Aerophobia: Fear of Flying
Aurelia hated crying.
Tears were a strange concept to her. There are three types of tears.
One, basal tears which protects the eye from drying out and the cornea from damage. Eyes constantly shed basal tears, even when you don't notice. Two, reflex tears which form when the eyes need to wash away harmful irritants, such as smoke, foreign bodies or onion fumes. Kinda like a more extreme version of basil tears. Three, emotional tears. Those tears were foreign to Aurelia. The last time Aurelia cried emotional tears was the day Reyna made her give up on her search for Jason—and even that day, her tears were minimal and silent, and she had finished crying after exactly three minutes.
When other people cried she was more prepared for that. When other people cried there were usually two options. One, let them cry out their emotions, not give any words of affirmation or try to cheer them up. Or, two, do the exact opposite and try to uplift someone so even if they cry there can still be some joy for them to fall back on when they are done.
Aurelia's focus was divided into two things: Percy's fear of flying, which meant she had to keep her hand on her necklace to keep shadows from lingering on her arm, and Frank's shame towards the fact that he was crying.
Hazel was a good friend, Aurelia thought, as the daughter of Pluto kept reassuring Frank that he'd done everything he could for his grandmother. Which was all true. Frank had saved them from the Laistrygonians and gotten them out of Vancouver. He'd been incredibly brave.
But Frank kept his head bowed down. Ashamed that he had been crying. No one could blame him—he just lost his grandmother and saw his home go up in flames. Any normal person would cry about something like that. Even an abnormal person like Aurelia cried after seeing something like that.
Tears and emotions are such a strange concept.
But they couldn't linger very long on tears and emotions because as time ticked away, so did their chances of saving Camp Jupiter and surviving this quest. They were almost halfway through June twenty-third, and tomorrow was the Feast of Fortuna.
Frank refused to explain exactly what his "family gift" was. Aurelia didn't even try taking his hand to find it in his mind. But as they flew north, Frank did tell them about his conversation with Mars the night before. He explained the prophecy Juno issued him when he was a baby—about his life being tied to a piece of firewood, and how he had asked Hazel to keep it for him.
Well, technically, he was mostly telling Percy about that last part because Aurelia and Hazel already knew, but it was still important information nonetheless.
"Frank," Percy said after everything the son of Mars had finished explaining, "I'm proud to be related to you."
Frank's ears turned red. With his head lowered, his military haircut made a sharp black arrow pointing down. "Juno has some sort of plan for us, about the Prophecy of Eight."
"Yeah," Percy grumbled. "I didn't like her as Hera. I don't really like her any better as Juno."
Aurelia and Hazel shared a look, both thinking similar thoughts when Percy referred to the queen of Olympus as Hera.
Aurelia couldn't help but admire Hazel. She was the youngest one on the quest with possibly the most to lose, yet she always managed to stay calm. They were flying to Alaska, where she had once died before, to free Thanatos who might take her back to the Underworld, yet she didn't show any fear.
"You're a son of Poseidon, aren't you?" Hazel asked. "You are a Greek demigod."
Percy gripped his leather necklace. "I started to remember in Portland, after the gorgon's blood. It's been coming back to me slowly since then. There's another camp—Camp Half-Blood."
The warm, nostalgic and pure joy that filled Percy made Aurelia's heart stutter. But as warm as his feelings were, the idea was still so strange. The idea of Greek demigods still existing was crazy enough, but a whole other camp ... it was a concept even stranger than tears.
But it also reminded her of Jason. Percy, a Greek demigod from a Greek camp, appeared at a Roman camp. So what would that mean Jason, the missing Roman demigod from the Roman camp, would be at the Greek camp?
"A Greek camp," Hazel repeated. "A Greek camp? Gods, if Octavian found out—"
"He'd declare war," Frank said. "He's always been sure the Greeks were out there, plotting against us. He thought Percy was a spy."
"That's why Juno sent me," Percy said. "Uh, I mean, not to spy. I think I was some sort of exchange."
