The Blood of Olympus(52)

‘I’ve been worse,’ Jason assured her. ‘Once, in Oregon, this dracaena cut off my arms.’

Piper blinked. Then she slapped his arm gently. ‘Shut up.’

‘I had you for a second.’

They held hands in comfortable silence. For a moment, Piper could almost imagine they were normal teenagers, enjoying each other’s company and learning to be together as a couple. Sure, Jason and she had had a few months at Camp Half-Blood, but the war with Gaia had always been looming. Piper wondered what it would be like if they didn’t have to worry about dying a dozen times every day.

‘I never thanked you.’ Jason’s expression turned serious. ‘Back on Ithaca, after I saw my mom’s … remnant, her mania … When I was wounded, you kept me from slipping away, Pipes. Part of me …’ His voice faltered. ‘Part of me wanted to close my eyes and stop fighting.’

Piper’s heart did a slow twist. She felt her own pulse in her fingers. ‘Jason … you’re a fighter. You’d never give up. When you faced your mother’s spirit – that was you being strong. Not me.’

‘Maybe.’ His voice was dry. ‘I didn’t mean to lay something so heavy on you, Pipes. It’s just … I have my mom’s DNA. The human part of me is all her. What if I make the wrong choices? What if I make a mistake I can’t take back when we’re fighting Gaia? I don’t want to end up like my mom – reduced to a mania, chewing on my regrets forever.’

Piper cupped her hands around his. She felt like she was back on the deck of the Argo II, holding the Boreads’ ice grenade just before it detonated.

‘You’ll make the right choices,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what will happen to any of us, but you could never end up like your mom.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

Piper studied the tattoo on his forearm – SPQR, the eagle of Jupiter, twelve lines for his years in the legion. ‘My dad used to tell me this story about making choices …’ She shook her head. ‘No, never mind. I’ll sound like Grandpa Tom.’

‘Go on,’ Jason said. ‘What’s the story?’

‘Well … these two Cherokee hunters were out in the woods, right? Each of them was under a taboo.’

‘A taboo – something they weren’t allowed to do.’

‘Yeah.’ Piper began to relax. She wondered if this was why her dad and granddad always liked telling stories. You could make even the most terrifying topic easier to talk about by framing it as something that happened to a couple of Cherokee hunters hundreds of years ago. Take a problem; turn it into entertainment. Perhaps that’s why her dad had become an actor.

‘So one of the hunters,’ she continued, ‘he wasn’t supposed to eat deer meat. The other guy wasn’t supposed to eat squirrel meat.’

‘Why?’

‘Hey, I don’t know. Some Cherokee taboos were permanent no-no’s, like killing eagles.’ She tapped the symbol on Jason’s arm. ‘That was bad luck for almost everybody. But sometimes, individual Cherokee took on temporary taboos – maybe to cleanse their spirit, or because they knew, from listening to the spirit world or whatever, that the taboo was important. They went with their instincts.’

‘Okay.’ Jason sounded unsure. ‘So back to these two hunters.’

‘They were out hunting in the woods all day. The only things they caught were squirrels. At night they made camp, and the guy who could eat squirrel meat started cooking it over the fire.’

‘Yum.’

‘Another reason I’m a vegetarian. Anyway, the second hunter, who wasn’t allowed squirrel meat – he was starving. He just sat there clutching his stomach while his friend ate. Finally the first hunter started feeling guilty. “Ah, go ahead,” he said. “Eat some.” But the second hunter resisted. “It’s taboo for me. I’ll get in serious trouble. I’ll probably turn into a snake or something.” The first hunter laughed. “Where did you get that crazy idea? Nothing will happen to you. You can go back to avoiding squirrel meat tomorrow.” The second hunter knew he shouldn’t, but he ate.’

Jason traced his finger across her knuckles, which made it hard to concentrate. ‘What happened?’

‘In the middle of the night, the second hunter woke up screaming in pain. The first hunter ran over to see what was wrong. He threw off his friend’s covers and saw that his friend’s legs had fused together in a leathery tail. As he watched, snakeskin crept up his friend’s body. The poor hunter wept and apologized to the spirits and cried in fear, but there was nothing to be done. The first hunter stayed by his side and tried to comfort him until the unfortunate guy fully transformed into a giant snake and slithered away. The end.’