"Who is Aunt Rosa?" Hazel asks.
I don't want to talk about her. Nemesis's words are still buzzing in my ears. My toolbelt seems heavier since I've put the cookie in there, which is impossible.
"Long story." I reply. "She abandoned me after my mom died, gave me to foster care."
"I'm sorry."
I look over at Calli. She knows all about Aunt Rosa. I told her a lot of things about myself while we were working on the ship. But if she's listening, she doesn't show it. She's pale, walking with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, as if she's somehow cold in the warm summer air.
"Yeah, well..." I'm anxious to change the subject. "What about you? What Nemesis said about your brother?"
Hazel blinks like she's gotten salt in her eyes. "Nico... he found me in the Underworld. He brought me back to the mortal world and convinced the Romans at Camp Jupiter to accept me. I owe him for my second chance at life. If Nemesis is right, and Nico is in danger... I have to help him."
"Sure," I say, though the idea makes me uneasy. I doubt the revenge goddess ever gives advice out of the goodness of her heart. "And what Nemesis said about your brother having six days to live, and Rome getting destroyed... any idea what she meant?"
"None." Hazel admits. "But I'm afraid..."
Whatever she's thinking, she decides not to share it. Calli shivers in the warm air.
"You okay?" I ask her.
She glances up at me, and for a brief moment, her gaze is filled with terror. Then, she returns to her normal, happy self. "I'm peachy Valdez." She punches me in the arm lightly. "Are you okay?"
Hazel climbs one of the largest boulders to get a better view, while Calli walks to the edge of the small hill we're on. I try to follow Hazel up the boulder, but I lose my balance. Hazel catches my hand. She pulls me up and we find ourselves atop the rock, holding hands, face-to-face.
Hazel's eyes glitter like gold.
Gold is easy, she'd said. It doesn't seem that way to me. Not when I look at her. I wonder who Sammy was. I have a nagging suspicion I should know, but I just can't place the name. Whoever he was, he's lucky if Hazel cares for him.
"Um, thanks." I let go of her hand, but we're still standing so close, I can feel the warmth of her breath. I immediately think of Calli, and how much I like her. I'm not used to being around so many pretty girls. And Hazel has been giving me so much attention. But she's Frank's girlfriend, and even if she wasn't, I get the feeling that she and I wouldn't be compatible. Not the way Calli and I are.
"When you were talking to Nemesis," Hazel says uneasily, "your hands... I saw flames."
"Yeah." I say. "It's a Hephaestus power. Usually I can keep it under control."
"Oh," She puts one hand protectively on her denim shirt, like she's about to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I get the feeling she wants to back away from me, but the boulder is too small.
Great, I think to myself. Another person who thinks I'm a scary freak.
I gaze across the island. The opposite shore is only a few hundred yards away. Between here and there are dunes and clumps of boulders, but nothing that looks like a reflecting pool. Calli looks up at us and frowns, but says nothing.
"We should keep going." I say, loud enough for Calli to hear. "I wonder what Nemesis said about finishing before dark."
Calli glances up at the sun, which is just touching the horizon. "And who is this cursed boy she mentioned?"
Below us, aa voice says, "Cursed boy she mentioned."
"Gah!" Calli screams and jumps back, landing on her backside very comically.
At first, I don't see anyone. Then my eyes adjust. I realize a young woman is standing right next to where Calli had been, only ten feet from the base of the boulder. Her dress is a Greek style tunic the same color as the rocks. Her wispy hair is somewhere between brown and blond and gray, so it blends with the dry grass. She isn't invisible, exactly, but she's almost perfectly camouflaged until she moves. Even then, I have trouble focusing on her. Her face is pretty but not memorable. In fact, every time I blink, I can't remember what she looks like, and I have to concentrate to find her again. No wonder she was able to sneak up on Calli so easily.
"Hello." Hazel says. "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" The girl answers. Her voice sounds weary, like she's tired of answering that question.
Calli brushes lime off of herself and examines the girl closely.
Hazel and I exchange looks. With this demigod gig, you never know what you'll run into. Nine times out of ten, it's not good. A ninja girl camouflaged in earth tones doesn't strike me as something I want to deal with right now.
"Are you the cursed kid Nemesis mentioned?" I ask. "But you're a girl."
"You're a girl." says the girl.
"Excuse me?" I ask.
"Excuse me." The girl says miserably.
"You're repeating..." I stop. "Oh, hold it. Wasn't there some myth about a girl who repeated everything-?