"With Jason," Aurelia guessed, staring at a blank spot on the roof of the plane. "Before we got to Portland, I spoke to Jason in my dreams." She felt the confusion from her friends at that, but she just continued. "I think you had a similar dream, Percy. I saw Jason working with some other demigods on this flying warship. He was safe ... I guess. But he refused to say where he was and that may have been why. He was at your Greek camp."
"That's exactly what I had thought as well," Percy agreed.
Frank tapped nervously on the back of his seat. "Mars said Juno wants to unite the Greek and Romans to fight Gaea. But, jeez—Greeks and Romans have a long history of bad blood."
Hazel took a deep breath. "That's probably why the gods have kept us apart this long. If a Greek warship appeared in the sky above Camp Jupiter, and Reyna didn't know it was a friendly—"
"Yeah," Percy agreed. "We've got to be careful how we explain this when we get back."
"If we get back," Frank said.
"Love the optimism," Aurelia murmured. Frank shrugged.
Percy's lips curled upward. "I mean, I trust you guys. I hope you trust me. I feel ... well, I feel as close to the three of you as any of my old friends at Camp Half-Blood. But with the other demigods, at both camps—there's going to be a lot of suspicion."
Then the strangest thing happened. Hazel leaned over and kissed Percy on the cheek.
It was a sisterly kiss, full of affection and it sent a warm feeling through Percy, which made Aurelia's lips curl up a little.
"Of course we trust you," she said. "We're a family now. Aren't we?"
"Sure," Frank agreed. "Do I get a kiss?"
Hazel laughed, but there was never tension in it. Percy shared a glance with Aurelia who was holding back her signature small smile.
Aurelia gave Percy a meaningful look. "You are one of the bravest, most powerful, maybe the stupidest, people I have ever met." They all chuckled. "But you are our friend. And we are in this together. This quest. And the next so, I guess we can be a family."
"Thanks, El," Percy said.
"But what do we do now?" Hazel asked.
"I've got to contact a friend—to keep my promise to Ella."
"How?" Frank said. "One of those Iris-messages?"
"Still not working," Percy said sadly. "I tried it last night at your grandmother's house. No luck. Maybe it's because my memories are still jumbled. Or the gods aren't allowing a connection. I'm hoping I can contact my friend in my dreams."
Another bump of turbulence made Percy grab his seat. Below them, snow capped mountains broke through a blanket of clouds. "I'm not sure I can sleep," he admitted. "But I need to try. We can't leave Ella by herself with those ogres around."
"Yeah," Frank said. "We've still got hours to fly. Take the couch, man."
Percy nodded before glancing at Aurelia. "Maybe you should get some rest too, El."
Aurelia narrowed her eyes ever so slightly at him. "No thank you. I am still riding my thirty-six ounce coffee high. But I can help put you to sleep." She directed a heavy wave of calm and drowsy feelings towards the son of Poseidon, whose head hit the couch softly with a light snore falling suit.
Both Frank and Hazel stifled their laughs. The two of them were sitting so close together, their knees were practically touching, and their heads leaned towards each other when they tried to quiet their amusement.
"Just ignore me," Aurelia murmured. "I will pretend like I am not listening to your conversation." And with that she turned her head towards the window, watching the landscapes and clouds pass beneath them.
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A few hours passed before they finally landed in Alaska.
"Welcome to Anchorage," Hazel had declared when Percy had awoken from his dreams.
The pilot had told them he couldn't wait for them. Even though their chances of survival were low, it would have been nice to know that they had a means of transportation waiting for them.
For Aurelia, it felt like a death sentence. She had spent several hours in that plane contemplating all the possible outcomes for this quest—and the possibilities to come after that.
On one hand, they need to at least free Thanatos, but if that happens there's the possibility that Death may take Frank and Hazel to the Underworld. Best case-scenario, they survive Alaska, all four of them, but after that they'd have to find some way to get back to California by tomorrow for the Feast Fortuna, which sounded even more impossible than freeing Death. Then if they were somehow able to do all of that, there was the matter of the Greek warship coming to Camp Jupiter. With Jason.
But despite it all, Aurelia's step remained light as she walked—practically glided—beside her friends. Maybe it was Percy's strange hope and optimism. Maybe it was Hazel's strange familiarity with the place.
