"
Frank scowled at the dragon tooth point, which had grown back completely overnight. "Yeah. I guess..."
"Okay then." Aurelia looked at Hazel. "Do not compare yourself to Phineas. You were a child, and still are, and he is only interested in himself—the two of you are not the same. I have seen those parts of your past and you did everything you could to help the situation. Frank is right when he said you are a good person, because you are one of the better people in this world."
Hazel was comforted by her words and Aurelia looked at Frank. Reyna had told her about his family's history, but she also had told her how she was choosing to judge Frank based on his own merits, not his family's. Aurelia chose to do the same. She cared for the big guy—she knew about the things that haunted him.
"And Frank, what your grandfather did does not mean anything to us. It is in the past. We will leave it there—no matter what may or may have not happened. Understand?"
Frank nodded.
Percy studied Aurelia hard. He had been pondering the little secrets Phineas had revealed about them. While he knew about Aurelia's time with Circe, Phineas's mention of Aurelia's mother had evoked the smallest response of emotion in her. But he didn't want to push her—so he didn't ask.
"I've got an idea." Percy pointed up the street. "The red-feathered harpy went that way. Let's see if we can get her to talk to us."
Hazel looked at the food in his hands. "You're going to use that as bait?"
"More like a peace offering," Percy shrugged. "Come on. Just try to keep the other harpies from stealing this stuff, okay?" Percy instructed as he uncovered the Thai noodles and cinnamon burrito. Fragrant steam wafted into the air. They walked down the street, Hazel and Aurelia both with their swords drawn. The harpies fluttered after them, perching on trees, and flagpoles, following the smell of food.
Aurelia wondered if people were seeing through the Mist. Perhap they thought the harpies were pigeons and the weapons were lacrosse sticks or softball bats. Maybe it looked like the Thai mac and cheese was so good it needed an armed escort.
Percy kept a tight grip on the food as they searched for the red-feathered creature.
Finally, they spotted her, circling above a stretch of parkland that ran for several blocks between rows of old stone buildings. Path stretched through the park under huge maple and elm trees, past sculptures and playgrounds and shady benches. Aurelia felt a flash of sentimentality and familiarity pass through but she ignored it—choosing to try and read the emotions of the harpy.
They crossed the street, settling on a bench next to a big bronze sculpture of an elephant.
"Looks like Hannibal," Hazel commented.
"Except it's Chinese," Frank said. "My grandmother has one of those." He flinched. "I mean, hers isn't twelve feet tall. But she imports stuff ... from China. We're Chinese."
Frank's cheeks were turning red and Percy and Hazel were trying their best not to laugh. Aurelia gave a small hum of amusement as she tried to calm him down.
"Could I just die of embarrassment now?" Frank asked.
Percy snickered before clapping him on the back. "Don't worry about it, man. Let's see if we can make friends with the harpy."
He raised the Thai noodles and fanned the smell upward—spicy peppers and cheesy goodness. The red harpy circled lower.
"We won't hurt you," Percy called up in a normal voice. "We just want to talk. Thai noodles for a chance to talk, okay?"
The harpy streaked down in a flash of red and landed on the elephant statue. She was painfully thin. Her feathery legs were like sticks. Her face would have been pretty except for her sunken cheeks. She moved in jerky bird-like twitches, her coffee brown eyes darting restlessly, her finger clawing at her plumage, her earlobes, her shaggy red hair.
"Cheese," she muttered, looking sideways. "Ella doesn't like cheese."
Percy hesitated. "Your name is Ella?"
"Ella. Aella. 'Harpy.' In English. In Latin. Ella doesn't like cheese." She said all that without taking a breath of making eye contact. Her hands snatched at her hair, her burlap dress, the raindrops, whatever moved.
Quicker than any of them could blink, she lunged, snatched the cinnamon burrito, and appeared atop the elephant again.
"Gods, she's fast!" Hazel exclaimed.
"And heavily caffeinated," Frank guessed.
Ella sniffed the burrito. She nibbled the edge and shuddered from head to foot, cawing like she was dying. "Cinnamon is good," she pronounced. "Good for harpies. Yum."
She started to eat but the bigger harpies swooped down. Before any of them could react, they began pummeling Ella with their wings, snatching at the burrito.
"Nnnnnnoooo." Ella tried to hide under her wings as her sisters ganged up on her, scratching with their claws. "N-no," she stuttered. "N-n-no!"
Aurelia reacted faster than any of them. With Ferrum Temoris still drawn—her eyes turned fully black and all the attacking harpies began screeching in fear as they began to fully away. She made them feel Ella's pain, filled them with the memories of being hit by Phineas, filled them with the type of fear that made people run away screaming. The burrito, which had already been torn apart, disappeared with them. The whole flock scattered, leaving Ella cowering and shivering on top of the elephant.
Hazel touched the harpies foot. "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" Aurelia snapped out of her powers, allowing her eyes to return to normal.
Ella poked her head out of her wings. She was still trembling. With her shoulders hunched, Aurelia could see the bleeding gash on her back where Phineas had hit her with the weed whacker. She picked at her feathers, pulling out tufts of plumage. "S-small, Ella," she stuttered angrily. "W-weak Ella. No cinnamon for Ella. Only cheese."
Aurelia glanced at the harpies, still tearing into the cinnamon burrito. She couldn't find herself to be angry at them. They were starving just as much as Ella was—she knew what it was like to try and claw through everything just to survive.
"We'll get you something else," Frank promised.
Percy set down the Thai noodles and Aurelia could feel his assurance and determination—he wanted to help the harpy. "Ella, we want to be your friends. We can get you more food, but—"
"Friends," Ella said. "Ten seasons. 1994 to 2004." She glanced sideways at Percy, then looked in the air and started reciting to the clouds. "'A half-blood of the eldest gods, shall reach sixteen against all odds.' Sixteen. You're sixteen. Page sixteen, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. 'Ingredients: Bacon, Butter."
For a split second there was complete silence as they slowly absorbed what Ella had said. Percy's emotions were strange—like remembrance, but there was no memory to latch onto. "Ella ... what was that you said?
"Bacon." She caught a raindrop out of the air. "Butter."
"No, before that. Those lines ... I know those lines."
Hazel shivered. "It does sound familiar, like ... I don't know, like a prophecy. Maybe it's something she heard Phineas say."
At the name Phineas, Ella squawked in terror and flew away.
"Wait!" Hazel called. "I didn't mean—Oh, gods, I'm stupid."
"It's all right." Frank pointed. "Look."
Ella had flapped her way to the top of a three-story red brick building and scuttled out of sight over the roof. A single red feather fluttered down to the street. The Multnomah County Library.
"Let's go see if it's open," Percy said.
A/N: As I am re-reading the House of Hades to write the next section for The Sky and The Sea, I'm realizing how similar Octavian and Phineas could be. Just with their views of power, and how they completely disregard the feeling of the people/creatures around them.
It's honestly kinda sad. Because on paper, Phineas is not that scary, but the type of person he represents are the true monsters of our world.