"Echo." Calli says, her voice softening immediately.
"Echo." The girl agrees. She shifts, her dress changing color with the landscape. Her eyes are the color of the salt water. I try to home in on her features, but I can't.
"I don't remember the myth." I admit. "You were cursed to repeat the last thing you heard?"
"You heard." Echo says.
"Poor thing." Hazel says.
Calli scratches her head. "A goddess did this, if I remember right."
"Remember right." Echo confirms.
"But wasn't that thousands of years...oh. You're one of the mortals who came back through the Doors of Death." I realize. "I really wish we could stop running into dead people."
"Dead people." Echo says it like she's chastising me.
I realize Hazel is staring at her feet.
"Uh, sorry." I mutter. "I didn't mean it that way."
"That way." Echo points toward the far shore of the island.
"You want to show us something?" Calli asks.
Hazel and I climb down from the boulder.
Even up close, Echo is hard to see. In fact, she seems to get more invisible the longer I look at her.
"You sure you're real?" I ask her. "I mean... flesh and blood?"
"Flesh and blood." She touches my face and makes me flinch. Her fingers are warm.
"So... you have to repeat everything?" I ask.
"Everything."
I can't help smiling. "That could be fun."
"Fun." She says unhappily.
"Blue elephants."
"Blue elephants."
"Kiss me you fool."
"You fool."
"Hey!"
"Hey!"
"Leo," Calli pleads. "that's enough, don't tease her."
"Don't tease her." Echo agrees.
"Okay, okay." I say, though I have to resist the urge. It's not every day I meet somebody with a built in talk back function. "So what were you pointing at? Do you need our help?"
"Help." Echo agrees emphatically. She gestures for us to follow and sprints down the slope. I can only follow her progress by the movement of the grass and the shimmer of her dress as it changes to match the rocks.
"We'd better hurry." Calli notes. "Or we'll lose her."
We find the problem, if you call a mob of good-looking girls a problem. Echo leads us down into a grassy meadow shaped like a blast crater, with a small pond in the middle. Gathered at the water's edge are several dozen nymphs. At least, I guess they're nymphs. Like the ones at Camp Half-Blood, these wear gossamer dresses. Their feet are bare. They have elfish features, and their skin has a slightly greenish tinge.
I don't understand what they're doing, but they're all crowded together in one spot, facing the pond and jostling to get a better view. Several hold up phone cameras, trying to get a shot over the heads of the others. I have never seen nymphs with phones. I wonder if they're looking at a dead body. If so, why are they bouncing up and down and giggling so excitedly?
"What are they looking at?" I wonder.
"Looking at." Echo sighs.
"One way to find out." Calli shrugs. She marches forwards and begins nudging her way through the crowd. Like usual, the crowd parts almost naturally for her. Not for Hazel and I. We have to force our way through.
"Excuse us," Hazel tries. "Pardon me."
"Hey!" One nymph complains. "We were here first!"
"Yeah," Another sniffs. "He won't be interested in you."
The second nymph has large red hearts painted on her cheeks. Over her dress, she wears a T-shirt that reads: OMG, I <3 N!!!
"Uh, demigod business." I say, trying to sound official. "Make room, thanks."
The nymphs grumble, but they part to reveal a young man kneeling at the edge of a pond, gazing intently at the water. Calli is stopped at the edge, her head tilted, staring.
I usually don't pay attention to how other guys look. I suppose that comes from hanging around Jason. He's tall, blond, rugged, and basically everything I could never be. I'm used to not being noticed by girls.
At any rate, I can't miss the fact that the guy at the pond is one super good-looking dude. He has a chiseled face with lips and eyes that are somewhere between feminine beautiful and masculine handsome. Dark hair sweeps over his brow. He might be seventeen or twenty, it's hard to say, but he's built like a dancer, with long graceful arms and muscular legs, perfect posture, and an air of regal calm. He wears a simple white T-shirt and jeans, with a bow and quiver strapped to his back. The weapons obviously haven't been used in a while. The arrows are covered in dust. A spider has woven a web in the top of the bow.
As I edge closer, I realize the guy's face is unusually golden. In the sunset, the light is bouncing off a large flat sheet of Celestial bronze that lays at the bottom of the pond, washing Mr. Handsome's features in a warm glow.
The guy seems fascinated with his reflection in the metal.
Hazel inhales sharply. "He's gorgeous."
"Uh huh" Calli nods slowly, as if in a trance.
Around us, the nymphs squeal and clap in agreement.