Regardless, she kept her face smooth and lovely as she headed to her impending doom. And her impending doom led them to a taxi, which they took into downtown Anchorage.
While in the taxi, Percy told them about his dreams. He described his brother and pet dog that were going to find Ella. Then he described the giant's army closing on camp.
Frank choked when he heard about Tyson. "You have a half-brother who's a Cyclops?"
"Sure," Percy said. "Which makes him your great-great-great—"
"Please." Frank covered his ears. "Enough."
"As long as Ella gets to camp safely," Aurelia murmured, fixing her hair from the reflection of the mirror in the taxi.
Hazel nodded in agreement. "I'm worried about her." Feelings of agreement echoed through her friends as they shared Hazel's sentiment.
The taxi turned on Highway One, which looked more like a small street to Aurelia, and took them north towards downtown. It was late afternoon, but the sun was still high in the sky.
"I can't believe how much this place has grown," Hazel muttered.
The taxi driver met Aurelia's eyes in the rearview mirror—which Aurelia had sent off a relaxing vibe to make sure her eyes didn't scare any mortals—before locating Hazel with a grin. "Been a long time since you visited, miss?"
"About seventy years," Hazel said.
The driver slid the glass partition closed and drove on in silence.
According to Hazel, almost none of the buildings were the same, but she pointed out features of the landscape: the vast forests ringing the city, the cold, gray water of Cook Inlet tracing the north edge of town, and the Chugach Mountains rising grayish-blue in the distance, capped with snow in June.
Aurelia had never smelled air this clean before. The town itself had a weather-beaten look to it, with closed stores, rusted out cars, and worn apartment complexes lining the road, but it was beautiful. Lakes and huge stretches of woods cut through the middle. The arctic sky was an amazing combination of turquoise and gold.
Then there were the giants. Dozens of bright blue men, each thirty feet tall with gray frosty hair, were wading through the forests, fishing in the bay, and striding across the mountains. The mortals didn't seem to notice them. The taxi passed within a few yards of one who was sitting at the edge of a lake washing his feet, but the driver didn't panic.
"Um ..." Frank pointed at the blue guy.
"Hyperboreans," Percy said. "Northern giants. I fought some when Kronos invaded Manhattan."
"Manhattan?" Aurelia repeated. "As in New York? And Kronos? As in ... the Greek equivalent of Saturn? Saturn invaded New York?"
"Long story," Percy muttered. "But these guys look ... I don't know, peaceful."
"They usually are," Hazel agreed. "I remember them. They're everywhere in Alaska, like bears."
"Bears?" Frank said nervously.
"The giants are invisible to mortals," Hazel said. " They never bothered me, though one almost stepped on me by accident once."
"I still want the Saturn invading New York story," Aurelia murmured.
None of the giants paid them any attention. One stood right at the intersection of Northern Lights Road, straddling the highway, and they drove between his legs. The Hyperborean was cradling a Native American totem pole wrapped in furs, humming to it like a baby. If the guy hadn't been the size of a building, he would've been almost cute.
The taxi drove through downtown, past a bunch of tourists' shops advertising furs, Native American art, and gold.
As the driver turned and headed toward the seashore, Hazel knocked on the glass partition. "Here is good. Can you let us out?"
They paid the driver and stepped onto Fourth Street. Compared to Vancouver, downtown Anchorage was tiny—more like a college campus than a city. But Hazel was still amazed, and it was enough to make the corners of Aurelia's mouth lift.
"It's huge," she said. "That—that's where the Gitchell Hotel used to be. My mom and I stayed there our first week in Alaska. And they've moved City Hall. It used to be there."
She led them in a daze for a few blocks. They didn't really have a plan beyond finding the fastest way to the Hubbard Glacier, but the smell of sausage filled the air. Aurelia could tell her friends were hungry.
"Maybe we should eat," she suggested.
They found a café right by the beach. It was bustling with people, but they scored a booth at the window and perused the menus. Aurelia situated herself closest to the window, and she sat across from Hazel and Frank. Percy was next to her.
Frank whooped with delight. "Twenty four hour breakfast!"
"I believe it is dinner time," Aurelia mused, though she couldn't really tell from looking outside. The sun was so high, it could have been noon.
"I love breakfast," Frank grinned. "I'd eat breakfast, breakfast, and breakfast if I could. Though, um, I'm sure the food here isn't as good as Hazel's."
Hazel elbowed him, but her smile was playful.
Percy raised an eyebrow at Aurelia like, You saw that too, right? She gave a small nod, holding back a smile as she searched the menu for something vegetarian to eat.
The emotions around the table made her want to smile. The shining in Hazel's eyes as she looked at Frank. Frank's childish happiness at the prospect of eating breakfast for dinner. Percy's happiness for them and longing for his own girlfriend. It made her miss Jason.
"You know," Percy said, "breakfast sounds great."
They all order massive plates of eggs, pancakes and reindeer sausage, though Frank looked a little worried about the reindeer. "You think it's okay we're eating Rudolph?"
"Scary, right?" Aurelia murmured. "The vegetarian lifestyle works."
"Is there a story to that?" Hazel said, taking a bite of her eggs.
The monsters in Aurelia's eyes darkened so slightly none of her friends noticed. "A long story for another time. Maybe when I get the Saturn invading New York story. But until then, you can all eat Rudolph."
"I could eat Prancer and Blitzen, too," Percy said. "I'm hungry." He stabbed the sausages that came with Aurelia's meal and transferred them to his plate before giving her half of his pancakes as a trade.
The food was excellent. Aurelia had never seen anyone eat like Frank. The red-nosed reindeer never stood a chance.
Between bits of blueberry pancake, Hazel drew a squiggly curve and an X on her napkin. "So this is what I'm thinking. We're here." She tapped the X. "Anchorage."
"It looks like a seagull's face," Percy commented. "And we're the eye."
"I can see it," Aurelia murmured, dipping her fork in maple syrup and licking it right off.
Hazel glared at him. "It's a map, Percy. Anchorage is at the top of this sliver of ocean, Cook Inlet. There's a big peninsula of land below us, and my old home town, Seward, is at the bottom of the peninsula, here." She drew another X at the base of the seagull's throat. "That's the closest town to the Hubbard Glacier. We could go around by sea, I guess, but it would take forever. We don't have that kind of time."
Frank polished off the last of his Rudolph. "But land is dangerous," he said. "Land means Gaea."
Hazel nodded. "I don't see that we've got much choice, though. We could have asked our pilot to fly us down, but I don't know ... his plane might be too big for the little Seward airport. And if we chartered another plane—"
"No more planes," Percy said. "Please."
Hazel held up her hand in a placating gesture. "It's okay. There's a train that goes from here to Seward. We might be able to catch one tonight. It only takes a couple of hours."
She drew a dotted line between the two X's.
"You just cut off the seagull's head," Percy noted.
Aurelia gave a hum of amusement as she took her time finishing her double chocolate chips pancakes and Percy's blueberry ones.
Hazel sighed, "It's the train line. Look, from Seward, the Hubbard Glacier is down here somewhere." She tapped the lower right corner of the napkin. "That's where Alcyoneus is."
"But you're not sure how far?" Frank asked.
Hazel frowned and shook her head. "I'm pretty sure it's only accessible by boat or by plane."
"Boat," Percy said immediately as Aurelia murmured, "plane."
"Rock, paper, scissors?" Percy offered.
Aurelia narrowed her eyes but she held up her hand. She assumed Percy was a scissors guy, so rock would be her best bet. "Fine. On shoot."
"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot."
Both Hazel and Frank were holding back laughs at Aurelia's deadpan expression. "A gun, really? That is totally cheating. Unfair."
Percy stuck his tongue out at her. "Still won."
Aurelia just flicked his forehead before sighing. She gazed out the window. So much to do, and only twenty-four hours left. This time tomorrow, the Feast of Fortuna would be starting. Unless they unleashed Death and made it back to camp, the giant's army would flood into the valley. The Romans would be the main course at a monster dinner.