"I am." The young man murmurs dreamily, his gaze still fixed on the water. "I am so gorgeous."
One of the nymphs shows her iPhone screen. "His latest YouTube video got a million hits in like, an hour. I think I was half of those!"
The other nymphs giggle.
"YouTube video?" Calli asks, seeming to break from her trance for a moment. "What does he do in the video? Sing?"
"No, silly!" The nymph chides. "He used to be a prince, and a wonderful hunter and stuff. But that doesn't matter. Now he just... well, look!" She shows Calli and I the video. It's exactly what we're seeing in real like. The guy staring at himself in the pond.
"He is soooooo hot!" Says another girl. Her T-shirt reads: MRS. NARCISSUS.
"Narcissus?" I ask.
"Narcissus." Echo agrees sadly.
I had forgotten Echo was here. Apparently none of the nymphs had noticed her either.
"Oh, not you again!" Mrs. Narcissus tries to push Echo away, but she misjudges where the camouflaged girl is and ends up shoving several other nymphs.
"You had your chance, Echo!" Says the nymph with the iPhone. "He dumped you four thousand years ago! You are so not good enough for him."
"For him." Echo says bitterly.
"Wait." Hazel clearly has trouble tearing her eyes away from the handsome guy, but she manages it. "What's going on here? Why did Echo bring us here?"
One nymph rolls her eyes. She's holding an autograph pen and a crumpled poster of Narcissus. "Echo was a nymph like us a long time ago, but she was a total chatterbox! Gossiping, blah, blah, blah, all the time."
"I know!" Another nymph shrieks. "Like, who could stand that? Just the other day, I told Cleopeia, you know she lives in the boulder next to me? I said: Stop gossiping or you'll end up like Echo. Cleopeia is such a big mouth! Did you head what she said about that cloud nymph and the satyr?"
"What did she say about the cloud nymph and the satyr?" Calli asks.
"Anyway," The nymph with the poster continues, ignoring Calli. "as a punishment for blabbing, Hera cursed Echo so she could only repeat things, which was fine with us. But then Echo fell in love with out gorgeous guy, Narcissus, as if he would ever notice her."
"As if!" Say half a dozen others.
"Now she's got some weird idea he needs saving." Says Mrs. Narcissus. "She should just go away."
"Go away." Echo growls back.
"I'm so glad Narcissus is alive again," Says another Nymph in a gray dress. She has the words NARCISSUS + LAIEA written up and down her arms in black marker. "He's like the best! And he's in my territory."
"Oh, stop it Laeia," Her friend says. "I'm the pond nymph. You're just the rock nymph."
"Well I'm the grass nymph." Another protests.
"No, he obviously came here because he likes the wild flowers!" Another says. "Those are mine!"
The whole mob begins arguing while Narcissus stares at the lake, ignoring them.
"Hold it!" I yell. "Ladies, hold it! I need to ask Narcissus something."
Slowly, the nymphs settle down and go back to taking pictures.
I kneel next to the handsome dude. "So, Narcissus. What's up?"
"Could you move?" Narcissus asks distractedly. "You're ruining the view."
I look in the water. My own reflection ripples next to Narcissus's on the surface of the submerged bronze. I don't have any desire to stare at myself. Compared to Narcissus, I look like an undergrown troll. But there is no doubt the metal is a sheet of hammered Celestial bronze, roughly circular, about five feet in diameter.
"Right, great view." I tell him. "Happy to move, but if you're not using it, could I just take that sheet of bronze?"
"No." Narcissus says. "I love him, he's so gorgeous."
I look around to see if the nymphs are laughing. This has to be a huge joke. But they're swooning and nodding in agreement. Only Hazel and Calli seem appalled. They wrinkle their noses as if they've come to the conclusion that Narcissus smells worse than he looks.
"Man," I say to him, "You do realize that you're looking at yourself in the water, right?"
"I am so great." Narcissus sighs. He stretches out a hand longingly to touch the water, but holds back. "No, I can't make ripples. That ruins the image. Wow... I am so great."
"Yeah." I mutter. "But if I took the bronze, you could still see yourself in the water. Or here..." I reach into my toolbelt and pull out a simple mirror the size off a monocle. "I'll trade you."
Narcissus takes the mirror, reluctantly, and admires himself. "Even you carry a picture of me? I don't blame you. I am gorgeous. Thank you." He sets the mirror down and returns his attention to the pond. "But I already have a much better image. The color flatters me, don't you think?"
"Oh, gods, yes!" A nymph screams. "Marry me, Narcissus!"