Across the street, a frosty black sand beach led down to the sea, which was as smooth as steel. A Hyperborean giant lumbered across the street. Nobody in the café noticed. The giant stepped into the bay, cracking the ice under his sandals, and thrust his hands in the water. He brought out a killer whale in one fist. Apparently that wasn't what he wanted, because he threw the whale back and kept wading.
Aurelia pulled out the cash and left it on the table. "I hate boats," she told Percy. "And you are a cheater."
"I hate planes," he fired back. "And I was just smarter El."
"The increase of gun deaths in the United States is at its highest, you know," Aurelia stated. "Your little finger gun is a danger to humanity and fair games of Rock, Paper Scissors."
"Good breakfast," Frank said, ignoring Percy's what the heck? look. "Who's ready for a train ride?"
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The station wasn't far. They were just in time to buy tickets for the last train going south. Percy stayed behind an extra minute before boarding the train. They sat atop one of the double decker cars. Once again it was double seats, and Hazel and Frank sat next to each other across from Aurelia.
The train sound whistled. The conductor yelled, "All aboard!"
Percy had not joined them yet.
Aurelia pulled out her compact mirror, checking her beanie and her hair, making sure her skin was clear and her necklace looked presentable. The train had started to move.
"You look great, Ari," Hazel told the vain girl. Aurelia's lips were a small smile as she snapped the compact mirror shut and turned to look at the approaching boy. Percy slid into the seat next to Aurelia, his emotions slightly distraught.
Hazel frowned. "You okay?"
"Yeah." His voice was hoarse. "Just ... made a call."
None of them pushed. Aurelia just squeezed his arm, sending emotional waves to calm him down.
Aurelia settled nicely into her seat as the train started heading south along the coast. She watched the landscape go by to keep her from thinking about the quest or their impending doom. Thankfully the passing scenery was beautiful and exciting enough to keep her distracted.
Bald eagles soared overhead. The train raced over bridges and along cliffs where glacial waterfalls tumbled thousands of feet down the rocks. The passed forests buried in snowdrifts, big artillery guns (to set off small avalanches and prevent uncontrolled ones, according to Hazel), and lakes so clear they reflected the mountains like mirrors, so the world looked upside down.
Brown bears lumbered through the meadows. Hyperborean giants kept appearing in the strangest of places. One was lounging in the lake like it was a hot tub. Another was using a pine tree as a toothpick. A third sat in a snowdrift, playing with two live moose like they were action figures. The train was full of tourists oohing and ahhing and snapping pictures. Shame they can't see the Hyperboreans, Aurelia thought. They were missing the really good shots.
Meanwhile Frank studied a map of Alaska that he'd found in the seat pocket. He located Hubbard Glacier, which looked discouragingly far from Seward. He kept running his finger along the coastline, frowning with concentration.
"What are you thinking?" Percy asked.
"Just ... possibilities," Frank said.
Aurelia wanted to relax. The seats were warm and comfortable. And about an hour into the ride Percy bought them all hot chocolate from the dining car.
Still she was too scared to fall asleep.
Then a shadow passed overhead. Tourists began to murmur with excitement and began snapping pictures.
"Eagle!" one yelled.
"Eagle?" said another.
"Huge eagle!" a third confirmed
"That's no eagle," Frank said.
Aurelia looked up just in time to see the creature make a second pass. It was definitely larger than an eagle, with a sleek black body the size of a Labrador retriever. Its wingspan was at least ten feet across.
"There's another one!" Frank pointed. "Strike that. Three, four. Okay, we're in trouble."
"Dios mio, we get no breaks," Aurelia muttered, her hand on her necklace.
The creatures circled the train like vultures delighting the tourists. Aurelia wasn't delighted. The monsters had glowing red eyes, sharp beaks, and vicious talons.
Percy's hand was in his pocket, feeling for his pen. "Those things look familiar."
"Seattle," Aurelia remembered.
"Amazons," Hazel added. "We saw one of them. It was in a cage."
"Probably for a good reason," Aurelia said.
Then several things happened at once. The emergency brake screeched, pitching them forward. The monsters swooped down, shattering the glass roof of the car.
Definitely for a good reason, Aurelia thought as the train toppled clean off the rails.