"No, me!" Another cries. "Would you sign my poster?"
"No, sign my shirt!"
"No, sign my forehead!"
"No, sign my-"
"Stop it!" Calli snaps, squeezing her temples like she has a headache.
"Stop it." Echo agrees.
I've lost sight of Echo again, but not I realize she's kneeling on the other side of Narcissus, waving her hand in front of his face as if trying to break his concentration. Narcissus doesn't even blink.
The nymph fan club tries to shove Hazel and Calli out of the way, but they draw their weapons and force them back.
"Snap out of it!" Hazel commands.
"He won't sign your sword." The poster nymph complains.
"He won't marry you," Says the iPhone girl. "And you can't take his bronze mirror! That's what keeps him here!"
"You're all ridiculous." Hazel says. "He's so full of himself! How can you possibly like him?"
"Like him." Echo sighs, still waving her hand in front of his face.
The others sigh along with her.
"I am so hot." NArcissus says sympathetically.
"Narcissus, listen." Hazel keeps her sword at the ready. "Echo brought us here to help you. Didn't you, Echo?"
"Echo." Says Echo.
"Who?" Narcissus asks.
"The only girl who cares about what happens to you, apparently." Calli tells him. "Do you remember dying?"
Narcissus frowns. "I... no. That can't be right. I am much too important to die."
"You died staring at yourself." Calli insists. "I remember the story now. Nemesis was the goddess who cursed you, because you broke so many hearts. Your punishment was to fall in love with your own reflection."
"I love me so much." Narcissus agrees.
"You finally died," Calli continues. "I don't know which version of the story is true. You either drowned yourself or turned into a flower hanging over the water or- Echo, which is it?"
"Which is it?" She says hopelessly.
I stand. "It doesn't matter. The point is you're alive again, man. You have a second chance. That's what Nemesis was telling us. You can get up, and get on with your life. Echo is trying to save you. Or you can stay here and stare at yourself until you die again."
"Stay here!" All the nymphs scream.
"Marry me before you die!" Another squeaks.
Narcissus shakes his head. "You just want my reflection. I don't blame you, but you can't have it. I belong to me."
Hazel sighs in exasperation. She glances at the sun, which is sinking fast. Then, she gestures with her sword toward the edge of the crater. "Leo, could we talk for a minute?"
"Excuse us," I tell Narcissus. "Echo, want to come with?"
"Come with." Echo confirms.
The nymphs cluster around Narcissus again and begin recording new videos and taking more photos.
Hazel leads the way until we're out of earshot. "Nemesis was right. Some demigods can't change their nature. Narcissus is going to stay there until he dies again."
"No." Calli says.
"No." Echo agrees.
"We need that bronze." I remind Hazel.
"If we take it away, it might give Narcissus a reason to snap out of it." Calli adds. "Echo could have a chance to save him."
"A chance to save him." Echo says gratefully.
Hazel stabs her sword into the sand. "It could also make several dozen nymphs very angry with us." She says. "And Narcissus might still know how to shoot his bow."
I ponder that. The sun is just about to go down. Nemesis had mentioned that Narcissus gets agitated after dark, probably because he can't see his reflection anymore. I don't want to stick around long enough to find out what the goddess meant by agitated. I've also had experience with mobs of crazed nymphs. I'm not anxious to repeat that.
"Hazel," Calli says thoughtfully. "your power with precious metal- Can you just detect it or can you actually summon it to you?"
Hazel frowns. "Sometimes I can summon it. I've never tried with a piece of Celestial Bronze that big before. I might be able to draw it to me through the earth, but I'd have to be fairly close. It would take a lot of concentration, and it wouldn't be fast."
"Be fast." Echo warns.
I curse. I had hoped we could just go back to the ship, and Hazel could teleport the Celestial bronze from a safe distance.
"I've got it." Calli's eyes light up the way they do when she's about to bust our some crazy scheme. She looks beautiful when she's maniacally thinking. "We'll have to try something risky. Hazel, how about you try to summon the bronze from right here? Make it sink through the sand and tunnel over to you, then grab it and run for the ship."
"Nut Narcissus is looking at it all the time." She says,
"All the time." Echo echoes.
"That'll be Leo's job." Calli says, grinning wildly at me. "Echo, Leo and I will cause a distraction."
"Distraction?" Echo asks.
"I'll explain." Calli tells her. "Are you willing?"
"Willing." Echo says.
"Great." Calli claps her hands together. "Now, let's hope we don't die."